[Avodah] Modern Orthodox Jewish Education

[Micha Berger]

There is a reply to RJM after the lengthy quote from my blog. If you
aren't interested in following that, you might want to skip down to
the horizontal line and check that.

On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 09:37:46PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: https://www.thelehrhaus.com/commentary/compartmentalization-and-synthesis-in-modern-orthodox-jewish-education/#em
: 
: Compartmentalization and Synthesis in Modern Orthodox Jewish Education
: By David Stein

I have repeatedly noted (including here once or twice) a danger that
founding a community on RYBS's philosophy would have to avoid, and
my belief that American MO failed to avoid the trap.

See <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/halakhic-community>

I raised other issues that are less relevant to this thread. Here's

   What are those peaks? The essay includes a description of his vision
   for Yeshiva University. Many complain about some of the material taught
   at YU; classes that include Greek mythology, or teachers that espouse
   heresy. However, Rabbi Soloveitchik (according to a lengthy quote in
   vol. II of R' Rakeffet's book) lauded YU's independence, running a full
   yeshiva and a full university totally unconnected from each other but
   under the same roof. In contrast, in Lander College the rashei yeshiva
   have veto power over what is taught in the university. The YU
   experience allows a student to deal with the confrontation of the two
   unadulterated worlds in a safe context, rather than provide a fused
   experience that will provide less preparation for living according to
   the Torah in the "real" world. Synthesis, RYBS argues, would produce a
   yeshiva that couldn't simply run in the footsteps of Volozhin and a
   university that couldn't aspire to be a Harvard. Once blended, neither
   is left alone.

   ...

   Again, I think the answer is "no". Maybe the typical person who wades
   though this blog has an interest in heavy thought where words like
   dialectic or antinomy are thrown around, where I speak of the Maharal's
   model of halakhah sounding fundamentally Platonic, or I use examples
   from Quantum Mechanics or Information science to illustrate a point.
   But this isn't the Orthodox world's most popular blog.

   Most people see academia as "ivory tower". Rather than giving someone a
   more precise and informed perspective of reality, they perceive the
   academic as disconnected from the real world and their experience.

   Thus, while to RYBS, the encounter was between Rashi and Rachmaninoff,
   between the Rambam and Reimann geometry (where the Red Sox and Westerns
   are side-matters to the core conflict), to the community who aspires to
   follow his vision, the reality tends to be an English halachic handbook
   and the Yankees.

   u-: The conjunctive linking Torah and Mada -- can we teach the masses
   to aspire for navigating the tension of conflicting values?

   The twin peaks calling RYBS are creative lomdus and secular knowledge.
   The confrontation between Torah and the world in which we live creates
   a tension which fuels creativity. Man is called to cognitively resolve
   the sanctification of this world, which can only be acheived through
   halakhah. This vision of unity of Torah and Madda demands that the
   individual himself pair in that creative with G-d, that finding their
   own resolution of the diealectiv tension. Cognitive man harnesed to
   applying the goals of homo religiosus to master this world in sanctity
   -- vekivshuha.

   The majority of his followers are trying to juggle a rule set and the
   western world -- not just high culture and academic knowledge, but
   primarily the day-to-day mileau they are exposed to and the values
   assumed by the world around them.

   And in any case, they can't employ creativity to map halakhah to the
   world they face. The majority of any large community will not be people
   capable of it -- they aren't posqim and rabbanim. When people are
   called upon to live in two worlds, and yet are unequipped to deal with
   the resulting conflicts, they are left in cognitive dissonance, which
   leaves them with two recourses. Both of which we find in practice,
   among those who aspire to live by RYBS's teachings (as well as among
   many others).

   The first approach is to keep them separate. Since he doesn't have the
   tools to navigate the gap between the worlds, the person
   compartmentalizes them. Dr. David Singer gives an example in Tradition
   21(4), in his article "[44]Is Club Med Kosher? Reflections on Synthesis
   and Compartmentalization" (available by subscription only).

     It all started when I told my friend Larry Grossman that I was
     planning to take my wife Judy to Club Med for a winter vacation. On
     December 22, 1983, you see, Judy and I passed the twenty-year mark
     in our marriage, and it seemed to me that a marathon achievement of
     that order merited some kind of special celebration. What then could
     be nicer than to escape the cold of winter for a few days by going
     to a Caribbean island -- the Dominican Republic, for example where
     we could soak up the sun, loll on the beach, and maybe down a pina
     colada or two under the swaying palms? Please don't misunderstand;
     Judy and I are hardly swingers. Indeed, it is fair to say that my
     own social outlook is quite conservative.... I was interested in the
     paradise and not in the swinging. ... All I wanted was a crack at
     some sunshine, a quiet stretch of beach, and those swaying palms --
     all this at a guaranteed first-class resort. Innocent enough, no?
     Larry, however, would have none of it. He expressed amazement that
     an Orthodox Jew could even contemplate going to Club Med, citing it
     as a classic example of Orthodox "compartmentalization," i.e., the
     process whereby modern Orthodox Jews -- those deeply enmeshed in
     modern secular culture separate out the Jewish from the non-Jewish
     aspects of their lives.

     Compartmentalization has both its defenders and detractors, and I
     have always been counted among the latter. Indeed, in a Spring 1982
     symposium in Tradition,' I went so far as to label
     compartmentalization the "Frankenstein" of modern Orthodoxy, arguing
     instead for "synthesis," the creative blending of the best elements
     of Jewish tradition and modern culture. To me, an Orthodox Jew
     vacationing at Club Med -- taking care not to violate the kashrut
     laws, saying the afternoon prayers on a wind-swept beach, etc., etc.
     -- represented the epitome of synthesis. Yet here was Larry accusing
     me -- me of all people -- of being a compartmentalized modern
     Orthodox type....

   Compartmentalization also arises in avoiding seeing that one is
   arriving at conflicting answers when standing in each of the different
   "worlds". The current youth of the Modern Orthodox world face this
   dilemma when asked about the social acceptability of homosexuality.
   Their Torah says one thing, their culture says another, and for the
   majority, their answers are inconsistent depending on time and context.

   The other possible response is failed synthesis -- compromise. How can
   I get done what I want to get done without violating any of the law? I
   might fish for leniencies, I might be doing something that is opposite
   in thrust and goal to all of tradition, but I will find some way to
   work my goal into what I can of the rule set.

   Take for example the woman who belongs to JOFA, attends a Woman's
   Prayer Group, and doesn't cover her hair. What's the justification for
   the WPG? Well, if you look at the sources, you can navigate a services
   that is similar in feel to a minyan, but does not actually cross any of
   the lines spelled out in the text. The cultural tradition that this
   isn't where women's attention belongs is ignored, in favor of the
   desideratum -- being able to serve G-d in as nearly an egalitarian
   experience as possible. However, when it comes to covering her hair,
   she whittled halakhah in another direction. There, the texts are quite
   clear. It's the cultural tradition that historically has been lax. And
   yet it's the presumption that these Eastern European women of the 19th
   and early 20th century must have had a source that drives her leniency.

   (RYBS himself was opposed to such prayer groups, allowing them only in
   kiruv settings. And yet here is an entire subcommunity of people who
   consider themselves his students or students of his students who
   figured out a way to come to peace with the idea.)

   Whether right or wrong, RYBS himself was against such prayer groups.
   Their approach is not a product of his worldview. And yet, the majority
   of those in the US who support them believe themselves to be disciples
   of his path in Torah.

   ...
   In short I identified a number of gaps between Rav Soloveitchik's
   philosophy and his followers:
     * The masses are incapable of creating halakhah, and shouldn't try.
     * The feeling of the "erev Shabbos Jew" eludes modern man.
     * Most people are not intellectually or academically inclined, and so
       encounter the contemporary world at a lower plane than Rav
       Soloveitchik envisions.
     * Because of the above, rather than navigating the tensions of two
       noble callings, thereby being religious beings who sanctify, rather
       than retreat from the world, the more common responses are:
          + compartmentalizing, and simply living in different worlds
            depending on the setting,
          + using that compartmentalization to find rulings that fit
            desired goals, and/or
          + compromising both their observance and their ideals in an
            attempt to be "normal".

   To look at all of these points and criticizing the ideal is unfair. No
   large group manage to live fully up to their ideals. And other ideals
   simply have other dangers. For example, while we identified an
   Orthodox-lite subgrouping within Modern Orthodoxy. But isn't the
   Chareidi who hides behind chitzoniyus (externalities) his suit and
   black hat in order to think of himself as "frum" rather than leveraging
   it to reinforce a self-image and the calling it demands, equally
   "lite"?

   However, I asserted that not only isn't RYBS's philosophy working as
   well as it might, trying to apply it to the masses exposes that make it
   less workable even in principle.

On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 12:46:40PM -0400, Joshua Meisner via Avodah wrote:
: Is v'chol ma'asecha yihyu l'shem Shamayim davka or lav davka, or is there
: room for secondary - and competing - values?

You are using this formulation to conflate DE or mada with doing things
for one' own hana'ah, and I think that muddies the issue rather than
clarifies.

...
: I suggested in a response that the Shulchan Aruch in this siman (and a
: handful of others) was dipping a toe across the line between halacha and
: aggadah, the former being a set of hard lines that either tell us what we
: can never do ("Electric fence Judaism") or tell us what we need to do
: during finite periods of time in our lives ("Time-share Judaism") while the
: latter is a fuzzy (although equally real) entity covering an infinite
: portion of space (hyperspace?) that takes on the illusion of lines when
: viewed piecemeal.

There is a basic paradox in the Ramban's "menuval birshus haTorah". If
"qedoshim tihyu" is in the Torah and prohibits being that menuval,
it's not "birshus haTorah", is it?

This points to a basic ambiguity in what we mean by halakhah. And
therefore while I think I agree with you in substance, I disagree
with the terminoloyg.

To my mind, the SA is not so much dipping a to "dipping a toe across
the line between halacha and aggadah" as he is including the halakhah
that one is obligated to do more than the black-letter law. In nearly
all of the SA he spells out what the black-latter is, but the Mechaber
does have to codify the din that that's only the floor, and doing
nothing to go beyond that din is itself no less assur.

Much the way Hilkhos Dei'os is just that -- HILKHOS Dei'os.

...
: R' Micha, in a response to my invocation of R' Shkop, made the correct
: observation that sometimes downtime can also be holy...

What some may find striking, RSS includes mitzvos bein adam laMaqom
in this notion of only being qadosh because it's caring for the goose,
whereas BALC is the golden eggs. He writes about "'qedoshim tihyu' --
perushin tihyu" (emphasis added):
    Then anything he does even for himself, for the health of his body
    and soul, he also associates to the mitzvah of being holy. For
    THROUGH THIS HE CAN ALSO BENEFIT THE MASSES. Through the good he
    does for himself he can benefit the many who rely on him....
    And based on what we have explained, the thesis of the mitzvah of
    avoidance is essentially the same as the underlying basis of the
    mitzvah of holiness, which is practically recognizable in the ways
    a person acts. But with insight and the calling of spirituality this
    mitzvah broadens to include everything a person causes or does even
    BETWEEN HIM AND THE OMNIPRESENT.

We rest and enjoy to maintain our bodies and psyche, and we do mitzvos
in order to maintain our souls, but the definition of qedushah is
commitment leheitiv im hazulas.

And perishus is perishus from anything that we're using as a distraction
from that life's mission.

Very much "vekhol maasekha yihyu lesheim Shamayim", even if many of those
actions are lesheim Shamayim only at one remove.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Feeling grateful  to or appreciative of  someone
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   or something in your life actually attracts more
Author: Widen Your Tent      of the things that you appreciate and value into
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    your life.         - Christiane Northrup, M.D.