On “Reflections on the Influence of the Rov on the American Jewish Religious Community” by Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein

Notes by Tzvee Zahavy on "Reflections on the Influence of the Rov on the American Jewish Religious Community" by Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein

Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein, the daughter of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (the Rov) wrote an essay, "Reflections on the Influence of the Rov on the American Jewish Religious Community." (TRADITION 44:4, 2011, Rabbinical Council of America, pp. 7-22.) In it she is up front in her self-assessment and thus characterizes her observations as opinion. She says at the outset, "I hope that my understanding of the Rov's influence on the community in which he lived will ring true to those who knew him and who wish to appraise his contributions to the American Jewish religious community."

She further limits her scope to appraising her father's,

a.       impact upon the religious community

b.       its commitment to Halakha

c.       its public stance in relation to the general society

d.      its self-image

This limited range is disappointing. We would prefer from the daughter of a noteworthy figure some new inside knowledge, perhaps about her father's self-appraisal of his successes or failures. A daughter's mere opinions about abstract issues concerning her father can be highly personal and more than likely they are biased.

Dr. Lichtenstein's agenda is also a bit vague in its four bullet point goals because we don't have rigorous definitions for them. We don't know what metrics if any measure a person's "impact on" a community. We don't know the parameters of the "community", who is in and who is out. We don't know how to measure the sweep of a community's "commitment to Halakha". We don't know what a community's "public stance" entails. We don't know what "general society" means and we don't know how to determine a community's "self image". Ambiguities abound in the statement of the mission for this essay, making it hard to impossible to assess the success of the exercise.

Be that as it may, we do appreciate the intellectual vigor of the opening paragraphs including the notion that the writer explored hypotheticals in thinking about her father's career.

Sometimes, I entertain myself by playing "What if" games. What would have happened had my father been elected as the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1935? As is widely known, he was a candidate for that post, but was not chosen. Had he been selected, and had he appeared on the Israeli stage immediately after Rav Kook's passing, what, I often wonder, would the Religious Zionist community be like today? And, I continue the game – what would the non-haredi Orthodox community in America be like today, if the Rov had left the United States in 1935?

In answering her last "what if" scenario, Lichtenstein concludes that, "Without him, the overwhelming majority of this community might have disappeared, absorbed into the Conservative movement."

Contrary to Lichtenstein's assertion, we believe that this did in fact happen. Although no one disappeared a large number of Jewish families affiliated with Conservative Judaism as it grew substantially from 1935 to 1985, deriving most of its membership from the ranks of the liberal Orthodox community.

Employing a battleground rhetoric, Lichtenstein next explains, "The Orthodox community in the 1940s and 1950s was under threat from the religious left, which demanded reforms." In the academic history of the religion, the more usual narrative of the emergence of Conservative Judaism was not one of threat and response. Sociologists recount the postwar population shift to the suburbs and the adaptation of synagogue and ritual to the new forms of social organization and to the practical needs of the times.

The next claim that Lichtenstein makes with certitude assures us that, "The current existence of a thriving and dynamic community of Torah scholars, of ba'alei battim involved in the general culture and deeply committed to Talmud Torah and shmirat mitsvot, may be attributed, in no small measure, to the influence of the Rov."

In order for us to assess the validity of this statement we need to know how the author arrived at it. The writer tells us that the Rov exercised his influence on the community through several prominent themes and characteristics of his teaching and personality which she labels:

1.       confidence in the truth of Torah

2.       supremacy of the Halakha

3.       pride in the tradition

4.       participation in general culture

5.       translating the Jewish experience into philosophical categories

a.       sacrifice

b.       the creative aspect of Torah study

c.       the religious experience

We do agree that these notions, moods and motivations are found in the work of the Rov and could serve as inspirations to members of a community. Still it is not clear to us how any part of the Rov's religious teaching and opinions reached the public and how it is known to the essay author that it was these five themes, to the exclusion of all other factors, which had a preservative affect on the "current existence" of the community. Lacking any expert opinion connecting the dots, we are left at best with a few well-intentioned and respected personal opinions.

At the conclusion the author asks, "What is the long-term influence of my father, the Rov…?" For the Israeli community she cites actual data, "Four of the Rov's books have been translated into Hebrew, including Family Redeemed, which has sold more copies in Israel than in the United States. His writings are quoted in high school textbooks, and courses are given in institutions of higher learning that deal with aspects of the Rov's thought."

Regarding the Rov's "lasting influence" in the United States, Lichtenstein observes a few imprecise new trends in Orthodox circles, such as these two:

·         A "shying away from general culture and a commitment to Zionism"

·         "…those who are turning to the left, having lost their confidence in the truth of the Torah"

Lichtenstein sees a serious challenge of the current day as follows expressed by those who say that, "The Torah in the 21st century needs to accommodate itself … to the New Age, with its demand for sexual freedom and egalitarianism." And indeed these may be looming tests to a traditional culture's sexual mores and gender assumptions. Yet we do not see how Lichtenstein connects these to the work of her father in the past generation.

We feel personally vindicated to read the concluding section of this essay which characterizes the Rov as a persistent and partially successful performer of Judaism. In writing our recent book, God's Favorite Prayers (Teaneck, 2011), we struggled long and hard to find the dominant archetype for the Rov in our scheme of the ideal theological types that we find in the prayer book. We ended up setting him in the "performer" archetype, that form of expression and personality that carries the Torah-traditions forward in dramatic ways in the synagogue.

Lichtenstein laments that her father was not able to transmit sufficiently his performative qualities to his students. As the Rov wrote, "I did not see great success in my work on the experiential plane." ("Al Ahavat ha-Torah u-Geulat Nefesh ha-Dor," 420) Lichtenstein assesses, "While many speak in his name, few disciples are able to integrate and implement his way. Perhaps his message is too complex and demanding."

Yes, the Rov left a complicated legacy. We think that overall it would benefit him greatly if he was appreciated mainly for what he was best: a truly masterful interpreter of Torah and great dazzling performer and breathtaking artist of Jewish theology.

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WSJ: Golf Practice, Daily Talmud Study, and "the illusion of competence"

We liked this WSJ article for two reasons. First, we agree that spending lots of time at the driving range does not translate directly into better golf shots on the course.

Second, we agree that practice sessions can lull one into the "illusion of competence" in golf and in many other activities in life.

We like the concept and now we are thinking about how it may help us characterize relgious activities (such as the daily Talmud study called Daf Yomi). Here is the article about golf drills.

Not at Home on the Range:

Why Much of the Work Golfers Do to Improve Their Games Isn't Helping Them Get Better

By JOHN PAUL NEWPORT

You're on the range, pounding balls, and suddenly golf seems easy. All the parts of your swing sync and you start striping one career-best drive after another. "By golly, I've got it," you say to yourself. You can't wait to get to the course.

Science has a name for this exalted state, but unfortunately it's not "flow" or "in the zone." It's "the illusion of competence," and the odds are it's doing your golf game more harm than good.

You may think you've got it, but you haven't. More than most people realize, the range has little to do with actual golf. "After most sessions on the range or even lessons, golfers haven't really learned anything, if by learning you mean making a skill usable, durable and automatic in other contexts," said Fran Pirozzolo, a Ph.D. in neuropsychology who has worked on performance training with PGA Tour pros, elite athletes from football and baseball, Navy SEALs and NASA astronauts. By "other contexts" he means playing in the pressure of competition, but also driving off the first tee in front of friends and hitting off a downhill lie.

We golfers, it turns out, are bad at assessing the state of our skills. We are even worse at understanding how our brains work when we try to make changes, and most instructors aren't much help, either. "Our golf culture is set up to pass along knowledge in half-hour or one-hour lessons. In that time, a teacher can fix a shank or get somebody to slice the ball less, and everyone leaves the lesson happy. But there's not much of a system in place to transfer that knowledge onto the course," Pirozzolo said.

Elite athletes know themselves better. "That's why Tour pros talk about needing months or even a year to integrate a swing change. Eighteen-handicappers almost never understand that," he said.

Drawing heavily on the latest research in neuroscience, Pirozzolo is working with Steven Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the co-author of "Freakonomics," on a golf research project to determine which transfer techniques work and which don't.

One technique that clearly doesn't work is "massing"—that irresistible urge most golfers have to hit interminable balls at the range until, maybe, they get it right for a short spell. "Massing can be useful for introducing new skills because you have to create a basis. But fairly quickly, if you want to progress and retain what you've learned, you need more advanced techniques," Pirozzolo said.

A lot of these can be uncomfortable, since they involve frequent failure. The good news is they can take less time than the random ball-whacking many golfers are already doing. Some can be adapted into games against other players, especially short-game drills.

"Interleaving" is one example. That's neuroscience-speak for constantly alternating clubs, drills and targets. In one experiment that Levitt and Pirozzolo conducted, the goal was to increase proficiency on 110-yard wedge shots. One group of participants hit 90 shots to targets exactly that far away. A second group hit 30 shots to 70-yard targets, 30 shots to 110-yard targets and 30 shots to 120-yard targets. In the end, the second group substantially outperformed the first group in hitting to 110-yard targets, even though they had hit only a third as many shots to that distance.

Generally speaking, the best practice techniques are those that lay down multiple, vivid memory patterns in the brain. Sometimes that entails introducing "desirable difficulties" such as simulated pressure, hitting in strong winds and from bad lies. Practicing in short sessions across many days is more effective than "cramming" the same work into a single session, opening more avenues for recall.

Not all golfers are willing to put themselves through such grief, of course, even though they'd ultimately enjoy the game more if they did. (A recent study by the golf research firm Pellucid determined that for each stroke lower a midhandicap golfer scores, he or she will play, on average, 10% more rounds because of increased enthusiasm.)

A major reason for players' reluctance to make the effort is their frustration with previous lessons, when what they learned on the practice tee (or thought they learned) didn't stick. "Golfers are being sold a lie when they're told they'll get better with 30 minutes of swing analysis," said Rick Jensen, a sports psychologist who argued in his book "Easier Said Than Done" that simple lessons aren't enough. "Golfers need coaches like in other sports, someone to give them drills, monitor their progress, send them out to scrimmage and give them feedback," he said.

The intensive coaching model that works for Tour pros is too expensive for most amateurs, but Jensen said that if players are better educated about what it really takes to improve, they and their teachers can better decide how to use the time and money that is available. There are signs that this philosophy is gaining steam. Top-50 instructor Michael Hebron now teaches almost entirely in light of the latest brain-science research. "You never hit the same shot twice on a golf course, so why should you on the range?" he said. Golftec, a national chain of teaching centers, sells most of its lessons in multimonth or yearlong packages that include gym-membership-type access to video-enhanced practice facilities.

Even for local teaching pros, there's a better way, said John Kennedy, the director of golf at Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y. The starting point is establishing realistic long-term goals that are within the student's budget and physical limitations. "A 45-year-old 20 handicapper in OK shape, with a lesson every other week or so, should probably be able to get down to a 12 handicap in one season. But he'd have to really commit to his teacher and follow through on drills and proper practice and the short game," Kennedy said. "It's doable and enjoyable. But people have to be told the truth. And they have to really want to get better in their heart."

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The Haggadah as an American Best Seller

So we do not really care about what is inside of the New American Haggadah by Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander and two other popular writers. 

The watershed event of this Passover season was the appearance of a Haggadah in the top 100 best sellers at Amazon.com - today at # 39 and 34 days in the top 100. What the hey?

We had guests at the Seder who had the NAH but it turns out that they had no contributions to make to our table based on the contents. 

Who cares if the NAH is quirky or a masterpiece? As a result of the NAH's popularity we do expect many other popular writers and celebrities to publish Haggadahs next year. That is a good thing for Jewish books, and so that is a perfectly good result, from our perspective.

Talmudic Books for Kindle on the Talmud, Bible, Kabbalah and Prayer

 The Kindle Edition of the Classic Soncino Talmud in English

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Free Talmudic Book for Your Kindle: Kosher Talmud by Tzvee Zahavy

For April 9-10 Kosher Talmud is free for your Kindle or Kindle App. Here is the Product Description:

To know what food is kosher, that is, fit to eat according to rabbinic Judaism, you must study the principles set forth in this volume, the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Hullin.

This translation, (approx. 665 pages) adheres closely to the text so that the reader has a sense of the structure and balance of the original. Yet at the same time it conveys the flow of the legal arguments and debates, the dramatic unfolding of events in stories, and the sensitivities to words and language in the exegetical texts.

Its aim is to facilitate a smooth conversation between readers and the text so that, without consulting the original Hebrew and Aramaic version, they can appreciate the substantive meaning and recognize some major aspects of the style of the Talmudic text.

Talmudic Books for Kindle on the Talmud, Bible, Kabbalah and Prayer

The Kindle Edition of the Classic Soncino Talmud in English

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Anti-Abortion Activist Lou Engle Hijacks and Twists the Story of Esther

Katie Toth at Religion Dispatches calls her op-ed the Lou Engle's Bizarro Esther recalling the Superman comics Bizarro Superman from the Bizarro world where everything is skewed almost to the opposite of what it should be. She explains:

Lou Engle’s “Esther Call” will be finishing in Dallas, Texas today on Good Friday. The “mass event […] focuses on God's forgiveness for those who have been involved in abortion […and calls on] viewers to pray for an end to the bloodshed of innocent lives.” Along with co-leader Laura Allred, Engle has called on women to repent for the nation’s abortions on behalf of America’s women.

That’s a far cry from the original Esther—a biblical queen who used the power of prayer, fasting, and a ballsy appeal to the king to save the Jews after her stubborn cousin Mordecai nearly got them all massacred.


One video calls on women who have been “hurt” by abortion to come together to “release the pain,” a process through which political change will be possible. At face value, Engle seems to be calling on some conservative Christian reconfiguration of girl power—uniting women so they can refine their political voice.

Problem is, for these Esthers power is only realized through the humiliation of themselves and their peers.

The biblical Esther doesn’t really do any ‘pain-releasing.’ She’s busy using her cleverness, faith, and womanly wile to protect her people after her cousin puts them at risk with his ego (Esther 3:1). Engle’s Esthers, however, will only be able to protect their land once they repent their own failings. 

In other words: Sure! Women can have power to influence national policy… if they start crying about what dirty sinners they are. Engle borrows from rhetoric about women’s power, but tells them to turn that power in on themselves.

This Engle campaign sounds to us like an extreme hijacking of a biblical story which distorts it for aims that are diametrically opposed to the original intents of the narrative.

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The Passover Seder: When we all must become children | Morethodoxy | Jewish Journal

On JewishJournal.com we found an essay by Rabbi Hyim Shafner, "The Passover Seder: When we all must become children" which captured part of what we taught at our Seder this year. He starts off,

“One is obligated to see themselves on the Seder night as if they are actually now leaving Egypt.” -Maimonides

“The child at the Seder asks: “Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights we eat leavened or unleavened bread but on this night only unleavened. On all other nights we eat regular vegetables but on this night bitter herbs….”” -The Talmud

If the Passover Seder meal is one of remembering that God redeemed the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery, why not do precisely that? Read the Biblical account of the Exodus (which we do not); ask about slavery and freedom, divinely brought plagues and miracles, nationhood and history. Why all the questions about why this night is different?

Children live in the present, their questions straight forward; they observe and ask, observe and ask. According to some Jewish sources we do strange actions at the Seder meal, like dipping our food, drinking many cups of wine and delaying the meal, precisely so that the children will notice and ask: “Why is this night different?”...

We put it differently at our Seder and a bit more dramatically. When the time came for the four questions I explained that now we all, children and adults, must become meditators, looking closely at our immediate actions and surroundings. (The meditator is one of the six primary archetypes that I develop in my book, God's Favorite Prayers)

And I distributed to the children magnifying glasses and told them that they were all appointed Pesach detectives. But they were so well rehearsed and anxious to recite the four questions that this idea did not get much traction, although the point was made -- and it is obvious. Part of the Seder is reflexive and meditative.

Another part of the Seder is triumphalist and we were not about to avoid that this year. We went with the flow. We gave out "We're number one" foam fingers to the kids and at three occasions we had them wave the cheering fingers in the air. (When we said “at first our forefathers were idolaters..." and shortly thereafter we became monotheists, when we said, "Therefore..." we give praise, and when we greeted Elijah and recited the passage about pouring out wrath...

And do you know what? Triumphalists are childlike in an altogether other way. (The celebrity triumphalist is one of the six primary archetypes that I develop in my book, God's Favorite Prayers).

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Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah - a Star of the Seder

Passover once again. We will soon open our Haggadahs and find the familiar prologue stories to the Maggid section of the Seder. And soon we all will wonder, Who was Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah?

Maggid is literally the "telling" of the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the event that we celebrate in our evening of dramatic activity. My teacher Rabbi Soloveitchik always underscored that this is not a mere retelling of a story. The Maggid is an archetypal session of rabbinic Torah study. The major section that we read is a classic rabbinic midrash that expounds upon a few condensed biblical verses. This is the exodus story as told by the rabbis, not by the Torah of Moses. To make the point unmistakably clear, the rabbis go so far as to omit the mention of Moses altogether in the Haggadah.

The rabbis do mention several of their own rabbis by name and top among them is my favorite, Eleazar ben Azariah. He was a second century rabbi in Israel who also held the highest political position in his community.

He teaches (in the name of Ben Zoma, another rabbi) that we recite at the Seder because it provides us with the license for our gathering at home at night to perform all of our Seder rituals. Otherwise, we might still be celebrating our Seder during the day in accord with the practice of the anonymous Sages.

We mention the exodus from Egypt at night.
Said R. Eleazar ben Azariah, ``I am now like a seventy year old and was not worthy [of understanding] that the exodus from Egypt be said at night, until Ben Zoma expounded it:
``As it is stated: `So that you may remember the day on which you left Egypt all the days of your life (Deut. 16:3).'
`` `The days of your life' [would have implied only] the days. `All the days of your life' [includes] the nights.''
 And the sages say, `` `The days of your life' [would have included only] this world. `All the days of your life' [includes] the days of the messiah.''
[M. Ber. 1:5; Sifré, ed. Finkelstein, p. 188; Tos. Zer., Lieberman, p. 4, ls. 40-46 (Mekhilta, Horowitz-Rabin, p. 60 omits attribution to Eleazar)]

Later rabbis delve into the meaning of the cryptic phrase, "I am now like a seventy year old." Some take it to mean that a young Eleazar turned grey overnight to help him gain respect as the new political leader of the Jewish nation, to facilitate his ascent in Israel.

In the narrative of the deposition of Rabban Gamaliel from his position as Patriarch which led to Eleazar's elevation to the post, we have two variants on this element -- the quasi-miracle that Eleazar's hair turned grey.

Yerushalmi Berakhot 4:1 says:

They went and appointed (mynw) R. Eleazar b. Azariah to the academy (yšybh).
He was sixteen years old and all his hair turned grey (ntml' kl r'šw sybyt).

Bavli Berakhot 27b-28a informs us that Eleazar's wife had observed his deficiency:

She said to him, ``You have no white hair.''
On that day he was eighteen years old. A miracle befell him and eighteen rows of his hair turned white.

All this is discussed -- in the context of the exciting agenda of critical and analytical questions that we were asking of our rabbinic sources at the time -- in my doctoral thesis from 1977, which you can now purchase for your Kindle, "Eleazar: Rabbi, Priest, Patriarch" .

Yes, I did my thesis on Eleazar ben Azariah (at a time before I had any white hair). And each year at the Seder I bring a copy of my book on Eleazar to the table and hold it up - to add a personal touch at the outset of our annual Seder dissertation. /reposted/

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