My thoughts on Gordimer
Originally a comment I wrote on Facebook on R Gordimer's article against Chovevei Torah: R Gordimer is both right & wrong. He's wrong in that he has a narrowly defined view of what traditional halacha allows, and he's wrong in asserting that the innovations regarding women's roles are unjustifiable in the traditional halachic framework. But he's right that certain statements about Torah MiSinai and Mashiach would have been considered outside the pale in any generation. Personally, I'm very sympathetic to Rabbis Farber & Yanklowitz. Their viewpoints are in line with my own hashkafa. But I am fully aware that my hashkafa not only doesn't fit in with today's Orthodoxy, it doesn't even fit in to the Judaism of the Tana'im, Amoraim, Geonim, and Rishonim. Today's Orthodox Judaism is a very narrowly defined (and distasteful) crystalized version of certain practices and beliefs in traditional Judaism. YCT's problem is that th