The Mises Institute as a Religion: A Heretical Libertarian's Response

Recently, there has been some controversy over an essay by Jeff Deist of the Mises Institute over his use of the term "blood and soil." This term has Nazi associations though I do not think anyone is actually accusing the Mises Institute of being a Nazi or otherwise white supremacist organization. I would even be open to a charitable reading of Deist as describing the reality on the ground of people being concerned with blood and soil if it were not for the fact that Deist is an exercise in totally uncharitable readings of other libertarians. What is certainly a real issue, particularly in this age of Trump, is a willingness of even elements within the libertarian movement to tolerate bigotry. This is the inheritance of a mistaken Rothbardian strategy that imagines that white men angry over desegregation and immigration are going to, somehow, turn into friends of the free market and of liberty.

I would like to call attention to another issue in the essay. At the very beginning of the piece, Deist states:  

Thanks to the great thinkers who came before us, and still among us, we don’t have to do the hard work — which is good news, because not many of us are smart enough to come up with new theory! We can all very happily serve as second-hand dealers in ideas.

This is followed by an attack on libertarians for falling into the "modernity trap" and imagining that technology might render government obsolete. To my mind, this sounds as if the Mises Institue is now treating the works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard as religious holy texts, "capital T truths" that must be submitted to without question. 

The essential features of a canonized religious text are that one cannot disagree with it and it must be viewed as essential to being part of the group. This serves to draw a line to establish who is a true believer in the group. For example, I consider Jesus to be a great Jewish teacher. What makes me not a Christian is that, despite my high opinion of Jesus, he does not play an essential role in my relationship with God. This renders the entire New Testament to be of historical and spiritual interest but ultimately of marginal value. One can be a good Jew and certainly a good monotheist without ever reading it. In a sense, I am worse than a heretic. It is not as if I actively reject Christianity as much as I am indifferent to it. Raised as a Jew, I never developed any emotional attachment to Christian ritual nor did I ever develop a deep-seated psychological fear of burning in Hell for all eternity for rejecting it. (Haredi Hell, on the other hand, does keep me up at night.) 

As with Christianity, I would argue that Chabad, at this point, should be viewed as a separate religion from Judaism. Chabad views its texts, such as Tanya and the sichas of the late rebbe, not just as one legitimate interpretation of Judaism among many but as the True Judaism. Without the teachings of Chabad Chassidus, one cannot be a truly "complete" Jew. 

To be clear, as a traditionally observant Maimonidean Jew, I do not completely reject the notion of religious texts. It is important to draw lines and establish signaling devices to decide who is in and who is out. I am not a fundamentalist and my relationship to my God and my holy books is one more of arguing than submission. That being said, just as Christians are right to reject me as a Christian for my indifference to the New Testament, I am justified in rejecting, as a theological Jew (distinct from a biological/halakhic Jew), any person who is indifferent to the Talmud and the Bible. (Like Chabad, Karaite Judaism should be seen as a related but still distinct religion from Judaism.)      

One of the problems with canonized texts and authors, in the most fanatical sense, is that, because they cannot be argued with, one can never develop a mature relationship with them and never learn from them. For example, I can learn from Plato and Aristotle because I have never been tempted to treat them as articles of faith. There has never been any need to reinterpret them to suit my ideological preferences as I have always felt willing to say that I believed that they were wrong. Ironically, this has made it possible, over time, for me to become convinced of their wisdom. I admit that, in recent years, I have gained much respect for Aristotelian virtue ethics for its ability to deal with real human beings instead of theoretical abstractions.   

Like the Gospels, Deist offers us "good news." The truths of liberty have been revealed to us. Our job is now simply to spread these truths through the entire world. This is a simple task because there is now no need to argue with anyone. The Truth of Mises and Rothbard is so obvious that only the satanically perverse would ever question it. Hence, like a good Calvinist missionary, the purpose of spreading the libertarian gospel is not to actually argue with anyone and refute their beliefs but to demonstrate that opponents actively hate the truth and were never worth arguing with from the beginning.   

From the perspective of the Mises Institute, is it possible to be a good libertarian without an understanding of Mises? Speaking for myself, I came to libertarianism largely through the questioning of my own Republican orthodoxies. Hence, I was a libertarian before I read much of libertarian thought. It was because I was a libertarian that I discovered Milton Friedman's Free to Choose as a better articulation of what I was already trying to say and then later I became aware that there was something called Austrian economics. I confess that I only read Atlas Shrugged after several years of being a libertarian. I think that this was a healthy path to liberty, one that preserved my intellectual honesty from factional politics. I do not claim to be an expert on libertarianism; I am a mere student of liberty, humbly trying to put things together for myself. 

With the Mises Institute, particularly someone like Tom Woods, I can never escape having a clearer sense of how right they believe they are than what they are right about. It is like they have received a revelation that seems to boil down to them having received a revelation, its content being secondary to the fact that it is a revelation and they are right. Thus, revelation becomes, not a book to be read, but a heavy object to beat people over the head with and claim moral supremacy over.         

Mises was never Euclid, let alone Jesus. I have a hard time believing that anyone could read through a thousand pages of Human Action, understand it, and, in good faith, claim to agree with all of it. Furthermore, even Mises himself, if he were alive today, would, despite his genius, face a challenge in how to apply his own work. How much more so with us little minds. We who cannot comprehend every word of this brilliant mind and who might even find ourselves disagreeing with him and, thus, have no recourse but to cobble together our own understandings of liberty. Not only that but we must then face the very hard task of applying our theories of liberty to a rapidly changing world. Let us face it, our arguments could be logically unassailable and people will still ignore us if we cannot show, in concrete terms, how liberty will make their lives better. 

I support a big tent libertarianism. If you are acting in good faith to decrease the power of government and increase the autonomy of individuals over their own bodies then welcome to the club. As for the details, welcome to the debate, the most fun part of being a libertarian. If you wish to be an effective participant in this debate, I can suggest a reading list of material to get you up to speed. That being said, we are not a religion with sacred texts that you must accept. On the contrary, we invite you to create your own path to liberty. 

   

Camp Chimerical Anti-Christianity: Facing the Consequences

A few years ago, for the fast day of Tisha B'Av, I wrote a hard-hitting post, raising some uncomfortable questions about the Jewish community. As that is one of my personal favorites, I decided to follow it up for this Tisha B'Av. My purpose is not to attack anyone and, for that reason, I have avoided names. I hope that my ambiguous feelings about my camping experience rather than hatred should be clear. As is often the case with me, I am more interested in asking questions that I find myself struggling with than in offering solutions.    

When I attended Haredi summer camps, I once played a villainous Spanish Inquisitor in a play. While waving a torch, I gave a speech about Judas Iscariot as the model traitorous Jew, which included a joke reference to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as well. I remember watching another play in which a priest murders the prince, who started asking difficult theological questions regarding Judaism, in order to set the Jews up for a blood libel. Both performances can be seen as anti-Christian. The difference between them is that while I expressed a "rational" opposition to Christianity, the other person made a chimerical assertion. Spanish inquisitors are historical facts. The figure of Judas did play an important role in medieval Christian anti-Jewish rhetoric. Even Christians would agree with me on this. By contrast, there is no evidence of Christian priests murdering Christian children in order to frame Jews just as there is no evidence of Jews murdering Christians for their blood. Christians can hope to negotiate with someone possessing a legitimate negative impression of historical Christians. Such a person can be convinced that modern-day Christians are different and not a threat. A person with a chimerical opposition to Christianity will never be convinced that Christians are not a threat even by the evidence of his own eyes as he already believes things about them that he never had any evidence to begin with. Such a person will inevitably sink into the black hole of conspiracy theories to the point where the lack of evidence for his beliefs will simply prove to him that there is a vast cover-up.

In regards to this story of a priest murdering a Christian to cover up the fact that Christianity is false, I am reminded of Israel Yuval's argument that Christians came to believe in the blood libel because they saw Jews kill their own children during the Crusades. If Jews would kill their own children so that they do not fall into the hands of Christians, might Jewish mothers poison their children's kugel if they thought they were attracted to Christianity? If Jews hated Christianity this much, surely Jews would gladly murder Christian children. Thus, Christians had "no choice" but to kill Jews in self-defense. Similarly, it would be reasonable for impressionable Jewish children in the audience, like myself, to conclude that if priests would kill Christian children to stop them from converting to Judaism, they would gladly kill Jewish children. The logical conclusion from this would be that, if we ever found ourselves in a position of power, we should kill Christians.

Let me be clear, this play about a murderous priest was in no way exceptional in how Christianity was portrayed at this Haredi camp. One of my favorite rebbes used to tell stories with his stock villain, "Father Schmutz" (dirt). When priests were not trying to start blood libels, they kidnapped Jewish children and held them in secret monasteries to try to convert them. In case you were wondering if this was just a matter of some overzealous teachers, the head counselor of this camp used to have a radio show, "Children's Stories of Inspiration." In addition to blatantly idolatrous stories that endorsed human sacrifices to angels and a Satan capable of acting independently of God, one of his stories involved a Father Francois murdering a Christian child in order to start a blood libel. His plan was thwarted when he was forced to take hold of the hand of the dead victim, who then refused to let go.

Installing the campers with a visceral hatred of Christianity as a religion and a fear of Christians as people were part of a conscious top-down effort. I doubt the camp administration wanted us to actually go out and harm any Christians. That being said, their jobs depended on demonstrating to parents that their children were being protected from outside "negative" influences. In an exercise of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, the fact that these administrators were, ever so slightly, putting every Jew on the planet in danger clearly took a back seat.

What are the consequences of this kind of education? When the Passion movie came out, I told my father that I could not call it anti-Semitic for the simple reason that its portrayal of Jews was not worse than the portrayal of Christians that I was regularly fed in camp. My father, the assistant-head counselor of that camp, agreed with me. On a more serious note, consider the role played by Islamist schools in installing a pathological hatred of Jews, directly leading to Jews dying in terrorist attacks.


      


It is clear to me that not considering the children in this video and certainly their teachers as legitimate military targets (the kids are even in uniform and practicing military maneuvers) will lead to dead Jews. The problem is that any non-Jew can respond that Jews also indoctrinate their kids to hate and I have simply too much personal experience to point-blank deny that fact. So the administrators of my camp have real Jewish blood on their hands. Their actions have made it harder to form the necessary alliances needed to fight Islamic terrorism and save Jewish lives.

Now it needs to be said, that the people I am talking about are warm wonderful people that I gained much from. These are not anyone's stereotypes of hate mongers. I loved camp and many of my fondest memories come from there.  Coincidently, the staff member who played the murderous priest later became my tenth grade English teacher at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas and taught me Julius Caesar (he was even good at his job). At the time, I did not see myself as being indoctrinated to hate and I still have my doubts as to calling this hate. Everything was framed in such a positive and loving way, which may have made it all the more insidious. There was much good to my camp; that being said, beyond the fun times and spiritual growth lay a dark side that needs to be faced.

History as Autobiography: The Example of Louis H. Feldman

Previously, when discussing the historical method, I argued that a historian, like any academic scholar, needs to be able to distinguish between scholarship and polemic. Scholars are allowed to have ideological beliefs but they are not allowed to use their scholarship to buttress their ideology. Once a clear connection appears between an individual's scholarship and their ideology to the point that the ideology becomes the inevitable conclusion of the scholarship that scholarship becomes tainted and opponents are allowed to point blank ignore it. This raises a serious challenge in that it is simply not possible for a scholar to spend years of their lives on an arcane topic that few other people are ever going to understand unless they feel an intense personal connection to the material that is likely to border on the ideological. How can one delve into material that has real ideological implications without becoming tainted? If all history is autobiography, how do we avoid dismissing it as such?

In my own personal life, the example of the late Prof. Louis H. Feldman is useful. Feldman's claim to fame lay in being, perhaps, the leading Josephus scholar of his generation. It does not take a psychologist to posit why Feldman devoted so many of his ninety years on this Earth to Josephus. To begin with, growing into adulthood as an Orthodox Jew in 1940s America could not have been an easy task for anyone living outside of New York, in Hartford, CT as Feldman did. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for him to have pursued a doctorate in Classics at Harvard. What sort of nice Jewish boy studies Greek and Latin? This basic challenge did not go away as he spent his teaching career at Yeshiva University lecturing to classes of one or two students. In retrospect, one can say in Feldman's defense that he was like the 1970s rock band the Velvet Underground. They may have only sold thirty-thousand copies but everyone who bought one went out and started their own rock band. If Feldman only had a few dozen students, each of them went out and became a Jewish leader. Consider that his close students included people like Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Prof. Shaye J. D. Cohen, and David Berger.

At an intellectual level, Feldman's academic work was implicitly an apology for him being a religious Jew, who loved Hellenism. He crafted an ideological genealogy for himself and, by extension, for Modern Orthodox Judaism. If there was a running theme in Feldman's work it was Jews, such as Philo and Josephus, making their case to the wider Greco-Roman world that Judaism deserved a place in that culture. This covers everything from Feldman's big narrative work, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, to his close analysis of how Philo and Josephus used the Bible for Jewish apologetics. Jews arguing, two thousand years ago,  for their legitimacy became Feldman's defense, in the twentieth century, of his own legitimacy as their heir. For Modern Orthodox Jews, there are serious implications for Feldman's work. In essence, Feldman can be read as a playbook for how Jews can thrive in a larger world that appears hostile to it. I can easily imagine assigning selections from Feldman in a class on Modern Orthodox ideology.

With all of that being said, this is the same Feldman that devoted an entire class to subjecting Josephus' autobiography to a line by line reading to make the point to us that you cannot trust what Josephus says about himself; there are just too many times that he contradicts himself. As Feldman told us: "I would not buy a used chariot from the man." If we are to say that Feldman had an ideological agenda, we must admit that Feldman was willing to fire a torpedo at this same agenda when textual analysis demanded it.

This leads me to my second point. For all that I have just written about the very real ideological implications of Feldman's work, I wish to make it clear how absent all of that was from his books and his classes. He did not preach to us about the virtues of Modern Orthodoxy. He argued from the fact that opponents of the Jews like Manetho did not point blank deny the Exodus story that Egyptian sources for the event must have existed as late as classical times. That being said, he never tried a "Josephus proves that Torah is true." If it happened that Feldman was a positive influence on his students in their Judaism, it was because his very persona testified that a living intellectually serious Judaism was possible and not just for rabbis. In this, his kindness and integrity mattered even more than his prodigious intellect.

Above everything else, a Feldman class was about reading texts and he, more than any other professor, taught me how to think critically like a historian and not just to be an encyclopedia of historical information. As a classical historian, Feldman had an advantage in this. It is hard to study ancient history to avoid questions of historical epistemology. He forced us to confront the fact that major claims about the period were dependent on a few lines of text. He would often respond to questions that he wished he could answer it but that there simply was no evidence to go on. This prepared us for the task of reading texts and building a narrative from the ground up.

Every Hannukah, Feldman would give a public lecture on classical history as his "eulogy for the Greeks." Feldman had the sense of humor and the intellectual integrity to acknowledge a tension in his beliefs. Whether I always agreed with Feldman or not (and he very often disagreed with himself), Feldman was a model academic scholar. He humbly taught in his chalk covered jacket and sneakers and churned out books and articles on obscure issues of interest to almost no one. It turned out, in retrospect, that Feldman produced something of importance beyond the narrow scope of his field. His greatest accomplishment though was that, for generations of students, he was a living embodiment of what it meant to think like a historian.        

Breaking the Goldwater Rule: A Betrayal of Methodological Rationalism

A useful example of an academic field creating a wall between the field itself and the politics of its members is the Goldwater Rule that psychiatrists are not supposed to publically comment on the mental stability of politicians. It is named after Senator Barry Goldwater, who objected to psychiatrists calling him mentally unfit to be president during the 1964 campaign. Goldwater made the very reasonable argument that those psychiatrists had violated their own professional standards by claiming to reach some kind of professional opinion about him despite the fact that none of them had ever met him in person let alone actually been his therapist. The Goldwater Rule protects psychiatrists by keeping them out of politics. Psychiatry may be very valuable in helping people but there is nothing in psychiatry that can tell you who you should vote for. Even if it turned out that psychiatrists were the most liberal people in the world, conservatives could still accept the legitimacy of their field as it has no direct bearing on politics.

This is why I find it amazing that anyone would want to eliminate the Goldwater Rule to better allow psychiatrists to attack Trump in their capacity as psychiatrists. To be clear, I oppose Trump, believe that he is a major threat to this country, and accept that he is most probably mentally unstable. That being said, I fail to understand how allowing psychiatrists to use their professional stations against Trump will actually benefit the opposition. How many people who currently believe that Trump is sane and support him will be convinced by psychiatrists otherwise? What is more likely is that Trump supporters will become more convinced than ever that psychiatry is a conspiracy designed to advance a liberal agenda. This is much the same as how many secularists are convinced that organized religion is simply a conspiracy designed to uphold conservatism. (Both of these groups may very well be correct.)

Critical to Trump's success has been a form of relativism. Beyond the specifics of any particular policy such as environmental control, Trump's supporters do not believe that there really is such a thing as an expert. This creates a world in which there are simply contending teams (warring religions if you will) with their contending sets of values. If this is the case then I want my side to win and can safely ignore any argument from the opposition. They are not arguing in good faith and any factual arguments they raise can be dismissed as distortions. Furthermore, there is no reason to ever question my own tendency to argue from values instead of facts. The other side is clearly worse so anyone trying to judge me must be trying to cover for their team.

The best refutation for this line of thinking is the mere existence methodological rationalism such as the scientific or historical method. There exist systems of thought that transcend personal values. Professionals trained in these methods, despite their prejudices, can be trusted to follow them even to conclusions that are inconvenient. This allows academic fields to function with people of greatly differing belief systems. If I believe that there are such things as standards and experts then Trump's main appeal falls away. Whatever flaws the establishment has and whatever need for reform, Trump does not make himself subservient to any rationalist methodology. Thus, anyone who supports methodological rationalism has some hard questions to answer if they wish to support Trump. (Not that this implies that the alternative is better.) 

To the extent that Trump gives the impression that he rejects methodological rationalism, those in his camp have to consider whether their continued support implies that they are willing to reject methodology for short-term partisan gain. This decision will be made in the knowledge that they will be judged by their ideological opponents, who will have to decide whether they are willing to accept them. Ideological opponents of Trump, whether liberals or libertarians, have the ability to judge which Trump supporters can still be considered methodological rationalists but open themselves, in turn, to the counter judgment that they are the ones betraying methodological rationalism for partisan gain.   

From this perspective, there is no need to consider any particular policy of Trump's (or even try to figure out what Trump holds from one minute to the next). Methodological rationalism requires the humility to recognize how little any individual really knows. It may be that Trump's policies are all going to be terrific; I lack that expertise to say otherwise. All this may be true but if they are not framed in terms recognizable to methodological rationalism, his claims must be ignored. 

I lack the psychiatric training to say that Trump is mentally unstable. As far as I can tell, any person in the position to rule on this issue is likely going to be barred from commenting by doctor/patient confidentiality. That being said, I believe in the legitimacy of a psychiatric method of thinking. To the extent that Trump demonstrates his own rejection of those standards, I am justified in not taking him seriously. I do not need to directly attack Trump and doing so will likely prove a distraction as it will open me up to the charge that I am more interested in attacking Trump than in defending methodological rationalism. The more we work on strengthening belief in methodological rationalism and do so for its own sake and not partisan gain, the more people, even conservatives, will reject Trump on their own.  

Polemic or Scholarship: A Historian's Choice

Before I begin, let me confess to having attended several conferences hosted by the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS), a group funded by the Koch brothers. I had a great time listening to lectures, I met scholars such as Michael Munger, Steve Horwitz, and Phil Magness, drank beer and had late-night philosophical discussions with other graduate students from around the world. I strongly deny ever being present for any sessions outlining a plot to overthrow American democracy. In all seriousness, there was shockingly little discussion of practical policy or political strategy at all. Most of us were there because we had some kind of affection for libertarian philosophy and we engaged in a lot of talk (including disagreement) about theory. So much for there being some kind of plan, Koch hatched or otherwise.  

A basic feature scholarship is a need for a clear line to be drawn between the gathering of information and what implications might be drawn from it. This is most obvious in the realm of public policy. For example, if you were an analyst working for the Bush administration in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq on the question of whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, you could not be in any way connected to making the argument that the United States should invade. The moment it was established that you believed in the invasion, any evidence you produced in favor of there being weapons of mass destruction must be discounted. It should be assumed that you came into your research with the agenda of making a case for invasion and therefore, perhaps even unconsciously, you fell into the trap of confirmation bias. Instead of seriously considering the possibility that there might not be weapons of mass destruction, you assumed that there were, interpreted everything in that light and came to believe that the evidence for such weapons was overwhelming. Much can be made of the fact that the Bush administration did not take such intellectual precautions and was surprised when it turned out that the weapons did not exist.           

As historians, we may have our ideological preferences but our credibility as historians requires that we submit ourselves to a historical methodology designed to keep our biases in check. It is not that upon becoming historians we stop being biased, but the method is designed to produce something close to an unbiased result from the mass work of biased people. This is much the same way as Adam Smith's hidden hand produces social good from the mass labor of selfish individuals. As with other forms of scholarship, we need to distance the gathering of facts from their implications. First, we need to recognize that we are not going to achieve any great knockout blow for our cause. Second, if we do find a text that supports our cause, we must bend over backward to read it in a fashion favorable to the other side, forsaking any advantage for our own cause. Ultimately, ideological polemic and history are distinct fields and you can only engage in one of them at a time.  

This brings us to the recent uproar over Prof. Nancy MacLean. Over the past few weeks, a guilty pleasure of mine has been following the controversy over MacLean's book, Democracy in Chains. I have not read the book (I am waiting for it to go on sale on Audible) so I will refrain from making any judgments on the book itself and restrict myself to the discussion surrounding it. What strikes me as interesting is that MacLean is plainly trying to be both a polemicist and a historian. She is a self-conscious progressive, who rejects libertarianism intellectually on its merits and, at the same time, claims to have unearthed documents that are damaging to the credibility of a particular libertarian, the late economist James M. Buchanan. It is important here to recognize that I am not attacking either MacLean's progressivism nor her evidence against Buchanan. On the contrary, for the purposes of this post, I am willing to assume that both are correct. She may be right in terms of facts but her willingness to be both polemicist and historian destroys her credibility to be the latter. 

Let us give MacLean the benefit of the doubt. Let us imagine that she snuck into the late Prof. Buchanan's office and discovered the secret protocols of the Elders of Wichita along with Buchanan's KKK membership card. While we are at it, let us throw in a letter stating: 

Dear James Kilpatrick,

John C. Calhoun is my intellectual lodestar. The southern agrarian poets are the greatest. I find myself really inspired by Donald Davidson. I never realized that Hobbes' Leviathan could be the federal government. Brown vs. Board of Education is the worst. I hate n******. I want to keep them from voting so we can overthrow democracy and put Donald Trump (our own August Pinochet) into power. MAGA

Heil Hitler, 

James M. Buchanan

P. S. Did you get the suitcase full of cash from the Koch brothers?

Assuming all of this were true, MacLean, as a historian, would have two options. The first would be to publish this information in the most charitable way possible. Perhaps Buchanan had a strange sense of humor or was an informant for the FBI. It would make sense to walk across campus to present the evidence to Michael Munger or any of the other prominent public choice theorists at Duke to get their interpretation. Under no circumstance should she imply that this evidence challenges libertarians. If other people wish to try to use this information in a polemical fashion, that is their issue. This way, despite her progressive beliefs, her scholarship would be beyond reproach. 

There could be a second option if MacLean was a supporter of public choice theory. As an admirer of Buchanan's work, she could acknowledge that she discovered a dark side to him, mainly that he was a racist, who plotted to overthrow democracy. On a serious note, as a libertarian, I readily acknowledge the existence of a dark side to libertarianism. This ranges from the personal issues of Ayn Rand to the white nationalist outreach of the paleo-libertarians. While I do not think that Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul were racists, they were certainly willing to associate with actual racists as part of a strategy of allying themselves to anyone openly hostile to the federal government. This is a problem that libertarians need to face, particularly as it led to a failure on the part of many libertarians to actively oppose Trump. Very well, Buchanan might have been of a similar stripe or worse. I am not about to reject such a position a priori.   

Understand that I can say these things about libertarianism precisely because, as part of the libertarian family, I am not trying to score ideological points. I am criticizing myself as much as anyone. These same words coming from an outsider are going to come across very differently and perhaps should not be said. This is not different from how there may be very real problems in the black community but I, as a white person, should not be the person to talk about them no matter how right I might be. No matter how good my intentions, my words are going to sound wrong and prove counter-productive. Let me address the problems of my community (libertarian, Jewish or otherwise) and leave it to others to address the problems in theirs.

If MacLean wants to engage in polemics against libertarians in her free time, in addition to her scholarship, that is fine. One can do legitimate research and have an ideology at the same time as long as they are no obvious connections. A reader should be able to buy into your scholarship completely without there being any expectation that your work will affect what they do inside a voting booth. With MacLean, not only are there obvious ideological implications, she eagerly connects her book to the ideological clashes of today all while using her status as a historian to bolster the legitimacy of her own progressive views. For example, in defending herself, she doubles down on the idea that she is the victim of a Koch attack. If she was serious about defending the integrity of her scholarship, she should have avoided any mention of ideology. She could have just explained how her critics were factually incorrect and left it at that. Let other people try to fathom the larger implications of her work; she is just a humble scholar wanting to be left alone to do research with no expectation that it should be of interest to a wider world.   

There is a place for research into the history of libertarianism, even when it turns up problematic material, and there is a place for polemics against libertarianism. I welcome both but they need to be kept in distinct spheres and carried out by different people. The moment that line is crossed, the research is tainted and must be dismissed. It is quite possible that MacLean is correct and she has real dirt on Buchanan. If that is the case, let another scholar not contaminated by progressive activism go back through her sources and write another book confirming her thesis. In the meantime, I have no choice but to reject her as an illegitimate historian who fails to follow the historical method.  

How to Teach the Story of Balak and Bilam to Kalman

In addition to anything involving kitty, my three-year old son, Kalman, has become fascinated with the story of Balak and Bilam and regularly asks either my wife or me to tell it. This story presents a number of challenges to someone of my particular political theology. That being said, challenges also offer opportunities to make it clear to Kalman that his Abba is a libertarian monotheist. Government is a form of idolatry that believes it is a moral/legal authority that can demand absolute loyalty and obedience. A monotheist knows that Hashem is the only true power and the only one you should listen to no matter how hard the government tries to trick or threaten you to believe otherwise. (Mommy gets hung up on fewer political theological issues and is, therefore, a more interesting story teller.)

Balak was the king of Moab. As their government, he was an evil mass murderer and also very foolish. He wanted to destroy Bnai Yisroel but, because he did not believe in Hashem, he was very superstitious and believed in magic. He believed that a sorcerer named Bilam actually had the power to "curse" people and cause bad things to happen to them just with words. So Balak sent messengers to Bilam with money, hoping that he would curse Bnai Yisroel for him.

Bilam was a wicked man who liked to convince people not to trust in Hashem so he could trick them into paying him money to do his fake magic. Hashem told Bilam not to go but, when Bilam insisted on going, Hashem gave him permission but warned him that he would only be allowed to do as Hashem commanded. Bilam was so excited to do an avairah that he got up first thing in the morning to saddle his donkey. Bilam's mind was so caught up in the money he was going to swindle out of Balak that he did not see a messenger of Hashem standing on the road with a sword. (As an alternative to the word angel, messenger is a legitimate translation of malach and, for now, I see no reason to confuse my child with talk of supernatural beings that are not God. Unfortunately, my wife disagrees and now Kalman is quite taken with the "A word.") The donkey tried to get off the road but Bilam got angry and began to hit the donkey. To demonstrate to Bilam what a fool he was to pursue gold and silver instead of listening to Hashem, Hashem did a miracle and caused the donkey to speak and ask Bilam why he was hitting him. Bilam refused to learn his lesson and continued with his scheme.

When Bilam arrived in Moab, he got on top of a mountain and tried to curse Bnai Yisroel. If Bilam had been able to say a curse, even though curses are useless people might think that curses have power. They would simply fall for the post hoc fallacy and assume that anything bad that happens afterward was due to the power of Bilam's curse. So Hashem only allowed Bilam to bless Bnai Yisroel. So now everyone could see that Bilam was a lying crook with no magic powers. Without Hashem, Bilam could not even say a curse, let alone cause it to come true.

King Balak was so angry that he wasted his money. Scared that Balak would kill him (as killing people is what governments do), Bilam told Balak a secret how to harm Bnai Yisroel. If they could convince the Bnai Yisroel to stop listening to Hashem, then they could be harmed. So Balak sent beautiful women carrying idols of puppy and making peepee on them. There was an Israelite government politician named Zimri. He took a poll and realized that women peeing on puppies were now more popular than serving Hashem so he decided to jump on the bandwagon. Pinchus saved Bnai Yisroel from puppy, pee and politicians. Rather than listen to any government law, Pinchus listened to Hashem and grabbed a spear and killed Zimri along with the woman who was helping him pee on puppy.

We learn from this story that you should only believe in Hashem and not in government nor in magic. Following Hashem means being kind to all creatures including animals, but it is ok to kill people who are trying to hurt you or otherwise in government.

Sunshine: A Miami Boys Choir Vampire Musical (Part II)

(Part I)

The counter to the Jews' naive hopes for the future is revealed in the song "Klal Yisroel Together," which takes the perspective of a new Jewish vampire. 

Quiet shul a foreign land

sits and davans an older man

What kind of shul is quiet with no talking? This must be a shul in which vampires gather to listen to their gadol hador. The vampires take the words of their sages very seriously and kill anyone who defiles the sanctity of their synagogue. In this context, davaning does not mean praying, but preying. An "older man" is a vampire, who is older than mortal men.

You're amazed at his life of simplicity

A vampire's life of drinking blood is very simple (besides for the fancy clothes and seducing women). This makes a vampire much holier than those "fake tzadikim," who need extravagant luxuries like bread and salt.

How his words reach you with sensitivity

And your eyes recognize as never before

That the dream that he preys for is yours

The newborn vampire is struck by the telepathic communications he is receiving from the vampire collective. He suddenly realizes that he too dreams of preying upon humans and drinking them dry.

Miles apart 

Close at heart

Feel the bound as one from the start

All the mountains and oceans are in our way

We are joined from the time of that wondrous day

When at Sinai we learned the path we would take

That the chains of our past will never break

Through the power of the hive mind, vampires can feel as bound and close at heart even from miles away. Mountains and oceans do not matter because vampires are joined by the day they were converted. Furthermore, antinomian Jews look to the gathering of Sinai when they worshiped the Golden Calf. It takes a very special kind of Torah scholar to hear "I am the Lord your God" and conclude that one should bow down to an idol. (If you donate gold to our charity, tzadikim will melt it into a calf and worship it for three weeks straight over the course of the auspicious time between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av. This proves that, in fact, we do believe in one God, money.) By rendering themselves immortal, these Jews are guaranteed protection against the threat of modernity as they will have no need to try passing on their values to the next generation.  

Together we dance together we sing

Throughout the world how our achdus does ring

Klal Yisroel together today

Even though we seem so far away

Together we cry we hope and we prey

Let's bring each other closer each day

Klal Yisrael sharing the dream

Sheves achim gam yachad

Because of their hivemind, the vampires are the masters of achdus (unity). Unity is an intrinsically vampire doctrine as what it really means is that I will bite you and you will now do things my way. This is how Jews can be brought closer each day until all Jews can become brothers of one blood, together as one mind. 

All assembled dressed in white

With awe and fear this Kol Nidre night

Kol Nidre is a highly antinomian concept in which a person is released from their vows. The antinomian is freed from his promise to refrain from biting pigs and save them from the forces of the klipot. The vampire is freed from his promise to not bite people and save them from the Angel of Death.    

There is a feeling here 

When Neilah is near

That we'll all be inscribed with another year

A vampire can very confident at the end of every Yom Kippur that he will still be alive the following year. 

And when Simchas Torah brings that joyful harmony

We are ever bound in stronger unity

If regular Jews got the idea that the point of Simchas Torah was to get drunk, you can hardly blame vampire Jews for turning Simchas Torah into a joyful feeding frenzy that brings new converts in harmony with the hive mind. 

It will now be revealed that the rebbe, who taught the class the "Torah Today" song is actually the "older man," one of the head vampires. He has been priming his students to accept vampirism, the true message of his song.

(To be continued ...)

Sunshine: A Miami Boys Choir Vampire Musical (Part I)

For the past forty years, Yerachmiel Begun has led the Miami Boys Choir, one of the most successful musical groups in the Orthodox world. It will come as a shock that all of this has been cover for Begun's lifelong dream to write a vampire musical. Many of his beloved songs have really been describing scenes for this musical. The key for reading these songs has been to recognize that references to the night are really about vampires and daylight has been the rejection of vampirism in favor of a non-antinomian Torah lifestyle.   

The musical opens with the singing of "V'he Shamadah" in the background as the narrator explains that the great enemy of the Jewish people has always been the vampires, who, as immortal beings, have been able to survive from generation to generation to try to destroy us. This war goes back to vampire Laban, the Aramean who "destroyed" our father Jacob by turning him into a creature of the night. This, though, was part of the divine plan to allow Jacob to survive the bite of vampire Esau. Jacob's neck became sparkly rock hard (like a Twilight vampire) and cracked Esau's fangs. The righteous Jacob was unique in history in being able to become a vampire and not lose his soul. (He did not even need a gypsy curse to put it back.) This is indicated by Rashi's comment that Jacob lived the life of a vampire like Laban, but still kept the commandments. Jacob survived as a vampire, which explains the rabbinic statement that "Jacob never died." Who else, besides for a vampire, does not die even after they are buried?   

Down through the centuries, Jacob has guided his children in fighting vampires. The vampires, seeking revenge against Jacob, have waged a never-ending campaign to destroy the Jewish people by inventing anti-Semitism. It was a vampire intelligence that came up with the idea that Jews need blood for their matzah. The vampires' efforts culminated in the Holocaust. (As we know from the novels of Dan Simmons and Guillermo del Toro, the vampires were allied with the Nazis.) 

With the defeat of the Nazis and the near destruction of the vampires, the Jewish people appeared safe. The following decades saw enormous growth within the religious community. Unfortunately, a new phase of the vampire campaign was about to arise as the vampires realized that contrary to their original experience with Jacob, Jews made particularly effective vampires. For one thing, Jews are immune to crosses. (See the example of vampire Fagan in the novel Artful.) 

These sentiments are expressed in the song "Torah Today." A rebbe leads his class in this song of Jewish success, but, in an ironic foreshadowing of the horrors to be revealed, their statements hint at the true connection between Judaism, antinomianism, and vampirism. The fact that the children do not appreciate the true meaning of what they are saying demonstrates how spiritually unprepared they are for the vampire onslaught.      

Distant memories of a time not long ago

Vibrant shadows of an era we would want to know

In our minds an image glowing true tzadikim in every town

And the sounds of learning were ever growing 

All has vanished never to be found

Somehow slowly the sun is rising once again

Building boldly can we recapture what was then

The Jews in this period of vampire free sun rejoice even as they mourn the loss of pre-war Europe. What they fail to understand was that, even then, there existed the spiritual rot of antinomianism indicated by the term "true tzadikim." Whenever you see a seemingly superfluous adjective in front of some virtuous position, you know that you are dealing not with the virtue but with its antinomian rejection. For example, why would anyone use the term "social justice?" Is there a kind of justice that is not social? The reality is that justice, with its claims of property and individual rights, often does not satisfy certain people as it does not allow them to redistribute property as they see fit and force people to comply with their utopian blueprints. The solution is to reject justice in the name of a higher ideal of doing whatever you happen to feel is right at the moment. Advocates of social justice believe that the only way to truly be just is to commit injustice and reject individual liberty. From their perspective, they are the ones who are truly just and defenders of justice are really the ones who are unjust.   

Similarly, how can you talk about a "true tzadik?" Is there a "fake tzadik?" As with social justice, a conventional tzadik is held back by keeping to the letter of Jewish law. A "true tzadik" understands that Torah itself holds up the world and negates the actual practice of halakha. So the only "true" way to learn Torah is to do so while eating a ham sandwich. Such learning makes a particular sound that grows as the tzadik takes pleasure in contemplating this righteous paradox. Any Torah scholar who balks at such a "holy" deed is simply a "fake tzadik."  

These secretly antinomian Torah scholars so beloved by the Jewish people, realizing what lay behind the Nazis, embraced the vampire ideology as the true fulfillment of everything they ever wanted to get out of Judaism, power, and immortality (in this world no less). This explains why their bodies vanished and were never found. These rabbis, having come to their vampire maturity, are now set to bring about their version of the messianic End of Days by turning the Jewish people into a vampire army and destroy the world. This is indicated by the lines:        

We've set our hearts to form a plan  

Unrelenting so much to regain

Can see the future from where we stand

Let's move closer we can build the flame

Who but a vampire can be unrelenting in plotting for the future? 

In describing the transition from rabbi to vampire we are told:

Their life is learning they strive with great intensity

Others advancing each day a daf devotedly 

On that night they gathered to show what matters

The Torah world stood as one with pride

In silent reflection with one direction

We could feel that time was on our side 

These antinomian rabbis in life only cared about Torah and not about morality. In fact, rejecting morality served to demonstrate their superior commitment to Torah. So, on a certain night, they gathered together to reject morality in the clearest way possible and became vampires. This allowed them to stand together with a unified hive mind knowing that, being immortal, time was on their side and they will be able to take over the world. 

(To be continued ...)  

Is Someone in Chabad Trying to Smuggle in Evolution?

The following comic comes from the Chabad children's magazine, the Moshiach Times.

What can the line that turtles "lost their teeth a long time ago" mean besides for evolution? Obviously, the individual turtle today did not lose his teeth due to cavities. That would eliminate the entire joke of the strip. Long ago must mean that there used to be turtles with teeth and, for some reason, turtles lost their teeth. My understanding of Chabad theology is that it is hypothetically willing to accept evolution as long as it can be placed into a young Earth. Perhaps, before the flood, turtles needed teeth to fend off the T-Rex after it abandoned vegetarianism at the time of Adam's expulsion from Eden. After all the evil T-Rexes were drowned in the flood, turtles lost their need for teeth and, quicker than a koala bear marching to Australia, evolved into the toothless turtles of today.    

Vowing to God

I wrote a post over at the Modern Torah Leadership blog on the travails of my son, Mackie, from a Maimonidean perspective. I even managed to work in antinomianism.

I thank my mother-in-law, my sisters-in-law and modern medicine that my son is still alive. Hopefully, soon I will be able to report that he is out of all danger.

Kidnapping Kalman: A Lesson in the Exodus

This past Monday, Miriam and I hosted a kiddush in honor of Kalman's third birthday. This came with speaking privileges, which I decided to take advantage of. 

Do you see this Kalman here?  I am sure many of you would like to kidnap him. How would you go about doing it? On the surface, it would seem to be a simple task. Pick the boy up and walk out. Now here is where things get tricky. You see, even though Kalman is small, he can kick, and scream and he really likes Mommy. So brute force would not actually be practical for more than a brief period of time. What is needed would be to keep Kalman from realizing that he is being kidnapped for as long as possible. Tell him: "Let me help you find your parents. ... Your parents asked me to look after you for a little bit. ... I will take you home in the morning." Eventually, Kalman will realize that you are lying to him. (He is a very smart boy.) That being said, if you keep control of him long enough, you will eventually be able to make the case that he has been abandoned and that no one loves him anymore. He has no one but you so he might as well make the best of the situation. It should be noted that, in the case of most kidnapping cases, this can go on for years as the victims come to engage in behavior that appears from the outside to be compliance with the captor and even downright acceptance of their situation. 

One of the interesting questions in regards to the Exodus story is why bother going through the whole process of speaking to Pharoah, inflicting the Ten Plagues upon him, and then baiting him into destroying his army at the Red Sea. With the might of God, Moses should have been able to march the Israelites right out of Egypt without even having to talk to Pharoah and get his permission. A way of thinking about it is to say that the real story was never really about getting Pharoah to let the Israelites go, but getting the Israelites to agree to leave. The Israelites loved their Egyptian masters and would have never agreed to leave on their own. Moses, therefore, needed Pharoah to order the Israelites to leave and to trick the Israelites into believing that they were just going for a few days to worship God. Hence, Moses only asked for a temporary leave and told the Israelites to borrow vessels from their neighbors. What kind of borrowing is it if you are never coming back? 

The Exodus did not free the Israelites. They were "kidnapped" from being Pharoah's slaves to God's. In this, the crossing of the Red Sea played a critical role. Once the Israelites saw Egyptians dead on the shore they knew that this was not some temporary outing, but that they were never going back. Pharoah was no longer their master, God was. Israel needed to accept that and make the best of the situation. 

Nearly six years ago, I came out to Pasadena for the summer. I somehow seem to find that I am still here with a wife and a Kalman. My parents have told her: "No backsies." So I guess I am stuck; I might as well make the best of the situation. I love my wife and my Kalman and do not want to be free from them. 

Toward a Lockean Theory of Halakha

In the previous post, I argued that Haredi Judaism, to the extent that it accepted charismatic authority in the form of Gedolim, must be seen as an anti-halakhic movement. Charismatic authority is implicitly antinomian in that the only way for someone to demonstrate their absolute loyalty to the charismatic authority figure, as opposed to some textual authority, is to violate the law as interpreted through text. For example, Sabbateans were known to secretly eat a cherry on the fast of Tisha B'Av to demonstrate that they did not really need to fast on account of the coming of Sabbatai Sevi. On the contrary, the way to now truly fulfill the commandment of fasting was to eat. The real purpose of fasting was to signify faith in the coming of Sabbatai, the Messiah. So by showing such faith in Sabbatai, as to do what might look like a sin, you are the one who is really fasting, as opposed to the fasting non-believers, who are really the ones eating. Similarly, if you believe that it is impossible to know the law through one's own intellectual efforts, but require the aid of Gedolim, then the logical way to demonstrate this faith is to commit a sin like taking a bite out of that traif sandwich at the command of the Gadol.

In a post-Enlightenment world, there are good reasons to be tempted by charismatic authority. It very neatly solves the challenge to authority both from potentially heterodox methods of interpreting the world (such as science) and, most importantly, from non-believing clergymen, working to bring down the faith from within. Charismatic authority, if we accept it, clearly trumps science and offers an a priori religious authority that makes liberal clergymen irrelevant. We see this logic at work within American Protestantism as well, where the Evangelical use of charismatic authority has beaten the text-based authority of the mainline denominations.

Let me suggest an approach to religious authority that might redeem text-based authority in the modern world, making use of John Locke style social contract theory in which everyone is free to follow their own understanding of Judaism and free to reject other opinions as demonstrating that the person is not serious about their Judaism, all the while being subject to everyone else having that same power. Here is another thought experiment. As a scholar of Jewish history, I have just made an important discovery in my university library, a set of Gemarah and Shulhan Arukh. Our parents and grandparents were all committed socialists, who raised us on kibbutzim. So despite the fact that we all strongly identify as Jews, none of us know anything about halakha. Even after we started believing in God again, we felt that there was something missing in our relationship to him. Observing the laws in these books look like the perfect solution we have been praying for.

We are going to start a club called the LOJS (Local Orthodox Jewish Synagogue). We will gather together on Saturdays to engage in Jewish worship, as set forth in the books I found, and to listen to lectures on how to observe the many strange laws found in these books. (Can you believe it, but we are going to have to baptize our dishes.) Sessions will be presided over by a Jewish studies professor, whom we will call a rabbi. There is nothing special about him and people should feel free to ignore him. It just makes sense to have someone in charge to be officially not obeyed.

Word of the LOJS club is spreading and soon we will have chapters in many different cities. Now, in trying to recreate some form of traditionally observant Judaism, we will face a number of challenges related to authority. We are trying to create a religion based on what we read in a set of books. These books say a lot of things, much of which is blatantly contradictory (do we listen to Bait Hillel or Beit Shammai) or simply difficult to understand, leaving a lot of room for interpretation and reasonable disagreement. So even if everyone was totally committed, we would have people wanting to practice different versions of Judaism. Since we are all baalai teshuva trying to figure things out, none of us carry any real authority that others should listen. To make matters worse, all sorts of people are applying to join our club with different levels of observance. Most people are more in the market for a few rituals to give some spirituality to their lives, but not to refashion themselves with a complete set of laws that must be accepted in totum. Furthermore, everyone is coming to Judaism with previous social and ideological commitments, which they are not about to give up now that they are joining their LOJS. For example, we have the nice gay couple who want to be married in the club, the feminist studying to be a rabbi, the libertarian-anarchist who has no intention of praying for the restoration of any Davidic monarchy and the Christian who believes that Jesus is his Jewish Lord and Savior. Different LOJS clubs are going to make their own decisions about where to draw the lines and who can be members, but no one is in a position to force their views on anyone else.

The sensible solution to these problems of authority would be for every individual person and LOJS club to proceed with creating their own standards all while showing the spirit of charity for all those other clubs setting their standards. God did not speak to me and I am not the heir of any special tradition. I am just a scholar trying to read and apply a manual like anybody else. Furthermore, we have to accept that everyone is coming to Judaism with some kind of previous ideological baggage, which sets boundaries on how they will interpret laws. For example, classical liberal Jews might refuse to kill homosexuals and Amalekite children. We have to accept this for the simple reason that we have no greater divine authority than they do. Just as we need our opponents to accept us even when they disagree with our interpretations and look askance at our ideological commitments so too must we be consistent and accept them despite our disagreements.

There is one limitation I would place in order to keep everyone honest; we are free to reject anyone, who does not appear to us to be acting in good faith and seems to be using Judaism as cover for some other ideological agenda. A greater level of personal observance should be a cause to give the benefit of the doubt over those who are less observant. That being said, overzealousness in rejecting other LOJS clubs should serve as prima facia evidence of using Judaism as cover for another agenda, much as a lack of ritual observance would. For example, even as I, much like Chabad, welcome people who drive on the Sabbath, are intermarried or even gay, I would reject the membership applications of members of Jews for Jesus and Jewish Voices for Peace, finding that they perform little in the way of Jewish practice and their Judaism consists mostly of using their Judaism to castigate other Jews for failing to believe in Jesus or make suicidal concessions to the Palestinians. Clearly, their agenda is simply to call themselves Jews in order to convert us to their actual religion. Similarly, I might reject applications from Satmar on the grounds that despite their meticulous observance, their eagerness to denounce other Jews and place themselves on some kind of moral platform indicates that they are less interested in Judaism as a way of practice and to relate to God than they are in setting up an anti-modernist cult. In making these decisions, I recognize that I make myself vulnerable. Not only should I not expect any tolerance from those who I have rejected, but reasonable people might also come to question my motivations in the particular lines I draw and decide that they cannot accept me.

Clearly, there would be nothing to stop a Jews for Pork group beyond our ability to reject their application as a Jewish organization. (I would make a point in distinguishing Jews who incidentally did not practice kosher in their homes and ideological traif eaters.) That being said, we should be able to avoid the problem with antinomianism. There are no hard hierarchies let alone charismatic authorities so there is no reason why there should be any antinomians in our midsts, particularly if we do our job in rooting out those trying to use Judaism as cover for other agendas.

Social contract theory is often criticized for being ahistorical. There was never a moment when non-civilized men came together and agreed on any kind of social contract, whether the Hobbesian, Lockean, or Rousseauean versions. This criticism misses the point that the social contract was never something that happened in history, but is happening every day. The United States government stands because every day the vast majority of Americans, not me, get up and agree that the government has moral authority over themselves and their neighbors even to the point of killing them. The moment that even a small percentage of the population begins to question this then you get the Bastille and the Berlin Wall.

Similarly, many people might question the applicability of my scenario as it lacks any FFBs (frum from birth). What you have are some Jewish Studies majors deciding that they are really interested in halakha and getting other people to listen to them. (Granted that no one would ever take us seriously.) For me, this is precisely the point. Living post-enlightenment and emancipation, there are no people truly born religious. Being observant Jews is something that we decide every day. Furthermore, there is no power of tradition to give anyone any inherent authority over anyone else. My father might be an Orthodox rabbi, but I grew up in Columbus, OH as a product of American culture. Just as a genetic test would demonstrate my utter lack of racial purity, even a casual reading of this blog should be enough to demonstrate that my ideas are hardly pure of gentile influence. I do not claim to be anything more an American with classical liberal values and conservatives politics, who grabbed onto the Judaism he found around him, trying to give himself a community and some meaning to his life. I challenge anyone to demonstrate that their Judaism is any purer.

There are many Jews out there, who lack my Jewish education. I am not smarter or more virtuous than them and claim no intrinsic authority over them. I am sure, if they wish, they could study the same texts that I studied and surpass me. There are certainly many Jews who are more learned than me. I am sure that, if I applied myself, I could remedy that. Such people may be compared to my in-laws, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and younger brother, who all, unlike me, have medical degrees. It may be prudent that I take their medical advice seriously, but none of them can claim any kind of authority over me; I remain free to shop around for medical advice. Most importantly, I deny that any of them are intrinsically smarter or virtuous than me (besides for my mother-in-law). If I wanted to, I could go to medical school and become a doctor as well.

Let us do away with charismatic authority and even the hierarchy of tradition. Let us be the People of the Book.

The Antinomian Implications of Gedolim: Are You Willing to Put Your Traif Where Your Mouth Is?

A prominent feature of Haredi society today is the belief in the infallibility of their rabbinic leaders, the Gedolim. These Gedolim are supposed to be miracle workers, whose knowledge supersedes that of ordinary mortals like you and me. In essence, Haredim took halakhic Judaism, premised on textual authority, and replaced it with charismatic authority in which religious leaders are assumed to receive some kind of divine revelation. There was a good sociological reason for this. It was charismatic authority, ironically, that was best suited to defend religion against modernity's challenge to religious authority. As a simple Jew, why should I not listen to the Conservative rabbi, who says that it is ok to drive to a synagogue on Shabbat if I live far away and would otherwise not be able to celebrate Shabbat as part of a Jewish community? Even to make a halakhic argument against driving on Shabbat will be counter-productive. You might fail to convince me and I will, therefore, go drive. Even if you succeed this time, you will have implicitly conceded to me the premise that, in the absence of any religious authority with coercive powers, I am my own ultimate halakhic authority and am free to rule however I wish.

The Haredi solution was to declare that there was a body of men whose opinions, a priori, cannot be challenged. It is not just that these Gedolim are really smart and have good arguments for their positions. I like to think that I am a smart person too so tomorrow I will come back with even better arguments, at least to my mind. The Gedolim must not just be smarter than me, their intelligence must be of such a different kind that I could never imagine being in the right against them.

A large part of the Haredi success has been due to its ability to claim for itself the mandate of being the defenders of Jewish Law; are not Haredim the strictest in terms of religious observance? This is in large part due to the Haredi world's clear lines of authority. But as with any Faustian bargain, the price to be paid is high. Part of what of I find fascinating about the Haredi use of Gedolim is that their practical use in the defense of ritual orthodoxy does not change the fundamentally antinomian implications of charismatic authority and may come to serve as the perfect cover to destroy halakha.

For those who would defend the absolute authority of Gedolim and also claim to be loyal to halakha, I propose a thought experiment. Imagine that the Gedolim were to call you into a secret room and order you to eat the ultimate traif sandwich. Would you listen to the Gedolim or would you, in your "arrogance," dare to place your limited understanding that there is such a thing as kosher over their wisdom and refuse to eat it? Some simple Jew, who recalls that, according to Leviticus, a pig is not kosher as well as stories about Maccabean martyrs, is going to think he has the right to lecture the Gedolim about kosher and accuse them of not following the Torah? Does he not know that without the Gedolim we would all be lost like sheep without a shepherd, prey to Reform and Conservative Judaism with their women rabbis?

Note that there may be a very good reason for the Gedolim to want you to eat traif. Eating traif is a useful signaling device as to who really is loyal to  Haredi Judaism. A person who is not willing to listen to the Gedolim and eat traif, but prefers to follow his own understanding of Judaism today might turn around tomorrow and not accept that Judaism opposes women rabbis. Alternatively, a failure to eat traif on the command of the Gedolim might endanger Judaism by opening up the possibility that some Jews might, at some future point, question the rulings of the Gedolim regarding kosher and refuse to eat in the homes of other Haredi Jews. An Orthodox Judaism in which members are not united in eating each other's food is liable to fall apart. Such a divided community would lack the moral standing to defy the liberal denominations on women rabbis. Clearly, it is better to eat a pig than to accept women rabbis. (Or at least that is the impression I get from the OU.) We can even add "who made men and women in their places" in addition to the traditional blessing for traif: "who permits the forbidden." Only a godless heretic could be against saying more blessings when we all know that a single amen has the power to change worlds.

One might take support from the story in Rosh HaShanah in which R. Gamliel forced R. Joshuah to violate the day of Yom Kippur as he calculated it. Allowing there to be two Jewish calendars risked destroying the religion and needed to be stopped at all costs, even violating the religious consciousness of R. Joshuah. (Perhaps the Dead Sea Sect supported women rabbis in addition to their solar calendar.)  I should note a distinction between R. Joshua violating his Yom Kippur and our traif case. R. Joshuah had every reason to believe that R. Gamliel was acting in good halakhic faith, adhering to the principle that one is not allowed to travel with a stick and a money belt on Yom Kippur. R. Gamliel might be wrong in his astronomical calculations, but he made his mistake as part of a legitimate halakhic process based upon textual analysis and not charismatic authority. In our traif case, the Gedolim want you to eat what they acknowledge to be a pig on the assumption that they are not bound by any text-based halakhic process. In fact, their goal is to destroy the practice of text-based halakha as a heresy that would allow any person with a Judaica library to become their own halakhic authority.

A Judaism in which every person is free to do what is right in their own eyes as long as they can point to a Jewish source cannot be called Haredi. A Judaism in which it might be ok to eat traif, even in secret antinomian rituals, cannot be called Orthodox. Take your pick, text or charismatic authority. I vote for there to be such a thing called halakha even if that puts me in charge of my own religion.