Hagahelet

Spring 2002

Copyright 2002 Union for Traditional Judaism

UTJ Shabbaton and Conference

April 27 – 28, 2002

By Mitch Morrison

September 11 shook us all. It shook our families. It shook our security. It shook our faith.

On Sunday, April 28, 2002, the Union for Traditional Judaism invites you to participate with many of the world’s leading scholars and theologians to grapple with the concept of evil in a world governed by G-d.

The daylong program will also feature a special armchair conversation with internationally renowned talmudist, Rabbi David Weiss Halivni.

The event will take place at the UTJ/Metivta headquarters.

“This program touches the lives and reflections of all Jews,” said UTJ Executive Vice President Ronald D. Price. “We are pleased to welcome the participation of today’s leading thinkers. This is a conference that addresses our hearts and our minds.”

Session highlights include:

Registration begins 8:30 a.m. The program concludes at 4:15 p.m. Cost is $50 for members, $65 for non-members and $25 for students. The program includes a delicious kosher breakfast and lunch.

SHABBATON...(continued from page 1)

Rabbi Chaim Wasserman

Headlines Shabbaton

Before the Conference, join the Join UTJ and its Teaneck congregation, Netivot Shalom, for a very special Shabbat featuring scholar in-residence Rabbi Chaim Wasserman, longtime spiritual leader at the Young Israel of Passaic-Clifton, Passaic, NJ

A noted halakhist, teacher, and religious Zionist, Rabbi Wasserman will lead shiurim on “Decoding Rabbinic Disputes” and “Rav Kook: High Priest of Synthesis.”

The Shabbaton includes Friday night dinner, Shabbat lunch and Seudah Shlishit. Learn and talk with UTJ members and rabbis in a warm, relaxed setting.

Home hospitality and child-care are available on advance request.

Cost is $50 per adult, $20 under age 12, $120 per-family maximum.  Individual meals are available. To ensure home hospitality and child-care arrangements reservations must be received by April 16. To register, please complete the form below. For further information, contact the UTJ office at 201-801-0707 or email utj-office@utj.org.

SHABBATON and CONFERENCE

April 26-27 and April 28, 2002

REGISTRATION FORM

Name(s): ______________________________________________________________________

Address: ______________________________________________________________________

                       Number & Street                                          City                                         State/Province                       Zip/Postal Code                      Country

Home Phone: __________________________ Business Phone: ________________ email: ________________________

I/We will attend the Shabbaton, April 26-27:

_____ Number of adults @US$50                                 

_____ Number of children under age 12 @US$20        

_____ Number @US$120 per family maximum                   

_____ I request home hospitality Friday night for _____ people.

_____ Number of vegetarian meals requested for Shabbaton

_____ I request child care Friday night/Shabbat morning for _____ children, ages ___________.

I/We will attend the UTJ Annual Conference on Sunday, April 28:

_____ Number @US$50per member

_____ Number @US$65 per non-member

_____ Number @US$25 per student

_____ Number of vegetarian meals requested for Conference

I/We will attend the Morashah Rabbinic Conference on Monday, April 29:

_____ Number @US$50per member

Total enclosed: $ _______.  Please make checks made payable to UTJ.

Bill my credit card:    £ VISA     £ MasterCard    Card Number: ___________________________ Expiration  Date: _____________

Billing address if different from above: ____________________________________________________________________________

Please mail your completed registration and check(s) to:

UTJ

Registrations via credit card can also be phoned to the UTJ at 201-801-0707 ext. 200.

A WORLD of DIFFERENCE

In the worlds of religion and academia the Union for Traditional Judaism plays a unique role. Unlike most, UTJ blends these two worlds, training our Jewish professional and lay leaders to be fluent in both religious understanding and worldly knowledge.

Several tracks are offered through the organization’s religious training arm, The Institute of Traditional Judaism (ITJ). In addition to a three -to-five year rabbinical training (smikhah) program, the UTJ has unveiled two new programs in the past two years: a Masters of Public Administration for Jewish communal service, offered in conjunction with Fairleigh Dickinson University and, more recently, the Mekhina Program, a one-year, intensive course of study for people who seek to apply to a rabbinical program of their choice or who are simply interested in increasing their religious studying skills.

   The approach mirrors the UTJ’s modus operandi of genuine faith and intellectual honesty. “The ITJ is not just a religious seminary or a college. It is both,” said UTJ Executive Vice President Ronald D. Price. “We promise an environment where no questions are ducked and where all critical sources are scrutinized with reverence and open-mindedness.” We recently spoke to some of the students attending these educational programs. What follows are their reflections as to why they chose the UTJ as opposed to other places of Torah and scholarship.

ADRIAN WALLACE

I am a 44-year-old lawyer from London taking a sabbatical. Presently, I am enrolled as a full-time student at the Mekhina.

My formal Jewish education ended at my Bar Mitzvah and by the time I decided to become more observant in my late 20s I had only very rudimentary Hebrew skills and limited Jewish knowledge. I started to attend weekly classes and began reading on my own. Over the next 15 years I managed to acquire a reasonable Jewish education. But with limited time to study, I took the easy way out and relied on translations of texts rather than attempting to decipher the texts themselves. As a result, my language skills did not improve and I became totally reliant on the translations and, accordingly, the interpretations of others.

After more than 20 years in the law, I decided to take some time off and address the deficiencies in my long-neglected Jewish education. I needed to find a program that would accept someone of my age and my comparative lack of learning skills. I also was looking for an institution that was open intellectually, would confront rather than avoid difficult theological issues and encourage independent ideas and thought.

A traditional yeshiva did not accept me because of my lack of skills. The places of learning which would accept me were not sufficiently pluralistic and open-minded for my intellectual and religious tastes.

I then received some good advice: my Rabbi, Avner Weiss, suggested I apply to the UTJ’s Mekhina Program. A month following my first conversation with Rabbi Price I had left my job in London and found myself sitting in my first Gemora class!

The Mekhina has more than satisfied all my expectations. The ITJ is a traditionally observant institution which nevertheless stands at the vanguard of modern Jewish thought. In the few months I have studied there, I have managed to substantially improve my learning skills through the study of traditional texts. At the same time, I have been privileged to be taught Rabbi Halivni's approach to the study of our sacred texts and his significant contribution to the understanding of the "maculation" of scripture without compromising their divine origin. These few short months have catapulted my skills and understanding into a different dimension.

There should be many more ITJ's in the Jewish world. It is Traditional Jewry's tragedy that there are not.

LESLIE KIRZNER

I am a 45 year-old female student at the UTJ. Along with my studies, I have been balancing being     the mother of two teenage daughters, a wife, a flex chaplain and a volunteer at my temple. I learned of the Mekhina program through a family member who told me that there was a Hebrew immersion program in Teaneck, NJ. I later saw an article in the Jewish Standard that included a fact that UTJ was recruiting students. I was intrigued by the possibility of studying in a transdenominational atmosphere.

I grew up in a classical Reform household and attended Hebrew school once a week through grade seven. I educated myself in Judaism and for the last eight years I have been a very active member at my Reform congregation, Beth Haverim, in Mahwah, NJ. Once I realized that I wanted to make Judaism my life’s work, I took Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at The Valley Hospital, worked as an interfaith chaplain intern there, and took courses in Siddur {prayer book}, Hebrew and Humash {Bible}.

In addition to wanting to become certified as a chaplain, I wish to enter the rabbinate. Because my formal education was minimal, I applied to the UTJ, even though I understand that I will never be able to receive ordination here.

My experiences have been very positive.  Although I began with a modicum of Hebrew skills, I have now been able to parse ancient Hebrew texts. I addition, I have gained vast general knowledge through classes offered and I am currently learning Aramaic. The fact that we study the higher criticism in a tradition beit midrash makes the UTJ unique as well.

The teachers are scholarly, professional and warm. They have been receptive to our concerns and tailored the program to fit the varied needs of the students (we are a very mixed bag!). Their spirit of generosity and intellectual challenge are an integral part of the UTJ.

I plan to continue studying at the UTJ, as I have found it to be an ideal place to learn. They have been sensitive to my being the only female, as well as a Reform Jew seeking a higher level of observance. The level of devotion to the students’ well-being is extraordinary and the hamish ambiance is welcoming to all.

RABBI KENNETH GREENE

I was originally ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, a Conservative rabbinical program, some 28 years ago.

I enrolled in the Advanced Semikha program at the Union for Traditional Judaism four years ago. I began the program on the basis of Torah L’Shma {learning Torah for the sake of learning].

I desired to delve into subject areas not taught in my previous rabbinic training in the hopes of personally filling some lacunae in my professional background, much the same way I had previously taken courses in education or counseling. However, I soon discovered that my new-found knowledge was not purely academic as it gave me a level of knowledge necessary to handle areas of Halakha {Jewish law] for my congregants that I previously felt incompetent to deal with. This, plus the sense of Hevrah [fellowship], provided by the other students, faculty and administration of the Metivta made it well worth the time and effort these past few years.

I currently serve a Traditional congregation in central New Jersey. I believe that my congregants and I are better served since I started at the Metivta.

NOAH GRADOFSKY

UTJ is my intellectual and spiritual home. Through my years of Jewish education, from a Conservative day school through Yeshiva high school, through undergraduate education at a Conservative Jewish college, it was not until I began my Semikha studies at ITJ (UTJ’s educational arm) that I found an institution that strikes a delicate balance between striving for truth and knowlede as well as seeking spiritual and religious fulfillment.

The ITJ experience is defined by its motto, genuine faith and intellectual honesty. Too often, people both on the right and on the left will use our sacred traditions solely for the purposes of confirming their beliefs. Disciplines that threaten the beliefs that people seek to defend are often rejected out of hand. ITJ teaches that true love of Torah is demonstrated by using all resources and methods available to us in order to bring ourselves to greater understandings of Torah.

ITJ’s commitment to intellectual honesty is also evidenced in the broad diversity of its faculty. In my four years at ITJ, I have been taught by a diverse range of educators – from a Sephardic hakham from the Syrian community to a rabbi who teaches in a black-hat kollel. The faculty presents different ideas towards philosophy, history and law. Students at ITJ enjoy the opportunity to have these educators present their evidence and opinions, and to decide for themselves where they believe truth lies. ITJ does not make its students clones of their teachers. Instead, students are empowered to make their own determinations and to find their own paths. These debates and considerations occur in a collegial and warm atmosphere, where both faculty and students can learn from each other and disagree with each other in a way that exemplifies both love of Torah and love of our fellow Jews.

ITJ works to create rabbis who are educated and able communal leaders. My education at ITJ has gone far beyond technical skills. Interpersonal skills have been stressed in classes such as pastoral counseling and congregational skills classes. These classes stress ITJ’s commitment to ahavat Yisrael - love and caring for our fellow Jews. At ITJ, I feel that I have received an education that could not be matched at any other school. ITJ’s combination of empowering students with academic skills while instilling in them a love for Judaism and the Jewish people is a testament to the principals for which the UTJ stands.

THE METIVTA TODAY

By Rabbi Ronald D. Price
UTJ Executive Vice President

When the Union for Traditional Judaism announced the creation of the Institute of Traditional Judaism (the Metivta) more than 11 years ago, we envisioned it as a training ground for new rabbis who would demonstrate full commitment to Halakhic observance as it has been understood throughout the ages, along with an appreciation of the broader world.

Were you to ask our Metivta graduates, they would say things have worked out well for them. Indeed, many now now serve communities around the continent with great distinction, promoting our creed of emunah tzerufah v’yosher da’at, genuine faith and intellectual honesty.

ITJ continues to turn out rabbis of impressive credentials. But the vision has grown to meet the ever-expanding challenges confronting the Jewish world.

In the past two years, we have initiated two groundbreaking programs under the ITJ’s auspices:

MPA Alliance

Many young Jews today will serve in professional Jewish leadership positions. While many boast impressive administrative skills, all too few demonstrate a Jewish education and appreciation so vital in developing a cohesive vision for the Jewish community.  Last year, the ITJ launched a partnership with Fairleigh Dickinson University to create the first combined Jewish Studies/Master of Public Administration program for Jewish communal service.  The University provides the secular administration curriculum and confers the MPA; our Metivta faculty inculcate these students with a robust Jewish curriculum. The 12 students currently enrolled hail from as far away as Israel and as close to home as Teaneck, NJ.

The Mekhinah Program

We now know that there is a need for the kind of Torah we teach at the Metivta to be made available to people who are not necessarily considering the rabbinate as a career, but who are interested in spending at least one year of intensive text study. We rolled out our Mekhinah (preparatory program) last year, attracting a collection of students diverse in age, profession and religious background.

From a homemaker to an attorney, from Reform to Orthodox, eight students who comprise the Mechinah’s first student body represent the full gamut in Judaism, yet all sit together to study our sacred texts.

What About You?

Do you know of anyone looking to increase his or her learning skills? Have friends interested in pursuing a career in Jewish communal service? Or perhaps you know of someone keen on entering the rabbinate but cannot find a home that delivers serious religious commitment under the rubric of intensive intellectual openness.

In all cases, the ITJ/Metivta is your solution. Please feel free to contact me concerning our programs.  Be part of the spiritual solution to the problems our Jewish community faces today.

Celebrating with a Unique Community

By Douglas Aronin

 I recently had the privilege – along with Rabbi Ronald Price and Mark Levenson – of representing the UTJ at the Tenth Anniversary celebration of Kehilat Orach Eliezer, more commonly called KOE, the upper west side shul whose marah d’atra {communal authority} is Rav David Weiss Halivni, the Resih Metivta of the ITJ.

KOE was born in a act of chesed {kindness}, and that quality of chesed still infuses its communal persona. It originated with a minyan that met in the apartment of former JTS Chancellor Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, z”l, when he became too ill to walk to shul. Because of the minyan, Rabbi Finkelstein was able to continue davening in a communal service long after his health would otherwise have prevented it.

When Rabbi Finkelstein died in 1991, the members of the minyan, with Rav Halivni’s encouragement, decided to continue their community, taking on their current name based on Rabbi Finkelstein’s Hebrew name, Eliezer. They initially met at the Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, which, gave them space in return for bikur cholim work that they did with the Home’s residents. They subsequently moved to the American Youth Hostel, where they currently daven.

At the anniversary celebration, KOE’s co-presidents surprised Rav Halivni by presenting him with a framed and calligraphed all of us -- and, indeed, all Jews -- to strive for an ever increasing juxtaposition of Torah, prayer and chesed.

NEWS & VIEWS

Rock BaLaila returned with two shows in Teaneck, NJ, and one in Manhattan. Dozens of people, from college age to senior citizens, enjoyed wonderful performances from Oneg Shemesh on February 23 in Teaneck and on March 2 in Manhattan (in cooperation with Kehillat Orach Eliezer), and an additional Teaneck performance by Laible ben Moshe on March 16. Our thanks to Ira Buckman and Rabbi Baruch Melman, the chairs of the program; to Noah Rothblatt, who coordinated the Teaneck performances; and to Michael Kellman, who coordinated the Manhattan program.

Saul Lieberman yahrzeit: As we go to press, the UTJ has just announced that the commemoration of the nineteenth yahrzeit of our revered teacher, Rabbi Saul Lieberman, zekher tzaddik levrakhah , will take place on March 21 on the campus of Columbia University.  Rabbi Reuven Kimmelman is giving the memorial shiur, and Rabbi Emanuel Rackman will offer a reflection.  Special thanks to Rabbi Kenneth Greene, who is chairing the program.

Refuah shleimah: As readers of her column in New York’s Jewish Week already know, Rivka Rosenwein, who with her husband, UTJ Executive Committee member Barry Lichtenberg was the recipient of the Lomed ve’Oseh Award at the UTJ dinner last Nov. 7, is now battling cancer.  In her column of February 1, Rivka informed her readers of the diagnosis and spoke movingly of the support that she and her family have received in their home community of Teaneck.  We ask our readers to join in prayer for the complete recovery of Rivka Devorah bat Blimah.

Mazal tov to Morasha member Rabbi Moshe Weisblum on becoming the rabbi of Congregation Kneseth Israel in Annapolis, Md.

New list: The UTJ recently began sponsoring a new e-mail discussion list, Children of Ruth, for those who have converted or are planning to convert to Judaism.  Yasher koach to webmaster Alex Herrera, who took the initiative in the creation of the new list.

Many thanks to Hagahelet editor Mitch Morrison and his wife Leslie for hosting a UTJ melave malkah at their home in Passaic, NJ on March 9. Douglas Aronin was the speaker, and ITJ faculty member, Rabbi Richard Wolpoe, led singing.

Hakarat hatov. The UTJ’s professional staff, Executive Committee and Board of Directors express our gratitude and appreciation to our office manager, Rina Zarmi, for her tremendous efforts in handling an extraordinarily challenging job with skill and patience. Rina is leaving the UTJ at the end of March in pursuit of new challenges and she will be greatly missed. We wish her much success in the future.

UNRAVELING the DIVINE

Hakham Sassoon offers new insights into the Torah.

By Mitch Morrison

It was not surprising that this humble Sephardic scholar from England paused to collect his words and gather his thoughts before an appreciative audience.

When the words arrived, the 80 men and women of all ages and backgrounds understood why they had embarked on a chilly evening to pay homage to Hakham Isaac Sassoon.

A senior faculty member at the Union of Traditional Judaism’s Metivta, Hakham Sassoon is a rare blend indeed, weaving the reverence of his Sephardic upbringing, his years of analytical study at the Ashkenazic fountain of Gateshead Yeshiva and the textual critical analysis of Saul Liebernan, z”l, and Reish Metivta Rabbi David Weiss Halivni.

Tucked inside the popular Village Crown Restaurant in New York City, scores of Sephardim familiar with Hakham Sassoon’s works and words, as well as members of the UTJ, joined on January 15th to celebrate the publication of Hakham Sassoon’s biblical commentary, “Destination Torah: Reflections on the Weekly Torah Readings.”

Unlike other books on the weekly Torah portions, Hakham Sassoon’s is a veritable treat in attentive reading and textual detail. Holding a magnifying glass to the text like a sleuth in search of clues, Hakham Sassoon delivers brilliant insights into the Divine messages often hidden in the Torah, while concurrently raising textual inconsistencies in the parshiot.

His approach to learning is perhaps best described on the sleeve of his latest works, published by Ktav Publishing House of New Jersey. “Long ago the question of whether faith and science are friends or foes was resolved to the satisfaction of most. This commentary takes it for axiomatic that the two are not merely compatible but indeed symbiotic.”

The reader, in the end, walks away with a new appreciation and understanding of Torah Mi Hashamayim, Torah given by G-d.

We wish to acknowledge the participants who made this reception possible. Notably, we extend a yasher koach to Program Chair Isaac Sutton, a close personal friend of Hakham Sassoon’s; UTJ’s Reish Metivta Rav Weiss Halivni for his D’var Torah; to UTJ Executive Vice President Rabbi Ronald Price for his comments about the organization and its metivta; and to Rabbi Moshe Shamah, a prominent Sephardic rav in New York.

To order

“Destination Torah: Reflections on the Weekly Torah Readings”, 

please call the Union for Traditional Judaism at 201-801-0707.

Price is $29

UTJ BOOK and TAPE OUTLET

BOOKS

TAPES

(Single tapes are $7.00)

From the 2001 UTJ Conference

To order books or tapes,

please contact our home office at 201-801-0707.

(Prices do not include shipping & handling.)

RECONCILING FUNDAMENTALIST FAITH and SECULAR SOCIETY

By Rabbi Ronald Price

Is fundamentalist religion dangerous to a free society? The events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath would seem to suggest so. But is fundamentalist religion inherently antagonistic to a free society?

Within the often-fractious Jewish world, liberal spokesmen have used September 11 as a vehicle to attack their more-traditional co-religionists. Meanwhile, as the secular world becomes increasingly suspicious of faith-based religious practice, traditional Jews increasingly see themselves threatened by the secular world and its values.  Must this antagonism grow?

I think not – and not because of what I’ve seen in traditional religious services, but because of something I didn’t see in those services some 27 years ago.

Back then, 30 years after the Holocaust and long before September 11, I learned a fascinating lesson about reconciling tradition and modernity from Rabbi Prof. Saul Lieberman, of blessed memory, whose 19th yahrzeit was commemorated on 9 Nissan (Thursday evening, March 21). Rabbi Lieberman – the G’RaSh, as he is known – remains one of the greatest Jewish scholars of many generations and is acknowledged as such across the Jewish religious spectrum.

In those days I was not the most zealous of his students in attending the daily minyan. But I would always go when needed.  There were occasions when I would remain in New York over national holidays when there were no classes, in order to complete one or another academic requirement, or to prepare for examinations. On Thanksgiving and Independence Day, for example, when other students who lived nearby went home, I was often available to make the minyan in the synagogue where Rabbi Lieberman was mara d’atra (rabbinic decisor).

Those who daven (pray) the weekday services regularly are familiar with tahanun, special prayers of supplication that plead for God’s salvation in times of difficulty and that remind us of previous generations that turned to these prayers.

To show their solemnity, they are recited seated with the head bowed low and, when in the presence of a Torah scroll, resting upon one’s forearm. Because they are so intensely poignant, the tahanun prayers are omitted on festivals, holidays (e.g., Rosh Hodesh, Purim and Hanukkah) and other celebrations, such as a brit milah (ritual circumcision) or in the presence of a bridegroom.

On both Thanksgiving and July 4, when I davened in Rabbi Lieberman’s shul, I noticed that Rabbi Lieberman and the minyan did not say the tahanun. At first I was astonished. How could Rabbi Lieberman even acknowledge these secular holidays when many rabbis questioned (and some still do) whether or not it was halakhically permissible to celebrate them? 

I came to realize that Rabbi Lieberman, through this simple omission, had made a powerful statement about the ability of our ancient faith to express appreciation for a good society, no matter how secular it may claim to be. There are many days during the year when we don’t say tahanun. Rabbi Lieberman’s decision that these two days, Thanksgiving and U.S. Independence Day, should share that distinction tells us not just about the openness of Jewish law and tradition, but about this very special man, as well.

There are those who would say that applying a liturgical norm to a secular holiday is not appropriate, even dangerous perhaps.  But this giant of Slobodka – whose life was saved by those who saw to it that he came to America – determined that we observant Jews must show our appreciation of this great land not only by serving it, but by celebrating it before God. There is no traditional Jewish liturgy for  July 4 or American Thanksgiving. But today, by emulating Rabbi Lieberman’s small act in his synagogue, the great goodness of America can be recognized in our ancient worship service.

This modest step has major ramifications for the way we observant Jews view the world and, eventually, for the way the world sees us. Traditional faith and the larger world are not, as some now fear, inimical, for we are all part of the larger world.  Rabbi Professor Lieberman, z”l, reminds us to demonstrate our joy religiously for the blessing of living in this free society – a society which is, he believed, no matter how secular its appearance, based on values that have their source in our Torah.

Yahrzeit commemoration of Rabbi Saul Lieberman,zekher tzaddik levrakhah, was scheduled to take placeon March 21, on the campus of Columbia University.

Keynote speakers included Rabbi Reuven Kimmelmanand Rabbi Emanuel Rackman.