(no subject)
Nov. 28th, 2018 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretArguments for the Sake of Heaven by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
I don't think I understood this book. It's some sort of attempt to make sense of modern sectarianism in Judaism and where it should go. It was written in the early 1990s, but the analysis still seems mostly to apply, though I'm not sure how it should apply.
The first half is a summary of the history of modern sectarianism, tracing it to Jewish Emancipation in the early 19th century and the birth of Reform Judaism and secular Zionism as theoretical alternatives to Judaism as it had been constituted, and the rise of 'Orthodoxy' as a defined religious identity in contrast. It's a well told history but it was mostly straightforward to me, as I found it broke very little new ground. If you aren't as steeped in the history of Jewish sectarianism as I am, you might find this part more interesting.
Perhaps most important to the novel parts of his argument, Sacks focuses on three 19th century figures he uses metonymously for three sets of normatively Orthodox responses to Jewish sectarianism: Rav Kook and Religious Zionism, Rav Hirsch and Torah im Derech Eretz/Modern Orthodoxy, and the Chasam Sofer and Charedi Judaism. He talks about a number of other thinkers, but usually to position them as some sort of intermediate between these three poles. I say this to indicate that Sacks's actual book-length argument is necessarily more complicated and subtle than this summary, but also to indicate that Sacks's actual book-length argument is maybe not exactly the same as my summary, being as how I'm not entirely sure I followed all of it.
Unsurprisingly, Rabbi Sacks concludes after much sturm und drang that non-Orthodox sectarianism may offer value to its participants, but it will ultimately fail the Jewish people, because Jewish destiny is inextricably linked to halakha. That much of his conclusion is straightforward. But having accepted that Orthodoxy is the path forward for a vibrant Jewish future, the challenge of leadership he demands of Orthodoxy is confusing.
Rav Hirsch's program, Sacks concludes, has failed to offer a viable path forward for Orthodoxy, because Torah Im Derech in the 20th century seems to require a compartmentalization of Jewish self and secular self and people are seeking a unified identity in Judaism (and as he notes several times, Rav Soloveitchik seems to make this compartmentalization a doctrinal part of the program in The Lonely Man of Faith). Rav Kook's program has failed to offer a viable path forward for Orthodoxy, Sacks concludes, because it requires making a devil's compromise with the secular Zionist state. Only Chasam Sofer's program has allowed for a unified halakhic Jewish perspective on the world, but it achieved it at the expense of leaving behind the common Jew and assembling an elite core of voluntarily committed Jews, and creating a version of Judaism that only this elite can hope to adhere to.
So each vision of 21st century Orthodoxy is flawed. And I think Sacks diagnoses that the inherent problem is the idea of Orthodoxy as a denomination that needs to have some ideology beyond just following Halakha and serving God, which to him exists as a reaction to those anti-Orthodox ideologies of the 19th century. All of the flaws in the three Orthodox programs stems from the fact that they are inherently defensive postures, and it is time for Orthodoxy to reject this defensive pose and offer leadership to the whole Jewish people. Sacks proposes that the solution is 'arguments for the sake of heaven', machlokess l'shem shamayim... In other words, all three programs, and the various intermediate versions thereof, need to look to the others and try to fashion a unitary Judaism that can reunify the whole of Jewry by having arguments together and working constructively to serve God and the Jewish people. Some sort of synthesis of these incompatible hashkafic (and in minor ways halakhic) visions of Orthodoxy represents the future? Somehow?
By some mechanism of which I am unclear, the liberal side of Orthodoxy will figure out how to welcome in those Jews who are currently served better by Conservative or Reform Judaism by constructing an Orthodoxy that serves their religious needs- he gestures towards this by suggesting a need for Orthodoxy to figure out a halakhic solution to the agunah crisis, for example, but then he sort of backpedals. And the illiberal side of Orthodoxy for some reasonj won't condemn them for doing it and accuse them of being apostates.
He writes in his conclusion "I have not argued any particular case on any of the questions at the forefront of contemporary Jewish debate. I have argued something different and hopefully deeper." Maybe, but it's also such a utopian vision that the lack of particulars makes it feel like an empty argument. Two hundred pages later, I remain unclear on what Sack's post-sectarian Orthodoxy looks like.
I don't think I understood this book. It's some sort of attempt to make sense of modern sectarianism in Judaism and where it should go. It was written in the early 1990s, but the analysis still seems mostly to apply, though I'm not sure how it should apply.
The first half is a summary of the history of modern sectarianism, tracing it to Jewish Emancipation in the early 19th century and the birth of Reform Judaism and secular Zionism as theoretical alternatives to Judaism as it had been constituted, and the rise of 'Orthodoxy' as a defined religious identity in contrast. It's a well told history but it was mostly straightforward to me, as I found it broke very little new ground. If you aren't as steeped in the history of Jewish sectarianism as I am, you might find this part more interesting.
Perhaps most important to the novel parts of his argument, Sacks focuses on three 19th century figures he uses metonymously for three sets of normatively Orthodox responses to Jewish sectarianism: Rav Kook and Religious Zionism, Rav Hirsch and Torah im Derech Eretz/Modern Orthodoxy, and the Chasam Sofer and Charedi Judaism. He talks about a number of other thinkers, but usually to position them as some sort of intermediate between these three poles. I say this to indicate that Sacks's actual book-length argument is necessarily more complicated and subtle than this summary, but also to indicate that Sacks's actual book-length argument is maybe not exactly the same as my summary, being as how I'm not entirely sure I followed all of it.
Unsurprisingly, Rabbi Sacks concludes after much sturm und drang that non-Orthodox sectarianism may offer value to its participants, but it will ultimately fail the Jewish people, because Jewish destiny is inextricably linked to halakha. That much of his conclusion is straightforward. But having accepted that Orthodoxy is the path forward for a vibrant Jewish future, the challenge of leadership he demands of Orthodoxy is confusing.
Rav Hirsch's program, Sacks concludes, has failed to offer a viable path forward for Orthodoxy, because Torah Im Derech in the 20th century seems to require a compartmentalization of Jewish self and secular self and people are seeking a unified identity in Judaism (and as he notes several times, Rav Soloveitchik seems to make this compartmentalization a doctrinal part of the program in The Lonely Man of Faith). Rav Kook's program has failed to offer a viable path forward for Orthodoxy, Sacks concludes, because it requires making a devil's compromise with the secular Zionist state. Only Chasam Sofer's program has allowed for a unified halakhic Jewish perspective on the world, but it achieved it at the expense of leaving behind the common Jew and assembling an elite core of voluntarily committed Jews, and creating a version of Judaism that only this elite can hope to adhere to.
So each vision of 21st century Orthodoxy is flawed. And I think Sacks diagnoses that the inherent problem is the idea of Orthodoxy as a denomination that needs to have some ideology beyond just following Halakha and serving God, which to him exists as a reaction to those anti-Orthodox ideologies of the 19th century. All of the flaws in the three Orthodox programs stems from the fact that they are inherently defensive postures, and it is time for Orthodoxy to reject this defensive pose and offer leadership to the whole Jewish people. Sacks proposes that the solution is 'arguments for the sake of heaven', machlokess l'shem shamayim... In other words, all three programs, and the various intermediate versions thereof, need to look to the others and try to fashion a unitary Judaism that can reunify the whole of Jewry by having arguments together and working constructively to serve God and the Jewish people. Some sort of synthesis of these incompatible hashkafic (and in minor ways halakhic) visions of Orthodoxy represents the future? Somehow?
By some mechanism of which I am unclear, the liberal side of Orthodoxy will figure out how to welcome in those Jews who are currently served better by Conservative or Reform Judaism by constructing an Orthodoxy that serves their religious needs- he gestures towards this by suggesting a need for Orthodoxy to figure out a halakhic solution to the agunah crisis, for example, but then he sort of backpedals. And the illiberal side of Orthodoxy for some reasonj won't condemn them for doing it and accuse them of being apostates.
He writes in his conclusion "I have not argued any particular case on any of the questions at the forefront of contemporary Jewish debate. I have argued something different and hopefully deeper." Maybe, but it's also such a utopian vision that the lack of particulars makes it feel like an empty argument. Two hundred pages later, I remain unclear on what Sack's post-sectarian Orthodoxy looks like.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-28 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-28 03:42 pm (UTC)I'd be curious what you made of the book. It's my second of Sacks's books, after Not in God's Name, about religious violence, which I also found kind of confounding.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-07-14 04:02 pm (UTC)All that to say: perhaps your inability to follow his argument isn't just a you thing?
In other words, all three programs, and the various intermediate versions thereof, need to look to the others and try to fashion a unitary Judaism that can reunify the whole of Jewry by having arguments together and working constructively to serve God and the Jewish people. Some sort of synthesis of these incompatible hashkafic (and in minor ways halakhic) visions of Orthodoxy represents the future? Somehow?
That seems...like a lovely idea but not a practical one? Especially because people want such different things from Judaism nowadays?
Maybe, but it's also such a utopian vision that the lack of particulars makes it feel like an empty argument.
This exactly!
(You do not have to reply to my comments on any of these posts, btw!)