In the past half-century or so, argues Yehoshua Pfeffer, a new doctrine has emerged that has now become quite standard in haredi circles, especially in Israel—endorsed by some of the esteemed and influential sages:

In his 1971 Sihot Mussar, the haredi leader and head of the Mirrer yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz asserted that “the extent of one’s labor is immaterial, for each person will attain that which he was predestined to receive.” Citing Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, known as the Hafetz Hayyim, he noted that a person who struggles for his livelihood is akin to somebody hurrying to work who pushes the train car from the inside to speed it on its way. The thought that there is a causal relationship between work and income is no less nonsensical.

Somebody who gives credence to earthly endeavors denies the fullness of faith in God and is guilty (on some level) of heresy. The natural “ways of the world” that indicate otherwise are but a trial, a mirage that tricks us into disbelief and attributes to nature what is in fact God’s will.

Pfeffer, himself a prominent haredi rabbi and thinker, contends that this skeptical view of human agency, besides having an “uncomfortable proximity to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination,” represents a dramatic departure from the dominant trends in Jewish theology over the millennia. He also believes it responsible for the tensions between Haredim and Israeli society over work and military service. Moreover, in his view such an approach to faith, although “well meaning,” is “incompatible with the responsibilities of our time and place.”

Though some [traditional] sources indicate a tension between faith and human action, precious few will deny any correlation between human endeavor and results. Such approaches would lead us down a deterministic alley that raises troubling questions over the nature of prayer and the veracity of human accountability. Given such a framework, human justice and the commandment to pursue it become an elaborate, even paradoxical, fiction.

The entire biblical narrative of the Jewish people and their relationship with God is a tale of deep human involvement in earthly affairs. . . . Faith, of course, is a central part of the Jewish mission, yet it does not curtail or negate earthly works. It rather pervades them. Shabbat, by way of illustration, does not stand in tension with the six days of labor. It redirects them, infusing them with holiness as part of a sacred cycle of work and rest.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.