Limitation or Liberation

I started an exchange with Square Peg and decided it was time to move my responses here, since they were getting a bit long for the comment box, and also somewhat tangential to her questions.

When I was a teenager I read an article in the newspaper's weekend magazine, telling the lifestory of a woman who came to Israel sometime early in the 20th century as a young adult. She came from a religious home, but of course the establishment here was explicitly non-religious (and implicitly anti-religious). She went to a teacher's college, and soon she was given an assignment which she would not have time to finish if she didn't work on it on shabbat.

She took her notebook and pencil, walked out to the middle of a big field, made a mark in the notebook and then waited for the lightning to strike out of the blue sky. When it didn't come, from that moment on she no longer had any use for religion.

I was absolutely amazed at this. How could she not realize that she had no need for an external punishment; she was living her punishment to this day! She no longer had a shabbat! She had no excuse not to work and toil seven days a week. I know that I have non-religious colleagues who similarly answer phone calls from customers on shabbat. Poor things.

I was also amazed at the literalism, actually the fundamentalism embedded in her understanding of Judaism. She had been taught that if she desecrated the sabbath, she would be punished, literally ‘from heaven’. When that was taken away, she had no use for Judaism, no inkling that there were benefits there that she was throwing away. I find the Orthodox insistence on the importance of thought crimes such as 'Torah from Heaven' to be similarly dangerous. If their premises can be proved to be wrong or even put in serious doubt, they feel that their whole way of life is as fragile as a house of cards. Why? Don't thousands of years of reading a book make it significant, whether it was taken by dictation from G-d's mouth or not? Isn't an approach to the world that has worked for thousands of years worth a second glance?

Notwithstanding Orthodoxy's claim to primacy, to being "Grandfather Israel", I know that they are fudging history. Orthodoxy was a reaction to Reform, which itself was a reaction to the emancipation. I happen to hate statements like "Judaism is this" or "Judaism is that", but that is subject for another post. Nevertheless, I would hazard to claim that Judaism up to the 19th century was much more inclusive and varied than Orthodoxy is today.

On the scale of rationalism - mysticism, I feel closer to this (especially paragraph 12 onwards), than to the almost Pope-like infallibility the Orthodox like to ascribe to Rabbinical decisions and existing halacha. When it comes to matters of history and belief, I am as skeptical as a scientist, yet when I pray, I am praying to G-d, all doubts aside. This is a contradiction I live with, and I am only slightly consoled by the fact that this contradictory stance has a long history.

So my point is that my understanding of halacha is that it is not disconnected from the community. I believe that G-d gave me a brain to use, and so I do have to strive to rationally understand the benefit of mitzvot, but I cannot throw them away if the community has not already abrogated them (classic example - the wayward son). I am also willing to consider that I may come to a future understanding on the utility and benefit of certain mitzvot. So answering your last question first, yes, benefits, whether immediate or deferred, spiritual or physical, are a definite consideration in keeping specific mitzvot.

The freedom of choice in the Torah is not a true choice "I give before you today Life and Death... choose Life!" -- who wouldn't? The freedom of choice today, where I am familiar with good, moral people who choose not to keep mitzvot, this is a true challenge. I am not even sure I can really understand the meaning of 'commanded' any more, of 'obligated' and 'free of obligation'. The Rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud decided that "one who is obligated and performs a deed is greater than one who is not obligated and performs a deed" (I heard a rumor that the argument was concluded the opposite way in the Yerushalmi, but I never looked it up). As far as I am concerned, when it comes to mitzvot we are all choosing to be obligated, or not, so we are all on the same level of 'one who is not obligated and performs'.

Do you have a specific mitzva in mind that enshrines rigid gender roles? I am not sure that I can elaborate a negative. On the central issue of the 'non-obligation' of women on time bound mitzvot, I think my argument above covers it. On various additions that try to set-in-stone social mores from previous eras, such as "a woman's voice is lewdness" -- well, I don't really have much to add.

Finally, I believe it is as important for my sons as for my daughter to see that rigidity for the sake of rigidity is idolatrous. This is what I believe, and if others believe otherwise, they certainly have the right to raise their children accordingly. I will disagree respectfully.