Mechon Hadar Guest

With all the doom and gloom stories of assimilation of young Jews in North America, one good news story is the rise of vibrant independent minyanim (prayer groups) throughout the continent, but particularly on the east coast of the United States. Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, one of the founders of Kehilat Hadar in Manhattan, perhaps the most successful independent minyan in North America, has just published Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us about Building Vibrant Jewish Communities, an enthusiastic panegyric and how-to guide for setting up an independent minyan.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.” How can we relate to those historical figures who hold a place in our Jewish life, having been braver for five minutes longer? Are they a tool to be used by our teachers, or reminders of our own ability reach farther, do more, and make a real difference in the world? We turn to three young rabbis from different streams of Judaism for their thoughts.

If you’re at all interested in Jewish life these days, you might have found yourself pondering one of two questions recently. If you’re not all that connected, you might have thought to yourself, “Where are all the young Jews these days?” If you are very connected, you might have thought, “Why is Judaism now being run out of my friend’s living room instead of a synagogue?”

In Judaism, the covenant between God and Israel has two aspects to it—a concrete contract, on the one hand, and an infinite set of aspirations, on the other. Thus, the 613 mitzvot are concrete obligations that the Jewish people take upon themselves in serving God, but in and of themselves they do not exhaust our commitments and obligations, because a relationship rooted in love can never be encapsulated in a checklist, no matter how long or detailed. Love’s aspirations are limitless, and hence the Bible mandates not only that we observe the commandments, but also that we “walk in God’s ways,” which our sages interpret as living a life of chesed, of love manifested as kindness. The concrete mitzvot thus represent the baseline commitment beneath which we may not fall; a life of lovingkindness is the height towards which we aspire.

This past week, Rav Hershel Schachter, eminent Torah scholar and leading figure at Yeshiva University, issued fighting words. The ordination of women as rabbis is such a serious infraction of Jewish Law, he insisted, that it technically falls under the rubric of “Yehareg Ve-al Ya’avor”—one should sooner be killed than violate the Law. Now, of course, I presume, Rav Schachter did not mean this literally, but only sought to express with the fullest rhetorical force available to him the absolute impermissibility according to halacha [Jewish law] of women functioning as-- let alone actually being called—rabbis.