Lakewood: How it redefined the nature of American Orthodox Judaism

Tablet Magazine [...] There are assuredly many factors that have contributed to the success of the Lakewood yeshiva, chief among them its determination to be the American yeshiva with the best students and the highest standards. There is another important factor, however, one that went unexamined in the articles published and speeches delivered on the occasion of the yahrzeit: Lakewood’s seamless integration into American society. Although Reb Aharon (as the founder is referred to within the yeshiva world) was radically countercultural, an uncompromising opponent of the American pursuit of wealth and pleasure, his yeshiva has made its peace with American bourgeois values. Many of Lakewood’s alumni sacrifice financially to pursue vocations as educators and community rabbis, and a few do spend their lives in penurious full-time study, but most enter the business world and build lives of white-collar respectability and commercial success, with the attendant trappings of a comfortable suburban lifestyle. Lakewood’s integration of yeshiva ideology and American capitalist lifestyle has been the object of critique from the more hardline Israeli Haredis whose uncompromising stance has put them at odds with the larger society in which they live. But it is these baalebatim, or householders, and others like them who provide the substantial financial support necessary to keep the Lakewood yeshiva, as well as the many other community institutions, going and growing. [...]


The “Primacy of Torah” was an apt phrase for the motto for the azkarah, as it hints that there is something else that serves as a necessary supplement to the study of Torah, namely making money. The pragmatic approach of Lakewood stands in stark contrast to that of the Lithuaninan Haredi community in Israel, where the prevailing ideology is one of “Only Torah.” Yeshiva students there are expected to devote their entire lives to the study of Torah; secular education and jobs are actively discouraged. According to Dr. Benjamin Brown, a Hebrew University lecturer whose research focus is Orthodox Judaism and Haredi society, Israeli Haredis view their American counterparts with a measure of condescension: The bourgeois lifestyle of American Haredis may be acceptable “for them” in America, but not in Israel, where the Haredis hold themselves to a higher, less compromising, and more austere standard. Torah study itself in America is also considered by Israeli Haredis to be on a lower level, which Brown believes is supported by the fact that “American bochurim [unmarried yeshiva students] come to learn in Israel, not vice versa.” The same perspective was shared with me by Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, a Haredi religious court judge in Jerusalem. According to Pfeffer, the “mainstream” Israeli Haredi “looks upon his Lakewood counterpart as being part of the American experience of affluence and luxury and generally believes that Torah greatness cannot emerge from America—even from Lakewood.”

I asked Aaron Kotler what he thought of these assessments of Lakewood by Israeli Haredis and, not surprisingly, like a good CEO, he declined to respond. Kotler does not appear to harbor within himself any doubts concerning the rectitude of Lakewood’s religious path and its scholarly achievements, and he would therefore have no need to defend himself and his institution. He may also recognize that behind the critique there lies covert respect or even admiration. Pfeffer noted that Lakewood, and the American Haredi community more generally, is perceived by Israeli Haredis to be more “tolerant,” allowing its members “greater freedom of choice in leading their lives: the choice to work rather than learn is not shunned, the dress code is not as rigid … and the ‘prohibitions’ (against iPhones, iPads, etc.) are more flexible.” Although some see this greater tolerance and flexibility as evidence of weakness and compromise, others “admire the American model and wish there could be more tolerance and freedom of choice in the Israeli Haredi experience,” he said. As the constraints barring young Haredi men from entering the workforce and business world in Israel are beginning to loosen, and with the political pressure unleashed in the last election on Haredi society to “share the burden,” the Lakewood model may become more than a secret wish. The “primacy” of Torah may one day rival or supplant the Israeli Haredi ideology of “only” Torah—another example, perhaps, of the steady Americanization of Israeli society.