As we approach Tisha B’Av, arguably the most tragic day in Jewish history, it is common for Jews to explore the religious causes for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple. After all, the hurban, was cataclysmic for the Jewish people politically and religiously as we lost both our sovereignty in becoming exiles and our Temple through which we connected with God. And if such a cataclysm was the result of transgressing particular sins, then these sins must be among the most grievous, and thus the most urgent in need of correcting.

According to the Talmud in B. Yoma 9b, the sins which caused the destruction of the First Temple were idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and murder. The severity of these sins is well documented in Jewish law as all of them are not only capital offenses, but they are known as יהרג ואל יעבור/yeihareig v’al ya’avor – sins for which one ought to let oneself be killed rather than violate.¹

Regarding the destruction of the Second Temple, the Talmud in Yoma continues that even though the Jews were engaged in Torah study, fulfilling the commandments, and performing acts of kindness, the Second Temple was destroyed because of a שנאת חינם/sin’at hinam or “baseless hatred” throughout the nation.² This demonstrates that the sin of baseless hatred is just as severe as the sins of idolatry, sexual transgressions, and murder since all of these transgressions were responsible for the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people.

In my experience, most Jews are familiar with the reasons for the destruction given in B. Yoma 9b, and why it’s common to find much discussion over the harms of “baseless hatred”³ around this time of year.⁴

But the Talmud records additional reasons given for the destruction of Jerusalem which are rarely discussed. Here is a sample of some of them from B. Shabbat 119b:

My recent post Women, Tefillin, and the Rise of the Rav seems to have struck a nerve in the Orthodox community. By far, it has elicited the greatest response, and divisiveness, than anything else I have written to this point. For those who have not been following, a quick recap is in order. In response to R. Tully Harcsztark recent decision permitting two female students to wear tefillin during school services, R. Hershel Schachter of Yeshiva University wrote a scathing critique not only of the decision itself, but of how it was made, equating intellectual independence with Korach’s rebellion. My own response to R. Schachter linked above elicited extreme contrasting reactions. As to be expected with any controversy, there is bound to be some degree of partisanship with people being predisposed towards one side or another.

The astute reader noticed that while the subject of women wearing tefillin was the impetus, my main point dealt with the broader question of rabbinic authority, and it was this issue which prompted the most passionate responses. In particular, many readers took specific exception to my tone, which was characterized in various forms of “flippant,” “disrespectful,” or simply not deferential enough in that I treated R. Schachter as a peer rather than a superior. Many others had no such objections to my tone and found well within the bounds of propriety. ¹ In truth, the question of “respect” and how a Torah scholar ought to communicate was, in my opinion, a distraction from the more central question of authentic Rabbinic authority. After all, if one’s status as a Torah scholar is measured by the tone of one’s discourse, then it would seem that R. Schachter would have crossed that line in his initial letter. ² My critics contended that my post and R. Schachter’s letter are not valid subjects for equal comparison because the authors of these respective writings are not of the same “stature.” The argument may be summarized that as a more prominent rabbinic authority, R. Schachter is not only unconstrained by the rules or halakhot of proper discourse, but he is beyond reproach and not subject to any form of criticism by lesser rabbis. According to this perception of Jewish law, there are different rules for different roles. ³ Furthermore, some argued that by not giving proper deference to R. Schachter, I was essentially challenging the entire chain of Jewish halakhot tradition, very similar to the argument of R. Schachter himself.

But herein lies the point of contention; I have received a very different tradition than what is currently disseminated in the Orthodox world. While I attended and received rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University, but I do not count R. Schachter among my primary teachers nor would most of my teachers consider themselves followers of his tradition. In fact, the three Rabbis from whom I have learned the most, my father, his teacher Haham Yosef Faur, and R. Moshe Tendler, have all been vocal critics of R. Schachter at one point or another. The latter two I even cited in my earlier post since both differentiated between the positions of Rav and Rosh Yeshiva. While I have previously addressed the logical flaws in appealing to a “gadol’s” authority, today I wish to demonstrate how, despite any assumptions to the contrary, I have been following the tradition of my own teachers.

As a public service for those with shorter attention spans, here is the text of Maimonides’ Haggadah, which you will notice is slightly abridged from our popular versions. Feel free to compare and extrapolate what does and does not appear in the differnet editions.

My friend, colleague, former chavruta, and one-time intern at The Stanton Street Shul, Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld was just recognized by The Forward as one of America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis. Usually, these designations provide recognition for a job well done, but in R. Herzfeld’s case, there has been additional internet chatter as to how he came to deserve this title.

According to a nomination letter, Rabbi Alice R. Goldfinger writes that R. Herzfeld welcomed her into his community during a trying period, taking unusual measures for an Orthodox Rabbi.

“I cannot drive to the synagogue I served as rabbi for 10 years. It is about 15 miles from my home in Falmouth, Maine. I slipped on the ice outside that synagogue on December 13, 2009, and sustained a traumatic brain injury. I will most likely never be able to work as a rabbi again. My former congregation didn’t know what to do with me and my two kids (I am a single mom), so they didn’t do anything. But I still need to say Kaddish for my mother, who died when I was 15. There is only one Reform synagogue in town, the one I served. Rabbi Herzfeld is Orthodox, but he opened his shul’s door, heart and mind. He suggested I lead the Kabbalat Shabbat at his shul and say Kaddish for my mother. My children, who aren’t comfortable with Orthodoxy after attending Orthodox public schools during a sabbatical in Jerusalem, stood with me. After the service Rabbi Herzfeld said, “I want you to know that I do not believe women should lead worship with men present. But one of us had to be uncomfortable. Why should it be you and not me?” He can’t repair my broken brain, but Rabbi Herzfeld brought healing to my broken heart.” [Emphasis added]

I have seen discussions Facebook and rabbinic email lists discussing the propriety of R. Herzfeld’s decision to allow a woman to lead Kabbalat Shabbat at his shul. I have also noticed that most of these discussions miss the crucial point, that a community Rabbi has the very right if not the responsibility to make such calls for his synagogue. There is no synagogue of any denomination which observes Judaism to the ideal standards of the Rabbi. Without exception, every Rabbi has to choose which halakhic battles to fight and which compromises to embrace for the greater good of his kehillah. These are judgment calls which may provoke disagreement amongst colleagues but are not necessarily invalid.

I’d like to offer two such examples from my own experience at The Stanton Street Shul. During my first or second year a gentleman arrived at shul on a Friday in time for minha. As he was the first one to arrive⁵ we began to shmooze and he volunteered that he was not born Jewish and this was the first time he had entered an Orthodox synagogue. Based on this information, I concluded that this person would not have had an Orthodox conversion and was almost certainly not halakhically Jewish⁶ and thus ineligible to count for a minyan.

Naturally when the time came to say minha we had exactly 10 people in the room including myself and our visitor which put me in an awkward position. Knowing that we were short of a minyan we would not be permitted to recite a full repitation of the ‘amida. On the other hand, I thought it would be a chillul Hashem for this person’s first experience in an Orthodox synagogue be publicly embarrassed with declaration that he is not in fact Jewish.

My “game time” decision was to announce that since it was close to sunset we would be daven a heichi keddusha in which there was no repetition, although we did say kaddish and keddusha. My reasoning at the time was given the situation how could I best minimize violating religious and personal commandments. This was by no means ideal, and saying kaddish and keddusha in such a situation was at odds with the letter of the law (B. Berachot 21b). However, in this case, I considered this to be the best of a bad situation, choosing between not following certain rabbinic laws or publicly humiliating an individual.⁷

After Shabbat I consulted with several of my rabbinic mentors, all of whom confirmed that my decision was, in fact, legitimate if not the best available. Furthermore, I was very gratified to read in Dr. Jonathan Boyarin’s ethnography of The Stanton Street Shul that the longtime predecessor of the shul ruled in the exact same way when a similar situation arose in the morning minyan.

In a related, and far more common, extenuating circumstance in my shul was when only nine people would show up to the service. The synagogue practice when I had arrived was to open the ark and count the ark itself as “the tenth man.” The reasons I was told was that “it’s ok in an emergency,” “R. Moshe Feinstein allowed it,” and “we’ve always done it.” Of these three arguments, I was most sympathetic to the “emergency” – I’ve never been convinced by “we’ve always done it” and I found no evidence in Iggrot Moshe to support the opinion attributed to R. Moshe Feinstein.

Unlike allowing a woman leading Kabbalat Shabbat, counting an ark for the minyan is explicitly rejected in the Talmud (B. Berachot 47b-48a). With a dozen or so other daily minyanim in the neighborhood, I did not consider the truancy of individuals to constitute a sufficient enough emergency to redefine the halakhic parameters for a minyan.⁸

The point is that these are the sorts of judgment calls which all community rabbis must face from time to time. This, in my opinion, is where the true art and skill of psak halakhah comes to play – how does one best implement halakhah in order to satisfy the needs of the situation. R. Herzfeld’s decision to allow a woman to lead Kabbalat Shabbat may have been valid for his community but for many others, it could not even be considered as an option.

A Rav needs to know his constituency in order to determine what are the options from which he can choose. If he has been well trained, he too can take a challenging, imperfect, and problematic situation and turn it into an inspirational opportunity.

The question of evil and divine justice has engaged and vexed theologians of all religions for centuries. In the class, Rabbi Yuter demonstrates the range of approaches in Rabbinic literature and offers his unique approach towards finding a resolution. (An update of the earlier post Talmudic Theodicy)

Rabbinic Thought and Theology – Theodicy and the Problem of Evil Sources (PDF)

Rabbinic Thought and Theology – Theodicy and the Problem of Evil

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Sources from my Shavuot Shiur 2012/5772 at The Stanton Street Shul.
To Be or Not To Be – The Meaning of Life in Rabbinic Jewish Thought Sources (PDF)

The following is from Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s commentary on the Torah reading Accepting the Yoke of Heaven, pages 65-67. Leibowitz uses the portion of Bo to illustrate fundamentally different approaches to the Passover holiday.