In a Lost Lecture, a Modern Sage Explains Why Halakhah Is the Redemptive Antithesis of Ritual

One of the major questions that Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik addressed in his philosophical works is that of the role of law and regulation in Jewish thought and practice. In 1946 and 1947, Soloveitchik explored this theme in a course titled “Concepts in Halakhah as Elaborated Upon by the Aggadah and Kabbalah,” which he taught at Yeshiva University’s Bernard Revel Graduate School. The notes of one of the students in that class, published for the first time by the journal Tradition, contain—as Shlomo Zuckier puts in in his foreword—a “sustained argument for the preeminence of halakhah [law] within Jewish tradition, over and above the realms of aggadah [narrative and exegetical teachings] and Kabbalah [mysticism].” Moreover, Soloveitchik contends, halakhah is at its heart an intellectual form of religiosity rather than an ethical or ritual one.

The greatest contribution of the halakhah was its purging Judaism of all magical, mythical, and ceremonial elements. It deprives Jewish life of its mythical nature. The mitzvot are all intellectualized, thereby severing them from all mystical rites. The halakhah did not want sacraments in its mitzvot. It resented cultic, worship performances. How was it to accomplish this? By taking the transcendent and the sacramental and intellectualizing them. The method the halakhah used to purge the mythical element was to atomize and mathematize the mitzvah.

To illustrate this point, Soloveitchik suggest that if Jews were obligated to have Christmas trees, there would be so vast and intricate body of regulations governing these objects that each “would no longer be a tree, but rather a complex of concepts.” But what could be the purpose of this intellectualization of religion which, as Soloveitchik repeatedly emphasizes, eschews the holistic, preferring instead to break down every obligation into component parts? The answer lies in understanding the difference between halakhah and the “legalism” imagined by its critics:

Some say the halakhah is dry, esoteric, etc. These people, however, misunderstand what the rabbis were aiming for, their direction and tendency. Mythical religion is most dangerous; it leads to most absurd acts and performances.

The halakhic act is religious in the sense that it is meaningful, redeeming, and uplifting. There is no happiness in being a “law-abiding” citizen. No one achieves happiness or bliss when paying his taxes. This does not exist in a legal system. The legal experience is not only formal in its method, but also in its realization. It contains no spark, or inspiration, or enthusiasm. The halalakah, on the other hand, is meaningful, human, and redeeming.

Halakhah gives content and meaning to one’s life; it redeems man. There is the affirmation of one’s existence in the religious act.

Read more at Tradition

More about: Halakhah, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Judaism

 

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society