An Argument for Heaven's Sake

Imagine you that you've gone to shul on Shabbat and your Rabbi delivers a sermon in which he or she tells you that you're forbidden according to Jewish law from renting or selling your house to anyone who isn't Jewish, and if you do you'll be put into herem (excommunication) and you'll never again be given an aliyah (be called to the Torah) in the synagogue.  If you’re like me, I imagine you'd respond to such a sermon with shock and a bit of revulsion.  

Such a declaration would be tantamount in our American eyes to racism and religious bigotry of the most nefarious sort.  But that's actually what happened recently in Israel.  Well, not actually.  The declaration wasn't issued homiletically (i.e. in a sermon), but in the form of a letter issued by a group of municipal rabbis. (See www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=198353)  The reaction to this offensive and repugnant rabbinic decree was swift and unequivocal.  Prime Minister Netanyahu condemned it saying, “How would we feel if someone said not to sell apartments to Jews?  We would protest, and we do protest when it is said among our neighbors. It is forbidden that such things are said about Jews or Arabs.” (See www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=198473)  Israelis across the political and religious spectrum have expressed their outrage and condemnation in the same way most of us have here in the Diaspora.   

This controversy, however, raises a larger, more overarching question for those of us who are invested in a halakhic approach to Jewish life.  Have we reacted in a constructive, normative way to the rabbis’ letter?  Dr. Alick Isaacs, my teacher at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, claims we should have responded not by seeking to de-legitimize what those rabbis have to say, that the correct response should be not polemic, but makhloket.  Dr. Isaacs argues for “a halakhic discourse in which the halakha itself is humble; a halakhic discourse that is neither weak pluralist nor strong pluralist.  That is harmonious, is in and of itself a humble system . . .  ultimately interested in perpetuating a sense of our own inadequacy, a sense of our own partiality, and our sense of our real need for every point of view even the ones we don’t like.  We’re talking about a model of radical co-existence.” 

The harmonious model, as articulated by Dr. Isaacs, requires us to accept the fact that repulsive, bigoted rabbinic decrees like the rabbis’ letter fall within the bounds of legitimate rabbinic discourse.  Putting it slightly differently, if we believe in the merits of rabbinic principles like "Elu v'Elu Divrei Elohim Hayyim" - "These and These are the Words of the Living God," then we have to accept that opinions which are antithetical to our own are nonetheless worthy of a place in the halakhic enterprise since they originate - whether good or bad - from God. The appropriate manner in which we should respond to such opinions and rulings Dr. Isaacs argues is by issuing a halakhic counter argument, an opposing p’sak halakha (legal decision) of our own.  This is precisely what my colleague Dr. David Golinkin, the President of the Schechter Institute, has done.  Dr. Golinkin has written a masterful response to the rabbis' letter. (You can read Dr. Golinkin's teshuvah in full here www.schechter.edu/Responsa.aspx) 

To date, 5o Masorti rabbis – coincidentally the same number of rabbis as those who publicly supported the notorious rabbis' letter - have signed onto Dr. Golinkin's responsum.  I'm grateful to Dr. Isaacs for effectively  converting me from being a disciple of the pluralist model to a follower of the harmonious model.  I find the former as far more intellectual integrity and is far more faithful to normative , rabbinic tradition. So while I believe that this makhloket (rabbinic dispute) is "for Heaven's sake," I also believe that Dr. Golinkin's position should be the one that in practice ultimately prevails.