Giyyur 022

(For the Hebrew text of this passage please click here.)

17:
Our discussion concerning the changes in the fortunes of the Jewish people and the consequent developments within the Jewish religion was interrupted by my travels abroad. At the beginning of our present discussion (Giyyur 021 ) I quoted Rambam's resumé of the process of conversion [from Mishneh Torah, Forbidden Sexual Relations 14:1-5] and then asked: What happened after [1178 CE] that so changed the way candidates for conversion were and are treated by Batei Din? I then noted that in order to answer that question we must take a long look at what happened to the Jewish people during those centuries and how the various segments of the Jewish people reacted to what they experienced. There then followed a brief account of those developments. In order for us now to proceed we must pay considerable attention to how the streams within Judaism that came into being in the 19th century dealt with change. In particular it is necessary to pay attention to the differences between the stream that became known as orthodoxy and that which became known as Conservative (Masorti).

18:
In the modern world the rate of change is constantly accelerating. We can hardly keep pace with the enormous changes that are being wrought in the fabric of our lives. It is in this respect that the modern age is completely different from any age that preceded it. Previous ages saw change; but no age has seen change and development proceeding at the rate of
acceleration witnessed in the modern age. The changes began to gain momentum somewhere around the year
1500; they began to accelerate greatly about 250 years ago; in latter decades the rate of change has
become excitingly awesome.

19:
Some 400 years elapsed between the Roman emperors Julius Caesar and Constantine, yet the basic way of
life of both gentlemen was not very different: they wrote the same way, prepared food the same way,
travelled the same way, communicated over long distances the same way, and were very similar in their
technological capabilities. About 400 years also separate us from William Shakespeare in England and Yosef Karo, the author of the 'Shulĥan Arukh', in Eretz-Israel; but our basic way of life has changed almost beyond recognition!
For example, we do not write the same way (these words are being written using a computerized word
processor); we do not prepare food the same way (we use preprocessed food and microwave ovens); we do not
travel the same way (we use vehicles propelled by the internal combustion engine, we use spaceships to
reach out into the solar system and even beyond and so forth); and the telephone, radio, television,
radar, fax, Internet and satellites, have completely altered our methods of communication. It is
superfluous to compare our technological capabilities: we can clone life-forms, we can revive
the clinically dead, we have physically reached the moon, vicariously visited other planets in our solar
system, and placed at our own disposal means of mass destruction and annihilation. Our world is totally
different from that of 400 years ago; it is totally different from that of 300 years ago, in the time of
Newton; it is very different from that of only 200 years ago, the age of Napoleon. It is even different
from that of 100 years ago, when Henry Ford was producing his first automobile! Nowadays even a decade
can see incredible change!

20:
All this is what we mean by the acceleration of change. Masorti Judaism can accommodate change, because
it sees Torah as a living and dynamic organism – Torat Ĥayyim. More and more, Orthodoxy has been seen to be attached to a moribund and fossilized Torah that forces its adherents to live in the past; it tries
try to force the present into unnatural channels in order to accommodate the prescriptions of a Torah
that essentially will not change, and will become increasingly detached from reality. Masorti Judaism,
however, accommodates changed circumstances. But it must be done the way it was always done. We must
delve deeply into Torah in order to ascertain what the right answer is for today's questions. And Conservative-Masorti
rabbis must be free to find these answers untrammeled by artificial restrictions such as Ĥadash asur min ha-Torah.

21:
This, then, is the essential difference between Orthodoxy and Conservative Judaism: the latter accommodates change while the former remains faithful to the practice of Judaism that time has sanctified. I would go so far as to claim that before the advent of the modern age (say around the year 1500 CE) the Judaism of the sages and the rabbis was Conservative Judaism: it was orthodoxy that deviated from the traditional modes. The sages and rabbis were always ready to accommodate Judaism to the changes in the situation of the Jewish people required. The only difference was (and is) that until the end of the Middle Ages changes needed were minimal because the essential modes of human existence changed very slowly and almost imperceptibly. But changes there were – and bold changes at that. Perhaps the most well-known of those bold changes is the prohibition of polygamy introduced one thousand years ago.

22:
From the moment that Ĥatam Sofer coined the catchphrase that inaugurated orthodoxy, Ĥadash asur min ha-Torah, change within Judaism was considered most undesirable. Since some have asked I will interpolate here a very brief explanation of the origin of that catchphrase.

The Written Torah provides for a special ceremony to take place in the Temple before the produce of the
present year's harvest may be consumed. Leviticus 23:9-14 describes the procedure, which took place on
16th Nisan ('Omer Day'). The produce of the new harvest is called Ĥadash ('new'). Whether the prohibition that rests on the new crop until after the Omer ceremony applies in post-Temple times is a moot point in
the Talmud and later authorities. And even those authorities who consider that the requirement still applies, are not agreed whether it is by force of Torah law or only by rabbinic legislation. The original circumstances of the phrase so cunningly used by Rabbi Moshe Schreiber (Ĥatam Sofer) was the opinion of those authorities who held that Ĥadash asur min ha-Torah – the prohibition against eating from the new crop until after 16th Nisan applies in post-Temple times by force of Torah law.

23:
Thus, under this new departure all natural development in Judaism was brought to an end, and Judaism was hallowed for all time in the form that it had prior to the innovations of the reformers. The last great codification of Jewish law that was unsullied by the influence of emancipation and its consequences was the Shulĥan Arukh of Rabbi Yosef Karo [1488-1575], which had been published in 1565, and had been undergoing constant updating by the commentaries that had been appended to it, particularly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This consolidated Shulĥan Arukh was now accepted as the last word in Jewish law and elevated to the rank of semi-sacred literature, above and beyond all similar compositions. Schreiber's system eventually became known as Orthodoxy ('holding correct opinions').

To be continued.

Quite some time has passed since the last shiur because of my travels to foreign parts. Hopefully, the link provided will help you put the item discussed in persepctive.

In Giyyur 020 I used the father-in-law of the famous composer Georges Bizet, Jacques Fromental Halévy, as an example. My esteemed colleague, Hayyim Halpern, writes (with commendable brevity):

Re Halevi's daughter's marriage to the composer Georges Bizet: little is known about Bizet's origins and some suspect that he was in fact Jewish.

I respond:

I did find this somewhat decisive statement: "Georges Bizet was not Jewish, his father-in-law was. Bizet married the daughter of his composition professor, Jacques Halevi." However, Bizet does seem to have surrounded himself with quite a few Jews, at least from the Halévy family. I found the following in Wikipedia: "One of the librettists for Bizet's Carmen … was the Jewish Ludovic Halévy, niece [sic!] of composer Fromental Halévy (Bizet himself was not Jewish but he married the elder Halévy's daughter, many have suspected that he was the descendant of Jewish converts to Christianity, and others have noticed Jewish-sounding intervals in his music.)"