The Center for Modern Torah Leadership The 2012 Aryeh Klapper Reader From inside the book: Halakhah does not allow one person to take advantage of the covenant of mutual responsibility so as to prevent another from living a normal fulfilling human life. Human beings cannot truly deserve the blessings of this world, but it is critical that they also not be wholly undeserving of those blessings. We are entitled, even encouraged, to think of ourselves as somewhat better than we actually are. Repentance – or at least some kinds of repentance - requires a strong and confident sense of self. Adolescence may be a disease, but like many diseases, aggressive treatment may have little impact on outcomes, and the side effects can be serious. Unexpected kindness can be as challenging to a worldview as unexpected cruelty. Rabbinic literature regularly concedes that Torah study does not guarantee proper behavior or even good character. The texts of the tradition cannot reliably defend themselves against corrupt interpreters. Does the leisured human life, i.e. the life which consumes time for flavor as well as nutrition, have worth that simply cannot be captured, even if it can be matched or surpassed, by the absolute matmid? There are at least five reasons and ways that Halakhah fails to exhaust or encompass the totality of Jewish normative obligations. It is vitally important for us to develop a rhetoric that firmly opposes intermarriage but does not depend on devaluing Gentiles. 1 www.torahleadership.org
[email protected] The Center for Modern Torah Leadership Table of Contents 1. Tzeniyut (Page 3) 2.