In Hirhurim herem

Here are some quotes for you from a famous Torah blogger:

There is more to the Torah than forbidden and permissible. Those areas also teach us about values.

It seems clear from multiple places in rabbinic literature that some prohibitions are considered worse than others. And some permitted but frowned upon acts are also considered terrible.

You continue to pursue the permitted/forbidden line of argument so we are just talking in circles, which is not worth either of our times. I am not interested in repeating that we [need] to look to the Torah for guidance beyond permitted/forbidden...

As you might have guessed from the title, these are from Rabbi Gil Student, proprietor of Hirhurim (now called Torah Musings). Honestly, I do not frequent the site, but this week I saw a link to David P. Goldman's "Can Conservative Religion Survive Gay Marriage?" It's an interesting piece, although much of it was lost on me because I don't have a background in Catholic theology. I commented, and Goldman responded to me very politely. I had some remaining issues, so I responded, at which point Gil stepped in. His point seems to be that even though there is no halakhic ban on lesbianism among non-Jews, we still need to fight for DOMAesque legislation based on "values." So I asked what the value was. That was the end of that thread. Gil independently raised what I had written, so we engaged anew, until I asked: "What about gay marriage is improper based on values? If you say that they cannot form sacred unions, why not? Because the Torah forbids it? That is a forbidden/ permitted argument QED." We went back and forth, and I asked again, "What is this value that gay marriage does not have?" Gil responded that he would not repeat himself, so I asked him to please tell me where he said it in the first place. You can't see that last comment, because he hasn't approved it. In 15 hours. While a comment from 12 hours later has been approved.

I think I've been banned. Well, until DB bans me here, I'll give you my take on the one Jewish source mentioned in the article, raised two months ago by another blogger...

Of lesbians and levirs

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

Earlier this year, I was deposed by a private firm investigating sexual abuse allegations at Yeshiva University High School.
I can understand why they wanted to talk to me. Though one of the main alleged offenders, Macy Gordon, was before my time, I knew the other, George (Gedalia) Finkelstein quite well. My father served under and eventually succeeded him as assistant principal of YUHS for Boys, also known as MTA, and as rabbi of our shul. He was also our neighbor, in the next apartment building over on Fort Washington Avenue in Manhattan. His daughter was my first crush.
But apparently, there was a lot I didn't know about George. I didn't know about his habit of "wrestling" students in the 70's and 80's, although apparently then-YU President Rabbi Norman Lamm did, as reported by The Forward's Paul Berger. The door was taken off his office to prevent this from recurring, but eventually he "was quietly forced out" in 1995. Don't worry, he landed on his feet, taking over a huge Jewish school in Florida before making aliya a few years later to work for Jerusalem's Great Synagogue. Complaints have been lodged here as well--with our old friends at Takanah.
When these allegations surfaced late last year, current YU Pres. Richard Joel issued the following statement:

The inappropriate behavior and abuse alleged by The Forward to have taken place in the past, and described in statements attributed by The Forward to Dr. Lamm, are reprehensible. The actions described represent heinous and inexcusable acts that are antithetical both to Torah values and to everything that Yeshiva University stands for. They have no place here, in our community, or anywhere at all. The thought that such behavior could have occurred at our boys’ high school, or anywhere at this institution, at any time in its past, is more than sufficient reason to express on behalf of the University, my deepest, most profound apology.

It's a forceful statement, until you analyze it a bit. Joel is reacting to the Forward, what they "allege" and what they "attribute." He does not mention any victims, except to talk about the great YU guidelines for aiding theoretical people. After all, it's just a thought of such behavior, and only in that context does he "express... my deepest, most profound apology." Are there victims? Did any of this occur? Did Rabbi Lamm say this? Who knows!
A week later, they hired a firm to investigate these allegations, and their report came out yesterday, with another statement from Joel:

There are findings set forth in this report that serve as a source of profound shame and sadness for our institution. On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the entire University community, I express my deepest and most heartfelt remorse, and truly hope that our recognition of these issues provides some level of comfort and closure to the victims. Although we cannot change the past, we remain committed to making confidential counseling services available to those individual victims in the hope they can achieve a more peaceful future.

Now that he has an actual report, he's not apologetic, but remorseful. I guess we should be happy that he acknowledges the existence of victims, although he does not offers apologies or remorse to them. The problem here is that remorse (from the Latin remorsus) refers to a gnawing sense of guilt, pangs of conscience. However, what does not appear in this statement are the words "sorry," "apologize," "regret," "teshuva," "repentance" or "forgiveness." But that might imply liability.
After all, people have informed me on social media, and I quote, "This is as good as it gets when you are being sued for $680 milllion." Well, it's true that more than a dozen of the victims filed suit against YU for $380 million in July. Hm, maybe they should thank George for this potential windfall. I mean, once you sue, you're not a victim anymore, right? And it's inconceivable that there are other victims out there who didn't sue, right? Phew, glad that's over.
So why am I "fixated on a word," to quote another commenter? Because this sort of stuff matters to abuse victims. Check out Yerachmiel Lopin's Frum Follies blog or follow Dorron Katzin on Twitter; they are excellent at covering these scandals. You'll quickly get a sense of how important a clear, unambiguous, direct apology can be. Moreover, the lack of consequences for associating with abusers after their crimes have been exposed was recently dissected by former RCA Pres. Rabbi Heshie Billet. YU can and must do much more right now, even though Joel's through-line seems to be "we cannot change the past" and touting the awesomeness of the university's guidelines for the future. What about the present?
Indeed, Sir Elton, sorry seems to be the hardest word. In fact, one of the classic questions about this season of penitence is the following: why does it matter? Why should saying "sorry" or "we have sinned" change anything? Isn't it just an empty ritual?
No, it's not. It means something, because it implies the need to do something to rectify the error, as best we can. At least that's what I thought until Pres. Joel set me straight:

...on Yom Kippur, Moses descended from Mt. Sinai with the second set of luchot, the Ten Commandments. These tablets differed from the first in that they were written by God and yet fashioned by Moses...
In the season of introspection, we must fortify that relationship by recommitting to the ongoing work of creation. If our future is to align with the ethical and personal imperatives of our sacred Torah, then we must not wait – we must make it so, not merely in word but in action.

Did you think Yom Kippur was about past misdeeds? No, it's about moving on. Take two new tablets for that remorse, and don't call me in the morning. Assuming you can sleep through the night.

Repentance is hard, remittance is easy

Just a brief after-Shabbat report from the Holy Land. While we Ashkenazim are breathing a sigh of relief that we have one more week before Selihot start, our Sephardic brothers are in full penitential mode. Luckily, their greatest living rabbinic star, Maran R. Ovadia Yosef, has a solution.

Send $99.99 to his favorite charity, and he will pray FOR you on both Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur eves! Yes, you will be named as a co-supplicant with Maran!

I exaggerate, of course. By today's exchange rate, 360 shekels would actually be one hundred dollars and thirty-one cents. Still, keep your eyes on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange--the annual salvation of your soul may get cheaper yet.

Moses: soft on gays?

The phrase "Let this year commence with its blessings" is a a common pre-Rosh Hashana greeting, but it is its converse. "Let that year conclude with its curses," which has a much longer history. It's the reason that we always read the 98 Curses of Deuteronomy 28 at least a week before the new year, according to the Talmud (Megilla 31b). However, that same passage indicates that, frightening though they might be, these curses are the mild ones. The ghost-pepper curses are the ones in Leviticus 26. Rashi (Deut. 28:23) explains the distinction:

These curses were stated by Moses of his own accord, while those at Sinai he pronounced from the mouth of the Holy One, Blessed is He. This is demonstrated by the verses themselves... Moses made his curses milder, by expressing them in the singular form. Furthermore, in this curse, Moses made his milder... saying that the skies will sweat, and thus, even though they will not pour down rain, there will not be a consuming drought in the world.

The part about Moses stating these of his own accord is a philosophically thorny issue which I wrote about earlier this week. Regardless, it does force us to look at the Book of Deuteronomy in a different way, especially in its relationship to the Book of Leviticus.

• In Lev. 25:1-7, the sabbatical year is about letting the land observe "the sabbath of the Lord;" in Deut. 15:1-6, it's all about debt relief.
• Lev. 25:46 says "You shall enslave them forever," while Deut. 23:16 demands that the runaway slave be welcomed. (These dueling verses were used by supporters of slavery and abolition respectively in 19th-century America).
• Lev. 18:3 utterly rejects Egyptian culture, while Deut. (23:7-8) commands: "You shall not abominate an Egyptian."
• Speaking of abominations, while this is a term used exclusively for illicit sex in Lev. 18 & 20, in Deut. it denotes a wide range of taboos: from idolatry and non-kosher food to various types of commercial, ritual and sexual fraud and those actual threats to traditional marriage: prostitution and divorce.
• In Lev. 23, holidays are about sacrifices; in Deut. 16, they are about sharing the wealth with one's family and the poor.
• In fact, Leviticus mentions joy once; Deuteronomy talks about it a dozen times. In fact, Deuteronomy has three times more cheer than all of the other books combined! Truly, Deuteronomy is the gayest Book.

Hey, that reminds me, what about the gays? The fundamentalists tell us that their battle against "the homosexual agenda" (I can only assume it involves a dictatorship under Andy Cohen) is so exigent because society cannot survive if gays are tolerated, recognized or allowed to marry. Surely, if shrimp are an abomination in Deuteronomy, gays must be as well.

This makes the preamble to the Curses all the more curious. You see, before the (Blessings and the) Curses in chap. 28, chap. 27 details what would make the nation cursed. The whole people must assemble, upon crossing the Jordan, and forge a covenant; but since no one knows what happens behind closed doors, the people as a whole must execrate eleven types of covert transgressors. What secret sins undermine society? Well, we find the expected stuff about not abusing parents, neighbors, the blind, orphans, widows and strangers (yawn), but where's the sexy stuff? Right in the middle (vv. 20-23):

Cursed be he that lies with his father's wife; becase he uncovers his father's bed. And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lies with any kind of animal. And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lies with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lies with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Wait, that's it? Where are the gays? Doesn't any decent society need to strongly express its condemnation of their lifestyle?
In fact, sex between men is mentioned just as many times in the Torah as sex with one's daughter-in-law: namely, once in Lev. 18 and 20. (Fewer, if you count the Judah and Tamar story.) Say, how many organizations are out there combating daughter-in-law love?
Moses knows what he is doing. It's first-degree incest and bestiality that challenge society, not two men registering at Sur La Table.
I'll leave you with this thought. Next week, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the Great March on Washington, but I remember a different event, 25 years ago, the one for Soviet Jewry. I was too young to go, but my parents did, and it was an exhilarating experience. It was the clearest civil-rights issue of my youth: Russia was oppressing people who just wanted to be who they were, in public and without fear; so many were afraid to embrace their identity, rightly concerned about what the totalitarian government might do to them as "subversive elements" and "enemies of the state." Beatings, imprisonment or worse--the brutality of bigotry in the starkest terms.
So, when's the March on Washington for Russian gays?

Indecent acts

Earlier this summer, I wrote on this site about the woeful attitude of many in the Jewish establishment towards cases of child abuse: "Sorry, Rabbi, it's not OK." With Mordechai Elon being found guilty of indecent acts against a minor, I feel the need to respond to some shocking reactions on social media.

The fact that the man may have sinned does not change the quality of the Torah he has taught for decades.

Well, we have two choices here. Either the Torah as a whole is invalidated, or Elon's tiny, tiny corner of it is. If you truly believe that child abuse does not impinge on one's suitability to teach God's word, then you have made God an accomplice to some truly heinous acts.

It's the month of Elul! Don't you believe in the power of repentance?

Repentance is, in the Jewish conception, between man and God--not via priest, press or public. (Elon has denied the charges throughout the legal process.) When a court determines guilt, penitence is absolutely irrelevant. The victim and perpetrator will get to talk about how they feel at sentencing.

Whatever you believe, this is a very sad day.

The sad days were a decade ago when Elon committed these acts. The sad days were every day since then that the case was handled with kid-gloves, as compromises were reached and feet were dragged. Today is a day of justice, a day when healing may begin.
Justice is, after all, the opening theme of this week's Torah portion, Shofetim: "Justice, justice you must pursue" (Deut. 16:20). In fact, the Talmud understands this (Sanhedrin 32b) as a mandate to "Seek out a fitting court." The broader tragedy here is that so many religious Jews seem to be unclear as to what a "fitting court" is for this sort of reprehensible crime.

What proof is the Torah?

This summer, the Knesset passed a draconian law unfairly targeting a segment of the Israeli public of which I am a proud part: alcoholics. Taxes on liquor shot up across the country, and the higher the alcohol content, the higher the price. Shocking! Who's to say that 4% Coors Light should be cheaper than Yekev HaGalil's 96% Gold?

Oh, it's our Finance Minister Yair Lapid. Never mind then, I can't say no that beautiful, beautiful man.
Maybe he has a point. Maybe there is a difference between different types of alcoholic drinks. After all, there's a reason that we drink beer in steins, wine in goblets and vodka in shot glasses. The proof is in the proof.
You see, there's a raging debate in the English-speaking Jewish community this summer, based on the new website, TheTorah.com, which features the writings of Rabbi Dr. Zev Farber and others, aiming to harmonize Orthodox and academic approaches to biblical studies. From YCT to YU, from the RCA to the Aguda, Orthodox Jews are struggling to define what is an acceptable view of the divine origin of the Torah. You might remember the same thing from over a decade ago in the Hebrew-speaking Jewish world, when it was called Tanakh be-govah einayim  (literally, "the Bible at eye-level"). Now the acronym is TMS, for Torah from heaven (shamayim) and Sinai.
What does this all have to do with alcohol? Perhaps more than one might think. We keep obsessing over the eighth Maimonidean Principle of Faith, in which he basically quotes the Talmud's statement that anyone who declares that any verse of the Torah was "not said by the Holy One, Blessed be He, but by Moses of his own accord" is a heretic (anonymous beraita in Sanhedrin 99a; also R. Eleazar of Modiin, Sifrei, Num. 112), but the Talmud itself elsewhere (Abbayei in Megilla 31b) says exactly that, in the same words, about the Curses in this week's Torah portion (and, presumably, the rest of Deuteronomy).

It seems to me that Maimonides is a bit of a straw man here, or maybe a scarecrow. We don't really know what he means because he does not explain it. He merely codifies both Talmudic rulings (Laws of Repentance 3:8, Laws of Prayer 13:7).  Furthermore, the core of the objection seems to be that one is attributing the given verse or letter to man and not to God. As far as I can tell, the current debate has nothing to do with this, as everyone seems to concede that the Torah comes from God. True, he does introduce the topic in his Mishnaic commentary (Sanhedrin 10:1) by saying that "the whole Torah which we have today was the one given to Moses," but he goes on to explain that the problem is in viewing some parts of the Torah as having greater holiness than others, and this introductory part is mentioned only there, not in Mishneh Torah.  It's also worth noting that Maimonides also attributes the Oral Torah to Moses, knowing full well that the Talmud is full of arguments and disputes.
So can we move on from Maimonides? What is more concerning to me is the idea of our Torah being the Torah of Moses, and this is where our alcohol analogy is relevant.

Sure, there are Tannaitic opinions that the last eight verses of the Torah were written by Joshua, leaving the Mosaic content at just under 99.9%. Or maybe it's the last twelve, since Moses never comes down after ascending Mt. Nebo, bringing the Mosaic content to just under 99.8%. Or maybe it's those last four chapters, since in Deut. 31 the Torah is already handed over to the Levites, complete, bringing the Mosaic content down to below 97.9%. There's still a world of difference between that and saying that Moses only wrote a few chapters of the Torah, maybe some poems, travelogues or genealogies. There's a world of difference between saying that Abraham didn't have camels or live until 175 and saying that he never existed. Is it really so ludicrous to distinguish between the Coors Light and the 96% Gold?
Excuse me, it's time to refill my tumbler.

A Sbarro survivor speaks

Twelve years ago, someone tried to kill me. I didn't know him, and he didn't know me. I happened to be an off-duty soldier just finishing up my active duty service, but he didn't know that. He came to kill civilians at Sbarro Pizzeria in Jerusalem, and he did, including Malki Roth, sister of a yeshiva chum of mine, who was working the cash register to my left; five members of the Schijveschuurder family, who attended my cousins' synagogue in Har Nof, who were seated behind me; and nine other civilians -- ten if you count the young woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state since that day.
As some of you may know, the date of this attack was 9 August, 2001, at the height of the Second Intifadah. The 12th anniversary was one week ago. But I was one of those 130 injured. I didn't die that day. Two weeks later, I got married. That's why today, equidistant between these two very public and very personal events, is the day I think about both, the worst thing to ever happen to me and the best thing to ever happen to me. Or maybe these two events are tied for best; I suppose it depends on your point of view.
I think about the what ifs. What if I had caught the bus and met my friend at Sbarro an hour earlier, as originally planned? I would have missed everything. What if I had sat one table closer to the door? I would been killed. My parents would have been getting up from shiva for their only child on this date. My fiancee would never have become my wife, and my sons would never have been born.
Instead, I walked away from that devastating attack in the center of Jerusalem a dozen years ago. Literally. Exiting through the wall, because there was no wall there anymore. As the blood ran down my face, an MDA medic took my hand and walked me the two blocks up to Bikur Holim Hospital. They stitched up my scalp and my shoulder, but there wasn't much to be done for the burst eardrum. Then they sent me on my way. I walked to the police station to pick up my backpack, which had been cut open to look for potential explosives. Then I got on a bus and headed back to my yeshiva dormitory. The next day, I got back to planning our wedding with my then-fiancee, while others were planning funerals--for spouses, children, siblings, parents.
Whenever a murder is in the news here, the reporter will note whether it is "criminally motivated" or "nationalistically motivated." It does not, of course, make a difference to the victim, who is equally dead in either case. But while a criminally-motivated murder is tragedy, a nationalistically-motivated murder is martyrdom. The upside, such as it is, is that the whole nation joins in the mourning, commemorating it each year after on Memorial Day; the downside is that the same nation sometimes sets those murderers free. And I accept that.
This has been a hotly-debated topic this week. In an effort to restart peace talks, Israel released the first 26 of 104 Palestinian prisoners, murderers all. You can read details of their crimes and victims here. Coming so soon after the 12th anniversary of the Sbarro bombing, it's no surprise that many have reacted quite negatively to the idea of setting these killers free, everyone from bereaved family members who appealed to the High Court of Justice and the President, to Knesset members who wrote furiously to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, to people who were almost there concluding that "Peace you make with humans, not animals."
I am none of these. I am a survivor. And the people who tried to kill me? The bomber was killed instantaneously; the wheelman (actually, wheelwoman) was freed two years ago to secure the release of captive soldier Gilad Schalit; and the bomb-maker is currently serving 67 life sentences in an Israeli prison.
As I stood at the corner of King George St. and Jaffa Road this week, looking at the building which is now a cafe, I wondered why I didn't feel anything. Not anger, not sadness, not triumph.
I'm beginning to suspect that this is the nature of survival. It is the lot of others to rage at the government; I just hope and pray that this trade of justice for peace proves to be worth it. This is a cause which seems to most exercise those who have lost everything and those who have lost nothing. As for me, having lost just a little something, I merely want to go on surviving.