recent reading

[cellio]

This might not be of interest to anyone other than me, but hey, it's my journal. :-)

I'm currently reading The Struggle over Reform in Rabbinic Literature (by Alexander Guttmann), which I borrowed from my rabbi last month. This is, essentially, a discussion of the arguments around many of the changes introduced by liberal Judaism in the last 150 years. (The Reform movement grew out of the Enlightenment in Germany.)

The introduction rightly points out that reforms to Jewish practice are nothing new, but doesn't discuss this history in much detail. (I assume it's well-covered elsewhere, though I haven't been there yet and would like to learn more.) Changes have generally been made by suspending laws as not applicable (e.g. everything having to do with Temple sacrifices), by interpreting existing law to get the result you want, or by creating legal fictions; an example of the latter (not from the book) is the selling of chametz for Pesach. Yes, it's supposed to be a real sale, but that's not how people treat it and I'm not sure they ever did. An example of interpreting problems away (again, not from the book) is the Torah commandment that a rebellious child (well, son) is to be executed before he can do any real damage. In fact, all capital offenses seem to have been legislated into near-non-existence; Tractate Sanhedrin is a fascinating read. (Yes, I've studied the mishna to that tractate.)

Anyway, the book points out that gradual reform was happening slowly over many centuries, but what's really different about liberal Judaism is the number and magnitude of the changes that were made. We might have gotten to similar results over a period of a few centuries without anyone screaming, but trying to do it in a few years was problematic.

Personally, I believe there is a second factor, and I presume the book will get there eventually: Reform is *not* simply an inheritor of the rabbinical tradition of gradual change. Reform made a fundamental change in asserting that the Torah is not the precise word of God. Some people interpret that as "anything goes", but I argue that serious, committed, Reform Jews do not, and I hope to find some guidance in this book on interpretation within the traditional scope. In fact, one of the things I wrestle with most -- and maybe this will form the basis of my next discussion with Rabbi Gibson -- is how I can make informed, consistent decisions about practice within a Reform context.

Anyway, that's all by way of introduction. The bulk of the book discusses specific issues; I haven't finished and thus haven't gotten to the conclusions that are drawn from it. Anyway, I should try to draw my own first.

A couple things I've noticed thus far:

There seems to be a tradition in rabbinic Judaism of "that which is not permitted is forbidden", and I hadn't really noticed that before. For example, one of the Orthodox arguments against using musical instruments in the synagogue (ignoring Shabbat-related issues) is that the sages who ordained the use of prayer in the first place didn't say anything about music. But if that's an argument against music in services, then don't we have a problem because they also didn't say anything about melodies, and yet we have a tradition of chanting or singing certain prayers and the melodies vary from location to location? If it's ok to innovate on vocal music, why not on instrumental music? None of the reform arguments presented in the book brings this up.

One of the harshest critics of reform (at least among the Orthodox rabbis cited in this book) makes an argument that amounts to "we can't really hold them responsible because they are as infants". Someone who violates Shabbat isn't (necessarily) a heretic worthy of excommunication; he's a baby who doesn't know any better. (He particularly means American Jews here.) I find it odd that the same rabbis who argue the importance of free will endorse this sort of argument. It's very myopic: "we are obviously right, so if you don't agree with our interpretation you must be deluded or ignorant".

More later.

Comments

Re: Gosh, I'm being verbose...

[cellio]

<sarcasm>What, you mean that Moshe didn't wear a fur hat when he came down from Sinai?<sarcasm>

After personally writing the halacha on driving on Shabbat, yeah. :-)

(If that doesn't shock you, you haven't been reading up enough on kashrut practices in modern times...)

Actually, this doesn't shock me for a different reason: I've already encountered the Shulchan Aruch's interpretation. But it did shock me at the time.

Sounds like a neat class! (I think SA is 16th century, BTW. Can't remember when Kitzur SA is (obviously later); that's what I have at home.)

Re: Gosh, I'm being verbose...

[goljerp]

Kitzur Shulchun Aruch is a useful tool if you're in a hurry. But they really ought to print, on the top of each page (and on the footer, too), "This is a tool to use if you're in a hurry. In reality, the halacha is much more complex than this, and there really are a number of conflicting opinions on just about everything you see here."

Also, I noticed to my chagrin, that I failed to close my sarcasm tag. If I could edit my comments, I would.

Now I've got to finish cleaning for shabbat!

Re: Gosh, I'm being verbose...

[cellio]

Kitzur was someone's attempt to summarize "practical halacha" as it existed at the time. I gather that it's sort of the same approach that led to Rambam's Mishneh Torah, though I have not read the latter and could be mistaken.

Halacha has moved on since Kitzur, but it's an interesting snapshot of a point in time and is useful enough in broad strokes that, as you say, when you're in a hurry it will suffice.