[Avodah] Jewish Action

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 12:08:27PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: 1.) Moshe Baine poses the two questions I use as an individual/community
: test (i) How often do we factor God into our daily decisions, both large
: and small? [Me - how central is the Ratzon Hashem in our lives?] (ii)
: What are we prepared to "give up" to comply with what we perceive as
: God's wishes? [Me - does God always seem to agree with what you want?]

What you call question (i) gets a scathing answer in that recent and hotly
discussed blog post, "Modern Orthodoxy from a Teenager's Perspective"
<http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/modern-orthodoxy-from-a-teenagers-perspective>
by Eitan Gross. The-future-R Gross opines that it is common knowledge
in MO circles that we dont make Ratzon Hashem central enough for MO
to succeed.

    Modern Orthodoxy tries to create a balance that, at the moment,
    cannot work because we have no drive to be with Hashem and lack the
    philosophical and hashkafic perspective to articulate why we should
    be Jewish in a world with an assortment of other options. Therefore,
    we need to take a fresh look at education and schooling. There needs
    to be an emphasis on the truth of the tenets of Judaism, as well as
    an inspirational approach that creates a yearning and desire in the
    student to be closer to Hashem.

And
    When I tried to publish this essay at a local Jewish newspaper they
    said "We cant publish this piece, it's too much for us. Plus you're
    only a senior in high school, so you don't have the authority to have
    a say in the current situation." Although they were against putting
    this essay to print, the head of the paper still agreed with me,
    "Modern Orthodoxy has major flaws and everyone knows it."

    If "everyone knows it", but no one does anything then it must be
    that they think Modern Orthodoxy is too big to change....

I think he means the Modern Orthodox community has major flaws, not the
contept "Modern Orthodoxy" itself -- or why would he be so concerned
with being able to save it?

I need to add, this being Avodah, that this problem of the confusion
between halakhah as a means and halakhah as an ends in-and-of-itself
has symptoms in all our communities.

Quoting myself, from my "manifesto" Tools and Goals
<http://www.torahmusings.com/2014/01/tools-and-goals>
   ... How would this play out communally?

   One possible outcome is that we would find a community of very
   committed, very observant Jews, but who do not show all the signs of
   the holiness the Torah is supposed to bring us to. This could happen
   if there is insufficient attention to the entire notion of a goal
   beyond the halakhah, so that black letter halakhah -- that which can
   be measured, laid out in clear obligated or prohibited terms -- takes
   center seat without any attempt to become the kind of person more
   capable of fulfilling the full breadth of its commandments. There
   would be mixed reports of business ethics, scandals of respected
   rabbis committing fiscal crimes, others unable to control their lust,
   yet others abusing their power over their students in other ways.

   Another possible outcome is an idealistic community, but one whose
   ideals are not Torah derived. In such a community ideals would be taken
   from some segment of the surrounding culture, and halakhah would be
   reduced to a means of "blessing" goals that we assimilated from the
   outside, that at times will resemble the holiness Hashem has readied
   for us, and at times will differ.

   A third possibility is particular to a community that teaches the need
   to engage the world around it, to risk the battle of its challenges in
   order to use what's positive in the surrounding society to further our
   sanctity. Without a firm eye and a constant striving toward an ideal,
   the energy it takes to maintain this delicate balance too easily
   collapses into a life of compromise. And so, for too many in this
   community the negative elements of modernity are incorporated into
   their lives, and also for many strict observance itself suffers.

   Do these portraits sound familiar?

The problem has another symptom which is less problematic -- the rise of
Brisk over other darkhei halimmud. A culture in which O means following
black-letter Shulchan Arukh will naturally gravitate toward a derekh
halimmud that shuns explanations that are in terms of first principles
that come before halakhah.

RYBS's Halakhic Man denies they even exist.

That said, R' Chaim Brisker's own life was more about values and acts
of chessed than Arukh Chaim or Yoreh Dei'ah. The family noted this --
for all his lomdus, RCB's mateivah reads "Rav haChesed". The problem
is not inherent to Brisk.

Therefore, it will be interesting to see how MO evolves, and whether
this remains their most pressing problem. YU now has a mashpiah,
classes in the Aish Qodesh, Tanya, R' Nachman, it has singing minyanim.
Within the halls of YU, Halakhic Man is facing growing competition.
Lenaar al pi darko -- this diversity is healthy.

But with more semichah students looking to the goals rather than stopping
at the halachic tools, MO culture is bound to change in a way that reduces
this issue.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When faced with a decision ask yourself,
micha at aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter