Chorus Of Apes

A number of years ago I spent the year in a coed yeshiva in Jerusalem. That year was many things, among them an attempt to reengage with halacha. I had grown up in a household and a community where the answer to why we did certain things (keep kosher by ingredients, park in the library parking lot across from the shul on Shabbat) and were not allowed to do other things (go out on Friday nights, date non-Jews) was usually “because this is the way we do things.” As you may imagine, that was not particularly satisfactory. When left to my own devices the way that “we” did things didn't become the way that “I” did things. I did eventually come to a deep appreciation of the value of Jewish community and Jewish texts/concepts in my life, but have never really been able to embrace halacha. For a time I thought a lot about what a meaningful progressive halacha might look like. I've often thought about how we might harness these rules and social norms to produce social change, richer and more equitable communities and societies.

That year in Jerusalem I was studying at an Orthodox, though open and coed, institution. Throughout the year I sent home e-mails to friends and family about my experiences in Jerusalem. The final e-mail a year was titled “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.” I had discovered, that at least in this community, in this institution, traditional halacha, which insists on using premodern categories as the basis for its norms, teeters between the status quo and reactionary. It the project of producing a halachah that was honestly compatible with modernity seemed rather far off, the idea of a truly liberatory and progressive halacha seemed like a pipe dream. The content of any halachic norms, that which is required, that which is permissible, and that which is forbidden, is only part of the problem. Tied up with that, and in many ways more of a problem (at least for me), is the problem with authority. On what possible defensible grounds can an ancient religious legal system make a claim on the life of a modern liberal individual? Short of believing that the entire Oral Torah, either in actuality or in potentiality, was delivered by God to Moses at Sinai (a position which depends upon a thoroughly untenable notion of revelation), how does a nondemocratic barely enforceable religious system of a small minority have any kind of power or force?

All this theorizing about norms and authority, however, doesn't get at the real problem. Even if it wanted to follow some element of halacha I just don't seem to be able to follow it on those grounds. It's the same problem with working out, or eating well. Even if I say “I want to do this!” and I know why I want to do something, remembering to do it and deciding to do in any given moment is a terrible challenge. So in some ways the “why” question is even superseded by the “how” goods and question.

Although this is a rather long introduction to the renewed purpose of this blog. I stopped blogging a number of years ago, but this summer ready to pick it back up. As part of both a personal and professional experiment, and because it is a requirement for the program I wanted to do, I'm going to spend this summer trying to live, as best I can define it, one version of this progressive halacha. I thought blogging it would give me a chance to think about my experiences and be in dialogue with others. I'm not exactly sure what is going to go on this blog, or how much I can or should say about my classmates and teachers in yeshiva who will of course play a major role in my experience seeing and thinking about halacha.

I also should note that a case of carpal tunnel has made it difficult for me to type. I'm using dictation software, but it is much much much much harder to think and write easily without being able to type. This entire piece was dictated into the computer and it doesn't really say what I want it to. So, I cannot promise that this blog will be particularly well-written, coherent, or interesting but, I wanted to start putting words to paper (or words to screen) tonight just to get the ball rolling on this experiment. Hopefully I'll come back with a clear explanation of what this project is and what I'm thinking about soon. Since this blog is as much, if not more, for me than it is for you, I think these disjointed thoughts will be just fine.