Hillel says: Do not opt out of society; do not believe in yourself until your dying day; do not judge your fellow until you reach his place; do not say something which it is impossible to obey, because in the end it must be obeyed; and do not say, 'When I get some free time I will study' – you may not get any free time.
11:
At what point should a pious Jew decide that the society in which he lives is so wicked that it is beyond redemption and that he must "opt out"? In his commentary on our mishnah Rambam suggests that in such circumstances (and only in such circumstances) should we "opt out" of that society – presumably by going to live in another one, more congenial to our religious and ethical susceptibilities.
12:
Despite everything that I have written so far concerning this first part of our mishnah I would like to suggest a completely different interpretation of what Hillel is saying. The idea came to me while reading the continuation of Rambam's commentary where he says:
Extreme measures, such as fleeing society, our sages only applied remedially or in emergencies. If they noticed, for example, that the people of a town were so corrupt that they were afraid that they themselves might become influenced by the general corruption and wicked behaviour, they fled to unpopulated areas…
Oh,to be in the desert, at an encampment for wayfarers! Oh,to leave my people, to go away from them — for they are all adulterers, a band of rogues.
13:
It has occurred to me that it is possible that Hillel's words are a diatribe against the people who populated Qumran – probably Josephus' Essenes – the ones in whose community at the northern end of the Dead Sea the Dead Sea scrolls were written. It is well known that scholars maintain that the Qumran community was founded by a Jewish sect that so despaired of the general Jewish population that they felt required to escape to the desert where they could live a righteous life according to their own beliefs. It is possible that their contemporary, Hillel, is berating them for forsaking the field of battle just when the most soldiers were needed.
To be continued.
I continue here my response to some of the questions set before me by
Yehuda Wiesen. He writes:
We see the Conservative trend toward accepting gay marriage, mirroring the trend in much of secular America. Many Conservative Jews seem accepting of this trend/change. What if America accepts group marriage? Who can say today that the Conservative Movement of tomorrow will not accept group marriage too? Would Schechter or Finkelstein or Lieberman accept gay marriage and group marriage and more? How concerned should we be if we think our founders would not approve of our actions? In short, how much change can we make to Judaism and still legitimately see it as the same religion?
I respond:
The Conservative Movement is essentially an halakhic movement. That is to say that our reaction to developments in the secular world is subjected to the inspection of halakhah. Ultimately, our halakhic deliberations may find reason to concur, wholly or partially, with those secular developments. We do not force halakhah to conform with secular susceptibilities; we do require our secular susceptibilities to be refined sub specie halakhah. The essential difference in this regard between Conservative halakhists and the Orthodox ones seems to find expression in the extent of our willingness to examine halakhah in the light of cultural, philosophical, social and economic developments in the world at large. As I wrote in the previous shiur, we in the Conservative Movement hold that halakhah cannot be static: it is a living organism, as it were, that must develop and adapt to changing situations, so that God's eternal law is always relevant. But in order to be relevant it must also be dynamic. Orthodox halakhists accept this in principle but are much more wary of updating halakhah. Remember, the initial reaction of Hungarian Ultra-Orthodoxy to the emergent modern world is best encapsulated in the maxim coined by Rabbi Moshe Schreiber (Chatam Sofer – 1762-1839): "All halakhic innovations are forbidden by Torah law"! (See what I wrote in my essay on the historical background to Conservative Judaism which is available online). This is something to which Conservative Judaism could never subscribe.
So the question confronting Conservative Judaism is not how can we accept gay marriage (to use one of Yehuda's examples), but to ask whether halakhically we can accept gay marriage. In my paper on religious gays (available online) I explained why I think that gay marriage, as such, is an halakhic impossibility – but that should not preclude the possibility of commitment ceremonies. If America (or Europe) accepts group marriage our halakhists will deliberate the matter – and come to the inevitable conclusion that halakhah cannot condone such an arrangement.
Yehuda asks whether "Schechter or Finkelstein or Lieberman accept gay marriage and group marriage and more". I don't know, because they did not live at the same time as I do; they did not face the same considerations as I face. But I can guess! If the Conservative Movement during their time was able to permit the use of the automobile on Shabbat (which I consider to be the worst halakhic blunder that we have ever made) I do not think that finding a religious accommodation for gay people would have fazed them too much if they had lived today.
Yehudah asks: "In short, how much change can we make to Judaism and still legitimately see it as the same religion?" Change in Judaism is eternal and inevitable. We do not worship today the same way as the prophet Samuel worshipped, nor as Isaiah worshipped, nor even as Rabbi Akiva worshipped. I believe that even Rambam would find it strange to worship in the most ultra orthodox of communities today: it just was not his way. We must never be afraid of change. We must always subject the possibility of change to the inspection of tradition.
