Mindfulness

When Malka was so, so sick, I felt that I should be davening for her. It was reiterated recently, to daven again, or more, or renew the prayers for her. And I did not know what to pray for her. I found it hard to daven for her to get better, and impossible to daven for her to be ... out of pain.

So although I did daven, I felt more heart and more comfort and more doing something when I did something else. Since I heard about Malka's death sentence, I have been trying my hardest to live for her.

It seemed so unfair to me that she would never marry, would never have children, would never clean her own dirty floors or feel that fear that one day, some awful illness would swoop down out of the clear blue nothing and claim her children. That not just had she never experienced that, but that the hope of one day experiencing them had suddenly been snatched away. That suddenly, there wasn't a future ahead.

So every time I put on a wash-load, or exasperatedly picked up my children's shoes for the umpteenth time, or slowly plodded home with heavy shopping, I thought, 'Malka, this is for you. Malka, you'll never be able to feel this pain, this frustration, this irritation, and so I dedicate it to you. Malka, I swallow this retort as the retort that you will never get to swallow, in your merit'.

Actually, I do not feel sure that 'in your merit' is the right phrase. Ok I suppose it is, but what I felt, and still feel, was that I give this whole act over to you, Malka.

Mindfulness is a buzzword, nowadays. I try to avoid cliches, but sometimes they may be true.

For me, when Malka's days were numbered, I began trying to make mine count. But not in the ways you might think. Perhaps it's because it was Malka i was thinking of, and so something grand and brash and flashy would not be appropriate. Because she was never one of those peacock people, the one you noticed straight away, making a splash, achieving great glories. she was one of the unsung heros who deserved to be sung. She made a difference by being Malka. So I did not - do not  - feel led to create some big and bright merit or memorial. I feel driven to just    be. Just to be me, alive.

Malka, I kiss the children you'll never have. Malka, I live the mundane life that was stolen from you. Malka, the quiet moments and the busy ones, the slices of unremarkable time that together carve out my life, I give those over to you by trying my hardest to be aware of them.

I could create a beautiful dvar torah about Malka dying during the time of the counting of the Omer. I could tell you about the significance of counting our days to make our days count. I could tell you that, although Malka was very drugged and asleep much of the time, she made sure to be awake at 9.30 (give or take) every night so that she could count the omer on time, which is something that will always stay with me.

But instead, I shall do what we all do. I'll live my life. I'll wash my floors, keep my own temper, fight my small battles and win, or lose, but in the small still voice of the day and the night, I'll think, Malka, this one's for you.

L'ilui nishmas Malka Baila

Joy for all* (*may not include women)

Last night - Simchat Torah night here in Israel - after shul, hakafot, dinner etc, i was composing this blog post in my head. it went something like this:

There are some times when i wish i was not an optimist. Then there wouldn't be so much disappointment.

Every year I look forward to Simchat Torah. i love the Torah reading; I love the feeling of completing the cycle of Torah and moving on one notch as we start it again. I also love to dance, and love to feel and express a connection with God through my feet and body, celebrating the Torah that i love.

Almost every year, I come out of Simchat Torah feeling hollow, having again experienced the transformation of the day of the celebration of acceptance of the Torah into a 24-hour kiddush. I do understand that men, by and large, do not realise how empty Simchat Torah is for most women. i do also accept that there are women - possibly many, many women, possibly even the majority - who truly feel the joy of having the Torah through the vicarious experience of watching their husbands and sons dance. And i applaud them; I wish that I was so easily satisfied, it would make my life much simpler.

(What they all think should be arranged for single, divorced, widowed, or childless women, i haven;t a clue. i think they should probably take the hint and go off to Thailand for the duration. (side note: this year i received an email from our synagogue before Rosh Hashana, reminding the women to appoint their husbands as their intermediary for hatarat nedarim (annulment of vows ritual) the next day. I replied asking, What about the single women in our community? Or women who wish to do it themselves? The response: "I have no idea".).)

I know of a few communities which organise women's learning for Simchat Torah. I think that's lovely; it's a good thing for women to learn Torah. But it's not, actually, what traditionally happens on the morning of Simchat Torah. If it's 'the done thing' for men to celebrate Simchat Torah by dancing, not learning, why should women be fobbed off by being told that if they want to experience Simchat Torah, they should learn? (thanks to Jo Bruce for that one.)

Last night, I was composing this blog post because i went to our regular synagogue. I like to be in the same place for chagim as I am all year round. it gives a nice sense of community. and continuity. And I do like our community. I like the people in it, though I don;t know them very well yet. (I think I do not actually know them well enough to have made the comment I did to the woman standing next to me, watching our men-folk celebrate. The comment: You know the mishna about the simchat beit hashoeva celebrations in the Temple? That only those who were on a high enough level of Torah learning danced, and the rest just watched? Maybe one day, i'll merit to a high enough level to be able to dance on Simchat Torah.) 

Last night, the men danced. The women squashed together and watched. Some of them sat down comfortably and yachna-ed outside while the kids ran around on sugar highs (because for children, this is one of the two 'Holiday of the endless sweets'). Part of me wondered if I should go outside and join the yachna-ing, because I don;t know the women very well yet, and I would like to, and maybe I shouldn't squander the opportunity to chat? And then I thought of my daughter. 8 years old, notices everything you don't want her to notice, already been disappointed once by the lack of provision for women to dance at a recent celebration 'for the whole community'. Do I want her to look around from watching the men dance with sifrei torah, and see her mother chatting? Nope. So I called her over, and we sat down together and finished learning the book of Joshua which she'd been working through all year. It was lovely to be learning together with my daughter on simchat torah. But it would have been even nicer to have finished learning, got up, and danced together to celebrate the Torah that she learns and that I learn.

***

That's the blog post I wrote in my head last night. Thank God, today I went to a different synagogue. Ok, it was not perfect. But there was space for women to dance in as well as the men. There were women sitting and learning as well as talking. There were women dancing (and, more blessedly, lovely, lively teenage girls singing and dancing. how wonderful it is that they were there! on so many, many levels. something must have gone right for them to still be inside a synagogue on simchat torah, starting off the dancing, rather than chatting in the park). There were men carrying the sefer torah over for women to kiss (only a couple, but i have been slowly lowering my expectations. it's a start). There were little scrolls of the books of the Prophets which some girls were dancing with, without outrage (again, i know it is not the sefer torah. But again, it is a start. Though one woman dancing refused to hold it, probably because of that menstruation myth again). I know how much was lacking, so no need to deluge me with reminders, but just to find women dancing made me feel less empty. Or perhaps it was being around other women who also acknowledged that there was something missing in the female experience of the day that made me feel less like the last human in 'attack of the zombies'.

***

After our rather disastrous simchas beis hashoeva celebration experience, I was forced to clarify and articulate just what was so bad about it. So here's the benefit of my reflections. First, the experience:

- We went to a simchas beis hashoevah celebration run by our synagogue, billed as being 'for the whole community'. Now i make a lot of allowances for our synagogue, partly because I like it, and partly because it is crammed into such a small house and so it cannot provide things for the women (or men) that it perhaps would like to, just because of a lack of space. However, in my naivete i thought that the men would dance outside, and the women would dance inside, so that they would have some space. Instead, the whole men's section was cleared (a reasonable size) and the women's section - tiny at best - was still set up as it normally is.

So I cleared away the tables and chairs, thereby creating an empty ladies' section with plenty of space for about half a dozen women to dance in. fortunately, that's about exactly how many women came. I danced with them and my eager-to-dance daughter for about 10 minutes, and then left (as I had intended) for a family gathering. As we walked away, daughter and I commiserated over the lack of dancing  or provision for dancing. She said 'next year, we won't go'. I said 'No. Next year, we will organise it so that it will be better'.

- Ben's responses and other reasonable defenses:
      - Maybe women in the community just don't come
      - Maybe the women in the community just don't dance

- my reflections:
     - Don't call it 'for the whole community' if you don't want women to come.
     - Don't invite women and then make no possibility for them to dance
   

It matters to me, immensely, that our daughter grows up feeling that she has a place, value, and worth in our community. I know all about a woman's role in building a home, and i think it is hugely important, and indeed primary. However, no woman spends her whole life married with small children. She - and every girl - needs to feel that she matters in her community. I am not convinced that parents on their own can counteract a message received from all around of 'your role in a community is as an adjunct who sends her husband to pray' and 'your spiritual life is only within your home'.

Every girl and women needs to feel a relationship with God that is not solely defined by her role as wife and mother. Small events such a this send a clear message that the women who come to communal events are only expected to talk or prepare the kiddush, or not to come at all. Certainly that communal religious experiences are only for men.

I am reminded of the time of the haskalah (Enlightenment), as young Jews slipped away from Orthodoxy in droves to join Nationalist movements, Zionist movements, Socialist movements, Reform movements. There was widespread wailing and gnashing of teeth, and it took a remarkably long time - with the benefit of hindsight - for the mass of leaders and teachers to realise that perhaps the Jews who were leaving Judaism were not just doing so because of the wonderful things that these other movements had to offer, but because they felt something lacking in Judaism. and even longer to realise that if that was the case, then something in the way that they taught Judaism had to change.

Nowadays, there is a great deal of energy spent by leaders and teachers decrying Jewish feminism, women's prayer groups, egalitarian and/or partnership minyanim, and others of that ilk. it is usually blamed on the spirit of the times, a desire to rebel, and lack of modesty. Remarkably seldom, it seems, do leaders and teachers reflect that perhaps, women are looking elsewhere for a religiously fulfilling experience because they are excluded from having one in the 'mainstream' Orthodox world. That perhaps, if women were permitted to do that which we are, actually, permitted to do, fewer women would turn away from Orthodoxy.

This year, our daughter came, and was disappointed. Next year, she wouldn't come. After that, she wouldn't come to shul at all. She would stay home to read, or chat outside of the synagogue with her friends. And then, why should she expect a synagogue to be a place where she experiences any sort of spirituality? I found it hard, growing up with the message around me that women's collective religious experience is to say tehillim. Thank God, I have made my peace with the options available to me, and learned enough Torah to know that what i hear all around me is not always - or often - halachically true, and that there are more options than those dreamt of in their philosophy. but it was a longish road, and I'd love my daughter not to have to travel it. I want to help her to short cut straight to 'fulfilling communal experience and relationship with God within a mainstream orthodox framework'.

All of this sent me into simchat torah determined to show my daughter that a. Torah is also for women and b. a communal religious experience is also for women.

Thank God, I did manage it, although it wasn't perfect. And so, this blog post is a little longer than I'd composed it last night, and also a little bit more positive.

Aliyah-versary

1 year ago today, give or take a few hours, we were saying goodbye to our family and boarding a bus - and then a plane - with 3 children, huge and heavy hand luggage, a very large panda, and thank God some very good friends, to begin the most epic journey of our lives since becoming parents.

It's been a year of immense growth, challenge and change for us all; a year of making new friendships and of seeing old ones change; a year of learning a new language and making new mistakes; a year of walking an old-new land and feeling it slowly shape us into greater belonging; a year of getting excited about 'shabbat shalom' signs on buses and a winter holiday season that is marked by the appearance of doughnuts and not red-and-white hats; a year of empathising with our children while they cry and gratefully rejoicing when they smile again; a year of bewilderment at different value systems and anger at pettiness; a year of gratitude for help and support in unexpected places; a year of making day trips to the homes of our ancient ancestors; a year of learning to look the other way when we cross the road; a year of watching our children gain independence and maturity - and letting them; a year of new jobs and new responsibilities; a year of deciding what to keep and what to reject; a year of sunshine and rain and discovering new glories; a year of discovering that we can bend in places we never thought we could...

In short, a year of rising (aliyah).

Reflections From A Marker In The Road Of Time

“It’s not the end; it’s not even the beginning of the end; but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”

I am finding it hard to believe that we’ve reached the end of the school year. We haven’t quite been here a year, but getting to the end of the academic year is a real milestone. This shabbat, one year ago, i gave a farewell dvar torah, somewhat off the cuff, to my beautiful community in london. I referred to a vort of the lubavitcher rebbe's, that every time there is a double sedra, the two names of the sedrot contradict each other. Matos-Masei: a staff, the head of the tribe, that which does not change but which serves as a marker, provides an identity, a reference point and a rallying point; + journeys, change, new situations and experiences. A year ago, i was about to leave a matos period in my life to enter a new period of masei. And now, i am partway through the process of transforming my masei period into a mateh, again. 

We’ve come a long way, baby.

I’ve been trying to compose this in my head without reference to trite phraseology or clichés, but it’s proving impossible. I cannot pretend that others have not trod this path before me – and written about it – so I’ll just have to go for honesty, but unoriginality.

Looking back on the year we have (just about) completed in Israel, after making aliyah, I can only feel gratitude to Hashem and amazement at what we have achieved. Chazal tell us that when the wicked and righteous reach heaven, they are shown the yetzer hara – the evil inclination – which tempted them throughout their lives. To the wicked, who gave in to it, it will appear like a tiny molehill; to the righteous, who resisted, it will appear like a huge mountain. The question that is asked is why it appears like this to each group of people? Surely the sinners should see the temptation to which they succumbed as overwhelming, and the righteous should see that which they overcame as being insignificant? But it is, in fact, the other way around. The sinners will look back and wish they had resisted something which was really so petty and trivial. And the righteous will look back and see their struggle not to give in transformed into an eternal triumph.

I hope it doesn’t sound too arrogant – or critical of those friends who are still living in chutz l’aretz – if I say that I identify with that somewhat. Not the triumph over temptation part, but that on looking back at our first year in the Land, all the difficulties which we have b’ezrat Hashem overcome seem so much larger than they did while we were struggling through them. At the time, it was hard, yes, but it was ok, we were managing fine. And now when I look back, I think – wow, I can’t believe we did this. I can’t believe we got this far. Oh we aren’t finished yet – the struggles continue – but now they are normal struggles, regular life struggles, and I can’t think how we ordinary mortals coped with the challenges we already faced.

I remember our first week in Israel, and how dislocated we felt, how much it was time out of step with the rest of the world, a kind of cross between the week of sheva brachot and life on the moon. We took our life apart in London, packed it away in boxes and left it until we couldn’t remember it by heart – and then we took it all out and put it back together again, but differently. The weeks which we spent living with beds, appliances, one folding table, and 5 plastic chairs as our furniture, and how incredibly wearing it felt to have nowhere to put anything down apart from the floor.  I don’t think I have ever appreciated any piece of furniture as much as the second-hand chest of drawers we picked up in our second week here (at last, something to put things on!), and the luxurious arrival of our couches just before rosh hashanah (weeks before our shipment from London reached us) was a New Year’s gift from Heaven.

More: the utter discombobulation of taking the children to school for the first time, and not knowing which way to turn, what books to give them, and just leaving them to work it out. The vulnerability of being reliant on the kindness of strangers and G-d – and the lifelong lesson that comes from not having been let down. The loneliness of moving from a community in which we had built for ourselves a cosy and secure little niche to being a teeny tiny unnoticeable fish in a deep, shadowy and densely-populated lake – which leads you to reconstruct every stranger’s face as reminiscent of someone you knew ‘before’. And what a difference it makes to get a smile and a shabbat invitation, to recognise people that you pass on the street. I think perhaps it was a small taste of what life would be like without memory.

And one at a time, we moved through the markers of the year and slowly and gradually felt a new life take shape around us. Our children went to school and learned how to get to the toilets, what the teachers were called, how to distinguish the faces of friends from the mass of fellow students. We learned the past, the present, and the future, and not only in Hebrew grammar. One child cried at night because they missed their friends so much – but today that child came home from school with a paper of appreciation, engraved over and over again with praise of their smiliness, friendliness, and speed at learning Ivrit. One child was overcome with the stress of not being able to know which child was their friend – but is now quite certain that they are friends with the whole class. One child insisted it would only be awful here – but now admits it’s not as bad as they thought, and wants to bring souvenirs back for their friends.

The year turned – and so did we. The ineffable and indefinable different-ness of living in this country seeped into our bones and became part of us. Our week dances to the rhythm of Shabbat; our months marked by the white-shirted children on rosh chodesh; our milestones of acclimatisation by the chagim coming and going. And deeper than that, I find I have come to accept living to a different beat. There is a story about a rich businessman who once gave a very large donation to Rav Aharon Kotler. Rav Kotler gave him a long and heartfelt blessing that he should merit to spend eternity learning Torah in the garden of Eden. A look at the man’s face told him that he was not sure this was a blessing he really wanted. Rav Kotler told the man not to worry “the blessing is, that you’ll enjoy it”. Sometimes I feel that this is the blessing we didn’t realise we were asking for – but we received it: don’t worry, you’ll enjoy it. We were told that here it is normal to live on a miracle, normal to rely on divine help to have enough money to reach the end of the month. I understood that those who were telling me that were telling me it as though it was something positive, or reassuring, but it sounded dreadfully insecure to me. Now, though, I understand it better. The blessing is that we enjoy it.

Yes, there are Israelis who are rude and abrupt, there is the difficult bureaucracy, there are the awkward and unpredictable opening hours, there is harsh sun and long lines at the supermarket and the (for me) inconvenience and handicap of living without a car. Mostly I ride with it, accept the hardships with gratitude, and hold my breath with the prayer that things will not become too hard, too long, too expensive, too much for us to bear.

We have come so far in this year. We have all learnt a new language; we have found employment; our children have learned how to walk and ride to school and elsewhere by themselves; they’ve learned to ride the buses and to get help from strangers (and to not-get-help-from-strangers); they have developed new talents in gymnastics, in drawing, in engineering, in sports, in comics, in making friends, in arts and crafts. We have all changed our value system somewhat and begun to reorganise our ties and loyalties and priorities. And we have so much further to go. It’s only the end of the beginning – and all beginnings are hard. 

Here's to us, and wha's like us? Verra few, an' they're deid.

It's been a bad week for me, as far as Jewish leaders are concerned.

Well, to be honest it's been going on for a while. Years, i suppose, but certainly a good few months. In the winter, there was the Chaim Halperin scandal. A 'chashuva' (important and well respected) dayan (Rabbinical judge), with a synagogue, a school, and a position on the Beis Din, who sexually abused naive women. It turns out a lot of people knew about it, but no one said anything - some were scared, and some thought it was ok because he's so holy.

Overlapping with that was the Weberman trial in New York, when the whole world learned that a man whom everyone already knew violated the laws of yichud (isolation with members of the opposite sex, intended to prevent opportunities for sexual activity) and forced vulnerable girls to visit him for private counselling, also sexually abused them in the most degrading way. AND then used his 'chashuva' status to blackmail and threaten them into staying quiet, to convince all around him that they were mentally unstable, non-'frum' individuals, and was supported in all of this by the top rabbis of his chassidus. Who, like with Halperin, continued to stand by him as the evidence piled up against him.

Both of these men gave in to their evil inclination  for sexual activity, again and again, and abused their positions of authority and trust to do so. And others around them permitted it, again and again, whether out of fear, or denial, or a desire to keep their own power as well I do not know and don't really want to go into now. 

Then a few weeks ago, it was revealed that Rabbi Dr. Michael Broyde had used pseudonyms to praise his own work, increased his importance by writing positive reviews under an assumed name, and, it now seems, made up important halachic source material in order to bolster his arguments. I have again heard that 'everyone' knew he did this and accepted it.

Last week, I heard that 'rabbi' Berland (I put the word 'rabbi' in inverted commas, because it is a title that connotes respect and he does not deserve any) has fled to Morocco after he was found naked with a girl (also naked) on whom he was performing a 'purification ritual'. Not surprisingly, it wasn't the first such 'ritual' he'd performed. One of his biggest students, Rabbi Shalom Arush, the famous author of 'Garden of Emuna' and many other inspirational books, has allegedly stated that Berland is a kadosh (holy man) and that anyone who believes the 'claims' against him has no part in the garden of Eden. See above, Halperin and Weberman, but add in 'cult of personality'.

Alongside this, last week also brought a 'firestorm' around MK R' Dov Lipman. I don;t know exactly what he said in the name of R' Yaakov Weinberg zt"l, the former Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisrael, but it brought down the wrath of R' Aron Feldman - the current Rosh Yeshiva - upon him, in a letter which said that Dov Lipman does not at all represent the views of Ner Yisrael. I read Rabbi Slifkin's response to this, in which he wrote that when he was weathering his own controversy about Science and Torah, R' Feldman - who had been his rabbi - was very supportive of him for the first 6 months or so, flying in to talk with gedolim (Torah world leaders) to try to convince them to rescind the ban they had placed on R' Slifkin. But that then, R' Feldman changed his position dramatically and published a letter that fully supported the ban.

A couple of years ago, I heard from my own Rabbi whom I do trust and respect that, after R' Feldman published his recent book ('Eye of the storm', I think it is called), he was asked why he included articles on so many 'burning issues' but did not address the issue of poverty in the charedi world at all. R' Feldman's response was that if he did write about that, no one would then listen to him even about other matters.

In my mind, I have been putting all of these together. I have come to the conclusion that Rav Feldman is a weak-willed coward and is not a leader. I still accept that he is a talmid chacham (Torah scholar) and extremely knowledgeable, but that does not make him someone I respect. It is time that we allowed people to be 'only' a rabbi, 'only' a halachist, 'only' a maggid shiur (teacher), even 'only' a Rosh Yeshivah, because they do not have the backbone to stand up for what is right.

I have realised that i should have followed my instincts about Shalom Arush's sect long ago. I had bought a couple of his books and begun reading them, but never got very far. I have read various of Lazer Brody's Torah articles and found huge holes in them. I have been able to demolish them in terms of Torah, and what do I know of Torah? I pushed these things to the back of my mind before now, on the basis that it is just me, it will mean something to others, and fine. But now I realise that there is something rotten in the whole shuvu banim structure. It stems from Berland. and it can be smelt in even Shalom Arush's Torah guidance, and even in Lazer Brody's inspirational writings. When the foundations are rotten, the whole edifice is unstable, but you can;t tell that from looking at the outside.

This is real chillul Hashem (betrayal of God's name). A rabbi is a representative of God (like it or not). When a respected, knowledgeable, 'frum' rabbi betrays the trust of those who had followed him, he destroys the image of God which he represented in their eyes. When other representatives of God support that man, they make the betrayal exponentially deeper. And you may point out to me that Broyde and Feldman have not abused anybody and I shouldn't lump them in the same boat with sex abusers. And you are right, it is of course not the same. But what is the same is the betrayal by a would-be, once-was leader. At least in my eyes. 

Has this rocked my faith in God? Not at all. I know that this is not from Him. But it has rocked my faith in man. I shall try to trust my instincts more, not to be impressed by someone whose torah i have never probed, or to ignore my qualms when i do pick holes in someone's teachings. I used to feel that it was wrong of me to probe and question and argue with rabbonim/s divrei torah. After all, I'm only a woman, I haven;t spent as long in yeshiva or learned as much Torah as they have, who am I to question them? But now I think that perhaps I know more than I think I do.

Most of all I wonder - what is the higher meaning behind all of this? i jolly well hope that this is one of those final unravellings before Moshiach arrives, because when i think about what our Sages wrote about how the time immediately preceding Moshiach;s arrival would be so terrible that they said 'let him come, but let me not see it', i wonder how things can get much worse.

Only A Rosh Yeshiva

My friend Rifki asked me, what do i mean by 'only' a Rosh Yeshiva? Well, it's fairly straightforward.

In the business world, let's say in a large finance company, there are different levels of hierarchy. There are the entry-level workers who sell stocks and shares or watch the stock market or whatever they do (I really haven't a clue).There are their supervisors, who have more responsibility. There are the partners in the company, the members of the board, the CEO, etc. This analogy may a bit weak because of my ignorance of the details of the structure of a finance company. But you get the idea, I'm sure.

In the yeshiva world, the set up is similar. (Let's leave out the chassidishe world for now because it does operate slightly differently, but not very differently because nowadays the differences between chassidish and litvish are only a little more than how you dent your hat and what time you pray. Ok, I do exaggerate.) Boys go into yeshiva to learn Torah - entry-level workers. They may have madrichim (student leaders) or older chavrusas (learning partners) for guidance, but they are all entry-level. Some of them become rebbeim, who teach and guide the entry-level learners. Then there are the maggidei shiur, who teach bigger and more 'important' lessons. There are the higher-level rebbeim and the less-high-level rebbeim (in a yeshiva, everyone knows which is which but it's not always through official position appointments, it is just 'known'). There is the mashgiach, and there is the Rosh Yeshiva at the top.

Outside the yeshiva, there is a bit of a parallel track in that there are chinuch rabbonim, who teach in schools (let's stick to the charedi world for ease of analogising). As well as the teaching staff, there are mashgichim (guidance counselors), and menahelim (principals), and in high schools there may be a menahel and a rosh yeshiva, one with administrative responsibility and one with responsibility over the Torah aspect. There are also pulpit rabbis, some with large important pulpits in big population centres, and some with small ones in small communities. There are dayanim (rabbinical judges), who sit on a beis din and issue gettim (bills of divorce), and supervise kashrus (depending on the size of the area, there may be other rabbonim who are in charge of that), and give halachic rulings.

So. There are men who are excellent at learning gemara. They are skilled at it, they are dedicated, their knowledge and understanding increases exponentially every day. They become a rebbe of a small shiur (lesson) of boys. Their lesson grows; they become the maggid shiur of a big group of boys, then they teach the most important lesson. Then they might be considered so knowledgeable that they are asked to become the Rosh Yeshiva. But what if they don't really have the skills to teach gemara, only to learn it? Then they might become a rebbe of a small shiur, but their small shiur may never progress to become a bigger shiur. Or they might become a big important maggid shiur with wonderful empathy for their students, but not have the ability to be able to juggle all the details that make up a yeshiva - when to insist on rigorous learning and when to schedule a hike, when to change learning matter, which commentators will be learned and how many differing opinions will be accepted in their yeshiva, what the tone and style of the yeshiva will be that will make it different from the yeshiva next door or down the block. It is entirely possible, I think, that a Rosh Yeshiva might be less of a talmid chacham than his top maggid shiur is. He just has those extra skills and mode of thought that enables him to run a large company (ie, a yeshiva). But the rosh yeshiva might not be able to be a mashgiach, who usually has responsibility for overseeing the mental health of the students, keeping an eye on who is learning well, who is depressed, who is stagnating because they have outgrown their shiur without realising it, etc, and needs an unusually large amount of empathy, sensitivity, and responsibility.

Outside of the yeshiva, there are rabbonim and dayanim who are excellent at kashrus questions. there are rabbonim who excel at niddah questions, or even in the very complicated halachic fields of issur v'heter, or eruvin, or at unraveling tangled business questions of compensation and ownership. But they do not have the sensitivity to deal with a question that involves people. Emotional implications are lost on them and they cannot deal with the topic competently. Not because they lack knowledge or closeness to God, but because they do not have that skillset. Some rabbonim are excellent orators and inspirers, but when people turn to them for halachic guidance (beyond the basics), they are misled, because these rabbonim do not have the halachic knowledge and inspired understanding to rule in the correct way.

All of these individuals are important, they are all serving God, and we need them. We need maggidei shiur, we need good orators, we need experts in kashrut, eruvin, nezikin and issur v'heter, we need rebbeim teaching small lessons and big ones, and we need roshei yeshiva and mashgichim. We need dayanim. The tragedy arises when we turn a rosh yeshiva into a posek, or make an inspirational orator answer complex halachic questions, or seek emotional guidance from the kashrut expert. When this happens, we end up with a lot of broken, betrayed and bemused Jews. As I think we are seeing now.

Some people can - and do - excel in more than one of these categories that I've sketched out. Very few individuals excel at all of them. To be honest, possibly no one ever has (even Moses was not a good orator). Rav Moshe Feinstein was a posek (halachic decisor) par excellence, but I have heard that his shiurim were never well attended. The Lubavitcher rebbe gave halachic rulings rarely, but the emotional guidance and understanding of people that he displayed and exercised was legendary. Rav Soloveitchik did not give much emotional guidance (from what I have heard), but he was a superlative rosh yeshiva and teacher.

But there are some rabbonim who can understand Torah authentically, and divine the mood and understanding of a whole widespread community, and who can unite one with the other without either compromising Torah or breaking the community. Rav Moshe, Rav Soloveitchik and the Lubavitcher Rebbe could all do this, within their different spheres. We call those people, a leader.

Today, we have a lot of people in all the roles I mentioned above. But we have very, very few (if any) leaders.

The Belittling Embarrassment Of Rabbi Broyde

So far, the wincingly-embarrassing revelations that Rabbi Dr. Michael Broyde had used more than one pseudonym to express himself anonymously in the public arena have besmirched his personal reputation, but no doubt had been publicly cast over the rigour and reliability of his academic work and piskei halacha. 

But it seems that there are holes in his academic and halachic probity as well. My old friend Steven I Weiss has written an article for the Jewish Channel, describing a detailed, controversial article written by Rabbi Broyde for Tradition about women's hair coverings, the scholarship of which was buttressed by a letter from an elderly Talmudic scholar named David Keter. Weiss's article casts serious doubts on the existence of such a person. Read Weiss' full article here. Rabbi Broyde's online article for hirhurim, which substantiated his halachic claims by relying on David Keter's support can be read here. Nothing is yet proven, but if this is indeed true then his lack of yashrus moves from the childishly embarrassing to the shamefully dishonest.

I have another example of Rabbi Broyde's apparent fabrication of halachic proof. A couple of years ago, Rabbi Broyde was in London, UK, and gave a shiur to a coneference of Jewish doctors. In the course of his lecture, he referred to a letter from the Lubavitcher rebbe which permitted prospective medical students to take entrance exams on Shabbat. My husband thought that this was an unusual position for the Lubavitcher Rebbe to take, and contacted his own Rav, the Lubavitcher Chassid and talmid chacham Rabbi Chaim Rapoport, shlita. Rabbi Rapoport was also puzzled by this; he said that he had never heard of such a psak from the Rebbe, and that he does not think that the Lubavitcher Rebbe would have said such a thing, for a number reasons. My husband then emailed Rabbi Broyde, asking where he could find the source the Rabbi Broyde had refered to. Rabbi Broyde's response was "I do not think it has been published.". My husband felt that this was an unsatisfactory answer, and emailed him again to ask "If not, where can I find reference to it to look into it further?". He received no further reply.


At the time, my husband thought that this seemed strange. If a letter has not been published, then how can Rabbi Broyde know of it to refer to it? And the psak in this letter contradicts the huge amount that is documented already about the Lubavitcher Rebbe's stance in this regard. In light of the discovery that Rabbi Broyde has fabricated other material, which was not halachically sensitive, his reliability in presenting 'new' halachic proofs is also affected.


I had initially felt pure sympathy and embarrassment for Rabbi Broyde, along with the sense that it is such a stupid thing to do. How embarrassing to be derided in this way! How shameful for a man of letters and scholarship to engage in such petty, childish tricks! But my sympathy is slowly evaporating. To engage in childish games of 'bigging up' one's importance and blowing one's own trumpet anonymously is one - ridiculous, embarrassing - thing. But to present inauthentic academic scholarship is another. And, to my mind, to create proofs to substantiate a halachic argument which cannot stand on it own legs is a far more serious third issue.

Chazal tell us that in the next World, man is presented with a retrospective of his life. The tzadikim, who triumphed over sin, will look back at the desire for sin which they overcame and say 'It was like a huge chasm', while the wicked who gave in to the desire to sin will say 'it was like a small hole'. This seems to be the wrong way around; surely he who gave into sin should think that the desire to sin was as large as a chasm, while he who triumphed over the desire should view his desire as something small and easily overwhelmed. Yet the reverse is true. When the wicked look back at the sin they gave into, they will see how petty and meaningless that sin was. They will wish that they had overcome their desire to do something which was nothing but a waste. The righteous, when they look back at their lives, will recognise that the fact that they triumphed over their base desires was an achievement of pure will, and that their victory is indeed great.

It seems to me that Rabbi Broyde's actions are similar. Maybe when he did it, it seemed like something important; something that no one would ever know about; something that didn;t really matter, because he was right anyway. And now that it is all being dragged into the bright light of public opinion, perhaps he is realising how small his sin was.


I remember reading somewhere that the sins we really regret are not the huge sins of ideology or conscience, but the petty sins of desire and smallness. It is sad that someone who is a great thinker and a great teacher has dragged himself down in this way.