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Rabbi Emanuel Feldman said:
“Nothing so affects the Jewish soul as exposure to the original source material.”
FROM: Tales Out Of Shul, page 291, Shaar Press, 1996 CE, ISBN: 0-89906-517-1
Rabbi Emanuel Feldman was an Orthodox Rabbi, who led Atlanta’s Congregation Beth Jacob almost 40 years, and edited Tradition magazine, a scholarly Jewish publication.
I recommend to read the above book where he was able convert his congregation from conservative to orthodox Judaism through humor.
R eliezer, Beth Jacob was never Conservative. It was founded 1943 as an Orthodox breakaway from an existing Orthodox shul that they felt was drifting Conservative ( which it eventually became).
Rabbi Feldman’s humor was one of the tools he used, in his 39 years, to grow Beth Jacob from that small start to a community large enough ( over 500 families ) to support day schools, boys yeshivas, girls yeshivas ( both thru high school ) and a kollel.This book, if you can get hold of it, is a must-read for every one. Besides his tremendous sense of humor, which he is b”H still displaying (ad 120+) to the readers of his column in Mishpacha and to those around him (lucky me including), the lessons he disperses in the book are so important for Jewish Life.
R Elezer, I think you owe Rabbi Feldman an apology for implying he took a pulpit in a conservative synogogue
Dear Anonymous,
I think you an apology to all the Great Rabbonim who took pulpits in Conservative Synagogues and never compromised on even one letter of the Torah.
He was an orthodox rabbi but accepted conservative congregants whom he converted to orthodoxy as the title of the books indicates:
Tales Out of Shul: The Unorthodox Journal of an Orthodox Rabbi HardcoverPlease look at your original post. You said he converted his congregation, not just some conservative congregants.
And, nomesorah, didn’t Rav Moshe issue a psak forbidding Orthodox rabbis from taking Conservative pulpits?Nom, do you believe that mechitzos are required by halacha? Do you believe it’s allowed in halacha to have a microphone on shabbos? Do you believe it’s ok to call women up for aliyos?
Conservative temples did all of these things from early on.
Maybe the “great rabbanim” are all from the “beis medrash lerabanim” aka JTS?
I am rereading the book. We say in the Hagadah מתחלה עובדי ע’ז היו עבותינו ועכשיו קרבנו המקום לעבודתו, our ancestors originally worshipped a’z but now Hashem brought us close to his service. The Chasan Sofer asks, it should have said לעבדו? He answers that עבודה is tefila and Hashem kavayachel davens that we the Jews should be worthy for His mercy. When we see the contrast from where we came from, a’z to where we arrived, becoming part of His prayer, we appreciate our elevation. Similarly, we can see the greatness of Rabbi Feldman. He elevated them from their conservative view to orthodoxy. So, I don’t think an apology is required.
Reb Eliezer,
“Unorthodox “ in the title of his book was not referring to to the “orthodox “denomination of Judaism, it’s a description of himself and his journal. You’re taking it out of context. He never associated with anything other than authentic Yiddishkeit.
Of course he was Mikareiv many, many Yidden who had may have drifted in different directions before they had had the fortune of meeting Rabbi Feldman.No Mesora,
Your statement is ignorant and wrong. “Great Rabbanim “ did not violate HalachaDear Anonymous,
I don’t know if Rav Moshe did or didn’t. I’ve asked Rabbanim who should know and did not get a clear answer. He writes in one teshuva that we can assume a Coservative Rabbi is passul leydus even if he is known to be observant. This doesn’t mean that the Rabbi is automatically to equated with his Flock. By the way, I am not assuming that Rav Moshe agreed with those that held Conservative Pulpits.
Rav Moshe not only “disagreed” with personally observant jews who took jobs in conservative temples, but once spoke about how they’re destroying yiddishkeit, and asked “farvoos? Farvoos?’ and yelled “fahr gelt!”
Conservative temples paid a ton of money; it was very difficult to make a living as a pulpit rabbi in those days.
Rabbi Avraham talansky, who was in torah vodaas in the times of rav shlomo heiman, told me that he knew a lot of talmidim who became conservative rabbis, and that none of them were anything special in learning.
Nomesorah, as far as Rabbi Feldman is concerned , it’s a moot point as Beth Jacob was never a Conservative synogogue, despite R Eliezer’s mistaken and repeated assertions
I did not mean that it was a conservative synagogue just that many congregants had conservative views like separate seating is enough without a mechitza.
Conservative is apikorsus. It is even forbidden to simply walk into any of their temples.
I don’t think it is forbidden to entry. It is probably forbidden to daven there (or by their rules?). R Soloveichik ruled, I think, that one can not go to shofar blowing to a R- place even if there is no alternative
It’s definitely assur to pray in a conservative temple, or to enter there during prayer times; rav moshe writes this in a teshuva, or several teshuvos.
As for entering for other reasons not during prayer times, there are differing opinions, but it’s a big bedieved. i know of a day camp connected with a very established yeshiva which uses the pool at a conservative temple; they couldn’t find anywhere else to go.
Dear Always,
Rav Soloveichick was discussing a shul without a mechitzah. Not which association’s statements are on the bulletin board.
Dear Ujm,
So please, please, enlighten us!!!! What is the divide between Conservative and Orthodox on ideology? For fifty years we’ve been trying to define it. And no satisfactory answer has been found.
Dear Anonymous,
Yes. Agreed on Beth Jacob. I’m not sure why he can’t admit his mistake.
“What is the divide between Conservative and Orthodox on ideology?”
N0m: Here are some random examples, to answer your question:
Conservatives:
Homosexual activity is ok; homosexual “unions” are okay.
Being Mechallel Shabbos is okay to drive to temple.
Women so-called “rabbis” is a thing.
Tznius is not a thing.
Shomer negia isn’t necessary.
It’s okay to eat treif when traveling.
n0, thanks for the clarification.
Avira, using the pool does not sound like a big reason for a big b’dieved. Unless you tell me that parents will not send kids to the schools without a pool and will be a major parnosa loss.
Dear Ujm,
None of these issues divide the Orthodox from Conservative. They are both divided from within on these topics. Of course the proportion is in the inverse. Which makes it even less of a real schism.
Conservatism doesn’t believe in the torah being the same as what was given to moshe rabbeinu. They also believe halacha can change. That’s something all of them, left and right, agree to. And it makes them heretics.
N0m: Stop being an apologist for the apikorisus or trying to equate them in any way with Shomrei Torah u’Mitzvos.
Dear Ujm,
Shomrei Torah U’mitzvos! What a novel dividing line! Well, even though there has been (This century.) an exodus of the observant Conservative to Orthodoxy, the halachists mostly remined. Also, some of the Rabbis that moved their family into orthodox circles, keep one foot in their old congregations.
Dear Avira,
There have been several attempts to delineate the schism along those lines. It’s not so simple. Even if you throw out large chunks of orthodoxy with them, there will still be enough conservative thinkers on the your side of the divide.
Avira – They also believe halacha can change. That’s something all of them, left and right, agree to. And it makes them heretics.
yes, indeed. but saying that halacha doesn’t change would make you a tzeduki… we discussed here multiple times how halacha changed over time without making any of us C.
Aaq, halacha doesn’t change. Chazal use established rules to secure the torah. That’s not a change; they don’t say that halacha says X but we say Y. Conservative does.
Avira, not only has the application of halacha changed, our religion has undergone massive change in the past
One example is divorce. Originally, a man could divorce his wife unilaterally;now she must agree.
If Jew ( an anachronism ) from the early years of the first Bais Hamikdosh were to come back to life now, he wouldn’t recognize we call Judaism. In his tim e:
1. There were no shuls
2. There were no siddurs
3. There were no religious rituals outside of Jerusalem
4. He wouldn’t be able to read the Torah. Until the Babylonian
Exile, Hebrew was written in Paleo-Hebrew script, not the
Aramaic block letters that Ezra introduced. The Samaritans,
brought into Israel by the Assyrians , copied our Sefer Torah
and theirs is still written in Paleo-Hebrew.There is a lot more
Dear Anonymous,
Correct on 2.
I’m not so confident on 1 and 3.
4 is complex. It’s irrelevant anyway.Dear Always,
Whatever your trying to say about the Sadducees is incorrect. Josephus documents changes of their own.
Dear Avira,
Why don’t we have a cup of wine for bentching?
N0m: We do bentch mzumen with a cup of wine.
Anon, chazal had the ability to make gezeros. Geonim made takanos. No one took away from halacha, only added on chumros or fences around it. Davening 3x a day was a takanah from the anshei knesses hagedolah – that’s not called a change in halacha.
When the halacha is, for instance, to keep a 2 day YT outside ererz yisroel, and conservative say that nowadays you don’t need to, while the gemara was clearly aware of the fact that there’s no sfaikah d’yoma, is changing halacha.
A man not being able to divorce a wife against her will is the halacha. No one changed that din. What the geonim did was make a takanah on top of that din, saying that you’re not allowed to do so – beis din also has that right, because kol mekadesh, adaatah derabanan mekadesh. Same goes with certain forms of kidushin.
A change in halacha would be if someone said that marriage doesnt require 2 kosher witnesses, which is exactly what conservative did, and which is why rav moshe says we’re not even choshesh for their kidushin, because you need witnesses for kiyuma, not just rayah. Conservative saying that women can be witnesses is also changing halacha. An example of a non-change would be to invalidate witnesses for breaching communal norms, where rabbis would have that authotrity.
Re, k’sav ivri and k’sav ashuris – stop reading things online. the seforim do not call it “paleo hebrew” – you got that from some apikores on the internet or wikipedia.
What those heretics omit is that In the gemara there is a machlokes if k’sav ashuris was there from the beginning, and both ivri and it were used, or if ashuris was only for the aseres hadibros, was then forgotten, and brought back during bayis sheni. Either way, everyone agrees that ashuris was not entirely new and unheardof.
and for your claim about there not being “religious rituals” outside yerushalayim….do you think jews didn’t put on tefillin outside yerushalayim? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Karbanos? They were brought on bamos until the beis hamikdash was built; this is based on pesukim and I have no idea how changing circumstances equals a change in halacha.
Dear Avira,
There you go again! Equating shuls with davening……
Now to be a bit serious, your talking about a halachic system. Anybody who can learn, (Conservative, Reform, or even Athiest.) is aware of the systems running throughout our Torah. The supposed schism is how much weight does the individual Chacham’s understanding have on the system versus the context that gives that understanding. And after several tries, there is no apparent answer. So while maybe if we think hard enough we can come up with a clear response, it is very likely that this has nothing to do with the break that actually occurred in the past century. I’m not assuming that Conservative and Orthodoxy are only different associations and nothing else. But it is clear to me, that it is not about something that could ever be debated.
It says אין בית דין יכול לבטל דברי בית דין חבירו, a beis din cannot nullify the words of another beis din, אלא אם כן גדול ממנו בחכמה ובמנין only when it is greater from the previous one in wisdom and quantity. The geonim where greater than us, so we cannot change their gezeiras.
Nom – let’s be very clear. Would you consider a convert to conservative judaism a jew if they said that they kept halacha, while driving to shul on shabbos, since it’s too far to walk?
Avira, you missed and avoided my point. I clearly referenced someone from the time of bayis rishon when sacrifices were no longer allowed outside of Jerusalem. What prayers did they say when they put on tefillin? You didn’t address my point about the Samaritan “Torah” . They copied it from us and wrote it using paleohebrew . Calling the alphabet paleohebrew is not apikorsis
ok, so I think we all agree that “halakha changed”.
Avira puts a couple of useful caveats to that:
– easier to add chumros, gedorim than other way around based on “greater beis din”
– applications change, but principles stay the sameI mostly agree with these, just pointing out that the serious answer is longer than “halakha did not change”. I actually once – many years ago – tried to be friendly with a C- Rabbi. His first question was “do you agree that halakha change”. I answered “yes”. He then deduced “so, you agree with us?”. Surprised, I answered “no”. He somehow got upset and ended the conversation. Maybe, his expectations were too high after the “yes”.
interesting question whether all changes are only chumros and gezeiros …
first, “greater beis din” was less of the issue in antiquity, as such things happened…
not sure whether conditional get by Dovid was a change or not
allowing moabite women – if not a kula, at least a clarification– changes in school systems and ketuba during BM2 – not really kulos or chumros, just changes searching for successful social results.
– shemen akum – was announced and taken back within a year because people did not accept it.
– writing down Oral Torah
– all post-BM2 changes
– allowing taking money for teaching or even learning Torah and probably other things that are allowed because “our generations are weaker”Anon, even in Yerushalayim, the only place karbanos are allowed is the Bais hamikdash – it’s an open pasuk. Before there was one, ot was shaas heter habamos, a time when bamos, personal mizbechos, were allowed. The circumstances changed and the din of shechitas chutz kicked in, as it was always going to. No change there.
And the seforim, and religious jews, call ksvav ivri by the name it was called by the rishonim. Your use of the term Paleo Hebrew just shows what miasmic internet stuff you’ve read.
Dear Avira,
That’s a good question and it cuts to the heart of the matter. But its not clear to me why it helps. The answer to me is a clear NO. But if it was an orthodox conversion it would also be a NO.
N0m: Would you consider a Reform or Conservative “conversion” to be valid if the “converted” goy didn’t drive on Shabbos?
As far as entering a Consetvative-temple not during nor for davening: I never heard any issue. What if there is a certain event?
Historian: Why would the problem be any different after their religious services instead of during?
Historian, it’s definitely an issue; rav Moshe writes that it’s a bedieved.
Dear Ujm,
Not driving on shabbos is permitted.
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