THE JEWISH OBSERVER Chairn1an 5 Beekman Street I New York

TAMMUZ, 5731/JUNE,1971 VOLUME VII, NUMBER 7 THE EWISH FIFTY CENTS BS ERV ER On Jewish Militancv How Jewish Is v101ence? .. lormauzation" - Astrategy in Seit-defeat also: community controls on Extravagance: Time tor Revival? second Looks in u.s. and Israel THE JEWISH QBSERVER In this issue . .. COMMUNITY CONTROLS ON EXTRAVAGANCE> IS IT TIME TO REVIVE THEM?. Lewis Brenner 3 ON JEWISH MILITANCY> How JEWISH IS VIOLENCE'. Moshe Sokol. 8 "NORMALIZATION" -A STRATEGY IS SELF·DEFEAT, David Meyers .............................. 13 SOMEWHERE ... ANOTHER JEW IS FASTING, a poem by Mendel Weinbach ............................ 12 REFLECTIONS ON A SUMMER SCENE, Shelomoh E. Danziger. 17 SABBATH OBSERVANCE> A FOUNDATION FOR THE REBUILDING OF THE LAND. from an essay by Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin ...................... 18 BOOKS IN REVIEW> JEWISH CEREMONIAL ART AND RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE ...........•...••.....•...••.... 22 THE ROYAL TABLE> AN OUTLINE OF THE DIETARY LAWS OF ISRAEL. • • • . • . • . 23 THE JEV."JSH OBSERVER is published monthly, except Aug. and Sept., by the Agudath Israel of America, SECOND LoOKS AT THE JEWISH SCENE> 5 Beekman Street, New York, A MAN OF THE CLOTH CoMPLAINS New York 10038. Second clas.~ 24 postage paid at New York, N. Y. UN·CoNVENTIONAL LEADERSHIP ..••............. 25 Subscription: $5.00 per year; Two years, $8.50; Three years, $12.00: SEE You IN THE NEWS PAPERS ................ 26 outside of the United States, $6.00 DISTURBING WHISPERS per year. Single copy, fifty cents. 28 Printed in the U.S.A. NOT HIRSUTABLE FOR THE PULPIT .............. 29 RABBI NtSSON WOLPIN Editor SPECIAL OFFER! Editorial Board DR. ERNEST L. BODENHEIMER THE JEWISH OBSERVER Chairn1an 5 Beekman Street I New York. N. Y. 10038 RABBI NATHAN BULMAN 0 ;"iE\'t' Sl'BSCRIPiJON: 8;) - l \t'ar of J.O. RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS 'Plu,- S:3 -Gallery of Portr:db of Gerlolci Yb.rot'!: fHf;f;: JOSEPH fRIEDEN$0N 0 RENE\\.AL: :312 for ;; ,car:< of J.O. Plu.~ S3 · Gi1l1Pry of Por1rai1~ of G1·dolt>i YL.rot>I: FH.f;H.' RABBI YAAKOV JACOBS O GIFT: ~S - l n~ar; S8.:)0, 2 yr~.: Sl2, :; )T~. of RABBI !\10SHE SHERER J.O. Pin.~ ;}J.Gnller~' of Pnrtraib of Gt>dolei Yi~roel: FHf,'f;: Send /11al{nzirte to: Ser1d Portruit.~ to: THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not assume responsibility for the l\"an1e /'liame Kashrus of any product or service advertised in its pages. Address .. Address City ... State .... Zip ... Cit)·.. .... -... :-ilate 7,ip ... JUNE, 1971 VOL. VII, NO. 7 0 Enclosed: S ... D Hill me: .S .... D Serie.~ I 0 Serie.~ II P""ud '" GROSS RROS. P""""g foe. Lewis Brenner Community Control on Extravagance Is it Time to Revive Them? HE NEED FOR SOME CONTROL over extra ments that n1akc a potential shiducli scern n1orc T vagance and ostentation is almost as old as like an industrial merger than a sacred union be Jewish history; but today a crisis has been precipi tween two young people. Somehow, in spite of the tated by the recession which, on top of the re.cent flashing dollar signs, the higher purposes of matri spiraling of spending and lack of restraint, now in mony usually do prevail. but rhe burden of the vests every Jewish simchah with potential disaster. tnayim- the financial conditions of the betrothal - This is especial! y true as concerns our middle-class often remain as a staggering load long after the citizens and their efforts to keep up with their chips of broken glass are swept away and forgot wealthier' neighbors in the luxuriousness of their ten. Many a ''hain1ishe mcntsch," in an effort to homes and the elaborateness of their sirnchos, an gain a son-in-law of stature, has mortgaged his very attempt that too often leads to impoverishment. life by making impossible pledges of support. Numerous people have even suffered physical and The stress on the opulence of a joyous occasion mental breakdowns brought on by the inability to too often distracts from the focal point of the make good on pre-wedding pledges. This problem is simchah - the bride and groom, the bar mitzvah so serious in Eretz Yisrocl that a public outcry has boy - or from the spiritual value of the event. In resulted the formation in Bnai Brak of a committee spite of our better instincts, it has ahnost become to regulate private spending and "promising." impossible to think of a wedding ceremony with The desire to ena~le a scholar to remain in the out visualizing each blessing recited under the "four ells of Torah" is surely a noble one but nuptial canopy. being punctuated by the pop of a when the measure of personal sacrifice required is flashbulb, or to conceive of a pidyon haben - bar excessive, something should be done to keep things mitzvah - wedding - (funeral') reception without in check. It is one of the tragedies of our time that sculptured egg salads and decorative smoked-fish we have not been able to police ourselves and con platters. We cannot simply dismiss last year's ex fine our aspirations to our means. Jf we cannot cesses as vulgarity; they just might turn out to be discipline ourselves with our own modesty and our this year's newest rage and next year's staple item. own sense of proportion, then it may well be Tastes are peculiar to individual people and specific necessary to establish public commissions to regu settings. The excesses must be examined in terms late the scope and nature of our personal celebra of the expenses involved, and on this basis alone it tions. (Once so empowered, this commission could appears obvious that they beg to be trimmed, and also take steps to establish more substantial fellow even controlled. ships and scholarships than the nominal $45 week ly stipends that more generous kolelim award their Also in need of some subduing is the preliminary fellows - an amount that was woefully inadequate scouting, crafty negotiating and subsequent pay- even in the mid-40's when this fee was initially establish ed.) RABBI BRENNER, a musmach of Mesifta Torah Vodaath, has served as rabbi in several New Jersey communities. He now resides Such measures may sound radical and meddle in Brooklyn, and is active in communal affairs. some, but they have roots in our history - in The Jewish Observer I June, 1971 3 national kehilla that governed communal affairs in IJAYENll BY HENRY LEONARD Eastern Europe (listed in the fragments of the Pinkas in the year 1659 and again in the year 1703) forbidding the wearing of certain types of ~c: clothing in observance of national mourning over the troubles of that era ... The Cossack massacres of 1648 were followed by a host of ordinances curbing festivities throughout Poland and Lithuan ia - such as the ordinance of the Vaad of Lithuan ia in 1650 forbidding the playing of musical instru ments in Jewish homes for a period of one year ... To this very day musical instruments are not played at religious weddings in the City of Jerusa lem as an expression of mourning for the destruc tion of the Temple. If, following these earlier examples, we were to endeavor to commemorate in even infinitesimal measure our own national disaster of 19 39-194 5, we would find ourselves with the insoluble dilem ma of where and how to begin the monumental task. What abstention, what rigorous restriction could possibly express the depth of our national mourning? And, then again, why have no attempts Talmudic days - during the Second Common been made? Perhaps we have not yet fully assessed wealth and in the second Babylonian exile (when the loss of the Holocaust and we have therefore the Gemora says "Rav mangid," Rav flogged trans failed to respond to the need to commemorate it gressors of Rabbinic regulations) - and later under properly; or perhaps we have been too preoccupied the different kehilos that regulated communities in with rebuilding to look backward for inspiration our various golus situations. As much as these toward sobriety; or perhaps some of those who golus situations may change, human nature is un have suffered most would just rather forget. flaggingly consistent, an4 judging from copies of old ordinances that are still available and from the Clothing of Distinction literature surrounding these takanos, the reasons for these old laws mirror so1ne current concerns. ANY OTHER THEMES AND MOTIVES can M also be detected in measures to control extra vagance. One was the warding off of assimilation: Commemorative Restraints "lo seilclw bechukos hagoy." EWISH HISTORY JS REPLETE with suffer Some of the laws specified the motive for their J ing and tragedy and the Jewish calendar is enactment. Others left it to the imaginations or marked with commemorations of them - in the observations of the community members. The observance of fast-days, in the abstention from Vaad Arba Aratzos, meeting at the annual fair frivolity, and in the curtailment of festivity. In called a Gromnitz near Lublin, in 1607, stated that addition, there were periods in our history when the communities were to enact laws to ensure that luxurious living generally was limited by Rabbini the men and women would not wear the clothing cal ordiance. The Mishnah in Sot ah (49a) recounts of the Gentiles, and that they would not follow the various decrees during the Hasmonean dynasties styles of immodesty set by the Gentiles. They that limited the wearing of gold crowns by brides wanted the Jews to be distinctive in their attire. In and grooms ... The Gemora in Baba Basra ( 60b) most cases this distinction was voluntary and re speaks of an abstention from eating meat quired very little enforcement. In other communi ... Fifteen hundred years later there were similar ties, these laws needed constant re-enactment and ordinances by the· Vaad Arba Aratzos, the supra- admonition (which indicates that they unfortu- 4 The Jewish Observer! June, 1971 atcly were often honored in the breach).

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