Anti-Academic Judaism

[Take a look at Circling the Gates of Jerusalem on Adar, at the Muqata]

Some months back, a friend noted the rising popularity of a rabbi whose approach is rather anti-intellectual, anti-academic. It fit, I thought, with the recent attraction to Breslov, to Chabad, to Rav Amnon Yitzchak (who I discovered, a couple of weeks ago, is a lot of fun to watch on YouTube when you’re stuck in a rut on a Motzaei Shabbos working on a shiur) and so on.

This trend is surprising in that it has taken hold among Jews who go to university, who live in an academic world.

On the other hand, it actually makes a lot of sense, based on an observation by another friend, Dr. L, a professor of religion at an American college.

Dr. L noted the rise of kabbalah in Christian lands in the later Middle Ages, and he argued that the popularity of mysticism at that moment in Jewish history was not coincidental. This was a time when the Church forced Jews to attend sermons, to participate in debates, and to otherwise face Christianity on an intellectual level. The Christians of the time believed that their faith could be proved correct through analysis and debate. All they needed to do was bring Jews into the proper forum, and the Jews would readily convert.

Jews, of course, had no way to win – either ‘lose’ the debates and accept Christianity, or continue in stubborn insistence that they were right and be accused of heresy.

Faced with this dilemma, Jews found a third approach, orthogonal to the playing field. They abandoned intellectual debate altogether, and adopted a school of thought which, by definition, could not be debated and discussed in any rational way. It had its own givens and stipulations, it was neither provable nor testable, and it did not claim fealty to any logical system or extant, accessible text. This was mysticism, and its adoption made perfect sense. If I can’t debate you, I can refuse to debate you.

And I suspect a similar appeal in today’s anti-academic, anti-intellectual adoption of faith-based and mysticism-based Judaism. (This is not to question the legitimacy and meaning of these approaches; they are Torah, too. I'm only discussing why they enjoy such popularity now.)

The world of the university lays claim to truth, and it’s very hard to argue the point against a world of scientific scholarship. To argue the point from a scholarly perspective is to invite charges of naivete at best, and dishonesty at worst, from the legions of people who believe that Judaism cannot be reconciled with scientific analysis.

To concede the point is to be forced to convert, so to speak.

And so many of today’s Jews opt out, choosing anti-intellectual schools of kabbalah or emunah peshutah (simple faith) or chassidus of custom rather than logic (a form of orthopraxy?), rather than engage in what they fear is a losing battle.

Call it a post-modern Orthodoxy.

Daf: Sotah 22-26

Most of the notes on these pages are technical in nature. The casual reader may find some of the notes on 22b and 26a interesting, though.

As always: Best read with a gemara in front of you.


22a
The term צליינית seems to me to come from the same Aramaic root as leads to צלותא, meaning “prayer.”

In the line בתולה דנפלה it should say either בתולה שנפלה or בתולתא דנפלה. It’s either Hebrew or Aramaic, not a mix.


22b
When people say one does not understand his rebbe “until 40 years,” they usually take that as the age of 40 – but see Tosafot, who says it’s 40 years from the time one begins learning. This is important because in the 17th century (starting with the Shach to Yoreh Deah 246:6, I believe) the age of 40 was given as the earliest age to study Kabbalah. If the source is our gemara, then it should be from forty years after one begins learning Torah.

The gemara here is quite concerned about the appearance of self-righteousness. In general, we call this יוהרא; it is brought in halachah in terms of such practices as bowing very low for Modim and taking on extra fasts.

Tosafot לעולם has his famous discussion here (and in four other places) regarding the value of engaging in Torah and mitzvot for the sake of personal gain [good], as opposed to doing so for the sake of gaining power over others [very, very bad].


23a
See Tosafot כל. The initial assumption is that Rashi is referring to a husband’s obligation to fulfill his wife’s korban obligation, but he concludes that Rashi was actually referring to the husband’s rike in ownership of the korban.


24a
See Rashi vs. Tosafot on the difference between the titles of איילונית, עקרה and אינה ראויה לילד. Tosafot assumes that Rashi defines עקרה as a woman who consumed a potion meant to keep her from bearing children, but this is difficult – Rashi on 25b אבל איילונית says that עקרה is the result of a physical wound!


26a
This is strange – Rav Nachman on 25b presented a דברי הכל universal view regarding איילונית, but on 26a (middle of the page) he acknowledges that this is actually a debate among the Tannaim. I haven’t seen anyone comment on this here, but see Tosafot Sanhedrin 2b where Rabbi Avahu does this and Tosafot discusses it.

Don’t be surprised about the preference for male children; as the gemara elsewhere explains, this was an economic preference – the males were the ones who would be the primary wage-earners, and parents expected their children to support them in their old age.

Re: the skin color preference, it is clear in various sources that the Jews of that period, like people of any period, preferred their own appearance as the ideal aesthetic. See, of course, Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Rashbam on Bamidbar 12 regarding the אשה כושית. See also Abarbanel on Bereishit 10 and Amos 9:7, and Ibn Ezra and Radak to Amos 9:7. See also Midrash Tanchuma to Noach, 13.

There is a lot of discussion re: the סריס at the bottom of the page here; Rashi on our Mishnah contradicts Rashi in the Gemara. See Tosafot. See the Rashash, who seems to go with Rashi on our mishnah as opposed to Rashi on our Gemara.


26b
Note the different views in Rashi and Tosafot on שחוף.

I was troubled by the fact that here it seems the husband’s קינוי warning must specify a sexual act, but since the beginning of Sotah we have defined קינוי as “אל תסתרי עם איש פלוני,” “Don’t be alone with that man!” I sent this question to R’ Mordechai Kornfeld’s Kollel l’Iyun haDaf, and they pointed me to Rashi Yevamot 55b, where he writes that “Don’t be alone” is presumed, by default, to refer to “being alone for the sake of a sexual act.” That is valid – as opposed to a warning which specifies a non-sexual act.