Moshe Eliezer: Toward an Antifragile Judaism

This past Friday was my son, Mackie's, first Hebrew birthday. So I am taking the opportunity to post the speech I gave at his bris. This speech lays a framework for some ideas that I have been hoping to explore on this blog at some future point. 

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a concept called "antifragility." The idea is that, if you want to evaluate if a system is stable, you do not simply go by how well it handles everyday stresses. What is important is how the system handles extreme "black swan" events. Systems that are antifragile not only can survive a crisis but even gain strength from it. Part of what is counterintuitive here is that it is possible to end up rejecting the system that is superior based on what we can observe. Often, what appears as the day to day strength of a system is precisely what will bring it down in a crisis. This concept can be applied to Jewish survival. Passing on Judaism to the next generation means not becoming seduced by things that look impressive from the outside to the neglect of things that can survive a crisis. It is one thing to talk about how it is great to raise children in Brooklyn or Jerusalem and what is the best way to do so under those circumstances. The interesting and relevant question is how to raise children when Brooklyn and Jerusalem are not options. In the end, the only kind of Judaism that is going to survive, regardless of geography, is that which can make it outside of such places.

We have decided to name our son Moshe Eliezer in honor of my great-grandfather and my teacher, the late Prof. Louis Feldman. What they both had in common was a Judaism that was antifragile and could survive even under less than ideal circumstances.

My great-grandfather, Rabbi Moshe Eliezer Shapiro, grew up in Israel but had to flee during World War I. He ended up as the rabbi of Atlantic City, NJ. Atlantic City in the 1920s was a relatively family-friendly resort town that inspired the game of Monopoly. That being said, this was never his plan for how he was going to lead his life. For example, my grandmother grew up going to public school. Things would have been much simpler if he could have stayed with his father, my namesake, in the Old City of Jerusalem, where he could have lived out a more ideal Torah lifestyle. Perhaps this is the origin of the Chinn family preference for out of the way Jewish communities. My father was raised in McKeesport, PA and I was raised in Columbus, OH. I now find myself raising my children in Pasadena, CA.

The character trait about Prof. Louis H. Feldman (Eliezer Tzvi) that most struck people who knew him was that he was so much more than the short old man in a baseball cap, crumpled chalk-stained suit, and sneakers that he appeared. At one level, his appearance disguised the fact that he was a genius and the foremost scholar of Josephus of his age. Feldman embodied humility; he honestly did not seek honor nor did he desire people to recognize his greatness. He was able to do this because it really was never about him. He wanted other people to know and love the classical world like he did. The more he could get others to see this and not himself the better.

To dig deeper, Prof. Feldman's scholarship disguised what a holy person he was. If he was not most people's idea of a great scholar, he was certainly no one's idea of a tzadik. What kind of nice Jewish boy would spend his life on Greek and Latin? Feldman was not just a classics scholar who also happened to be a religious Jew. Underlying everything he wrote, was an implicit apology for what Jerusalem had to do with Athens. The world of Philo and Josephus was a model for Feldman as to how to be a Jew in the modern world. Feldman's Judaism was never pure or ideal, but that was its strength; it was capable of surviving in an impure non-ideal world.

In his final years, I used to regularly visit Prof. Feldman. More than history, what he liked to talk about was growing up in Hartford, CT. If you are looking for the key to Feldman's unconventional Judaism, the place to start is in Hartford. As with Atlantic City, Hartford was not anyone's ideal place to raise Jewish children. Maybe that was the point. How could someone be a religious Jew in academia? The same way that one could be religious in Hartford and the same way that one could be religious in ancient Alexandria or in Rome; with unwavering values and a sense of humor.

Moshe Eliezer, welcome to the family. I can't tell you that things are going to be simple and I am sure you are going to have lots of questions but that is the Judaism that I am offering you. It is antifragile enough to survive even when things are less than ideal. There are challenges ahead here in Pasadena but you are capable of handling them. How do I know this? Because your roots run much deeper than just Pasadena. They go back to Columbus, to McKeesport, to Atlantic City, and to Hartford. If you dig deeper you will find that they go back to Alexandria and Rome. I look forward to teaching you about your classical heritage. If you stick with it, you just might find your way back to Jerusalem.   

Kosher Jesus' Lack of Historical Context (Part III)

(Part I, II)

To get back to Rabbi Boteach's view of the Romans, for an author asking readers to show some charity to Jews, Rabbi Boteach's attacks on the Romans are particularly shrill. In fact I would go so far as to say that Rabbi Boteach's statements against Rome compare to that of the most vitriolic Christian denunciations of Jews as deicides. If you think I am exaggerating, I would point out that Rabbi Boteach repeatably compares the Jewish situation under Roman rule to Jews living under Nazi occupied Poland. This is a complete distortion of the Roman record. Not to exonerate the Romans, but they were more than just oppressive conquerors, who held gladiatorial games. Far more than the power of its army, Rome succeeded because it possessed an effective bureaucracy and a legal system that others wanted to be ruled by. Rome did not just beat it's opponents into submission; it seduced them into willingly joining the empire. The same Philo and Josephus that Rabbi Boteach uses to show that Pilate committed atrocities were overall very positive about Roman rule, particularly about Augustus and Tiberius. We know from Roman sources that Julius Caesar was particularly popular with the Jews of Rome. Rabbi Boteach talks about Pompey desecrating the Temple, but somehow leaves out the fact that he was invited in by Jews to help out in a civil war. For all of Rabbi Boteach's talk about the Pharisees being Jewish patriots trying to lead their people to freedom, R. Yohanan b. Zakai smuggled himself out of the city and surrendered to Vespasian, who was such a heartless monster that he spared the city of Yavneh allowing for the survival of rabbinic Judaism. Even later generations of rabbis had a difficult time completely condemning the Romans and admitted that the Romans did benefit Israel through their building projects. Did the Romans kill many Jews? Yes. Were they great humanitarians? No. Were they the Nazis? No.

Clearly, Rabbi Boteach's obsession with condemning the Romans, as can be seen from the book and how he answered my question, leads him to further misunderstandings of the nature of Roman rule. He uses the fact that the Romans do not play a larger role in the Gospel stories as evidence that the texts were edited to reflect a pro-Roman bias. Obviously, there was such a process, which has been obvious to scholars long before Rabbi Boteach, but that is beside the point. The Romans do not show up more because part of their not completely barbaric policy of occupation was to grant large measures of native self-rule to provinces in the empire. It should be no more surprising that non-Jews do not play a larger role in the Gospels than it should surprise readers to not find many non-Jews in the American edition of the Yated. The lesson we should take from the relative absence of non-Jews is that the New Testament is, for the most part, a Jewish book written for Jews.

Keeping the comparison with contemporary Jewish rhetoric is important in exonerating the New Testament from charges of anti-Semitism. Boteach claims to wish to do this, but in practice seems to do the opposite. Jesus and his followers were Jews. The books of the New Testament, for the most part, were written as Jewish books. It makes no more sense to call the New Testament anti-Semitic than it would be to call the Yated anti-Semitic for what it says about other Jews. For that matter, I am sure Rabbi Boteach would not want to be called anti-Semitic for speaking out like he did against those within Chabad, who are denouncing him nor would he want his Jewish opponents labeled as anti-Semites.   

It is almost as if Rabbi Boteach has this fear that if his readers do not place all the blame on first-century Romans they will blame twenty-first-century Jews. This is a counter-productive attitude toward anti-Semitism as it makes our denial of responsibility a little too earnest as if we have something to hide. Christians should not blame me for killing their Lord not because my ancestors were not shouting in the streets of Jerusalem for Jesus' blood to be on their hands and mine, but because I most certainly did not call for it and it should be obvious that I am the sort of person who never would think of doing so.   

Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies: The Temple in Second Temple and Rabbinic Literature

Louis H. Feldman – Philo’s Attitude toward the Temple in Jerusalem

Despite the fact that Philo was so important in the political life of Alexandria, he says very little about himself. He had a brother, Lysimachus, whose son, Tiberius, left Judaism, become governor of Egypt and was a general in the war against Judea. We have more philosophical writings from Philo than anyone in the period. Josephus mentions him briefly. Jerome refers to him as a Christian monk in Alexandria. There is a legend that Philo met with Peter. In essence Philo was made a Christian in honoris causa.

Philo wanted to be a philosopher and a mystic rather than a communal leader. As a biblical commentator, he criticized both extremes in the literal versus inner meaning debate. This would destroy the sanctity of the Temple to just go with the inner meaning. This was certainly an issue of great importance to Philo as talks about personally going to the Temple. He also prominently discusses the attempt by Caligula to stick a statue of himself in the Temple. In the letter from Agrippa to Caligula, quoted by Philo, Agrippa talks about how the Temple is the most beautiful in the world and that he is proud to have it in his home city. Philo does not mention the temple of the Samaritans. For him the Temple in Jerusalem is the end point of heaven and earth. He is proud of the fact that money collected from Jews around the world goes to the Temple. According to Philo, there are two temples; the one in Jerusalem and that of the rational facilities.
(I asked Dr. Feldman about Philo’s Hebrew. It is generally acknowledge that Philo did not know Hebrew and that he was completely dependent on the Septuagint. If Philo loved the Temple so much why did he not bother to learn the language spoken in it. Feldman suggested that Philo may have been so devoted to the Bible and connecting it to Greek thought that he neglected other issues like the language of the Bible.)

Michael Tuval – From Temple to Torah: On the Development of Josephus’ Religion

Josephus went from Jerusalem to Rome and became a Roman citizenship. He changed as a person from a Jerusalem priest to a Diaspora intellectual. Diaspora Judaism was different in that it downplayed the role of the Temple. Instead it focused on synagogues and other communal institutions. For Jews in the Diaspora biblical heroes were better intercessors in heaven than earthly priests. For Judean Jews, Mosaic Law was the law of the land. For Diaspora Jews, Mosaic Law was something they kept as a matter of choice. Josephus places greater emphasis on Mosaic Law in his later work Antiquities than in the Jewish War. Jewish War can be seen as a theological text. God destroyed the Temple because of the sins of the Judeans. It had nothing to do with the strength of Rome. This is a Temple centered world view. By the time we reach the Antiquities he is a biblical expert. He is also takes a more favorable view of the Pharisees as interpreters of the Law.