Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Think Again: Limud: A rejoinder to Rabbi Cardozo




 https://www.jpost.com/magazine/opinion/think-again-331775

 RABBI DR. NATHAN Lopes Cardozo goes even further.

He does not just urge Orthodox presenters to take advantage of whatever opportunities they are given at Limmud, but to sit together with their heterodox colleagues and learn from them. What should they learn? Biblical criticism? Guitar-playing? Cardozo suggests that the Orthodox might have learned from the heterodox how better to read the “religious map” of world Jewry. Has he read the Pew Research Center study of American Jewry – the 71-percent intermarriage rate among non-Orthodox Jews, the wildly disproportionate over representation of Jews in cults, the million or more American Jews who describe their religion as “none” or “other”? Has he read last week’s JTA article on Conservative and Reform temples surviving by renting out space to Orthodox minyanim? Is there a comparable phenomenon in the Reform and Conservative movements to the ba’alei teshuva movement, which has brought tens of thousands of Jews into the Orthodox fold? Does he know Conservative and Reform Jews who are dramatically changing their lives around the question: What does God want of me? CARDOZO HAILS the courage of new British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis for his decision to attend the upcoming Limmud Conference, and bemoans the cowardice of Dayan Ehrentreu and other senior religious figures for urging Orthodox rabbis not to attend.It is an open secret that the selectors of the new chief rabbi made attendance at Limmud a condition for the appointment. Mirvis may have decided that his considerable personal and organizational skills were just the thing to revive the moribund United Synagogue, and there was nothing to be gained by passing on the appointment – since whoever was appointed in his place would also go. And he may have reasoned that his opening address, with no heterodox rabbis on the podium with him, could do little harm, and he might even inspire some with his words of Torah and encouragement of Torah learning.But an act of heroism his attendance is not.

2 comments :

  1. That "quote" is attributed to R' Riskin, not Cardozo. R Cardozo simply said there needs to be more halachic research on the topic, and mentioned the Riskin view as one posible appraoch - he did not verify it, just included it amongst the views of different rabbis.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, a rabbinic coordinator for the Orthodox Union and blogger, has even referred to Cardozo as "[having] now accepted the approach of the Conservative movement, which postulates that Halacha is not objective divine truth, is not fixed, and that it must change in accordance with the values of the times and with various needs."[5]"


    Halacha is not objective divine truth - it was decided by a majority of bd or Sanhedrin. Tanoor of akhnai shows that the divine truth has nothing to do with halachic process.

    It's also not fixed, we have Sanhedrin or bd or poskim in each generation.

    A psak or posek will look at current circumstances. If the claim of rabbi Gordimer were true, there would be no further codes after the Rambam.

    ReplyDelete

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE POSTED!
please use either your real name or a pseudonym.