Cardozo Academy Let it be said. Jonathan Sacks has been a rebellious chief rabbi. Now that he is stepping down, we had better keep an eye on him and hope he will become even more of an insurgent.
Over the years, most of us rabbis have become irrelevant on a global level. But isn’t that what we craved? Yes, we wanted to be spiritual leaders and teachers of our communities, serve our congregants, and become heads of yeshivot. Some of us did very well. But we shunned the idea of going beyond this noble task and taking on the world. We preferred to stay put, teaching conventional Judaism, creating our own comfort zone where our beliefs would not be challenged; where we wouldn’t get upset or begin having doubts and experiencing religious crisis. We wanted to ensure that Tradition would survive and be passed on to future generations. Once we succeeded in achieving that goal, we indulged ourselves in self-satisfaction, content with our own arguments, divrei Torah and Talmud classes. This was our Judaism.
The fact that outside our little world there was religious and moral turmoil was not our business. That religious faith was challenged as never before did not bother us. It was for the goyim to deal with. We buried our heads in the sand and lived happily ever after.
By doing so, though, we robbed the rabbinate of one of its most powerful tasks: to challenge, to disturb, to rebel and to send a strong, passionate message that is not always to our liking. After all, Judaism “is not a sustained, comfortable state of consciousness, but rather a painful, hard-worn and impermanent conviction—a breathing spell in the midst of an ongoing conflict” (*). Great Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once observed that religion has to function like a thunderstorm, but that over the years it invented sundry lightening-conductors and lost its purpose. The same is true about the rabbinate. It has become a pleaser, a comforter, not a biting critic of our moral failure and our spiritual and intellectual mediocrity. It was not prepared to challenge its own institution, the Jewish tradition; it wouldn’t dare to take a fresh look at its holy texts, at Halacha, and at the spiritual conditions and needs of its own people. [...]
Over the years, most of us rabbis have become irrelevant on a global level. But isn’t that what we craved? Yes, we wanted to be spiritual leaders and teachers of our communities, serve our congregants, and become heads of yeshivot. Some of us did very well. But we shunned the idea of going beyond this noble task and taking on the world. We preferred to stay put, teaching conventional Judaism, creating our own comfort zone where our beliefs would not be challenged; where we wouldn’t get upset or begin having doubts and experiencing religious crisis. We wanted to ensure that Tradition would survive and be passed on to future generations. Once we succeeded in achieving that goal, we indulged ourselves in self-satisfaction, content with our own arguments, divrei Torah and Talmud classes. This was our Judaism.
The fact that outside our little world there was religious and moral turmoil was not our business. That religious faith was challenged as never before did not bother us. It was for the goyim to deal with. We buried our heads in the sand and lived happily ever after.
By doing so, though, we robbed the rabbinate of one of its most powerful tasks: to challenge, to disturb, to rebel and to send a strong, passionate message that is not always to our liking. After all, Judaism “is not a sustained, comfortable state of consciousness, but rather a painful, hard-worn and impermanent conviction—a breathing spell in the midst of an ongoing conflict” (*). Great Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once observed that religion has to function like a thunderstorm, but that over the years it invented sundry lightening-conductors and lost its purpose. The same is true about the rabbinate. It has become a pleaser, a comforter, not a biting critic of our moral failure and our spiritual and intellectual mediocrity. It was not prepared to challenge its own institution, the Jewish tradition; it wouldn’t dare to take a fresh look at its holy texts, at Halacha, and at the spiritual conditions and needs of its own people. [...]
important line:
ReplyDeleteRabbi Sacks was able to do so only because he had the great merit to have not learned in conventional yeshivot.
Rabbi Sacks has published kefira. Of course normative Orthodox Judaism forced him to withdraw his book containing said heresy. But his initial intentions must be noted.
DeleteActually, this article is perhaps wishful thinking on R' Cardozo's side. Sacks has been very restrained in his position of Chief rabbi, he was unable to to implement the rebellious ideas he wrote about while still at Jews College. A conversion that he promised would be validated ended up as being rejected by his own BD. The BD was effectively run by Dayan Ehrentreu for most of his tenure. So any so called rebellion may have been in some books he published , articles written for the general public. The joke was that Britain had some very weak Archbishops, so many turned to the Chief Rabbi for spiritual guidance!
ReplyDeleteDo you speak of Rabbi Sacks attendance in a Church of a Christian Church service and religious rite ceremony, with him sitting among Priests and Christian clergymen in the process of offering prayers to Jesus Christ, at the wedding ceremony of Prince William -- in contravention of Jewish Law?
DeleteI am truly sick of people using his attendance at the royal wedding as a sword with which to impale Rabbi Sacks. I have it upon very good authority that the Beit Din of London permitted the attendance if it was per personal invitation of the Queen.
DeleteCheck your sources before complaining about this again.
No such reputable Beis Din authorization exists. And they would not have been shame-faced to publicize such an alleged ruling had it existed.
Deletea) It's not clear if they pray to Yashke, since Church of England being more protestant, do not accept melitzim.
Deleteb) The heter for attending a Church service is based on Darchei Shalom, since the Christians only gave a heter for Jews to live in England during the time of Oliver Cromwell. It was actually forbidden for Jews to live in England, when they killed/ expelled us around 900 years ago. [ The Scottish, apparently had no problems with the Jews].
3) Is the issur on praying in a Church, or even entering it?
Maybe we never worked on fixing the world because we still haven't succeeded in fixing ourselves.
ReplyDeleteLearn Sefer HaChinuch, understand the Word of HaShem vis a vis the Naviim, incorporate midos tovos into ones own life, emulate HaShem's attributes of Divine Mercy, Justice, Kindness - insure the Widow and the Orphan and the Stranger are taken care of to the fullest extent of their need, be an eved HaShem, and only then, maybe then, can one even begin to criticise Rabbi Sacks. As to the conversion that was 'reversed by his own beit din' - Hashem in Shmuel Aleph gives muser to Shmuel HaNavi when He states, " it is Not how man sees, for man looks at Appearances, but I look into a person's heart." We see from HaShem's own words that man is not capable to discerning what is in a persons heart, and therefore, for a beis din to be so arrogant as to 'reverse a conversion and render it unacceptable' is arrogant, lacks humility, and certainly does not emulate any of the qualities HaShem so loves in a human being, to love Justice, Mercy and Chesed. One who poskens halacha with these three character traits can only be a true and worthy dayan.
DeleteGarnel,
ReplyDeleteDo we first have to be perfect, or just good enough, before influencing outsiders?
RAM, we have to be good enough that one of us doesn't seem to appear on the front pages having committed some odious crime or another every second day.
ReplyDeleteOne could further point out that our influence on the world is supposed to be from Israel where we form a nation that is an example of Godliness to the world. We're nowhere near that right now.
Garnel,
ReplyDeleteIf a Jew and his Jewish associates are really good people, do they have to wait for all other Jews who dress like them to shape up before doing outreach?
No, but they must speak out strongly enough so as to convey the idea that as a people we reject corruption regardless of who commits it, and we embrace good behavior regardless of who does it.
DeleteRAM, one can be a great person all one wants but if one wants to outreach while the Mondrowitzes, Kolkos and Rubashkins are in the news it makes the job that much more difficult.
ReplyDeleteRemember that the righteous of Yerushalayim were killed during the first Churban not because they weren't sufficiently righteous to be saved but because they didn't protest their fellows' shortcomings enough.
We should always be suspicious when a popular charismatic rabbi says in effect 'everyone should be like me.' Most everyone has a different station in life than the CR...we are ordinary Jews, not advisers to kings and prime ministers. We do not meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope. Because we are in a different place than the CR, our duties and obligations are quite different. A life of torah and chesed does not also require that we should be a light unto the nations of the world and offer solutions to the problems of the world. For us ordinary people to have visions of grandeur, besides the corruption it brings to our neshamos, is the go down the path to becoming a fool. And what is true for lay people is also true for many rabbis as well...they have such inflated opinions of themselves they give up any chance at wisdom.
ReplyDeleteej
Rabbi Sacks makes a statement that insular Judaism may work for "individuals and even communities" in his final address. He seems to allow for that. But he seems to feel that some variant of Torah Im Derech Eretz/Torah U'Madda is more appropriate for the klal.
DeleteHe's perhaps overreaching in conveying the impression that most of Jewry can meaningfully engage in intellectual dialogue with the rest of the world in a way that directly uplifts general society--most people, Jews included, are not intellectuals. But even so this hardly translates into a need to ban secular education, or a heter for us to not be concerned about how our behavior looks to the rest of the world.
It seems pretty clear, however, that Torah Im Derech Eretz is chazal's prescription for the klal, and I personally think the Agudah exaggerated the extent of chareidi involvement in general society in their response to R'Sacks.