Time For Agudah To Widen The Tent,Rabbi Harry Maryles

Agudath Israel of America will be holding its annual convention next week. Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zweibel, an executive vice president of Agudah, has been quoted as saying:

"In recent yearsthe authority of daas Torah has been significantly undermined . Most troubling has been the proliferation of Internet 'blogs' where misguided individuals feel free to spread every bit of rechilus and loshon hora about rabbonim and roshei yeshiva, all with the intended effect of undermining any semblance of Torah authority in our community. It is most appropriate for an organization like Agudath Israel, whose very essence was built on the recognition of the authority of Torah leaders, to address this issue head on, and formulate concrete plans to reinvigorate public awareness of this essential element of the Torah way of life."

I'm not sure how he would characterize my own blog, Emes Ve-Emunah. And I agree that some Orthodox bloggers - and their readers who reply, often anonymously, with incendiary comments of their own - do cross some lines that shouldn't be crossed. I don't, however, think Rabbi Zweibel is talking only about those blogs. I believe he is talking about blogs like mine as well. But that remains to be seen.

At this point I do not yet feel the need to defend what I write. I'll wait until after the convention and see what Agudah will say. But if my suspicions are correct, there will be criticism of blogs like mine and by implication bloggers like me as lacking kavod haTorah and "undermin[ing] any semblance of Torah authority" (otherwise known as Daas Torah) because of articles I have written disagreeing with some Agudah positions.

It is of course untrue that I seek, chas v'shalom, in any way to undermine Daas Torah. I do not.

But it is true that my approach to Daas Torah is not the Agudah approach. The goal of my essays on this issue is only to improve how Daas Torah is achieved and to make Daas Torah more inclusive. It is also to explain my beliefs about when acceptance of it is mandatory and when it is not. I differ with Agudah on that. But that is not undermining Daas Torah - it is only defining it differently. And I base my beliefs on gedolim outside of Agudah - like my rebbe, Rav Aaron Soloveichik, zt"l.

Briefly stated, the differences between how Agudah looks at Daas Torah and how Centrists look at it lies in the attitude toward rabbinic responses to questions that are not specifically halachic, such as whether one should accept a particular job offer. To a Centrist, such questions are asked in the sense that one asks for advice. And you consider the advice and the person who gave it accordingly. But it is treated as advice, not as p'sak.

When I asked my rebbe - a gadol by anyone's measure - a shaila in halacha, I listened to him. But when I asked him for advice on non-halachic matters, I would take that advice into consideration along with my own thoughts and the thoughts of others I had consulted.

I do not mean to suggest that the advice of a gadol isn't valuable. Of course it is. You do not become a leader in Israel unless you've displayed some wisdom in your life. Their advice should be given substantial weight, but should not necessarily be considered the final word.

But again, the bottom line is that it's advice, not p'sak. As I understand Agudah's position, if a gadol tells you not to accept a job, it is treated as p'sak. This is one of the major differences between Agudah and those outside the Agudah camp. There are others, mostly having to do with public policy.

It is really too bad that Agudah has chosen to address Orthodox blogs and bloggers in such an indirect way. Don't they realize that most of us are on the same team? Most of us want to do what is right and just in the eyes of God. And if we sometimes err, we are only human.

Most of the respectable blogs, like Hirhurim and Cross-Currents, are interested in promoting kavod haTorah, not denigrating it. The only question is how to do it properly, and there is room to differ about what is proper.

As I've acknowledged, some bloggers do cross a line - sometimes egregiously so. The denigration of Torah and its scholars in the Orthodox blogosphere was first noted in an essay written over a year ago and widely circulated by the Ner Israel rosh hayeshiva, Rav Aharon Feldman. He saw a dismayingly high level of this denigration and blamed it on the so-called Slifkin affair and the bloggers.

Yes, the Slifkin controversy generated a tremendous amount of hostility to great Torah figures and therefore to kavod HaTorah. But the blame cannot be placed on one side. A lot of the negative talk was a reaction to the vociferous condemnations, issuing from certain rabbinical figures, of what until then had been considered mainstream thought regarding science and Torah on the part of educated Orthodox Jews.

Doesn't Agudah leadership see that? You cannot label as heretical the beliefs of sincere and educated Orthodox Jews and expect them to just say, "OK, sorry about that. I'll change my beliefs now."

And it doesn't help when a gadol tries to absolve large numbers of Orthodox Jews from the charge of heresy by stating, "Those who hold such views are not to be considered heretics for believing in heresy because of their ignorance of proper Torah hashkafa."

You can't separate a heretic from heresy. As Rav Chaim Soloveichik observed, "Nebech, an apikores is still an apikores." So this only makes matters worse. And it puts a cloud over some truly great rabbinic figures who were educated in these subjects and are widely accepted even by the haredi world.

For example, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, zt"l, a genius whose knowledge in both limudei kodesh and limudei chol had few peers, held the very beliefs that are now being condemned as heresy. How does one reconcile the near universal acceptance of Rabbi Kaplan with the fact that his views on issues such as the age of the universe are now considered heretical?

This is not the way to win friends and influence people. Discussing blogs at a national convention without inviting Orthodox bloggers to participate isn't going to sway thinking people and it will not advance kavod haTorah.

A far better approach (and it's not too late to do this) would be to invite successful and intelligent bloggers like Rabbi Gil Student to address the Agudah Convention. Rabbi Student would give the convention some much-needed balance. What, after all, is to be gained by preaching to the choir? Agudah officials know full well their audience will endorse their pronouncements.

This would be the ideal time for Agudah to actually become the broad-based umbrella institution of Orthodoxy it claims to be. Why not invite non-haredi rabbinic leaders to address the audience on these issues - men like Rav Hershel Schachter or Rabbi Yosef Blau? Why not bring these other perspectives to the fore? If the goal really is to increase kavod haTorah, this would be a far better and broader way of doing it.

Imagine the impact the presence of other Orthodox groups would make. Agudah members would surely gain a heightened sense of respect for those whose hashkafos differ from theirs. At the same time, individuals who in the past may have felt alienated from Agudah would have a newfound appreciation for the organization and its leaders.

Mutual respect. Isn't that the basis for real ahavat Yisrael? Respect does not mean agreement. We can agree to disagree on some issues. But instead of the enmity and name-calling one often finds on both sides, there could be a new sense of brotherhood. There would then hopefully be no more denigration of Torah leadership, whether by one side against members of the Moetzes or by the other side toward the Rav, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, zt"l, and his talmidim. And there is no better time to start than right now.

This is one Centrist who would welcome such a long overdue reconciliation.

Rabbi Harry Maryles received s'micha in 1972 from Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik at the Hebrew Theological College. He has been active in Jewish education in Chicago for more than 30 years and maintains a blog called Emes Ve-Emunah located at www.haemtza.blogspot.com.

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Time For Agudah To Widen The Tent , Rabbi Harry Maryles

Aguda will Never invite Rabbi Harry Maryles or UOJ
Date 12:11, 11-20, 06

Rabbi Harry Maryles and the other equally famous internet frum blogger, UOJ, have made reasonable requests to present at the upcoming Aguda Convention. Neither will be invited.

If Aguda would deign to respond, I imagine that their response would be something along the lines that it is their convention, and they want to have only "card-carrying Aguda members" as speakers; they are not looking to open up an inter-faith (intra-faith) dialogue with people who do not believe or accept the true Aguda party-line. They would say, "Do the Democrats invite Republicans to speak at their convention?" - and they''d have a point there.

At either the last convention or the one before it, Aguda had a convert to Judaism speak. What he said was so controversial (I don't remember what it was), that there were members of the convention planning committee who swore never to allow a non-party member a position on the dais ever again.

The two of you have about as much chance of being invited to present at an Aguda convention, as Al Sharpton does of being invited to speak at the KKK convention.

--- David "Beryl" Phillips