The following was submitted as a Devar Torah to Beit Hillel‘s email list.
I first delivered the exegetical component to Washington Heights Congregation
(The Bridge Shul) in 2001. The message has been updated.

In his “Varieties of Religious Experience,” William James identifies the “sad discordancy” of religious experiences in the secular world. “But they come seldom, and they do not come to everyone; and the rest of life makes no connection with them, or tends to contradict them than it confirms them.”  This sentiment is succinctly captured by the quote, “If you speak to God, you’re religious; if he answers, you’re psychotic.”

We are no doubt familiar with the spiritual spectacle of Sinai, where the Jewish people were gathered to experience mass revelation. But for all its glory and significance, the Sinaitic revelation was essentially passive. The Jewish people might have accepted with “na’aseh venishma,” but the revelation itself was dependent entirely on God.  Witnessing such an experience, especially en masse, leaves little room for spiritual skepticism.  But since the revelation at Sinai was a one-time event, we would need some guidance of encountering God when God’s presence is less explicit, or perhaps even distant.

While Va’etchanan recounts the revelation at Sinai, it also provides a such a scenario and it solution. In the (inevitable) event the Jewish people will eventually sin by worshipping other Gods, they will be exiled and scattered among the nations of the world where we will continue in our idolatrous ways. And yet despite being immersed in this physical and spiritual exile, there is hope for reconciliation. We are told, וּבִקַּשְׁתֶּם מִשָּׁם אֶת־יְקֹוָק אֱלֹהֶיךָ וּמָצָאתָ כִּי תִדְרְשֶׁנּוּ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־נַפְשֶׁךָ – And from there you will seek out God and you will find him; Because/If you will seek with him with all of your heart and all of your soul (Devarim 4:29).

If we pay attention to the grammar of this verse, we notice a change in number in both halves. First we are told we will seek God in the plural (וּבִקַּשְׁתֶּם) but we will find God in the singular (וּמָצָאתָ) The reason being that our seeking in the plural, תִדְרְשֶׁנּוּ, would have been done with all of our hearts and souls as individuals בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־נַפְשֶׁךָ.  I believe the message is that while we may search for God as a community we can “find” God only as individuals.

As individuals, we all have our own various skills and life experiences which will ultimately determine how we relate to God, and these skills and experiences will hopefully mature during the course of our lives.  Assuming the Maimonidean premise that God is essentially unknowable, the most anyone can hope for is an incomplete understanding.  If no one can achieve complete understanding, then we are all essentially grasping at fragments, none of which can be considered “better” than the other. All that is required is a complete devotion to the exploration.

This approach is not without its challenges, the most obvious being religious relativism. However, here too we are given some direction in that we are commanded to remember that in the Sinaitic revelation we saw no image (Devarim 4:15). Setting aside theological arguments as to the corporeality of God, it is apparent that God does not wish to be worshipped as a corporeal entity. It is, essentially, an “incorrect” belief. Following this precedent I would suggest that regardless of our personal conceptions of God or God’s role in the world, our primary responsibility is obedience to God’s commandments.

But perhaps the greater challenge we face is not rampant relativism but the assuredness certitude that our conception of God is correct and complete such that we may judge others’ to be incorrect, not because of explicit verses to the contrary, but on the sole basis that it contradicts our own comprehension. Just as we are charged with seeking God for ourselves, we cannot deny that very same directive of others, even as they reach a different understanding based on their own hearts and souls.

If complete knowledge of God is unknowable, we must appreciate that even our best understanding is only fragmentary, and that it is possible others may contribute other fragments of which we may be unaware. To seek God as a collective means accepting one’s own limitations as well as the varieties of religious experiences of others, to be open to different ideas without imposing our own incomplete knowledge as the absolute truth. Perhaps by incorporating all the fragments, even the conflicting ones, will we merit to find God, both as individuals and as spiritual community.

Following recent high-profile scandals, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) commissioned a committee to review its centralized conversion system of Geirus Policies and Standards, otherwise known as the GPS. This independent committee, “was comprised of men and women, participants in the conversion process, Dayyanim, mental health professionals, and rabbinic leaders,” whose expertise and experience were especially suited for reviewing the halakhic, social, and psychological components of the conversion process.

At its recent convention, the RCA released the final report of the committee (PDF), which deserves some attention. ¹

Compared to Judaism’s regular dietary laws, the rules for being Kosher for Passover are decidedly stricter. Not only is the punishment for consuming chametz the more severe karet (Ex. 12:15, 12:19), but the chametz is prohibited even in trace amounts (B. Pesachim 30a). Considering how strict the Jewish community is regarding keeping a kosher kitchen, it should not be surprising to find even more stringencies when it comes to the laws of Passover.

One problem we find with stringencies in Jewish Law is the tendency to confuse the additions with the actual to the point where being confronted with halakhic sources can be jarring to people who might not know any better. I wrote about one such example several years ago, and I recently came across another misconception common enough to be worthy of discussion.

Rabbi Jeffrey Fox recently published a teshuvah regarding the presence of the male Beit Din at the mikvah immersion of a female convert. My response came out to over 20 pages with footnotes and formatting, which I feel would be as annoying to read as a blog post as it would be for me to transcribe it. As such I am posting my response in PDF format here and on Scribd. I strongly encourage readers to first consult R. Fox’s teshuvah (PDF) in the original. I also reference and recommend reading Immersion, Dignity, Power, Presence and Gender by Rabbi Ethan Tucker.

Rabbi Josh Yuter – Reviewing Rabbinic Oversight a Response to Rabbi Jeffrey Fox (PDF)

Rabbi Josh Yuter – Reviewing Rabbinic Oversight a Response to Rabbi Jeffrey Fox

In the aftermath of the R. Freundel voyeurism scandal, the Orthodox Jewish community has been relentless in its criticism of its current religious establishments. Some have focused their attention on the vulnerability of converts, many of which received a reprieve when the Israeli rabbinate ultimately decided to uphold R. Freundel’s conversions. Others advocated for changes in how a mikvah is operated with Rabbanit Henkin arguing for giving women keys to the mikvah and R. Seth Farber insisting on modifying Jewish conversion law to prohibit men from witnessing a female convert’s immersion.¹ Still others targeting the Rabbinic establishment epitomized in this case by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA).² Rabbi Marc Angel pointed to the moral deficiencies of Judaism’s gatekeepers and Dr. Erica Brown criticized the lack of rabbinic accountability.³

Naturally, certain members in the very same Rabbinic establishment aggressively defended the status-quo in the face of media “misrepresentations” and activists “hijacking” the scandal to further their own agendas. I have no doubt others perceive the defamation of their institutions to be the result of an unfair generalization, where the entire system is disparaged due to criminal acts of one lone individual.

My concern today is not the propriety of these critical generalizations, but rather the predictability of them occurring after a major scandal. Not only have Jews long engaged in generalized delegitimizations, but this traditional rhetorical stratagem has been repeatedly employed by the current Rabbinic establishment, including, ironically enough, the RCA’s own approach to conversion.

A Facebook friend recently posted a “personal list of essential reading for a thinking Orthodox Jew.” These sorts of questions are fun exercises (especially for book geeks like myself) since it requires a degree of thought, introspection, and strategy. For a list to be useful to others it cannot be comprehensive; telling people to read everything is not terribly practical. ¹ But there also has to be thought as to the criteria for the list. For example, there is a perpetual debate in professional sports over the Most Valuable Player award regarding whether it should it go to the “best” player or the one who contributes the most “value” to his team. Books are even more subjective in that what might be “essential” for one person might be irrelevant to someone else. In my capacity as a community Rav I was in a position where I could give targeted recommendations to individuals, accounting for their background, interests, and affinities. ² The RCA has a reading list appropriate for prospective converts which may or may not be “good,” but they can service as decent “starting points” for future discussion.

Since this is my list I’m going to make my own rules and qualifications:

• I’m limiting myself to 15 books. Why 15? Because that’s how many books I came up with.
• Order does not matter.
• All books will be in English because I’m simply more familiar with English books than those in other languages.
• I’m ignoring “primary” works such as the Bible or Talmud on the grounds that these are too obvious for inclusion and someone interested in Judaism ought to be reading them anyway.
• I’m assuming that readers have a more intellectual disposition which means more academic books than popular ones, though I give greater weight to books which are more accessible and “readable.”
• My goal in compiling this list is not for basic literacy in Torah, but for understanding the Jewish religion, particularly the manifestations of Orthodox Judaism.
• These books don’t simply represent books I like but the ones I’ve found myself citing, referencing, or recommending most often. Here I get to explain why.
• Omissions from this list are not to be considered as a value judgement on those works.
• All selections naturally reflect my personal biases, but I’m going to try to give a short explanation for each of my choices.

I’ll conclude the introduction by saying that if you only read these books to the exclusion of everything else, you will only be moderately less well-informed. Consider these books only as isolated moments on a lifelong journey of intellectual growth.

Now, let’s get to it…

Back from a long hiatus (and a bout with bronchitis), Rabbi Yuter returns with a discussion on how combat sports like Boxing or Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fit in with Jewish law.

Current Jewish Questions 46 – Boxing and MMA Sources (PDF)

Current Jewish Questions 46 – Boxing / MMA

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