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Just like the Tabernacle was central to Israelite life in the wildnerness for 40 years, and the two Sanctuaries in Jerusalem were together central to Israelite/Judean life for almost 1000 years, so too the synagogue (called “a miniature sanctuary” in rabbinic literature) has been central to Jewish life for over 2000 years.  The synagogue has been called a “House of Prayer” (like the Sanctuary in Jerusalem), a “House of Study” (like the famous legal academies of rabbinic history), and a “House of Assembly” (like the Great Assembly convened by Ezra upon returning from the Persian exile).

Are there any disadvantages to having a synagogue instead of a Sanctuary? How do they compare to each other? How does a synagogue improve the quality of Jewish life? What were some of the benefits and advantages to having synagogues over the centuries? What are some of the benefits and advantages to having a synagogue today?

What do YOU think? Leave a comment and tell us! 

Margie Klein reviewed Rav Shmuly’s new book Jewish Ethics & Social Justice for Zeek today:

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz’s new book, Jewish Ethics and Social Justice (Derusha Pub., 344pp, $14.95) is a must-read for Orthodox Jews interested in social justice. Unfortunately for Yanklowitz, there aren’t many of them – yet. Fortunately, the book, a collection of essays and articles by a leader of the budding Orthodox social justice movement, offers a great deal to all of us doing social justice work under a Jewish banner. Liberal Jews should read it too.

The past decade has seen a number of excellent volumes on Judaism and social justice, including There Shall Be No Needy by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Judaism and Justice by Rabbi Sid Schwarz, and Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice, co-edited by Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, Rabbi Or Rose, and yours truly. Yet while the readers of such books may look to Jewish texts for inspiration and support for their moral positions, they likely already hold strong progressive moral positions before they break open Jewish social justice tomes. In contrast, Jewish Ethics and Social Justice attempts to connect with a world that looks to halacha (Jewish law and legal process) as authoritative, and makes arguments for social justice from that lens. This can be both informative and distancing for the progressive Jewish reader.

For example, in an article urging that Jews get involved in the healthcare debate, Yanklowitz brings us a Talmudic passage that teaches that Jews are responsible equally for the health of Jews and non-Jews. He continues with a passage from the Jewish legal code Shulchan Aruch, which teaches that this responsibility includes providing medical assistance and necessary drugs. Failure to do so is akin to shedding blood.

On the one hand, such passages are extremely useful for those of us who want to talk about the moral implications of poor healthcare. We can use Rabbi Yanklowitz’s sources to preach that our rabbis have been considering these issues for millennia. And not just on healthcare. Rabbi Yanklowitz provides thorough textual sources and halachic arguments on a variety of important issues, including environmental responsibility, fair trade, workers’ rights, immigration, to name a few. On the other hand, I was struck that Yanklowitz felt it necessary to prove to his community that the Talmud cared about the health of non-Jews in order to get them to listen. While I was glad to know that the rabbis thought about these issues, I was also clear that my own commitment to care for the health of non-Jews would have remained even if I learned that the Talmud taught otherwise.

In a sense, Jewish Ethics and Social Justice forces the non-Orthodox among us to wrestle with our relationship with Jewish text and tradition. It begs the question, perhaps a reformulation of a somewhat overused question I remember from my Jewish youth group days: “Am I a Jewish Activist or an Activist Jew?” What is the directionality of my connection with Judaism – does it strengthen existing morality beliefs that come from outside of the tradition, or does it form the basis of my morality? And if the latter, is it through traditional halacha, or something harder to define? Yanklowitz writes for an audience that sees halacha as authoritative as a moral code, and so the answers to those questions are clear. They can be much more complicated for liberal Jews. Personally, I began to care about social justice because I went to a justice-conscious Jewish day school, and was taught that that’s what Jews do. There, I came to believe that our shared story of liberation inspires us to dream of liberation in every generation. And through further journeying, I came to feel called by our mystical traditions, the idea that God/Everything is One, that we are all interconnected, and therefore all responsible for one other. Those ideas set me on a path, but then were strengthened and given form by the contemporary progressive values of my family and community.

Though I still believe that the Torah and subsequent Jewish texts contain important truths within them, I don’t believe that they are literally true. Rather, I believe that my ancestors wrote down their stories and laws in an effort to live holy lives and help their descendents do the same. So when I come back to Jewish texts, it is not to convince myself that the social justice issues I care about are important, but rather to inspire my work, connect me with generations of Jews whose legacy I hope I am continuing, and remind the public that our tradition cares about these issues.

This is, of course, very different from the Orthodox Jewish perspective. Whether or not all liberal Jews have followed this trajectory, my guess is that for most, our connection to social justice is not primarily motivated by traditional halacha. Given this, making our arguments as halachic arguments is the wrong starting place, or even disingenuous for those who feel more disconnected from traditional Jewish law on most other issues.

So, if you aren’t Orthodox, and/or you don’t set your moral compass by traditional Jewish law, why read this book? Why pay attention to a set of arguments that base their authority on a legal system that you likely don’t hold by? Well, a few reasons.

First, Jewish Ethics and Social Justice contains innumerable gems of Jewish teaching that will help any Jewish activist think through the Jewish connections to their work. Even if we don’t look to these texts in order to know what to care about, reading these texts helps us enter a conversation with our ancestors about how to live, and connects our search for a moral life with theirs. And, for those of us who are raising up our faith voices in the public sphere, Jewish Ethics gives us plentiful source material to preach on the Jewish mandate on our issue at rallies or meetings, or give a dvar torah (sermon) on issues of concern.

Second, Jewish Ethics is an interesting and inspiring introduction to Jewish legal process. Whether citing the Talmud, Maimonides, Rav Kook, or Rav Soleveichik, Yanklowitz is a masterful reader of text. If you are interested in how traditional Jews use sources to make arguments, this is a good place to start.

Most important, the book is a living snapshot of a new movement in Judaism. Whether or not we value halacha as moral authority, we can read Jewish Ethics to understand how one person has been able to reach a part of our community that for so long had been resistant to engage with social justice issues. Through his essays and articles, Yanklowitz lovingly but firmly gives tochacha (rebuke) to his peers. Whether muckraking about the treatment of non-Jewish workers at Kosher meat plants or writing about Jewish responsibility to protect the environment, Yanklowitz calls on Orthodox Jews to think beyond the bounds of their community to engage with the more universal aspects of the Jewish tradition. To read Yanklowitz, then, is to read the social history of a movement wrestling with change, from a leader who knows its tradition well enough to challenge it.

In the 51st psalm, the king David sings, “Then You will delight in the offerings of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole offering.”  There are many statements throughout the book of Leviticus suggesting that God is “pleased” with offerings, yet the sacrificial system is meant to improve our relationship not just with God but with other human beings as well.

Firstly, how can we understand the anthropomorphic idea of God accepting our offerings? Can God actually be “moved” or changed by them? What makes offerings acceptable to God? And which sacrifices accomplish the goal of improving human relationships? Are there any other precepts of Jewish law which also promote social welfare, or even help an individual improve oneself - even if we might mistakenly see such precepts as means of connecting only with God? How do these types of instructions connect us to God, to each other, and to ourselves?

What do YOU think? Leave a comment and let us know!

The Sanctuary’s altar was a means of reconciliation with God’s will for a person seeking to atone for a mistake.  In the Tora, the Hebrew concept of what people think of as “sin” really means “failure” - particularly a failure to obey the law, whether intentionally or accidentally, publicly or privately, willingly or reluctantly.  There are many degrees of imprompriety - some more serious than others - but most people understand that our mistakes, failures, and errors distance us from understanding and fulfilling God’s will in a very basic way.  When the Sanctuary was destroyed, the sages emphasized a particular form of “rethinking” our behavior (“re-pent” = to “re-think”), in order to make up for past mistakes, in place of the altar’s offerings.  The key ingredients in this form are

1. Recognizing the mistake
2. Regretting it
3. Confessing it out loud (and asking forgiveness!)
4. Committing not to make the same mistake again (especially if you have the opportunity to repeat it!)

Which of these is the most difficult step to actually take? What happens if we “rethink” our behavior - and then make the same mistake again? Are their consequences for mistaken or wrongful behavior, both in human society and in the natural world? How do other religious communities treat things like mistakes and repentance?

What do YOU think? Leave a comment and tell us!

The act of prayerful contemplation is called in Hebrew “lehithpallel,” meaning “to judge oneself.”  The act of offering a sacrifice is called in Hebrew “lehaqriv,” meaning “to cause to draw close [to God].”  The formal prayer service is based on the biblical sacrificial service, each of the three daily times of prayer corresponding to an offering which was made at that time.

But how are prayer and sacrifices related, especially given the (seemingly) different root-concepts of “self-judgement” and “drawing close”? How can we be inspired on a day-to-day basis by a prayer service that is so repetitious? Do prayers teach us anything, or do they help us communicate to God? Does the pace and environment of a public prayer service interrupt thoughtful reflection on the meaning of the prayers we say? Is there a language barrier in a Hebrew prayer service for Jews who don’t understand the sublime meanings and nuances of many of the prayers? Can we legally pray in a language other than Hebrew? Since God knows “our innermost thoughts and deeds,” why do we need to pray? Does prayerful contemplation shape our relationship with God? How so?

What do YOU think? Leave a comment and tell us!

In the Tora-portion of “And [God] called to Moses” (wayyiqra el Moshe), there are 16 biblical precepts - 11 injunctions and 5 prohibitions.

Things we’re told to do:

1. Make a burnt-offering (1:3)
2. Make a meal-offering (2:1,5,7)
3. Bring all offerings with salt (2:13)
4. Have the Supreme Court’s make an offering, in cases of an erroneous ruling (4:14)
5. Make the failure-offering set for an individual who unintentionally fails to follow certain types of laws (4:27)
6. Givie testimony (5:1)
7. Make the failure-offering for an individual incurring certain types of guilt (5:1,6)
8. When one has eaten sanctified food or otherwise benefited from its use, add a fifth of the food’s value in repayment (5:15,16)
9. Make a conditional guilt-offering for cases of doubt (5:17,18)
10. Make a certain guilt-offering (5:21)
11. Return stolen property (5:23)

Things we’re told not to do:

1. Offer yeast or honey on the altar (2:11)
2. Offer any sacrifices without salt (2:13)
3. Separate the head of a bird brought as a failure-offering (5:8)
4. Put olive oil in the meal-offering of an unintentional transgressor (5:11)
5. Put frankincense in the meal-offering of an unintentional transgressor (5:11)

The ministers (kohanim) operated the sacrificial service in the Sanctuary, among their other duties.  Up until the destruction of the first Sanctuary, they were the main legal and spiritual leaders of the people, providing most of the judges which sat on the Supreme Court in Jerusalem.  During the era of the second Sanctuary, the ministers competed with the emerging lay sages and judges for the legal stewardship of the nation.  Today, kohanim are given precedence in many public activities, like saying the benediction after the meal and being the first to be called up to read from the Tora, and still “raise their palms,” making a special benediction during the main prayer service for the assembled people (daily in Israel and certain congregations, only on holidays elsewhere).

Is having a hereditary “priesthood,” with its own unique entitlements, responsibilities, and duties, a little “undemocratic”? Is it suggestive of a “caste system,” that has possibly continued to this day? Or are there advantages to designating a particular group of families, within the larger population, as the nation’s ministers, to be trained from birth in the values of empathy and communal service? Should Aaron’s descendants be given a special place in Jewish life today? If so, what should their place be?

The book of Leviticus proposes a sacrificial system as the (a?) method for relating to God.  A formalized prayer service was not instituted until after the Persian exile, and it was only after the second Sanctuary in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE that this prayer service (among other institutions) fully became a substitute for the sacrificial system.  The instituted prayers nevertheless still express many hopes for the rebuilding of the Sanctuary and the resumption of the offerings.

Yet, animal sacrifices seem a little out of touch with developments in the spiritual sensitivity of many people.  Is the sacrifical system different from other Jewish precepts which we observe simply because those are our instructions? Is wearing tefillin or keep kashruth more reasonable or sensible than offering an animal to God? Can we learn valuable ideas from the sacrifical system’s symbolism, multiple significations, and historical context? Is slaughtering an animal for a sacrifice to God worse than slaughtering an animal for human consumption?

Sources to consider (all trans. Gordon Tucker unless otherwise noted):

“A prince became wayward, and got into the habit of eating carrion meat.  The king said, ‘Let him eat regularly at my table, and he will ipso facto foreswear it.’  Similarly, since the Israelites were addicted to idolatry in Egypt, and would bring their sacrifices to the goatdemons, so they later brought their sacrifices tot he local shrines and were punished as a result, so the Holy and Blessed One said, ‘Let them bring their offerings at all times in the Tent of Meeting, and thus they will separate themselves from idolatry and be saved.’” - Leviticus Rabba 22:8

“In the time to come, all the sacrifices will be abolished, except for the thanksiving sacrifice.” - Leviticus Rabba 9:7; 27:12

“In this life, you made your contributions to the Tabernacle, which in turn made atonement for your sins, but in the future life, My love for you will be a freewill offering.” - Tanhuma Pequdei 9

“The Holy and Blessed One said, ‘In this world you achieved atonement through sacrifice, but in the world to come I will blot out your sins without sacrifice,’ as the verse reads, ‘Even I will blot out your transgressions for my sake.’ (Isaiah 43:25)” - Tanhuma Shemini 4

“Just as the sin-offering atones for Israel, so deeds of righteousness atone for the nations of the world.” - Talmud Bavli Bava Bathra 10b

Rabbi Jack Riemer, founding chair of the National Rabbinic Network (and a former advisor to President Bill Clinton), appreciates Rav Shmuly’s calls to action in the upcoming anthology “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice.”  From Rabbi Riemer’s review, which appeared in the Florida Jewish Journal:

Shmuly Yanklowitz is a long overdue and a much needed new voice within Modern Orthodoxy. His message is very simple — that righteousness counts at least as much as ritual — and therefore, Judaism must speak out on the moral issues of our time. That may seem obvious to some of us, but it is a radical statement within some parts of Orthodoxy.

For example, when the scandal at the kosher meat packing plant that violated the child labor laws was in the headlines, Orthodoxy lost the opportunity to speak out loud and clear in favor of Social Justice. Instead, it was perceived as being concerned only about the fine points of kashrut. I even know one Orthodox Jew who seemed more worried about the fact that the Jewish protesters against this meat packing plant entered a church to meet with the immigrant workers than he was with the need to fight for the justice on their side.

Yanklowitz’s book is a collection of his essays, stating what he believes the Jewish tradition has to say on the social issues of our time. He raises and strives to answer such questions as: What does halachah have to say about the health care battle that is now going on in Congress? Or what does halachah have to say about the need for prison reform? Or what does halachah have to say about corporate ethics or about global warming?

You may, and I sometimes do, disagree about his position on some of these questions, but if you are a serious Jew who respects halachah, you must surely deal with these questions. If you don’t, then the Torah becomes a trivial pursuit, unrelated to the world in which we live.

I hope that we will receive more such insights from Yanklowitz in the future and I hope that many more Orthodox voices like his will be heard on these matters. If there are, then we can proudly say that the Torah cares about the moral issues of our time. But if people like Yanklowitz, and if the questions that he and others like him raise are ignored within Orthodoxy, that will be a terrible Hillul Hashem, that will damage the image of Judaism in the eyes of those who do not believe that we should ever have to choose between justice and Judaism.

More info about Rav Shmuly’s forthcoming book can be found @ www.JewishSocialJustice.com

More on Rav Shmuly’s forthcoming book @ www.jewishsocialjustice.com