The Evolving Jew

According to the traditional viewpoint, you're "supposed" to find a posek and abide by his rulings. But let's be honest. In practice, especially in the internet age, many people shop around for a halachic ruling that they're comfortable with. Is this so terrible? While I'm sure that some shop around just so they can engage in practices that they'll enjoy, I suspect that most do so for practical reasons, because their lives would be much more difficult if they had to rely only on their local rabbi. Especially in the last several decades, when compassionate kulot (leniencies) are much less part of your average Orthodox rabbi's toolkit than they used to be. So people turn to the internet. They don't want to just violate halacha, but they sometimes desperately need a lenient ruling, whether it be for something as benign as a pressing business need or as serious as a sick family member. So they ask people in Jewish discussion groups, or look around at v

The traditional reason given that Hashem allowed the destruction of the second Beit Hamikdash is because of Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred. It might also be translated as pointless hatred. Tisha B'Av, more than any other commemorative day on the Jewish calendar, provides us with a deep dive into Jewish history. We mourn the destruction of two temples and the loss of sovereignty in ancient times. But in the Kinot we recite, we also mourn events like the Rhineland massacres during the first crusade in 1096, the York Massacre in 1190, the burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1242, the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and the Shoah in the 1940's. All of these events reverberate deeply through subsequent Jewish history, leaving their marks on who we are and what path Judaism followed. We focus on Jewish history during happier commemorations as well, but not nearly as deeply. The old joke, that Jewish holidays have a narrative of "they tried to kill us, we won, let's ea

Let's face it. Left Wing Modern Orthodoxy, Open Orthodoxy, or whatever you want to call it, has much more in common, philosophically and in their general outlook, with heterodox movements than with right wing Orthodoxy. The only thing that binds LWMO/OO with RWO is basic halachic observance, and even the philosophical and practical approaches to halacha differ. And then there's the independent minyan movement, which has a huge contingent of halachically observant folks, not to mention the observant JTS types, who people tend to dub "Conservadox". Beyond the variability of whether there's a mechitza or not, there's hardly any difference at all between LWMO, OO, Independent minyanim, and Conservadox. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of labels, and most of the time I tend to just say that I'm halachically observant and attend an Orthodox shul. Functionally, I guess you could call me LWMO. But given the ubiquity of labels and the fact that they do serv

Food for thought: How much should humane conditions factor into whether something gets a hechsher or not? Can we just go by the letter of the law and ignore the horrors of factory farming? Eggs, for instance. Chickens are stuffed 5 to a cage, barely able to move around for their entire lives. This is basically torture. In my opinion, your conventional supermarket eggs should be treif, given the terrible צער בעלי חיים the chickens are subject to. But I still make compromises, because I'm not going to question hosts on what kinds of eggs they use. Nor do I buy the more expensive pasture raised eggs (the ideal), but settle for the cage-free variety, which are more affordable, and at least I know that the chickens aren't trapped in cages. Where does halacha end and where does ethical eating begin?

The newest wrinkle in the who-is-a-jew question? UK Reform Judaism has now accepted patrilineal descent. With the acrimonious debate in recent years over the Israeli rabbinate's control over conversions and the refusal to acknowledge the Judaism of anybody who doesn't fit their narrowly defined parameters, it's time for a new approach. I've said before that Israel should have several state-sponsored denominational rabbinates, but as optional services only, no coercion. So if there's no rabbinate with the legal authority to decide, how does Israel define someone's Jewishness?It's time to separate "Jewish" into two categories in Israel: Halachically Jewish and Civilly Jewish. Who's a halachic Jew? That's up to the denomination a person subscribes to, and should have no impact on how the state views them. So who's civilly Jewish? Anyone who self-identifies with the Jewish nation and willingly chooses to join our grand millennia

Thoughts on the Iran deal: I think many people already had their minds made up, and the actual details of the deal won't change their minds one way or the other. For instance, Netanyahu, and much of the Israeli public. Bibi wasn't going to like any deal, no matter the details. He made that very clear, very early, and for that reason, I don't feel he has much credibility on the details of the actual deal just signed. As for myself, I don't know enough about the details to judge. I don't have the time to read the entire agreement, nor do I have the expertise to understand all the details. So what I'll end up doing is depend on pundits and commentators I trust and try to glean an informed opinion from them. (Which is what everyone does, mostly.) Ultimately, the question isn't whether this is a good deal. No deal signed with Iran would be strictly "good". The question is, is this deal better than having no deal at all? That's where the deta

With all this talk of whether Open Orthodox is "in" or "out" of Orthodoxy, I wonder how many people actually identify as Open Orthodox, aside from the students, graduates, and hanhala of Chovevei Torah? I can only speak for myself, but while I tend towards the far left of Orthodoxy, and deeply identify with many of the attitudes of OO, I don't actually use that label to define myself. I suspect that many of my like-thinking friends are like me - we don't feel the need to be pinned down by a label. As a layman who does not work in the Orthodox world, I don't have to identify myself for professional reasons. I'm simply a Jew who attends an Orthodox shul and keeps normative traditional halacha in my everyday life. Beyond that, there's no reason to put myself into any sort of box. I can pick and choose elements of hashkafa that resonate with me from wherever they come. If I were in a box that is officially labeled "Orthodox", then I w

Note: I just found this post in my blog's "drafts" folder, where I had composed it in 2008. It was really a collection of comments of mine from some other blog posts thrown together. I decided to edit it now to add some flow, and publish, but if it still comes across as slightly disjointed, that origin is the reason. ------------------------------------------------ The madness of the current conversion process in Israel is staggering. However, it is important not to misrepresent the views of the Charedi Rabbanut. When the Chazon Ish ruled that it is appropriate to trust Jews who state their identity as such, there weren't large numbers of potential olim who came from mixed marriages where the mother converted under Reform auspices. There are now. These children are raised Jewish, but do not practice halacha. By traditional halachic standards, they are not Jewish. yet they come to Israel & claim to be. The Rabbanut, now under Charedi control, is desperate

A comment of mine on a Facebook discussion today regarding techelet in one's tztitzit, which has been reinstituted by many after 2,000 years based on the claimed rediscovery of the source of techelet, a certain kind of snail: I thought about doing it. But there's still plenty of dispute over whether what they have today is really the biblical techelet. And as someone who sees Judaism as an evolved religion (because really, what we practice today only superficially resembles what they practiced during Bayit Sheni), I've decided it's not a priority to go back to something that might be what they did 2,000 years ago. My grandfather and his grandfather, and his grandfather and HIS grandfather all wore tzitzit without techelet, and that's good enough for me too.