[Avodah] (no subject)

[Micha Berger]

Shalom" <carmy at yu.edu>
Bcc: 
Subject: Can you build a community around Halakhic Man?
Reply-To: 

I recently wrote a blog entry laying out my thoughts on whether an MO
community can actually be built around RYBS's thought. As a teaser,
here are the subheadings:
    Typology
    Dialectic Tension and Creativity
    Ramatayom Tzofim
    The Erev Shabbos Jew
    Torah uMadda (which begins by admitting we would be borrowing the
	term, as RYBS didn't publicly use it)
    Unworking or Unworkable?

Since the last subject header tips my hand anyway, I rethought what I
would post and am adding my final paragraphs:
> The fundamental flaw most people would encounter in trying to apply Rav
> Yosef Ber Soloveitchik's philosophy to their own lives is that there is
> no middle point. It's an ideal which most people are incapable of
> reaching; there is no path from here to there.

> If they stood alone, the other issues could have been solved
> incrementally. A person can study aggadita at their level and increase
> their feel for Torah values and seeing the world from the perspective
> implied by halakhah. Similarly, they can work on their interests and
> develop interests toward those parts of the general culture that help us
> better understand and work with the world around us and the people in it.

> RYBS unifies modernity and Orthodoxy by making them a tension that
> drives a level of creativity that few are capable of. RYBS's path may
> work for someone who shares the abilities of himself or the role models
> he uses in the examples that pepper Halakhic Man. But a community simply
> can't be built upon it. The compartmentalization and compromise found
> in contemporary Modern Orthodoxy are beyond the usual limitations of
> people who aspire for a common ideal. It is an inevitable product of the
> nature of the ideal itself.

Now, please read
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2008/07/halakhic-community.shtml> and see
how I justify that controversial conclusion. (For people who need the
entry emailed to them, just ask.)

Putting my moderator hat on, I wish to forewarn you... I realize this
post will generate replies that might require my donning asbestos before
reading. I therefore will be rejecting posts that I feel do not reflect
having read the actual contents of the blog entry.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv