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2 Staff Edtors-n-Chef Sart Bendad Shlomo Zucker Assocate Edtors Ilana Gadsh Jonathan Zrng Outgong Edtor-n-Chef Shaul Sedler-Feller Layout Edtor Cham Cohen Copy Edtor Benjamn Abramowtz Staff Wrters Danela Aaron AJ Berkotz Ytzhak Bronsten Arel Caplan Atal Chzhk Chana Cooper Jake Fredman Noam Fredman Nate Jaret Or Kanefsky Chesky Kopel Danelle Lent Alex Luxenberg Toah Moldwn El Putterman Danny Shulman Yaako Taubes Webmaster Arel Krakowsk Coer Desgn Yehezkel Carl About Kol Hameaser Kol Hameaser, the Jewsh thought magazne of the Yesha Unersty student body, s dedcated to sparkng dscusson of Jewsh ssues on the Yesha Unersty campus and beyond.the magazne hopes to facltate the relgous and ntellectual growth of ts readershp and seres as a forum for students to express ther ews on a arety of ssues that face the Jewsh communty. It also prodes opportuntes for young scholars to grow n ther ntellectual pursuts and mature nto confdent Jewsh leaders. Kol Hameaser s publshed on a monthly bass and ts prmary contrbutors are undergraduates, although t also ncludes nput from RIETS Roshe Yeshah, YU Professors, and outsde scholars. In addton to ts prnt magazne, t also sponsors specal eents, speakers, dscusson groups, conferences, and shabbatonm. The magazne can be found onlne at Kol Hameaser Contents October 22, 2010 / 14 Heshan 5771 Letter to the Edtor Dean Karen Bacon 3 Women s Learnng: Publc Polcy and Personal Commtment Sart Bendad 3 The Dalectcal Nature of Nature Judasm and Nature Chesky Kopel Raf Mller Toah Moldwn Shlomo Zucker Tal Adler Edtorals The El of All Roots: Why Does the Yetser ha-ra Exst? God, the Multerse, Stephen Hawkng, and You A Bblcal Approach to the Relatonshp Between Man and the Anmal Kngdom An Interew wth Rabb Dad Horwtz Towards a Jewsh Land Ethc Jerry Karp 12 Bore u-manhg le-kol ha- Beru m: Thestc Eoluton n Modern Orthodox Dscourse El Putterman 14 The Antthess between Judasm and Nature n the Thought of Yeshayahu Lebowtz Danny Shulman 16 Does Jewsh Tradton Recognze a Sprtualty Independent of Halakhah Reuen Rand 17 On Bkns and Earthquakes Adam Hertzberg 19 From Hasdut to Aatar Katlyn Respler 22 Korbanot, Kapparot, and What Keeps Us Compassonate Arel Caplan 23 Creaton and Eoluton: Toward a Methodology of Addressng Challenges to Fath Jonathan Zrng 26 How are You Dfferent from an Anmal, and Why Should You Care?: A Halakhc-Bologcal Taxonomy Orthodox Forum Feature Rabb Yosef Blau 28 The Orthodox Forum: What and Why Rabb Shmuel Han 28 Orthodox Forum 2.0: Thoughts on the Future of the Orthodox Forum Jonathan Zrng 29 An Interew wth Rabb Robert S. Hrt Shlomo Zucker 31 Book Reew: The Relatonshp of Orthodox Jews Beleng n Denomnaton and Non-Denomnaton Beleng Jews Ths magazne contans words of Torah. Please treat t wth proper respect.

3 Women s Learnng: Publc Polcy and Personal Commtment I Letter to the edtor BY: Dean Karen Bacon n a recent ssue of Kol Hameaser, Fran Tanner reflected on the state of women s Jewsh educaton and concluded by challengng the reader to consder whether our current stuaton s deal or n need of deelopment. In structurng her analyss, Ms. Tanner equates Torah study wth the study of Gemara. In her words, R. Soloetchk began pang ths path for women [.e. Torah study], nsttutng Gemara at the Mamondes School and later establshng the frst Gemara sh ur for women n Stern College. Aganst ths yardstck of the formal study of Gemara wthn a bet mdrash construct, Ms. Tanner suggests that women s educaton, both n qualty and quantty, s sorely lackng. But ths focuses on methodology, and I would rather turn our attenton to the ultmate goals and objectes of Torah study. In ths regard, let us consder some broad questons and trends n educaton generally and partcularly as they relate to women s Jewsh educaton. Publc polcy must take nto account at least two mportant stakeholders: the communty and the nddual. Where the needs and wants of both concde, establshng publc polcy and adherng to that polcy can be relately smple. When that coherence does not exst, polcy netably s dren by the needs of the communty, although the nddual may yet hae the freedom to pursue less traeled roads. In the Unted States, educatonal polcy has been tradtonally amed at preparng an educated ctzenry. More recently, poltcal leaders hae been assertng that educatonal polcy should be related to economc goals, ensurng that students hae the knowledge base to mantan the economc superpower status of ths country. Let us contrast ths wth the drng forces n Jewsh educaton. R. Jonathan Sacks, n hs book The Dgnty of Dfference, refers to educaton as the conersaton between the generatons. For the Jewsh people, that conersaton started at the begnnng of our recorded hstory, wth Sefer Beresht, and contnues throughout the generatons, through the texts and the oces that are our lng masorah (tradton). Jewsh educatonal polcy should hae at ts ery foundaton ths transmsson. At the same tme, the nddual must assume hs/her responsblty to be an acte partcpant n ths transmsson and not just a passe recpent. But ths alone s nsuffcent. Dr. Norman Lamm, Chancellor of Yesha Unersty, reflected on the outcomes of Jewsh educaton n an artcle ttled Takhlt: Teachng for Lastng Outcomes, whch appeared n Seenty Faces. Quotng from Berakhot 17b, Dr. Lamm ntroduces two fundamental goals of Jewsh educaton: to transform the nddual s personalty and to cultate the commtment to the performance of good deeds. These two goals must also fgure promnently n the deelopment of Jewsh educatonal publc polcy and n the responsblty assumed by each nddual. Thus, hang barely touched the surface, we hae lsted three drng forces for Jewsh educaton: the ntellectual transmsson of the Jewsh conersaton (the texts), the affecte deelopment of the nddual personalty, and the cultaton of alue-dren behaor. Stoppng at ths pont, let us return to the ssue at hand, framed as two dstnct questons: what should be the nature of women s Jewsh educaton as expressed n publc polcy, and does ths absolutely defne and restrct the approach that mght be preferred by nddual women? In the absence of strong precedents for women s educaton, I would argue for flexblty rather than rgdty. More specfcally, I would suggest a publc polcy that has clear goals, ncludng, but not lmted to, the ones descrbed aboe, wth multple routes to achee those goals. All the routes should share some common denomnators: the deelopment of analytcal and lngustc sklls to study text, the cultaton of an understandng of the halakhc process, and the acceptance of the responsblty for beng a part of a masorah-dedcated communty. Beyond these oerarchng goals, women should feel free to ntensfy ther studes n the drectons to whch ther hearts and mnds draw them. For some, ths may lead to a commtment to the formal study of Gemara, for others t wll lead to studes n Mahashaah (Jewsh phlosophy) or bblcal parshanut (exegess), etc. But regardless of the road chosen, for a combnaton of clear polcy and nddual flexblty to be successful, the student must be passonate about lfe-long learnng, somethng so clearly edent n Ms. Tanner s plea for communal and personal self- reflecton. Wthout ths passon, publc polcy wll be for naught and nddual choce wll be a charade. In the words of the sometmes-quotable Woody Allen, Seenty percent of success n lfe s showng up. The bet mdrash s open, and t awats us all. Karen Bacon s the Dr. Monque C. Katz Dean of Stern College for Women. Fran Tanner, Women s Learnng: Educatonal Goals and Practce, Kol Hameaser 4,2 (Sep. 2010): Ibd., p. 20. R. Jonathan Sacks, The Dgnty of Dfference: How to Aod the Clash of Clzatons (London; New York: Contnuum, 2002), p. 81. Dr. Norman Lamm, Takhlt: Teachng for Lastng Outcomes, n dem, Seenty Faces: Artcles of Fath, ol. 1 (Hoboken, NJ: Kta, 2001), pp Ibd., p Judasm and Nature I BY: Sart Bendad n Sefer Beresht, humanknd s charged wth a dual role. On the one hand, we are celebrated as the pnnacle of creaton, the surroundng natural world set n place to prode for us. We are told to fll the earth and subdue t, to rule oer the flora and fauna and explot natural resources n order for humanty to progress n ths world. On the other hand, we are told to watch t and guard t, to protect nature and ensure that t s not abused, for we are merely members of the natural world, on equal footng wth the rest of ts nhabtants. These two facets of humanty, of beng aboe nature whle also exstng wthn t, descrbe the dalectcal human experence n relaton to our physcal surroundngs. The same queston can be asked not only concernng our relatonshp wth the physcal world, but also wth the natural forces that gude us from wthn ourseles. Do the mtsot reflect our natural tendences, or are they somethng dstnct whch demands that we dsobey our nherent desres? Jewsh thnkers seem to hae conflctng opnons on the nfluence that human nature has on Halakhah. For nstance, there are dfferng approaches towards prayer, whch s the expresson of our relatonshp wth the Dne. Whle some belee that prayer should not be forced, but should rather flow naturally when we truly feel motated, others mantan that we must transcend our natural desres and compel ourseles to hae kaannah (ntent) at set tmes. The coer mage of ths edton, a copy of a pantng by Marc Chagall ttled The Magc Flute, seems to reflect the complex relatonshp between Man and Nature. Produced n 1966 as a poster adertsement for the Metropoltan Opera Company s upcomng producton of Mozart s The Magc Flute, the pantng can be nterpreted as merely depctng characters from the opera; yet, there seems to be another, more unersal, layer of meanng that hnts to Man and hs place n the Garden of Eden. The mage depcts a garden-lke settng; the lons, whch seem to be n an amorous relatonshp, represent Adam and Ee, who are the kngs of the anmal kngdom, just lke lons are consdered to be the kngs of the jungle. God s presence s symbolzed by the whte doe or the red trangle at the top of the pantng, and the snake s clearly sble between the lons and God, hghlghtng hs role n dstancng Man from the Dne. Howeer, the woman floatng n mdar and playng the flute seems to represent a dfferent facet of manknd than the lons, one that transcends the natural world. The woman appears to be flyng up to meet God, whle the lons are lookng down at the earth below. These two dfferent representatons of Man are at the heart of ths ssue: what s the essence of humanty, and how are we to relate to the natural world around us? Should we look towards the sky and try to fly aboe our physcal lmtatons, or should we look towards the earth and attempt to utlze t n our dne worshp? On the one hand, we ask God, What s Man that You should be mndful of hm? whle we also belee that God made us but lttle lower than the angels. Our relatonshp wth the natural world, both wthn ourseles and Edtoral The Dalectcal Nature of Nature wth the world surroundng us, s dynamc and should constantly be re-ealuated. The theme of ths edton concernng Judasm and ts relatonshp wth nature s ncredbly broad, whch s reflected n the range of artcle topcs. Jonathan Zrng consders dfferent possbltes of how to understand the essence of man, whether aboe nature or wthn t, as well as the relaton between Jew and Gentle wthn ths context. Chesky Kopel nestgates the true nature of the yetser ha-ra (el nclnaton), and Danny Shulman examnes the relgous alue of sprtualty that falls outsde the realm of Halakhah. El Putterman prodes us wth nsght on the phlosophy of Yeshayahu Lebowtz, specfcally n relaton to natural moralty. Addtonally, an nterew wth R. Dad Horwtz, rosh yeshah at RIETS, s ncluded, whch dscusses ssues releant to our theme. Another path of exploraton n ths ssue concerns our relatonshp to the physcal land and the anmals that nhabt t. Toah Moldwn examnes the relatonshp between man and anmals, focusng on meat consumpton, whle Katlyn Respler dscusses the alue of senstty towards anmals that Judasm promotes. Tal Adler presents an oerew of Judasm s senstty towards the natural world, especally focusng on Judasm s land ethc, and Adam Hertzberg compares the theology of the flm Aatar to Kabbalstc and Hasdc deas about our connecton wth nature. Issues rased by scence and ratonal thought are also tackled by a number of wrters. Arel Caplan explores the queston of how we should accord our tradtonal ews of Creaton wth eolutonary theory, and Jerry Karp specfcally focuses on thestc eoluton and the dfferent possbltes of how God could hae drected ths process. Raf Mller addresses the popular dea n scence today that God was not noled n Creaton, hghlghtng a number of problems wth ths assumpton. Reuen Rand analyzes the awareness of the presence of God n our les today and our conceptons of dne nterenton n lght of modern sensbltes. We hope that you enjoy ths edton of Kol Hameaser as you explore the nature of the natural world around and wthn us. Sart Bendad s a senor at SCW majorng n Hstory and Englsh Lterature, and s an Edtor-n-Chef for Kol Hameaser. 1:28. 2:15. The dentfcaton of ths pantng wth the bblcal story of the Garden of Eden s dscussed n Phlp B. Malzl, An Allegory of Eden: Marc Chagall s Magc Flute Poster, BYU Studes, 43:3 (2004): The dentfcaton of the characters n the pantng that are presented aboe are adapted from ths artcle, excludng the nterpretaton of the floatng woman playng the flute, whch resulted from ths author s own reflectons. Tehllm 8:

4 The El of All Roots: Why Does the Yetser ha-ra Exst? BY: Chesky Kopel The Holy One, Blessed be He, sad to Israel: I hae created for you a yetser ha-ra; there s nothng more el than t. T he antagonst s often the most notceable character n a story. Hs or her poston s made so ery conspcuous by hs or her struggle wth the hopes and dreams of the protagonst. The hero s msson s charged wth addtonal energy as a result of ts hang to face opposng forces. In Israel s msson to fear God, walk n all Hs ways, loe Hm, and sere Hm wth full heart and soul, t seems that there may be such an antagonst, the yetser ha-ra. It s extremely dffcult to understand the yetser ha-ra, best translated as the el creature. In order to apprecate what exactly t s, many hae studed the orgnal sources of the term and tred to formulate, based on them, a precse defnton. Ths defnton needs to relate to many dfferent questons: Is t some sort of nternal dre, or a separate beng that confronts us? Is t nherently bad, or morally neutral wth the potental to cause el? Are we capable of elmnatng t, or s t essentally unendng and unchangng? Does t bear any relatonshp to the ncdent of Adam and Ee s Orgnal Sn? Others hae taken the addtonal step of comparng the yetser ha-ra to arous nclnatons, nstncts, or other psychologcal constructs. Probably the most common approach to ths creature, howeer, s a subjecte one. We understand the yetser hara by determnng how we are to defeat or to utlze t n order to become the best people we can be. All of these strateges proe qute challengng, though, because of the dersty of ews n Hazal as to the yetser ha-ra s nature, the dfferent conceptons of psychoanalyss and ts practcal releance, and the great spectrum of conflctng lfe phlosophes among relgous Jews, respectely. But why does t exst altogether? All the perspectes on the yetser ha-ra ostensbly agree that God created t for us, as people or as Jews. Beyond that, the queston of why s most drectly dependent upon the aboe challenges of ts defnton and the exstental response t s meant to elct from us. A great deal has been wrtten about these questons, and the presence of the yetser ha-ra n the works of Hazal and later Jewsh lterature s mmense. Ths essay wll summarze a small, but sgnfcant, porton The consequences of the yetser ha-ra ental a formdable responsblty for each and eery nddual; ths beng s presented to us as a force wth whch we are oblgated to reckon. of the work that has been done, before returnng to the queston of why the yetser ha-ra exsts. The matter of parallels n psychology wll be left asde. The earlest references to an entty lke the yetser ha-ra are n the Torah tself, n two erses n Geness: And the Lord saw that the wckedness of man was great n the earth, and that eery magnaton (yetser) of the thoughts of hs heart was only el (ra) contnually. And the Lord smelled the sweet scent; and the Lord sad n Hs heart: I wll not agan curse the ground any more for man s sake; for the magnaton (yetser) of man s heart s el (ra) from hs youth; nether wll I agan smte any more eery thng lng, as I hae done. The frst of these erses concerns God s decson to destroy all of manknd, because of the hopeless future antcpated by ts wcked nature. Immedately followng ths s the Torah s account of the Flood and the sparng of those few ndduals who would regnte the spark of lfe on Earth. The second erse, roncally, s part of God s assurance to Hmself that He wll neer agan commt such destructon. A seemng message of ths contrast, and of ts concluson n partcular, s that the el nature of man s yetser s no longer reason enough to deny hm the opportunty of lfe. The Torah nstructs us that ths el s now a part of the acceptable realty of what s and always wll be. Human bengs are fashoned wth an nherently el mndset; otherwse, they would not be human bengs. The term yetser here apparently refers to the creature of man s own heart and not to any other entty that acts externally to t. In the words of Hazal, the term plays a somewhat dfferent, more dynamc role. The consequences of the yetser ha-ra ental a formdable responsblty for each and eery nddual; ths entty s presented to us as a force wth whch we are oblgated to reckon. The Mshnah n Aot 2:11 llustrates ths qute powerfully: R. Yehoshua sad: The el eye [eny], the el mpulse (yetser ha-ra), and hatred of humanknd dre a person out of the world. x It s not hard to apprecate how ths nherent facet of human nature can dre a person out of the world. In fact, God ntally declared t reason enough to remoe all of lfe from the world. An mportant message of R. Yehoshua s statement concerns how we are meant to respond to the yetser ha-ra s presence. Despte Kol Hameaser the fact that humanknd was allowed to sure wth the yetser ha-ra stll harassng eery person, t was (and s) nonetheless expected to recognze the tremendous el wthn ths entty, and the sort of consequences that t brought about n a world of pre-flood justce. Wth statements lke ths one, Hazal nstruct that the yetser ha-ra warrants a personal responsblty whch transcends manknd s freedom from the waters of the Flood. Other statements of Hazal prode nsght whch helps shed lght on why the seemng mperfecton of the yetser ha-ra perssts n man and also relate to the general queston of the essay. One example s found n the words of R. Shemuel bar Nahman, quoted n seeral dfferent mdrashc sources: R. Shemuel bar Nahman says: Behold, t was ery good x ths s the yetser hato; And behold, t was ery good x ths s the yetser ha-ra. And s the yetser ha-ra actually ery good? Unbeleable! Rather, f not for the yetser ha-ra, a man would neer buld a house or marry a woman, he would neer procreate or conduct busness. x Statements lke ths ntroduce us to the benefts of the yetser ha-ra. It seems that besdes leadng to deous and napproprate behaor, ths entty somehow brngs Man to partcpate n some of lfe s most mportant and producte acttes as well. A well-known aggadc story, related n seeral dfferent sources, teaches that the men of the Great Assembly een sought, through prayer to God, to hae the yetser ha-ra for dolatry and adultery elmnated. They then dscoered that wthout sexual dre, no speces would be able to sure n the world. x Another beng that we encounter here s the yetser ha-to, or the good creature, whch would appear to be the opposte of the yetser ha-ra. The exact defnton and descrpton of the yetser ha-to depend upon those of the more commonly-referenced yetser ha-ra and, therefore, can also refer to one of seeral dfferent thngs. The yetser ha-to may proe especally confusng to grasp n a context lke ths, one that hghlghts the benefts of the yetser ha-ra tself. The nterplay between these dfferent perspectes on the yetser ha-ra s clarfed somewhat by statements that attrbute to t a morally-neutral character. One mportant example s the followng quote from the Mshnah n Berakhot 9:5: And you shall loe the Lord your God wth all your heart. x [ ] wth the yetser ha-to and the yetser ha-ra. x The erse quoted here s an mportant expresson of our requrement to loe and sere God, whch we recte n the Ker at Shema twce eery day. Hazal see wthn ths erse a drecte to enlst both the yetser ha-to and the yetser ha-ra n the serce of God. Stll, t remans unclear what makes one yetser good and one el f both are meant to be sublmated for the same ultmate good: the loe and serce of God. These expressons of Hazal, just a few out of hundreds on the topc of the yetser ha-ra, not only demonstrate the dynamc nature of our relatonshp to the yetser ha-ra, based on a noel nterpretaton of the two erses n Geness, but also create a great deal of confuson. It s clear that there s no one unfed oce n Hazal regardng the nature of the yetser ha-ra, whether It s clear that there s no one unfed oce n Hazal regardng the nature of the yetser ha-ra, whether t s poste or negate, nternal or external. t s poste or negate, nternal or external. Israel professor and well-known actst Ishay Rosen-Z publshed an excellent study of the concepton of the yetser ha-ra n dfferent mdrashc schools of thought. x The prmary dspute rased n the study s between the Academy of R. Aka (De-Be R. Aka) and the Academy of R. Yshmael (De-Be R. Yshmael). In statements by the Academy of R. Aka, there s no menton of an ndependent yetser ha-ra, but there are repeated references to a force smply called the yetser, whch appears to closely resemble the bblcal yetser. x Ths force s presented as the natural nclnaton of a person, expressng hs or her nternal doubts, concerns, and pleasures. The proposed treatment of ths entty s qute mld as well. Rather than encouragng us to struggle aganst ths yetser, the statements of the Academy of R. Aka often demonstrate how the Torah recognzes the yetser s concerns as legtmate and explan why they are sometmes not to be followed. The challenge for ndduals, therefore, les n the capablty to een follow the drectes of the Torah when they contradct our basc, often reasonable, human dres. As an example of such a statement, Rosen-Z prodes the followng quotaton from Sfra: But n the ffth year you may eat of ts frut, that t may yeld unto you more rchly ts ncrease. x R. Aka says: The Torah s speakng n opposton to the yetser (dbberah Torah keneged hayetser). In order that a person should not say, Behold, for four years I dstress myself wth t to no end, therefore, [the Torah] says, that t may yeld unto you more rchly ts ncrease. xx,xx The erse quoted here appears n the context of restrcte agrcultural laws, commanded n the preous two erses, whch lmt the beneft that one s enttled to gan from hs or her frut tree for the frst four years of ts frut-bearng lfe. The Mdrash addresses the dsenchanted yetser of the Jew, whch complans about these seemngly wasted four years of work, and explans that the Torah tself demonstrates how God wll make up the loss. Startng from the 4

5 ffth year, the tree s guaranteed to produce more rchly. Rather than rejectng the clams of the yetser as ncorrect or deous, the Torah encourages us to recognze the real blessng that comes from followng ts laws and not the yetser. xx The Academy of R. Yshmael, howeer, concerns tself wth a ery dfferent knd of entty. Its yetser ha-ra appears to be some knd of ndependent creature, demonc and antnomc. xx It dwells wthn the human heart, possessng t wth an nherently el mpulse that s drected towards the olaton of the Torah and ts statutes. Eery person s bd to nole hmself or herself n a constant struggle wth ths yetser ha-ra, to oercome t and dedcate oneself to the serce of God. The most mportant adce for oercomng t s to nole oneself wth the study of Torah. Wthn ths camp of R. Yshmael, two more mportant dsons exst. Frst, some statements suggest that the yetser ha-ra can ultmately be defeated, whle others nsst that t s an essental, eerlastng struggle that eery nddual must endure. Secondly, some statements seem to descrbe an ndependent beng actng wthn a human (often expounded from bblcal references to the human heart, e.g., bekol leaekha wth all your heart xx ), whle others just see the yetser ha-ra as a metaphorcal model to refer to all forces that dre us away from proper serce of God (often expounded from expressons of cauton, e.g., hshameru lakhem take heed to yourseles xx ). One example Rosen-Z prodes of a statement by R. Yshmael s ths quotaton from Sfre: Another matter, And you shall eat and be satsfed. Take heed to yourseles [ ] xx [God] sad to them: Take care, lest the yetser ha-ra lead you astray, and you wll separate yourseles from words of Torah, snce once one separates hmself from words of Torah, he s bound to go clng to dolatry. xx Ths statement places clear emphass upon the mportance of strugglng aganst the el nfluence that s the yetser ha-ra and dentfes nolement n learnng Torah as the means to properly wage that battle. It falls nto the category of statements characterzed by expressons of cauton, rather than those that place strong emphass on the ndependent entty of the yetser ha-ra. Idolatry, the ultmate rebellon aganst God s soeregnty, s a pognant and shockng example of the consequences of abandonng the commtment to struggle through learnng Torah. Another example Rosen-Z prodes s the followng polemc, also from the Sfre: The Holy One, Blessed be He, sad to Israel: I hae created for you a yetser hara; there s nothng more el than t. [ Eery person determnes on hs or her own how to best understand the yetser ha-ra and how to relate and respond to t. ] Inole yourseles n words of Torah and t wll not rule oer you [ ] If you want, you can rule oer t, as t s stated: but you may rule oer [sn]. xx,xx The Sfre here seems to present the yetser ha-ra as an ndependent entty, supremely el n contrast to all other els, and not just the oerarchng term that encompasses them all. It also ndcates that a total ctory oer the challenges of the yetser ha-ra s possble and wthn our reach, f we are to just nole ourseles n words of Torah. xxx Rosen-Z also demonstrates that most expressons n the Mshnah follow the same R. Aka- R. Yshmael dde n meanng, between yetser and yetser ha-ra, whle the Tosefta seems to largely follow the thought of the Academy of R. Yshmael. One mportant excepton s the Mshnah n Berakhot 9:5, referenced aboe, whch presents a dalectcal approach, hghlghtng the struggle between a person s yetser ha-ra and hs yetser ha-to. xxx Last, the artcle rases speculatons regardng the earler bases of the dfferent schools of thought (R. Aka n the apocryphal book of Ben Sra, and R. Yshmael n the lterature of Qumran). xxx The dersty of the oces of Hazal regardng the nature of the yetser ha-ra leaes a consderable task to future generatons. Eery person determnes on hs or her own how to best understand the yetser ha-ra and how to relate and respond to t. On the one hand, t s dffcult to rally oneself to battle aganst the ery force that brngs man to buld a house or marry a woman [ ] procreate or conduct busness. On the other hand, how can one eer reconcle hmself wth a beng that wll dre [hm] out of the world? xxx The yetser ha-ra therefore seems at once el and morally neutral, or een postely aluable. Dfferent schools of thought hae deeloped n response to ths problem. Some ew the presence of a struggle wth mproper nclnatons to be the healthy mode of relaton to the yetser ha-ra, xxx and some preach the total elmnaton of any and all dres that are not consstent wth our proper serce of God. xxx The former opnon more lkely apprecates the concepton of the yetser ha-ra as a neutral lfe force, whch can be used for good or el. Alternately, t may often be an expresson of a relgous worldew that emphaszes the centralty of the free wll s struggle aganst adersty n the serce of God. xxx The latter opnon sees the yetser ha-ra as the opposton to the serce of God, and therefore as the constant enemy of the Jew. Some expound further that elmnaton of the yetser ha-ra s necessary to purge the remnants of Adam s Orgnal Sn from wthn a person. xxx Rambam presents a more nuanced thrd approach n the Shemonah Perakm, whch alues the total control of the mpulses wth regard to Judasm and Nature the more ntute transgressons, but prefers that one struggle wth hs mpulses wth regards to the less ntute ones. xxx Why does the yetser ha-ra exst? All of the aboe formulatons of the yetser ha-ra s essence assume that God created t for man, and that eerythng God does s rghteous and s meant to beneft Hs creatons. Wthn that framework, the arous ews presented all see the yetser ha-ra as one of three thngs: a metaphorcal expresson of the struggle to follow God s wll and do good (ntended to mproe Man s apprecaton of the nature of the struggle), a challenge that enhances the sprtual alue of Man s efforts to do good, or a motatonal mechansm to encourage Man to oercome the antagonst and do good. In other words, the yetser ha-ra s ether the struggle tself, a force that makes the struggle more aluable, or a means of persuason for man to fght hs hardest n the struggle. Each one of these models represents an ad for manknd to be the best t can be. No matter whch poston s most accurate, the underlyng message s the same. Our greatest enemy s reealed to be one of our greatest frends. Chesky Kopel s a sophomore at Yesha College majorng n Englsh Lterature and s a Staff Wrter for Kol Hameaser. Sfre, Deuteronomy 45 (my translaton). Cf. Deuteronomy 10:12. See, for nstance, Isaah 29:16. Geness 3. The term Orgnal Sn s borrowed from common Chrstan theology, based on a teachng of Paul the Apostle throughout the Gospels, whch prodes a unque nterpretaton of Psalms 51:5. The concepton that ths sn had an mpact upon human nature exsts n Jewsh thought as well, as wll be ndcated below. An mportant study s Moshe Hale Spero, Thanatos, Id and the El Impulse, Tradton 15,1-2 (1975): Geness 6:5. All Torah quotatons are translated by Chef Rabb Emertus Dr. J. H. Hertz for Pentateuch & Haftorahs (London: The Soncno Press, 1988), wth my modfcatons to better ft colloqual speech. Ibd. 8:21. Ean Schwarzbaum, a fellow student at Yesha Unersty, brought to my attenton an mportant dstncton between the termnology of the erses, whch helps to llustrate ths contrast. 6:5 refers to the yetser of the thoughts of [man s] heart, ndcatng that the heart tself can be perfected and need not tolerate any el. 8:21, howeer, concludes that the el permeates man s heart tself and s an essental part of ts ery beng. The human heart cannot be perfected to the pont of ths el s total remoal. x Aot 2:11 (translated by Chef Rabb Lord Jonathan Sacks for The Koren Sacks Sddur [Jerusalem: Koren Publshers, 2006], p. 651). Some edtons of the tractate, ncludng the one n ths sddur, count ths Mshnah as 2:16, based upon a dfferent tradton of breakng up the text. x Geness 1:31. x Ibd. x Beresht Rabbah 9 (my translaton). Also see smlar formulatons n Kohelet Rabbah 3 and Yalkut Shm on 16. x Varatons of the story appear n Yalkut Shm on to Nehemah 1071 and n Yoma 69b and Sanhedrn 64a. An nterestng mage n ths tradton s the depcton of the yetser ha-ra for dolatry n the lkeness of a lon of fre. x Deuteronomy 6:5. x Mshnah, Berakhot 9:5 (my translaton). See also, for nstance, Sfre, Dearm and Mdrash Tanna m to the erse n Deuteronomy. The exegess s based upon a seemngly extraneous letter n the Hebrew word meanng your heart, leadng to the possblty of a dual heart. x Ishay Rosen-Z, Dbberah Torah Keneged ha-yetser: De-Be R. Yshma el u-mekoro shel Yetser ha-ra, Tarbts 76 (5767): x I am referrng to the concept of the yetser deeloped n the two erses n Geness whch I quoted aboe; see nn x Letcus 19:25. xx Ibd. xx Sfra, Parashat Kedoshm 3:9 (my translaton). xx Rosen-Z, pp xx Ibd., p. 57 (my translaton). xx Deuteronomy 6:5. xx Ibd. 11:16. xx Ibd. 11: xx Sfre to Deuteronomy 43 (my translaton). xx Geness 4:7. xx Sfre to Deuteronomy 45. xxx Rosen-Z, pp xxx Ibd., pp xxx Ibd., pp xxx Aot 2:11; see n. 9 aboe. xxx See, for nstance, Rambam s understandng of Dre ha-hakhamm, apparently referrng to the normate ew of Hazal, n Shemonah Perakm 6. xxx See, for nstance, Hoot ha-leaot, Sha ar 9 Sha ar ha-pershut 5. xxx See, for nstance, R. Dr. Joseph B. Soloetchk, Kol Dod Dofek (New York: Kta and Yesha Unersty Press, 2006), p. 65. xxx Ths ew presumes that the yetser ha-ra s part of a person and not a separate entty wthn hm. See, for nstance, Yakr Englander, Tefsat ha-adam e-tafkdah shel ha-halakhah be- Haguto shel he-hazon Ish, Resht 2 (2010): 185, on the topc of the yetser ha-ra n the thought of the Hazon Ish (Rabb Araham Yeshayah Kareltz). See also Jeremy Cohen, Orgnal Sn as the El Inclnaton A Polemcst s Apprecaton of Human Nature, The Harard Theologcal Reew 73,3-4 (July- October 1980): xxx Rambam, Shemonah Perakm, bd. My thanks to Ben Jubas for prodng me wth many sources on the topc of approaches to the proper relatonshp wth the yetser ha-ra, whch he presented n a sh ur at the Drsha Insttute on September 4,

6 Kol Hameaser God, the Multerse, Stephen Hawkng, and You BY: Raf Mller Ths past September, physcs genus and celebrty Stephen Hawkng released a new book, The Grand Desgn (coauthored wth Leonard Mlodnow and publshed by Bantam Books). A short passage n the book quckly caught the meda s attenton. Stephen Hawkng says God dd not create the unerse, announced the headlnes. The book mmedately ht the tops of best-seller lsts. Hawkng s book s prmarly about M- Theory, a generalzaton of strng theory under deelopment snce the 1990s and currently the best canddate for a theory of eerythng n physcs. Hawkng adds some comments about theores n whch unerses can appear from nothng: Spontaneous creaton s the reason there s somethng rather than nothng, why the unerse exsts, why we exst. It s not necessary to noke God to lght the blue touch paper [.e. fuse] and set the unerse gong. Today, says Hawkng, scence can nterpret the moment of Creaton. Beleers n God should not be worred or een surprsed f a scentfc descrpton of Creaton s somehow proen to be true. We hae learned after seeng our faorte desgn arguments squashed by Newton, Darwn, etc. that we should not depend on a God of the Gaps for monothesm. Instead of lookng for God n eents that the laws of nature hae yet to explan, today we fnd Hs wsdom n the laws themseles. Thus, for example, explans R. Joseph B. Soloetchk: In nature as a whole and especally n ts systematc regularty and n the techncal character of ts processes, n the scentfc drama occurrng wthn t, n the exact mathematcal relatonshps between natural phenomena and especally n the permanent laws of physcs the prmeal wll of the Master of the Unerse s reflected. A man goes outdoors on a far summer s day and sees the whole world blossomng that man comes to know that there exsts a Prmary Beng Who s the orgnator of all that s. We hae learned after seeng our faorte desgn arguments squashed by Newton, Darwn, etc. that we should not depend on a God of the gaps for monothesm. Instead of lookng for God n eents that the laws of nature hae yet to explan, today we fnd Hs wsdom n the laws themseles. The power and consstency of natural law reeals God s wsdom. I wll not defend Hawkng s dsmsse atttude, but hs book dsmsses a God of the Gaps, not God Hmself. Hawkng s book also contans a more surprsng clam. Phlosophy s dead, he pronounces on the frst page. Scence has done away wth t. The bg questons of exstence shall no longer be pondered n armchars but rather answered n la bo ra to res and ob ser a - to res. That s a bold clam defntely great for sellng books. But has modern scence really answered the questons of exstence? Can t make God s role as Creator rreleant? A few ssues desere consderaton. Nothng and Somethng How can a unerse appear spontaneously from nothng? The leadng theory today s that our unerse began as a random fluctuaton of energy n a acuum, where condtons were rght to set off a Bg Bang. Indeed, acuums are proen to hae energy fluctuatons, and recent obseratons by NASA support other aspects of the theory. Howeer, a fluctuaton n a acuum s not creaton from nothng; a acuum, wth dmensons and energy, s far from nothng. God s creato ex nhlo s (tradtonally) creaton from absolute Nothng, a Nothng that has no propertes whatsoeer: t s not dark, t s not empty, t s not exstent; t s pure Nothng. Nothng cannot be goerned by natural laws, because Nothng plus laws s Somethng. There s an nfnte gap between Nothng and Somethng. Absolute Nothng s not blue touch paper. The contnued exstence of Somethng s not so straght for ward ether. We are so used to exstence that we take t for granted. Why should Somethng exst? Physcal laws descrbe Somethng, but they are just equatons; they do not create Somethng. Hawkng expressed t best n hs frst bestseller, A Bref Hstory of Tme: What s t that breathes fre nto the equatons and makes a unerse for them to descrbe? So we stll ask: why s there Somethng rather than Nothng? Fne-Tuned Laws Hawkng concedes that the laws of nature appear fne-tuned to permt the exstence of lfe: The laws of nature form a system that s extremely fne-tuned, and ery lttle n physcal law can be altered wthout destroyng the possblty of lfe as we know t. Were t not for a seres of startlng concdences n the precse detals of physcal law, t seems, humans and smlar lfe-forms would neer hae come nto beng. Hawkng says a multerse can explan ths. There are many unerses beyond our own, the story goes; Hawkng says that M- Theory allows for perhaps as many as dstnct unerses. ( s notaton for the number wrtten as a one followed by 500 zeros. For comparson, there are about atoms n the sble unerse, or one followed by 80 zeros; note that eery tme you wrte sx more zeros after a number you multply t by a mllon.) Most of these unerses obey laws much dfferent from ours and thus are deod of lfe. A unerse wll eentually appear where lfe-permttng laws are fulflled by chance; lfe forms lke us must fnd themseles n such a unerse. Ths passage from Hawkng appears to be a ctory for recognton of the fne-tunng problem. Many postst thnkers hae totally dsmssed the problem usng arous excuses; here s a hgh-profle postst acknowledgng the need for explanaton. All that remans for the thest s to argue that the multerse s a less satsfyng explanaton than God s. Is t? Frst, the magntude of fne-tunng s tremendous. In recent decades, physcsts hae noted dozens of ways that numbers appearng n the equatons of physcs seem fne-tuned for lfe to exst, occasonally wth unfathomable precson down to a few parts n numbers lke 10 40, 10 60, een Take the force of graty, for example. If ts strength, relate to the nuclear weak force (a force between the components of a proton), were dfferent by as lttle as a few parts n , then our unerse s early expanson mght hae been dsastrous. x If ts strength, relate to the electro mag netc force (the force that goerns our nteractons wth eeryday objects), were dfferent by a But has modern scence really answered the questons of exstence? Can t make God s role as Creator rreleant? few parts n 10 40, the energy of starlght would be ether too weak or too strong for lfe to sure. x Fne-tunng s requred all oer physcs: e.g., n the strengths of forces, the masses of partcles, the geometry of space, and so on. It s needed for nearly eery stage n the unerse s progress toward lfe: e.g., the aodance of mmedate collapse after the Bg Bang, the appearance of matter, the feasblty of atoms, the stablty of stars, the producton of any elements beyond beryllum (lke carbon and oxygen), and so on. The oerall pcture s oerwhelmng. Then, phlosopher John Lesle drops a bomb: there are so many reasons the alues of constants are precarously lnked to each other n our unerse by fne-tunng requre- 6

7 ments, t s a mracle that no two requrements of lfe conflct! x You cannot fne-tune a constant to meet one requrement and then agan to meet others; a constant must satsfy all requrements smultaneously. How amazng that eery one of the narrow requrements of lfe oerlaps wth all the others! Were a multerse to explan Lesle s pont, t would need ast regons ruled by laws radcally dfferent n ther fundamental structure from those that rule our own, so that ours would be the rare regon where fne-tunng of constants een has a chance. Truth be told, Hawkng s M-Theory offers the frst plausble multerse I hae eer seen consdered that does ary the structure of physcs between unerses. But I am not connced that the araton s enough to explan the mracle. Further, t remans to be seen whether M-Theory s tself fne-tuned. For ths ssue, then, I recommend patence: frst, wat for the full pcture of M-Theory to emerge and gan emprcal support, then we can worry about ts mplcatons for fne-tunng. The queston stands n the meantme: why does the possblty of lfe appear to be almost nherent to the obsered laws of nature? Elegant Laws There s another sort of fne-tunng that does not get much attenton because t s more subjecte. The laws of nature appear to be fne-tuned for elegance. A law may be called elegant when t s expressed by math that s both smple and deep. Consder graty agan. Gratatonal orbts obey the laws of Kepler, whch comprse three smple equatons. Those laws can be dered from any of three dstnct mathematcal models: namely, a central force, a potental energy feld, or the prncple of least acton. Each model s tself a short lne of mathematcs. These nterpretatons of graty are all smple, but ther nter connect - edness s de ep; we then say that the law of graty s elegant. The entre edfce of physcs s a complex structure, wth numerous layers of prncples and deratons that nteract n subtle and surprsng ways elegant ways. Legendary physcst Rchard Feynman expressed wonder that you cannot modfy the laws much wthout destroyng ther elegance. x Why does nature appear to alue elegance? Laws at All Fne-tunng s a tral problem compared to a deeper queston: why does nature follow mathematcal patterns, as opposed to total chaos? As Hawkng, quotng Albert Ensten, wrtes, The most ncomprehensble thng about the unerse s that t s comprehensble. x Why should nature obey laws at all? God and the Multerse The exstence of a God Who cares about lfe mmedately resoles all the questons I hae rased so far. A multerse could only explan some of the fne-tunng questons. Also, note that God and a multerse are not mutually excluse. It s possble that God created a mostly unnhabtable multerse wth the laws to produce a habtable unerse, just as wthn our mostly unnhabtable unerse God used natural law to eentually produce a habtable planet. In any eent, modern scence clearly leaes mportant metaphyscal questons unresoled. Any qualfed phlosopher snce Immanuel Kant could hae predcted that outcome. and You Ths whole dscusson should be rreleant to a Jew s commtment to serng God. There s smply no way to unequocally We should know that our fath stands strong een as scence llumnates the foundatons of nature. Judasm and Nature proofs for God s exstence may suggest a Supreme Beng as a lkely metaphyscal hypothess. But can a man pray to a hypothess, let alone trust and hae fath n t? The God of relgon s clearly not a hypothess. x In any eent, modern scence clearly leaes mportant metaphyscal questons unresoled. Any qualfed phlosopher snce Immanuel Kant could hae predcted that outcome. We do not need to nestgate God s presence; we experence t. Why, then, should we care about fne-tunng and spon ta ne ously-formng unerses? Frst, one must know what to respond, n the words of R. Elezer. x We should know that our fath stands strong een as scence llumnates the foundatons of nature. But more mportantly, God created an ncredble world for us to apprecate and thereby draw closer to Hm. Quoth Rambam: And what s the path to long Hm and fearng Hm? When man contemplates Hs great and wondrous works and creatons and sees n them Hs mmeasurable, nfnte wsdom, he mmedately loes, prases, glorfes, and yearns wth a great desre to know Hs great Name, as Dad sad, My soul thrsts for God, for the Lng God. x And when he consders these thngs, he mmedately trembles and fears and knows that he s a small, lowly, obscure creature, standng wth mnmal, tral knowledge before the All-Knowng, as Dad sad, When I see Your heaens, the work of Your fngers [ ] What s man that You should recall hm? x,x We can apprecate Rambam s words now more than eer. We le n an exctng tme, when new dscoeres n physcs and astronomy are beng made faster than we can keep up wth them. The grand desgn s unfoldng offerng a glmpse of the grandeur of the Desgner. Raf Mller s a senor at YC majorng n Mathematcs and Physcs. at: Stephen Hawkng & Leonard Mlodnow, The Grand Desgn (New York: Bantam Books, 2010), p Joseph B. Soloetchk, On Repentance: In the Thought and Oral Dscourses of Rabb Joseph D. Soloetchk, adapted from the Yddsh by Pnhas H. Pel (Jerusalem: Oroth Publshng House, 1980), p Hawkng & Mlodnow, p. 5. Stephen Hawkng, A Bref Hstory of Tme (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1988), p Hawkng & Mlodnow, p Ibd., p A great, but partly dated, lst of sourced examples s proded by John Lesle, Unerses (London: Routledge, 1989), chapter 2. I hghly recommend the book to readers nterested n hang ther mnds blown. x Lesle, p. 23. x Ibd., p. 37. x Ibd., p. 64. x Rchard Feynman, The Character of Physcal Law (Cambrdge, MA: The MIT Press, 1967), p. 54. x Hawkng & Mlodnow, p. 87. x Elezer Berkots, God, Man, and Hstory: A Jewsh Interpretaton (New York: Jonathan Dad, 1959), p. 12. x Aot 2:14. x Tehllm 42:3. x Ibd. 8:4-5. x Rambam, Mshneh Torah, Hlkhot Yesode ha-torah 2:2 (translaton mne). proe the personal God through nature and we do not demand proofs. In the words of R. Elezer Berkots: No doubt, the famlar E.g., Stephen Hawkng Says God Dd Not Create the Unerse: What Do You Thnk? ABC News (September 2, 2010), aalable 7

8 Kol Hameaser A Bblcal Approach to the Relatonshp Between Man and the Anmal Kngdom BY: Toah Moldwn The topc of the relatonshp between man and the anmals n Jewsh tradton s not one whch has gone unnotced by the scholars of our relgon. Numerous artcles and books hae been deoted to explanng the theologcal and legal aspects of how people should properly relate to anmals. Ths artcle s an attempt to look at the same ssue from a slghtly dfferent perspecte: that of the Hummash and ts tradtonal commentares. In partcular, ths artcle wll focus on the early chapters of the book of Geness, as these chapters lay the groundwork for our understandng of the relate places of man and anmal n God s world. Immedately subsequent to the creaton of Adam, God nstructs Adam as to what food he may consume: And God sad, behold, I hae gen to you eery grass whch produces seed oer the face of all the Earth, and eery tree whch contans a frut that produces seed, t shall be to you as food. The Talmud notes that ths erse conspcuously omts any menton of anmals, thereby ndcatng that God dd not permt Adam to eat meat. The Talmud also notes that, although n the preous erse God had blessed Adam that he would rule oer the fsh of the sea, brds of the sky, and eery lng creature that teems on the Earth, ths was only meant to permt Adam to utlze anmals to perform labor for hm, not to consume ther flesh. The Talmud goes on to say that ths prohbton was repealed n the tme of Noah. After Noah exts the ark, God tells hm, Any teemng creature whch les, to you t shall be for food, lke the grass of the feld I hae gen to you eerythng. Wth ths statement, God permtted Noah (and, by extenson, all manknd) to eat the preously prohbted meat of anmals. The Talmud s readng of these erses would appear to be the plan sense of the bblcal narrate, and ths readng was also adopted by a number of promnent medeal Jewsh bblcal commentators, ncludng Rash, Nahmandes, and Abraham bn Ezra. It s edent from these passages that, despte the fact that God orgnally ntended there to be a herarchy of speces wheren man was to be superor to the anmals, t was only subsequent to the Flood n the tmes of Noah that man was permtted to eat meat. Ths presentaton of the relatonshp between man and the anmal kngdom spurs two questons: 1) why dd the orgnal concepton of man s relatonshp wth anmals not nclude a permsson to consume meat, and 2) what changed after Noah sured the Flood? The resolutons to these two questons wll not merely help us better understand the bblcal narrate; they can also be sgnfcant n terms of dentfyng the bblcal ew of the relatonshp between man and the anmal kngdom. A smple yet compellng answer to the frst queston can be found n Nahmandes commentary to Geness 1:29. Nahmandes wrtes that the reason why man was not orgnally permtted to eat anmal meat s because those that possess a moble soul [.e. creatures who hae the ablty to moe about: anmals] hae somewhat of a superor qualty n ther souls, smlar to a soul whch possesses ntellect, and they hae the ablty to choose that whch s good for them and [dsplay preference for] ther food, and they flee from pan and death. In other words, Nahmandes feels that, snce anmals dsplay a decson-makng capacty smlar to that of humans, t s napproprate for man to slaughter another soul-bearng creature for hs own consumpton. We are thus led to the second queston: f anmals possess a soul smlar to that of man, why was man permtted to consume anmal meat after the Deluge? To ths queston, Nahmandes responds (basng hmself on the mdrash n Geness Rabbah 28) that, n the years pror to the Deluge, both the anmal kngdom and humanknd behaed n mmoral and pererse ways. As such, God had actually ntended to completely wpe out all anmal speces, but as a reward to Noah for hs rghteous behaor, God kept members of each speces of anmal ale purely for the gastronomcal enjoyment of Noah and hs descendants. It would emerge from Nahmandes nterpretaton of ths bblcal narrate that, although pror to the story of Noah, anmals were consdered an ntegral component of God s ntal concepton of the world, subsequent to the Flood, the only functon of the anmal kngdom was to beneft man. Thus, though anmals contnued to possess conscousness and ntellgence after the Flood, God stll permtted man to consume ther It would emerge from Nahmandes nterpretaton of ths bblcal narrate that, although pror to the story of Noah, anmals were consdered an ntegral component of God s ntal concepton of the world, subsequent to the Flood, the only functon of the anmal kngdom was to beneft man. meat. R. Dad Kmh (Radak), n hs commentares to Geness 1:29 and 9:4, offers a dfferent explanaton as to why Noah and hs descendants were permtted to consume meat when t had preously been prohbted. Accordng to Kmh, when God created the world, He foresaw that He would eentually hae to destroy the nhabtants of the Earth wth the excepton of Noah and hs famly n a Deluge, and that Noah would fulfll God s wll to sae members of each anmal speces. Because God wshed to reward Noah for expendng the effort to rescue the anmals, He dd not permt manknd to consume meat untl Noah s tme, at whch pont God conferred permsson to consume meat upon Noah as a reward for hs efforts n sang the anmal kngdom. There s one sgnfcant pont of dergence between the approaches of Nahmandes and Kmh. Nahmandes assumes that the anmal kngdom was presered purely for the sake of manknd, and f not for the rghteousness of Noah, the anmal kngdom would not hae sured. Kmh would argue, howeer, that God dd, n fact, ntend to sae the anmals for ther own sake, and Noah was rewarded by beng permtted to eat meat because of hs role n sang the anmals from the Deluge. Accordng to Kmh, t emerges that the postdluan exstence of the anmal kngdom s not merely meant for the sake of human consumpton; rather, the anmal kngdom s consdered to be an ntegral component of the eternal dne concepton of the unerse, and t s manknd s oblgaton as t was Noah s to ensure the contnued sural of the anmal kngdom. Furthermore, een accordng to the approach of Nahmandes, though the anmal kngdom was presered purely for the beneft of manknd, the fact remans that anmals do possess conscousness and a certan amount of ntellgence, and there s thus some alue n respectng ths aspect of the anmal kngdom and n feelng some degree of compasson and respect for anmals as sentent bengs. R. Dad Z Hoffman, n hs commentary to Parashat Re eh, bulds on ths theme from the early chapters of Geness and notes that the sentment of hang compasson for anmals manfests tself throughout the Torah n a number of dfferent places. Frstly, Hoffman notes that mmedately subsequent to permttng man to eat meat, God enjons Noah, But meat wth ts soul, you shall not eat ts blood, whch s understood by the rabbnc tradton to forbd all manknd from eatng part of an anmal whle t s stll ale. Accordng to Hoffman, ths prohbton was enhanced for the Israeltes durng ther traels n the desert, when God forbade the slaughterng of anmals anywhere outsde the grounds of the holy Tabernacle. x Ths prohbton was repealed when the Israeltes entered the land of Israel, but the Torah stll requred the Israeltes to show ther compasson for anmals by not consumng ther blood, a prohbton mentoned a number of tmes throughout the Torah. x Ths prohbton was necessary, accordng to Hoffman, because consumng the anmal s blood, whch contans the lfe-force, brngs a person to cruelty. x Hoffman also ponts out that a unque expresson s used n the Torah n conjuncton wth the prohbton aganst consumng blood. The Torah rarely descrbes a specfc reward for the obserance of any nddual commandment, but wth reference to the commandments of honorng one s parents, x sendng away the mother brd when takng ts chldren, x and not eatng blood, x the Torah uses the phrase, n order that t should be 8

9 good for you or, n order that your days should be lengthened. Hoffman ponts out that the common characterstc among all of these commandments s that they each possess a humanstc qualty. In other words, these commandments sere to engender a sense of compasson wthn a person. x Hoffman s approach to ths recurrng bblcal theme appears to dffer slghtly from that of Kmh and Nahmandes. Accordng to Hoffman, the Torah oblgates us to show concern for anmals not necessarly because the anmals desere our respect and compasson, but rather n order to refne us, so that we not become cruel and nhumane people who are used to slaughterng and kllng. These three deas Nahmandes noton of anmal sentence, Kmh s asserton that God rewarded Noah for hs role n the preseraton of the anmal kngdom, and Hoffman s emphass on the mportance of compasson for all lfe n order to refne the human character should sere as mportant models for Torahobserant Jews when dealng wth questons of anmal rghts, egetaransm, and enronmental ssues. The Torah clearly ges manknd permsson to consume anmal meat, but ths should not mtgate the fact that Jewsh tradton also encourages a sense of compasson for anmals and of responsblty for the contnued exstence of the derse array of anmal speces that exst n our world. Toah Moldwn s a sophomore at YC majorng n Computer Scence and s a Staff Wrter for Kol Hameaser. Geness 1:29. Sanhedrn 59b, as cted by Ra Yehudah n the name of Ra. Geness 9:3. In ther respecte commentares to Geness 1:29 and 9:3. Mamondes makes a smlar argument n Gude for the Perplexed III:48, n whch he argues that the Torah enjoned the Israeltes from slaughterng a mother anmal and ts chld on the same day because anmals possess emotons, and t would therefore be wrong to cause the mother gref by slaughterng the chld n front of t (or ce ersa). Kmh s explanaton s somewhat odd; generally one would assume that God does not wthhold a partcular desderatum from The Torah clearly ges manknd permsson to consume anmal meat, but ths should not mtgate the fact that Jewsh tradton also encourages a sense of compasson for anmals and of responsblty for the contnued exstence of the derse array of anmal speces that exst n our world. manknd n order to ge t as a reward for a future good deed. Dad Z Hoffman, Sefer Dearm al yede Dad Z Hoffmann, trans. Z Har-Shefer (Tel-A: Hotsa at Netsah, ), p Geness 9:4. x Letcus 17:4. x E.g. Letcus 7:26 and 17:10-14, Deuteronomy 12:23 and 12:27. x Dad Z Hoffman, Sefer Dearm al yede Dad Z Hoffmann, trans. Z Har-Shefer (Tel-A: Hotsa at Netsah, ), p x Exodus 20:11. x Deuteronomy 22:7. x Ibd. 12:25. x It should be noted that Nahmandes n hs commentary to Deuteronomy 22:7 takes a smlar, f not dentcal, approach to that of R. Hoffman. I hae focused here on the commentary of R. Hoffman because he artculates how ths dea s a runnng theme throughout the Bble. Judasm and Nature An Interew wth Rabb Dad Horwtz D BY: Shlomo Zucker oes the Torah hae somethng to say about enronmentalsm? As Jews, what s our responsblty to the natural enronment around us? Well, there certanly s an ssur (prohbton) to wantonly destroy property, based on the pasuk of k ha-adam ets ha-sadeh ( for s man a tree of the feld? ), but we also defntely accept the dstncton made by seeral medeal Jewsh thnkers between domem (unmong), tsomeach (lng), cha (creature) and medabber (speakng). We reject PETA extremsts, as we certanly reject any approach whch negates the dstncton between the anmal world and the human world. The plant and anmal world exsts to help our aodas Hashem (serce of God), whle human lfe s on a hgher leel. Can studyng the natural scences, such as Bology, Chemstry, and Physcs, help us as oede Hashem (serants of God)? Can t enhance our Torah learnng? That queston s a partcular example of the general queston Rambam dscusses, whch s how does one reach ahaas and yr as Hashem (loe and fear of God), each of whch he counts as mtsos. There s a famous dergence of emphass n Rambam. In Hlchos Yesode ha-torah 2:1, he wrtes: And what s the path to long Hm and fearng Hm? When man contemplates Hs great and wondrous works and creatons and sees n them Hs mmeasurable, nfnte wsdom, he mmedately loes, prases, glorfes, and yearns wth a great desre to know Hs great Name, as Dad sad, My soul thrsts for God, for the lng God. And when he consders these thngs he mmedately trembles and fears and knows that he s a small, lowly, obscure creature, standng wth mnmal, tral knowledge before the All-Knowng, as Dad sad, When I see Your heaens, the work of Your fngers. [...] What s man that You should recall hm?, To the extent that studyng any scence leads us to marel at the Rbbono shel Olam (Master of the World) Who created ths glorous unerse, then t s a good thng. Hang sad that, Rambam wrtes, n ths connecton, n hs Sefer ha-mtsos, mtsah 3, some ponts that do not appear n the Mshneh Torah: The thrd mtsah s that He commanded us to loe Hm Who s exalted. [Ths demands that] we should nestgate and study Hs commands (mtsos) and actons untl we apprehend Hm and enjoy, n apprehendng Hm, the pnnacle of all enjoyment and ths s the necessary loe. In other words, one also reaches ahaas Hashem and yr as Hashem through talmud Torah, studyng God s mtsos. Twenty-four years ago, before R. Ahron Soloechk, zts l, returned as a Rosh Yesha to RIETS, he gae a Torah u-madda lecture, n whch he dscussed Rambam s words n each of these two places. The plant and anmal world exsts to help our aodas Hashem (serce of God), whle human lfe s on a hgher leel. To reterate, the study of scence can be a glorous endeaor, and to study the remarkable dersty of the flora and fauna of the world s fantastc, but let us not forget Rambam s formulaton n Sefer ha-mtsos that one comes to knowledge of God through learnng Torah, whch s our prmary focus and whch s what we do n ths yeshah, as well as any other. What s the relgous alue of apprecatng the aesthetc beauty of nature? To a large degree, ths comes out of understandng the word nfla m (wondrous) n the frst quotaton from Rambam aboe. If one studes the three astronomcal laws of Johannes Kepler, for example, the law that the squares of the perods of reoluton of the planets are to each other as the cubes of ther mean dstances from the sun, one s amazed at the harmony of the unerse that God created. One 9

10 who studes astronomy and astrophyscs sees how eerythng fts together mathematcally, and that can also lead to ahaas Hashem. Rambam also says that there s a therapeutc alue n recognzng beauty, whch helps to mantan a person s emotonal equlbrum, so that f one s depressed, he can look at tsuros na os (beautful forms), whch mght nclude pantngs and the lke, to ree hs sprts. In the area of Bology, the scence of genetcs, for example, s ery fascnatng. I remember learnng about Gregor Mendel and hs experments wth pea plants and how he fgured out domnant and recesse trats. The feld fgured out how genetcs works and how phenomena whch otherwse would be ncomprehensble can ft nto a ratonal pattern. Man s a pattern-seekng anmal, and the more we see and understand patterns, the more we experence awe n the grandeur of God, Who created t all. There s also a natural human response towards magnfcence, whch we feel when we go to the zoo and see all the creatons and large beasts. Seeng large bengs flls one wth a sense of amazement. What do you thnk s Judasm s poston on the exstence of natural moralty? If t does recognze such an dea, to what extent does Judasm allow t to affect halakhc decsons? Ths s a queston whch people far greater than I hae debated for a long tme. There s the old queston of what R. Sa adya Ga on means when he ddes mtsos nto shm yos (taught mtsos) and schlyos (logcal mtsos), and, as s well known, Prof. Marn Fox argued that een R. Sa adya Ga on dd not hae an objecte standard of moralty; rather, schlyos means reasonable mtsos. Of course, Dr. Lamm dsputed Prof. Fox ery strongly, clamng that they represented moral mtsos, and ths comprses one releant major debate. In hs later works, Rambam rejects R. Sa adya Ga on s dstncton. He says that (almost) eery chok (nexplcable law) can ultmately be understood, f one apples hs ntellect to try to fgure out ta ame ha-mtsos (reasons for the laws). On the other hand, the chyyu (oblgaton) to perform mtsos has nothng to do wth the queston of whether they appear ratonal to us or not. These questons hae been dscussed many tmes. Rambam n Hlchos Melachm says that f someone keeps the seen mtsos of Noach because of hechrea ha-da as (moral concton, as opposed to a sense of commandedness), he does not qualfy as one of the chasde ummos ha-olam (rghteous among the natons), and he may or may not be one of ther chachamm (wse men), dependng on the grsa (precse text). Hermann Cohen nterpreted that rulng as only dealng wth hlchos ger tosha (the laws of a resdent alen), but that s defntely not pashut peshat (the smple readng) n Rambam s words. Certanly, as frum Jews today, our commandment to obsere the mtsos has nothng to do wth whether we feel they are ratonal or not or f they concde wth natural moralty or not. We are faced wth the commands of God Certanly, as frum Jews today, our command to obsere the mtsos has nothng to do wth whether we feel they are ratonal or not or concde wth natural moralty or not. qua commands, and we hae to try to fulfll them. Can you dscuss R. Kook s poston on relatng to the natural world and/or natural moralty? On the one hand, R. Kook was suffused wth a loe for the entre unerse. Samuel Hugo Bergmann ponts out that R. Kook s ew s not one of panthesm but panenthesm, the belef that God nheres n eerythng and f a person loes God, he wll loe the entre unerse, n whch God s mmanent. Hang sad that, R. Kook certanly realzed that one cannot jump steps n ths process of sprtual growth n ths regard. One cannot be a hater of Jews or other people and be a egetaran; that s absurd. Whle holdng a poston of panenthesm may help one treat the enronment wth more care and connce people not to be ltterbugs and not to pollute, R. Kook would defntely agree that t should neer be used as an anthalachc or antnoman ehcle. Rabb Dr. Dad Horwtz s a Rosh Yeshah at MYP/RIETS and occupes the Rabb Dod Lfshtz Char n Talmud. He s an Instructor n Jewsh Phlosophy and Jewsh Hstory at Yesha College. Shlomo Zucker s a senor at YC majorng n Phlosophy and Jewsh Studes and s an Edtor-n-Chef for Kol Hameaser. Dearm 20:19. Tehllm 42:3. Ibd. 8:4-5. Rambam, Mshneh Torah, Hlkhot Yesode ha-torah 2:2 (translaton by Raf Mller). R. Sa adya Ga on, Emunot e-de ot, ma amar 3. Marn Fox, On the Ratonal Commandments n Saada s Phlosophy: A Reexamnaton, n dem (ed.), Modern Jewsh Ethcs: Theory and Practce (Columbus: Oho State Unersty Press, 1975), pp Rambam, Mshneh Torah, Hlkhot Melakhm 8:11. Kol Hameaser Towards a Jewsh Land Ethc BY: Tal Adler The concept of a comprehense land ethc was frst ntroduced by Aldo Leopold, the famous Amercan enronmentalst, n hs 1948 book, A Sand County Almanac. In ths semnal work, Leopold descrbed the need to expand the scope of ethcs to nclude not only humanty, as t had been defned untl that pont, but the bosphere as a whole, ncludng plants, anmals, land, and water. Leopold argued for a non-anthropocentrc ethc n whch humanty would be seen as merely one segment of the Earth s total populaton wth the responsblty to behae n an ethcal manner wth respect to the Earth tself as well as to ts other nhabtants. In hs famous essay, Leopold wrote that the prealng atttude untl that tme was one that adocated human use of the Earth and ts resources n whateer manner people saw ft. He clamed that ths atttude stemmed drectly from Judeo- Chrstan ethcs, partcularly the famous twenty-eghth erse of the frst chapter of Geness n whch God commands the frst man and woman to domnate the earth and subdue t. Such an understandng of the Jewsh approach was not unusual n the works of those who adocated ecologcal reforms and responsblty to the Earth. Indeed, n hs essay, The Hstorcal Roots of Our Ecologcal Crss, the famed hstoran Lynn Whte, Jr., went so far as to assert that the Bble bore the prmary responsblty for the Western mentalty towards the natural world and ts dsastrous effect upon the natural enronment. Howeer, despte the common and famous msperceptons, a close examnaton of tradtonal Jewsh wrtngs and bblcal law shows that Judasm does not smply ew the Earth as man s doman to rule howeer he sees ft. On the contrary, Judasm takes a theocentrc ew of the world that sees both man and the Earth as God s creatons and under Hs ultmate control. Although Man s certanly superor to the anmals n that he was created n the mage of God, ths superorty does not grant hm ownershp of creaton. Judasm warns aganst the human tendency to ew the Earth and ts nhabtants as exstng only or prmarly for human beneft and takes precautons to ensure that man treats them wth the proper respect. An attempt to rebuff the clam that Judasm takes a purely anthropocentrc ew of the world must begn wth the erse most cted by the clam s proponents, Geness 1:28, n whch God blesses man, tellng hm, Peru u-reu u- ml u et ha-arets e-kshuha, Be fertle and ncrease, fll the earth and master t. Those who blame the Bble for a perase propretary atttude of callousness toward the Earth generally stop ther analyss of Geness here. Howeer, further analyss of the frst book of the Bble shows that man s mastery oer the Earth s seerely tempered by the knowledge that he s but one of the Earth s many nhabtants and must treat the others, as well as the Earth tself, wth respect. Ths message s made clear at the begnnng of the second chapter of Geness when God commands man to guard [D]espte the common and famous msperceptons, a close examnaton of tradtonal Jewsh wrtngs and bblcal law shows that Judasm does not smply ew the Earth as man s doman to rule howeer he sees ft. and keep the Earth. Man s granted permsson to consume egetaton but s stll forbdden from eatng meat. Clearly, f Man s gen any specal poston of authorty here, t s as a guardan of the Earth, not as ts owner. It s only after the falure of the frst generatons of an and the subsequent Flood that man s granted permsson to eat meat. God grants ths permsson n a blessng to Noah after the Flood waters abate. Although ths blessng echoes the orgnal blessng granted to Adam, one key element s mssng: the blessng of domnon oer the Earth. Man may now consume meat, as many anmals do, but he s no longer deemed worthy to rule oer the other speces. It s only when God deems man responsble enough to refran from needlessly harmng other nhabtants of the Earth that he s worthy to be ther guardan. Rabbnc sources ew ths permsson as a form of concesson to man s mmoralty and bloodlust granted only after the generaton of the Flood had proed man s nherent wckedness. Howeer, een ths concesson comes wth a caeat: man may kll anmals for food, but he s forbdden from consumng ther blood, whch s sad to represent ther lfe. Ramban comments that the ratonale for ths s that the possessor of a soul may not consume another soul, snce all souls, both human and anmal, belong to God. x The Jewsh dea that man s merely a part of nature and not ts center s expanded upon throughout the Bble and rabbnc lterature. In the Book of Job, God spends approxmately two chapters reprong Job for hs belef that man, and partcularly Job hmself, s the center of the world. Indeed, God asks Job, Is t by your wsdom that the hawk grows pnons, 10

11 spreads hs wngs to the south? Does the eagle soar at your command, buldng hs nest hgh? x God emphaszes that man shares the Earth wth many other nhabtants and should not belee hmself to be the sole focus of creaton. The Psalmst, too, took ths ew, wrtng poems n whch nature tself prases God, entrely ndependently of man. Ths theme would contnue to play a role n rabbnc lterature throughout the centures, most notably n Perek Shrah, a hymn wrtten n the year 900, n whch anmals, trees, and the stars themseles are quoted as hang ther own songs to prase God. Many halakhot can be nterpreted as attempts to renforce such sentments and remnd Man of hs oblgaton to respect the Earth and ts nhabtants. The most obous of such laws s that of bal tashht, the commandment aganst needless waste of resources. The law s dered from a passage n Deuteronomy regardng the laws of war: When n your war aganst a cty you hae to besege t a long tme n order to capture t, you must not destroy ts trees weldng the ax aganst them. You may eat of them, but you may not cut them down. Are trees of the feld human, to wthdraw before you nto the beseged cty? x Rash explans that the erse seeks to emphasze that the tree s not part of the group aganst whom the naton s wagng war. Instead, the tree s an ndependent entty wth ts own rght to lfe, regardless of ts enronment, and should thus be saed from needless destructon. x The Rabbs later expanded ths njuncton to prohbt any unnecessary waste or destructon of ether natural or man-made tems. x In hs semnal work Horeb, R. Samson Raphael Hrsch states that the law of bal tashht s, n effect, the warnng of God: Do not corrupt or destroy anythng [ ] from the earth whch bears them all to the garment whch you hae already transformed nto your coer. x Bal tashht s a clear proclamaton that thngs, both anmate and nanmate, hae a rght to exstence outsde of ther beneft to humanty and that man s forbdden from wantonly destroyng them. Other laws that encourage man to realze the lmts of hs authorty oer creaton nclude the njunctons aganst causng unnecessary pan to anmals. These laws nclude prohbtons aganst harnessng speces of dfferent szes together (causng the smaller one to be dragged along wth the larger one), x or muzzlng an anmal whle t s threshng (n essence, makng t work amdst food wthout allowng t to eat). x These laws are desgned to preent anmals from sufferng unnecessary physcal pan, a practcal step to ensure that humanty realzes that t cannot do wth other creatures as t sees ft wthout moral boundares. Indeed, the rabbnc tendency to encourage humane treatment of anmals expands een to areas where t seems counterntute: the laws of kashrut, partcularly those nolng the rtual slaughter of anmals for food. The laws of kashrut requre that the anmal be slaughtered n a partcular way, wth one clean cut, desgned to mnmze sufferng. In addton, the law requres that the anmal s blood be coered. Certan rabbnc sources nterpret these laws as attempts to nstll a sense of shame n man and remnd hm that the deal det s a egetaran one. Most promnent among these rabbs s Ra Araham Ytshak ha-kohen Kook, who wrtes: A sense of shame s the frst step towards a cure. [ ] Coer the blood, remoe your shame! These acts wll bear frut, and eentually people wll learn the lesson. The slent protest wll then emerge n a loud and powerful oce, and wll achee ts am. The command to slaughter n a sanctoned and panless manner underscores the message that we are not dealng wth a castaway object a lfeless automat but wth a lng thng. x In hs famous Talele Orot (Dewdrops of Lght), Ra Kook went on to wrte that eentually, n the messanc age, humanty wll return to an entrely egetaran det as a result of ts heghtened sense of morals. Ths dea, that the Bal tashht s a clear proclamaton that thngs, both anmate and nanmate, hae a rght to exstence outsde of ther beneft to humanty and that man s forbdden from wantonly destroyng them. deal that we should stre for s a world that ncludes anmals as bengs that we do not consume, s a strong component of the Jewsh land ethc. Bblcal narrates and laws are meant to gude the Jewsh people n partcular, and humanty n general, to an era n whch all the Earth s nhabtants wll be treated ethcally. Judasm s senstty towards the ethcal treatment of nature extends beyond the bounds Judasm and Nature of anmal lfe to nclude the land tself. The books of Letcus and Deuteronomy each descrbe the laws relatng to shemttah, the sabbatcal year. The Torah warns that f the laws of shemttah are not obsered, the people wll be exled from ther land so that the earth may enjoy the years of rest t had mssed. x Ths passage makes t clear that the law of shemttah commands that the people allow the land to rest for ts own sake, rather than for any ostensble agrcultural beneft. Of course, the law has The bblcal concept of Sabbath and ts lnks to the laws of shemttah seem desgned to nstll an awareness of the fact that man s rghtful beneft from nature s not absolute. other ramfcatons as well: n the Torah s suspenson of the concept of prate ownershp of land, man s remnded that he does not, and ndeed can neer, hae absolute control oer the Earth. The Earth s ts own entty, whch, lke man hmself, ultmately belongs to no one but God Hmself. One of the most ntrgung aspects of shemttah s the language the Bble uses n ts descrpton. In the passages descrbng shemttah, the Bble uses the word shabbat (sabbath), a word used n only one other context n the Bble: the command to refran from all forms of create work on the seenth day. Interestngly, ths s the only bblcal command that apples to anmals as well as to human bengs: people are forbdden from workng ther anmals on the Sabbath. In prohbtng man from all forms of create work, the Bble essentally mandates one day a week where man s forbdden from alterng the natural enronment n any way. Accordng to R. Ismar Schorsch, former Chancellor of the Jewsh Theologcal Semnary, Shabbat remnds us of our earthly status as tenant and not oerlord. xx The bblcal concept of Sabbath and ts lnks to the laws of shemttah seem desgned to nstll an awareness of the fact that man s rghtful beneft from nature s not absolute. The Earth has a purpose and rght to exst entrely of ts own, ndependent of ts beneft to man. In spte of Judasm s ncredble plethora of textual support for a land ethc, the dea of enronmentalsm s often underemphaszed n the Modern Orthodox Jewsh communty. Orthodox Jewsh day schools rarely focus on the parts of Jewsh law that deal wth the human relatonshp to the land. Although Jewsh holdays and festals relatng to the land are duly celebrated, they are often ewed prmarly as rtualstc n nature rather than as meanngful celebratons and remnders of the Jewsh perspecte on man s relatonshp to the land and enronment. For two thousand years, ths was suffcent. Wthout a land to call ther own (and, ndeed, wthout legal ablty to own land n many countres of the Exle), Jews had lttle need for a land ethc n ther daly les. Today, howeer, ths s no longer true. The Jewsh People has returned to Israel, once agan assumng responsblty for agrculture and acqurng the prlege of land ownershp. If Orthodox Judasm s to thre and contnue to be releant n the twenty-frst century, ths atttude must change. Orthodox Jews must begn to realze that the fact that the Jewsh People s no longer a people wthout a land means that they must undergo a relgous paradgm shft n addton to the poltcal one they hae already undergone. It s tme that Orthodox Judasm ree the mllenna-old concept of a relgous commtment to the land and the enronment and accept the responsblty that comes wth that real. Tal Adler s a junor at SCW majorng n Poltcal Scence and Jewsh Studes. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford Unersty Press, 1949). Ibd., p Dad Vogel, How Green Is Judasm? Explorng Jewsh Enronmental Ethcs, Busness Ethcs Quarterly 11,2 (2001): All translatons from Tanakh are from the JPS Hebrew-Englsh Tanakh (2000). Geness 2:15. Ibd. 9:3. Nehama Lebowtz, Studes n Geness (Jerusalem: Haomanm Press, 1996), p Geness 9:4. x Ramban ad loc. x Job 39:26. x Deuteronomy 20:19. x Rash ad loc. x Shabbat 67b, Hulln 7b. x Samson Raphael Hrsch, Horeb, transl. by Isdor Grunfeld (London: Soncno Press, 2002), pp x Deuteronomy 22:10. x Deuteronomy 25:4. x From Ra Kook s Talele Orot (Dewdrops of Lght), cted by Nehama Lebowtz, Studes n Deuteronomy (Jerusalem: Haomanm Press, 1996), p. 138 (emphass mne). x Letcus 26: xx Saul Berman, Jewsh Enronmental Values: The Dynamc Tenson Between Nature and Human Needs, Human Values and the Enronment 1,3 (1992): 1-72, at p

12 BY: Jerry Karp Kol Hameaser Bore u-manhg le-kol ha-beru m: Thestc Eoluton n Modern Orthodox Dscourse Much nk has been splled (not always reflectng forethought and desgn ) on the ssue of the place of eolutonary theory wthn Jewsh thought. Eery Orthodox Jewsh student lng n the twenty-frst century has been educated regardng the contradcton between the Torah and the theory of eoluton and has been told ether to reject eoluton summarly or to accept that God created the world a eoluton. The current trend s generally that those n the ultra-orthodox communty belee that eoluton s completely untrue, whle those n the Modern Orthodox world belee that the Torah can accommodate the possblty of the emergence of lfe a eoluton. Dscussons of Torah and eoluton often center on nterpretng the frst chapter of Beresht n lght of modern cosmologcal and eolutonary theory, or explanng how later Talmudc and mdrashc sources, as well as the postons of Rshonm and Aharonm, support the noton that the world s more than 6,000 years old or the possblty that man could hae descended from other anmals. I wsh, therefore, to focus on a queston whch has, to my knowledge, not been the excluse subject of any exposton on eoluton and Torah. Torah u-madda proponents almost dogmatcally assert that eoluton can be reconcled wth Torah and that God drected the process of eoluton. But that poston requres further explanaton. How dd God drect eoluton? Ths queston may ntally seem to be a smple one, but I thnk that t s one that requres careful consderaton. The term thestc eoluton, referrng to eoluton under God s control, s somewhat oxymoronc. The modern synthetc theory of eoluton, comprsed of Darwn s orgnal theory coupled wth more modern nnoatons n molecular bology, proposes not only that all speces hae eoled from less adanced forms of lfe, but also that the mechansm of ths transmutaton s natural selecton. Random mutatons occur n an organsm s genes, and f these random mutatons produce an organsm whch s better able to succeed n ts enronment, that organsm wll be more lkely to pass on ths mutated gene, along wth ts phenotypc adantages, to the next generaton. Oer the course of bllons of years, ths process wll eentually result n more adanced and complex organsms, eentually leadng to the dersty that we obsere today. Ths explanaton automatcally presents a problem for those who belee n God s creaton and prodence. Accordng to the eolutonary theory, eoluton progressed ndependently on the bass of random mutatons. There s no need for the nterenng hand of God. What exactly, then, dd God do n the process of eoluton? One opton whch has been suggested (though t seems to be unpopular) s that eoluton ndeed progressed a the random mutatons leadng to natural selecton, as eolutonary theory suggests. God s nolement n creaton, then, was n the ntal stage: creatng the system that would eentually deelop automatcally nto a derse bosphere. God created the unerse, as well as the rules of mathematcs and bology whch would eentually, on the bass of probablty alone, lead to eoluton through natural selecton. Ths noton would not be mmedately obous to us, snce we do not assocate the concept of creaton wth mathematcal and physcal laws; we often thnk that God, as t were, acts outsde the realm of what we consder logcal. Howeer, f we truly belee that God has created eerythng, He must also hae created the noton of logc tself, and wth t the logcal physcal and bologcal laws. Thus, accordng to ths theory, God ndeed created the world through eoluton: He created the system whch then operated ndependently. One early author who subscrbes to ths noton s R. Samson Raphael Hrsch. x At the tme of hs wrtng, the theory of eoluton was n ts early stages. R. Hrsch states that he has no reason to assume that the theory of eoluton or the scentfc age of the unerse s accurate. Howeer, he states that f eoluton were eentually shown to be true, he would not fnd ths dscouragng, but nsprng: Judasm n that case would call upon ts adherents to ge een greater reerence than eer before to the one, sole God Who, n Hs boundless create wsdom and eternal omnpotence, needed to brng nto exstence no more than one sngle, amorphous nucleus and one sngle law of adaptaton and heredty n order to brng forth, from what seemed chaos but was n fact a ery defnte order, the nfnte arety of speces we know today, each wth ts unque characterstcs that sets t apart from all other creatures. x More recently, ths approach can be found n a bref essay by Reuben E. Gross: Assumng that the Darwnsts hae cor- One opton...s that eoluton ndeed progressed a the random mutatons leadng to natural selecton, as eolutonary theory suggests. God s nolement n creaton, then, was n the ntal stage: creatng the system that would eentually deelop automatcally nto a derse bosphere. rectly descrbed the mechansm of creaton [ ] all they hae done s to ds-establsh [sc] the Creator as mechanstc-mason carpenter of a statc world, but at the same tme they hae unwttngly re-establshed Hm as an engneer-archtect, k yochol, of a self-adjustng, dynamc world and the Creator or legslator of the ftness standards and rules of adaptablty. [ ] In other words, the queston now s not who put the molecules together, but Who so desgned the Unerse that ths combnaton (generally descrbed as protoplasm) unquely acts and reacts n a manner known as lfe. x It seems, howeer, that many are uncomfortable wth ths approach (and, ndeed, most of the authors who hae wrtten about eoluton and Judasm do not adopt ths understandng). Perhaps ths s because of the nherent dscomfort n suggestng that God created the unerse nstantaneously and then wthdrew from t, smlar to a destc concepton of God. x Of course, one mght argue that, een accordng to the story n Beresht, God eentually stopped creatng the world; n fact, perhaps roncally for those who are dsturbed by ths ew, the fact that God created the world and then rested s explctly stated. x A second ew regardng the harmonzaton of dne creaton and eoluton s that God created the world through eoluton, whch does not really proceed a random natural selecton. Eoluton dd occur, but the process dd not take place randomly; rather, God made a decson at eery branchng pont along the way. In a sense, though, proponents of ths theory do not techncally belee n eoluton as t s generally understood, snce the modern synthetc theory of eoluton ncludes the mechansm of natural selecton. Indeed, part of the attracteness of eolutonary theory s that t prodes a scentfc mechansm to account for the dersty of lfe; strppng eoluton of ths mechansm mght defeat the beneft 12

13 of proposng t n the frst place. One mght counter that God wshed to create the world n a way that would appear scentfc, such that He would not obously olate the laws of nature whch we now understand. In ths en, Dr. Carl Fet suggests that natural selecton only appears random, but that no eent really s random: When a bologst speaks of random mutaton, he does not really mean that those changes that occur are completely uncaused and arbtrary, but rather that snce we do not know all the detals of what occurs, we refer to t by the statstcs of randomness. x Dr. Judah Landa smlarly wrtes that [e]oluton s anythng but a random process. Eery step of the way s supposed to be guded by the laws of nature, partcularly those that relate to the behaor of atoms, molecules and subatomc partcles. x A fundamentally smlar explanaton s based on quantum mechancs. Accordng to the theory of quantum mechancs, at the mcroscopc leel (.e. when dealng wth partcles as small as electrons), the unerse s not determnstc. At any nstant, the locaton of an electron cannot be determned based on ts preous locaton. Rather, there are numerous locatons where the electron mght be found, wth each locaton n space hang a certan probablty of the electron beng there. All of these locatons are possble, een though some are more lkely than others, and they are all consdered wthn the bounds of nature. x Thus, God could control the process of eoluton and smultaneously make t seem random through the laws of quantum mechancs. Snce at any nstant the electrons of a molecule could be n any one of numerous locatons, God chose the ones whch would eentually lead to the macroscopc changes whch comprsed eoluton. Howeer, snce all of these eentualtes were ndeed possble, and there was no reason to predct that one would happen and not another, the process appears to us to be random and unpredctable. In realty, though, the process s beng controlled (at the electronc leel) by God. Of course, ths approach to thestc eoluton undermnes the adantage of postulatng natural selecton n the frst place. Scentsts understand that more adanced, complex forms of lfe deeloped because completely random mutatons occurred, and those that were most faorable were propagated and passed down to future generatons, thus leadng to dersfcaton and ncreased complexty of lfe. In other words, the adent of man n Aezer contends that generally lfe s left alone by God, perhaps wth some mutatons occurrng. Howeer, at some major ponts n eolutonary hstory, such as the adent of man, God nterened and caused a major eolutonary step to occur. the eolutonary process was a relately faorable, but not the only faorable, outcome; had other random mutatons occurred, those mutatons would hae propagated, perhaps eentually leadng to a completely dfferent adanced speces. Relgous thnkers and scentsts who hae adopted ths second stream belee that only man could hae deeloped snce he s the telos of eoluton, and eery mnute molecular moton noled n the eolutonary process was controlled and chosen by God n an attempt to create the specfc world whch we nhabt. A fnal explanaton of thestc eoluton s a sort of hybrd between the frst two postons, though t s conceptually more smlar to the second approach. It s adopted by, among others, Dr. Nathan Aezer, x a physcst at Bar- Ilan Unersty. Aezer contends that generally lfe s left alone by God, perhaps wth some mutatons occurrng. Howeer, at some major ponts n eolutonary hstory, such as the adent of man, God nterened and caused a major eolutonary step to occur. x Aezer s poston s based on Nles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould s erson of eolutonary theory, called punctuated equlbrum, whch suggests that eolutonary change happened n quck spurts oer the course of eolutonary hstory, whle most of lfe s hstory was marked by long perods of stass wth no eoluton. xx Thus, Aezer posts, the natural course of lfe would hae been stass, whle God nterened at some ponts to create eolutonary change. Aezer mantans that Darwn was correct that eoluton occurred but ncorrect about ts mechansm. Ths explanaton, lke the second, holds that for eolutonary change to occur, t must be drected by God. As opposed to the frst explanaton, these last two streams of thought hold that eoluton s a mracle of sorts. Eery tme a new speces deeloped, God had explctly created t at that moment. Accordng to the frst approach, howeer, eolutonary change s no dfferent from any other aspect of the unerse. The basc queston at hand, eokng the famous debate between Rambam and Ramban, xx s whether eoluton s a mracle or an Judasm and Nature ntegral part of nature. I belee that ths dscusson hghlghts the clear fact that when we say that God drected eoluton, we do not all agree on what ths means. It s tme we understand what we mean when we make well-ntentoned but ambguous pronouncements. Clarfcaton of our postons on thestc eoluton can only lead us to greater apprecaton for God s creaton. Jerry Karp s a senor at YC majorng n Physcs and Mathematcs. Cf. Rabbenu Bahya, Sha ar ha-yhud, n Hoot ha-leaot. As s often the case, the fact that Modern Orthodox Jews are wllng to accept that eoluton could be true s sometmes gnored, and all Orthodox Jews are sometmes lumped together as ant-eolutonsts. Thankfully, the dstncton between Modern Orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews n ths regard seems to hae been well-establshed oerall. Some notable exceptons persst, howeer. As an example, Ian Barbour wrtes that Reform and Conserate Judasm, the Catholc church, and most of the manlne Protestant denomnatons today mantan that we do not hae to choose between cosmology and creaton (Relgon and Scence: Hstorcal and Contemporary Issues [San Francsco: HarperCollns, 1997], p. 203). In a more egregous example, Alexander Nussbaum presented n an artcle n the magazne Skeptc the sweepng generalzaton that Orthodox Jewsh scentsts, een those wth legtmate degrees from prestgous unerstes accept the nerrancy of Torah and Chazal, condemn eoluton, and proclam the superorty of the truths of Torah oer secular scence. He then ctes the works of Rabb Dr. M. D. Tendler, Dr. Gerald Schroeder, Dr. Nathan Aezer, Dr. Lee Spetner and Dr. Herman Branoer, all of whch, he clams, suggest that eoluton s false ( Orthodox Jews and Scence: An Emprcal Study of ther Atttudes Toward Eoluton, the Fossl Record, and Modern Geology, Skeptc 12,3, aalable at: I belee that ths dscusson hghlghts the clear fact that when we say that God drected eoluton, we do not all agree on what ths means. _eoluton.html). Whle the last two of these authors (Spetner and Branoer) ndeed proclam categorcally that eoluton s untrue, the frst three authors say no such thng. All of them are wllng to accept the theory of eoluton to some extent, although not necessarly the theory of natural selecton. Nussbaum also notes that the Assocaton of Orthodox Jewsh Scentsts sponsored Aryeh Carmell and Cyrl Domb (eds.), Challenge: Torah Vews on Scence and Its Problems (New York: Assocaton of Orthodox Jewsh Scentsts, 1976), whch, he clams, promotes creatonsm. Ths s only partally true: most of the artcles n the collecton do argue that eoluton s false, but at least one ( On Creaton and Eoluton by Reuben E. Gross, see n. 11 below) argues that eoluton may be true, and moreoer, the AOJS Students Questons Panel, a 30-page dscusson of the ssues regardng eoluton and Torah, s wllng to accommodate such a belef as well. It s also mportant to pont out that ths book was publshed n 1976, when many Orthodox Jewsh scentsts were not wllng to belee n thestc eoluton. Ths atttude seems, howeer, to hae changed n the last 35 years; ndeed, the AOJS has snce featured numerous speakers at ther annual conentons who hae dscussed thestc eoluton. Nussbaum s pece n Skeptc pants Orthodox Jews as uneducated dots and Orthodox Jewsh scentsts as backward-thnkng dogmatsts. Whle t seems to me that Nussbaum s pece, rather than those who are quoted n t, consttuted a masse hllul Hashem, ths only emphaszes how mportant t s for the Modern Orthodox Jewsh communty to educate ts students effectely on what t belees regardng thestc eoluton, as well as to clearly communcate ts ews n prnt. I wsh to pont out here that we should be careful to dstngush between accommodatng Torah and eoluton and accommodatng Torah and cosmology. Eoluton s the theory that explans how lfe on Earth became as derse as t s today; cosmology explans the hstory of the unerse and how t became the way t s today. It seems that most Modern Orthodox Jews, een those who are opposed to the theory of eoluton, are wllng to accept the fact that the world s bllons of years old. It has become clché to explan that a day (as descrbed n the Beresht creaton story) mght actually not be 24 hours. I belee that harmonzng the scentfc age of the unerse wth the Torah s account of creaton s the easest problem wth whch a God-fearng scentst must contend. Yet, my experence suggests that t s the problem whch Jews spend the most tme dscussng. As an example, when I took an ntroductory bology class wth Dr. Carl Fet n Yesha College, he deoted a week to explanng how eoluton could be accommodated wthn a Torah ewpont. Howeer, the bulk of ths tme was actually spent explanng how, ndeed, a day could be longer than 24 hours. (For a summary of the sources whch Dr. Fet presents n ths seres of classes, see Carl Fet, Modern Orthodoxy and Eoluton: The Models of Rabb J. B. Soloetchk and Rabb A. I. Kook, n Geoffrey Cantor and Marc Swetltz (eds.), Jewsh Tradton and the Challenge of Darwnsm [Chcago: Unersty of Chcago Press, 2006], pp ) In retrospect, I assume that Dr. Fet focuses on these ssues snce they are the ones whch students assume are most theologcally troublng. Rabb Lawrence Troster actually dscusses the conflct between belef n dne creaton and natural selecton n The Order of Creaton 13

14 and the Emergng God: Eoluton and Dne Acton n the Natural World, n Jewsh Tradton and the Challenge of Darwnsm, pp Howeer, he dscusses ths n the larger context of relgous problems created by eoluton, and he does not nclude the range of Jewsh ews whch I am dscussng here. The term thestc eoluton s to be contrasted wth ntellgent desgn, whch has nothng to do wth eoluton. Intellgent desgn proposes that the form of the unerse demonstrates an nherent desgn whch must hae been fashoned by an ntellgent Creator (the word God s generally not used, n order that the theory mght sound scentfc). Eoluton s not a part of ths desgn. Thestc eoluton proposes that eoluton occurred and can be dscussed solely n the realm of scence, wthout resortng to relgous notons such as a Creator, but that t can be understood n the realm of relgon as beng the result of a dne hand. One semantc ssue that should be better clarfed n essays on ths topc s what s ncluded n the term eoluton. In hs essay n Tradton 29,1 (1994), Baruch Sterman quotes Mchael Ruse (Takng Darwn Serously: A Naturalstc Approach to Phlosophy [New York: Prometheus Books, 1998]), who dstngushes the fact of eoluton from the path of eoluton, the former referrng to the dea that speces eoled nto other speces and the latter referrng to the mechansm of natural selecton. Usually, the term eoluton s assumed to nclude both the fact and the path of eoluton, but many Jewsh wrters who support eoluton do not agree wth the mechansm of natural selecton. I wll dscuss ths poston later n ths artcle, but when I use the term eoluton n ths paragraph and later, I wll be ncludng natural selecton. Note that I wll not be dscussng the problems the theory of eoluton creates n bblcal nterpretaton. As noted before, I am not dscussng ssues of cosmology, but I suspect that those who adopt ths poston would belee that the unerse was created a the Bg Bang. x There s a plethora of wrtng on the subject of eoluton and creaton, and I hae certanly not read eerythng that has been wrtten. I attempted to read major works on eoluton from wthn our communty, wth an eye toward the parts of those works whch dscuss the queston at hand. x R. Samson Raphael Hrsch, The Collected Wrtngs of Rabb Samson Raphael Hrsch, ol. 7 (New York: Feldhem Publshers, 1997), p x Reuben E. Gross, On Creaton and Eoluton, n Challenge: Torah Vews on Scence and Its Problems, pp x There s also the ssue of harmonzng ths approach wth the account n Beresht whch suggests that God created the world through a drect process. x Here I am grateful to Yehoshua Blumenkopf, wth whom I had an nterestng dscusson on ths pont. x Carl Fet, Darwn and Derash: The Interplay of Torah and Bology, n The Torah u- Madda Journal 2 (1990): 25-36, at p. 30. x Judah Landa, Torah and Scence (Hoboken, NJ: Kta, 1991), p x Ths concept has been employed n general and Jewsh phlosophy to explan many concepts related to dne prodence and free wll. See Reuen Rand s artcle n ths ssue of Kol Hameaser. x It s noteworthy that n ths artcle, I hae cted a total of one bologst (Dr. Fet). In my research to prepare ths artcle, I found that the ast majorty of Jewsh scentsts clamng expertse ether on how to accommodate eoluton and creaton or on how to dsproe the possblty of eoluton are physcsts or mathematcans, not bologsts. It s smply amazng that so many physcsts hae proclamed themseles experts on the theory of eoluton, een though t has almost nothng to do wth physcs, any more than any other bologcal process has to do wth physcs. Whle I alue the efforts of the physcsts who hae attempted to explan eoluton n lght of the Torah, I am partcularly troubled by those physcsts and mathematcans who hae decded, wth absolutely no academc degree n bology whatsoeer, that eoluton s mpossble. I am not the frst to notce ths and be offended by t. Baruch Sterman aptly wrtes: A physcst would not countenance a bologst s flppant rejecton of Maxwell s equatons or Ensten s explanaton of the photoelectrc effect, two scentfc descrptons of optcal phenomena unersally accepted wthn physcs, een though the smultaneous acceptance of those two theores ostensbly leads to the paradoxcal descrpton of lght as both wae and partcle. [ ] A brusque dsmssal of the wdely accepted ews of modern bologsts s lkewse not warranted, especally by someone who s not an authorty n the feld. The derson of eoluton as hgh school or popular scence, when graduate courses n eolutonary bology are offered n rtually eery unersty, s msplaced. (Baruch Sterman, Judasm and Darwnan Eoluton, Tradton 29,1 [1994]: 48-75) x Nathan Aezer, In the Begnnng: Bblcal Creaton and Scence (Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta, 2009), p. 57. xx Aezer suggests that most scentsts belee that punctuated equlbrum, and not gradualsm (the theory that eoluton s constantly occurrng gradually) s correct. I belee that ths s not necessarly the consensus of the scentfc communty, although there s a sgnfcant percentage of scentsts who do not agree wth punctuated equlbrum. xx See Rambam, Moreh Neukhm II:29 and Ramban to Shemot 13:16. Kol Hameaser The Antthess between Judasm and Nature n the Thought of Yeshayahu Lebowtz BY: El Putterman It s my object n ths pece to llumnate one aspect of the fascnatng phlosophy of Yeshayahu Lebowtz, one of the most orgnal Jewsh thnkers of the 20 th century. In dong so, I hope to prode somethng of an ntroducton to hs phlosophcal method, along wth ts analytcal nsght and ts penchant for bnary oppostons. Lebowtz s clear, precse, and razor-sharp arguments sere as a frutful pont of departure for almost any queston wth whch modern Jewsh thought grapples, een f hs conclusons may be dffcult to dgest. The defnng characterstc of hs thought s ts extremsm: though hs postons are founded upon alues wellartculated n Jewsh tradton, he shows tme and agan that takng these alues to ther logcal concluson results n an outlook ery far from that of the aerage Orthodox Jewsh beleer. Indeed, perhaps the most sgnfcant contrbuton of the thought of Yeshayahu Lebowtz s hs penetratng exposure of the contradctons between some of our deeply-held alues; what he, of course, does not do, s resole them. To prode a bref example: one of the central themes n Lebowtz s thought s the slogan aodah l-shemah worshp of God for ts own sake certanly a message wth ample precedent n Jewsh sources. Yet n Lebowtz s hands, ths prncple leads to a denal of Dne Prodence for the tradtonal account of sakhar a-onesh (reward and punshment) dspensed by God for performance or nonperformance of the commandments mples that God seres humanknd. In Lebowtz s words: Folklorstc relgon makes God the functonary of human socety, performng for t the tasks of Mnster of Health, Mnster of Justce, Mnster of the Polce, Mnster of Welfare, and Mnster of the Economy. The halakhcally commtted Jew must therefore forgo all belefs whch post a dne response to human worshp een n the case of prayer, whch Lebowtz ews as nherently meanngless rote rectaton whose sgnfcance les n ts beng commanded by the Rabbs, not n ts fulfllng any ntercessory functon. Lebowtz s dscusson of the relatonshp between Judasm and nature, the topc of ths pece, s somewhat less radcal, wth sgnfcant precedent for hs ew found n tradtonal sources. The core of hs presentaton s a ery powerful relgous dea whch can be found, nter ala, n sources such as R. Joseph B. Soloetchk s Majesty and Humlty and U-Bkkashtem m-sham and Prof. J. J. Schachter s artcle n a preous ssue of Kol Hameaser. Yet, as n the case of Dne Prodence, Lebowtz s approach leads to conclusons whch are dffcult to accept from a Modern Orthodox standpont. The frst step n Lebowtz s argument s a sharp fact-alue dstncton. For Lebowtz, knowledge of the natural world or of hstory can neer yeld normate conclusons; an s neer mples an ought. The choce of a partcular axology by whch to gude one s Though hs postons are founded upon alues well-artculated n Jewsh tradton, he shows tme and agan that takng these alues to ther logcal concluson results n an outlook ery far from that of the aerage Orthodox Jewsh beleer. lfe les not n the cognte but n the conate realm; t s therefore a completely free choce. x Prma face, ths argument s easly refutable would not certan knowledge of the dne orgn of the commandments render halakhc obserance a compellng, ratonal decson? Een f you personally wtnessed the reelaton at Sna (tself a dffcult noton n Lebowtz s thought), does the fact that God legslated a partcular set of commands compel you to the obserance of these commands? Only f you hae already chosen the worshp of God as the hghest alue, argues Lebowtz, does t do so. x,x Thus, the factalue dstncton mmedately leads to a dsconnect between nature, a term whose meanng expands n ths context to nclude all factual data about the world, and Judasm, whch, as a system of norms and alues, cannot be dered from or refuted by such knowledge. 14

15 Lebowtz s next step s hs analyss of competng deologes as motated by dfferent conceptons of the summum bonum, the hghest alue. Secular moralty s essentally a form of humansm, the axology whch takes humanty to be the supreme end. x Lebowtz also defned fascsm as a alue system that takes the good of the State, or rason d État, as hang ntrnsc alue, x and harshly crtczed (Relgous) Zonsm for allowng nroads to ths knd of reasonng. x On the other hand, Judasm, n ts Lebowtzan nterpretaton, ews God and Hs worshp as the supreme good. Snce God Hmself s the telos of the halakhc system, ths worshp whch, for Lebowtz, s the performance of the mtsot, no more and no less x does not hae any ths-worldly meanng or purpose. Ths s n stark contrast to many Jewsh thnkers such as Mamondes, x who ewed Jewsh law as nstrumental to the attanment of ntellectual perfecton, and Elezer Berkots, who saw the goal of Halakhah to be the acheement of moral ends. x On the other hand, Lebowtz has nothng but scorn for theologes whch post that halakhc obserance n some way affects the Dety.e., the Kabbalah. x These qute smply consttute dolatry worshp of a God n the mage of man (qute lterally, n the case of the Sefrotc pleroma). Thus, Lebowtz naldates the entre enterprse of ta ame ha-mtsot (reasons for the commandments) a pror. But ths leads to the obous queston: If Halakhah fulflls no functon n ether the human or dne realms, what, n fact, motates the Lebowtzan to obsere Halakhah? A possble answer s mplct n what we hae already stated f Lebowtz does not compromse on hs fact-alue dstncton and gnores any clams about cultural nfluence on one s alue system, then t appears as though the choce to be obserant s unmotated, rreducble, and unexplanable. Indeed, some nterpreters of Lebowtz hae taken ths route, xx and ths readng seems to be confrmed by Lebowtz s explct statement, There are no ways to fath, snce fath s the supreme, f not the only, manfestaton of man s free choce. xx But ths passage admts of more than one nterpretaton. A free choce (Lebowtz, n the orgnal, uses the term behrah hofsht) xx s not necessarly an unmotated one, dependng on how one defnes freedom; Mamondes (and later, Kant), for example, defned freedom as actty n accordance wth the dctates of reason rather than those of the body a noton almost dametrcally opposed to the contemporary concepton of free wll. xx Prma face, Lebowtz does not seem to hae ths escape route, as he explctly remoes alue choces from the cognte realm. But ths may not be the end of the story. In Relgous Praxs, an early artcle whch coers many of the man themes n Lebowtz s thought, appears a passage whch, though t bears drectly upon ths ssue, has not merted scholarly attenton. xx In ths passage, Lebowtz argues that commtment to a theocentrc relgon, a alue system whch places an entty other than man at ts center, s the only possble method of lberatng oneself from the bondage of nature, the state n whch man s own desres dre hs behaor. He emphaszes that ths attrbute of relgon s not shared by axologes n whch ratonal or secular ethcal consderatons rather than selfsh nclnatons are the oerrdng alue such as humansm and natonalsm as one mght thnk. Instead, secular alue systems are themseles a form of bondage to nature, snce the ends they am to achee the good of the State, human happness, etc. are not transcendent. The fact that moral and natonal ams are products of the human sprt rather than blnd nstnct matters not for Lebowtz: From a relgous pont of ew the classfcaton of beng as nature, sprt, and God has no aldty. There s only the dyad: nature, whch ncludes the human sprt, and God. The only way man can break the bonds of nature s by cleang to God; by actng n complance wth the dne wll rather than n accordance wth xx, xx the human wll. The unqueness of Judasm as an axology, n Lebowtz s thought, les precsely n the fact that t s antthetcal to nature and all alues dered from t. Ths passage may be taken as a justfcaton of halakhc obserance or as smply descrpte (see the preous note for a full dscusson). In ether case, Lebowtz s pont s profound, aluable, and deeply troublng: profound, because t bulds upon the powerful human yearnng for transcendence; aluable, for drawng a clear demarcaton between Judasm and competng modern alue systems whch could be put to great use n Orthodox deology; and troublng, because the prce of ths maneuer s denyng the possblty of an Orthodoxy whch ams to synthesze the best of secular culture whch, f lmted to alueneutral scence or een other areas of culture wthout extendng to the realm of deals, aspratons, and alues, results n an mpoershed synthess ndeed wth tradtonal Judasm and Nature Judasm. Ths of course s precsely the route taken by Yeshayahu Lebowtz, and to hm we may turn to demonstrate the mplcatons of such a step. Lebowtz s ew of moralty as nmcal and rreleant to Judasm was one of hs central contentons. xx In a preous artcle, I hae had occason to cte hs bluntest quotaton on the topc: There s no dstncton between Loe your neghbor as yourself (Letcus 19:18) and You shall surely erase the memory of Amaleq (Deuteronomy 25:19). As for Loe your neghbor as yourself, ts characterzaton as the ethc of Judasm s none other than a heretcal falsfcaton of the Torah. xx Ths passage expresses Lebowtz s astoundng noton that the moral law of the Torah, the commandments whch appear to dere from the Bble s reolutonary concepton of human alue, hae n fact nothng to do wth moralty at all. Ths s a necessary consequence of Lebowtz s system, as the followng passage, whch I hae quoted at length on account of ts centralty, llumnates: Ethcs, when regarded as uncondtonally assertng ts own aldty, s an athestc category par excellence. [ ] The Torah does not recognze moral mperates stemmng from knowledge of natural realty or from awareness of man s duty to hs fellow man. All t recognzes are Mtzoth, dne mperates. [ ] The counsel of conscence s not a relgous concept. The God n one s heart Lebowtz argues that commtment to a theocentrc relgon, a alue system whch places an entty other than man at ts center, s the only possble method of lberatng oneself from the bondage of nature. whch humanst moralsts sometmes noke s a strange god. [ ] You shall loe your neghbor as yourself s a great rule of the Torah not because t s a precept transcendng the formalsm of law and aboe the Mtzoth but precsely because t appears as one of the 613 Mtzoth. [ ] You shall loe your neghbor as yourself does not, as such, occur n the Torah. The readng s: You shall loe your neghbor as yourself, I am God. xx In the fnal analyss, for all the phlosophcal rtuosty edent n Lebowtz s analyss, t s qute dffcult to accept t as smply a presentaton of the tradtonal Jewsh ew, as Snce God Hmself s the telos of the halakhc system, ths worshp whch, for Lebowtz, s the performance of the mtsot, no more and no less does not hae any ths-worldly meanng or purpose. Lebowtz contends. xxx To take a well-known example, Abraham s demand of God, Shall the Judge of the earth not do justce? xxx seems to presuppose an ndependent standard of moralty to whch not only humans but een God s held. xxx Thus, adocates of synthess need not feel unduly threatened by Lebowtz. Neertheless, Lebowtz does brllantly expose the tenson between the relgous deals of sacrfce and aodah l-shemah and the deeply held commtments of Modern Orthodoxy to unersal moralty, a tenson whch cannot be recast postely as a fructfyng dalectc but consttutes rather a genune phlosophcal dffculty, as Lebowtz shows. How does Modern Orthodoxy reconcle the Abraham who challenges God s ways n the name of a unersal moralty wth the Abraham who a few chapters later wllngly submts to God s demand for human sacrfce? What does aodah l-shemah mean, f not a wllngness to jettson all alues n the face of the dne command? Can the Orthodox relatonshp to nature and nature s laws be other than Lebowtz s ndfference and negaton? The Lebowtzan crtque has shown us that a facle dentfcaton of the telos of the Halakhah wth moral or otherwse natural ends s, f not dolatry, certanly a step whch calls nto queston other fundamental relgous concepts. What we must do s artculate an deology whch preseres both our uncondtonal commtment to the Halakhah as expressed n the deal of Torah l-shemah, and our most dearly held ntutons about halakhc Judasm s atttudes toward nature and moralty. Modern Orthodoxy demands no less. El Putterman s a Junor at YC majorng n Mathematcs and Physcs and s a Staff Wrter for Kol Hameaser. 15

16 I would lke to thank a mor for allowng me to take some of Yeshayahu Lebowtz s books to Israel where (on the plane, exhausted but unable to sleep) I was frst exposed to hs thought, and Prof. Danel Rynhold of the Jewsh Phlosophy department, who offered a hghly stmulatng course n 20 th -century Jewsh phlosophy, one of whose foc was Lebowtz, last summer. A wde selecton of Lebowtz s artcles has been translated nto Englsh n the olume Judasm, Human Values, and the Jewsh State (Cambrdge, MA: Harard Unersty Press: 1992), edted by Elezer Goldman. The edtor s ntroducton (pp. -xxx) s almost certanly the best summary of Lebowtz s thought aalable n Englsh. References wll be made to ths olume when possble. Aot 1:3; Mamondes, Mshneh Torah, Hlkhot Teshuah, ch. 10. Yeshayahu Lebowtz, Ha-Rambam Ha- Adam ha-araham, Be-Terem 211 (1955): 20-23, at p. 22. On prayer, see Of Prayer, n Judasm, pp Strctly speakng, from ths argument t follows only that the prospect reward or punshment should not be the motatng factor n obserance, not that God does not reward or punsh. A fuller presentaton of ths pont would explan how Lebowtz s denal of Dne Prodence follows drectly from hs metaphyscs n whch the dea of dne transcendence s taken to ts logcal extreme. Howeer, the tghtly ntegrated nature of Lebowtz s thought means that we wll come across a closely related pont though n an axologcal rather than metaphyscal context shortly. Jacob J. Schachter, Submttng to Dne Relgous Authorty n a World of Personal Autonomy: The Challenge of Choce, Kol Hameaser 3:1 (August 2010): 5-7. Readers wll forge, I hope, my falure to menton or adhere to the dstncton between norms and alues, whch s rreleant for our purposes. Ths argument s entrely analogous to one deeloped by Menahem Fsch, accordng to whch ratonalty seres as a progresse methodology for acheng a partcular goal, but has nothng to say about the choce of goal. See Fsch, Ratonal Rabbs (Bloomngton, IN: Indana Unersty Press, 1997), pp The fact-alue dstncton n the strong formulatons of Lebowtz and Fsch runs drectly counter to Enlghtenment attempts, notably by fgures lke Kant, to dere a moralty from ratonal prncples. It does not contradct the general Enlghtenment optmsm accordng to whch reason would be able to achee human happness, so long as t s recognzed that such humansm tself s the product of an unmotated choce; ndeed, Lebowtz, as a scentst, s less than nterested n proclamng the lmts of reason wthn the purely cognte realm. x Lebowtz, Judasm, p. 37. Jewsh thnkers nfluenced by postmodernst trends hae crtczed Lebowtz for gnorng the formate role played by upbrngng n determnng the alue system eentually chosen by a person; not that blnd nerta necessarly determnes one s lfe trajectory, but that growng up wthn a partcular tradton and way of lfe shapes one s processes of reasonng such that hs or her noton of what s ratonal behaor, or argument, or way of lfe, tends to be dfferent from that of someone rased wth a dfferent background. See Gl Zan, Dat le- Lo Ashlayah Nokhah Olam Post-Modernst (Jerusalem: Hartman Insttute Press, 2005), and A Sag, Etgar ha-shah el ha-masoret (Jerusalem: Hartman Insttute Press, 2003) for a dscusson of the dffcultes wth Lebowtz s concepton of fath, and Danel Rynhold, Two Models of Jewsh Phlosophy (Oxford: Oxford Unersty Press, 2005), for a dscusson of the based ratonalty whch beleers use n connecton wth ther relgous fath. x Ths argument seres as a powerful reducto ad absurdum aganst Dne Command Moralty, e-en kan makom le-ha arkh. x Hearng about the reward and punshment assocated wth Jewsh law mght dre a selfsh person to obserance, but by adoptng such a lfestyle, he has also thereby made a alue choce, not a purely ratonal one that of egosm. Of course, as noted, Lebowtz does not accept tradtonal notons of reward and punshment, so he consders such aodah she-lo l-shemah as not only relgously abhorrent but msguded. x Lebowtz usually referred to the moral system of the athest Kant (Judasm, p. 19) when dscussng moralty, but hs pont apples whether the system s a deontologcal prescrpton of certan absolute dutes towards other humans as ends n themseles, or a consequentalst ethc seekng to maxmze human happness. x Lebowtz, Judasm, p x See especally After Kbyeh, n bd., pp ; see also bd., p. 150, where Lebowtz accuses Relgous Zonsm of defyng the State of Israel. x Ibd., p. 44. x Assumng one takes hs treatment n the Gude of the Perplexed III:25-49 serously and not, as Lebowtz does, as a smokescreen for suspcously Lebowtzan ews (whch allows hm to call Mamondes the greatest of beleers; see Judasm, pp. 39, 121, and also p. 56). Ths nterpretaton of Mamondes s found n a number of hs artcles, as well as n hs short book, Emunato shel ha-rambam (Hebrew; Tel A: Mnstry of Defense Press, Kol Hameaser 1980). x See Elezer Berkots, Essental Essays on Judasm (Jerusalem: Shalem Press, 2002), pp x Lebowtz, Judasm, pp. 76, Gershom Scholem essentally agreed wth Lebowtz s assessment that Kabbalah, wth ts mythcal elements and ts theurgy, represents a foregn graft onto Rabbnc Judasm, but Moshe Idel, argung that theurgc deas are well-attested n rabbnc lterature and n fact reflect a Jewsh mystcal tradton datng to rabbnc tmes, has dsputed ths. See Gershom Scholem, Major Trends n Jewsh Mystcsm (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), pp , and Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectes (New Haen: Yale Unersty Press, 1988), esp. pp , xx See note x. A Sag, Yeshayahu Lebowtz A Breakthrough n Jewsh Phlosophy: Relgon wthout Metaphyscs, Relgous Studes 33,2 (1997): , at p xx Lebowtz, Judasm, p. 37. xx Idem, Emunah, Hstoryah, a-arakhm: Ma amarm e-hartsa ot (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1982), p. 13. xx See Dad Shatz, Judasm, Free Wll, and the Genetc and Neuroscentfc Reolutons, n Ytzhak Berger and Dad Shatz (eds.), Judasm, Scence, and Moral Responsblty (New York: Rowman and Lttlefeld Publshers, 2002), pp Such poste defntons of freedom are attacked by Isaah Berln n hs famous essay, Two Concepts of Lberty, Four Essays on Lberty (London: Oxford Unersty Press, 1969), as conduce to totaltaran deologzng. xx Lebowtz, Judasm, pp xx Ibd., p. 22. xx If ths passage s read as I read t as an attempt to justfy halakhc obserance, een post facto, as opposed to any secular alue system, and hence an escape route from the regnant understandng of Lebowtz as denyng any sort of motaton for obserance Lebowtz s argument runs nto a dffculty. For a justfcaton of a partcular choce of axology aganst all others to succeed, t must appeal to some human sprtual nstnct (I use scare quotes n deference to Lebowtz). In ths case, Lebowtz appeals to the human yearnng for the transcendent. Howeer, by Lebowtz s own argument, the human sprt s smply a part of nature; thus, the human need to grasp at somethng transcendent s no dfferent from any other nclnaton. If so, the queston returns n full force: f Lebowtz does not n any way prlege the dre for the transcendent oer other human dres, he has proded no justfcaton for halakhc obserance. In my read, Lebowtz smply faled to realze ths dffculty, but hs ery attempt demonstrates that he dd not belee that the choce of the beleer s completely unmotated. Howeer, f one reads ths passage as merely a further deelopment of Lebowtz s phenomenology of Judasm rather than as an attempt to ground t n what seems reasonable, then one arres agan at a Lebowtz who beleed that the relgous choce s an arbtrary one. xx A well-known dffculty wth Lebowtz s poston s that t appears to conflct wth hs harsh moral crtque of the natonal securty polces of the State of Israel. On ths, see Elezer Goldman, Relgon and Moralty n the Thought of Yeshayahu Lebowtz, n A Sag and Danel Statman (eds.), Between Relgon and Moralty (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan Unersty Press, 1993), pp , and Moshe Halbertal, Yeshayahu Lebowtz: Between Relgous Thought and Socal Crtcsm, n A Sag (ed.), Yeshayahu Lebowtz: Olamo e-haguto (Jerusalem: Keter, 1995), pp In a preous artcle, I approngly cted Goldman s poston, but I fnd that I currently lean towards Halbertal s understandng. xx Yeshayahu Lebowtz, Judasm, Relgon, and the Jewsh State (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Schocken Press, 1979), p xx Idem, Judasm, pp xxx At least one other 20 th -century Jewsh phlosopher was afflcted wth the malady of ex cathedra pronouncements n the name of the Halakhah, e-hamen yan. It seems unfortunate that a lack of crtcal reflecton and hstorcal conscousness seems to be a prerequste for theologcal nnoateness. xxx Geness 18:25. xxx Ths argument s cted by Ra Aharon Lchtensten, By Hs Lght (Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta Publshng House, 2003), p. 108, n the name of Benjamn Whchcote. In Judasm, pp , Lebowtz attempts to wae away the challenge to hs system posed by Abraham s dscusson wth God n Geness 18 but wthout much success. 16

17 Judasm and Nature Does Jewsh Tradton Recognze a Sprtualty Independent of Halakhah? BY: Danny Shulman Last Shau ot, I attended a sh ur n whch the rabb reported beng asked the followng queston: s t acceptable to use psychedelc mushrooms to enhance tefllah (prayer)? Or, as t was reframed, does Judasm belee that creatng feelngs of transcendence and connecton wth God through alternate means qualfes as a legtmate form of sprtualty and worshp of Hm? The speaker responded that, accordng to the Jewsh tradton, sprtualty must emerge from shemrat ha-halakhah (halakhc obserance) and behrah hofsht (free wll); alternate methodologes are not acceptable. To clarfy ths ewpont, t seems that, unlke ether Yeshayahu Lebowtz s or Halakhc Man s rgd legalstc ewponts, whch lmt the totalty of relgous lfe to concrete halakhc obserance, ths perspecte does belee that complete Jewsh lng goes beyond formal actons by enterng nto the subjecte and personal world of emotons and feelngs. Yet, despte mantanng that aodat Hashem (worshp of God) enters the subjecte, personal and ntmate realm of Man s emotonal lfe, ths ewpont nssts that objecte halakhc lng must be the foundaton of sprtualty and relgously-sgnfcant emotonal experences. Sprtualty, then, s really the handmaden of mtsot and only emerges secondarly n dne worshp. Is ths the only acceptable approach to sprtualty n Judasm? Does Judasm really belee that sprtualty acheed ndependently of Halakhah s llegtmate? Whle the perspecte whch the rabb adopted seems to be a legtmate tradtonal Jewsh approach to sprtualty, possble the deal Jewsh approach s t the excluse ew? In suggestng an alternate perspecte to Judasm s ew of sprtualty, the remander of ths artcle wll analyze a fascnatng Gemara on ths topc, cte two releant stores from Tanakh, and conclude wth an open-ended queston. Ths wll help to challenge, queston and clarfy how we understand the nterplay between sprtualty and mtsot n the broader context of our aodat Hashem. The frst releant source s an engmatc passage n Massekhet Shabbat dealng wth multple types of smhah (happness). The Gemara begns by reconclng a contradcton n Ecclesastes by dstngushng between two types of smhah: smhah shel mtsah (happness resultng from a mtsah) and smhah she-eno shel mtsah (happness not resultng from a mtsah). Whle Ecclesastes prases smhah shel mtsah because, ostensbly, the powerful sprtual emotons are assocated wth performance of a mtsah and connectng wth God, Ecclesastes crtczes smhah she-eno shel mtsah because t appears to lack those qualtes. Although the Gemara s dealng wth smhah, I assume smhah s synonymous wth sprtualty, as both refer to dentcal transcendent and euphorc emotonal experences. Ths source seems to be defnte support for the theory that Judasm belees sprtualty must be assocated wth mtsot and s otherwse meanngless. Howeer, n lght of the Gemara s contnuaton, t seems that there s an added layer of complexty whch must be addressed. The Gemara proceeds to cte 2 Kngs 3:15, where Elsha requests a muscal performance n "If Elsha and Ytshak utlzed natural means of acheng a sprtual feelng before they communcated wth God, t seems that the common man should be able to utlze and channel such mechansms to try and achee sprtual experences." order to allow hm to prophesy: Get me a muscan; as the muscan played, the hand of the Lord came upon hm. Expoundng on ths story, the Gemara teaches that one cannot experence dne reelaton n a depressed state [ ] rather, only n a state of smhah. Thus, based on a erse dealng wth the alue-neutral smhah of musc, whch ostensbly should be defned as smhah she-eno shel mtsah, the Gemara teaches the unersal prncple that man must be n an uplfted sprtual state to recee dne reelaton. Ths exposton seems to ndcate an extremely poste perspecte on such sprtual experences een though they do not qualfy as typcal kyyume "Does Judasm really belee that sprtualty acheed ndependently of Halakhah s llegtmate?" mtsah (fulfllments of mtsot). Thus, t seems that the Gemara s teachng that smhah she-eno shel mtsah s only meanngless and degenerate when t s lmted to ts natural state. When, howeer, t s channeled towards connectng wth God, t can be the foundaton of dne reelaton. In ths lght, we can now reanalyze our ntal dstnctons and better understand that there are really three types of smhah n the Gemara. On the one hand, the Gemara deals wth the noble and wonderful smhah shel mtsah, the mode of sprtualty whch ntegrates performance of a mtsah wth transcendent emotonal feelngs of connectng to God. In ths en, Rash ctes the example of hakhnasat kallah (prodng funds for weddngs) as a mtsah whch has drect assocatons wth euphorc and transcendent emotons, n order to demonstrate what smhah shel mtsah means. Ths, the Gemara belees, s the deal type of sprtualty. On the other hand, the Gemara also deals wth the meanngless and acant smhah sheeno shel mtsah. Ths type of sprtualty, neer transcendng the status of beng purposeless eno shel mtsah s the knd of sprtualty assocated wth hedonstc behaor. It noles acheng an ntense feelng of blss assocated wth extreme physcal pleasure that s unredeemed and unhallowed. Ths type of sprtualty s crtczed n the Gemara because t s meanngless and lmted to elctng pleasant and enjoyable feelngs. Fnally, the Gemara presents the thrd model of sprtualty one whch s channeled towards God. Inherently, the musc Elsha lstened to was unconnected to a mtsah; t was a mundane acton whch he found sprtually uplftng. Howeer, when he embraced the experence and used t to channel hs emotons towards God, t became a relgously meanngful eent. In fact, t was so sgnfcant that the Gemara used musc as the example to teach the necessary preparatory mndset for experencng dne reelaton. Along the same lnes, there s also an mportant source n Beresht whch s releant to our dscusson. Before blessng Esa, Ytshak requested that he prepare a dsh for me such as I lke, and brng t to me to eat, so that I may ge you my nnermost blessngs. Ths story reflects the same mentalty that an enlghtened and uplfted emotonal state acheed through mundane means can be used to encounter the Dne. In fact, Rabbenu Bahya and Rabbenu Nssm both connect ths story to the Gemara n Shabbat and the related story of Elsha n 2 Kngs mentoned aboe. They explan that Ytshak requested the food to ntate a sprtual experence n order to prepare hmself for an encounter wth the Dne. x In ths lght, t seems from these sources that there s legtmate relgous alue to sprtualty that flows from sources whch are ndependent of Halakhah. If Elsha and Ytshak utlzed natural means of acheng a sprtual feelng before they communcated wth God, t seems that the common man should be able to utlze and channel such mechansms to try and achee sprtual experences as well. If we ew Tanakh as our gude, the lesson of these stores seems to be that n the course of searchng for sprtualty and uplftng experences, we can use means whch, whle of course not olatng Halakhah, x are not techncally mtsot, n order to reach beyond ourseles and try to rendezous wth the Infnte. Fnally, there s one last queston that s releant to ths dscusson: do we need a source n the tradton n order to legtmze sprtualty? Undoubtedly, hang a precedent n Tanakh or the Talmud helps bolster ths atttude towards sprtualty; but s t really needed? Can there be a wrong approach to sprtualty f t s personal and subjecte? Assumng we are workng wthn the bounds of Halakhah, f someone fnds somethng to be relgously fulfllng, can anyone deny the relgous alue of that? In fact, een f we accept the suggeston that the deal approach to sprtualty and connectng to God accordng to our tradton s the more tradtonal approach of keepng Halakhah and mtsot, because of the complextes and procltes of each nddual, t seems dffcult to suggest that hs or her own mode of connectng wth God would be llegtmate. In ths en, I am remnded of a fabulous quotaton I heard from R. Moshe Taragn of Yeshat Har Etzon some years ago (though I do not recall the context): God s nfnte; there must be an nfnte number of ways to connect wth Hm. 17

18 Danny Shulman s a senor at YC and SSSB majorng n Jewsh Studes and Accountng and s a Staff Wrter for Kol Hameaser. I want to make ery clear that I am not condonng the use of drugs. I am merely analyzng a theoretcal queston to better understand Judasm. In ths en, sprtual experences trggered by acttes such as medtaton, lstenng to or playng musc, and exercse are all ncluded wthn the purew of our analyss. Shabbat 30b. Ibd. Interestngly, the Gemara does call ths smhah shel mtsah. Howeer, Rabbenu Hannanel, n both Shabbat and the parallel sugya n Pesahm 117a, leaes out shel mtsah. Also, Rash to Pesahm 117a, s.. Smhah shel mtsah, explans that the mtsah s one of hashra at ha-shekhnah, whch means that the mtsah s an after-effect of the smhah, and not ce ersa. Rash to Shabbat 30b, s.. Smhah shel mtsah. That beng sad, t s possble that t s also a genune, relgously sprtual experence. Howeer, because of the far more pressng consderatons of Halakhah, ths s wholly unacceptable n the Jewsh tradton; Halakhah preals, een when faced wth a competng alue, such as sprtualty. Beresht 27:4. Rabbenu Bahya to Beresht 27:5; Rabbenu Nssm, Derashot ha-ran, Derashot Shen a-hamsh. x Alternately, a number of commentators explan that Ytshak was offerng Esa a mert so that he would desere the blessngs. See the commentares of Seforno, Abraanel and Nets. x In lght of the openng story, t must be noted that many consder drugs to be forbdden; see, for example, Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh De ah 3:35. Nonetheless, the socal realty we are faced wth s one n whch people use such substances; thus, encouragng the channelng of such experences towards God seems to be the best aalable approach. Howeer, t seems that the deal scenaro would more closely follow Elsha s example and use musc, or somethng of that nature, to achee an uplfted sprtual state. Kol Hameaser On Bkns and Earthquakes BY: Reuen Rand It was near the end of the Kol Hameaser Shabbaton n Teaneck, New Jersey. The forty students who dentfed wth the magazne or smply felt lke gong out for the Sabbath were congregated n the basement of Congregaton Rnat Ysrael for a queston and answer sesson wth R. Jeremy Weder, a rosh yeshah at Yesha Unersty. R. Weder was respondng to a set of prepared questons and brought up a recent news artcle. I just saw n the news that an mam blamed the Hat earthquake on women dressng mmodestly. Does anyone here consder ths a reasonable poston? A grand total of zero hands were rased n response to R. Weder s queston. What f the queston had been dfferent? What f the Sages of the Talmud had been under fre, rather than an Iranan clerc? Suppose a pulpt rabb had stood up and posed the followng queston: I read n the Talmud that twenty-four thousand students of Rebbe Aka ded for the sn of not suffcently respectng one another. Does anyone n ths room belee such a thng? Would we rase our hands n support of the Talmud, howeer unntute ts clam? Why, then, should we so quckly reject ths poor Muslm prayer leader, when he says somethng so smlar? There appears to be a startlng dsconnect between the Modern Orthodox worldew and the postons of ts predecessors. As demonstrated by the show of hands n response to R. Weder s queston, Modern Orthodox Jews are remarkably unwllng to connect acts of God to actual dne retrbuton. But earthly reward and punshment hae been promnent features of all forms of Judasm snce ts mraculous reelaton at Sna. For f there s one prncple that remans constant and unquestoned from Geness to Job, t s ths: God acts. God brngs floods and famnes, Babylonans and wcked zers, all to punsh Hs people. Furthermore, the Talmud states: Why was the frst Sanctuary destroyed? Because of three [el] thngs whch prealed there: dolatry, mmoralty [gllu arayot], bloodshed. [ ] Immoralty [prealed] as t s wrtten: Moreoer the Lord sad: Because the daughters of Zon are haughty, and walk wth stretchedforth necks and wanton eyes, walkng and mncng as they go, and make a tnklng wth ther feet. Because the daughters of Zon are haughty,.e., they So why hae we moed so far from the formulatons of our forebears, to the extent that dne nterenton s ewed by many as an mpossblty? used to walk wth proud carrage. And wanton eyes,.e., they flled ther eyes wth kohl. Walkng and mncng as they go,.e., they used to walk wth the heel touchng the toe. And make a tnklng wth ther feet, R. Isaac sad: They would take myrrh and balsam and place t n ther shoes and when they came near the young men of Israel they would kck, causng the balsam to squrt at them and would thus cause the el desre to enter them lke an adder s poson. Not only does God act, Rabbnc Judasm clamed to know why He acts. It certanly clamed to know what He detested, and breaches of sexual proprety were near the top of the lst. So how dd attrbutng msfortune to corrupton and mmoralty become unacceptable? The quntessental formulaton of God s reward for good deeds and punshment of sns comes n Moses s speech to the Hebrews n Deuteronomy 11, part of whch s mmedately recognzable as the Ve-Hayah m shamo a chapter of the Shema. In t, Moses detals the repercussons of followng the Lord or rejectng Hm. The ncluded promses of peace and prosperty troubled the Talmudc Sages, who debated whether God really rewards good deeds on Earth. In Kddushn 39b, the Sages confront the problems of theodcy by clamng that God rewards the rghteous n the afterlfe, rather than on Earth. Howeer, ths rule s not unersally appled; the Gemara admts that anyone who sets off to perform a good deed wll be protected from unlkely njures. Moreoer, the Gemara contends that people are punshed for snnng aganst God 18

19 when t attempts to justfy the death of a man by clamng that he had dolatrous thoughts. Throughout the Gemara s dscussons, n Kddushn and elsewhere, one thng s clear: God does possess the power to nfluence eents on Earth and He makes use of that power. And, of course, we pray thrce daly for God to heal our wounds and brng forth fresh produce from the Earth, whch presupposes God s ablty to nfluence the physcal world drectly. So why hae we moed so far from the formulatons of our forebears, to the extent that dne nterenton s ewed by many as an mpossblty? Much of ths dergence can be explaned by the declne of the God of the Gaps theology. Early relgous people saw God s hand n bolts of lghtnng and other mysterous phenomena. As a modern socety that has recognzed that lghtnng, lke other supernatural eents, s merely a natural process, we are understandably wary of repeatng the mstakes of dsproed fundamentalsts. Moreoer, modern scence leaes ery lttle room for outsde nfluence, so how can we attrbute natural msfortunes to God? I know of two approaches to ths queston. The frst, adocated by Mamondes, s that God does not control nature but does nfluence human mnds and can thereby affect who s n a poston to be hurt by earthquakes and to what extent. Howeer, as the cognte scences progress n ther understandng of the human bran, I expect that ths theory wll become harder to mantan Artfcal Intellgence may bury t, The other approach, based n part on Mamondes theory of mracles, argues that God knew manknd s future from the tme of Creaton and bult earthquakes and smlar changes nto the Earth tself (and tmed them to go off) n order to punsh manknd when approprate. Ths theory must take account of the fact that changes propagate themseles. That s, f one man msplaces a set of keys, he may mss hs plane and an mportant meetng. The cancelled meetng wll change the schedules of a dozen other people who wll then change others les as well. Hence, f God were to cause an earthquake, t would need to be carefully calbrated to affect eery man on Earth n drect proporton to hs merts. Ths problem s obously more complex than rtually any studed by complexty theorsts (who analyze the computatonal dffculty of problems), yet the ery laws of our unerse must lead to a soluton. And though one msplaced stone or unntended njury durng the course of hstory could run the endeaor, God must punsh great sns wth calamtes of smlar magntudes. x Despte the dffcultes wth these two approaches, they seem to be the most plausble scentfc frameworks for dne nterference. x Though clngng to a perspecte of the unerse that s admttedly dffcult to reconcle wth ts physcal laws cannot be an easy proposton, the alternate may be a nonstarter. The moment a stock market crash, an earthquake or any personal msfortune can no longer sere as an mpetus to reflect upon one s actons (to conduct a heshbon ha-nefesh, to use the Hebrew formulaton), Judasm wll lose a crucal brdge between relgon and daly lfe that has sustaned t for centures. Concludng a long arc of hstory, n whch the percepton of God s nfluence on Earth gradually shrank to almost nothng, we wll reject hashgahah peratt (dne prodence) entrely and thereby expel God from our les. It would be an gnoble end to a proud tradton and one that I expect most Orthodox Jews would rather stae off for as long as reason permts. Modern Orthodox Jews may naturally shrnk away from talkng about dne punshment, because they assocate such dscusson Modern Orthodox Jews may naturally shrnk away from talkng about dne punshment, because they assocate such dscusson wth the angry, bgoted statements of men lke Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. wth the angry, bgoted statements of men lke Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. x When R. Oada Yosef famously proclamed that the sx mllon ctms of the Holocaust were glgulm, or rencarnatons, of earler snners, many Jews were justfably outraged. x Though he was talkng about the beloed parents and sblngs of Jews stll lng that had ded gruesome deaths, he somehow found t wthn hm to label them the rencarnated thugs, murderers and rapsts of preous generatons. But for all of R. Yosef s nsenstty, we cannot gnore the Holocaust from a theologcal perspecte. For generatons, we attrbuted the tragedes that befell us to our sns and our Exle to God s retrbuton; shall we now treat the Holocaust as smply a chance of fate? Dr. Haym Soloetchk clamed that, after the Holocaust, t [s] safe to say that the percepton of God as a daly, natural force s no Judasm and Nature longer present to a sgnfcant degree n any sector of modern Jewry, een the most relgous. x If Orthodoxy takes ths een further, and rejects the noton of a personal God n doctrne as well as experence, ths, too, would be a tragedy. In the Book of Jonah, an eer-present God asks: Should I not hae mercy upon Nneeh, that great cty? x But how should we react to the modern Nneehs of New Orleans, Hat and Islamabad, where God s mercy smply was not enough? When the floodwaters surged through Pakstan to leae the land desolate, perhaps our frst duty was to contact our ad agences and see how we could help those who were spared. But our second duty, as relgous people, must be to consder why God brngs such calamtes upon manknd and attempt to learn from them. I magne R. Weder would prefer that we learn our lessons from calamtes brought about by factonalsm and strfe rather than tght clothng, and I would agree wth hm. But f we add our oces to the jeers that greeted the poor Iranan prayer leader that dared clam that God may punsh mmodesty, I fear t wll come back to haunt us. For the next tme a rabb tres to attrbute an eent lke the stock market crash of 2008, not to a lack of Congressonal oersght or the oerleeragng of Rchard S. Fuld, but to the greed and aarce that characterzed men lke Bernard L. Madoff, he, too, may be jeered. But the greatest blow wll not be to the preacher, but to a newly godless relgon. Reuen Rand s a senor at YC majorng n Mathematcs and Computer Scence. Iranan Clerc Blames Quakes on Promscuous Women, BBC News (Aprl 20, 2010), aalable at: Yeamot 62b. I should note that t s possble to construe R. Weder s challenge n an entrely dfferent lght. He may hae objected that the prayer leader s statement sered to renforce the Iranan patrarchy by dengratng women and blamng them for natural dsasters. Howeer, none of the men and women wth whom I talked after the sesson offered ths as ther ratonale for rejectng the prayer leader, objectng to hs statement on broader grounds. It s these grounds that I wsh to address. Yoma 9b, Soncno translaton. Mamondes, Gude of the Perplexed III:17. It should be noted that Judasm may requre a smlar formulaton n any case, n order to protect the noton of free wll, so we may well accept Mamondes soluton n order to kll two brds wth one dnely foreordaned stone. Mamondes approach also proes too lmted to grant God many of the powers He s assumed to hae. For example, f you follow ths approach of Mamondes, the yearly prayer for God to brng down ran would seem to be an exercse n futlty. Mamondes, Gude of the Perplexed II:29. x Such a flaw would presumably requre a fundamental workng of the laws of physcs, assumng that God has not drectly nterfered wth ts laws snce the Bg Bang. Howeer, a proponent of ths theory mght respond that there s no upper bound to the number of theoretcal substructures for unerses; hence, God could ew problems and ther solutons untl He produced the works of Shakespeare, as t were. We may also offer that God s judgment need not be exact and that some wrongs may be rghted n the World to Come (as per the Talmud), but ths does lttle to change the nature of the dlemma. If a more rgorous mathematcal analyss of the problem were possble, I would lke to see t. x A thrd formulaton rests upon the prncple of quantum ndetermnacy, whch contends that God can nfluence the ncalculable poston of elementary partcles and thereby nfluence eents on Earth. (Ths prncple s also noked n order to justfy free wll.) I do not know of any actual physcal model for the propagaton of ths nfluence and therefore cannot judge whether t s feasble or not. x It goes wthout sayng that they would be repulsed by the recent actons of the Westboro Baptst Church, whch pcketed the funerals of fallen solders, blamng ther deaths on homosexualty wthn the mltary. The dstncton between preachng that we as a socety hae snned and engagng n the erbal abuse of ndduals (the bblcally proscrbed ona at dearm see Baa Mets a 58b) should be clear. x Jack Katzenell, Rabb Says Holocaust Vctms were Rencarnatons of Snners, The Independent (August 6, 2000), aalable at: ddle-east/rabb-says-holocaust-ctms-wererencarnatons-of-snners html. x Haym Soloetchk, Rupture and Reconstructon: The Transformaton of Contemporary Orthodoxy, Tradton 28,4 (1994): x Jonah 4:

20 Kol Hameaser From Hasdut to Aatar BY: Adam Hertzberg In the flm Aatar, wrtten and drected by James Cameron, we are ntroduced to a speces of humanods called Na who nhabt the planet Pandora. We are ntroduced to them through the eyes of aatars, whch hae human mnds but are contaned n Na bodes. The aatars are sent to Pandora by a company lookng to mne a mneral called unobtanum and are nstructed to nfltrate the Omatcaya trbe of Na to learn about ther lfestyle, as well as to nstruct them n the ways of humans and teach them the Englsh language as well as human culture. Through the lens of one aatar, Jake Sully, who becomes ensconced n the habtat of these creatures, the audence learns much about the culture, lfestyle and relgon of the Na. When watchng the flm, one famlar wth Hasdc deas cannot help but see the smlartes between the phlosophcal underpnnngs of the relgon of the Na and mystcal strans of Judasm, especally Hasdut. As R. Benjamn Blech, a Professor of Talmud at Yesha Unersty and author of a number of books, put t, I had the feelng that f Cameron neer went to Hebrew school he surely had to dscuss hs work wth a rabb. The connectons wth Torah, Mdrash, and Hebrew words are just too frequent and strkng to be accdental. What s most strkng s the resemblance between ther respecte theologcal belefs as well as ther connecton wth the natural world. One of the most perase themes n the moe s the connecton between the Na and ther dety, Eywah. As one of the man characters explans, Eywah s ther dety, ther goddess made up of all lng thngs. Eerythng they know. Ther theology appears to be one of panthesm. Accordng to the Oxford Englsh Dctonary, panthesm s defned as the belef or doctrne that God and the Unerse are dentcal; the doctrne that God s eerythng and eerythng s God. Ths phlosophy belees that God and the world are one, that God does not exst outsde ths world. Howeer, there are at least two characterstcs of ther fath that would ndcate that the Na may not belee n panthesm. Frstly, n general, panthesm s not lmted to just lng thngs. It usually ncludes the belef that eerythng s God, ncludng nanmate objects. The Na practce a more naturalstc form of panthesm, beleng, namely, that God conssts of all lng thngs. Addtonally, one could see the theology of the Na as more smlar to pagansm. Throughout the flm, the characters often say that they are actng for the sake of Eywah and pray to Eywah wth the hope of effcacy. Accordng to the prncples of panthesm, howeer, t seems that prayer should not be effcacous, for the course of lfe s just the natural world of God unfoldng; God cannot nterene n world affars and dsrupt the progress of nature, for God s one wth nature. Stll, there s a scene n the moe that seems to suggest that the theology of the Na s most smlar to panthesm. Towards the end of the flm, Jake Sully, as an aatar, s preparng for a battle between the humans and the Na. He realzes how desperate the stuaton of the Na s and goes to pray at the Tree of Souls, the central place of worshp for the Na. As he fnshes hs prayer, mplorng Eywah to help them, Neytr, Jake s Na mate n the world of Pandora, approaches hm and tells hm that the wll of Eywah wll happen regardless. She says, Our Great Mother does not take sdes. She protects only the balance of lfe. Ths s lke Baruch Spnoza s panthesm, accordng to whch the eents of nature are just a manfestaton of God unfoldng. As Matthew J. Mllner of the Wtherspoon Insttute, a graduate student studyng Art Hstory at Prnceton Unersty, puts t, When the flm s man character, Jake Sully, mplores dne assstance, he does not pray to a tree. He prays, almost sacramentally, through a tree to the dety. Aatar s panthestc elements hae been the talk of many meda n the last year. Ross Douthat of The New York Tmes says, Aatar s Cameron s long apologa for panthesm a fath that equates God wth Nature. Mllner, on the other hand, ponts out that there s more thesm n the moe than Douthat ges t credt for. He notes that the dety, Eywah, does seem to nterene n the end. Howeer, one could post that the dne nterenton was naturalstc, just the hstory of the world unfoldng, consstent wth panthesm. Another journalst, Tam Hunt, on the other hand, mantans that the relgon depcted n Aatar s more of a panenthestc relgon. As he defnes t, Panenthesm holds that the unerse s wthn God but not dentcal wth God. Ths s to say that the world exsts wthn God, but God s exstence s not lmted to the world. He understands Eywah n Aatar as a network of energy nhabtng the world that the Na belee they can access. Hunt sees Eywah as an alluson to Hndusm and ts belef n the dne entty, called Brahman, whch, n hs words, s the source of all thngs. As a result of the smlarty between Eywah and Brahman, Hunt theorzes that the Na theology s n fact panenthestc, just lke Hndusm. He sad, Aatar does not really descrbe panthesm; rather, t descrbes a panenthestc way of lfe, made ery real for ts people due to the actual physcal connectons the Na enjoy wth Eywah. x The current pope, Benedct XVI, was quoted as referrng to the flm, not as panthestc or panenthestc, but as portrayng neopagansm, warnng aganst turnng nature nto a new dnty. x Lkewse, John Podhoretz of The Weekly Standard crtczed the relgon of the Na as mndless worshp and pagan rtuals. x R. Blech, n hs artcle, calls the Na pagans as well. x Where does Hasdut fall n ths pcture? Jay Mchaelson, of The Huffngton Post, belees that the relgon portrayed n the flm The queston as to whether Hasdut s a panthestc or panenthestc phlosophy s smlar to the debate oer the nature of the theology found n Aatar. resembles Hasdut. He says that the Na phlosophy s a bt of panthesm, a bt of nature mystcsm and a surprsng dash of monothesm, as well. In other words, t s Kabbalah, as fltered through the Hasdsm of the 19 th century and the neo-hasdsm of the 20 th and 21 st. x There has been much uncertanty as to the nature of the theology of Jewsh mystcsm, and specfcally of Hasdut, stemmng from the fact that Hasdc lterature can be read n dfferent ways. Whle some understand t to express a panthestc theology, others ew t as panenthestc materal. For nstance, there s a parable found n the Degel Mahaneh Efraym, wrtten by the Hasdc master R. Moshe Hayym Efraym of Sudlko, that allows for both possble readngs of Hasdut. x The parable s about a kng who sets up hs palace n such a way that there are many barrers one needs to pass n order to see hm, and behnd each barrer there are scattered treasures. Some people are mmedately deterred by the barrers. Others pass a number of barrers, collect some treasure and then return to where they came from. But the son of the kng, who desres to see hs father, wll pass through all of the barrers n order to do so. So, too, God exsts n ths world, as f beyond a number of barrers that block access to Hm. Some wll not een attempt to see Hm; others wll attempt, but wll be dstracted by eerythng else n ths world and lose sght of Hm. But he who s truly God s son desres to see Hm, so he wll do whateer t takes to do so. It s clear that ths parable emphaszes the extreme mmanence of God n ths world. It s not entrely clear, though, whether the parable mples that God only exsts n ths world, or, on the other hand, that God exsts n ths world but beyond as well. What s certan, howeer, s that God can be found n the physcal world, whether n the model of panthesm or of panenthesm. The queston as to whether Hasdut s a panthestc or panenthestc phlosophy s smlar to the debate oer the nature of the theology found n Aatar. Whle the prealng opnon s that the theology of the 20

21 Na s panthestc, or possbly pagan, there are those who mantan that t follows more of a panenthestc phlosophy. On the other hand, most consder Hasdut to be more lkely a panenthestc deology, due to the fact that a strctly panthestc phlosophy s relgously troublng, but, at the same tme, there are those who assert that t comes closer to panthesm. As such, Hasdut and Na theology are smlar n that they both flrt between the lnes of panthesm and panenthesm, whle possbly fndng themseles on dfferent sdes of the spectrum. What follows from a phlosophy of panthesm or panenthesm, for the Na, s a strong connecton wth nature. The Na ew ther planet Pandora as one network of energy flowng through all forms of lfe, and ther dety, Eywah, s, as one of the humans studyng them puts t, the network of energy that flows through all lng thngs. The Na care ery much about all of the creatures of the forest and are descrbed by the humans as hang a deep connecton wth them. They le n harmony wth the anmals and egetaton of the forest, tryng not to dsturb the equlbrum of nature. At one pont durng hs tranng, Jake Sully must kll one of the anmals n the forest. He prefaces hs acton by sayng to the anmal, I see you and thank you. Your sprt belongs to Ewyah. Here, he acknowledges the eternal connecton of all lng thngs through Ewyah and therefore thanks the beng that he s kllng n recognton that although the body wll be no longer, the sprt wll reman as part of the network of energy. Ths conscentousness fosters an extremely enronmentalst socety. Whle Hasdut has smlar notons of a connecton to nature, t dffers n ts oerall phlosophy. Ellot R. Wolfson, the Abraham Leberman Professor of Hebrew and Judac Studes at New York Unersty, descrbes Kabbalah and Hasdut as belef systems that understand ths world as mrrorng the world of the Dne, n a Platonc type of way. x Hence, whle such a theology does not ascrbe any dnty to ths world, per se, t establshes that ths world s created as a model of the dne world. Howeer, Arthur Green, an educator and scholar of Jewsh mystcsm and Hasdut, understands the connecton between God and ths world to be a much deeper one, more Ths accordngly, yelds a strong attenteness to the creatons of God and the enronment n whch one fnds. In ths way, Green portrays Hasdut as an eco-frendly relgon, ery smlar to the Na relgon n Aatar. smlar to the theology of the Na. He says, The understandng that God s the nnermost realty of all that s, and that God and the unerse are related not prmarly as Creator and creature, but as a deep structure and surface, s key to the Judasm of the future. x Furthermore, he thnks that Kabbalah and Hasdut prode that connecton. He notes that Kabbalah and Hasdut hae become more appealng n recent years, for people hae become more enronmentally conscous n the last few decades and are lookng for a relgous bass for ther newfound conscentousness. Green dscusses the process of Creaton as God transfusng Hmself nto hs creatons. He speaks of the letters of the Tetragrammaton transformng nto the word haayah ( beng ), or God becomng the bengs that He formed. In ths way, Green belees that Kabbalah and Hasdut represent the dea that ths world s dne and contans God n t. Ths, accordngly, leads to a strong attenteness to one s enronment, whch s the manfestaton of God n ths world. Although Man s a hgher form of beng than all other creatons, each creature embodes the lfe-energy and hence the presence of the One, and een though other creatons are at Man s dsposal to use, we stll seek a lfe of harmony and balance wth them. x Hasdut represents the dea of God s manfestaton n ths world. Ths world s dne and contans God n t. Ths, accordngly, yelds a strong attenteness to the creatons of God and the enronment n whch one fnds oneself. In ths way, Green portrays Hasdut as an eco-frendly belef system, ery smlar to the Na relgon n Judasm and Nature Aatar. What can be seen from ths dscusson s a close resemblance n theologcal outlook between the culture set forth n the moe Aatar and the phlosophy of mystcal Judasm, and specfcally Hasdut. They are smlar n ther theologcal outlook. Both present a strong theology of dne mmanence and dance between the lnes of panthesm and panenthesm, stressng a strong connecton to nature due to ts dne qualty and, as a result, accordng alue to nature and lfe n ths world. Adam Hertzberg receed hs B.A. n Phlosophy from YC and s currently studyng for semkhah at RIETS, as well as for an M.A. n Jewsh Phlosophy at BRGS. Mystcal Judasm refers to the general category of Judasm that deals wth more mystcal deas, ncludng Kaballah. Hasdut refers to the specfc deology of mystcal Judasm that was founded by the Ba al Shem To and hs followers. Benjamn Blech, Aatar and the Jews, Ash (February 6, 2010), aalable at: As such, Hasdut and Na theology are smlar n that they flrt between the lnes of panthesm and panenthesm, whle possbly fndng themseles on dfferent sdes of the spectrum. Panthesm, Oxford Englsh Dctonary, aalable at: Panthesm#cte_ref-0. The Wtherspoon Insttute s an ndependent research center that works to enhance publc understandng of the moral foundatons of free and democratc socetes. Located n Prnceton, New Jersey, the Insttute promotes the applcaton of fundamental prncples of republcan goernment and ordered lberty to contemporary problems through a arety of research and educatonal entures. Source: /ndex.php. Matthew J. Mllner, Aatar and ts Conserate Crtcs, Publc Dscourse (January 12, 2010), aalable at: Ross Douthat, Heaen and Nature, The New York Tmes (December 21, 2009), aalable at: 12/21/opnon/21douthat1.html?_r=1. Mllner, Aatar and ts Conserate Crtcs. Tam Hunt, Aatar, Blue Skn and the Ground of Beng, NoozHawk (January 16, 2010), aalable at: x Ibd. x Vatcan Crtcal of Aatar s sprtual message, CBC News (January 12, 2010), aalable at: 2/aatar-atcan.html. x John Podhoretz, Aatarocous, The Weekly Standard (December 28, 2009), aalable at: p?pg=1. x Blech, Aatar and the Jews. x Jay Mchaelson, The Meanng of Aatar: Eerythng s God (A Response to Ross Douthat and Other Naysayers of Panthesm ), The Huffngton Post (December 22, 2009), aalable at: Jay Mchaelson s a columnst, actst and recent professor at Boston Unersty s law school. x Based on a classroom dscusson wth Dr. Jonathan Dauber, Professor of Jewsh Phlosophy at Yesha Unersty (Sprng 2010). x Ellot R. Wolfson, Mrror of Nature Reflected n the Symbolsm of Medeal Kabbalah, n Haa Trosh-Samuelson (ed.), Judasm and Ecology: Created World and Reealed World (Cambrdge, MA: Harard Unersty Press, 2002), pp x Arthur Green, A Kabbalah for the Enronmental Age, n Judasm and Ecology: Created World and Reealed World, pp x Ibd. 21

22 T BY: Katlyn Respler owards the begnnng of our early chldhood educaton, we were probably taught the mportant halakhah of makng sure our pets are fed before sttng down to a meal ourseles. As a kndergartener, I was extremely makpd (strct) on ths halakhah and always made sure to sprnkle a few flecks of goldfsh food nto my fsh tank before hang dnner. When I was a few years older, and slghtly wser, I began to contemplate the extreme senstty that the Torah dsplays towards anmals, besdes for the elementary example I remember from kndergarten, for Judasm prdes tself on the naton-wde feelng of rahamanut (pty) that exsts amongst our people. Our halakhc system reflects ths Jewsh character trat and embodes the Torah s senstty to anmals. For nstance, the Torah promses long lfe to whoeer shoos away the mother brd before takng her eggs or chcks from her nest so that the mother brd does not hae to panfully wtness her chldren beng taken away from her. We are also forbdden to eat a lmb from an anmal wthout kllng t frst. Ths halakhah s regarded wth such graty that t s not only ncluded n our long lst of 613 mtsot from the Torah, but t s also counted among the shea mtsot Bene Noah (seen Noahde laws). Een our rtual slaughter laws force us to check the knfe used n order to guarantee that t s as sharp as possble so that t wll cause mmedate death and the anmal wll feel as lttle pan as possble. The Mshnah n Hulln goes as far as to name all the types of knes and saws that cannot be used because they cause a lag between the tme the knfe cuts the anmal s neck and the tme the anmal des. We are also commanded not to kll a parent anmal and ts chld on the same day. Rambam explans that ths s prohbted because the pan of anmals under such crcumstances s ery great. There s no dfference n ths case between the pan of people and the pan of other lng bengs, snce the loe and the tenderness of the mother for her young ones s not produced by reasonng, but by feelng, and ths faculty exsts not only n people but n most lng thngs. Een when t comes to harestng our felds, we are gen strct commandments on the proper way to treat the anmals workng for us. We are commanded not to muzzle an ox as t threshes, x and we are nstructed not to force an ox and a donkey to thresh together. x Ibn Ezra comments that the reason we do not allow an ox and a donkey to thresh together s because t wll be unfar to the donkey, whch s sbly weaker than the ox. x Een wth respect to Hlkhot Shabbat, we are lenent when t comes to takng care of anmals. x In short, Kol Hameaser Korbanot, Kapparot, and What Keeps Us Compassonate "[T]he many laws mentoned here are all catered to the needs, emotonal and physcal, of the anmals noled" the many laws mentoned here are all catered to the needs, emotonal and physcal, of the anmals noled. Rahamanut, howeer, seems to be lackng when t comes to the rtual sacrfcal practces of the Bet ha-mkdash. The entre dea of korbanot (sacrfces) seems to be n drect opposton to the senstty towards anmals that the Torah expresses n other nstances. Besdes for the oerarchng dea of kllng nnocent anmals as a means of serng God, the actual practces carred out before offerng the anmal seem to be extraneously nhumane. The korban was slaughtered accordng to the laws of shehtah (rtual slaughter), but the blood was then extracted and sprnkled on the Mzbeah (Altar). Followng the sprnklng, the remanng blood was poured out at the base of the Mzbeah, and the anmal was then sknned and cut up before beng offered. The steps taken after kllng the anmal seem to be oerly nsenste and wthout apparent sgnfcance to justfy them. Rambam addresses the dea of future korbanot n Gude for the Perplexed. x He frst notes the conceptual dfference between two types of serce of God: prayer and sacrfce. Whle prayer s encouraged n eery facet of lfe and for eery sngle person, sacrfcal worshp s lmted to the Kohanm n the Bet ha-mkdash and to specfc tmes and purposes. Accordng to Rambam, God commanded that we brng korbanot to sere Hm because when we were taken out of Egypt, we were entrenched n a culture that was centered around the sacrfcal worshp of pagan gods. He explans that []t s, namely, mpossble to go suddenly from one extreme to the other: t s therefore accordng to the nature of man mpossble for hm suddenly to dscontnue eerythng to whch he has been accustomed. x In order to keep the fath of the people and allow them to sere a new dety wth some semblance of conenton, God commanded sacrfcal worshp but set seere lmtatons so that the people would reman fathful to Hm. Accordng to Rambam, worshp based on korbanot s not a le-ka-tehllah (deal) stuaton, and t wll not be necessary when the Jewsh People are less healy nfluenced by the practces of other relgons. The Mdrash n Vaykra Rabbah supports such an dea, clamng that n the future, all sacrfces, besdes for the thanksgng sacrfce, wll be abandoned. x R. Araham Ytshak ha-kohen Kook takes an approach smlar to that of Rambam and the Mdrash n hs commentary on the sddur, Olat Re yyah, statng that n the days of Mashah, there wll no longer be anmal sacrfce but only sacrfces of wheat or wne. x He also belees that t s deal to mantan a egetaran det, agan reflectng hs senstty towards anmals. x Smlar to sacrfces, the practce of modern-day kapparot, of transferrng our sns onto a chcken, has a smlar tnge of nhumanty. Kapparot are beleed to help achee repentance for our sns before beng judged on Yom Kppur. By transferrng our sns onto an anmal and then slaughterng t, we are absolng ourseles of sn n the hopes of beng guaranteed a sweet, healthy New Year. Many rabbs hae spoken out aganst the pre-yom Kppur practce of wang chckens oer our heads and then watchng as they "The entre dea of korbanot (sacrfces) seems to be n drect opposton to the senstty towards anmals that the Torah expresses n other nstances" are slaughtered. There has been a proposton to reert back to the older practce of usng money for kapparot nstead of chckens as the object that accepts our sns. x The most recent example of outrage oer kapparot was reported n the Haaretz newspaper just a few weeks ago. xx Rght before Yom "[S]enstty... s a necessary attrbute for a qualty leader of the Jewsh People, for an nddual who cares for anmals wth senstty wll act smlarly towards hs fellow man" Kppur ths year, Israel s Socety for the Preenton of Cruelty to Anmals (SPCA) began ts annual outcry aganst ths tradtonal practce. R. Shlomo Aner, head of Jerusalem s rght-wng Yeshat Ateret Yerushalaym and communty rabb of Bet El, joned the SPCA s cause ths year and een went so far as to supply the moement wth a relgous declaraton aganst the practce of usng chckens for kapparot. The artcle reported R. Aner as statng, Because ths s not a bndng oblgaton but a custom, n lght of problems related to kashrut and the sufferng of anmals, and gen the edcts of the aforementoned rabbs, a recommendaton must be made to faor performng kaparot through money, by performng the great mtzah of prodng for the needy. Besdes for R. Aner, many other rabbs hae wrtten aganst ths practce of kapparot. R. Yosef Karo wrtes about kapparot that yesh lmnoa ha-mnhag t s better to preent ths practce. xx He also quotes from Ramban and Rashba, who both completely oppose the custom. xx Ramban apparently declared the practce of kapparot prohbted because t resembles darkhe ha-emor, Gentle practces, een f t s not actual dol worshp. Whle the Tur quotes Ramban s opnon, xx we do not hae the orgnal source the works of Ramban aalable today. Howeer, we do stll hae Rashba s comments on kapparot. xx He explans the process of the custom, whch noles swngng a rooster oer a young boy s head, beheadng the brd, and then hangng ts head oer the doorway as a sgn that the practce was completed. Rashba declares ths darkhe ha-emor because of ts traces of superstton and clams that he successfully had the mnhag eradcated n hs cty. Howeer, he adds that snce Hakhme Ashkenaz (the Torah scholars of Ashkenaz) practced and endorsed ths mnhag, he would refran from declarng the shehtah of the rooster to be nald. The practce of kapparot, whch has less halakhc sgnfcance snce t s merely a mnhag and can be performed n more than one way, calls for some knd of reform. In my opnon, a practce whch s so nhumane and does not hae strong roots n halakhc lterature does not need to take place. Although dong kapparot wth money nstead of a chcken does not ge that same warm and fuzzy feelng that s experenced when one transfers hs sns onto somethng else, the 22

23 mert from gng tsedakah would seem to compensate for that mssng feelng, especally rght before enterng the Day of Judgment. Ths type of extreme senstty to anmals s not a smple matter that should be dsregarded. We know that when Elezer, Araham s serant, was choosng a sutable mate for Ytshak, the attrbute of Rkah that caught hs attenton most was her extreme awareness of the needs of hs camels and the fact that she drew water for them n addton to drawng water for hm. Furthermore, Shemot Rabbah comments that Ya ako Anu, Moshe Rabbenu and Dad ha-melekh deeloped ther effecte leadershp trats by beng shepherds. x It seems that shepherdng deelops feelngs of senstty for other creatures. Ths s a necessary attrbute for a qualty leader of the Jewsh People, for an nddual who cares for anmals wth senstty wll act smlarly towards hs fellow man. It seems that the dea of rahamanut that my kndergarten teacher had been tryng to nstll n my classmates and me was not just a smple message to teach young chldren, but a lesson that we should all nternalze and channel towards plantng the seeds of leadershp wthn ourseles as ndduals and as a naton. Katlyn Respler s a junor at SCW majorng n Bochemstry and s a Staff Wrter for Kol Hameaser. Yeamot 79a. Dearm 22:6-7, as well as Rambam s explanaton n Gude for the Perplexed III:48. Beresht 9:4. Sanhedrn 56a. Hulln 9a. Ibd. 1:2. Vaykra 22:28. Gude for the Perplexed bd. x Dearm 25:4. x Ibd. 22:10. x Ibn Ezra s commentary to bd. x Shabbat 128b. x Gude for the Perplexed III:32. x Ibd. x Vaykra Rabbah 9:7. x R. Araham Ytshak ha-kohen Kook, Olat Re yyah (Jerusalem: Mossad Hara Kook, 1962), p x Idem, Hazon ha-tsmhonut e-ha- Shalom, chapter 3. x Mshnah Berurah, Orah Hayym 605. xx Yar Ettnger, Leadng Rabb Jons Anmal Rghts Group s Campagn Aganst Kaparot, Haaretz (September 9, 2010), aalable at: xx Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayym 605. xx Bet Yosef to Tur, Orah Hayym 605. xx Tur, Orah Hayym 605. xx Teshuot ha-rashba, responsum 395. xx Shemot Rabbah 2:2. BY: Arel Caplan The conflct between relgon and eoluton has outled ts usefulness and t s hgh tme t was allowed a quet demse. [ ] We must learn to lose our fear of eoluton. Judasm and Nature Creaton and Eoluton: Toward a Methodology of Addressng Challenges to Fath The acceptance of eoluton as the best explanaton for the dersfcaton of bologcal bengs has been hotly debated, n terms of both fact and educatonal practce, snce the publcaton of Charles Darwn s The Orgn of Speces n In the Unted States, the war contnues n personal, communal, and legal settngs. Whle ratonal arguments are often adanced, the underlyng motaton behnd the arguments s clear: those opposng the acceptance and teachng of eoluton hae almost narably concluded that t s false because t contradcts the Creaton story offered by the Torah, the fundamental source of relgous nsght on the topc of the orgns of lfe for the most powerful and populous relgons n the country. The beleng Jew cannot close hs or her eyes and ears to the ssue, for at least two reasons. One s practcal. Namely, eoluton s prealent n many parts of daly lfe. Anyone who has taken antbotcs for a ten-day perod, receed an annual flu shot, or nteracted wth a domestcated or selectely bred anmal or plant has encountered frsthand the products of eoluton. Any attempt to reject eolutonary theory must ether explan the emergence of new forms of lfe n some other way or else rsk undermnng much of modern medcne and agrculture. The second consderaton s educatonal. In the current educatonal model of yeshah day schools, students are taught the story of Creaton at a young age, generally accordng to a strctly lteral readng of the Torah, perhaps wth some slght addtons from Mdrashm. Smultaneously, they are surrounded by museums and meda whch assume that the unerse s bllons of years old, and that all bengs stem from lower lfe forms; these deas are eentually presented as facts n hgh school Bology classes, f not earler. The contradcton between the competng hstores s gen at best scant attenton; at worst, t s gnored entrely. Students often walk away ether rejectng a fundamental unfyng theme n Bology or, ncomparably worse, losng respect for Torah as a source of any sort of truth. The frst ssue s, I belee, less pressng, as realstcally one can act as f somethng s true, een f he or she does not actually belee t to be so. For example, the Israel zealots who banned yogurt featurng pctures of dnosaurs (whch they assume cannot hae exsted, despte modern scentfc clams) presumably stll take ther medcatons as prescrbed by doctors. Howeer, the educatonal ssue s more seere, partcularly for anyone who belees n serous engagement wth both Torah and secular studes. Unless we create a scence-free enclae, we cannot sheld our chldren from eoluton, nor do we necessarly want to do so. Hdng the Torah s Creaton narrate s an obous mpossblty. So we must tackle the contradcton of hstores head-on. How ths s to be done s a serous queston, and t s one whch extends far beyond the local ssue. Each of us deals wth arous challenges to our fath: the Orthodox bologst worres about eoluton and the post-flood presence of flora and fauna n the Amercas and Australa; the frum physcst s troubled by the Bg Bang Theory and mechanstc determnsm; the relgous textually-adept and academcally-nclned lterat fret oer Bblcal Crtcsm; the hstoran wonders about the lack of edence for specfc bblcal eents; the humanst wll be torn by the classc queston of why bad thngs happen to good people; etc. Ths obously consttutes no more than a partal lst, but t reflects an uncomfortable truth that we must acknowledge for the beneft of our own sprtual health: relgous belef does not come easly, and many objectons can be rased aganst the fundamentals of our fath. Snce challenges to fath are so numerous, t s essental to deelop a methodology for handlng questons. Therefore, I would lke to surey the responses that the Jewsh world has deeloped to the problem of eoluton and Creaton and, through ths analyss, brng to lght frutful ponts of contemplaton that can be used n other stuatons, whether we fnd the answers satsfyng n the local context or not. To that end, I hae selected a representate sample, each representng a category of responses that are offered, so as to clarfy the oerall pcture that emerges. I can only hope that the prncples deeloped heren wll ad the reader n deelopng hs or her own methodology for personal, nterpersonal, parental, and educatonal use. Atttude 1: Rejectonsm The two approaches outlned n ths secton are, n a sense, at opposte ends of the spectrum, though they both take one hstorcal reconstructon as true and fnd a way to naldate the other. The frst approach, offered by R. Agdor Mller n seeral books, accepts the Torah as Unless we create a scence-free enclae, we cannot sheld our chldren from eoluton, nor do we necessarly want to do so. lteral truth and rejects as false any apparent contradcton thereto. In rancorous rhetorcal style, R. Mller spends one chapter of Sng, You Rghteous dsmantlng the scentfc establshment and portrayng scentsts as a group characterzed by an effort to gnore the Creator. Captalzng on cases where scentsts commtted crmes, R. Mller nssts that scentsts dsbelee n Free Wll and the concomtant concept of rght and wrong. In the followng chapter, R. Mller objects to scentfc methods of datng the unerse and the fossls whch hae been found. He also ponts to hghly-trumpeted scentfc edence whch was later found to be questonable or een falsfed. R. Mller concludes that eoluton has become a relgon accepted to excuse refusng to acknowledge the open edence that the Creator made the Unerse. As proof aganst eoluton, R. Mller notes the exstence of bologcal systems that seem rreducbly complex and could not hae eoled through random mutatons. Hence, R. Mller confdently asserts, Just as the teachngs of Arstotle, whch formerly were consdered the acme of scentfc knowledge, hae been reealed as worthless, so wll the theores of eoluton and of the age of the world someday be reealed as rubbsh. x R. Mller s declaratons are more than questonable. Regardng hs accusatons of the un-godlness of the scentfc communty, we may cte a 2007 poll ndcatng that among natural scentsts, 33% belee n a hgher power. x Whle athests and agnostcs domnate, beleers certanly form a sgnfcant percentage of the scentfc communty. Regardng hs objectons to the methods used, t s dffcult to see anythng more than oerzealous rhetorc n R. Mller s arguments. As for the lack of edence, we may well note that new studes hae brought the ball frmly nto eoluton s court. Modern molecular bology technques hae shown that organsms 23

24 can be herarchcally classfed based on both codng and non-codng sectons of DNA n a manner consstent wth eolutonary theory. Other technques, new and old, hae smlarly been brought to bear to prode eer-stronger edence for eoluton. x All ths sad, perhaps the greatest objecton to R. Mller s approach s that t makes Torah seem rdculous and outdated. As more edence s adduced, adherents of R. Mller s poston must serously queston whether stckng to ther guns on ths ssue mght be at best unproducte, and at worst a hllul Hashem (desecraton of God s Name). The opposte approach s taken by RIETS Rosh Yeshah R. Jeremy Weder n a lecture enttled, Non-Lteral Interpretaton of Scrpture n the Jewsh Tradton. x R. Weder states that we can accept the Torah s presentaton of Creaton as non-hstorcal truth, meanng that t s meant to coney moral lessons rather than a factual account of the orgns of the world. Of course, wthout proper backng n ntellectual Jewsh hstory, ths ew would be unacceptable. Howeer, R. Weder does prode such support n the form of seeral comments from the Geonc and Rshonc perods, ncludng ctatons from R. Sa adya Ga on s Emunot e-de ot, x Rambam s Moreh ha-neukhm, x and a teshuah of Rashba. x Each source establshes that ts author would be wllng to explan erses non-lterally to accord wth modern knowledge or obseratons f the new explanaton would not contradct Halakhah or fundamentals of fath. x R. Weder s nterpretaton and applcaton of sources leaes much room for argument. The major problem s that the sources cted refer to non-lteral nterpretaton of erses, not outrght rejecton of erses as tellng a story that neer happened. For example, Rambam makes t clear that the queston s whether to nterpret erses lterally or as allusons to the real truth, smlar to the nterpretaton of anthropomorphsms as metaphorcal. Ths s a far cry from assumng that a story s told for pedagogc purposes but s not, n any sense, a reflecton of hstory. The jump s not completely llogcal, but the hddush (nnoaton) entaled n gong ths far s readly apparent. x Atttude 2: Resonsm Ths secton, lke the last, wll outlne two approaches that are opposte n drecton. The common denomnator s that each explanaton accepts both sdes as hang ald a bass, but reses one of the sdes to brng t n lne wth the other. The frst approach s that of the late Lubatcher Rebbe, expressed n a letter sent to a scentfcally-nclned questoner n x Much of the letter rngs wth R. Mller s skeptcsm; the Rebbe boldly states, If you are stll troubled by the theory of eoluton, I can tell you wthout fear of contradcton that t has not a shred of edence to support t. Howeer, there s a unque element ntroduced n the Rebbe s treatment. Notng that edence for eoluton s based on extrapolaton (not nterpolaton) from a bref (on an eolutonary tme-scale) perod of obseraton and gnores potental external nfluences, the Rebbe argues that, on scentfc grounds, there are fundamental problems wth the theory. The Rebbe also offers two explanatons for the exstence of fossls: ether they were formed recently n unknown extreme crcumstances, or G-d created ready fossls [ ] wthout any eolutonary process. Antcpatng the queston of why God would bother creatng fossls, the Rebbe counters that The queston, Why create a fossl? s no more ald than the queston, Why create an atom? Certanly, the Rebbe s unwllng to accept the consensus of the scentfc communty. Sgnfcantly, howeer, he does not malgn scentsts or accuse them of mmoral motatons. In fact, he ndcates respect for the scentfc method and acknowledges that [s]cence cannot operate except by acceptng certan workng theores or hypotheses, een f they cannot be erfed. Een hs objectons work wthn the framework of scence. Hence, the Rebbe s approach s best descrbed as an attempt to accept the lteral understandng of the Torah and, whle acceptng the scentfc edence as ald, rese ts nterpretaton to match the Torah ew. xx The Rebbe s reasonng s questonable. As mentoned aboe, the last half-century has seen abundant new edence for eoluton. As for the Rebbe s pont regardng fossls, we mght easly respond that the fossl record s too complex to hae been produced by a small set of cataclysmc eents, and the queston of why God would create a fossl s ndeed ald. Whle the exstence of an atom s logcal, representng part of the complexty of the world, fossls are marks of hstory, whch would seem to be meanngless f they were to represent a hstory that neer happened. The second approach s adanced by a set of scentsts who dffer n ther exact formulatons but are unted n ther oerall stance that the Torah does not contradct scentfc theores regardng the age of the unerse or the orgn of speces. Based on the sources mentoned aboe (regardng R. Weder s approach) whch address the ssue of non-lteral nterpretaton of erses, ths group explans the Torah s account of Creaton n a manner whch accords wth scentfc theory, neatly aodng the problem of entrely rejectng the hstorcal releance of the story. The nterpretatons offered are ared, but they draw support from a few sgnfcant sources wthn the Jewsh tradton whch suggest that the Creaton story specfcally s not meant to be taken lterally. xx Seeral Kol Hameaser Mdrashm explctly reference a tme before the sx days of Creaton. Beresht Rabbah ctes R. Yehudah bar Smon s asserton that there was a tme before the frst day, as well as R. Abbahu s extenson that God created and destroyed worlds durng that perod. xx We also fnd R. Smon bar Marta s reference to the datng of the world gong back to the sxth day of Creaton and another datng system for that whch came before t. xx Later, n the Rshonc perod, we fnd Ramban s comments to Beresht 1:3, where he frst ndcates that the world was created n sx lteral days, but then states that the days represent Kabbalstc Sefrot. xx Another source, the Otsar ha-hayym of R. Ytshak de-mn Akko, mples a calculaton approxmatng the age of the unerse at oer ffteen bllon years. xx Somewhat recently, there s the Derush Or ha-hayym by R. Ysrael Lfschtz (author of Tf eret Ysrael xx ), whch draws upon many of these sources and, ctng fossl edence, concludes that the Kabbalstc approach of an extended Creaton has been ndcated. Two problems, though not deastatng, present themseles regardng ths approach. The frst s that t reles healy on one Kabbalstc opnon and a small selecton of ague Mdrashm, whch s a most unusual approach to understandng Tanakh. The second s that the theores adanced by ths group are often marked by ether bad scence, bad theology, or both. Wthout gettng nto specfcs, certan approaches seem straned at best, and unfathful to one or both sdes at worst. Atttude 3: Separaton of Spheres Ths secton and the next consttute two nterpretatons of a par of statements by R. Joseph B. Soloetchk, so we wll begn by ctng both, to allow the reader to draw hs or her own conclusons. The frst, concernng eoluton alone, appears n The Emergence of Ethcal Man: Indeed, one of the most annoyng scentfc facts whch the modern homo relgosus encounters and tres anly to harmonze wth hs belef s the so-called theory of eoluton. In our daly jargon, we call ths antnomy eoluton ersus creaton. The phrase does not exactly reflect the crux of the controersy, for the queston does not reole around dne creaton and mechanstc eoluton as such. We could fnd a soluton of some knd to ths controersy. What n fact s theoretcally rreconclable s the concept of man as the bearer of the dne mage wth the equalng of man and anmalplant exstences. xx The Ra ndcates hs confdence that an answer mght be found, but s more troubled by the phlosophcal mplcatons of the emergence of man through an eolutonary process. The second quotaton s from The Lonely Man of Fath: I hae neer been serously troubled by the problem of the Bblcal doctrne of creaton s-à-s the scentfc story of eoluton at both the cosmc and organc leels, nor hae I been perturbed by the confrontaton of the mechanstc nterpretaton of the human mnd wth the Bblcal sprtual concept of man. I hae not been perplexed by the mpossblty of fttng the mystery of reelaton nto the framework of hstorcal emprcsm. Moreoer, I hae not een been troubled by the theores of Bblcal crtcsm [ ] Howeer, whle theoretcal oppostons and dchotomes hae neer tormented my thoughts, I could not shake off the dsquetng feelng that the practcal role of the man of fath wthn modern socety s a ery dffcult [ ] one. xx Here, the Ra lsts eoluton among arous challenges to fath whch do not bother hm. Clearly, the Ra felt that eoluton s not a bothersome problem. Generally, the Ra seems to hae grouped eoluton wth other phlosophcal challenges to fath and consgned them all to a back burner. What must be explaned, howeer, s why he dd so. The frst explanaton I hae seen, parallelng the work of Stephen Jay Gould, clams that the arous ssues mentoned n The Lonely Man of Fath are not problematc for the Ra because they are abstract and phlosophcal rather than practcal. xx In the case of eoluton and Creaton, no practcal contradcton exsts, snce scence s a method of emprcal analyss of realty whle relgon teaches us about God s nteracton wth the world and the purpose of Creaton. Hence, the two represent separate spheres whch need not nteract or be reconcled. The problem wth ths atttude s artculated beautfully by Dr. Carl Fet, f perhaps unntentonally: The noton that Torah and scence are entrely dstnct enterprses s only true on a superfcal leel. In fact, the Torah does recognze the aldty and mportance of the knd of emprcal edence requred by scentfc methodology [ ] Halakhah takes nto account the results of emprcal edence as a means of determnng truth. xxx Dr. Fet ctes sources wthn Hazal to proe hs pont, but t seems relately straghtforward: f the Torah tells me one thng, and I can obsere another, a problem exsts. Halakhah reles on emprcally determned truths, and scence s a systematc method of determnng such truths. Hence, I personally fnd ths readng dffcult at best. Atttude 4: Transcendence R. Mchael Rosensweg offers a dfferent readng of the Ra, whch unfes the ponts made n The Lonely Man of Fath. xxx Essen- 24

25 tally, R. Rosensweg asserts, the Ra felt that challenges to Torah may be worth nestgaton but should not engender a crss of fath. After all, we only need to know that there s an answer; the exact formulaton of the answer s less crtcal, as any soluton wll allow us to accept the Torah as true and proceed as serants of God. Hence, argues R. Rosensweg, f we are confdent that there s ndeed an answer, the queston becomes purely academc. The Ra, whose emunah (fath) connced hm that answers could be found, was less troubled by the ssues, snce they receded, for hm, nto the realm of theoretcal questons. Hence, the Ra chose to focus on ssues of practce and purpose, whch mpact real lfe far more seerely, and about whch he could speak far more effectely and authortately. I hae found precedent for ths approach n earler sources and n the Ra s own phlosophy. In Hlkhot Teshuah, Rambam rases the problem of dne foreknowledge contradctng free wll and mmedately admts that the answer to ths queston s lengther than the land and wder than the sea, xxx ncomprehensble to mere mortals. He then offers just a hnt of an answer by dstngushng God s knowledge from that of humans. Ra aad sums up Rambam s approach: He began wth queres and objectons, and left the matter as a queston, and returned t to [blnd] fath! xxx Far earler than Rambam s Sefer Iyyo, whch manly addresses the ssue of seemng dne njustces and ultmately reaches no clear concluson. The Ra hmself, consderng the problem n Kol Dod Dofek, asserts that ratonal consderaton s futle: Certanly, the testmony of the Torah that the cosmos s ery good s true. Howeer, ths affrmaton may be made only from the nfnte perspecte of the creator. Fnte man, wth hs partal son, cannot uncoer the absolute good n the cosmos. xxx We are fnte bengs ncapable of apprecatng a suffcently complex answer. Hence, argues the Ra, one wll only fnd comfort by attemptng to create meanng wthn sufferng and then growng through t. xxx Ths approach s (to my mnd) defensble and wdely applcable and would not dsrespect or dstort ether Torah or external sources of truth, so I fnd t personally most benefcal. It allows me to comfortably work wth eolutonary prncples n the laboratory wthout beng troubled by eoluton s theologcal mplcatons. Although I fnd all the answers gen to be unsound, unconncng, or troublng, I am confdent that an answer exsts lkely one beyond my own comprehenson because I hae suffcent reason to belee n the truth of Torah. Howeer, I recognze that many are unwllng to le wth unanswered questons, and t s to them that the other sectons of ths essay are addressed. Concludng Notes I hae attempted to present a representate spectrum of approaches that Orthodox Jewsh thnkers hae taken to address the apparent contradcton between scentfc eolutonary theory and the Torah s account of Creaton. I hope t s clear that there are many [T]he Ra felt that challenges to Torah may be worth nestgaton, but should not engender a crss of fath. After all, we only need to know that there s an answer; the exact formulaton of the answer s less crtcal perspectes on the ssue, and t would be ntellectually dshonest to present one as absolute truth to the excluson of others. Educatonally, I wll comment that I hae been more drawn to dfferent answers at arous tmes, and I suspect students would smlarly beneft from exposure to multple explanatons. More sgnfcantly, ths analyss could sere as a paradgm for approaches whch mght proe ald n addressng challenges to fath from emprcal edence. Een an approach that s useless regardng eoluton mght be aluable n another context. In other words, the partcular applcatons may be ncorrect, but the nstncts behnd these approaches are certanly aluable: we must readly queston our perceptons of both the Torah s perspecte and the mplcatons of external sources of knowledge; not all sources of nformaton are equally relable; we need to be able to put each ssue n ts place. In the long run, a larger arsenal of theologcal weaponry can only beneft us. Fnally, as noted early on, there s an endless supply of theologcal challenges, and the beleng Jew needs a systematc approach for handlng them. Ths approach can draw upon any combnaton of the deas presented, as well as any I hae neglected to menton. Howeer, any method wll fal unless t s coupled wth the poste pursut of reasons to belee, whether they are ratonal, emotonal, experental, or otherwse. xxx Ths dual occupaton can only make us better ma amnm (beleers), educators, and oede Hashem (serants of God). Judasm and Nature Arel Caplan s a senor n YC majorng n Bology and s a Staff Wrter for Kol Hameaser. AOJS Students Questons Panel, Actual and Possble Atttudes to Eoluton wthn Orthodox Judasm, n Aryeh Carmell and Cyrl Domb (eds.), Challenge: Torah Vews on Scence and ts Problems ( New York: Assocaton of Orthodox Jewsh Scentsts, 1976), pp , at p I realze that some hae justfed these phenomena whle rejectng eoluton by dstngushng between macroeoluton (the eoluton of new speces) and mcroeoluton (essentally anythng short of macroeoluton). The dstncton seems artfcal to me, and I wll not deal wth t, but t may be useful to others. Ar L. Goldman, Relgons Notes, The New York Tmes (August 14, 1993), aalable at: us/relgon-notes.html?pagewanted=2. I personally fnd t both fascnatng and unjustfable that ths queston bothers people far more than the queston of why good thngs happen to bad people. I state ths to clarfy that the selecton was made n order to expose the reader to the arety of approaches that exst, and should not mply comparsons between people or an asserton that these are the greatest theologans of our generaton or of the preous generaton. Certan noteworthy approaches hae been smply omtted for the sake of smplcty and (relate) brety. Agdor Mller, Sng, You Rghteous: A Jewsh Seeker s Ideology (Israel Bookshop Publcatons, 2006). Ibd., p. 60. Ibd., p x Ibd., p x Elane Howard Ecklund and Chrstopher P. Schetle, Relgon among Academc Scentsts: Dstnctons, Dscplnes, and Demographcs, Socal Problems 54,2 (2007): , at p x The stuaton mght best be descrbed by a passng comment I once heard from a Yesha College Bology professor, who sad that eolutonary scentsts should be grateful to the deners who hae forced them to consstently come up wth eer tghter proofs for eoluton. x Jeremy Weder, Non-Lteral Interpretaton of Scrpture n Jewsh Tradton, YUTorah Onlne (Noember 5, 2006), aalable at: /Rabb_Jeremy_Weder/Non_Lteral_I nterpretaton_of_scrpture_n_jewsh_tradton#. x R. Sa adya Ga on, Emunot e-de ot, ma amar 7, ot alef. x Rambam, Moreh ha-neukhm II:25. x Teshuot ha-rashba 1:9. x Rashba also ncludes a requrement that no tradton of nterpretaton be olated. x The dea of a story beng nented to teach alues, but not expressed as a tall tale, also leads to ery troublng conclusons: t mples that God could not manage to coney the same messages ether drectly, through true stores, or n clearly defned allegores, and that God ntentonally connces the masses of falsehood just to make an ethcal pont. x Menachem Mendel Schneerson, The Age of the Unerse, Chabad.org: Ideas and Belefs (December 25, 1961), aalable at: /435111/jewsh/The-Age-of-the- Unerse.htm. xx It s true that R. Mller offers many arguments whch ndcate famlarty wth scence. Howeer, an mportant dstncton must be made. The Rebbe accepts the scentfc fndngs as ald, but goes on to renterpret them. R. Mller, howeer, nssts on rejectng the fndngs themseles. For example, whereas the Rebbe explans why fossls seem old, R. Mller clams that we hae no reason at all to thnk that the fossls are old. xx The sources cted here are a samplng of those presented by Dr. Carl Fet n hs YC Bology class. Dfferent members of ths camp wll, of course, cte dfferent sources. xx Beresht Rabbah 3:7. xx Ibd. 9:14 (all translatons are the author s). xx Also see Ramban s comments to Beresht 1:1, n whch he nterprets the entre Creaton story based on Kabbalstc concepts. xx R. Ytshak de-mn Akko, Otsar ha- Hayym, pp. 86b-87b. xx Ths short work can be found n some edtons of Yakhn u-bo az Mshnayot after Masekhet Sanhedrn. xx Joseph B. Soloetchk, The Emergence of Ethcal Man, ed. by Mchael S. Berger (Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta, 2005), pp xx Idem, The Lonely Man of Fath (New York: Doubleday, 2006), p. 7. xx The source of ths explanaton preferred not to be quoted. xxx Carl Fet, Darwn and Derash: The Interplay of Torah and Bology, The Torah u- Madda Journal 2 (1990): 25-36, at pp xxx Based on a personal conersaton wth R. Rosensweg. xxx Rambam, Mshneh Torah, Hlkhot Teshuah 5:5 (translaton s the author s). xxx Ra aad ad loc. (translaton s the author s). xxx Joseph B. Soloetchk, Fate and Destny: From the Holocaust to the State of Israel, transl. by Lawrence Kaplan (Hoboken, NJ: Kta, 2000), pp xxx Ibd., pp xxx For an enlghtenng dscusson of ths pont, see Soloetchk, The Lonely Man of Fath, p. 49, n

26 Kol Hameaser How are You Dfferent from an Anmal, and Why Should You Care? A Halakhc-Bologcal Taxonomy W BY: Jonathan Zrng hen we thnk about Judasm and nature, many questons come to mnd. Some are practcal halakhc questons questons about mtsot hateluyyot ba-arets (commandments that are contngent on the land of Israel) such as pe ah (the oblgaton to set asde the corner of the feld for the poor), shemttah (the sabbatcal year), terumah (tthes), etc. Others may be theologcal n the broadest sense, such as to what extent should we attempt to master our surroundngs and to what extent should we allow ourseles to be relant on nature, perhaps thus beng more drectly dependant on God? Perhaps we thnk about the responsblty to recognze the greatness of Creaton and enjoy t. Howeer, a basc queston that s often gnored s: to what extent are we, as human bengs and as Jews, part of nature and to what extent are we aboe t? If we were to construct a Torahbased taxonomy of the world, what would that look lke? How would that system mpact how we ew the world around us? It seems that there are three basc phlosophcal camps concernng the status of a Jew n relaton to nature wthn the canon of Jewsh thought. Each opnon carres wth t some dffcultes, and we may hae strong ntute notons of whch perspecte must be correct. Howeer, f we want to fully understand the range of opnons n our tradton, we must be honest about the ews that hae been presented, een f some of them may run aganst our most deeply held conctons. One camp clams that all men are equally unque, n a class of ther own that s dstnct from the anmal and plant world; man s su geners and cannot be categorzed n the same system as the rest of nature. The poston at the other extreme clams that manknd, Jews ncluded, s an ntegral part of the broader world, and, although man has numerous aspects that make hm unque wthn the anmal kngdom, there s stll a part of hm that belongs n a more unersal taxonomy. The thrd camp clams that the class of manknd must be nternally dded, argung that, just as humans are fundamentally dfferent from anmals, Jews belong to a dfferent class than Gentles. Each perspecte has broad mplcatons for the way n whch we ew the world. Let us begn wth the frst and second opnons, namely, the ew that man s unque and the opnon that man belongs n the spectrum wth the rest of Creaton. R. Joseph B. Soloetchk ponts out that the man thrust of the Jewsh phlosophc tradton has assumed that man s qualtately dfferent than any other creature. As he descrbes ths ew, The world of man [...] s ncongruous wth that of the anmal and plant, notwthstandng the fact that all three groups of organc lfe are goerned alke by kndred rgd natural processes and structural deelopmental patterns [...] he s not a partcular knd of anmal. He s rather a sngular beng. He ponts out that ths perspecte was central wthn Greek thought, and that t was assumed by most of the medeal Jewsh thnkers to be the bblcal ew as well. Although the specfc reasons gen for human unqueness are dfferent for the Greeks than for many relgous thnkers, the common denomnator s that man stands aboe all other creatons. R. Soloetchk, on the other hand, argues that the bblcal perspecte s n fact the second opton that, whle man clearly has many unque elements, he s fundamentally on the same spectrum as not only the anmal world, but the plant world as well a perspecte that n many ways mrrors the perspectes deeloped n lght of Darwn s theory of eoluton. The dfference between these ews s stark and ther mplcatons great. To date, I know of no better analyss of the sgnfcance of ths debate than Alex Ozar s A Prelmnary Taxonomy of Rabbnc Anthropologes, publshed n Kol Hameaser last year. Ozar argues that the poston that man s su geners tends to ew man as prmarly a soul, and the body becomes deemphaszed. Along wth ths, physcalty becomes somethng that must be fought and oercome. He ponts out that ths ew has ts benefts and accords well wth some of our more sprtual tendences, as relgon s often more focused on the next world and on sprtual pursuts than on worldly ones. Howeer, ths perspecte brngs wth t many dangers, such as the possblty of rejectng anythng that cannot be mmedately categorzed nto easly defned sprtual boxes. As he wrtes: Certanly t s hard to explan why we should we [sc] care about aesthetcs and the lke. If physcal stuff has no alue, why should t matter f t s shaped ncely? What makes the beauty and grandeur of nature worth apprecatng? Aren t the Grand Canyon, the elegantly soarng eagle, and the prstne sunset just so much dstracton on our way to the world to come? Also unclear s why we should care about other people and our relatonshps wth them. Unless you can help me get to the next world, why should I waste my tme on you? Surely there are answers to these questons, and probably een good ones, but they reman as questons that demand answerng. A man as soul anthropology sgnfcantly mltates aganst a serous aluaton of human lfe and eerythng that goes along wth t. On the other hand, the ew that he characterzes as belongng to R. Soloetchk promotes a poste ew of ths world and more easly allows for a broad understandng of If we construct a Torah-based taxonomy of the world, what would that look lke? How would that system mpact how we ew the world around us? what s consdered aodat Hashem, serce of God. If one places man on a contnuum wth the rest of nature, t becomes easer to embrace physcalty and stre to sanctfy and perfect t, rather than reject t. Oerall, I agree wth Ozar s assessment. What I would lke to focus on s the ew he dd not deal wth, the noton that Jews and non-jews ft dfferently nto ths taxonomcal system. Ths ew s perhaps best presented by R. Yehudah ha-le n hs famous work, the Kuzar. Many medeal thnkers, R. Yehudah ha-le among them, assumed a four-part taxonomy of the world based on the Greek tradton. They dded the world nto domem (the nanmate), tsomeah (plant lfe; lt., growng ), ha (anmal lfe; lt., lng ), and adam (manknd). Howeer, R. Yehudah ha- Le seems to add a ffth category to ths herarchy: Ysrael, the Jews. Accordng to the Kuzar, Jews are as dfferent bologcally from non-jews as a cat s from a rock. As he puts t, non- Jews are men, Jews are angelc. Ths tradton s found through many Kabbalstc wrtngs as well. In partcular, ths ew s found throughout the Tanya, the Kabbalstc work by the frst Rebbe of Lubatch, x as well as n works of Ramhal (R. Moshe Hayym Luzzato) x and many others. Often, wrters of these works seem to force ths ew nto texts whose smple meanngs mply the opposte. For example, the Mshnah n Aot states: Beloed s mman who was created n the mage [of God] [...] More beloed s Israel who were called the sons of the Omnpresent. x The smplest read of ths statement s that all people are equally human, but Jews hae an addtonal qualty of beng the sons of God. We know ths to be true n normal human relatonshps as well though we may grant our famly specal status, we do not thnk they are superor to other people. Yet, Mdrash Shemuel argues that the former statement n the Mshnah refers only to Jews, as only they were created n the dne mage. x Of course, those who belee that Jews and non-jews are equally human wll mltate aganst such notons. To return to our last example from Aot, Rash understands the Mshnah s clam that people are created n the dne mage as referrng to all human bengs. x Tf eret Ysrael, a commentary on the Mshnah, uses ths as a jumpng-off pont to dscuss the lofty status that rghteous Gentles can achee, pontng out that the Mshnah s source text here s from the Creaton story, at whch pont n tme there was no dstncton between Jews and non-jews. To further emphasze hs belef that non-jews are, n fact, great manfestatons of the dne mage, he waxes elegantly about how great non-jews who keep the seen Noahde laws can become, acheng the status of ger tosha, x or een hasde ummot ha-olam, the rghteous among the natons of the world. What emerges from hs dscusson s a strong noton of the greatness of humanty, both Jews and non-jews. Many ratonalst Jewsh phlosophers stress ths same pont, such as Rambam, who s famous for assertng that Arstotle reached great leels of nsght and een approached the status of a prophet. x Me r n many nstances blurs the lnes between Jews and rghteous Gentles, gong as far as to clam that as long as a human beng s rghteous, he can supersede the natural order, and hae the statement en mazzal le-ysrael, x the constellatons do not affect Jews (meanng that ther les are not predestned, but rather are affected by Dne Prodence on account of ther actons), apply to hm as well. Me r wrtes: For nasmuch as the concluson s prepared to be good or el, eery person possessed of relgon wll remoe hmself from preparaton for el by restrctng hmself wth the restrctons of hs ethcal qualtes, and that s what the sages of blessed memory refer to when they say Israel s not subject to the stars, whch s to say eeryone restrcted by relgous ways, for hs restrctons wll free hm from what mght hae been decreed for hm by smple causaton. One restrcted by the ways of relgon, whether Jew or gentle, s not gen oer to the arbtrarness of the astrologcal sgns. x Ths poston s the complete opposte of the ew adocated n the Kuzar, allowng for almost total equalty between Jews and non- Jews. Ths queston s not just one of theory, but 26

27 one of practce. Many halakhc decsors hae utlzed a possble dstncton between the nature of Jews and non-jews as the bass of practcal legal decsons. For example, the poston of the Tanya that the Jewsh soul s fundamentally dfferent from the Gentle soul s utlzed by Rabb Shaul Ysrael to justfy reprsal rads aganst non-jews, specfcally the rads carred out n the cty of Kbah n x He begns by argung that war s permtted because of assumed unersal consent among warrng partes, a justfcaton based on socal contract. Howeer, he must explan how ths leads to the possblty of permttng what would otherwse be murder. In order to do that, he clams that people own ther bodes and souls and therefore can choose to accept a system whch allows ther les to be forfeted n certan crcumstances. Hang done ths, he goes on to deelop the argument that non-jews hae total ownershp of ther bodes and souls, for ther souls belong to the physcal world, a world n whch human domnon s absolute and God s s nl. As he puts t, The souls of the natons of the world fnd ther root n the physcal world n whch t s possble for human bengs to extend ownershp, as the world s gen oer to man. Ths s not the case wth the Jewsh soul, whch s lterally part of the God aboe. Thus, wth regards to t, there are dfferent parameters and wth regards to t, t makes sense to use Rambam s expresson that the soul s the property of God. What comes out from all of ths s that non-jews can consent to remoe the prohbton of bloodshed... xx R. Ysrael argues that non-jews hae the rght to forfet ther les, both body and soul, wthout any legal nterferences. Ths reasonng leads hm to clam that war s justfed generally because of a sort of nternatonal socal contract, and snce people, especally non- Jews, own ther bodes, xx they hae the rght to accept war as legtmate and thereby permt the mplct kllng noled. Thus, as war s part of nternatonal dplomacy, carryng out any war, een reprsal rads, s permtted as a functon of the people s acceptance of ths system. xx R. Abraham Isaac ha-kohen Kook takes ths metaphyscal dstncton and clams that postmortem organ donatons are problematc because of nbbul ha-met, desecraton of the dead, but only because human bodes are sacred. xx Therefore, he argues that Jews, whose bodes are sacred, are prohbted from donatng organs postmortem, but non-jews, whose bodes are not sacred, are permtted to do so. R. Kook therefore encourages Jews who need organs that can be used after a person has ded to seek out such organs from non-jewsh donors. He presents the bass for hs argument n two ways. The frst does not post a fundamental dstncton between the humanty of Jews and non-jews. Rather, he clams that the rght to preent nbbul ha-met s a prlege of beng holy, an argument that does not undermne the humanty of non-jews, though t does post that Jews hae specal qualtes. Howeer, he closes hs argument wth a second, far more extreme clam. He wrtes, The prohbton of degradng the dead stems from the tselem E-lohm, the dne mage, that s n man, whch s especally pognant wth regard to Jews because of the holness of the Torah. R. Kook argues that the fact that Jews hae the Torah actually ges them more tselem E- lohm, more of a Dne mage, than non-jews. As R. Kook concludes, Jews therefore may not donate ther organs after death, because that would requre tamperng wth ther partally dne bodes, and who has the rght to permt [tamperng wth] the dne part? xx Perhaps the most startlng formulaton s that of Hatam Sofer. xx He wonders how t s possble that we dere medcal nformaton about Jews from experments performed on non-jews. He clams that the physcal structure of the bodes of non-jews who eat mpure food and commt other sns as well could possbly be smlar to the structure of Jewsh bodes. He assumes a pror that, from a bologcal standpont, Jews and non-jews must be dfferent. xx What becomes clear s that ths s not just an abstract phlosophcal queston. It s not just a queston about metaphyscal speculaton, an abstract queston of how we set up a Torah-based taxonomcal system. If we choose to understand that Jews and non-jews hae dfferent places n the natural order, then that has ery serous halakhc and practcal consequences. And a choce t s. As we hae shown, there are sources n our tradton to support any one of the perspectes we hae rased. But sometmes we hae no choce but to rely on our deepest moral conctons, and assess whether we belee that the Torah really ntended we take certan postons. We must analyze the postons, spell out ther logcal conclusons, and ask whether we can accept them. Thus, when we analyze the most basc queston about the relatonshp between Judasm and nature, the queston of where we place human bengs generally, we must also ask where we should place Jews, and what ramfcatons that placement would hae. If we conclude that human bengs are remoed from nature, then we must be comfortable wth a world where our nteracton wth the physcal s lmted and ewed negately. If we conclude that there are natural dfferences between Jews and non-jews, then t s possble Judasm and Nature to mantan that we can take adantage of ther organs and perhaps een permt bloody wars of engeance. Such a concluson also opens the possblty of rejectng all of medcal knowledge. Untl ths pont, I hae mostly presented these postons objectely, wthout presentng my own opnon on the ssue. Howeer, whle n most cases I would be able to leae my ew out of an artcle, due to the senstty of the topc I cannot do so n ths case. When a perspecte challenges our deepest moral conctons, t s justfable to embrace another opnon wth equally strong bass n our tradton. The thrd ew we hae dscussed s at best racst, and, as we hae shown, at worst potentally much more harmful than that. Derakheha darkhe no am the ways of the Torah are pleasant, and such a perspecte s anythng but that. My understandng s by no [S]ometmes we hae no choce but to rely on our deepest moral conctons, and assess whether we belee that the Torah really ntended we take certan postons. We must analyze the postons, spell out ther logcal conclusons, and ask whether we can accept them. means canoncal, and I hae therefore tred my best to at least present all the ews and spell out ther mplcatons. Ths way, whateer ew you choose to adopt howeer you choose to place yourself n the world as a human beng and as a Jew the mplcatons of that choce wll be clear. Realze what t as stake, and choose carefully I would hope your ntutons agree wth mne, but f they do not, at least you know the ntellectual consequences of dsagreeng. Jonathan Zrng s a senor at YC majorng n Phlosophy and Jewsh Studes and s an Assocate Edtor for Kol Hameaser. See, for example, the Yerushalm to Kddushn 4:12. R. Joseph B. Soloetchk, The Emergence of Ethcal Man (Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta, 2005), p. 3. Admttedly, many thnkers felt that people who dd not take adantage of ther ntellectual facultes would not be consdered human bengs and would reman mere anmals. Rambam, n Gude of the Perplexed III:51, wrtes that those who do not hae relgon hae the same status as dumb creatures and do not reach the status of human bengs. Howeer, we wll not focus on the mplcatons of such ews. Rambam, Gude for the Perplexed III:8. R. Soloetchk, The Emergence of Ethcal Man, pp Alex Ozar, A Prelmnary Taxonomy of Rabbnc Anthropologes, Kol Hameaser 3,4 (February 2010), pp Ibd., p. 21. Kuzar I:103. x See Tanya, secton two, and the quote below. x Quoted n a lecture by R. Hanan Balk enttled, The Concept of the Chosen People: Do Jews Possess A Soul That Is Superor to That of Non-Jews?, aalable at: Hanan_Balk/The_Concept_of_the_Chosen_P eople: Do_Jews_Possess_A_Soul_That_Is_ Superor_to_That_of_Non-Jews? x Aot 3:18 (translaton mne). x Mdrash Shemuel to bd. A dscusson of ths moe can be found n the lecture mentoned n n. 10 aboe. x Rash to Aot 3:14. x The defnton of ths category s dscussed n Aodah Zarah 64b. x Ya ako Shlat (ed. and trans.), Iggerot ha- Rambam, ol. 2 (Jerusalem: Ma alyot, 1988), p x Me r, Bet ha-behrah to Shabbat 156a. x Me r, Hbbur ha-teshuah, p These passages were ponted out by Moshe Halbertal n hs artcle, Ones Possessed of Relgon : Relgous Tolerance n the Teachngs of the Me r, Edah Journal 1:1 (2000): n.p. (translatons are hs). x Rabb Shaul Ysrael, Takrt Kyah le-or ha-halakhah, Ha-Torah e-ha-mednah 5-6 ( ), p.. xx Ibd., sectons (translaton mne). xx As for Jews, he clams that they are partal owners of ther bodes, but are also owned by God. The mplcaton s that hs argument mght fal wth regards to Jews, as they should not hae the rght to choose whether or not to forfet ther les R. Ysrael s clam that Jews hae a partnershp n ther soul wth God s dsputed by Rabb S. Y. Zen n Mshpat Shylock, le-or ha-halakhah (Tel A: Zon Publshng, 1957), pp xx He assumes the system has n fact been accepted. xx R. Araham Ytshak ha-kohen Kook, Da at Mshpat Kohen 199, quoted as well n Responsa Tsts Elezer 4:14. xx Ibd. (translaton and emphass mne). x R. Moshe Sofer, Hddushe ha-shas, Aodah Zarah 31b, s.. Ad. xx Though one mght hae assumed that Hatam Sofer s clamng that non-jews are more remoed from Jews than anmals are from people, as we n fact do dere medcal knowledge from expermentaton on anmals. Howeer, presumably Hatam Sofer would hae rejected the aldty of such research as well, negatng ths nference. 27

28 F The Orthodox Forum: What and Why BY: Rabb Yosef Blau or oer two decades, a group of Orthodox thnkers has gathered annually for a two-day dscusson focusng on a sngle topc affectng the Jewsh world. Orgnated by Rabb Norman Lamm, Rosh HaYesha and then-presdent of Yesha Unersty, the Orthodox Forum partcpants, comprsng rashe yeshah, rabbs, educators and academcans from Amerca and Israel, hae exchanged deas and crtqued each other s papers. The format noles attackng an ssue from many perspectes, halakhc, hstorcal and phlosophcal. Papers are prepared n adance, read by all the partcpants and analyzed n a queston and answer format. The book that has resulted from each Forum conssts of the papers gen, modfed to ncorporate nsghts and crtcsms emergng from the sessons. The underlyng concept s that through dalogue and exposure to the perspectes of others, formulatons are sharpened and deas clarfed. The Talmud ponts out the weakness of a person s studyng alone. In the descrpton of Ra Yohanan s mournng for the death of hs dscple and dsputant Resh Laksh, Ra Elazar s attempt to console Ra Yohanan by prodng support for hs ews s rejected. Only through questons and answers, arguments back and forth, can the Halakhah become clarfed. Most, though not all, of the Forums related to ssues of modernty. Topcs coered oer the Forum s twenty-one years hae ranged from Rabbncal Authorty and Personal Autonomy to War and Peace n the Jewsh Tradton. Issues emergng from scence and modern scholarshp, democracy and tolerance, ethcs and egaltaransm, were each analyzed. Responses to the emergence of the State of Israel and nteracton wth non-tradtonal Jews were dscussed. Volumes hae appeared about enhancng yr at Shamaym (fear of Heaen) and the mpact of Lomdut (the conceptual approach to Jewsh learnng). At tmes, there was conflct oer whether some deas presented were wthn accepted bounds Kol Hameaser Feature Kol Hameaser Forum on the Orthodox Forum The Orthodox Forum s celebratng the release of ts 20 th olume, enttled The Relatonshp of Orthodox Jews wth Beleng Jews of Other Relgous Ideologes and Non-Beleng Jews, edted by R. Dr. Adam Mntz. The Orthodox Forum has been nstrumental n engenderng edfyng conersatons on topcs of ntellectual and socologcal nature that face the Orthodox communty. Asde from prodng a book reew of ths most recent nstallment, Kol Hameaser s featurng an nterew wth R. Robert Hrt, seres edtor, as well as shorter peces by R. Yosef Blau, on the oerall purpose of the Orthodox Forum, and by R. Shmuel Han, on future fronters facng the Orthodox Forum. of Orthodoxy, but, n general, clty has marked the dscussons. The goal of the Forum and the books that hae appeared was not to formulate specfc polces but to enhance awareness of dfferng perspectes n confrontng ssues mportant to Orthodoxy s future. One of the challenges to the Forum s to aod nolng the same people, as talented as many are, and n partcular to effectely ntroduce greater partcpaton by the next generaton. Last year s Forum (the book has yet to appear) was domnated by the contrbutons of younger scholars. Keepng the number of partcpants to a manageable sze whle allowng new people to hear the ge-and-take has preented many who would gan from the exposure from beng nted. The cost of the olumes publshed has also lmted the Orthodox Forum s mpact; hang some appear n paperback has been helpful n that regard. There s a wealth of materal n the twenty olumes that hae so far been publshed. The Orthodox Forum reflects the ntellectual strength of Modern Orthodoxy both n Israel and Amerca. Our communty, prmarly but not exclusely comprsed of products of Yesha Unersty, has produced talmde hakhamm and scholars n many dscplnes who are enrchng Jewsh thought and are confrontng many of the ssues that challenge us n our complex world. Rabb Yosef Blau s Mashgach Ruchan of RIETS. Makkot 10a. Baa Mets a 84a. BY: Rabb Shmuel Han 28 F Orthodox Forum 2.0: Thoughts on the Future of the Orthodox Forum or oer 20 years, the Orthodox Forum has produced an naluable body of lterature addressng, n a sophstcated, comprehense and academc fashon, the central ssues confrontng the Orthodox Jewsh communty. Ths past year, n recognton of 20 years of the Forum, the Seres Edtor, Rabb Robert Hrt, along wth the Steerng Commttee (led by Dr. Dad Shatz and Dr. Moshe Sokol), decded to conene a dfferent knd of Forum, one that would reflect on the hstory of the Forum whle engagng a new generaton of leaders and readers. I had the prlege of co-charng ths effort, and, armed wth a great deal of nput from Rabb Yehuda Sarna and a number of young Jewsh leaders, we desgned and executed a forum consstng of 18 papers and 6 panel dscussons featurng the next generaton of Modern Orthodoxy s leaders dscussng essental questons for the Jewsh communty. The Forum ncluded orgnal papers on the odyssey years and the role of emergng adults n the Jewsh communty, the mpact of new oces (female, academc and sprtual) on the tradtonal bet mdrash, and new perspectes on socal justce and rabbnc authorty/personal autonomy, as well as sessons dscussng the future of Modern Orthodoxy and ts educatonal system. Perhaps just as mportant as the frutful dscussons of these subjects produced at the Forum, the Forum s new format and focus underscored that an updated and enhanced model has much to offer the Yesha Unersty communty and the broader Jewsh world. One of the central tenets of the Forum s that truly open and honest dalogue occurs wthn a cohese communty commtted to common alues. By modfyng the format (from paper presentatons to panel dscussons) and by ntng to partcpate a young and ared cohort of men and women comprsed of academcs, Ramm (Talmud lecturers), communal leaders, educators, students and others who share the deals of the Forum regulars, we furthered the Forum s msson to create a derse, nterdscplnary communty of Jewsh thnkers to dscuss and debate deas. The ntergeneratonal dalogue, the balance of academc and more popular perspectes, and the new enue (Yesha Unersty s Belfer Hall) all combned to create a new energy and talty to the dscourse. Seeral addtonal new elements wll further transform the Forum nto an een more sgnfcant ehcle for year-round dscusson and debate. Ths past year, on the Shabbat before the Forum, seeral synagogues hosted Forum partcpants to brng the Forum dscussons to the broader Jewsh communty. New ntates to engage the entre communty should nclude a Forum webste featurng new analyses and assessments of earler Forum topcs and papers as well as ongong dscusson of ssues that future Forums should address. The Steerng Commttee and the student body of Yesha (ncludng those students noled n Kol Hameaser) can collaborate to engage the future leaders of Modern Orthodoxy n the conersaton by encouragng student clubs to host specal colloqua on Forum subjects and by co-sponsorng a call for papers from undergraduate students wth the wnner nted to partcpate n the Forum. By buldng on the accomplshments of the Forum and addng these new ngredents, the Orthodox Forum wll contnue to fulfll the words of the prophet Malakh, cted and beautfully appled by Ra Aharon Lchtensten at a specal address at ths past year s Forum: Then they that feared the Lord spoke one wth another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was wrtten before Hm, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon Hs name. Rabb Shmuel Han seres as Rosh Bet Mdrash of The Graduate Program n Bblcal and Talmudc Interpretaton and as Rabb of Young Israel Ohab Zedek n North Rerdale. Mal akh 3:16.

29 C BY: Jonathan Zrng an you prode a basc hstory of the Orthodox Forum oer the last twenty years? The Forum was started n 1989, and we are now n our twenty-frst year. The objecte was to expose the yeshah- and college-educated graduate, not just the Yesha Unersty graduate, to thoughtful consderaton of the nterface of Judasm and general culture that would speak wth a degree of authorty, but not authortaransm. The readers do not hae to be Orthodox necessarly, but they do hae to be senste to the concerns of Modern Orthodoxy for these ssues to speak to them and enrch ther les. We wanted to present thngs that were suffcent n length that the Forum could conduct serous dscussons, but not necessarly artcles that would be prnted n academc journals. We would ask people to wrte who would hae an mpact on the Modern Orthodox communty and beyond, would be able to thnk n nterdscplnary terms, and would want to talk wth leaders they would not otherwse see. The Forum has drawn many people throughout the years. We hae a Steerng Commttee of twenty people who choose the people noled each year. Our goal was really twofold, then: to brng people together Amercans, Israels, Brts, men and women and to hae them look at ssues from a multdscplnary pont of ew, through the lenses of Halakhah, hstory, socology, and poltcal thought, n order to produce a body of lterature that the general publc could read and learn from. Oer the past twenty years, we hae produced twenty olumes wth oer two hundred artcles from rashe yeshah, academcs, communty leaders, rabbs, Jewsh educators, and communal professonals. R. Aharon Lchtensten, for nstance, has wrtten eleen artcles for the Forum, makng hm the most sgnfcant contrbutor. Today, we are hopng to expand the pool of partcpants to nclude younger scholars n ther thrtes and fortes who wll be the leaders of the Modern Orthodox communty n the future. Do you thnk the goals of the Orthodox Forum hae changed oer the years, and s the shft towards younger partcpants an ndcaton of that? I would say that the goals hae not shfted, but there s the recognton that people may be thnkng about thngs dfferently and may look at the same ssues n dfferent ways, so we hae to adjust accordngly. Peces hae to be shorter; authors hae to gear ther work to a younger audence; they often hae to wrte outsde of ther own dscplnes. It encourages the deelopment of new leadershp to hae younger people rather than the classc names one would expect to see. So whle the goals hae changed, the awareness of a dfferent generaton of leadershp has deeloped. The artcles do not hae to be more authortate because of who wrote them, but they hae to be substante so people can thnk about the ssues. And they also hae to be made more publcly aalable. As part of ths goal, we hae put some of the artcles on YU Torah and the lke. The communty s meant to be broad, but the Forum books are often expense, makng them dffcult for students to procure. On the other hand, some of the artcles are aalable on YU- Torah. What does ths ndcate about who the audence of the Orthodox Forum s meant to be? The books run at about thrty dollarseach. I thnk the queston s whether you prefer prme alue or prme grll whch one feeds you better. Consderng what they contan, the books are not oerprced, but f students would want them for a lower prce, they could come to my offce and get them for such a prce. For the general publc, though, t s reasonable. Furthermore, as mentoned, many of the artcles are made aalable on YU Torah and other forums. For example, an artcle by R. Aharon Lchtensten on the relatonshp between Orthodox Jews and non-beleng Jews of other relgous deologes, or non-beleng at all, whch was featured on Hrhurm, receed two hundred responses n the frst weeks. That means t has been successful. Are people readng blogs? Yes they are. For me, that s a way to go for the future. I am not sure that f the books were $10 there would be many more readers or purchasers, and our goal s not to sell books but for people to read them. Are there any ntended goals of the Forum that hae not been acheed? No, I would say the two prmary goals hae been acheed. We contnue to attract people who want to wrte for t. Very few people refuse, Judasm and Nature An Interew wth Rabb Robert S. Hrt We le n a compette world we could end up wth Torah U-Parnasah or Torah and the Jets, and people's les would not be as enrched... we would do much better for our self-esteem as a communty f people were exposed to some of the thnkers here, not just the latest shur or the latest pece n response to a popular crss. unless the date does not work, and I am happy about that. I see the olumes quoted often, n journals and student publcatons, and I am satsfed wth that as well. What I would lke to see mong forward s that shuls, n addton to the classc thngs they do for adult educaton, would set up study groups usng these artcles, maybe wth queston gudes, so that people can engage these ssues. At these groups, educators and lay people could get together and say, Ths s what we want to study ths year. You do not need a book club, you just need an artcle. I thnk ths would be mportant n atttude buldng, because our communty has been perceed by the outsde as hang moed away from the substante concerns of the rest of Jewsh lfe outsde of Orthodoxy. And I thnk we should not rely on sermons, sound btes, and nternet peces that are reprnted for such educaton there s a need for more serous engagement wth the ssues. I thnk adult educaton classes are not well attended wthn the Orthodox communty. Outsde of our communty, there are groups lke the Me ah program, the Wexner program, and the Melton program, and we are not dong enough of that here. Not that I would substtute ths type of group for a daf yom sh ur (daly class on one page of the Talmud), but I do not thnk there has to be competton between them. For our communty to grow, we need to use these peces not dumb them down but make them accessble. And that means we hae to show rabbs and educators how to do t, whch was not orgnally our goal. I thnk many young people are growng up less as readers than they were before, unless they are n the more ntellectual tracks n Yesha College and Stern College for Women. Stll, I do not belee when they are thrty-fe, they are gong to be less nterested n these ssues on the contrary, they are gong to be more nterested but may not hae the keys to access dscussons of them. That s somethng that should be workng on. Ths s true f our general Hashkafah (worldew) and deology s to be adanced. People should buy nto t, not just because of our lfestyle and not just because our personaltes are nterestng, but because t s more substantely engaged. We le n a compette world we could end up wth Torah u-parnasah (Torah and a professon [but not secular studes]) or Torah and the Jets, and people s les would not be as enrched. People get tred about the thngs they do regularly, een f they contnue to do them anyway. I thnk een that we would do much better for our self-esteem as a communty f people were exposed to some of the thnkers here, not just the latest sh ur or the latest nternet pece n response to a popular crss. Hae there been moes to deelop these types of programs? Not enough. Presdent Rchard Joel has as nterest n t and Rabb Kenneth Brander has been noled wth some dscussons through the Center for the Jewsh Future, but t needs to moe at a much more accelerated rate. I am sure the readers and wrters of Kol Hameaser, upon readng ths, would lke to encourage people to do these types of thngs. I thnk there s a alue n the readershp sayng, Ths s what we would lke to recee, as opposed to watng for topdown leadershp. The days of top-down leadershp n many areas of Jewsh lfe, een wthn Orthodoxy, hae been greatly reduced. That does not mean that we do not look to rabbs for a pesak (legal decson) or hae emunat hakhamm (trust n scholars), but I do thnk people are gettng nformaton whereer they want to get t, so we should try to fnd out what people want and get t to them. The objecte was to expose the Yesha-and college-educated graduate, not just the Yesha Unersty graduate, to thoughtful consderaton of the nterface of Judasm and general culture that would speak wth a degree of authorty, but not authortaransm. Is there somethng n partcular you would suggest younger people, students and the lke, do to encourage the prolferaton of serous Jewsh thought? Let me ge some examples. If you are gng a sh ur, you could draw upon sources n the Orthodox Forum and the lke. Or f you are gong on the Aaron and Blanche Schreber Torah Tours, you can show the communtes that there s somethng dfferent that you can do because of your educaton, as opposed to just dong the classc thngs that you could hae done een f you had not gone to Yesha. I thnk utlzng our student ambassadors and faculty s a better way to go than just sendng a guest lecturer. I do not thnk t would take so much, but no one has eer suggested t to people lke you. I would lke to see much more of a student ntate, rather than just watng for the people who are supposedly more prepared to start reachng out. Mong to the methodology of the Forum, can you explan how the Forum s run, how many people are nted, how they are pcked, who s allowed to be n the audence, etc.? I would hae to change the word audence to partcpants that s exactly the pont. We do not want an audence. About one hundred people are nted from across the spectrum. Sxty to eghty people end up partcpatng oer a two-day perod n the sesson. The papers are dstrbuted to partcpants n adance and eeryone sts down together at a table to dscuss them. There are usually two or three people on each panel, dependng on the topc that we are dealng wth. They sometmes make an openng statement for a mnute or two, and then there are lots of questons. In ths way, authors bascally get a chance to reew ther artcles before publshng them. 29

30 Dr. Dad Shatz, who s ery much noled wth the Forum, wrote a book on peer reew, n whch he dscussed, among other thngs, how books get etted. I thnk t s better that thngs not get etted from top down. Instead, the dscusson s around the table. Eeryone has to read the artcles n adance. Then people are able to refne and rese what they hae done based on the nsghts of others. If you had two hundred people at each Forum, you could not do that. We want a sense of communty, so t s not open to the publc, and we want the people to read n adance so they can partcpate. No one speaks who has not read, and anyone who speaks generally has somethng to say that wll contrbute to the qualty of the artcle beng dscussed. It should be selecte, but t should not be lmted. Some students are nted we nte the Kollel Elyon and Stern scholars f they are nterested, and those who approach us and say, Can I come?, but not more than that, so that we can hae one table wth eeryone around t. I thnk t should be contnued lke that. Although I sad we do not want to hae obserers, the excepton are these groups when the Kollel Elyon students and Stern scholars come, they are obserers. They could rase ther hands f they wanted to, but they do not generally. Otherwse, eeryone n the Forum s a partcpant. I thnk ths format works and the people who come are amazed at the leel of the nteracton. It does not always work, but nne tmes out of ten t works well and I thnk that process should be contnued. Fnally, after the sesson s oer, I st down, as the Seres Edtor, wth the edtor of the partcular olume, and we try to thnk about thngs that could enrch the papers. How are speakers and topcs chosen? We hae a Steerng Commttee composed of about eghteen people, ncludng Rabb Jeremy Weder, Rabb Yosef Blau, Dr. Dad Shatz, Dr. Judth Blech, Dr. Rkah Blau, Rabb Shmuel Han, as well as a range of academcs, lke Dr. Moshe Sokol from Touro and Dr. Lawrence Schffman from NYU. The Steerng Commttee s responsble for comng up wth deas. We meet as a Steerng Commttee and I ask them what they thnk we should talk about n a year or two from now. Then, a small group wll meet and they wll come out wth suggestons that wll enable carryng out seen or eght sessons oer two days, and then they wll run t by the larger group. If t s approed, we wll see whether we hae enough people who can wrte orgnal artcles on the topc, not rehashng what they hae done before. Ths comng year, we are dealng wth relgon and all the changes of culture hgh culture, medum culture, and low culture, ncludng Internet ssues and the lke. What mpact does t hae on our thnkng? That topc was deeloped two years ago. We hae not run out of topcs yet. Is the Forum plannng on restng any topcs, or focusng only on new ones? Well, n terms of the most recent book on the relatonshp between beleng Orthodox Jews and non-orthodox Jews, some people may thnk that ths s the same as the book we had on the Jewsh Tradton and the Nontradtonal Jew. If you look at t, though, the topcs are much broader now than they were then. The concerns are dfferent: apathy, secularzaton of the communty, the dfferences between Amerca and Israel, the relatonshp between the relgous and non-relgous n the army, etc. That dd not exst before. Ths olume deals wth the status of the secular Jew n socety, from a halakhc pont-ofew and a non-halakhc pont-of-ew. Who s n and who s out? That s ery dfferent from the world that exsted almost twenty years ago. I thnk ths book s much more embracng of the fact that there are beleng Jews who are not necessarly Orthodox. How do we see our communty mong forward n a tme of polarzaton? The dstnctons we had years ago between the Orthodox communty and the outsde hae broadened because the communty has narrowed. So a topc can be rested f the communal stuaton has changed and f we approach t from a new perspecte than we had taken before. Just because we dd a topc a long tme ago does not mean that we hae to redo t, of course, but equally true s the fact that f an ssue was dscussed a long tme ago, there can stll be new nuances many years later. Do the changes of topcs dealt wth n the Orthodox Forum reflect changes n the Jewsh communty generally and the Orthodox communty n partcular? If I look at the topcs of the last fe years, I thnk t reflects concerns that we hae. Yr at Shamaym (fear of Heaen), for example, was one recent topc, because we feel t s on the declne. Our communty s more geared towards professonalsm and the ntellectual, but where s the yr at Shamaym? Wth the declne of authorty, n a post-denomnatonal, multcultural world, do we thnk there s awe? Smlarly, gender relatonshps there was a olume on that three years ago, because the educaton aalable for women was a bg ssue een before the recent ordnaton queston. We hae a book on phlanthropy n an era of economc hardshp. Oerall, I thnk there s a sense of releance to what the communty should be lookng at. Also, f one looks at some of the topcs oer the years, such as tkkun olam, engagng modernty, Jewsh perspectes on sufferng, those are classc ssues. What topcs are currently beng planned to respond to the communty s concerns? The ssue comng out next year, whch s beng edted by Rabb Shmuel Han, relates to the Odyssey Generaton. Dad Brooks had wrtten about the ages between twenty-fe and thrty-fe beng ery unsettlng for many people. The word odyssey refers to these people who are on a journey as opposed to n earler generatons when you could feel settled at twenty-fe, only at thrty-fe s t now standard that one has a stable job and famly. There are many people who delay those mportant decsons. It s a concern n terms of what our communty wll look lke n ten years wth more people unmarred, not yet settled down, and so forth. Contemporary culture n general how do we ew t: wth trepdaton or as an opportunty for sprtual and relgous expresson? What are the borders because of the normate system we 30 Kol Hameaser hae? These topcs get nto the personal engagement wth lfe and lsten to what drumbeats people are marchng to. Oer the last few years, there has been an Orthodox Forum held n Israel can you explan ts purpose? How does t dffer from the Amercan one and how s t smlar? I do not thnk t has reached a pont where they know what types of dscussons wll qualfy as meanngful n Israel. The process s dfferent. Papers are not wrtten n adance. No book s publshed afterward. The Forum n Israel has yet to defne tself and deelop a real sense of These topcs get nto the personal engagement wth lfe and lsten to what drumbeats people are marchng to rather than pertanng to classc topcs. what ought to happen. Addtonally, wth the ssues facng Israel socety beng more pressng n nature, I thnk Amercans are more free to address broader agenda ssues, a luxury Israel yeshot do not hae. Also, n Israel the relatonshp between the academcs and the rabbs s more stratfed, whereas here many of the people we nte are comfortable talkng wth both. All these factors change the possble dynamc. As for the future, I do not know what drecton the Israel Forum should take. They mght be comfortable meetng for a weekend and dscussng topcs at the table, somethng that would not be suffcent for us. They are generally less comfortable preparng for longer terms, unless they are actual academcs, whle we try to prepare ahead. I thnk the best chance at comng up wth a workng parallel nsttuton would be f we could put together the best of Har Etzon, Ma ale Glboa, Bar-Ilan, and Orthodox academcs and see what are ther concerns and look at those ssues. Otherwse, they hae other enues n whch they can express themseles f they so wsh. A forum lke ths, though, has not yet captured the Orthodox Israel magnaton, whch s unfortunate. The closest they had n Israel was the Kbbutz La conference, but that was much more poltcal t was sort of a gatherng of Modern Orthodox thnkers, talkng about what our communty needs practcally. Perhaps, that s what s rght for that communty. They want to talk about the ssues that are pressng, een f there s not somethng that can be done about them. Wth us, though, the purpose of the Forum s much more for ts educatonal alue. Ours s freer from the demand to hae an mmedate effect on socety, whch allows us to thnk more freely. Are some of these lmtatons carred oer when the Israels come to the Amercan Forum? No, they are ery excted about the Forum and the opportuntes t prodes: the openness, the ablty to st for two days wthout the pressure of gong about ther normal busness (n Israel, t s ery rare that a person gets two days off), the ehcle for expresson, etc. We hae had people such as R. Yual Cherlow, R. Benny Lau, people from Ma ale Glboa, Har Etzon, Bet Morasha, and others. They are more ndependent; they do not necessarly dentfy only wth certan nsttutons. Has ther nolement changed how the Amercans nteract n the Forum? Not enough, but I thnk that s somethng that we should talk about n the future. Lke I sad, we always try to nclude both Israels and Amercans because we thnk that t s mportant. On the ground, we are one communty, though I am not sure the Israels always see Amerca that way. Ths s not because of shellat Bene ha- Golah (dengraton of Daspora Jews) or because they deny the alue of the Daspora, but because they thnk the center of Jewsh lfe s n Israel, whch makes the mpact they can hae on our communty more lmted. Howeer, the people we try to nole see the world as one, because of trael, nternet, and other factors. These people hae much to add to the Forum, as they alue our communty as well. For example, Esty Rosenberg was noled wth ssues of educaton last year, and she found t ery enlghtenng, and had many enlghtened ews more than many of the people here. Hang people lke that has added a great deal. Do you hae any closng comments? I thnk that the Forum n general follows a partcular process, but t should be open to students for deas on how they can utlze ths process, these people, and these olumes. We would be open to hearng how people would lke to do that, wth or wthout support. It s bascally what Kol Hameaser s tryng to do, except that we hae around-the-table dscussons. Rabb Robert S. Hrt s the foundng edtor of the Orthodox Forum seres and s Vce Presdent Emertus of RIETS. He holds the Rabb Sdney Shoham Char n Rabbnc and Communty Leadershp. Jonathan Zrng s a senor n YC majorng n Phlosophy and Jewsh Studes and s an Assocate Edtor for Kol Hameaser. Aalable at: browse.cfm#seres=4101&lang=cfm&organzatonid=301. Aalable at: /meah. Aalable at: org/. Aalable at: Dad Shatz, Peer Reew: A Crtcal Inqury (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Lttlefeld, 2004). Adam Mntz (ed.), The Relatonshp of Orthodox Jews wth Beleng Jews of Other Relgous Ideologes and Non-Beleng Jews (New York: Yesha Unersty Press; Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta Publshng House, 2010). J. J. Schacter (ed.), Jewsh Tradton and the Nontradtonal Jew (Northale, NJ: Jason Aaronson, 1992). Marc D. Stern (ed.), Yrat Shamaym: The Awe, Reerence, and Fear of God (Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta, 2008). Rkah Tetz Blau (ed.), Gender Relatonshps n Marrage and Out (New York: Yesha Unersty Press; Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta, 2007). Yoss Prager (ed.), Toward a Renewed Ethc of Jewsh Phlanthropy (New York: Yesha Unersty Press; Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta, 2010). Dad Brooks, The Odyssey Years, The New York Tmes (October 9, 2007), aalable at:

31 BY: Shlomo Zucker Reewed Book: Adam Mntz (ed.), The Relatonshp of Orthodox Jews wth Beleng Jews of Other Relgous Ideologes and Non-Beleng Jews (New York: Yesha Unersty Press; Jersey Cty, NJ: Kta Publshng House, 2010). Prce: $ T he frst thng one notces when pckng up The Relatonshp of Orthodox Jews wth Beleng Jews of Other Relgous Ideologes and Non-Beleng Jews s (as the reader of ths sentence may currently notce) ts long and unweldy ttle. Asde from ts onerous span, the deoted Orthodox Forum seres reader wll notce that ths topc appears to hae been coered n an earler ssue, namely, the aptly-ttled Jewsh Tradton and the Nontradtonal Jew. Howeer, one should not judge a book by ts coer (een f t does qualfy as a sgnfcant debacle) and the reader must actually open the book to examne ts contents, so I proceeded to peruse the substance of the olume tself. Ths olume ncludes artcles socologcal and theoretcal, progresse and tradtonal, Israel and Amercan. It contans a hstorcal oerew of Orthodox and non-orthodox relatons by Dr. Jonathan Sarna, as well as seeral artcles relatng to educatonal nsttutons that employ Orthodox faculty members but cater to the broader Jewsh communty, such as Brthrght Israel and the Heschel School. R. Mark Dratch presents a strong surey of basc ssues releant to Orthodox nteracton wth non- Orthodox Jews, and mor e-rabb R. Aharon Lchtensten presents an broader explcaton of the releant factors noled n relatng to non- Orthodox Jews, ncludng ssues of belef and practce, keru (outreach), mprong the world, ncluseness, collaboraton between denomnatons, mantanng dstnctons between denomnatons wthout a sense of competton, and a short dscusson of the proper halakhc category nto whch the nonobserant fall. R. Yona Ress proffers a summary of dfferent approaches on the halakhc status of other Jews, whle R. Yual Cherlow adocates for a more accommodatng stance towards rrelgous people n the contemporary State of Israel. Marc D. Stern dscusses, at an anecdotal leel but sprnkled wth knowledge of the releant halakhc and pragmatc ssues, the experence of an Orthodox Jew at a non-denomnatonal Jewsh organzaton. Fnally, the olume contans seeral artcles regardng Israel, ncludng a comparson of the secular-relgous ddes n Israel and Amerca, a realstc look at the relatonshps between secular and relgous solders n the IDF, a descrpton of the Relgous Zonst ew of secular Zonsm, and an argument from the Amercan perspecte to allow cl marrage n Israel. To summarze, the olume ncludes many wellwrtten and reasoned theoretcal peces, as well as an abundance of releant socologcal nformaton. The truck one mght hae wth the latest nstallment of the Orthodox Forum seres comprses two dstnct but related ssues. The frst problem, whch I brefly noted aboe, s the smlarty between ths ssue and the 1992 ssue enttled, Jewsh Tradton and the Nontradtonal Jew. Whch new topcs appear n ths ssue that mert the deoton of an entre second olume to ths topc? Ths problem s drectly confronted by R. Lchtensten ( What noel teachng was there at the study hall today? ), and he prodes seeral answers: the earler olume focuses on the nddual deant, whle ths ssue also encompasses the communty, and, more sgnfcantly, ths olume focuses on belef as opposed to obserance. He also notes that the theores of postmodernsm hae exerted some nfluence on socety snce the last olume on ths topc was publshed, and so a re-ealuaton of the topc s entrely approprate. Howeer, he does not thnk these theores hae played too sgnfcant a role n ths context. The dstncton I fnd more releant between the two olumes regards not the reactons to phlosophes of postmodernsm per se, but to the socologcal realtes born of the postmodernty of the world n whch we currently le. In other words, there has been a profound change n the realty of the denomnatonal landscape and, by extenson, n the nature of the nter-denomnatonal conersatons to be held. Ths radcal shft s portended n a couple of passages n the olume, though ts full force s not felt at any pont. In the area of phlanthropy, Marc D. Stern notes that phlanthropsts are now, more than eer, nterested n knowng exactly how ther hardearned money s to be spent, as opposed to n the past, when they were largely satsfed to smply dump large sums of money on a Jewsh organzaton s front porch. In the broader sense, the generaton that has entered adulthood oer the past eghteen years and s sgnfcantly mpactng the world (and whom ths Orthodox Forum mght hae addressed more drectly), s not nterested n the nsttutonalzed nfrastructure that has been at the forefront of Jewsh lfe n past decades. In the words of R. Ress, who most clearly relates to ths phenomenon, The nddualzaton of rtual practce s consstent wth a comment that I recently heard from a colleague that we are now lng n a post-denomnatonal age. Hs characterzaton of the phenomenon s also apt: There s both a utopan opportunty latent n post-denomnatonalsm as well as a serous danger. In ths younger generaton, people are not lookng to assocate wth one label or another; they seek truth and meanng they want to adhere to ther tradton, but they want to do so n a way that appeals to them. (Note the recent moe towards rtual obserance across the board n Judasm.) Ths appears to be the wae of the future, and snce people tend to shft sgnfcantly n ther afflatons and belefs between ages 15 and 30, the young demographc s the more olatle and exctng one, representng a major shft from the past. Howeer, nstead of focusng on the future, n whch the Jewsh world wll be domnated by post- and non-denomnatonal collaboraton among ndduals, Judasm and Nature The Relatonshp of Orthodox Jews Beleng n Denomnaton and Non-Denomnaton Beleng Jews ths Forum book repeatedly looks oer ts shoulder to a pror stage to ths one. Many artcles menton the Synagogue Councl of Amerca s goal of hang all denomnatons st down at the table together, and the suggeston of renewng ths practce s rased n a sem-dyllc lght. What was not noted was that these past ssues, though they may cast a certan shadow on the dscusson ntellectually, are relegated to theoretcal mportance, as the Jewsh communty has moed beyond the ponts where that scenaro has sgnfcance. Let us consder, as an example, the phenomenon of ndependent mnyanm. They comprse a group of partcpants who are largely unafflated wth any denomnaton and are mostly tradtonal n practce, wth the major excepton of beng completely egaltaran. The ndependent mnyan seres a young populaton, and t s has been a sgnfcant force n that sector of Jewsh socety oer the last ten years. As Dr. Sarna puts t, Independent mnyanm reman among the most exctng and successful nnoatons of Amercan Jewsh lfe [ ] nurturng a new generaton of Jewsh leaders and worshpers. x As they seem to be leadng the charge of the new generaton, ndependent mnyanm and what they represent could hae been seen as a new and mportant trend, exstent today but not eghteen years ago, whch the Forum mght hae related to. The Orthodox Forum could hae consdered the followng questons: What are ndependent mnyanm dong that we n the Modern Orthodox communty can emulate? How can we relate to ther adherents, who may want to settle on a denomnaton at some pont? Is there an authentc Orthodox response to the formdable challenges of egaltaransm, whch turn away so many educated young people from Orthodoxy? For a book whose ttle does not menton any denomnaton outsde of Orthodoxy, one would expect that there be at least one artcle dealng wth ths class of people. The challenge of 21 st -century Modern Orthodoxy s and wll be the queston of how to keep dealstc and relgously nterested, but open and secularly exposed, Jews (especally those from an Orthodox background) who are drawn to egaltaransm, wthn the fold of Orthodoxy. The goal, as always, must be to present a coherent Orthodoxy that s response to the contemporary challenges, wthout sacrfcng any relgous prncples. Ths Orthodox Forum nstallment dd a good job presentng on all the old ssues, but unfortunately mssed the boat on many of the new ones. Sgnfcantly, last year s Forum (whose proceedngs hae yet to be publshed) dealt wth many ssues of the younger generaton (though not specfcally from the perspecte of Orthodoxy s relatonshp to non-beleers), whch s a poste deelopment. Thus, though the Orthodox Jews beleng n denomnaton may hae won the day n ths olume, there s stll ample opportunty for Modern Orthodoxy and ts Forum to present a response releant to the Non-Denomnaton beleng Jews. Shlomo Zucker s a senor at YC majorng n Phlosophy and Jewsh Studes and s an Edtor-n-Chef of Kol Hameaser. Ths crtque of the ttle s qute dstnct from Dr. Alan Nadler s close readng and deconstructon of the ttle n hs reew of the book, What Modern Orthodoxy Thnks of Its Neghbors: Gloomy Reflectons on a Dded Relgon, The Forward (October 06, 2010), aalable at: whch he uses to further hs argument depctng the Forum as closed-mnded and parochal. The create and mdrashc nature of hs readng, whle t does reflect hs Orthodox tranng n rabbnc casustry from a preous lfe, qute certanly does not hold up to the academc standards he s more accustomed to n hs current stuaton, and ths reewer certanly does not agree wth hs conclusons. J. J. Schacter (ed.), Jewsh Tradton and the Nontradtonal Jew (Northale, NJ: Jason Aaronson, 1992). A faorte fgure of speech, often employed by R. Lchtensten, ncludng n The Relatonshp of Orthodox Jews, p See also Mshnah, Eduyot 1:3. R. Lchtensten, p A recent study, commssoned by the ACha Foundaton and carred out by Jack Werthemer, notes that there s a rsng group of young and mpactful Jewsh leaders who see no need to connect to preexstng nsttutons. For a news analyss of the phenomenon, see Jacob Berkman, New Study of Emergng Jewsh Leaders Shows Class Dfferences, JTA (October 12, 2010), aalable at: 2/ /as-the-jewsh-worldeoles. Ibd. p Ibd. Independent mnyanm occupy a sgnfcant poston n the playng feld of organzatons patronzed by young, educated, and noled Jewsh. There s a growng body of lterature regardng the moement, promnent among t a recent book by Ele Kaunfer, Empowered Judasm: What Independent Mnyanm Can Teach Us About Buldng Vbrant Jewsh Communtes (Woodstock, VT: Jewsh Lghts Publshng, 2010), and an artcle by Ethan Tucker onlne, What Independent Mnyanm Teach Us About the Next Generaton of Jewsh Communtes aalable at 801tucker/. The recently establshed Yeshat Hadar s assocated wth these moements, and t represents 31

32 Our Menahel, Rabb Shmuel Jablon, wll be at YU's "Chunch Recrutment Days" Noember 15-16! He would loe to speak wth potental teachers or parents of potental students. To arrange an appontment contact hm at