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ymarkovRUPTURE AND RECONSTRUCTION:
THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONTEMPORARY ORTHODOXY
Haym Soloveitchik
Published in Tradition, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Summer 1994). Reprinted here with permission.
Haym Soloveitchik teaches Jewish history and thought in the Bernard Revel Graduate School and Stern College for Woman at Yeshiva University.
This essay is an attempt to understand the developments that have occurred within my lifetime in the community in which I live. The orthodoxy in which I, and other people my age, were raised scarcely exists anymore. This change is often described as "the swing to the Right." In one sense, this is an accurate description. Many practices, especially the new rigor in religious observance now current among the younger modern orthodox community, did indeed originate in what is called "the Right." Yet, in another sense, the description seems a misnomer. A generation ago, two things primarily separated modern Orthodoxy from, what was then called, "ultra-Orthodoxy" or "the Right." First, the attitude to Western culture, that is, secular education; second, the relation to political nationalism, i.e. Zionism and the state of Israel. Little, however, has changed in these areas. Modern Orthodoxy still attends college, albeit with somewhat less enthusiasm than before, and is more strongly Zionist than ever. The "ultra-orthodox," or what is now called the "haredi" camp is still opposed to higher secular education, though the form that the opposition now takes has local nuance. In Israel, the opposition remains total; in America, the utility, even the necessity of a college degree is conceded by most, and various arrangements are made to enable many haredi youths to obtain it. However, the value of a secular education, of Western culture generally, is still denigrated. And the haredi camp remains strongly anti-Zionist, at the very least, emotionally distant and unidentified with the Zionist enterprise. The ideological differences over the posture towards modernity remain on the whole unabated, in theory certainly, in practice generally. Yet so much has changed, and irrecognizably so. Most of the fundamental changes, however, have been across the board. What had been a stringency peculiar to the "Right" in 1960, a "Lakewood or Bnei Brak humra,” as—to take an example that we shall later discuss shiurim (minimal requisite quantities), had become, in the 1990's, a widespread practice in modern orthodox circles, and among its younger members, an axiomatic one. The phenomena were, indeed, most advanced among the haredim and were to be found there in a more intensive form. However, most of these developments swiftly manifested themselves among their co-religionists to their left. The time gap between developments in the haredi world and the emerging modern orthodox one was some fifteen years, at most.
Full article at http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm
I dug up old notes, I have no idea from when or who's class (or even if it
was a seifer I was learning) that shows that Chazal's cosmology was just that
of the non-Jewish scientists of their day.
In the days of Alexander (Tamid 31b), we believed that the world was flat.
That rules out the Ptolemeic universe. Notice also that R' Eliezer and R'
Yehushua both describe the flood (R"H 11b) as falling through the heaven onto
the earth. This is the same era in which we have the already quoted opinion
that the sun goes behind the sky at night (Pisachim 94b), and that the world
floats on the tehom, or is held above it by pillars (Chagigah 12b). The sky is
a lid that touches, or almost touches, the earth at its edges (Chagiga 15a).
All in all, a flat earth, no orbits.
Rebbe (Pisachim 94b) championed the Chachamim over the non-Jewish sages
that the "galgal" (R' Avraham b' HaRambam, the Aruch: the sphere) is fixed,
and the "mazalos" (R' Avraham b' HaRambam: contellations, although the word
move. His proof: We never see the Wagon (the Big Dipper) in the south or
Scorpio in the north. So, by the end of the tannaim, we certainly believed
that the stars were embedded in a solid sphere. Ptolmey published the same
idea in Almagest, mid-2nd cent CE, a generation before.
R' Chiya, although a talmid of Rebbe's, didn't understand that when the
non-Jews said the sun went under the earth, it was in an orbit. The b'raisa
supports that idea because "pools are warm at night". So, he thought that
the sun were closer to the pools when it was under the earth, and not
that it was going in a full circle staying a constant (or near constant)
distance.
And, of course, we know how Rishonim consistantly understood the sun
standing still for Yehoshua. Ptolemeic. Once again, like the conservative side
of scientific thought of their contemporaries.
HOWEVER,
With the exception of computing the molad, I don't think the Gemara intended
to share scientific data. Interestingly, when discussing the molad (eg:
R's Gamliel I & II and R"H 10a, 11a), observations are described -- BUT NOT
THEORY! There's no discussion (that I found) of why the moon is new every
so many of chalakim, or why the "horns" of a new moon always point the same
direction.
LAD, the discussion of astronomy in the gemara is mashal -- they were trying
to explain some hashkafic concept using ideas floating around the surrounding
culture. They didn't intend the Gemara (or B'raisa) to be a science text.
Micha Berger
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol02/v02n183.shtml#11
THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONTEMPORARY ORTHODOXY
Haym Soloveitchik
Published in Tradition, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Summer 1994). Reprinted here with permission.
Haym Soloveitchik teaches Jewish history and thought in the Bernard Revel Graduate School and Stern College for Woman at Yeshiva University.
This essay is an attempt to understand the developments that have occurred within my lifetime in the community in which I live. The orthodoxy in which I, and other people my age, were raised scarcely exists anymore. This change is often described as "the swing to the Right." In one sense, this is an accurate description. Many practices, especially the new rigor in religious observance now current among the younger modern orthodox community, did indeed originate in what is called "the Right." Yet, in another sense, the description seems a misnomer. A generation ago, two things primarily separated modern Orthodoxy from, what was then called, "ultra-Orthodoxy" or "the Right." First, the attitude to Western culture, that is, secular education; second, the relation to political nationalism, i.e. Zionism and the state of Israel. Little, however, has changed in these areas. Modern Orthodoxy still attends college, albeit with somewhat less enthusiasm than before, and is more strongly Zionist than ever. The "ultra-orthodox," or what is now called the "haredi" camp is still opposed to higher secular education, though the form that the opposition now takes has local nuance. In Israel, the opposition remains total; in America, the utility, even the necessity of a college degree is conceded by most, and various arrangements are made to enable many haredi youths to obtain it. However, the value of a secular education, of Western culture generally, is still denigrated. And the haredi camp remains strongly anti-Zionist, at the very least, emotionally distant and unidentified with the Zionist enterprise. The ideological differences over the posture towards modernity remain on the whole unabated, in theory certainly, in practice generally. Yet so much has changed, and irrecognizably so. Most of the fundamental changes, however, have been across the board. What had been a stringency peculiar to the "Right" in 1960, a "Lakewood or Bnei Brak humra,” as—to take an example that we shall later discuss shiurim (minimal requisite quantities), had become, in the 1990's, a widespread practice in modern orthodox circles, and among its younger members, an axiomatic one. The phenomena were, indeed, most advanced among the haredim and were to be found there in a more intensive form. However, most of these developments swiftly manifested themselves among their co-religionists to their left. The time gap between developments in the haredi world and the emerging modern orthodox one was some fifteen years, at most.
Full article at http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm
I dug up old notes, I have no idea from when or who's class (or even if it
was a seifer I was learning) that shows that Chazal's cosmology was just that
of the non-Jewish scientists of their day.
In the days of Alexander (Tamid 31b), we believed that the world was flat.
That rules out the Ptolemeic universe. Notice also that R' Eliezer and R'
Yehushua both describe the flood (R"H 11b) as falling through the heaven onto
the earth. This is the same era in which we have the already quoted opinion
that the sun goes behind the sky at night (Pisachim 94b), and that the world
floats on the tehom, or is held above it by pillars (Chagigah 12b). The sky is
a lid that touches, or almost touches, the earth at its edges (Chagiga 15a).
All in all, a flat earth, no orbits.
Rebbe (Pisachim 94b) championed the Chachamim over the non-Jewish sages
that the "galgal" (R' Avraham b' HaRambam, the Aruch: the sphere) is fixed,
and the "mazalos" (R' Avraham b' HaRambam: contellations, although the word
move. His proof: We never see the Wagon (the Big Dipper) in the south or
Scorpio in the north. So, by the end of the tannaim, we certainly believed
that the stars were embedded in a solid sphere. Ptolmey published the same
idea in Almagest, mid-2nd cent CE, a generation before.
R' Chiya, although a talmid of Rebbe's, didn't understand that when the
non-Jews said the sun went under the earth, it was in an orbit. The b'raisa
supports that idea because "pools are warm at night". So, he thought that
the sun were closer to the pools when it was under the earth, and not
that it was going in a full circle staying a constant (or near constant)
distance.
And, of course, we know how Rishonim consistantly understood the sun
standing still for Yehoshua. Ptolemeic. Once again, like the conservative side
of scientific thought of their contemporaries.
HOWEVER,
With the exception of computing the molad, I don't think the Gemara intended
to share scientific data. Interestingly, when discussing the molad (eg:
R's Gamliel I & II and R"H 10a, 11a), observations are described -- BUT NOT
THEORY! There's no discussion (that I found) of why the moon is new every
so many of chalakim, or why the "horns" of a new moon always point the same
direction.
LAD, the discussion of astronomy in the gemara is mashal -- they were trying
to explain some hashkafic concept using ideas floating around the surrounding
culture. They didn't intend the Gemara (or B'raisa) to be a science text.
Micha Berger
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol02/v02n183.shtml#11
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-10 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 09:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 11:21 am (UTC)"Only the extremes are logical" remarked Samuel Butler, "but they are absurd." No doubt. What is logical, however, is more readily agreed upon than what is absurd. When the mean is perceived as unconscionable compromise, the extreme may appear eminently reasonable.
On talmudic science
Date: 2007-10-11 12:57 pm (UTC)But what about when halocho is based on that science? For example, the water for matzos can not be drawn at night, as it is warmed up by the sun "from the other side" (and the evidence is the steam that appears over the water)?
Re: On talmudic science
Date: 2007-10-12 05:40 pm (UTC)Re: On talmudic science
Date: 2007-10-13 06:24 pm (UTC)Also, when students learn this halocho in yeshiva, how is it explained to them? I'm sure that in chasidic yeshivas, at least, the Talmudic science is not questioned.
Re: On talmudic science
Date: 2007-10-15 01:54 pm (UTC)No idea how this stuff is explained in regular yeshivas.