Rejewvenate!

As the Jewish community variously gears up to prevent, ‘inreach’ fret, strategize, or otherwise just plain deal with intermarriage, I think an important point is being overlooked.

The intermarriage of today is not the intermarriage of the past. A good analogy is how America assimilates people today versus in the past. The model of past assimilation was the melting pot. A diverse immigrant population would come to America and busy itself with the task of becoming indistinguishably American. People sought to abandon the individual trappings of their cultural in favor of American homogeneousness, and with it, American prosperity.

Today’s assimilation is different, as is today’s intermarriage. Sociologists now refer to the “salad bowl” rather than the melting pot. Individuals do not melt into a single type, but rather, retain much more of their individuality and identity evena s they are accepted into the whole. One no longer need shave a mustache, discard a head scarf, or unwind a turban to achieve acceptance and success in what has gone from a repressed culture in the 1950s to an exuberant, expressive and polyglot one today.

Intermarriage today is not about erasing a Jewish identity in order to melt into a Gentile society. Though marrying a person of another faith will certainly blunt certain kinds of religious expression and later others, in relationships observed today, it does not, nor does it even seek to, eliminate expression of one faith or the other.

The point in this, as in all discussion of intermarriage, is the next generation. Put aside for a moment the question of which children from what types of unions are ‘actually’ Jewish, as vexing a question as this may be for some, and as consuming as it is when we engage it. Children from mixed unions are often encouraged to explore both faiths. Many wish to choose only one, and many wish to commit to one in a more complete manner than perhaps their parents did. Maybe this is in response to the fractured upbringing they experienced. Who can say for sure? But these children will resurface in our Jewish communities. And some children will embrace all the fragments of their religious identity, and try to stitch a whole fabric out of this patchwork. They too will resurface in oru Jewish community.

And so will many others, undescribed here. But that puts the point on this whole discourse. Intermarriage today is different than intermarriage in the past because the children WILL EMERGE in our communities. That’s a hopeful thought.

I’ve never posted a video before, but here goes nothing! It’s about Islam and liberal democracy. Edit: I can’t seem to embed it… stupid wordpress. Here’s the URL

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=418_1176494781

His arguments are not new, but he sure does deliver. His name is Pat Condell, by the way, and here’s the tagline from his website:

Hi, I’m Pat Condell.

I don’t respect your beliefs

and I don’t care if you’re offended.

Cheers.

Some interesting links I’ve stumbled across recently:

Should you set up a not-so-observant-but-Orthodox guy with a really frum Conservative girl? As much as I enjoyed the question, I think the best part was the disconnect between admitting that the Conservative girl was more religious than the Orthodox guy and this paragraph:

That there are so many Conservative Jews who are serious about their observance should be seen as a challenge to us. It is all too easy to say that our Kiruv efforts should be geared to those whose knowledge of Torah Judaism is negligible. That’s what the NCSYs and Aish HaTorahs do. But what about this young woman and others like her? Can we afford to just leave them alone? Should we perhaps be interacting more with them? Can we entice them away from the heresy that is the Conservative movement into the Emes of an Orthodox one? Is there Kiruv for them? And how would we do it? Is there anyone or any group doing it?

I fully agree that the existence of frum Conservatives challenges Orthodox assumptions and positions. But what’s funny is that Harry Marlyes (the author) completely misses that the person needing kiruv is not the frum Conservative, but the disaffected Orthodox!

[From Emes V'emunah]

Best Fatwah Ever!

Reconstructive hymen surgery for women who lost their virginity before marriage is halal (religiously permissible), said to Aly Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

Gomaa, the highest authority with the power to issue a fatwa (religious edict), appeared the popular terrestrial Channel Two’s talk show El Beit Beitek, where he condoned the controversial fatwa, released by Soad Saleh, the ex-dean of the faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University and noted scholar.

Shiekh Khaled El Gindy, an Al-Azhar scholar and member of the Higher Council of Islamic Studies told The Daily Star Egypt that he agrees with the new fatwa.

“Islam never differentiates between men and women, so it is not rational for us to think that God has placed a sign to indicate the virginity of women without having a similar sign to indicate the virginity of men,” El Gindy said.

“Any man who is concerned about his prospective wife’s hymen should first provide a proof that he himself is virgin,” he added.

[From the Daily Star Egypt]

The Rebbe’s partying with Elvis, but 770 lives on - check out this exhibit of various 770-clones around the world. There was an exhibit of many of these photos at the Jewish Museum a year or two ago, but it’s gone now. [Hat tip - Kottke.org]

Supposedly, there’s a native Jew who is blogging from Mogadishu, Somalia. I hate to sound cynical, but I have my doubts as to whether it’s the real deal or not. In some places the writing sounds juvenile, while in others it is strangely fluent. Dunno. I leave it to you to to judge.

—

A question to ponder: The Torah tells us, and the Haggadah repeats for us, that the Jews made matzah on their way out of Egypt because they had no time to allow their bread to rise:

Exod. 12:39

However, a few verses prior, in the very same chapter, God tells Moshe that the Jewish people should select a lamb for slaughter on the 10th of Nisan, and that they will eat it five days later with Matzah! If there was enough time to prepare a lamb barbecue with matzah and marror, surely there was enough time to bake some bread for the journey out of Egypt! What gives?

Last week, I wrote about scientists who believe in the idea of a young Earth. This week, the New York Times is covering what in my mind is a similar topic - the beliefs that a teacher may express in the classroom (Patrick McGeehan, February 20, 2007).

Matthew LeClair, a 16-year old high school student in Kearny, NJ is threatening to sue the Kearny Board of Education over religious views expressed by his history teacher, David Paszkiewicz. Evidently, Mr. Paszkiewicz had been recording (without his knowledge or permission, and against explicit school policy) espousing religious views including that people who did not believe in Jesus would go to Hell, that dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark (out of curiosity, is the problem that there were dinosaurs on board, or is talking about Noah’s Ark itself a religious conversation?), and that the Big Bang and the theory of evolution have no scientific basis.

I’m not all that interested in the details of this case, not least because after carefully reading the article it appears to be about how the school handled its student whistleblower, not the larger question of how the separation of Church and State plays out in the classroom of the most densely-populated state in the Union. I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore.

In some ways I’m the last person who should be commenting on this issue, or at least the last person you should be listening to. I never attended a public school in any US state, I never taught a day of class in a public school - heck, the only time I ever see the inside of a public school is on Election Day! I don’t really understand and have never personally experienced a separation between religion and education. I attended only religious schools while growing up, and professionally I teach in Jewish environments for Jewish institutions.

In a way though, the idea of verboten topics in the classroom is not foreign to my experiences at all. In a Modern Orthodox high school, for example, you will most certainly learn about the Big Bang and evolution in science class. In the ninth grade I even remembering hearing a disclaimer from my science teacher that I need not believe these things, but that I would certainly be tested on my knowledge of them. While these topics were openly taught, discussed and even sometimes addressed by our rabbis, some topics were beyond the pale, like the idea of three Isaiahs, or the Documentary Hypothesis. Beyond the realm of Biblical criticism, topics like intermarriage or interdenominational relations not to be discussed, even as intermarried teachers taught a largely-Orthodox student population fringed by Conservatives.

Maybe it’s strange, given the above, that it was in this environment that I was exposed on the one hand to the non-observant, intermarried math teacher’s view that a sect which would consider his wife a donkey has some serious moral failings¹, and on the other hand to the Israeli, observant, owner of both a doctorate in Tanach and rabbinical ordination (though he preferred, or perhaps even insisted, on the title ‘Mister’) and his heterodox views on the authorship of the Tanach. These conversations, and others like them, were often preceded by a quick peek outside the door and down the hall, and were conducted in hushed voices with conspiratorial overtones. Out teachers would swear us to secrecy, explaining that their jobs were on the line and that they would be disciplined and even fired if it was revealed that they were sharing these views.

I don’t want to make too much of these moments. They didn’t inspire me to great intellectual heights, nor did they plant a seed of cross-denominational tolerance in my breast. I do remember them though, and there are not many educational moments from my high school years that I can now remember, some fifteen years later. But I don’t remember them for their content as much as for the personalities of the teachers themselves.

I’m a teacher myself, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that you can’t be an effective teacher if you don’t make personal connections with your students. That means bringing your personality to your work in every phase, from formal exams to informal chit-chat with students. Kids don’t have a great respect for knowledge, but they do have a great respect for teachers who are genuine. In order to really connect with students you must share yourself, including your values and your beliefs.

Maybe I’m the crazy one here, but does it strike anyone else as absurd that in this country we have decided to entrust our children’s educations into the hands of teachers whose world-views are potentially so different from our own? That we created an education system that strives to inculcate only the broadest of societal values (even as some of those values, e.g. egalitarianism, run contrary to the beliefs of many)?

So back to Mr. Paszkiewicz. I confess that when I first read his name, I braced myself for a Jewish-flavored controversy, and breathed some small sigh of relief at the Christian nature of his beliefs. Unlike in the past though, this time my small sigh did not carry with it my indignation over the issue. What did Mr. Paszkiewicz say? That he’s a Christian? And that by extension he believes that non-Christians will go to hell? Isn’t this standard Christian dogma? It is Evangelical dogma that the Earth is young, that the Bible is literal, and that by implication, dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark! Whatever his claims on the science behind the Big Bang and evolution might have been, Mr. Paszkiewicz is a history teacher, not a science teacher, and his statements should not be considered ex cathedra.

What’s a teacher to do? I’m sure, like most teachers, Mr. Paszkiewicz is asked about his faith by students. Is he supposed to lie, or to sugarcoat his answers? Is he meant to recuse himself from such questions? I know that I wear my Jewish identity on my sleeve, and it would be impossible for me to shunt if to non-school hours only. It’s a part of who I am and how I experience and relate to the world.

I’m not trying to teach students or test them on my religious beliefs, and I got no sense that Mr. Paszkiewicz was trying to do that either. From the facts reported, it does not appear that his opinions were expressed as part of his history curriculum, but as past of the year-long relationship that teachers and students evolve together. Is this unconstitutional?

In my opinion teachers must be allowed to share their beliefs with students. Sure, some lines must be drawn, and I’m not advocating for Jerry Falwell to do a nationwide elementary school tour. Nevertheless, teachers cannot be expected to be effective as teachers, role-models, and meaningful influences on their students if they cannot honestly live their beliefs and wear them proudly in a school. My best teachers never backed away from their beliefs, and more than any fact I learned from them, I learned how to be true to yourself even in an environment that was not welcoming to your values and closely-held truths. It may be that Mr. Paszkiewicz has already taught Matthew LeClair that lesson, and I suspect that it’s a living lesson he will remember far longer than Mr. Paszkiewicz’s by-the-numbers Evangelical dogma.

So what do you folks think? What is and is not appropriate for a teacher to discuss in class?

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1.See Gil Student for a traditional view on the status of Gentiles in Jewish marital law, and a refutation of the claim made by my math teacher. The straight-faced title of the linked article is Gentiles Are Human, and it’s the second of a two-part series on this question. Here’s Part I.

This week’s Parsha, Mishpatim (starting at Exodus 21) contains a brief but highly controversial passage that is often a starting point for debates concerning abortion.  I’ll cite the passage in its entirety (as always, Torah quotes are from Mechon Mamre):

כב  וְכִי-יִנָּצוּ אֲנָשִׁים, וְנָגְפוּ אִשָּׁה הָרָה וְיָצְאוּ יְלָדֶיהָ, וְלֹא יִהְיֶה, אָסוֹן–עָנוֹשׁ יֵעָנֵשׁ, כַּאֲשֶׁר יָשִׁית עָלָיו בַּעַל הָאִשָּׁה, וְנָתַן, בִּפְלִלִים.	22 And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow, he shall be surely fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
כג  וְאִם-אָסוֹן, יִהְיֶה–וְנָתַתָּה נֶפֶשׁ, תַּחַת נָפֶשׁ.	23 But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
כד  עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן, שֵׁן תַּחַת שֵׁן, יָד תַּחַת יָד, רֶגֶל תַּחַת רָגֶל.	24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
כה  כְּוִיָּה תַּחַת כְּוִיָּה, פֶּצַע תַּחַת פָּצַע, חַבּוּרָה, תַּחַת חַבּוּרָה.  {ס}	25 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. {S}

The passage relates to abortion only indirectly, in that it places a value on a human fetus without reaching the question of whether abortion is permissible or not. More on this point later.

First, we need to understand the verses. Let’s start with the Orthodox approach. To make any sense of the scenario, we need to understand the meaning of the word Ason, which the JPS 1917 translation renders as ‘harm’, but which in modern Hebrew is more closely translated as ‘disaster’ or ‘calamity’. L’Halacha (Sanhedrin 79a), the word is taken to mean the death of the mother.

The second phrase with an equivocal meaning is V’yatzu yeladeha -’her fruit depart’. Once again,  the gemara (this time Baba Kamma 49a) tells us that this means that woman miscarries and the fetus dies.

Putting the two together, we now have a clear picture of the halachic story: two men come to blows, with the intent to kill, and one accidentally strikes a pregnant woman. The verses in the Torah talk about two alternatives. In the first, ason, tragedy, is averted as the woman lives, and her fetus dies. In such a case, the man who struck her is obliged to pay a fine meant to provide restitution for the difference in value between a pregnant woman and one who is not pregnant. (The Talmud explains that such values may be found in the market for slaves - evidently pregnant slaves were more expensive, since their children would also be slaves. The process by which the husband makes the initial evaluation, subject to the ultimate approval of the courts is a bit odd, but let’s not get into it here.)

The other alternative discussed in the text is the case of ason, where the woman herself is killed, along with her fetus. In such a case, the man who struck here must pay a soul for a soul. The Talmud records a debate as to whether this means capital punishment or blood-money, and l’halacha we decide that capital punishment requires the specific intent to murder a person not just general intent to kill - a notable distinction between Jewish criminal law and criminal law in many, if not, all US states. The man would be charged a blood-price, but would not be subject to corporeal or capital punishment.

Regardless of this last issue, we can infer from the passage that killing a fetus is not the equivalent of killing a human, which is where we enter into the abortion deabte. The parsha provides that in case of accidental murder, the killer must flee to a special city of refuge that has been designated for exactly such purpose(ir miklat, see Numbers 33:11-28), and must remain there until the current Kohen Gadol passes away. If he fails to flee, blood-relatives of his victim may take their vengeance upon the killer. Clearly, the penalty for accidental killing of a human is much more severe than for accidental killing of a fetus, and thus, as the reasoning goes, whether abortion is or is not permitted, it certainly is not murder.

For years, I never really thought twice about the subject, until I encountered an Evangelical Christian, seminary-educated, with whom I corresponded for a few years. The topics of our correspondence were wide-ranging, and the intellectual and religious growth we both experienced is itself an argument for being more ecumenical (though both of us originate in exclusionary, monistic denominations).

When we discussed these verses and their connection to abortion, we discovered a great surprise! Christians have an entirely different interpretation of the verses. Christians interpret v’yatzu yeladeah as premature delviery, and ason as miscarriage. Thus, the Torah discusses two possible cases, one in which there is a premature live birth, and the other a miscarriage. In the case of premature live birth, a fine is assessed against the man who struck the woman, to compensate for the premature birth. In the case of miscarriage, the man is liable for his soul. I was unable to pin my friend down on whether this meant capital punishment or financial restitution, and whether one could extend the punishment regime, whatever it was, to the next verses, commonly referred to as the Lex Taliones, the law of retribution.

What did emerge was that the very same verses that Jews understand to mean that abortion is not equivalent to murder is used by Christians to understand the reverse! The interpretation of the entire passage rests on understanding the word ason, a word used only twice more in the Torah, in reference to one other subject, and understanding the phrase v’yatzu yeladeah, itself mysteriously plural.

Anyone out there have similar experiences with Biblical interpretations? (Yup, if that’s not evidence that this is a niche blog, I don’t know what is…) That’ll do for now, but stay tuned for a midrashic interpretation of these exact same verses next week.

Shabbat Shalom!

The New York Times had a great article in today’s paper about Young Earth Creationists earning science degrees at regular universities. I’m always interested by mainstream media coverage of conservative Christianity because Orthodox Judaism shares many of the same beliefs, but is rarely covered in quite the same way.

The article dealt with whether doctorates should be awarded to students who do legitimate scientific work while harboring non-scientific beliefs, especially if those beliefs are specifically related to their fields of study. Can a university legitimately award a degree in, say, paleontology to a student who doesn’t actually believe that the fossils she studies are billions of years old? How can we accept the scholarship of a person who decries the same work from another scientist as false?

It’s interesting that the article doesn’t cover how the Christian scientists integrate their beliefs or resolve the dissonance between their two life choices. We get a quote from Dr. Marcus Ross, a creationist and geoscientist, who explains that he views the world through two separate paradigms, one religious, and the other scientific. I wish the author of the article,or perhaps Dr. Ross himself, had gone into more detail.

Orthodox Jews don’t always fall into the Biblical literalist camp. Enough opinions within the Mesorah allow for a more allegorical view of the seven days of creation, but even then, specifics of belief vary. Some attempt to reconcile the order of the days of creation with current evolutionary theory. Most don’t acknowledge that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are different and incompatible stories of Creation, regardless of their views on a young or old earth. Still others claim that though the earth is young, it was created to appear old, despite the issues raised by the duplicitous God that they must posit.

Perhaps none of these accommodations to scientific reality hold much water. I’m no expert, that’s for certain. Personally, I believe in an allegorical approach to Genesis rather than an historical approach, but as a person who venerates Midrash as an impressively encoded repository of knowledge, the title of allegory is high praise indeed, and the story of Genesis earns a reverence no less than the account of the parting of the sea, the giving of the Torah, or the conquest of the land of Israel. What seems clear is that Orthodox Jews who honor and respect science as a tool for discovering truth have found means by which to fervently believe in the early chapters of Genesis without rejecting science.

I think a difference exists between the Christian and Jewish approaches, though. Whereas Jews often seek to create a space for belief in science within their theology, Christian theology, or at least fundamental Christian theology, is well, fundamentalist. Jews are more likely to reinterpret their understanding of their own texts and traditions in light of scientific evidence rather than undermining science to buttress their faith-based claims. Christian Young Earth Creationist tend to take the opposite tack, perhaps because belief in literal Biblical inerrancy makes reinterpretation impossible.

Whatever the differences, the question regarding degree-granting remains. If a mathematician seeking a doctorate explained that because of his faith he did not believe that two and two made four (an idea akin to disbelieving evolution in many scientific circles) would he qualify for a doctorate? Perhaps the analogy overstates the case, but I can understand a PhD review board insisting that a candidate submit a doctoral thesis that she believes is true.

What are some of the ways in which Jews compartmentalize these beliefs? Any Young Earth Creationsts want to further explain what Dr. Ross meant when he spoke of two paradigms?