<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div><span>There is a fascinating article by Conservative Rabbi Daniel Gordis. Fior those who don't know him. He is on the very rightest of wings in the Conservative movement. If one didn't know better one might think he is an Orthodox rabbi. But he is clearly not. Here is an excerpt from this article:</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline;">In this unsettled Jewish world, many groups are staking out territory. We have our Essenes
today—<i>haredim</i>—who want as little to do with the Western world, or the rest of us, as possible. For the time being, high birth rates buttress their position, but I find it impossible to imagine that Ultra-Orthodoxy, with its rabid rejection of Western intellectualism and its reprehensible attitude to women (among many other factors) is sustainable for the long run. The future of Judaism is not (I hope) there.</div><div style="background-color: transparent;"><span></span></div><div style="background-color: transparent;"><span></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline;">What about Centrist Orthodoxy? It has built impressive social and educational institutions, created a vast lay network with impressively high levels of Jewish literacy and learning. But central to Orthodoxy’s worldview is the
non-negotiability of absolute belief in the divine revelation of Jewish religious tradition. So far it appears to be working, but in the intellectual world we inhabit, can this certainty about revelation sustain itself among most well-educated American Jews for the long haul without retreat into the other-worldliness and anti-intellectualism of the <i>haredim</i>? One wonders.</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">He compares the insular world of Charedim to the Essenes of the 2nd Temple era. Is this a fair comparison?</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family:
HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">But more importantly IMHO is his view of Centrist Orthtodxy... or more correctly his problems with it. I think he questions our intellectual honesty with respect to our absolute belief Divine revelation... and wonders if this view can be sustained in the intellectual world in which we live.</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida
Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">Is he right? Is this a problem for Centrists?</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;">HM</div><div></div><div> </div><div>Want Emes and Emunah in your life? </div><div><br><br></div><div>Try this: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/</div></div></body></html>