[Avodah] More on Reviving a Ritual of Tending to the dead

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 05:07:15PM -0000, Chana Luntz wrote:
: You see, even for those who disagree with Rav Moshe and hold that even a
: member of the C and R rabbinate can be considered a tinuk shenishba...

I think many who consider C or R rabbis to be TSN do not feel they are
disagreeing with Rav Moshe. IOW, they two would agree that the rabbis of
the 1950s were not. The question is whether the metzi'us the IM describes
is still true, or if the current generation is a new situation engendering
a new pesaq.

The difference between disagreeing in pesaq vs saying the situation changed
is a significant one in terms of the mechanics of halakhah. IOW, if an LOR
claimed the former, I would be skeptical of his pitting his own opinion
against R' Moshe's. However, if he claimed the latter, why not?

Lemaaseh, it appears to be true. In the 1950s, many in JTS had previously
attended YU or another O yeshiva. Many in the practicing C rabbinate were
O Jews who made peace with the idea in order to get a job, and/or because
that's where they saw the bulk of American Jewry and thought they could
have the most influence.

Then Prof RSL was niftar. Then they accepted women into the ordination
program. Which in turn caused the relatively traditional wing of the JTS
talmudic faculty to quit and thus eroded the last pretense of being a
halachic movement. The ordination program requires more hours of
Biblical Criticism than of Jewish Law. And the next generation will be the
product of a JTSA where members of the "GLBT community" (by which I mean
more than just people with such taavos, but identify with the community)
are routinely ordained, and many speak of Vayiqra 20:13 as a verse that
needs reinterpretation.

Can you say that the products of such an institution are overly informed,
or that they have a background that would make accepting Torah umitzvos
more likely than the masses have?

I simply think RMF's teshuvah doesn't apply; not that it's wrong.

: is still a different equation when you are potentially talking about
: strengthening problematic movements as a whole...

And this I see as a difficult question of strategy. There is no actual
halakhos of taharah, it's minhag. Minhag Yisrael, but minhag. And we all
agree on what's preferred and what's inferior -- you want the person
doing the taharah to be both halachically Jewish and be more likely
to have the right kavanos. So, AISI, the open question doesn't revolve
around halakhah or minhag, but around the metzi'us. Which strategy will
maximize shemiras hamitzvos.

Meanwhile, C is in existential crisis. This has been going on for most
of a decade, but Sorsch's farewell speech in 2007 did them the favor of
making it an acceptable topic of conversation. I'm not too concerned
about strengthening it at the moment. Actually, if C ends up failing,
I would expect that the usual ratio of 60 intermarrieds to 1 BT would
hold. The former C community would not -- on average -- end up in more
religious places.

As I said, it's a matter of strategy and metzi'us. I think we really
agree on the halachic/minhagic theory.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Strength does not come from winning. Your
micha at aishdas.org        struggles develop your strength When you go
http://www.aishdas.org   through hardship and decide not to surrender,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      that is strength.        - Arnold Schwarzenegger