purity. This is the point made over and over again by Sh'ma Reinhold Niebuhr. (It is, incidentally, ironic and tragic that the insights of this great thinker have been forgotten so quickly). The prophet Samuel pointed a journal of Jewish responsibility out long ago that inherent in the political process is corruption and sin. Politics involves the pursuit of 3/57, SEPTEMBER 21,1973 power, and power (even its pursuit) inevitably corrupts. Does this mean withdrawal into private purity? Obviously not! It means that moralists are always needed to restore balance; to puncture self-righteous- ness, and to call for improvement.

Bringing good out of evil Furthermore, it is important to remember that good can be done even through the instrument of flawed Watergate must not mean passivity men. The help of Mayor Daley, for example, was Seymour Siegel sought by all the democratic candidates — and one does not dismiss the good of the Kennedy administration because the Mayor of Chicago might have rigged the Eugene Borowitz admirably points out the futility and election of 1960. The Chairman of the Watergate harm done to our social fabric and to our souls by Committee, who is lionized by so many, has been verbal over-kill (Sh'ma 3/56). When exaggeration dom- defending segregation during all his political life; and inates discourse (for example, when the Chairman of an important member of the Committee, Herman the Watergate Committee says that our current troubles Talmadge was one of the main rabble-rousers against are a worse tragedy than the Civil War), then the judi- civil rights. If we insist on complete flawlessness in cious person might best keep quiet. This is good advice. our political leaders, we will have no political leaders. It is also good advice to look to the institutions in Perfectionism is the bane of moralists and makes them useless in the real world. Again Reinhold Niebuhr which we are all involved so that water-gate-type could instruct us in times such as these. actions be avoided. We all know that cover-ups, decep- tion, and enemies' lists are part of almost all institutions — business, governmental, and even religious. What then should be done?

However, some words of criticism must be spoken. First, I would submit that we should maintain a sense Eugene Borowitz believes that we live in a "foul age" of balance. Here Eugene Borowitz (perhaps against his and therefore, the usual type of social action is useless will) agrees with President Nixon. To wring our hands and even immoral. What has brought about these about the end of democracy; to call America Amerika, doleful meditations? The answer, of course, — the to invoke Hider and his minions as fitting parallels to Watergate revelations. our present leaders will do more harm than good. It will blind us to the real problems and the real possibili- It is a fundamental error to believe that our own "age" ties. Let our institutions, especially the judiciary, ferret is worse than previous ones. It is a curious conceit of out those who did wrong. most people to believe that their time is worse than all previous times. But is it true? Is this administration, Furthermore, let us be fair to those who have been for example, even if it is guilty of all that is alleged accused. This, too, is a high moral responsibility. Let (which is by no means certain) worse than the us abandon double standards, giving the benefit of the Roosevelt administration which stood by while six doubt to those whom we approve and believing every million died? Is it worse, to look back to ancient times, allegation about those whom we disdain. Let us lobby than the reign of King David when the ruler was an for better laws and more vigilance so that the type of adulterer and a murderer, surrounded by evil counse- abuses which have been uncovered might be avoided lors? The answer is. obviously "no." Our ancestors did in the future. not withdraw because the times were bad. Most of all, let us get on with the business of tlfc coun- It is a fundamental error of those who indulge in try; acting like mature people who know that the world moralizing to believe that valid political action can only is not perfect (least of all, we ourselves), but that in an take place in an atmosphere of complete political imperfect world there is still a great deal to be done. 129 A girl my own age sat next to me — she was already Thirteen, an age for contrition married and a mother and she cried during parts of the Susan Sachs service. What did she have to confess? If I understood the Al Chet at all, it represented a sense of national Defining thirteen as "the age when G-d was omnipotent guilt — that we as a people were assuming a kind of and ethereal," Cynthia Haft asks, "who . . . can still responsibility for all those amongst us who might have affirm he knows thirteen?" (Sh'ma 3/44). done such terrible things. But one wasn't all that respon- sible. As for my personal relationship to G-d, I still I know thirteen. fervently believed that increasing the number and I first knew thirteen when I was twelve, for my family quality of my "good" deeds would ward off all harm said that thirteen began a year earlier for girls. I wore to myself; I sensed a great control over my own destiny, a sky blue wool-jersey dress ( made by my mother) and my proof was in having arrived safely in Eretz that Yom Tov, with my first pair of sheer nylons; Yisrael, able to share this day with the privileged black leather flats; and my first tube of "Powder Pink" "remnant" — even trying to identify with them. Good lipstick. I also fasted for the first time, and Bubby was deeds brought such rewards. But still the dark days pleased by that — if not by the rest. Unlike Cynthia kept coming — for this remnant had endured the Haft, when I walked home I met no one wearing European furnaces despite their life-long piety; and sneakers, since nobody I knew was aware of a prohibition what then could I hope for? against leather shoes on . And I met no Chassidim — my family having quite assured me that the last of the Chassidim were long since dead and buried. (The only possible exception was a far-off Sh'ma rebbe whom my Bubby went to visit in Pittsburgh on a journal of Jewish responsibility occasion.) Editor Eugene B. Borowitz Asst. Editor Mark 5. Golub During the temple services I sat with my family, read- Administrator Alicia Seeger ing as much of the machzor as I could in English, since Fellows Jonathan Groner, Hannah Koevary, my Hebrew learning had been brief and discontinued Arlene Pianko, Lester A. Reingold, Ori Z. Soltes. by then; but even in English I could not understand it. Art AlLorenz Yet I read intently, indeed fearing Divine wrath if I did Production Photo Graphics not conclude certain portions laid out for myself. That Contributing Editors J. David Bleich, Balfour Brickner, day I felt good, for the self-proscribed passages conclu- Harry Gersh, Irving Greenberg, Benjamin Halpern, ded and the fast completed. Later that year, and the Arthur Hertzberg, Norman Lamm, Richard Levy, next though, the dark days began coming, and I did not Henry Schwarzchild, Steven Schwarzchild, David Sidorsky, know if I could ever accomplish what I wanted because Seymour Siegel, Charles Silberman, Elie Wiesel, of expected punishment for sins I can no longer recall. Arnold Jacob Wo//, Michael Wyschogrod.

Thirteen in jerusalem Sh'ma welcomes articles from diverse points of view. Hence articles present only the views of the author, not I knew thirteen again when I was twenty and my search those of the editors. Send editorial material to: Box 959, for roots had taken me to Jerusalem. Chassidim, I Ansonia Station, New York, N.Y., 10023. discovered, were alive and well thank G-d, at least in We print typos that do not obscrue the meaning. New York and Meah Shearim. Yom Kippur that year I Send business letters to: Box 567, Port Washington, N.Y. spent in Meah Shearim, wearing a white and navy 11050. Sh'ma is published bi-weekly except June, July, and third-hand cotton dress, received from a cousin in Israel August by Sh'ma, Inc. Office of publication: 735 Port who had received it in a "care" package from the States. Washington BlvA, Port Washington, N.Y. 11050. I used no make-up and wore the heavy stockings that Subscription $10.00 for 2 years in U.S.A and Canada; most Chassidic women in that shul wore, with sneakers; $15.00 overseas. Institutional bulk (10 or more copies to and altogether I could have "passed." I even davened one address) $2.50 each per year. Copyright 1973 by Sh'ma, Inc. in Hebrew by then, although I still did not understand the confessional at all — neither in Hebrew nor in- POSTMASTER: Please forward Form 3579 to Box 567, Port Washington, N.Y. 11050. English. Not that I was perfect — not by a long shot — but my felt transgressions were not illustrated by the Second class postage paid at Port Washington, N.Y. words of the Al Chet. 3/57, September 21,1973 130 An understanding that adds to thirteen Kippur service lingered momentarily above us before I now know what the A 2 Chet means: signaling our exit. First to leave was the entire gradu- ating class in the Hebrew School: Leon, Rachel, Judy "For the sin we have committed against thee by and I. Outside the air was heavy with late September embezzlement." I spend the morning mentally fabri- humidity. Periodically during the service we had heard cating what our family budget would be like if we the militant beating of torrents against the stained excluded the amount apportioned for tz'dakah, and I glass, but now the night was quiet and misty. We were count the extra money to myself. But my husband, convinced that the change in weather was part of the unaware of this, spends our money as usual — including Divine plan to vouchsafe the homeward passage of the the checks to tz'dakah — and I know I don't deserve worshippers. There was, we reasoned together, purpose that good fortune. in the gentle mist: the drops, the accumulation from two thousand years of Jewish suffering, cleansed and "For the sin we have committed against thee with purified Jewish souls. violence." During the day the moments of rage intensify I against those who have been most unkind to us. I The moment the Kol Nidre chanting had been com- visualize their home ablaze. I move quickly to another pleted, in anticipation of the annual appeal for increas- thought — of all the words I want to spear them with, ed identity with Jewish causes, the four of us had that I might devastate them verbally. But when we vowed to rededicate our lives to and to seek next meet, it's a Sabbath afternoon, and my words God in our every endeavor. We planned to fast without | become, "A gutten Shabbos, " as they return the even a drop of water touching our lips. We must know | greeting, suffering in order to purify our souls. Unlike other t nights when we had attended services, we would not "For the sin which we have committed against thee tonight jest about our beloved 's thespian inter- with the evil imagination." Ah yes. But that evening pretations of prayers nor would we analyze the moti- as I step into the mikvah it is all dissolved. vations of the large crowd he drew. No, we reasoned together, there would be none of that tonight. Who I understand the AI Chet, and still know Thirteen. but we fourteen year olders better knew the paths of Thirteen is gratitude for the fantasies that the Ribbono righteousness? On this Sabbath of all Sabbaths we shel Olam shut out, or whose realization He prevented. would not stray by excoriating the faceless hypocrites And thirteen is prayer that in the future I will be able whose very presence overheated the already oppress- to cope without resorting to the untamed thought or ively hot air in the sanctuary. No. None of that tonight. word or deed. The time is lost, I admit, when I was We strolled and we talked. First about the meaning of certain that each action of mine led to a direct and fasting; then about food, kosher food, of course; then proportionate re-action from the Almighty. His equa- about the new suits and dresses in which the congre- tions of cause and effect have become too complicated gants had been attired; and then about God's intention for me. I have nursed my ill children and known in establishing the Yom Kippur. We reasoned together innocents afflicted. Despite this — in fact, because of that it was to bring together, men and women, this — because I cannot hope to bargain as repeatedly boys and girls for penitence and a kind of group therapy, as before (If I perform such-and-such a good action, It was a social experience. After a none too lengthy will You please grant. ..) and because I can only hope deliberation we decided to clasp one another's hands to plead, (Please help us, in spite of our failings ...) in a Jewish unity, certainly in keeping with God's because His ways are so unsearchable and there is no intention that Yom Kippur would be a day of social seeming proportion to either the rewards or the punish- unity for Jews. So united we skipped, sang Zionist ments — He is even more omnipotent and ethereal songs, even danced. than when I first knew thirteen.

When providence kisses fourteen year olds It was the dancing that changed the course of the even- ing. Somehow in crossing a street Leon and Rachel Fourteen: an age for trembling broke away from Judy and me. Instead of one union, Norman M. Chansky there now were two What an unusual and mysterious feeling stirred within each of us. Fright creeped up my The whispered "v'yasem Vcha shalom" (and give you left arm but joy jumped from my right hand to Judy's peace) concluding the rabbi's blessings and the Yom right h*>nd. Certainly we reasoned together that

131 Providence brought us together in this wonderful way Then a voice, a deep, throaty voice blew sounds through so that we may express our piety. the cantor's microphone. These sounds resounded through the loud speaker system and hit one wall and Thus coupled we turned down one street then another. rebounded against another. "Aryeh Lev," it proclaimed, Before too long we returned to the very spot we had "Arise / Bend thy knees / Cover thy face with thy started from, Temple B 'nei Yisrael. Again we reasoned hands / Repent / Whereupon four breathless youths together that God directed our steps back to the house sped through carpeted aisles and into the street. Once of worship. Admittedly this was a mere hypothesis again we reasoned together that God works in strange- until a downpour swept us up the Temple stairs. As we ly, marvellous ways, too complicated for a fourteen reached the top stair a crack of lightning zipped through year older to understand. the sky as if punctuating God's sentence with an exclaim- ation point. The loud burst of thunder that followed was so frightening that we tugged at the door to alleviate our terror. And the door was unlocked. Was Adulthood: an age (or turning this another of His messages to us? Arnold Jacob Wo//

We cautiously entered the sanctuary. It was dark and The term baal t'shuvah can mean many things. It means empty. Only an hour ago it had been populated by a a repentant sinner, a former evil-doer who has gone heavily breathing gathering of mumblers. The lights straight; it means simply a less-observant or non-obser- illuminated in a way they had never done before. Now vant Jew who has become (more) observant. The latter | all was quiet and black except for the flickering eternal term applies to me. I have in the last year or so tried to j light, undoubtedly talking to us in some divine Morse observe the Halakah more or less strictly, keeping code which we had not learned in Hebrew School. Leon kashrut and with care for the details of tradi- > thought it best that we establish ourselves in different tional observance. I do not, for instance, ride, write or ' rows and in different sectors of the sanctuary. He and answer the telephone on the Sabbath any more, though Rachel walked forward and dissappeared into the dark- I cannot (yet?) say that I observe Shabbat like Rabbi ness. Judy and I sat in the same back row seats we Moshe Feinstein. In the sense that I have recovered a occupied during the service. Each of us groping for some good many traditional, halakhic norms I am, I guess, security in the dark moved close to one another. By a repentant Jew. some strange command from Providence our lips met in a kiss, the memory of its exquisiteness lingers within me yet. "God's will," I thought to myself as I squirmed Which is not to say that I was previously a bad Jew, in an attempt to loosen the muscles in my body which or a non-Jew. For me Sabbath and Holy Days, command- ; had suddenly become painfully tight. Those muscles ment and custom always meant a great deal. I observed simply would not relax. I excused myself and ran down at least what my family has for several generations, the first available staircase. adding a few obligations through several recent decades. My grandmother, for instance who was born in Cleveland A divine message before the Civil War, never in her life ate hazir, although My heart was thumping out a new African rhythm. My she had never even heard that shell fish were forbidden. hands were moist and slippery. My entire body was as She did not sew or wash clothes on Saturday, though heavy and sticky as clay. I wandered about in the dark- she drove to services and used the phone (after it was ness until pangs of guilt seized me. I had left Judy invented, of course) without any sense of violating alone in the back row. I reached for a wall and negotia- Jewish law. To judge by my own family, Reform ted a path that eventually led to a staircase. I ascended had apocopated Jewish halakah, but never acted as if the stairs only to discover that it led to the pulpit. there were no law. We felt that Jews must observe the laws of our religion, but we did not know all of the Fixing my eye on the fluttering eternal light a strange traditional formulations, and perhaps did not want to sensation seized me. Perhaps it was a divine message. know. I suppose we thought of traditional Jews as the I sensed my lips quivering and my hands gesturing fanatical wing of our religious group, but we never felt uncontrollably. In a moment the curtain of the Holy we belonged to a different people or another faith than Ark clanged across its rod revealing four bejewelled theirs. scintillating in the artificial light. Like soldiers they stood upright to fight the moral battles for all Halakah: the jew's distinctive jewel mankind. My uncle and teacher, Rabbi Felix Levy of Chicago, 132 spent much of his life urging that Reform Judaism ladder. Convenience, conformity and attractiveness to recover halakah if it was to remain authentically Jewish. a non-Jewish ethos, become the marks of acceptability. In what has always seemed to me an unanswerable In my view, there can no longer be any standard not position, he identified anti-nomianism as Pauline and itself Jewish by which one can decide whether or not insisted that any kind of religious Jews at all simply to perform a traditional Jewish act. had to observe traditional law or forfeit their essential differentia. Personally, he was moderately and for most Correcting the errors of classical reform of his life increasingly, observant, though at his most In the second place, whatever is left of Reform biblicism rigorous he hardly practiced more than many Conserva- must be overcome. In my Reform Jewish family, tive Jews do. But he was unmistakable in his position Kashrut meant Biblical kashrut; commandments often that obedience to the halakah is the conditio sine qua menat the Ten Commandments, never the 613. For non of being a Jew, or at least a religious Jew. many Reform Jews, Isaiah is normative, though it is hard to say exactly what he demanded, but Baba Kamma, Influenced strongly by him and by the writing of Franz even had it been studied, was not. Officially, and un- Rosenzweig, I wrote in a Commentary symposium some officially, Reform Judaism committed itself to the years ago that we were all walking along Jew Street on Bible as standard, thus taking a position with Luther which we found a number of jewels (commandments) or the Karaites, against all of Judaism since the Pharisees. of various sizes and shapes. Those we could pick up we For us new Jews the standard is not the Bible but The had to pick up. There should be no guilt for what we Tradition as a whole. were unable (not merely unwilling) to appropriate, but failing to pick up a commandment we could was wrong. The slogan of Reform, and not merely Reform Judaism, This is, I believe, neither precisely a Reform nor an has been "Judaism as Ethical Monotheism." In the late Orthodox position, but one congenial to a good many twentieth century both of these terms have turned of us who think that all such labels are odious, especially problematic. It seems to us harder to be ethical than it after the destruction of our European brothers without did a hundred years ago, and "monotheism" seems to regard to their sectarian affiliations. In any case, it tries us an Hellenic term for something far richer and more to be a theology for Jews on their way back. complex, authentic Judaism. God is, of course, one, but for us the Sh'ma is not only a credo, but a task; Several Reform Jewish assertions are denied by my tefillin, morning and evening recitation, tallit, the whole model. There can be now, as Eugene Borowitz has panoply of obligation connected with "monotheism" taught many of us, no principle above Judaism by but more connected with our own questions and our which Judaism can be judged. Reform Jews often deci- own quest. ded what to obey by reference to Kantian norms or to the aesthetics of the Central European bourgeoisie. In So I had abandoned much of the baggage of Classical America, obedience often depended on whether or not Reform some even that my family had kept, however the law separated us from our non-Jewish compatriots, doubting its usefulness. But I was still living, more or on whether or not it helped us move up the American less, like a Reform Jew. I was serving a Reform Congre- gation and that, I felt, meant living in a way mostly congruent with my community's. But I desired and still desire to work with all kinds of Jews, to be free to live a more intense Jewish experience than suburban liberalism permits. So I came to Yale Hillel and to a new intimacy with the dilemmas and glories of the halakah. It was a case of put your money where your mouth is! I felt that I could no longer advocate tradi- tion without tasting more of it for myself. I became an experimental baal t'shuvah.

The disappointments of being an orthodox jew My experiment is not an unqualified success — at least not yet. Whatever I hoped for in accepting more tradi- tional Jewish life, and I can no longer quite recall what it was, my dreams have not come true.

L'shana tovah tikatayva v'taychataymu I do not like myself, particularly in my new persona 133 of Orthodox Jew. As Adin Steinsalz, the great Israeli some) of my sins of commission, but I have little time scholar and himself a baal T'shuvah, said here: when Ito think about the vast areas that I skip because I don't I look in the mirror in the morning I do not like the have the time or will to pay attention. It is easy to face I see. Said Steinsaltz: it is the face of those I used know when you use the wrong knife, but not when to despise, and now that face is mine. For me, the you hurt a friend. My knives are still kosher (I hope), transition to observant Jew has not made me (yet?) a but I am beginning to worry more about my tongue, more likeable or more decent person. In the short run my hands and my heart, again. at least, I think it has often worked quite the other way. Potential evils of orthodox living I find myself very proud of my new commitments, Out of this phenomenology of "repentance" emerges using them to avoid some difficult old ones, political certain new tasks. I do not propose to retreat to a and personal alike. In short, I am what some Reform classical nineteenth century ethicism, but am seeking Jews call all Orthodox Jews: a hypocrite. I do not a twentieth century post-liberal ethical alternative. perform the commandments for the sake of Heaven, The halakah never was and cannot now be a substitute at least not often, but for the sake of my image and self- for compassion or for simple humanity. The hardest image. Keeping kosher has not made me more disciplined thing about becoming an Orthodox Jew, said Rabbi or kind; it has reinforced certain narcissistic and com- Steinsaltz, is living with Orthodox Jews. (The same is pulsive aspects of my character. I am not a better true, of course, about living with Reform Jews — or, I husband or father or teacher or friend; I am only a more should guess, with Zen Buddhists, as well). Kosher observant Jew. Is that enough, or am I doing something meat means meeting the Kosher butchers; Shabbat in basic and doing it wrong? an Orthodox synagogue means hearing sermons that I find that I invariably emphasize negative over positive come very close to racism and are always ethnocentric. commandments. I am oppressively aware of what I Working with the k lal means sharing your fate with cannot do on Shabbat, so that the day becomes not people with whom you have had precious little in joyous and devout, but clouded over by fear of doing common, except that which was most important, that the wrong thing. Kashrut has not made our family both of you are Jews. It is a difficult task to love Jews; table an altar but, more often a court-room or a debat- it is a harder task to love Jews without also hating ing society. Some of this, obviously, reflects the inevi- Arabs, Blacks or the United Nations. I don't want to table anxiety of the neophyte, but I see a good many pay for my new spiritual goals with the counterfeit more seasoned observant Jews who also seem to be tender of reaction or of pride. doing more and enjoying it less. On the other hand, Our traditional s'darim last Pesach, were magnificent the very difficulty of the halakah seems to me part of in their fullness of tradition. For the first time in my its essential usefulness. If I had been flying after a few life I had the joy that comes only from doing something; months of obedience to the , I would have thought in a way you consider right.But my wife had spent days:' myself fatuous or self-hypnotized, In a curious way, I and weeks getting the house and kitchen ready for our am glad that it is not much fun yet, though whether that Yale Seder and that wasn't fair. In my grandmother's betokens my native masochism or is inevitable in learn- time, the "help" did the dirty work; now we cannot ing a new way of life, I am not certain. count on Black women to do our mitzvot for us. Rabbi I find myself emphasizing the commandments between David Bleich tells me that much of what we sweated man and God as against those between man and man. out (actually she sweated out), we didn't have to do I sweat out the ritual more than the ethical, though at all. One must learn the Law better than I have, to my post-Reform position tells me that there is no find the simple, direct way of obedience. I'm sure he ultimate distinction between the two; I feel hypocriti- is right, but I also think that much Orthodox piety cal in this case, too. While Cambodia and Watergate rests on male chauvinist pillars. We daven and study exploded last summer, I was worried about kashering and qvell, while our wives do the dirty work. Women a knife or talking to a kid with a problem on Saturday. enslaved in the kitchen cannot validate a Seder in which I read (in Jonathan Eybeschutz, as a matter of fact) all Jews become free men. For me, learning to do some that the confessional of Yom Kippur does not even of what my grandfather thought was women's work, mention ritual infractions because God is concerned on may be harder than to learn to do what he thought was the Great White Fast Day only with what we have the duty only of an Orthodox Jew. But the New Tradi- done to help or hurt our fellowman. Would I be able to tionalism, I believe, requires new commitments, like talk to Him only about what I had been eating or how Women's Liberation, in order to make old ones, like I said my prayers? I am punctilious about (at least Pesach, possible.

134 The new traditionalism considers all 613 for "the time for friendship" by Werner Cahnman? Another new task is the recovery of lost mitzvot. There (Sh'ma 3/52). Who does not feel the pull of "being is a lot of concern in the circles I now move in for with" the remnant of German Jewry and what is left Sabbath and kashrut, but none about even so central or rebuilt of the Jewish presence in Germany? It is not a commandment as hospitality. Hakhnasat orchim is racism, it is not hate. It is a deep, deep hurt that cries the task of every Jew. There are voluminous materials out every time we think — and then we know . . . the about this commandment of welcoming strangers, experience is so enormous that a mere human cannot some of which I studied only because of a course on it come to terms with it. Time must heal. I helped teach — in Yale's Divinity School. Most of our synagogues and community organizations studious- A correct (a good German word for a German problem) ly ignore the obligation of hospitality, as if it were not attitude vis a vis Germany and its history, if not its one of the precious 613.1 suspect there are many such people free of hate but full of tears, is the only answer "unknown" commandments. The New Traditionalism I can live with. German generations, past and present, must ferret them out, seeking always a link between have been and are my fellow human beings. They are, ritual tasks and human implication. Hermann Cohen not yet, my friends. was right, I believe, when he taught that the command- Al Ronald ments were all ethical, and he was surely correct about Harrison, N.Y. his principal example, the Sabbath. A time to help, a'time to remember We must learn to do old commandments in new ways, In reading Ms. Aviv Chavurat's description of her bayit's or, what is I believe even more important, new command- difficulty in reciting the closing lines of Birkat Ha-Mazon ments in old ways. The liberal ideal of scientific scholar- (The Blessing Of The Meal), "I was young and I was ship must be linked to the traditional of old yet I never saw a righteous man forsaken or his Torah. We university graduates, we scholars child seeking bread" (Sh'ma 3/54), I recalled one and scientists and modern bureaucrats must learn.how Friday night when I had dinner with the Orthodox to learn. We must find out how it is possible to be a Chief Rabbi of , Dr. Joseph Carlebach. Rabbi traditional Jewish disciple of the wise without sacri- Carlebach, about whom it is said that his family met ficing any of our intellectual integrity or scientific him at his office whenever he received his regular acumen. Old wine in new bottles is tastier than new salary lest he spend it on the needy before reaching wine in old bottles ever could be. home, explained the verse "Naar hayiti..." in the following way, Our agenda is long. There is much work to do. The baal t'shuvah contributes not only his new enthusiasms "It is not true," he said, "that the righteous never go and his new loyalty, but also his doubts, his scruples, hungry. The verse means: 'I was once young, now I am his fear. In the end, I hope to be no mere repentant grown old, and I could not (bear) see(ing) a righteous "sinner," no mere proud traditionalist, but, at last, man go hungry or his children begging bread.' I had to help." a Jew. I have always recited the verse in this sense. It fits in the context: (a) we must trust in God, who will respond; ... but others say ... (b) with regard to others, we must not say, "let them trust in God," but we must help, becoming partners with God, the instruments of His help; and (c) this Not yet a time for forgiveness concludes with: May God give strength ..., that we The German experience cannot be approached in terms may do what we are supposed to do. Thus, the whole of hate and love, or forgiveness and revenge. For most paragraph becomes a marvelous conclusion of a satisfy- or us survivors, Germany is a language. Each German ing dinner, releasing us to trust in God and to do our word carries within itself a very special, unique mean- duty as God's helpers. ing — a memory unlike any other relationship between man and land, a memory of sounds and smells and Rabbi Carlebach was deported by the Nazis and mur- terror. Although no nation state has ever faced up to dered. In reciting the verse and thinking of his interpre- its collective responsibility like Germany after World tation, the members of the Chavurah will honor the War II, Germany calls forth emotions and pains which memory of a very great Jew as well. cannot heal in the time span of our generation. Leo Trepp ... and yet. How can one not agree with the lofty call Napa, California 135 A time for righteousness a grand scale, e.g. the horrors of Biafra, Vietnam, mass Some understand the closing paragraph of Birkat Ha- . starvation in Africa and Asia, mass massacres, etc.... Mazon as follows. "I was a young man; I have grown are made intensely personal tragedies for each of us as old; and I have never seen a man because he is righteous we see and experience them on our television sets, as go hungry ..." Perhaps, this understanding of the we open the morning's newspaper to see the heart- phrase will remove some of the tension in reciting it. rending pictures of little African children, all bones, begging an airlift pilot for food, as we see little child- David Scheinfeld ren screaming over the body of their dead mother New York, N.Y. killed in Vietnam.

The inferiority complex of american orthodox jewry Rabbi Norman Lamm pointed this out in The Royal Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits (Sh'ma 3/55), like some other Reach: "Just as the felicity of God's presence is leaders of American Orthodox Jewry, claims, "Why, in coercive and curbs the freedom to disobey, so the a single Vilna, Warsaw, Kovno . . . there was more opposite — the misfortune of His absence — is coercive Jewish vitality, idealism, creative potential and actual- and denies us the freedom to obey and believe . .. ity, authentic day-to-day Jewish living than there is When He withdraws from us and abandons us, it even today in all of American Jewry." requires a superhuman act of faith to believe and obey and pray and repent. In a word, we are not I believe that the sectors of the American Jewish morally responsible for lack of faith brought on by community committed to tradition and observance existential coercion." are carrying out an extraordinarily innovative and exciting experiment with little parallel in . Obviously, these have been difficult times.Yet the We live in an open society in which each of us is free, fact that so many American Jews - in increasing as our European ancestors never were, to choose any numbers — are affirming their own personal bond to life-style we fancy, any degree of assimilation or their people and their religion is a sign of great Jewish religious commitment we desire. This generation is vitality. The ways in which individual Jews are harmon- testing the degree to which Jews committed to tradi- izing their multi-faceted commitments — to Judiasm, tion can also live as integrated members of a secular to life in a secular United States, and hopefully to a society — contributing to the betterment of that better American society and a better world in the best society and gaining from intellectual and social involve- of the Jewish tradition — are an indication of excep- ment with it. The fact that so many Jews in the United tional Jewish idealism and creative potential. States have lived lives committed to the traditions of Judaism, freely choosing to strive for an element of There is a great Jewish experiment in the United holiness in a singularly secular society, is an extraordi- States. There is no reason for anyone to apologize or nary tribute to American Jewry. feel guilty. There is too much constructive work to be done. Jacob Worenklein, New York, N.Y. More important, it can well be argued that the enthu- siastic acceptance of Jewish tradition and practice in the United States today (or indeed in any country) is SUSAN SACHS is working toward an advanced degree inherently more difficult than it was in the days of the in English Literature at Temple University. great communities to which Rabbi Berkovits referred. The recent Holocaust is the most obvious and important NORMAN M. CHANSKY teaches educational psycho- example. But the infliction of suffering continues on logy at Temple University. 136