[Avodah] [Avoda] Ehrlachkeit, not Frumkeit

[Micha Berger]

I finally wrapped up that blog entry. I don't think I did it justice -- so
much time had passed since I started, I forgot some of the points I had
set out to make. Anyway, here it is.

Notably, it defies my rule about not investing effort dismissing
the chaff, that we should promote ehrlachkeit rather than have long
discussions deriding frumkeit. Still, in our discussion last April
("Chumros") R' Doron Beckerman made me realize that my memory
brought RSW's definition of frumkeit more in line with my usual
whipping boy -- habit -- than what RSW actually said. See his post at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol28/v28n053.shtml#05>. So, I revisited
the quote, and eventually produced the following.

Interestingly, one of the few times I go negative, I got a lot more
positive feedback. (Mostly in email.) Which reinforces my negative
opition of blog dynamics. Blogging promotes negativity, since people are
more likely to comment when they want to object to something. And so,
there are two kinds of successful blogs:

1- someone who promotes an idea well, but whose readership doesn't buy
into his position and are thus irritated by it; and
2- someone who shares his irritation among others who can then expand
upon his complaint.

This negativity is a hazard, as it is an instance of coming to terms
with one's own existential angst by focusing on how others are worse.
And I see this point as Mussar enough to belong here rather than on
Areivim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

What is Frumkeit?

The word "frum" has become a near-synonym for Orthodox. How this came
to be is noteworthy.

"Frum" descends from the German "fromm", meaning pious or devout. In
pre-war Yiddish, usage appears to have varied widely. On the one hand,
those who named their daughters "Fruma" clearly thought being frum as
complementary. On the other, there was an idiom, or as Rav Aharon Kotler
often put it, "Frum iz a galech; ehrlich iz a Yid - the town priest is
`pious', a Jew is refined." I also heard the first part from Bergers of
that same generation, "frum iz a galech". Admittedly, both data points
from Lithuanian Iddish.

How did the word "frum", then, ever catch on in the Yeshiva world, a
community that aspires for continuity with the yeshivos of Lithuania?
How did a word go from being a scornful description of the wrong kind
of religiosity to a self-label?

I think that's it's for the same reason why kids who are eating at
McDonald's are branded "at risk", but those who are chronic liars are
not. The first group are "at risk" in the sense of their risk of leaving
the community and no longer staying exposed to our values -- and thus
losing the likelihood of returning. Which means we're defining ourselves
by how we differ from non-Orthodox Jews and non-Jews -- not by what's
most important.

To some extent, when we use it as a self-identification, we are still
thinking of frum in its original, ritual centric, meaning. A frum Jew
is one who belongs to our community, and thus is following Orach Chaim,
Even haEzer and Yoreh Dei'ah. And as implied by my comparison, this is
an important threshold -- it's the line between someone who wishes to
remain influenced by our teachings and culture, and those who do not.
But it does not accurately reflect priorities. "Ehrlich is a yid."

It is the original derogatory usage which is clearly the starting point
for Rav Shelmo Wolbe's essay on Frumkeit, in Alei Shur II pp 152-155
<http://www.aishdas.org/as/frumkeit.pdf>. R' Wolbe takes the informal
usage of yore and gives it a robust, specific, technical meaning. In his
hands, the word "frumkeit" refers to an etiology for a specific kind of
cul-de-sac on the path of religious growth.

As you may have noticed following this blog, I am a strong advocate for
a thoughtful and passionate approach to religious observance. As the
name says, a fusion of passionate aish with the rigor of das's law-based
rite forming a new thing, a new word, "AishDas". But in my discussion of
thoughtful Judaism, I have always presumed the antonym of thoughtless
Judaism, observance based on habit, on culture. Putting on tefillin
merely because "that's what is done."

Rav Wolbe notes a different alternative to thoughtfulness -- instinct.
To Rav Wolbe, frumkeit is an instinctive drive to be close to the
Creator. It is not even specific to humans; the frumkeit instinct is
what King David refers to when he writes, "Kefirim sho'agim lataref,
ulvaqeish meiKeil okhlam -- Lion cubs roar at their prey, and request
from G-d their food." (Tehillim 104:21) And, "Nosein livheimah lachmahh,
livnei oreiv acher yiqra'u -- He gives the animal its food, before the
ravens who cry." (147:9)

What can go wrong with something that draws us to the Almighty,
even if it is instinctive? Instincts are inherently about survival,
self-preservation. As we see in the pesuqim cited in Alei Shur, the lion
cub and the raven calls out to Hashem to get their food. Rather than
being motivated by thoughtfulness, frumkeit is the use of religion to
serve my ends.

A while back I posted
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/09/lishmah-of-interpersonal-mitzvos.shtml>
about something I called the paradox of performing mitzvos bein adam
lachaveiros lishmah -- doing interpersonal mitzvos for the sake of
the mitzvah:
    What is the purpose of such mitzvos? To develop feelings of love
    and caring toward others; to expand our natural focus on ourselves
    to include others. Does the lishmah (lit: for itself) mean doing the
    mitzvah for the sake of doing a mitzvah? If it does, then we are not
    focusing on caring for other people, we are focusing on Hashem. On
    the other hand, if we define lishmah as being "for the purpose for
    which we were given the mitzvah (as best we can understand it)", we
    would conclude that mitzvah bein adam lachaveiro "for itself" means
    doing it without thought to its being a mitzvah. As I said, a paradox.

Rav Wolbe quotes the Alter of Slabodka's treatment of this question:

    "Ve'ahavta lereiakha komakha -- and you shall love your peers like
    yourself." That you should love your peer the way you love yourself.
    You do not love yourself because it is a mitzvah, rather, a plain
    love. And that is how you should love your peer.

To which Rav Wolbe notes, "This approach is entirely alien to
frumkeit." The frum person is the one who makes sure to have Shabbos
guests each week, but whose guests end up feeling much like his
tefillin -- an object with which he did a mitzvah. A person acting
out of frumkeit doesn't love to love, he loves in order to be a holier
person. And ironically, he thereby fails -- because he never develops
that Image of the Holy One he was created to become. The person who acts
from self-interest, even from the interest of ascending closer to G-d,
will not reach Him.

One must approach a mitzvah with a drive to see the deed done, rather
than the self-interested drive to be the one doing it. This is "mimaaqim
qarasikha Hashem -- from the depths I call out to you, Hashem." I reach
for G-d not while instinctively grasping for loftiness, focusing on
how can I make me more lofty, but when I subdue myself for the sake
of the deed. To honor Shabbos out of a sense of honor, to give to the
poor because one feels such love and empathy that nothing else would
be thinkable.

This is why mussar is primarily a study of da'as, of wisdom and
thoughtfulness.