New York: 3 good, 3 bad

I went to NY on holiday and only ‘cos I don’t want to go to bed yet, I thought I’d write three positive and negative things about the place.

Positive

1.  I think NY people (as London people) sometimes get a bad press, as not being particularly helpful or friendly.  I don’t think this was true at all.  Everyone I asked for directions or help, seemed only to happy to help out.  I only saw two moody New Yorkers and they looked almost identical (and yet coincidentaly not identical).  One in the hospital who tried to discharge herself, despite the fact she could barely walk, because she wasn’t being seen quickly enough.  The other didn’t like the fact that the subway train was too busy for her liking.  All in all, however, there was refreshing kindness from random people.

2.  The subways are darn cheap (comparatively).  A 7-day pass where you can use as much as you like is only $28 which is like £18 or something.  Compare this to “The Tube” which (sans Oyster) is £5 for a single.  Yes, the subway annoyingly didn’t have many maps; and yes, more adverts in Spanish than English (which is why I subway it); and yes, through no fault of the subways, I went in the wrong direction.  Notwithstanding these points, total value for money.

3.  It resides in a country which has the “Orthodox Union” which is a largely Modern Orthodox institution that doesn’t go out of its way to make it hard to be kosher.  They don’t want to force you into a ghetto where you can only keep kosher by buying Snowcrest.  No, they actively look to make everyday products suitable for use- “Philadelphia”, for instance (KLBD PLEASE?!?!?!?)  Now I’m not so naive as to think it is purely altruistic motives- it makes them a lot of money and the scope is much bigger there than here.  But still- ideology plays its part.

Negative

1. Bloody Bags.  If anything will lead to believe in Richard Dawkins and “meme theory”, it is America’s attitude to bags.  An idea virus has infected shopkeepers with the idea that it is essential to spread your shopping out over as many bags as possible.  Even if you just buy a Chocolate bar, they try and put it in a bag.  I had to actively persuade them not to give me bags.  The sheer wastefulness (environmental and otherwise) is unbelievable and seems embedded in the NY psyche.

2. “Honkety Honkety Honk” could be the soundtrack song to the New York experience.  It is not a very rhythmic song but is a loud one.  Usually honking means “hello” or “stop being a bloody nutter”. One of the two.  But the honking seemed to be utterly inexplicable.  Sometimes I watched cars to see what the underlying rationale could be but discovered none.  What’s more is the amount of money local government must have spent on empty threats.  That is to say- all the signs that say people will get a $350 fine for honking- AS IF.

3.  Too many Jews!  Not that I’m a self-hating Jew (only occasionally so) but because there is nothing special about it.  A) When I feel that I have done something wrong the previous day, I won’t wear my kippah the next day because I don’t feel I’m good enough to represent the Jewish people.  In NY: saints and sinners, machas and child molesters, the sane and the mad, those with derech eretz and uncontrollable kids, all wear kippot.  It’s the done thing with no thought to the moral worth it implies or the Chillul Hashem it may cause  B) In a small community, you see another Jew on Shabbat and you greet him.  Even if you don’t know him, it’s a sign of community, friendliness and something you automatically have in common.  I tried wishing people “Shabbos” in Brooklyn and got the most dirty looks imaginable.  There it is nothing  to see another Jew and so they must have been thinking “Who the hell is this stranger talking to us?”

Undecided

Q.  New York Skyline- beautiful or ugly as sin?

Assertive M/m/odern Orthodoxy?

I

I like Rabbonim like our Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo.  The most appealing thing is that they have a “let’s just get on with it” Judaism that is neither toes a party line nor is overly radical. 

There are certain topics you just cannot talk to a Chareidi/Modern Orthodox/ Masorti/ Reform Jews about. There is no point talking to them about those matters of dogma that define their identity as a member of that group.  All discussions on these areas will invariably be heavily biased, defensive, intransigent and fall back on some stock catchphrases.  There can never be joint intelligent investigation as the only option is to fully accept/reject what they say.   In discussing these things, the groups have a clear agenda to convert- or mekarev- the other party.  This wouldn’t bother me if I accepted the dogmas of Chareidi/Modern Orthodox/ Masorti/ Reform Judaism- but I don’t!

Sacks and Cardozo (etc) are not bound to a particular institutional banner, movement, Gadol or the like.  They don’t have to reject evolution because the Rebbe said so; nor is it a condition of belonging to the community to believe that the messiah coming depends on conquering the occupied territories; nor do they have to parrot that “halacha changes” to distinguish the enlightened from the fundamentalist Orthodox. 

Instead, in terms of actions they are traditionalists who neither agitate for halachic innovations, nor seek to chumra-dik Judaism to the point of making it a cultish sect.  That is, they act within consensus of Mainstream Orthodoxy (as it happens to stand today).  They shy away from specific controversies and try to keep the status quo.  In terms of beliefs their apple [their beliefs] does not stray too far from the tree [the consensus positions of the mesorah].  That is, they are original thinkers but informed by the Jewish tradition.  They can disagree with others without having to phrase them so as to cause a rift between different elements of Orthodoxy or between Orthodoxy and other denominations.

II

I like this kind of Judaism! 

Within the broad constraints I laid out, they can just get on with living a Jewish life and get on with espousing and presenting Jewish beliefs.  They do not have to exactly match the actions/ views of a particular sub-sect of Judaism, because they do not present themselves as only representatives of that one group.  As they are not ‘adjectival Jews’ (this kind of Jew; that kind of Jew) they do not have to pursue the agenda of that ‘adjectival Judaism’.  They can get on with just being a Jew- living wisely and presenting Jewish issues in an intelligent way.

Of course, this ‘getting on’ within the status quo is just what most people hate the Chief Rabbi for.  Modern Orthodox Jews hate that he doesn’t have the backbone to take a stand on women’s issues and has ceded halacha to his chareidi bet din.  Chareidi Jews don’t like the fact that people aren’t Chareidi and that the Chief doesn’t toe their party line.  Reform and Masorti Jews want him to publicly proclaim the validity and legitimacy of their movements rather than just quietly de facto recognising religious pluralism as now.

I don’t- as a matter of instinct- like these arguments.  Not only do I not ideologically share their agendas, but there is not much point to what they say.  The Chief Rabbi cannot be all things to all people.  If he publicly endorses any one of these, he pits himself against the others.  Any or all of these are divisive and will pull Jewry apart.  Some people wouldn’t care and say like it or lump it to whichever group they were against.  However, I do.  The Anglo-Orthodox establishment has kept a status quo that is ‘just about bearable, but not really acceptable’ to the vast majority of people. 

Whilst this is not a flattering statement, it means that it is a wide tent that allows for a greater sense of Jewish unity than anywhere else in the Ashkenazi world.  Just as the Chief can get on with Judaism, Reform and Chareidi Jews can get on with whatever it is that they do.  So long as people’s actions don’t fall too far outside the mainstream, people have a wide freedom of thought and action.

III

I have come to revise my thoughts slightly on ANglo Jewry’s lack of assertiveness.  This is not because I no longer believe in a ‘mainstream Orthodoxy’ or in having a wide tent- because I do.  It’s not that I suddenly believe in Modern Orthodox dogmas- I don’t.  Nor is it that I now call for divisiveness or radicalisation’.  It is just the realisation that status quos do not maintain themselves.  Doing nothing and not taking a stand of any description can lead to the very disintegration of mainstream Orthodoxy that I wish to avoid. 

It is unfortunate but gone are the days where people would get on with their Judaism within the pragmatic situation they were dealt.  Instead, people have to believe in an ideology which posits that situation as the ideal.  Without a M/modern Orthodox ideology that preaches ‘traditionalism with inclusiveness’, mainstream Orthodoxy has fallen by 1/3 between 1990 and 2006.  In the same period  Masorti have gained by 63.3 per cent on the left and the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations by 51.4 per cent on the right.  This is not to have a go at those two groups but it shows that without a middle ground, Judaism has become more polarised.

As Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen says:

[The Chief Rabbinate] steered clear of articulating the case for modern Orthodoxy to their own constituency. Indeed, the present incumbent allowed right-wing influences to engineer the demise of the one rabbinical institution, Jews' College, which was set up to further that synthesis of Orthodoxy and modernity and to train congregational rabbis who reflected it. This may well have facilitated the progress of the Masorti movement in Britain. The absence of a dynamic middle-ground also meant that committed youth had to choose either between religious extremes or between commitment and defection.

So maybe it is time for the Chief Rabbi be more assertive in pressing a modern but Orthodox Agenda.  This is not to say that it should match whatever goes by the name ‘Modern Orthodoxy’ today.  Nor does it mean that I would agree with the ideology, whatever it is.  But some variant of it may be the necessary move to produce a mainstream movement that can help Britain remain a home for most Jews. 

It will necessarily disaffect more people than the current status quo.  Hardcore progressive Jews and hardcore Chareidi Jews won’t like it one bit.  It won’t even be ‘just about bearable’ and they will completely break away from the mainstream.  However, it may be best placed to be  most inclusive Judaism possible  and the most accepting of those outside it.  In our agenda driven way, it might be closest we can come to allowing for most people to get on with it- live wisely and discuss intelligently.