The Bible as the Political Foundation of the Democratic State: My Response to Dr. Lively IV

Mr. Chinn,

I did not blame the Rwandan genocide on homosexuals.  Once again, you can't trust these "gay" activists to do anything but misrepresent the facts to their political advantage.  The Box Turtle video is heavily edited in true Hitlerian style.  I used the Rwandan genocide only as an example of conduct of which only certain types of people are capable who have such an lack of "feminine" characteristics in their gender balance (vis a vis the principle of male/female duality in Genesis 1:27) that they can commit horrible atrocities without any sense of shame.  If you want to understand the context, see pages 50-56 of my book, which I was lecturing from during that segment of the seminar.  Even if I had accused the Rwandan killers of homosexuality, which I did not, I clearly stated that homosexuals of this type are fortunately very rare and that most homosexuals are not like this.  I also spoke at length about the necessity of treating homosexuals as fellow human beings who happen to suffer from a behavioral problem that the rest of us don't -- but that we all have challenges in life to address.  No one who attended my lectures and listened attentively could reasonably justify capital punishment for homosexuals based solely on my teachings.

I read Rabbi Sacks' editorial and agree with him.  I think his position is closer to mine that to yours, especially in his affirmation of natural rights as they were understood by the founding fathers.  Locke's Second Treatise of Government is precisely the sort of application of Biblical principles to government that I am recommending.

I only yielded on Shaw to make the greater point that my purpose in contacting you was not to advocate a position, but to refer you to a source that was relevant to your research.  I don't concede re Shaw, but am tabling my original assertion pending an eventual review of the source by either one of us.

I don't think you understood my arguments regarding secularism.  I do not argue for religious tests or rituals in government, but for the necessity of a Biblically-informed worldview in the leadership and culture (to the extent that government actively influences culture. I do not argue that atheists cannot be good citizens, just that their worldview cannot produce a healthy orderly society.

I don't think my discussion of Biblical principles is spiritual in the sense that you meant it.  Yes, I believe Scripture must be the final authority in spiritual matters, and I suspect (though I haven't read them) that Maimonides, et al would agree -- as I believe with some confidence based on my limited readings of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine that they would also agree. Neither do I disregard the physical commandment against homosexuality. I start with the physical commandment and the actions of God as stated in Scripture, and, like the authorities you cite, engage in deductive and inductive reasoning to extrapolate the principles.

True, this is also what the "gay" affirming heretics of the "mainline" protestant denominations have done, but that isn't proof that the method is invalid, but merely that someone is wrong in his analysis.

This method of extrapolating and applying Biblical principles is literally the essence of the common-law jurisprudence that undergirds Western Civilization. And its concept of Stare Decisis is the same philosophical assumption inherent in Catholic and Jewish approach to religious authority i.e. that once a matter has been decided by a learned man under God-granted authority, it needn't be contested the next time that same or closely similar matter arises. Why is Maimonides a great authority? Because he invented his own theology independent of the Torah or because he analyzed the meaning of the Torah so brilliantly that other great minds conceded that he was right?

Protestantism arose when great minds became unwilling to accept the conclusions of the religious authorities of their age and began to offer alternative analyses. Granted, it is a tradition that produces a lot of division, but I think its legacy via men like Locke is a vast improvement over the centralized authority of the Holy Roman Empire and is successors.

As for your final comments regarding "homophobia," I still think you're embracing politically correct assumptions in contradiction to your faith and to good logic.

Dr. Scott Lively

My response:

Dr. Lively,  

I do not trust homosexual activists nor do I trust you. For that matter, I do not trust activists in general with any claim that furthers their cause. This is a basic part of the historian's training. We interrogate texts; we can tell when we our sources are being dishonest with us and we can often even make a good guess of what the truth is. Like a good police interrogator, we can take our source and turn his words against him. Your stated position is that you do not blame Rwanda on homosexuals, but simply believe that homosexuality played an important in creating the sort of people who could do such a thing. In an ivory tower of dialectics, I can recognize that between such beliefs. There would even be a distinction if we were to "legally" put homosexuals on trial for causing genocide. That being said, for a lay person on the street there is not going to be a difference. If homosexuality helps create people capable of mass murder than the future safety of the country requires that we round up and imprison homosexuals and if that proves impractical we must kill them. You did not make your arguments in a legal or genocide studies journal. You traveled to Uganda to publically make these statements. I am certainly no gay rights activist, but there is nothing unfair about that video of yours. You cannot play innocent on this one.

As to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, notice that he openly acknowledges that homosexuals were victims of the Holocaust. He does not advocate rounding up homosexuals, putting them in prison, or even trying to cure them. All that he is interested in doing is to prevent gay rights from turning into a right to go on the offense and blackmailing people of faith. In terms of the role of the Bible in government, I acknowledge that historically the rise of democratic political theory in Europe had a lot to do with the Christian, particularly Protestant, theology of the Early Modern period. Much of my efforts in teaching history go into debunking the secularist narrative that assumes that modernity was a secular project. As I often tell my student, "modernity was a Christian project that had interesting unforeseen consequences." John Locke is a very good example of this. One cannot read Locke without coming to terms with the fact that he is engaged in a Christian project to create a reformed Christian society. My friend Michael Makovi has been blogging on this issue. You might enjoy his work. He recommended an article to me by Michael McVicar on R. J. Rushdoony that I think may offer some context as to where someone like you fits into the liberal tradition.

The fact that the Bible has played an important role in the rise of free societies means that it should be a part of the historical and philosophical discussion; it does not mean that we should be trying to implement biblical law or that we need a society of Bible believers. Liberal Democracy seems to work in Japan and South Korea despite the fact that they are not a Bible believing Christian society. I am glad you recognize that atheists can, as individuals, be good citizens. For me, that is all that is needed. Good law abiding atheists are welcome to join my religion neutral state. They can vote, hold public office and even attempt to convince people that atheism is the truth and that it will lead to a more ethical society. They may be wrong, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that they came by these beliefs honestly and they are not involved in some satanic conspiracy to destroy society.

As to the influence of modern political correctness on my thought, I plead guilty as charged. I am a product of late twentieth and early twenty-first century American culture. Historians of the future who read my writing will have me quickly pegged. My historical context plays a critical role in explaining what issues interest me and what approaches I take to responding to the issues of my day. I am the son of an Orthodox rabbi, who grew up in Columbus OH and is trying to reconcile the religious sensibilities of his youth and the liberal culture that he has spent his life as a spectator of. This sense of being a spectator is reinforced by my Asperger syndrome. The attempted reconciliation has been to turn to the past toward the medieval rationalism of Maimonides and the classical liberalism of John Locke and J. S. Mill. Maybe I will be of interest to historians of the future as someone, in the twenty-first century, who still managed to be a harbinger of future thought.

How might I have thought about homosexuality if I had lived several decades ago? I probably would have thought a lot less about it since it would not have been a major political issue for my historical context. I probably would have a much stronger visceral reaction against it. For example, despite the fact that polygamy is in the Bible, I still have a strong visceral reaction to the very idea of women taking their turn with the man. I stopped reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series once you had the main female characters deciding that they all loved Rand and that therefore they would share him. If I spent time in a society where polygamy was accepted I would probably say that, while polygamy is not my thing, people are free to do it in the privacy of their own homes. (By the way, I do believe that polygamy should be legal even if I do not support government recognition of it and that polygamous couples have the right to anything that the government chooses to give homosexual couples.) In the end, I am guided by principles, principles that have little to do with modern liberalism. If I were really interested in bowing before political correctness I would not be taking the sort of positions that I do. Remember, that within the context of academia, I am what passes for a conservative.

(I think this marks the end of the conversation. It has been fun.)

Why Are the Haredim Holding Up? II

Reuben Seligman responded to Garnel and my comments to his last post:


In my post I said that I don't claim to know all the answers regarding how things changed. However, I can give you some suggestions, by looking at how people make choices (contrary to Ironheart, who believes in brainwashing). I was surprised when you said that as a non-economist you didn't focus on the economic issues, since as a libertarian, you should be focusing on those issues. Remember that people have many goals, economic goals, religious goal, and status goals. Let's first look at the "flipping" phenomenon. Their parents want them to study torah and indeed encourage them to study torah. They then come to the point where they go away to study torah for a year or two. They enjoy that year and they are told by their Rabbeim that they could and should continue that rather than going to college. They realize that they can fit into a community where they will have the status of a "learner" and that they can continue to enjoy a life of study. Yes, they realize that they may be poorer, but as you mentioned, because of the welfare state in both the U.S. and Israel we are currently in a situation where nobody starves. Economists assume that we discount future rewards. That means we value current rewards more than future rewards. It is thus not entirely irrational for a young man to prefer studying torah, rather than going to college, since the status rewards for studying torah are current and the resulting poverty is several years in the future (usually when he has children and his wife cannot work). If this analysis is correct, then parents may be able to pressure their children to choose college by not supporting them (after a certain period) unless they go to college, since that would cause the child to experience current poverty, rather than future poverty.


I will make another suggestion based on an idea that Berman mentions obliquely. Assume that Orthodox Jews want to form a community with other Orthodox Jews. They want to study Torah, participate in shul, and engage in all similar activities. In their community, they obtain status, in part by their activities (knowledge of Torah, piety, etc.), but also by the status of the group in which they are involved. This creates a "free rider" problem in which each person wants to be associated with people who are more committed, not less committed.  The people who are more committed then create barriers so that they don't associate with people who are less committed. These barriers are seen in schools and shidduchim: schools will not admit a child whose parents own a televisions, or are otherwise nonconforming and, by screening prospective marriage partners for their children, parents hope to gain status. A young person can gain status by showing that he is more committed (Berman mentions that as the reason why people continuing to study, rather than work). Thus, while studying and not working are not financially rewarding they provide status rewards for the family, as well as the person studying. (Note that if there are fewer barriers, there will be less of a push towards Haredism. For instance, in communities where there is only one school, the school cannot serve as a barrier. Similarly, if young people can meet on their own, rather than through shadchanim, there will be less of a pressure towards Haredism.)
I hope that you find these analyses interesting. I would have liked to take more time to think about these issues, but I understand the time constraints that apply to blogs. I apologize if my analyses are somewhat half-baked, but that is the best I can do given the time constraints. However, I do want to specifically address the issue you raised regarding the great books and classical culture. I assume that you would consider me well read. However, I do not see any future for that as an ideal. The reason is not multiculturalism, but simply that the world has moved from the view of education as bildung to an instrumental view of education. In the 1970s, YU didn't offer an accounting major because that is not in accordance with its mission of providing a liberal education. It all seems quaint now. Students want a financial reward from their education. Modern Orthodoxy would be better advised to compete by providing a better torah education while allowing people to make a living than by professing an ideal of torah and madda (with madda being some type of bildung). (I have some more ideas regarding YU and Touro college, but I cannot put them in sufficiently coherent form in the short time I have now.)

...


My response: Let us be clear, Garnel Ironheart does not believe in brainwashing people. He does follow the fairly common belief that people turn to terrorism because they are brainwashed. He would probably benefit from reading Eli Berman.


I see this change in how one views education, from bildung to being instrumental for making money, as coming from modern liberalism. I agree with Allan Bloom, in his Closing of the American Mind, that once the modern academic world stopped defending the notion of eternal universal truths then the humanities lost all claim to having any value. So now why should students bother to study Plato? Instead, they should go off to Sy Syms business school and try to make as much money as they can. One of the advantages the Haredim have (and this goes for all religious fundamentalists and explains why, contrary to the liberal narrative, they have been gaining in strength) is that they can still make claims about universal truths with a straight face. If you are interested in universal truths you are not going to go to liberal post-modernism and multiculturalism. (Maybe I am an intellectual optimist, but I like to believe that people care about their lives having meaning that they would be willing to accept the fact that death would be the end as long as they could believe that what they did accomplish in this life was actually meaningful in some ultimate sense.) I am probably old-fashioned and too much of an ideological purist, but I believe that Yeshiva University should never have started offering accounting degrees. In fact, I would want them to abolish the entire business school. An education means a method of thinking, not just a utilitarian skill. As such, real education means the humanities or a math or science. Accounting and physical therapy degrees are a contradiction in terms and are no more an education than a degree in managing garbage. If Yeshiva University and Modern Orthodoxy wish to continue to be relevant they need to take up the banner of the humanities and of universal truths. Secular liberalism cannot maintain a faith in universal truths so it has lost the ability to defend the humanities. What is needed are people whose religious faith gives them a belief in universal truths and who value the humanities as helping us understand these universal truths. Such people could defeat the relativism of the left while defending liberalism (the classical kind) from the fundamentalism of the right.

Their OTDs Were Better Than Our OTDs: Rabbi Dovid Schwartz Responds

Rabbi Dovid Schwartz offers a response to Michael Makovi:


As I indicated, what most troubled me about your letter was that while it was quick to defend the secular Zionists and such (which is remarkable - I do sincerely thank you), nevertheless, it was quick to condemn the contemporary OTDs and such.



I beg your pardon.  I did not "condemn" anyone.  But as politically incorrect as this may be neither do I shy away from being judgmental.  The Torah enjoins us to judge favorably, not to suspend judgment entirely.  What I wrote, and what I believe, is that not only was the religiosity of the observant Jews of the interbellum period superior to the religiosity of contemporary Jews but that the IRRELIGIOSITY of the NON-observant Jews of the interbellum period was "superior" to the irreligiosity of their contemporary counterparts.  On a absolute dispassionate, non-empathic level any Jew with Torah -fidelity ought to "condemn" Torah infidels as we presume that a just and compassionate G-d does not visit insurmountable nisyonos on anyone.  A tough test is a compliment from G-d.  But I am neither dispassionate, without empathy nor "holier-than-thou".  I stand in awe of the BTs I work with and who have done a remarkably better job of the hand that HaShem dealt them than I have with done with the one that He dealt me. 



Nor do I presume that I would have stayed "on the derech" if confronted with the tests of interbellum irreligious (Please re-read the letter.  This is its denouement) or even with molestation or some of the severer tests that confronts contemporary OTDs.  I was merely voicing a Tom Brokaw-like opinion about what I consider to be the "Greatest [Jewish] Generation". In comparing, on a pan-societal level, yesteryears irreligious with today's OTDs I voted in favor of the former.  Does this equate to a "condemnation" of the latter?  Not IMO.  I'd ask you to be slower to judgment in your condemning me for imagined condemnations.



You admit the "broken school system", and you admit that the school systems are unable to impart true religiosity unless they include 8+ years of kollel. Shouldn't this set off alarms in your head? Perhaps the OTDs are responding to these failures of the school system?



No doubt many are. Others are responding to lousy parenting, sibling rivalries or a myriad of other "failures". Those alarms were set off in my head long ago or I could never have written what I wrote... least of all to the editor if the Yated. I am all for Yeshiva and Bais Yaakov school reform but people of good conscience can agree to disagree on what reforms are needed and how best to implement them.  I am not for throwing out the baby with the bathwater and a total revamping of the system from the ground up.  For our time and place there is much that IS good and holy in the current educational system.



Again, on a case by case personal level I was not blaming any particular OTD for their jettisoning of Torah-study and observance.  Nor am I ready to make any case by case condemnations of particular schools, teachers and/or parents. A myriad of factors result in pushing youngsters OTD some from the realm of yedeeyah and others from the realm of bekheera.  That said,  on a generational,  pan-societal level I opine that the (failed) tests that conspired to push the 1920-30s Bundist OTD were more daunting than those that pushed and continue to push the 1990s- 2010 Yeshiva or Bais Yaakov dropout OTD.  Especially in instances when abuse and molestation are absent. I am neither statistician nor (professional) sociologist.  And while it may be true that 75% or more of abused/ molested students go OTD I'm not convinced that 75% of those OTD did so because they were abused and/or molested.  A system that demands too much of some, too little of others has too few extra-curriculars and invariably tries jamming square pegs into round holes is a helluva rough row to hoe.  But again IMO it hardly compares with dealing with grinding poverty, genocidal anti-Semitism, educational and professional state-sanctioned apartheid and discrimination and come-hither sweeping intellectual ferment movements and parties which were the testes of the interbellum OTDs.



I know more about the Modern Orthodox community than the Haredi one, so it is difficult for me to speak of the Haredi one except as an outsider looking in, but what I see, from where I stand, is that the Haredi community forces an outdated and obsolete worldview on its students.


Talk about sweeping self-congratulatory condemnations!  For now I have lost my ta'am in further responses.  As a product of that community and its School Systems I fear that anything else that I write will be greeted with the dismissive contempt reserved for those who are out-of-touch and mired in a medieval mentality.  Explain to me why further responses will NOT be utter exercises in futility?

 

Toward a More Spiritual Meaning of the Homosexuality Taboo: My Response to Dr. Lively III

Evan Hurst did a post, commenting on my original encounter with Dr. Scott Lively. He also pointed me to a video of Dr. Lively blaming the Rwandan genocide on homosexuals.



I have no problem acknowledging that homosexual individuals took part in the genocide. I do have a problem with linking the genocide to Homosexuality. You are free to make your own judgments as to whether this is a call for mass murder. Can someone like Dr. Lively truly play innocent in urging the mass murder of homosexuals when saying things like this? Is this not a matter of saying: "Homosexuals should not be killed (wink wink), but they are responsible for all the world's worst blood baths (wink wink) and you need to do everything necessary (wink wink) to protect yourself."

I would like to point you to a recent op-ed by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of England, in the Times. He takes a similar position to mine, though he is a much better writer, in regards to homosexuality and freedom of religion. Do take a look at the comments. The rabid venom of some of these secularists is simply frightening. These people do not have a meaningful notion of what rights mean and they actively seek to be able trample over the liberties of people of faith. Such people need to be kept as far as possible from government.





Mr. Chinn,


Thank you for your change of tone.  


I'm not defending Igra regarding Shaw.  I'm actually now questioning whether it was even Shaw that Igra implicated in his book based the violence on your reaction to the idea. You certainly know much more about the Protocols than I do.  I don't have any notes on this question in my files because the issue was irrelevant to my research at the time -- and I cannot be confident in my fading memory of that book.   However, I didn't give you the tip because of Shaw's connection, but primarily because it related to the Protocols. In any case, I agree that evidence is the necessary prerequiste to deciding whether to entertain a theory, which is all the more reason why you should not have dismissed Igra.  You haven't yet seen the evidence. 


Just to play Devil's Advocate, let us assume I remembered correctly and Shaw was Igra's subject.  Is it really so implausible that he could have written the Protocols?  He was morally capable such an act, wouldn't you agree?  He was certainly artistically capable of writing it in the persona of its purported author.  By analogy, good actors can play bad actors when the script calls for it. And if Shaw, a reportedly "celibate homosexual" was a close friend of the "out and proud" translator of the document, you have what any good prosecutor would call probable cause for a search warrant: motive and opportunity. I'm not saying it's enough to persuade a jury, or that I am personally persuaded, but it's not a crackpot theory in the vein of Mormon "theology". 


You may be surprised to learn that I completely agree with your arguments in paragraphs 3 and 4.  I, too, prefer a secular society.  I too would be unwilling at accept any current religious leaders in any sort of theocratic rulership.  That said, I strongly disagree with your premise that secularism can be "religiously neutral."  Every legal or governmental system necessarily rests on moral presuppositions which in turn assume an ultimate source of moral authority.  This is why atheism in not only morally bankrupt, but literally irrational, in the truest sense of the word.  By definition it denies G-d, whose existence is the only possible "prime reality" in logic (a "prime reality" being the logical presupposition that does not itself depend on any other presupposition) and thus, true atheists (as opposed to confused thesists just looking for a way to escape accountability) cannot accurately perceive reality.    


The enlightened secularism achieved by the founders rested firmly on Biblical presuppositions.  The founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and Constitution reflect a distinctly Judeo-Christian world view, and the historic record is replete with admonitions from the framers of those documents that to deviate from their world view would lead to disintegration of the nation.  Their "secularism" held (for example) the Ten Commandments to be objectively true and inviolable moral precepts, and viewed religious freedom as a matter of tolerance for views that deviated from unarguable truth NOT the system of religious pluralism we're suffering today in which every theological notion, however foolish, is deemed equal.  


If you really want a study in absurdity, ponder the question of what religious neutrality by government actually means when atheism and theism are granted equivalence.  It is Aristotle's logical impossibility:  A cannot be Not A.   If A is theism and Not A is atheism government is presented with the impossible task of holding contradictory premises at the same time.  This explains the schizophrenia of our government since the 1940s when "religion" was redefined by the Supreme Court to include atheism.  Atheism must logically win in such a contest since it has no prescriptions of its own but is only a contradiction of theism's prescriptions.  Yet, only theism has rational prescriptions for human needs and underlies the only workable portions of our public policy.  Thus, the literal insanity of our age and the explanation for the so-called "culture war." So how do we restore/achieve a sane and workable secularism without veering into theocracy?  Through the stewardship of individuals with the ability to understand and apply Biblical principles to civil society and the maturity to do so for the greater good and not personal (or sectarian) advantage. 


This brings me to your 2nd paragraph.  I take the Bible at face value and accept its absolute authority, but I believe the greater lessons of Scripture are not in the letter of the law, but much more in the spirit of it.  I seek the principles of the Bible by attempting to discern G-d's meaning and purposes within, beneath and behind the Scripture.  Thus, for example, I do not want to apply the letter of the Mosaic law to homosexuals because I perceive that the letter of the law was meant (and was appropriate) for the nomadic tribal society it was unveiled to and is not intended nor appropriate for today.  However, underlying that law are numerous easily discernable principles (including but not limited to) the importance of heterosexual duality, their sanctification of sex only in marriage, the predictability of harmful consequences for deviating from G-d's design, and the necessity of social/governmental affirmation of G-d's standards. I believe that while the letter of the law is subject to modification in its application, the principles of the law are eternally constant and binding. 


I conclude that G-d's proscription of homosexuality is of greater concern to Him than other things like eating pork or even civil crimes like theft by the way these issues are addressed throughout Scripture.  G-d's emphatic condemnation of homosexuality predates the Mosaic law, is expressly named and clarified in the law in a way that few other sins are, is specifically addressed throughout the historical books -- always in the context of this conduct/lifestyle bringing severe spiritual and sociological consequences -- and is specifically and repeatedly re-affirmed in the New Testament, even while many other Old Testament proscriptions are deemed fulfilled by Christ or otherwise changed. In my reading, only idolatry is treated in Scripture more harshly, but even in this, homosexuality is frequently implicated as an essential aspect.  


(If I am "obsessed", it is with my desire to align my mind with G-d's.  I honestly would love not to deal with the homosexual issue at all and spare myself all of the hate from the Left, but as one of the few people in the West today with both broad knowledge of the issue and the courage to articulate it unapologetically without regard for my personal reputation or safety, I have a responsibility to do so.) 


Contrary to your apparent belief, Biblical law and civil law are not separate and distinct realms regulating believers and non-believers respectively.  Sure, the law related to Jewish ritual may be so, but what we call civil law is almost entirely derived from the Biblical law.  Take a look at Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law of England sometime and you'll see just how much this is true.  You cannot and should not attempt to divorce the criminal law from its true source, which is the mind and will of G-d.  Apply your logic regarding sodomy to other Biblical criminal proscriptions such as murder and you can see it isn't sound or workable.   


I challenge you to consider how much your arguments for minimizing the threat of homosexuality may be rooted in the fear of being ridiculed as "absurd" by your politically-correct peers. Your generation has been subjected to a culture-wide campaign of propaganda on this issue to such an astonishing degree it is a wonder that any of you are still willing to call homosexuality sin.  I respect you for that, but as for your conclusion that homosexuality is a harmless lifestyle alternative outside the scope of secular civil regulation I think you are allowing yourself to be ensnared in an irrational contradiction to your faith and to good public policy.   


Respectfully,


Dr. Scott Lively      






My response: 


Dr. Lively
…

In regards to Shaw and Ingra, I see you are yielding on that front. I will take that as a win. As to why Shaw did not write the Protocols, I would say it is about as likely that he wrote Huckleberry Finn. Shaw, like Mark Twain, was one of the great masters of wit in the English language. Maybe Shaw was experimenting with writing in a more American style? The Protocols first show up in Russian newspapers around 1905. We do not know for certain for actually wrote it, but we can be pretty confident with a profile of a conservative Russian aristocrat.

I do not see a problem with a secular state, properly understood, and see no reason why government cannot be something outside religion. Take your garbage man or highway patrolman; is there a religious way to collect the garbage or hand out speeding tickets? I have no reason to doubt that atheists would be able to collect the trash from my curb or hand out tickets to people driving eighty miles an hour. The government is the sum of all of these little jobs. A government that keeps crime at low levels, defends the borders and handles monetary disputes all while allowing me to pursue my own good in my own way in the privacy of my own home is an effective government. None of this has anything to do with religion or private morality. Rudy Giuliani was a good mayor and I think he would have made a good president. As a human being, he may be an absolute scumbag and I would certainly not want him on the board of my synagogue.

I was particularly interested in how you made that "Christian" turn of turning toward the "spiritual" message of the ban on homosexual sex. I also believe that biblical commandments have a spiritual component underlying them, but that the physical commandment is still real and valid and that the spiritual message must be approached through the physical commandment. It would seem that you operate with a Protestant sola scriptura approach to religious authority. As an Orthodox Jew, I operate within a religious framework that Catholics would empathize with. Religious authority comes less from my personal reading of the Bible and more on rabbinic authority and the Jewish legal tradition. If you wanted to prove something to a Catholic about his faith you would not quote verses from scripture. Instead, you would hand him Augustine, Aquinas, the Fourth Lateran Council, and Vatican II. Similarly, with rabbinic Judaism the most important text is not really the Bible. If you wish to prove something you need to turn to the Talmud, Maimonides, and Rabbi Joseph Caro.

While you can talk about every man being allowed to decide things for himself, if you wish to have a religious community you need to have some sort of final human authority for the buck to stop by. This has nothing to do with this human authority being infallible. A Catholic would tell you that whatever he may personally think of abortion and contraceptives, in order to have a community of Catholics there is a need for someone to set official Catholic policy and that man is the Bishop of Rome. One could personally believe that the Pope is wrong in his ruling and still be a religious Catholic and bow to his rule. Someone had to make a decision and even the wrong decision is better than the Church falling into schisms. The problem with Protestants is that they have no system of authority so every disagreement risks schism. If my neighbor reads scripture differently than I do then he must be a servant of Satan trying to undermine God's True Church and we must break away from him. (I study sixteenth century history; that is Protestantism for you in one sentence.) Protestant movements are only able to succeed by hypocritically bringing in religious authority (whether Luther or Calvin) and hoping that no one will notice that they are adopting "papist" thinking.

I believe in the importance of each person having their relationship with God in their basement or on a hilltop. The moment you wish to have a religious society then you are going to need to agree to some form of religious authority and submit to it even in those situations where you disagree with the religious authority. Just as I am willing to split public politics from private religion, I am also willing to split a personal private spirituality from public established religion. Each one is legitimate within its own particular sphere.

Regardless of this general objection to your approach to religious authority, your application of this approach to homosexuality only ties the noose all the tighter in terms of homophobia. You understand the spiritual meaning of the ban on homosexuality as "the importance of heterosexual duality, their sanctification of sex only in marriage, the predictability of harmful consequences for deviating from G-d's design, and the necessity of social/governmental affirmation of G-d's standards."

I have met Episcopalians who have told me that the spiritual meaning of the ban on homosexuality was to stop the sort of predatory homosexual relationships that were common in biblical times. It was never meant to ban "warm" "loving" "committed" "monogamous" homosexual relationships that exist today. Therefore such homosexuals should be welcomed into the Church without prejudice. How is this spiritual reading of scripture any less valid than yours? This raises the question of why you go with your reading; is it possible that you are motivated, just a little bit, by a personal hatred to homosexuals that has nothing to do with God or scripture?

This is not a problem for Orthodox Jews like me or for Catholics. I could respond to the Episcopalian (or the Reform Jew) that, regardless of the moral and spiritual commitment of our homosexual couple, we could not accept them into our religious community because their actions are not in keeping with the demands of the community. This is nothing personal; I am fully willing to acknowledge that these people may be fully right with God, maybe even more so than I am, but the community cannot admit them without undermining the very integrity of the community. This would be no different than if a righteous Jewish pork lover would raise and slaughter his pig in an ethical manner and eat it with the highest spiritual intentions. This Jew may be very holy and beloved by God. God can see into this man's heart and accept him for spiritually keeping his commandments. As a guardian of the community, I can only see that he has willfully violated the physical commandments of God.

I can hide behind my religious legal traditions, you cannot. To do that would be Catholic or, even worse, Pharisaic of you.

Why are the Haredim Holding Up? A Response to the “Would Haredim Make Good Terrorists?”

Reuben Seligman sent me a response to my review of Radical Religious and Violent and was kind enough to allow me to post it.

I read your posts regarding the Berman book and I was disappointed. I would have preferred that you focus on the economics of Haredim. Economics is the science that deals with how people make choices and this science has been extended by several economist and sociologists (including Rodney Stark) to religious choices. Berman focuses on the structure of religious societies that make place barriers to exit, including Haredim. What I find interesting is how successful they have been. The best way to bring it out is the contrast with the terrible situation of Orthodox Judaism in prewar Europe which you had posted in the last few days. In contrast, both in the U.S. and in Israel, Haredim have managed to establish themselves in communities that are largely successful in retaining their children and are in fact growing. You may be correct that you have had contact with many people who grew up in the system and would leave if they could, but there are many who had many opportunities and chose to go into the system despite pressure from their parents.
To me, the question is how did we get from where we were fifty years ago to where we are now. You posted correctly that many of the Satmar Chasidim today are descended from what were considered Modern Orthodox Jews. Why is it that they were not successful in perpetuating their way of life; their descendants became Chasidim. The issue is not whether you are happy about it or not, but how people made choices that led to that result.

Another example, you may ask your father, but in my generation of Torah Vodaath, the parents universally wanted their children to go to college and were largely successful. I believe that about 70% of my class went to college of some sort. Yet many of the children of my contemporaries who went to college are not going to college. What were the choices that my contemporaries faced in raising their children and how did their choices lead to that result?

I can best speak about my own choices. I did go to college, but I spent two years in yeshiva after high school before going to college and went to Brooklyn College at night. In doing that, I gave up on my chances of going to a better college, but it was worth it to me because I wanted to study torah. To use a neologism (coined by the economist Herbert Simon) I satisficed (combination of satisfy and sacrifice).  My question is why wasn't I able to reproduce myself. I see people studying torah and they have no education; Faigy tells me that there are no people in her generation who replicate me: a decent knowledge of Torah and a good secular education. Why is it that way? Is it that choices that were available to me are no longer available? I don't claim to know the answers. 


To recapitulate: I don't believe in the historic inevitability of the collapse of the Haredi world. I believe that there are many problems with the sustainability of Modern Orthodoxy, but it is not collapsing either. But in order to make decent predictions about the future, a study of the religious economy, i.e., how choices were made in the past are essential.


My response:  
 Fair enough that I did not focus on the economics question. I am not an economist. My field of interest leans more to political theory and the mechanics of creating movements. My doctoral thesis deals with the worldly political issues that go into creating apocalyptic movements. This was what interested me about Berman's work and formed the bulk of my review

You ask two questions. What has allowed the Haredi community to be successful in the United States and in Israel in ways that they were never able to in Europe? The second question is essentially about the failure of the "Modern Orthodox" option; why are we unable to create people who are masters of both Jewish and secular subjects?

I would argue that ironically enough, the Haredi situation has been made possible by the rise of modern multiculturalism. (I think Samuel G. Freedman was fundamentally correct in regard to this, in Jew vs. Jew, when he argued that the big Jewish winner in this shift in American culture over the past few decades has been the Haredim and the big loser has been the secular Yiddishists.) Modern liberalism is far more willing to tolerate men with long beards and funny hats than early twentieth century America. While modern liberalism may give more tolerance to its favored groups, they are still trapped into at least making a show of tolerance. You cannot deny someone a job because of a beard and peyos and because they want to leave early on Friday. Modern liberalism has also helped in that it created the welfare state. This is one of the reasons why I oppose modern liberalism. What most people do not see is that this does not serve to create a more liberal society, but to bring out all the worst superstitions of the Old World. (The willingness of hard leftists to jump into bed with Islamic radicals is a more extreme and dangerous form of this same problem.)

What has benefited Haredim has to a large extent hurt Modern Orthodoxy. Modern multiculturalism devalued the "Great Books" and classical culture. If Modern Orthodoxy was the commitment to a dialogue with the best of the surrounding culture then modern multiculturalism robbed Modern Orthodoxy of its partner in dialogue. If, in sophisticated gentile society, it is no longer absolutely necessary to be able to know something about Shakespeare why should boys learning in Yeshiva have to? The difference between Modern Orthodox society and Haredi society is that Modern Orthodoxy society is premised on the working man (preferably a doctor or a lawyer), even if it acknowledges the necessity of having individuals sitting and learning. The Haredi world is built around a society of learners. Obviously, it requires people to hold down jobs. The jobs that pay the sort of salaries needed to support a Haredi lifestyle and hold up this community of learners require an advanced secular education. Even the more conservative members of the Haredi world can accept that there may be a value in having individuals with knowledge about the humanities. This Haredi society could only function in Eastern Europe as a rabbinic elite, one of the reasons why Eastern European religious life was so dysfunctional. Before the 1960s, in essence, almost everyone had to be Modern Orthodox so Modern Orthodoxy did not have a serious competitor. Comes modern liberalism and the modern welfare state and now there is another option.

The situation in Israel is slightly different. There the main issues are government welfare, in a more extreme version, and the army. I think Berman is right on in his discussion of how government subsidies only serve to encourage men to sit and learn and not work. As Libertarians know, government welfare is really simply government funding poverty and when you fund something you get more of it.

As to why we do not see more people who can do both, I do not have any good answers. It is hard enough for someone to be able to do one let alone do both so I suspect that, in any age, such figures are going to be few and far between. To what extent was your generation better at this than ours? I suspect this is largely a matter of the eye of the beholder. Obviously, the Haredi world is not going to be producing switch hitters. Your generation's Haredim were still in many respects "Modern Orthodox." They were raised as part of American society and they still operated on a worker model. That was a world that could produce you. Can the Modern Orthodox produce switch hitters? I would argue that they can even if not many. I admit that the Modern Orthodox suffer from a major limitation that it lacks a culture and model of intense Torah study. This will limit the amount of serious Torah scholars to come out of this society.

Are Haredim to Blame for the OTD Phenomenon?

Michael Makovi wrote a series of comments that I thought deserved a posting of its own. He offers an eloquent Modern Orthodox challenge (which may make it beside the point) to Rabbi Dovid Schwartz and the Haredi community as to their responsibility in causing people to abandon ritual observance.


Rabbi Schwartz,

As I indicated, what most troubled me about your letter was that while it was quick to defend the secular Zionists and such (which is remarkable - I do sincerely thank you), nevertheless, it was quick to condemn the contemporary OTDs and such. You admit the "broken school system", and you admit that the school systems are unable to impart true religiosity unless they include 8+ years of kollel. Shouldn't this set off alarms in your head? Perhaps the OTDs are responding to these failures of the school system?

I know more about the Modern Orthodox community than the Haredi one, so it is difficult for me to speak of the Haredi one except as an outsider looking in, but what I see, from where I stand, is that the Haredi community forces an outdated and obsolete worldview on its students. The Haredim try to teach their students as if it is still 1800, as if nothing has changed. My rabbi, Rabbi Marc Angel writes an insightful essay "Modern Orthodoxy and Halakhah: An Inquiry" (printed in Seeking Good, Seeking Peace), in which he argues that the difference between Modern Orthodoxy and Haredism is that they mentally live in different times. The Modern Orthodox want to understand the sages of previous times, but they want to themselves live in today's world. The Western-European Sephardim were similar; they were completely observant, but they lived amidst the greater non-Jewish society, and participated fully. When the Haskalah came, the Jews of Holland and Italy were barely affected, because they were already full participants in the Renaissance. Rabbi Menashe ben Israel had his portrait done by his friend Rembrandt! Rabbi Marc Angel, in "Thoughts on Early American Jewry" (in Seeking Good, Seeking Peace) writes about a Reform historian who mistook the American colonial Sephardim for Reformers, because they dressed normally and spoke English. Rabbi Angel responds that for an Orthodox Sephardi, to dress like his non-Jewish neighbors and speak their vernacular did not contradict living a fully Orthodox lifestyle.

Similarly, Rambam would have been "Modern Orthodox" in that he tried to follow the Talmud, but admitted that he lived in 11th-century Spain (and later Egypt) and not 6th-century Babylonia. Thus, the Mishneh Torah will often say, "The law ought to be like this, but back when I was in Spain, we did like this."

The Haredim, by contrast, try to mentally live in a world that no longer exists, and that in any case, is out of sync with the outside world. The Haredim try to pretend they're still in 18th-century Lithuania or Poland.

The more gifted and intelligent children will realize that something is amiss, that something is being hidden from them. Their intellectual perspicacity will not tolerate this. As Rabbi S. R. Hirsch says:
It would be most perverse and criminal of us to seek to instill in our children a contempt, based on ignorance and untruth, for everything that is not specifically Jewish, for all other human arts and sciences, in the belief that by inculcating our children with such a negative attitude ... we could safeguard them from contacts with the scholarly and scientific endeavors of the rest of mankind…You will then see that your simple-minded calculations were just as criminal as they were perverse. Criminal, because they enlisted the help of untruth supposedly in order to protect the truth, and because you have thus departed from the path upon which your own Sages have preceded you and beckoned you to follow them. Perverse, because by so doing you have achieved precisely the opposite of what you wanted to accomplish... Your child will consequently begin to doubt all of Judaism which (so, at least, it must seem to him from your behavior) can exist only in the night and darkness of ignorance and which must close its eyes and the minds of its adherents to the light of all knowledge if it is not to perish (Collected Writings vol 7 pp. 415-6, quoted in Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch—Torah Leadership for Our Times by Rabbi Dr. Yehudah (Leo) Levi).
The brighter students will realize that according to their teachers, Judaism can survive only in darkness and ignorance. Rav A. I. Kook attributes the rise of secular Zionism and the like to the fact that the secularists had more idealism than the religious. As one of my rabbis put it, the secularists were talking about changing the world while the religious talked about meat and milk spoons. The situation is exactly the same today. The OTDs, etc., see the outside world as being more idealistic, more learned, more culturally and intellectually advanced, than the religious community.And you cannot underestimate the influence of mis-education. I have a friend who became a baal teshuva, but went back to non-observance when he started seeing all the stories of revoking conversions. He said, if the Orthodox have so little humanity, so little morality, if they're so perverse and misanthropic, then what do I need with them? He had Haredi relatives, and he heard disgusting and repulsive remarks from them about converts, saying that no converts are really authentic, etc. He said, if the Orthodox can so reject people who truly want to be Jewish, then he doesn't need the Orthodox.

Hillul hashem is powerful, in case we didn't already know.

(By the way, this friend of mine, I've told people that his violation of mitzvot is greater and more G-dly than the observance of others. Why does he violate the mitzvot? Because he saw the Orthodox abusing converts and refusing to give gittin to their agunot, and burning trash cans in Meah Shearim in order to protect mentally-ill child-abusers. I'm not saying I agree with my friend; in fact, I've tried to convince him to become observant again, and in any case, I've seen all the same disgusting things he has, and yet I've myself remained observant nevertheless. My point, however, is that I respect (though disagree with) his reaction - viz. going "off the derekh" - more than I respect the mitzvah-observance of others. Look at the reasons he doesn't keep mitzvot anymore - his reasons to violate the mitzvot are more G-dly than the reasons others keep them!!)

Rabbi Schwartz, you say, "And even the much maligned hamon ahm should not be underestimated. While it may be true that many received no more than a cheder education ponder for a moment how vastly superior that system must have been to our own elementary chadorim in that it stood it's students in good stead to live ehrlicha upgeheetaneh lives for a lifetime. Is the fact that in our system having 20 plus years of schooling not being enough, such that anyone who didn't spend 8+ years in Kollel after the chasunah is tsorich bedeeka acharov supposed to be a compliment? That the ahava and yirah that we implant is so flimsy that it will fold like a cheap camera in the face of a few college courses or six months in an office environment?"

Maybe what you've just written should give you pause. Perhaps the OTDs of today are not entirely to blame; perhaps they are the products of a "broken school system". Why shouldn't we judge them as favorably as you judged the secular Zionists?

I will admit that in many ways, the religious state of affairs in prewar Europe was superior to what we have today. Professor Menachem Friedman describes in "The Lost Kiddush Cup" how the Haredim today have rejected their families' mesorot, and no longer use their own grandfathers' kiddush cups. Professor Friedman notes that the kiddush cup is a symbol of tradition, and that if the cups of old are no longer considered kosher, then a great break in tradition has occurred.

Rabbi Yom Tov Schwarz's Eyes to See shows at length how the prewar Jews were more concerned with ethics and morality than Orthodox Jews are today. Rabbi Schwarz presents a very ethical and humane Judaism, one that would make Rabbi S. R. Hirsch proud, one that puts less emphasis on technical ritual observance, and more on how one treats his fellow man. Rabbi Schwarz follows the Sifra and says we were brought out of Egypt for the sake of the mitzvot bein adam l'havero. He notes that in Beitzah, and unkind Jew's credentials as a Jew are questioned, a Shabbat-violating Jew's bona fides are not questioned.

Rabbi Yehuda Amital writes (here):
We live in an era in which educated religious circles like to emphasize the centrality of Halakha, and commitment to it, in Judaism. I can say that in my youth in pre-Holocaust Hungary, I didn't hear people talking all the time about "Halakha." People conducted themselves In the tradition of their forefathers, and where any halakhic problems arose, they consulted a rabbi. Reliance on Halakha and unconditional commitment to it mean, for many people, a stable anchor whose purpose is to maintain the purity of Judaism, even within the modern world. To my mind, this excessive emphasis of Halakha has exacted a high cost. The impression created is that there is nothing in Torah but that which exists in Halakha, and that in any confrontation with the new problems that arise in modern society, answers should be sought exclusively in books of Halakha. Many of the fundamental values of the Torah which are based on the general commandments of "You shall be holy" (Vayikra 19:2) and "You shall do what is upright and good in the eyes of God" (Devarim 6:18), which were not given formal, operative formulation, have not only lost some of their status, but they have also lost their validity in the eyes of a public that regards itself as committed to Halakha. Rabbi Amital, like Rabbi Yom Tov Schwarz, sees an overemphasis on ritual observance and a lack of concern for morality.

Rabbi (Dovid) Schwartz, perhaps this is why the OTDs do what they do? Perhaps prewar Europe was better than today's Orthodoxy? Perhaps this superiority of prewar Judaism is the cause of the OTD phenomenon? Perhaps the existence of OTDs is a result of the inferiority of today's Orthodoxy?

Oh, and see Dr. Yitzchok Levine's very Hirschian piece, Orthodoxy, Then and Now.

Inquisition Cholent

"In the records of the Inquisition, adafina [cholent] was so popular a proof of secret Judaism that one gets the impression that the inquisitors like it even more than the Jews did; and because the clerics spelled out its ingredients for the record, one is thankful to the "Holy Office" for an occasional Jewish recipe." (Yirmiyahu Yovel, The Other Within: The Marranos – Split Identity and Emerging Modernity pg. 130)

Now we know the true reason for the Spanish Inquisition. They tortured former Jews so that they would give up the secret Jewish recipe for cholent, allowing the inquisitors to make it for themselves. It would be a fun project to pull out some of these recipes from the archives and make an Inquisition cholent.

Rabbi Dovid Schwartz Responds

I emailed Rabbi Dovid Schwartz some questions regarding his letter to the Yated. Rabbi Schwartz was kind enough to respond.


Haredim are often in the habit of using the failures of Spanish Jewry in 1391 and 1492 to discredit Maimonidean rationalism. Why is this same logic not used to discredit Eastern European Jewry?

Apples and oranges. The primary failure of Spanish Jewry in  1492 was the advent of the conversos and their inability to flee (often equating to Mesiras Nefesh with sinking ships and communicable disease) rather than convert.  There's was a test of the willingness to die al kiddush Hashem.  The Holocaust and it's precursors OTOH were about genocidal racism.  They may have been outgrowths of a clash of faiths/civilizations but by the time Jews began defecting en masse from observance it a. was not to embrace Christianity and b. did not improve their coping or survival rates.

Could not your defense of Eastern European Jews be also used to apologize for Modern Orthodox Jews and even for Reform and Conservative Jews?

Which MOs , conservative and reform do you mean?  For those in Europe, particularly Eastern Europe it might (while there is still a big difference between defecting to the Bund or joining a Reform Temple).  But for those in America I don't see how it could as one can't begin to compare the poverty or discrimination levels of the old and new worlds.  TTBOMK Modern Orthodoxy is a distinctly American post-war phenomenon and had no models in interbellum EE Jewry.

How do we measure spirituality? Does this not simply turn into a defense of any group we wish to offer a positive outlook for?

While by it's non-material nature spirituality is not subject to the kind of qualitative analysis one accomplishes with a good centrifuge there are some relatively objective and quasi-empirical yardsticks.  The "efficiency" argument that I made in the letter i.e. that a smaller volume  Yeshiva World produced a higher number of higher quality Lamdanim and Talmiday Chachomim will not be denied by anyone familiar with both worlds.  If nothing else is convincing see the published works of the products of that world compared to the published works of our own.

But essentially I would not say that I can refute your assertion empirically.  What I can say is that if one believes in the truth of the "intangible" known as spirituality or kedushah at all then, like good art or music, it can be discerned and graded intuitively without resorting to metrics.  Which supreme justice famously opined "I can't write a legal definition for pornography but I know it when I see it?" [Justice Potter Stewart]    While I am certainly no world class expert I fancy myself qualified to voice some opinion on the relative tzidkus, chochmah, pikchus, lev tov and kedushah of the two Jewries.

How do we measure intellectual greatness between different generations particularly considering the major shift in pedagogy over the past few decades in regards to memory? Granted past generations, both Jewish and gentile, were superior in terms of memory. Memorization was a major part of traditional educational systems. We focus less today on memory because information is so easily accessible. In theory, at least, we are more devoted to developing analytical skills.

This point has some validity but more so in the secular sciences than in Torah scholarship in which vast bekius is indispensable. Yeshiva urban legend has it that Rav Chaim Brisker once bragged that his 15 year old Velevla (the eventual Brisker Rov) knew all of Shas Baal Peh. When the person hearing this boast remarked that he considers this insignificant and unbecoming for a son of the great Rav Chaim who would be a fitter son of his father it he excelled at severa and/or lomdus . Rav Chaim supposedly said that any sevara forwarded without complete awareness of all of Shas is by definition krum. Accessing a Talmud data base cannot replace this kind of internal, encyclopedic checks-and-balances on ones analytical skills.

More simply put we have the teaching of Chazal who said that divrei Torah aniyim hem b'mkomam v'ashirim hem m'mokom acher formalizing the symbiosis between bekius and sevara, between sinai v'oker Harim.

If you were put in charge of Artscroll what kind of changes would you make to the type of history books and biographies of gedolim they traditionally publish?

As I haven't read many it's hard to say.  But In general I feel that the culture of Godol hero worship today, while well-meaning, has backfired.  We have made such angels out of our gedolim that an impression of their being born rather than made prevails.  I think that this has nipped the career of many a late-blooming talmid chochom or tzadik in the bud.  Artscroll biographies in hand, the Yetzer Hora comes to such bochrim and claims "forget it.  You're too old already.  If you weren't a child prodigy, if you have already wasted many minutes of your childhood and adolescence then there is no way you will ever vaks ois to be another ______(fill in the blank with the name of a godol of your choosing)".  This is what I meant in my letter when I wrote that I found the surface honesty of the original article refreshing.  At least it wasn't another fluff-piece fairy-tale hagiography.  IMO these are not only untrue but they retard the growth of many a potential spiritual seeker.

Do you believe that we can build a stronger Judaism than that which existed in pre-Holocaust Europe? What would that stronger Judaism look like?

A.  Yes, but it will take a millennium and woe betide us if Moshiach isn't here by then.

B.  The shorthand answer?  Like that which existed in Lithuania and Poland before the war with all of the passion, self-sacrifice and intellectual ferment but with none of the disaffection, poverty and genocidal anti-Semitism.  However I'm not enough of a Sociologist to know if it's even possible to build one without the other.  As Nietzsche said "Whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger". (I referenced this maxim in my letter as well but did not attribute it for fear of scandalizing the readership.  They are probably furious that the editor left words such as Trotskyite and revisionist Zionist in!)

Rabbi Dovid Schwartz's Letter to the Yated

Rabbi Avrohom Birnbaum's article on the "Der Heim" Myth got a letter by Rabbi Dovid Schwartz of the Jewish Heritage Center published in the Yated. I would like to thank Bray for sending me a copy as it only appeared in the print edition, which I do not have regular access to.

Rabbi Schwartz responds as follows to the article:

Dear Readers Write/Editor,


No one could accuse an eyewitness to the twin births of Esav and Yaakov maintaining that Esav was the bechor of the family. And while this is biologically true it is metaphysically false. I read "The 'Der Heim' Myth" article in your most recent issue in much the same way. While finding it's surface honesty refreshing I feel that it missed the mark in discerning a deeper truth.

I think that most people who've done even a cursory review of interbellum Eastern European history are well aware of the awful place that ‘Der heim” was. Anyone growing up in the home of survivors and or who davened with them in their youth heard about how it was a place where Yidden were slaughtered in cold blood, that the majority of ehrliche Yidden lived in grinding poverty and where hunger and want were everywhere etc..

Nevertheless we are convinced that the heim is a place to idolize and grow nostalgic about and that the incredible nisyonos of poverty and discrimination that those amuhliga yiden were exposed to made spiritual giants out of those strong enough to withstand them.

Is it any accident that although the interbellum Yeshivisha velt was perhaps 5% the size numerically of the current aggregate of Israeli and American Yeshivas, that it's bochurim endured poverty far poorer than the population at large and the gloom of few marriage prospects and that kollelim were nearly nonexistent, that it still managed to produce geonim and lamdonim who were qualitatively light years ahead of today's products?

Is it a coincidence that lacking today's monumental Batei Midrash and the convenience of Chasidim living in close proximity year round the bygone Rebbes still had talmidim and Chasidim who were tzadikim in their own rights and that interbellum Chasidus produced seforim and works of sublime enduring value? Think the yoshvim in Belz, Rav Menachem Ziemba, Chovas haTalmidim, Modzitzer nigunim, The Eretz Tzvi, Rav Ahreleh (Toldos Ahron, Shomer Emunim et al) to name but a few.

And what of the emunah peshuta of those interbellum yidden and yiddenehs who did hang on to their faith? Which of us did not know a "greener" Yid or Yiddeneh who, despite being clean shaven, non-shaiteled and western clothed after the war, didn't have a vaicha Yiddish hartz and an organic fidelity to Torah values that puts the forced, dispassionate and antiseptic Yididshkeit that we practice to shame?

And even the much maligned hamon ahm should not be underestimated. While it may be true that many received no more than a cheder education ponder for a moment how vastly superior that system must have been to our own elementary chadorim in that it stood it's students in good stead to live ehrlicha upgeheetaneh lives for a lifetime. Is the fact that in our system having 20 plus years of schooling not being enough, such that anyone who didn't spend 8+ years in Kollel after the chasunah is tsorich bedeeka acharov supposed to be a compliment? That the ahava and yirah that we implant is so flimsy that it will fold like a cheap camera in the face of a few college courses or six months in an office environment?

And while to say any different than the author about the hemorrhaging disaffection of the youth in the interbellum period would;d be rank historical revisionism I think that saying ‘ein bayis asher yeish bo chai’ distorts by overstatement. Furthermore even the reaykh boigdov then had a sweeter aroma. Or are we to posit a moral equivalency between those who, spurred by the nearly unendurable nisyonos of poverty and anti-Semitism that we cannot begin to fathom, abandoned Yiddishkeit in order to build more just societies (Bundists, Leninists, Trotskyites) or a safe homeland for their people (Labor and revisionist Zionists) and the OTD kids of today who "drop it all" on account of a broken school system or sheer boredom in favor of vacuous, hedonistic lifestyles for the flimsiest and most narcissistic of motivations?

So while it's good that the younger generation read articles like this to achieve a more mature and nuanced understanding of pre-Holocaust Jewish history the article does a great disservice in processing the information to arrive at the conclusion that compared our elders we are not only better off materially but spiritually as well . One ought not avoid historical revisionism by perpetrating "current events" revisionism.

To put as fine a point as I can on it; How many of our own "Achshir dora" yidden would be ready to assert that they'd have survived 6 weeks, much less 6 years, of Holocaust, with our emunah intact? About how many of us do you think the Satmar Rebbe would say "Give a kvittel to him . He laigs Tefilin over his number tattoo!"?

Rabbi Dovid Schwartz
Associate Director- Jewish Heritage Center of Queens and Long Island

(Note this is the unedited/uncensored version of the letter and not the version published in the Yated.)


Despite all the yeshivish colloquialisms that was a remarkably touching letter. I think it even furthers my point, though. Here we have Rabbi Dovid Schwartz, a clearly historically literate person, who understands what a mess European life was and yet he still bends over backwards to defend that society. Why does he think it is so important that Jews have a positive view of European Judaism? Notice the sort of apologetics that he engages in. All of a sudden it becomes forgivable to wear Western clothing, go clean-shaven and even for women to not cover their hair. Such people would today be classified as Modern Orthodox. (I am reminded of a line that every Satmar Hasid is the grandchild of Modern Orthodox Jews.) These people were in some immeasurable sense "deeply spiritual" Jews. What would happen if we took this standard and applied it not to Eastern European Jews who are no longer living today, but to inconveniently alive and well modern day real life Modern Orthodox Jews? Rabbi Schwartz is willing to wink at the ignorance of regular Jews again by some mystical standard. I must say it is very convenient to go into an argument making claims outside of any objective standard beyond "their self evident truth." How do we score religiosity when we make the point of ignoring objective standards such as ritual observance and knowledge? Of course Rabbi Schwartz has no problem with backtracking and appealing to the learnedness of the rabbinic elites. Again, though, he offers no real standard for evaluating this claim beyond the fact that the Haredi readers of the Yated take it as self evidently so.

In the end I have no idea what it would even mean to say that one generation is better than another just as I would not know what it would mean to say that one person is "better" than another. Different people and different time periods come up against different issues and handle them in different ways. Some of these choices I approve of more than others. I have no wish to preach the greatness of this generation and at the same time I have no wish to create an idealized picture of the past. The past can be very difficult to compete with. People who are dead do not make rude bodily noises or fail to put down the toilet seat. Art Spiegelman, in Maus, talks about the difficulty of growing up under the picture of his dead brother, who perished in the Holocaust and whom he never met. How does a child compete with a sibling who is dead and cannot do any wrong? This sets up the trap of mediocrity. If you know that no matter what you do you will always be second best, why bother to compete? Even worse this becomes an excuse and an apology for one's mediocrity. You can now be comforted in your mediocrity that you are exactly where you would be if you had actually tried, in second place. Part of my job as a historian is to present past societies as having real strengths and real flaws, which are usually connected to each other. This is our generation, we have the benefit of their experience and we are going to try to make better decisions.  

Would Haredim Make Good Terrorists? Some Thoughts on Radical Religious and Violent (Part II)

 (Part I)

It occurred to me that this argument, that successful terrorist organizations require agents with high defection constraints and this is best accomplished by recruiting candidates with long histories of service to the group's social welfare network even before they became terrorists, would explain why certain terrorist and counter-terrorism strategies used in television shows might not work in practice. In season two of 24, one of the major twists is the revelation that the point man in a plot by Islamic terrorists to use a nuclear device over Los Angeles is a blond haired blue eyed American female raised as a Protestant and whose family is unaware that she converted to Islam let alone has become an Islamic terrorist. If I were running a terrorist organization and had the good fortune to come into possession of a nuclear bomb (supplied by a conservative cabal looking to push the United States into a war with specific unnamed Muslim countries), would I be willing to trust this bomb to an American woman who was not raised in the system and has not even made the sacrifice of coming out to her family about her extremist beliefs? This would undermine the anti-profiling premise of this sequence of episodes. Certainly, if the government is looking for Middle-Eastern men I could recruit an all American white female, but do I have any that I can trust? If terrorists are dependent on people from very specific backgrounds then they would be vulnerable to profiling.

On the flip side, the show MI-5 (a British version of 24) has an episode devoted to a project designed to undermine Islamic terrorist cells in England by getting active members to turn and then agree to attempt to turn other members. The story focuses on the recruitment of a black convert to Islam by using his ex-girlfriend from his pre-Muslim days to get to him. If real life terrorist groups behave like Berman assumes they do then it is unlikely that they would ever allow a black convert to be in a position of serious responsibility where he could turn on the group. On the flip side, if I were a terrorist mastermind, I would look at the MI-5 episode as an excellent example of why I do not want to trust converts, no matter how sincere they sound and instead stick to people who have come up through the system.

Ultimately, there is both a liberal and a conservative side to Berman's argument. On the conservative side, he demolishes the common apologetic argument for groups like Hamas that they are primarily a social service network that only incidentally also maintains a militant wing. From Berman's perspective, it is precisely this social service network that is the foundation for terrorist activity so no separation can be made. This though also has a liberal face as Berman argues that counter-terrorism, instead of a military approach, should be focusing precisely on these social services by offering alternatives.

To step away from terrorism, this book is primarily about the economics of religion, particularly of the Haredi system, which is the inspiration for Berman's more general ideas. This book could be read as a study of the Haredi system, sidestepping any concerns about terrorism. Personally, I find Berman's study of Haredim to be a useful refutation of the sort of Haredi apologetics offered by Jonathan Rosenblum. Barring spectacular individuals, the Haredi yeshiva system is not useful as an alternative to secular college in preparation for competing in the job market. As Berman notes:

Israeli secular education in the 1990s had a return of 9.4 percent, a pretty good investment (a little higher than the U.S. return). Ultra-Orthodox education, on the other hand, was a terrible investment, at 1.8 percent. In other words, for every year in yeshiva a student was forgoing a permanent raise of about 7.6 percent, which they could have realized by spending that same year in a secular school. (pg. 73)

It is important that Haredi groups like Satmar do not get credit for their social services. The usual defense for Satmar is to point to their admittedly extensive social services, both in and even outside their own community. Kiryat Joel has the highest rate of poverty in the United States. Their philosophy of attempting to shut out the world is the greatest mass system of poverty creation that remains legal. As with the case of terrorism, the social service network is not something distinct from the extremism; it is the very foundation of the entire system that creates radicals and allows them to continue in their beliefs. (One of the reasons why I am a Libertarian and wish to eliminate government welfare is the knowledge that such policies will be the destruction of the Haredi community as they are faced with having to adopt Modern Orthodox policies or starving to death.)

This brings me to the big question that I came away from this book asking; for all this talk about the similarities between the social systems used by Haredim and Islamic radicals, would Haredim make good terrorists? In fact, Berman's major example of a failed terrorist organization is the Jewish underground that came from the Jewish settler movement. They lacked a system of culling out potentially untrustworthy recruits and were all too easily infiltrated by the Israeli government and neutralized. The Haredi system is very useful if you want to send out riotous youths to smash traffic lights and burn garbage cans or even to harass immodestly dressed women. This does not require any great planning, there is no valuable intelligence to sell, nor does it threaten any high-value targets. Imagine a Haredi youth calling the Israeli police: "hay I have a tip on a planned demonstration against chilul Shabbos. All I want is that you get me out of this life and give me a full year of college tuition with room and board." With something so basic, one could rely on moderately committed youths, motivated more by boredom than ideology.

As I see it, the Haredi system would not be effective for higher defection constant jobs like terrorism. It is not that they lack an effective social welfare system. The problem is that their system is almost too successful and is able to survive and even rely on free riders. The Haredi world is loaded with people who have been trapped into the system and would leave if only they were not dependent on the Haredi social system. (One of the few things that Unchosen got right.) In theory, these would be precisely the sorts of people who would turn traitor the moment they had something to sell. Would these people even be useful as drones, to be given specific low-level missions without any valuable intelligence to defect with?

If you insist you can do the cheap Jewish thing and have a friend lend you this book, do that. It would be hypocritical of me to complain. Better yet go out and purchase this book yourself. I look forward to hearing your reactions to it.

A Religious Defense of a Secular State Not Enforcing Biblical Punishment: My Response to Dr. Lively II

We have a second exchange of more series emails between Dr. Scott Lively and me. Dr. Lively continues his challenge to my commitment to biblical law in that I seem to be willing to let certain verses in Leviticus slide when they do not suit my liberal beliefs. There is a certain irony to this in that, as the Orthodox Jew, I take all of Leviticus very seriously, including the passages that deal with pork. I counter by using Augustine's model of two cities to formulate a religious argument for a secular state.


Mr. Chinn,


Regarding Igra's take on Shaw, I was quite clear that I don't know enough about the subject to hold a firm opinion.  It is fair to assume that you have not read the book or investigated its claims in which case it is unfair if not unscholarly to dismiss them out-of-hand.  Regarding Igra himself, if you are basing your opinion of him on Germany's National Vice, I can assure you that I have independently validated most of his assertions using mainstream sources of the period and overtly "gay" sources.  He was sensationalistic in style, but not factually wrong on most points. 

Regarding your claim to be a classic liberal, I must disagree.  Your correspondence leans much closer to the snide arrogance of the New Left than the dignified civility of classic liberalism.  

Regarding your claim to be a faithful Orthodox Jew, I believe my Orthodox friends would disagree.  By the standard you have articulated G-d Himself should be considered a "homophobe" for singling out the Sodomites of Canaan for special punishment not meted out to any other group.   In my observation, the Orthodox position acknowledges Scripture's repeated characterization of this lifestyle as an abomination, whereas your uninformed position, obviously influenced by popular culture, minimizes what G-d specially emphasized.  As for my specialization in this field of study, you should know from my writings that I oppose all forms of sex outside of marriage equally, but I focus on homosexuality because it is the only form with a global advocacy movement demanding political power and control for its practitioners.    
Regarding Uganda, my advice to the Ugandan Parliament was to go pro-active in support of marriage and the natural family to inoculate the population against promiscuity in all of its forms, and regarding homosexuality specifically I urged an emphasis on therapy, not punishment.  I did not advocate for the death penalty, nor did any of my teachings provide a reasonable rationalization for it.  The "gay" and leftist press are misrepresenting the facts for political advantage as they always do.  As for Proposition 8, your investment in its importance as a bulwark against "gay" power shows a gross misreading of the state of the culture.  Prop 8 will not stop their agenda, even if it is upheld by the 9th Circuit (a highly unlikely event in any case -- I have personally argued a pro-family case before this court and learned just how fully it is committed to the "gay" cause).  Absent a dramatic political shift of national power into the hands of people who believe like I do, you will suffer persecution for your view that homosexuality is a sin, as will I to a likely much greater extent. 
It seems rather odd that you can foresee the real possibility of persecution from them for your tepid opposition, while at the same time arguing that they do not represent a serious threat to society. That's a rather bizarre disconnect, don't you think?  They're seeking fascistic control over the speech of others but they're not really dangerous?  Sort of reminiscent of the attitude of the German Jews in the 20s, isn't it?  You really should read The Pink Swastika. 
Regarding your claim to be consistent in your principles, I don't know enough about you to say.  I suspect, however, based on our short exchange, the degree to which your ideas accommodate the politically correct sensibilities of the day (despite your claim to orthodoxy), and the "show-offish" way you've treated me on your blog that you are not. Nevertheless, as a Christian I am willing, within reason, to tolerate both your erroneous views and your demeaning tone to show you that I care about you as a person. 
I do happen to agree with some of what you wrote in your next-to-last paragraph, which I concede does reflect a more classic liberal perspective.  I also believe in freedom of choice (within reason) and would be happy to tolerate a "gay" subculture so long as it does not work to mainstream itself at the expense of family-centered society.  I also support religious freedom, but only as the concept was known by the Founders i.e. tolerance for all who acknowledge the existence of G-d.  Inclusion of atheism as a "religion" toward which government must be neutral is a 20th century concept that breaks the entire model.  Scott Lively


My Response:

Dr. Lively,

You are correct in assuming that I have not done a thorough scholarly investigation of Ingra's work nor of the claim that George Bernard Shaw wrote the Protocols. He may very well have had some evidence up his sleeve that I am unaware of. There are lots of claims that I have not given serious consideration to. For example, that it was a body double of Julius Caesar, who was assassinated and that Caesar and Cleopatra fled to the new world where they met up with the ten lost tribes and founded a race of uber-Indians, whose history was written on gold tablets buried in a hill in upstate New York. I may very well be the victim of an Augustian conspiracy to cover up this truth. The historical method upon which I rest my sanity requires that I dismiss any person making such claims as insane and be willing to sign them over to a padded cell and a lifetime supply of happy pills.

The Old Testament outlines a set of personal practices and a theocratic form of government designed to foster a community of people who keep God's law. The God of the Old Testament has 365 prohibitions, one of which happens to be against homosexuality. This biblical theocracy has many rules with extreme punishments for those who violate them. A priest who violates the most minor rule of the Temple cult is guilty of blasphemy. In a theocracy, blasphemy is, by definition, treason against the state and therefore possibly subject to the death penalty. Similarly, sexuality is a type of religious ritual subject to "Temple cult" stringencies. As such someone who goes outside the transcribed forms of sexuality, regardless of whether there is anything bad per se about this action, commits an act of blasphemy and therefore is potentially subject to the death penalty. Just as it is logically conceivable that God would have commanded us to sacrifice a cow for the paschal lamb, God could have also decided to permit us to engage in homosexual relations. In the universe we live in we testify to following God's command in our sexual activity by engaging in heterosexual sex within marriage and refraining from homosexual sex. (Whether homosexuality goes against "nature" or not is irrelevant.)

We do not live under a biblical theocracy and therefore lack the ability to punish people for violating biblical prohibitions, whether it is eating pork chops or homosexual sex. Personally, I think it is a good thing that we are not living under a theocracy and I have no intention, in practice, of trying to bring one about. On the contrary, I seek to live under a government that is completely "secular." By this I mean a government that does nothing to promote or prohibit any religious activity and devotes itself solely to protecting people from direct physical harm. We must recognize that, to go back to the Augustinian political model that is at the foundation of much of my thought, we live in a "fallen" world. As the Old Testament provides ample testimony for, people as a whole are not capable of living up to God's law. Furthermore, I would be hard-pressed to find "men of God" whom I would trust to tend his flock. All the people that I might conceivably trust would laugh at me and tell me to stop bothering them if I ever asked them to step up to the task. This leaves us with limiting the political state to building the earthly city. A properly functioning earthly city would create a large supply of virtuous and rational citizens. It is from this group of citizens that we can hope to recruit a flock of citizens for the heavenly city.
I am glad you are consistent about opposing all forms of extra-marital sex. Would you not agree that any church or synagogue that chooses to wink and nod at the transgressions of heterosexual teenagers should be consistent and look the other way at what the committed homosexual couple may or may not be doing in the privacy of their own home? We should not have a "forgive me father, I slept with my girlfriend this week again."

As of now the government of Uganda engages in coercive behavior to stop people from engaging in homosexual activity and is posed to implement even greater levels of coercion. Even to force homosexuals to undergo therapy would be physical coercion. It should be noted that I understand physical coercion fairly narrowly. For example, I would have no problem if a public school teacher put up a cross in her classroom and told her students about accepting Jesus as her personal savior over vacation.

I certainly do not see Proposition 8 as a cure-all. I do believe though that if we cannot win even on this issue then we are in serious trouble. While I believe that the modern left fully intends to persecute people like you and eventually maybe even me and do not trust them, I do not trust people like you to allow people like me to openly live our non-Jesus lifestyles and negatively influence society. My money is on trying to create a strong political center of classical liberals whose religious values support a secular government; this is what Izgad is all about. We offer a consistent set of principles that will allow our entire political spectrum to live together in peace.

To be clear, I do not view homosexuals even proactive ones as a threat. I see arrayed before me the full might of the modern left, who have destroyed the concept of rights and have reduced it to political spoils for chosen useful groups. In essence, they are armed with a checkbook full of blank checks for persecution. Homosexual activists are simply a group that has managed to end up as one of the privileged groups. It could just have easily been Mormon polygamists as the privileged group and homosexuals having their children snatched by government agents. (I do fear a right-wing theocracy, but I believe that the left is culturally in a better position to stop this than the right is for the reverse. As such I see the left as the more immediate threat.)

You say that you are willing to tolerate a gay subculture as long as it does not challenge mainstream culture. Part of tolerance is the willingness to allow groups you dislike to compete in the public arena and even win. For example, I oppose Israel's anti-missionary laws. Christians should be allowed to travel to Israel and try to convince people to believe in Jesus to their heart's content. Similarly, I support homosexuals not only being allowed to practice their chosen lifestyles with other consenting adults, but they should be allowed to take part in the public sphere and make their case to society at large. I have no problem with gay pride parades as long as they do not violate any local profanity laws. Gay advocacy groups are fine. I do not object to anyone making the case to me or my adult children that homosexuality should not be considered a sin or even that sodomy is a pleasurable activity that I should try some time. (Yes I believe in the right to offer people drugs.)

As I often point out to people, the Enlightenment model of tolerance was tolerance for all people who belonged to an established faith community or believed in a supreme being. I follow John Stuart Mill and offer tolerance for everyone as long as they can live within the law and not cause any physical harm. I am willing to give individual atheists the benefit of the doubt and assume they are moral individuals, even if I have my doubts about the ability of an atheist society to remain moral. There is also the experience of Orthodox Jews in Germany in the 19^th century. German law insisted that everyone belong to established religious communities. This was a problem for the Orthodox who desired to break away from the Reform. In the 1870s the law was changed to allow secularists to not belong to any community. This created the channel for the Orthodox to also gain the right to dissent.

Sincerely,
Benzion N. Chinn