Isaiah or had any acquaintance with the New in universities all over the country. They have Testament. But I did not receive one anti-Semitic read books, heard lectures, participated in hate letter. Suffering, it seems, is the universal rigorous discussion and undertaken studies in the | solvent, erasing all barriers between nations, State of Israel. From the pulpit we hear messages creeds, and races. • aimed at who have not read books and par- ticipated in informed and critical discussions nor The gap between rabbis and scholars learned how to listen to lectures in a sustained and careful way. Congregants in large numbers Jacob Neusner have become sophisticated in a reading of Judaic , Every profession has its thinkers and its doers, just tradition that the rabbinate wishes to pretend has as, in the case of , we have professors of not taken place. Judaic studies and rabbis. In medicine, hospitals So a dream has come true, and the rabbis in bridge the gap between medical research and general pretend nothing has happened. Until our practice, and seminars on current developments own time Jewish learning was excluded from are important for practicing physicians. In law universities. Jewish young people could not the doers keep up with the thinkers because they undertake any aspect of Jewish studies as part of have to; it is an adversary profession, so people their normal education to adulthood. Now, in ad- have to keep learning. After nearly twenty-five dition to studies in Jewish seminaries and teachers I years of teaching in universities I have to observe colleges, scholars of Judaic studies, in many hun- that, in general, we have yet to bridge the gap dreds of colleges and universities, both Jewish and between the scholars of Judaic studies in univer- gentile, pursue full-time teaching and scholarship. sities and the pulpit rabbinate. Tens of thousands of young people in these col- To state matters simply, the pulpit rabbis with leges and universities take courses as part of a rare exceptions, pay no attention at all to the scholarly and educational work in Judaic studies Sh'ma in universities. Important books come out, which rabbis do not read. New ideas emerge in literary, a journal of Jewish responsibility historical, and religious studies of Judaism, of Editor Eugene B. Borowitz which rabbis seldom take advantage. Asst. to the Editor Yoel H. Kahn Administrator Alicia Seeger Indeed, apart from a slight interest in biblical Production CLM Graphics studies and contemporary Jewish politics, rabbis Art Abba and Moshe Spero tend to ignore that vast middle range of Jewish Contributing Editors ]. David Bleich, Balfour Brickner, experience represented by the entire corpus of Mitchell Cohen, Daniel J. Elazar, Blu Greenberg, Paula and Jewish philosophy from Hyman, Nora Levin, David Novak, Harold Schulweis, the Second to the Third Jewish Commonwealths. Steven Schwarzschild, Seymour Siegel, Sharon Strassfeld, A kind of neo-Karaism comes out of the pulpit, Elie Wiesel, Arnold Jacob Wolf, Michael Wyschogrod. which treats the rabbinic sources as a mere corpus Sh'ma welcomes articles from diverse points of view. of proof-texts to be used however one wants to Hence, the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those make a point one has thought up that morning. of the editors. Donations to Sh'ma Inc. are tax-deductible. We hear from the pulpit echoes of ideas conceived Sh'ma is available in microform from University Microfilms in another age, and we scarcely hear resonance of Internatl, Ann Arbor, Mi. a full and rich encounter with that rabbinic Address all correspondence, subscriptions and change of , canon, reopened in our own time, that marks us address notices to Box 567, Port Washington, N.Y., 11050. as distinctively Judaic: heirs of ' one whole Sh'ma (ISSN 0049-0385) is published bi-weekly except June, . July and August, by Sh'ma Inc., 735 Port Washington Blvd., Congregants Are Now Judaicly Educated Port Washington, N.Y. 11050. Subscriptions $22 for two years in U.S. and Canada; $12 a year overseas. 10 or more to one More important still, on the campus over the past address, $6 each per year. Retired or handicapped persons of quarter-century a revolution in "Jewish restricted means may subscribe at half-price. education"— the transmission of learning in Copyright ® 1984 by Sh'ma Inc. Judaism has taken place. Thousands of young POSTMASTER: Please forward Form 3579 to Box 567, Port Jews have passed through courses in Judaic studies Washington, N.Y. 11050.

JACOB NEUSNER teaches Judaic Studies at , Providence, R.I. 14/268, February 17, 1984 10 regular and normal liberal arts program. And in are important. They must continue to learn, just the Jewish community people treat these enor- as doctors and lawyers do. Second, the pro- mous events as if they had not taken place. fessors will have to undertake to address a broad audience with the scholarly results at hand. They There is no bridge between the community and have to carry on a labor not only of inquiry but the campus. There is no interchange between rab- also of popularization. They must frame the bis and professors. The exception is that rabbis of answers they present in their scholarly work in the several denominations pay attention to some such a way that the questions prove urgent to of the professors at the seminaries from which more than a handful of erudites. They must, they got their rabbinical ordination. The excep- therefore, themselves confess the humanity of the tion proves the rule. sources on which they labor, treating the sources Obstacles for Rabbis and Scholars not as a set of technical problems for technicians, Why are things as they are, and what can be but as a record of human expression and suffering done about it? The first cause is that scholarship and achievement. Third, the seminaries will have seems (and often is) remote from the pressing and to raise up a generation of rabbis who do not feel urgent tasks of the rabbi. Rabbis take up human inferior to, or put down by, professors of Jewish crises of birth, passage through life, death. What learning. difference does it make to them whether, in the Only when the rabbis respect the greatness of aggregate, the stands for one thing or their own calling will they be able to take serious- some other? They use what they need. For them, ly the promise and partnership of others in a life is the interpretation of the text. If what distinct, but contiguous calling. • scholars learn bears no clear relevance to ordinary issues of Jewish existence, it is because the A response to neusner's analysis scholars do not so frame their results as to address the audience at hand. They take up critical issues Joseph B. Glaser of Jewish existence— examples of how things have Jacob Neusner raises and describes an important been and can be— but then fail to frame those problem. I do not think it is quite as universal a issues in ways in which others can grasp. So what situation as he says. The exceptions are not all is immediate and urgent— the record of the life that "rare"— but they are exceptions. I have long of the Jewish people living in accord with that lamented the lack of serious study on the part of same Judaism that we revere— emerges from the too many colleagues, even on sabbatical! Regional scholars' study as remote. groups sometimes want technicians, such as time management experts, instead of scholars at their The second cause is that rabbis, for their part, annual kallot (conferences). Of course, they are have suffered a loss of position and authority. refused, but the trend toward allowing ourselves Federations have taken over the leadership of the to drift further and further away from the community. Important legal questions do not quintessence of our calling continues to exist. My come to the rabbi for decision. With the advent own cooperation with the "professors," enhance- of the professor of Judaic studies, the rabbi is not ment of which Jacob Neusner urges upon me and now the only one who knows. Indeed, with the my counterparts, has been cordial, proper— and development of congregations of better-informed, secondary, if not tertiary. I wish I knew a way to better-educated lay people, the rabbis' monopoly break out of the alienation. on serious interest in learning has fallen away. Call for a National Conference It is difficult indeed for rabbis to know how to deal with the new sort of Jewish authority-figure, I am not sure Jacob Neusner's triple prescription represented by the university professor of Judaic is a cure, although it does address the problems. studies. So rabbis deal the best way they know, We would need instant reciprocity and unifica- tion of concern, analysis and effort in the first which is, to pretend the professor is not present. two recommendations and perhaps the time has But she or he is present and exercises substantially come for a lengthy conference of the leadership of more influence than rabbis pretend. the three national rabbinic organizations and as Learning to Complement One Another many of the professors, young and old, as we can What is to be done? First, the rabbinical associa- get together in one place. As to his third point tions in various places will have to recognize the existence of the professors. They will further have JOSEPH B. GLASER is Executive Vice-President to take seriously the things that professors think of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. 10