UTJ Viewpoints

The short answer to the question everyone asks, why rabbis are not trusted, is expressed in an Aramaic aphorism, palginan dibbura, our words are bifurcated, we speak with the self-interestedness of the forked tongue. We by word mislead and do misdeed when we speak, we misrepresent when we explain, and we mystify in order to mis-define, all in the name of God and truth and, in truth, we advance our self-advantage in the name of God and the shame of our misleading others.

I. Official Religion Judaism

In Judaism’s official religion, the religion of the written and oral Torah, we ought to follow the law and allow, to use Rabbi J. David Bleich’s apt idiom, “the chips fall where they may.” This Judaism’s recognizable official categories of rules are clear, simple, well known, but sadly and often subverted:

1. There are three kinds of rules in Judaism

2. de-oraita: Toraitic laws, derived from the Torah, the constitutional text, by a Sanhedrin, a constitutional court

3. de-rabbana: Rabbinic rules enacted by members of the constitutional court, called taqqanot, enactments [which require a commandment blessing], gezeirot, cutting decrees, prohibiting acts, and hanagot, required practices that do not generate a blessing, as in the rite of the willow bundle on Hoshana Rabba

4. minhag, popularly known as as “custom” but really are legislated local “directives,” or local ordinances of the community. Just as hanagot do not generate a blessing, Orthodox Judaism from the Talmud, Maimonides, and Rash”i did not allow minhag to generate a blessing, which celebrates a Divine law that animates sanctity. Such a blessing makes the false theological claim that a human usage carries sanctity even if the usage is not a divine mandate. In some versions of post-Rabbinic Judaism, customs are what great rabbis say we ought to do, reflect the remembered past as opposed to canonical statute, and if the community feels strongly and intensely, customs may displace and replace statute. For those who believe that customs indeed may generate a commandment blessing, because such a construction is “considered” to be “accepted,” they argue, against the canon, that God’s ideal word is not revealed in the public, accessible holy book; it is revealed in the private intuition of the holy person.

II. The official religion Dual Torah Jewish religion

Official religion Orthodox Judaism is best defined by Maimonides in his introduction to his compendium. He maintains that:

1. Ideally the letter of the law, the conclusion of the Talmudic text philology parsed, provides the conditions for legal validity and we allow, following R. Bleich, the “chips fall where they may.”

2. Customary law valid if and only if Talmudic statute is not violated. Legally binding, i.e., customs that do not violate Talmudic law. must be accepted by the community; they may not be imposed upon other communities,

3. The Yiddish aphorism, “a custom overrides the law “ in matters of ritual, is consistent with that Judaism that allows a commandment blessing to be recited before the beloved custom, it underlies Isaac Mayer Wise’s Minhag America, and it anticipates Mordecai Kaplan’s comment that the Torah Law “has a voice, [but] not a veto.” Only a rabbinical court greater in size and number may elevate a custom into a law, at least according to the Judaism of the Dual Torah.

4. The local rabbi, also known as the mara de-atra, the religious master of the locale/jurisdiction, is authorized to issue local hanagot/edicts, binding locally.

5. Therefore, synods of great rabbis who issue summary judgment/ ex cathedra edicts under the rubric of daas Torah are in fact adding a norm to God’s Torah covenant in order to claim the power/jurisdiction traditionally reserved for a rabbinic court greater in number, wisdom, and hence religious valence than the rabbinic court that canonized and completed Amoraic rabbinic law in the 5 ^th Christian century.

III. The ideal Judaism is in theory alive and well

In his renown responsum on the parameters of rabbinic jurisprudence, Iggrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah1:101, the saintly Rabbi Moses Feinstein finds that:

1. It is forbidden to claim that we may rule only on the basis past precedent.

2. One may disagree with great rabbis, even R. Feinstein, if done so:

   1. You can disagree with R. Moshe

   2. Has there already been an end or boundary set for Torah study, God forbid, that we should only rule according to what is found in existing works, but when questions arise that have not been posed in our traditional works we will not decisively resolve them even when we are able?

   3. in my humble opinion, it is forbidden to say this, as certainly Torah study will continue to flourish now in our time; therefore, everyone who is able must rule decisively on each halachic question posed to him, to the best of his ability, with diligent investigation in the Talmudic sources and the works of halachic decisors, with a clear understanding and valid proof, even if it is a new application of the Halachah which has not been discussed in our Jewish law works.

   4. And even for a Halachah which has been discussed in our Jewish law works, the one issuing a ruling must certainly understand the issue, too, and reach a conclusion in his own mind before issuing a ruling, and not rule solely based on a ruling that can be found on the topic in other halachic works, as that is considered as one who decides points of law merely from reading law books, about which it is said,

   5. “Those who merely recite the Mishnah bring destruction upon the world, for they decide points of law from their recitation of the texts” (Sotah 22a; see Rashi ad loc.).

   6. And even if one’s decisions sometimes go against those of eminent latter-day rabbinic authorities, so what?

   7. We are certainly permitted to disagree with latter-day authorities ( Achronim ), and sometimes even with medieval authorities ( Rishonim ) when one has valid proofs, correct reasoning in particular .

   8. On matters like this, our sages stated, “A judge has but only what his eyes see [before him]” (as explained in Bava Batra 131a; see Rashbam ad loc.).

IV. The real

1. In practice one may not disagree with R. Moshe[

   1. Microphone

   2. Separate seating

   3. Intermovement cooperation

   4. Yd 1:93 it is hard to be lenient when others are strict

2. THE NEW FALSE NORM:

   1. SOCIAL CONSENSUS

      1. NOT a rule of system

      2. Who counts in consensus?’

      3. Parochial reconstructionist

         • Even if we can prove that it is fully academically justifiable,
         • it is still considered a breach if none of Klal Yisrael conducted themselves this way, as all the defenders of this practice called it-in their mildest expression!)
         • What tone, and how much energy would this discussion have had, had it been about innovating ways to help those still struggling with tzeni'ut, not finding ways to justify their ways?

   2. Daas Torah

   3. Ziyyuf hatorah

   4. My godol done told me

      1. TSENIYYUT DEFINED BY LAW not taste

      2. eduyyot 2:3 vs shach

3. So long as one does not contradict the undisputed opinion of the Shulchan Aruch and its commentaries which have been widely accepted in our community ;

   1. Who appointed Shulhan Aruch

   2. Widely accepted is not uniformly accepted

4. Michael Broyde made three landmark rulings

   1. Stop harassing homosexuals

   2. Electricity OK

   3. Women’s head covering not absolute requirement

5. YU SUPPORTER

   1. we all know and appreciate the value of intellectual honesty.

   2. I believe that any defensiblepshatorsevarainhalachacan and should be brought up and discussed, certainly on a forum ofrabbanim hashuvimas this.

   3. The scholarly and extensive efforts of Harav Broyde should be commended, and should serve as a model for all of us to aspire for

6. A YU rejoinder

   1. peshatimin earlier sources which were not understood or quoted this way until the need to understand them this way arose,

   2. to me at least, raises a red flag. The red flag gets redder by the fact that the actual practice in the observantklaldid not conform with this approach either.

   3. As to what percentage of later Europeanrabbanim's wives actually wentgeluyut rosh,

   4. We also can not deny that even in the case of some of these prominent rabbanim, it was clearly and admittedly theruach hazmanthat brought the change in attitude, and not a scholarly revisiting of earlier halachic sources by the wives (I know this point has been previously stated).

   5. I have heard from Harav Schachter and others that the Rav ZT"L did not defend his wife's practice, rather simply said that it was not sufficient grounds for divorce!

7. A student of Rabbi Wein

   1. Riding to shul permit learned but not torah

   2. Don’t publish truth if standards will be weakened

   3. Women now know there is a legitimate opinion

   4. They won’t listen to us

   5. Information should be suppressed

   6. Assumption: living precedent is de facto normative

   7. Who is decisor vs merit of argument

8. Hypocrisy there are breaches we tolerate:

   1. Women wigs worse than nothing

   2. We don’t duchen every day,

   3. We don’t draft everyone in Israel.

   4. If we want to Justify wrong doing then

      1. Orthodox Jews evade taxes

      2. Conceal part of their income in order to
         evade paying their full and fair share of the tax burden that afflicts all of us (and is bound to get worse).

      3. They do rely on a number of Gedolim, both deceased and,yibadel l'chaim tovim, contemporary, who have found justifications heterim, kulotand other arguments tending to support, or at least understand, the basis of this tax evasion. It is hard to comprehend that otherwise good Jews would do this but for the Rabbinic authorities on whom they rely, many of whom utilize minority approaches todina d'malchuta dinathat are nonetheless well grounded in the Rishonim.

      4. False assumptions:

         • >Rabbis after canon are judged by the canon--who said they are great
         • America law not antisemitic.

9. Claim that just because a position can be justified from sources, we do not do it.

   1. Customs can change

   2. Not Talmudic template

   3. We are bound to this consensus

Questions to Ask Regarding a Limmud Zchut (including Rabbi Broyde's article on Hair Covering)

[Editor's Note: I have omitted a rather long email exchange from the RCA forum dated December 14, 2009 that Rabbi Yuter provided because...

1. I had difficulty formatting the email exchange to make proper sense of the  interspersed commentary.

2. A mistake might lead to the words of one being attributed to another.

3. Given the controversy the error would extend beyond a simple mistake in giving credit.

4. I feel a personal sense of caution.

I offer my apologies to Rabbi Yuter for this omission.

-- Alex Herrera]