Jeremy Rosen
Varieties of Jewish Belief from Fundamentalism to Atheism: Does it Matter?

Jeremy Rosen - Varieties of Jewish Belief from Fundamentalism to Atheism: Does it Matter?

- Hello, everybody from New York at midday. Controversial subject today, and I’ll try to make it as controversial as I possibly can. I’m going to start with a little bit of history, because the fact of the matter is that we have always been, a stiff-necked people, so the Bible says, we’ve always been argumentative and we’ve always fought each other. So if you think this is unusual, what you are seeing in Israel today, I want to assure you that that’s the norm rather than the exception. And the remarkable thing is that it hasn’t exploded before because when I was a young man in Israel in 1962, Dr. Yaakov Herzog, who at the time was the, head of the Prime Minister’s office, the son of the first Chief Rabbi of of the State of Israel, a brilliant diplomat, former Ambassador to Canada. And he said, round the dinner table, if it were not for the external threat of our enemies, we’d have a civil war. So the fact that it took some 60 years for that to happen is in itself quite surprising. But let me back up what I’m saying. It is true that every religion divides into competing subsections. Every political party divides into competing subsections that fight each other and argue with each other all the time. So in a sense, you might say this is the normal condition of things. You might even say that as God created the world according to the Bible, from chaos, from Tohu wa-bohu that chaos is the natural state of the universe. However hard we try to impose something on it.

So the subject today is these divisions and how seriously should we take them and should we be worried about them? And in what way? Originally the Israelites were divided into tribes. And as we know from the story of Joseph, they didn’t like each other. They disagreed with each other, they undermined each other. And this tribal aspect of Judaism carried on throughout the 40 years in the wilderness. And there were rebellions all the time, and poor old Moses was suffering. And then they get to the land of Canaan with Joshua in charge, and the tribes already start splitting even before they get there. Two and a half tribes wanted to stay on the East Bank of the River Jordan while the others went the other way. And the tribal system clearly in itself brought about tremendous upheavals. There was one moment in which the tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out because it refused to accept the moral authority of the other tribes who complained about their behaviour. And of course, as we know after the initial kingdom was set up, there was still a division between the north and the South. And after King Solomon died a complete split into two kingdoms. Judah in the South, in the house of David, and Israel in the North, the 10 Northern tribes. And they went to fight against each other and kill each other. Sometimes they made up and had alliances, but much of the time they were not on speaking terms, forgetting the fact that ideologically they were not.

The northern 10 tribes were pagan completely. The southern Judean tribes were occasionally very good under the odd good king, but most of the time they weren’t too hot either. And of course we have the famous daughter, some people say the granddaughter of Athaliah, the wife of Ahab, who was the only case of a woman seizing the throne of Judah by killing all her children off. Except for one who escaped and was able to lead a coup and get back control. And then of course what happens is, the northern tribes, they get sent into exile by the Assyrians and scattered around the Assyrian Empire. Few hundred years later, the southern tribes get captured by the Babylonians and scattered into Babylon. Some went down to Egypt. In Babylon there was already a split between those, who wanted to see King David return to be the Messiah of the South, and those who wanted Joseph to come back as the Messiah of the North. So even there, there were problems. A small number of Jews moved back from Babylon, which was conquered by Cyrus, who allowed the Jews to return, but most stayed put. And those that went to settle in Israel immediately came into conflict with the Samaritans who said, you don’t belong here anymore, we are here now, get out. And so there were problems there and rivalries and tensions and internal tensions. The internal tensions reflected in the fact that, the priesthood who were in charge of the temple and who held an upper important role in Babylon. They did not like anybody interfering with their monopoly. So when rabbis emerge out of Babylon with an attempt to reinterpret or interpret or modify or add to Jewish law to make it, if you like, more amenable to make it more workable under different conditions, they opposed any change they made on the grounds that this might undermine their position.

And so from that period of the second temple, there were divisions between what we call the Sadducees, the House of Zadok and, the Pharisees, the rabbis who were the more popular party as opposed to the aristocratic party. Then you had the Kingdom of the Hasmoneans. And the Hasmoneans were this great saviours to begin with. But after a couple of generations, they turned into autocrats, dictators and there was tension between them and the religious authorities. And when we come of course to the war against Rome and the divisions then you have the Jewish people divided between the priests, the aristocrats, the pro roman party, the rabbis, the Pharisees, the National Party, the moderates, the zealots, the extremists, the guys who want to cause trouble. And worse than that, you have the Sicarii. You have those Jews who killed other Jews who didn’t agree with them. And added to that, you have the Dead Sea sects who all disappeared out of town and said, we can’t stand this anymore. We’re getting out of here. And we’d rather live in the desert overlooking the Dead Sea than be stuck in Jerusalem with all you people fighting with each other. And we know where it ended, it ended with the great destruction of Jerusalem. And you might have thought that that would have some salutary effect on this tendency of the Jews to split, but it didn’t. You had in those days the more assimilated Jews of Alexandria, the famous Philo of Alexandria, who it seems didn’t even speak any Hebrew, although he did support Judaism against the Romans who called it a barbaric religion. And he did some translation and he was an important philosopher of his day.

And then you had, if you look at the Rabbinic school, the Talmud, which emerged out of that period, you see the whole of the Talmudic method is one of debate, disagreement, people calling each other names, people sending other people into exile, fighting all the time, sometimes coming to an agreement on what the law is, but very often not. And the beauty of the Talmud is you can find so many different conflicting ideas within that particular text. And of course there were two Talmuds. There was the Jerusalem Talmud, which wasn’t compiled in Jerusalem ‘cause they weren’t in Jerusalem there they were in the Galil. And on the other hand you had the Babylonian one. And because the Babylonians were many more and had more scholars, their Babylonian Talmud was much greater and much more important. And it became the dominant one that we used today, although we still study the Jerusalem Talmud as well. So you had the divisions there. And then as the communities change, so too do the divisions change. Back in Babylon, there’s rivalry between the different academies. And now the people who are running the Jewish community so to speak in Babylon are divided, there’s the Exilarch the man who’s descendant from the house of David, who’s the administrative political leader. But then you have the men of the Great academies. And you have what were called the Gaons. The Geonim, and the Geonim were fighting with each other.

The greatest of all the Geonim, Saadia Gaon was deposed and then brought back again. And not only that, but at this moment you have probably the most important division, the division between those of the mainstream Rabbinat school and those called the Karaites. The Karaites they based on the word Micrava text, they said, look, we only accept the text of the Bible. We don’t like all these rabbinic interpretations. And they were very popular, at one moment they almost dominated the whole of the Babylonian baghdadi Jewish community. And this was the big battle that Saadia Gaon had. Ironically, we have some sympathy nowadays with the Karaites in the sense that we think too much has been added on. But on the other hand, a lot of what was added on made life a lot easier. So for example, the Karaites took the idea, the Torah says no fire on Shabbat. So they said, under no conditions will we have fire on Shabbat. The rabbis were worried about the poor people living in the frosty cold hills of Judea in the wintertime said, you can’t let people suffer, so let them have fire. Just prepare it beforehand. So there’s an example of where not joining the rabbinic edition made life less comfortable. And they were also opposed to any kind of conversion. So there were all these divisions there. But it would be true to say that from roundabout, the first millennium, all people who claimed to be Jewish, whether they were living under the Christians, or living under the Muslims.

All of them by and large agreed on a single constitution, the Constitution of the Torah and the Talmud working together. So you might say at that stage, for a period of almost a thousand years, all Jews were on the same page, even if you had Ashkenazi and Sephardi. But even though they were marginal differences, they all understood the same framework followed by in large the same days. But each community had its own customs, many of which have disappeared, some of which have survived. This doesn’t mean to say that everybody living at that time was religious, that’s also a myth. There were Jewish gangsters, there were Jewish criminals, there were Jews who tried to escape the community. But the trouble was, in those days, the only escape was either to become a Christian, to become a Muslim. There was no other option within the Jewish framework. And even though rabbis disagreed, as I say by in large, it was one. But then came the Great Enlightenment. The great enlightenment, we call it the Hat'hila that started with the great French thinkers, Voltaire and others like him. Which we thought were bring civilization, enlightenment, and wisdom, but turned to be almost just as bad as something some of the things that went before. But the principle of the enlightenment was, let’s stop this idea that religion has to control everything. Let’s try and modify it. And that paralleled with the opening up of European society to Jews, first of all to convert and as converts. They were given a certain status in the same way as happened in Spain in the mediaeval period, but also people began to convert for money, to marry. And this was the beginning of what we would call the reform movement. The reform movement began in this post Napoleonic atmosphere in France and Germany.

At the same time in the East, you had the oppression of the Russian czars and their horrific treatment of the Jews that led to millions escaping most of whom escaped to America, and most of whom sought to escape from the rigid religion of Eastern Europe. But at the same time, many, many Jews joined the Communist Party. The Marxists wanted to get rid of the Russian oppressive, aristocracy and monarchy. And they too divided between those that wanted to join the actual Marxist party. And those who said, no, let’s have our own Jewish party, the Bundists But they were both secular. And in addition to that, you had other Jews in Russia who said, we want to go back to Zion, the beginning of Zionism. And those three groups could hardly bear talking to each other. And all those different elements came together to create what then became the Zionist movement, which led to this new focus on a Jewish state and return to a Jewish homeland. At the same time, I haven’t mentioned this, because it’s in a sense by the side, but from the period of the 16th century onwards, Judaism also did begin to split internally between the mystics and the rationalists and then between the Hasidim who were more mystical and the Lithuanian Mitnagdim opposers who were more in a sense rational. So these splits are coming everywhere, internally, externally. And somehow or other we’re expected to agree with each other. That’s realistic. There’s any chance of agreement. It doesn’t seem to me there is a chance, if you like, of accommodation. And accommodation has always been the issue. And how far do we go to accommodate and far don’t we.

And the greatest example of accommodation came 2000 years ago when Schmuel, the great rabbi of Babylon, made this famous declaration that the law of the land is the law that you must obey the law of the land in which you live, even if it’s not your law, on matters of what we would call civil law. And on the understanding that the law is being applied fairly to all these citizens and not picking on the Jews or anybody else. But that was already an accommodation. And we Jews have been very good at accommodation, whether it’s economically or whether it’s commercially. When one area of employment was blocked to us, we looked to find another one. And when that was blocked, we moved on to find another one. And we had certain, if you like pluses to help our quest because at a time when you couldn’t trust the mail or you didn’t have international banking systems. If Moses Cohen in Spain wanted to send money to Moshek Koen in Afghanistan, they didn’t have to send somebody carrying a pack of gold. They could give a letter of understanding for one to the other that they would pay on the spot and sort things out between them. And so that helped us adapt in a time when until, until post Napoleon Jews were not able to own land, and in many cases they didn’t have rights. As I’ve mentioned in the previous lecture, it wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that all restrictions on Jews were removed from the Great Britain. So this idea that somehow our tradition tells us, that Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la'zeh, all Jews are responsible for each other.

And that there is such a thing is as ohavim Yisrael, loving Israel seems to be something rather like, love your neighbours yourself. Which is observed more in the breach than in the actual reality of things. So all these different ideas were buzzing round and buzzing round at a time in the 19th century when Jews began to feel that at long last we can escape from Judaism. We don’t have to be religious, we don’t have to join any religion, we can be whoever we want to be this great individuality. And there’s a lot to be said in favour of it. And I’m a great fan of individuality, but not if it completely removes any sense of responsibility to a larger community or to other people. And that is one of the big challenges we have today. Once the biggest challenge to us was nationalism. After the church was removed from things and after Napoleon had cleared the way for innovation in the western world, the hold of the church began to be relaxed. Although remember even in the 19th century, the Pope was able to have a Jewish kid Mortara, kidnapped and refused to hand back to his parents because he claimed that because somebody had baptised him, it was the right to hold him and we weren’t going to make any concessions. And ironically, it was a Catholic church that stood against Judaism most forcefully of all the different churches. And yet, to this very day, now it’s probably true to say that Catholicism is more positively inclined towards Jews than many of the Protestant churches.

So times change, our enemies change. So from being seen as aliens from a national level, now we are seeing aliens as the oppressive imperial bullies. And just as Jews were accused of being Marxists. So Jews were accused of being capitalists. And the truth is, we were everything. We’ve always been everything. So where do we therefore stand now on first of all, a religious level. So what has happened is before we talked about the enlightenment, we already had the division between Oriental Jews, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, which was more a social thing than a religious thing. But a fundamental important thing happened. And what happened was that with the rise of reform in the Ashkenazi world, the Orthodox, which was a word introduced for the first time because of reform, and they produced it until that time they were Jews, no subdivision between them. But those on the more traditional wing said, look if you don’t want to be part of our community, you’ve got another Jewish community you can go to, go and join them. On the other hand, in the Sephardi world, there never was a reform movement. There’s the beginnings of enlightenment very, very late in the 20th century, largely because of the Allianz Israel elite coming in educationally to the Sephardi world. But there were not reform communities as such. And the rabbis had to be understanding of everybody. And as a result Sephardi rabbis tended to be much more tolerant, much more open-minded than the Ashkenazi ones who became stricter the more they were challenged.

And that always happens, you punch somebody in the stomach, they tighten up, and the more the Orthodox world felt that it was being challenged, the more it tightened up and became more rigid, the less inclined it was to accept conversion and less somebody was really, really, really prepared to be absolutely orthodox. And at the same time, the world of reform, which in America at any rate started off as being very strongly anti-Zionist and very strongly against anything that reminded them too much of Eastern Europe and wanted a new religion, they became the dominant force in American Jewry. But the dominant force in American Jewry was not the same as the dominant force in Eastern Europe. And it’s not the same as the situation that exists in Israel today. Because coming back to the Sephardi world, although many of them are not what we would call Orthodox, but we don’t apply that term to the Sephardi world, they are part of a tradition and they respect tradition. And even though they might not keep it, many of them, they wanted to remain as it was back home. When I became the rabbi of a Persian Sephardi community in New York, they said, you know, we want the services to be just the way they were back home in Iran, even though they were not what we would call today necessarily orthodox as such. So these divisions added on to the divisions that already existed between the Hasidim and the non Hasidim. Anybody who’s familiar with the Hasidic world today will know that they divide into dynasties. And these dynasties are headed by Rebbes. Each Rebbe is in competition with the other. Some Rebbes are anti-Zionist, some are neutral and some are pro. Some are outward reaching like Chabad, and some are inward reaching like Satmar. And they have totally different views on the Jewish people.

Satmar, for example, only are prepared to accept as a genuine Jew who you can marry into and with, somebody who’s part of either Satmar or its allied Hasidic dynasties. So they also divide on such issues as, do we agree in a state of Israel? Well, a good section of them don’t want there to be a secular state of Israel. Some of them even claim they’d rather live under a Muslim state. There are others who want to live in a state where religion is respected, where they can preserve their own identity. And there are others who are positively committed to see the land of Israel flourish and even the state of Israel flourish. But then of course, from those groups who don’t serve in the army, you’ve got a middle group who are called Yahadut which is short for Ḥaredit. They are Haredi they’re very, very religious, but they’re very, very nationalist. And from that group you have those who like Smotrich and all his allies are very, very aggressively nationalist and anti anybody who’s not. But within that community, you have a vast number who are in favour of good relations, who want good relations with the Arab and the Muslim world and who are not aggressive and don’t go attacking people. And unfortunately what happens is people are tarred with a general brush in the same way. Let’s look at the secular. Who are the secular? Well, for example, we normally think of the founders of the state of Israel who were Marxist, socialist, laborists and wanted to establish a secular state with no religious involvement whatsoever. And at the same time wanted it to be a command socialist economy.

So part of the left are socialists, but there’s another part of the left, for example, those who came out from Russia who definitely don’t want anything socialist. And they on the other hand are not interested in religion in many cases and are very much part of if you like a secular atheist tradition. The divisions within the left are the non-Orthodox or the non-right are as great as the others. They could never agree. That’s why even though they had numerically representing half of Israel, they could never get their act properly together. Not since Begin took over from Ben-Gurion’s tradition, they’ve never been able to agree on coming together to form a united front that would then prevent the right wing for imposing its views. And so to some extent, the chaos that we have in Israel today is a result of the fact that neither Ben-Gurion nor Menachem Begin were willing to change the electoral system to have something like a two party system as exists in America or in England, which would then limit the ability of smaller parties to come into a coalition and force their views on everybody else. So it’s the system that to some extent has caused this dysfunction which exists at the moment. Now you’ll then see people tearing their hair and worrying about what’s going on here on the secular side and saying, no, we are leaving Israel, we’re going away. And I remember before the sixth day war, people were leaving in Israel and going away. People have always been living in Israel and going away. People have always been complaining, they’ve always been anti-religious and anti-secular, and demonstrations going on and on and on and on. Nothing has changed in that sense. But the question is, are you ever going to get them all to agree? And the answer is no. We will never get to agree whether it’s on religious, whether it’s on political lines.

And I think it’s wonderful that we live in an era where we do have choices. We can decide what we want to do, how we want to live. I happen to believe that we should define a Jew in of the broadest possible terms. There are religious Jews, non-religious Jews, cultural Jews, atheistic Jews, semi Jews, quarter Jews, 9/10th Jews, what have you. And people can choose and you can move from one to another. There are people who move from being very Orthodox to being non-Orthodox and people who move from very non-Orthodox to being Orthodox. Isn’t that wonderful that we have choice? Isn’t it healthy that we have choice? The trouble is we humans have this natural tendency to compartmentalise, this natural tendency to fight for what we believe is right. And there’s almost inability to accept there are other points of view and respect them. But that’s a human failing and it’s a human failing that exists in every country I know of. And wherever you go and whatever political system you possibly have. So at the moment on the secular side, you could argue that there is a battle between those who want Israel to be like America and those who want Israel to be a Jewish religious state. And there’s talk, for example, about having a theocracy. But the fact of the matter is that even the ultra-Orthodox don’t necessarily want a theocracy. They just want to be left alone to carry on their own way. And if you would argue, but it’s not fair for the taxpayers to pay for these guys sitting and learning. In every social country, the good taxpayer pays vast sums of money to those people who want to stay at home, not work or become pregnant so that they can get a home or take advantage of the system everywhere. In a social and welfare country, you have these sorts of situations. So it’s not the end of the world, even though I happen to think I don’t like it.

And I think people should be self-sufficient. And the fact is that even in these ultra-Orthodox areas, there is movement. We take a short term view of things we human beings, we’ve been evolving for millions of years. And so if something is changing, it’s changing very, very slowly. The Israel I came to in 1958 is nothing like the Israel that exists now then it was a secular socialist state. It’s changed and the way it was in the 1970s is not the way it is now with all technology and new ways of doing things. And this is the example of why there is something to be said for progress, but there’s also some to be said with, don’t fall for the next fashion. Be a little conservative, hold your horses a little bit, progress gently, gently over time. So I am disturbed by the fact that some in the religious community look down on others. Frankly, I look down on anybody who looks down on anybody else. So this disturbs me. I don’t feel comfortable with it. I don’t like to say I belong to any particular clique or any particular segment. I enjoy many of them for all the different contributions they can make. And I don’t like to be categorised. I want to be me and being me is important. But at the same time, if I didn’t have a structure, whether it’s a constitution on the one hand or whether it’s Halakhah and Judaism on the other, I would have no, if you like, reference point for my behaviour, whether it’s on a religious level, on a secular level. Which is why I think it’s so important to have a constitution. Why I think it’s so important to have Jewish law. And if one doesn’t like it, one has to find a way of dealing with it. The trouble is on the question of constitution. You know that Ben-Gurion when originally he made the Declaration of Independence, inserted the clause that there would be a constitution but they could never agree on one.

And how long will it take to agree on one, and who will be the people who will agree on one? I honestly don’t know. This is the chaos of many countries we live in, and the only option is to have a dictatorship like Xi in China, which I don’t think many of us really want. So my plea is really, and there are signs that this is happening in Israel that after the demonstrations and for all the anger and for all the emotion that’s being poured from both directions, people are talking to each other, but even if they won’t talk to each other, please God, in a few years time there’ll be another election. And in a democracy, the one thing you can say about a lousy organisation is that you can kick the old guard out. Now on the other hand, we don’t have that possibility within the religious world. We don’t have a Sanhedrin anymore, and I’m glad we don’t. I don’t want there to be a papal figure. I’m not certain I can find 10 rabbis who I’d be happy with telling me how to behave or what to do. I like the fact that we have disparity and we have variety. And if you don’t like one community, just as if you don’t like one state in the United States, you can move to another. So I believe that the variety of Jewish belief is wonderful. I think the variety of Jewish practise is wonderful. I think the variety of Jewish opinions, philosophies and politics is wonderful and I wouldn’t want to change it. I would simply want to pray that somehow or other we can be nice to each other and find ways of compromising. But as anybody who has experienced breakups of friendships, of marriage or whatever it is, will know that’s easier said than done. And so having presented my thesis, I’d now like to turn to questions and see where we can go from here.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Shelly asks, didn’t last week’s Torah reading say no additions, no subtractions to the Torah. How do the rabbis justify adding on?

A; Well, Shelly, I have to tell you, the rabbis can justify adding on anything to anything. But even there the rabbis disagreed as to what the parameters are of adding on. Some people say you can add on only within an existing framework, and others say no, you can add on outside. And the fact of the matter is they have added new innovations, there’s no mention of Purim in the Torah. There’s no mention of Hanukkah in the Torah. We’ve been adding on things all the time. And so just as you can’t take the Torah as it was then without it advancing. And that’s what we have an oral law for. The oral law, like the amendments to the Constitution allows for certain types of change. And what they meant at the time of the Torah we’re not exactly certain. There are 70 facets to the Torah. So yes, it does say that. And I like to argue that sometimes we’ve gone too far in making additions and a lot of things that we had once upon a time don’t exist anymore. We don’t have sacrifices anymore. We don’t have penal systems anymore. So in theory that’s a nice slogan like the slogan of love your neighbours yourself. But go get people to agree to it.

Q: Gerald says, during the enlightenment period what was happening to the Mizrahi Jews in the Middle East to the east of Palestine?

A: Well, the fact was the Mizrahi Jews to the east of Palestine, north Africa, living under Islam, did not have at that stage an enlightenment. The enlightenment came much later in many people would suggest it came with the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the Turks. So by and large, the Jews living in the Middle East at the time were living in an empire that had declined. Once it was the greatest, once the Ottomans got to the gates of Vienna span through, not through only through the Balkans, but through Hungary and they extended all the way to India, they were the most powerful, and at the time, the most enlightened. The enlightenment for example in Baghdad in the seventh century under the Abbasids made England look like a bunch of primitive barbarians. But things changed thanks to the difference between the rise of the west and the decline to some extent of the east. Within the Oriental world there was also a divide between the Sunni and the Shia. Jews lived better under the Sunni they did under the Shia. Persia is an example of a Shia regime. And under those conditions, Jews were second rate citizens and did suffer. And that’s one of the reasons why Oriental Jews tend to be much more frightened of living under Palestinians or under Arabs than the Western Jews who have this old romantic idea of Rudy Valentino in the East. So they lived under a different culture, but within them there were very rich ones and very poor ones are cities like Aleppo and Cairo and Alexandria and Istanbul were flourishing Jewish cultural and commercial communities. And the fact that they could trade with the West 'cause they had relatives, and the West could trade with them, gave them a big advantage. But culturally, Islam kept control and did not, as did the Catholic church try to keep control until the 20th century. But the Enlightenment came a bit later and that’s explains many of the differences and so many didn’t like to describe themselves as Arabic Jews, Jews of the Arab world as opposed to Jews of the West and prefer that music to western music and that style of dancing and that ceremonies to others. And you can see all of these things in Israel. That’s why Israel’s so great because all the different varieties are on show there. All the different races, all the different cultures, all of them to some degree, committed to the same constitution.

Q: Sarah asks, hi Sarah. Do you mean it sounded like because of the juxtaposition reform movement started after Napoleon from people wanting money or marriage?

A: Oh no, God forbid I wasn’t saying that. I was saying that parallel with those people that wanted to make the Jewish religion more amenable to the West. So the early reformers wanted to introduce the organ because the organ was used in most churches. They liked the idea of mixed choirs. They liked the idea of wearing clerical dress to look like them. They wanted initially just to change the style of the services. But then it moved from the early ones to the Berlin breakaway, which was much more radical and wanted to remove and change a lot of the Lords. And I mentioned this question of who you marry and who you marry for money or for whatever reason as to say that there were at the time, as you know, many Jews who converted to Christianity because that’s the only way they could get a job. So Mahler for example, at the beginning of 20th century, couldn’t get a job as a conductor in Vienna until he became a Christian. So this problem was going on all the time and therefore a lot of Jews in a sense, once they started moving away from orthodoxy, began to disappear altogether. Mendelssohn’s a good a good example. He was totally orthodox in the 18th century and a part of the enlightenment very much. But all his children, they left the faith and they married out and they disappeared from Judaism. Now people have married out and disappeared from Orthodox Judaism as well. From all Judaisms they have. But I was trying to mention two separate examples of what characterised the age of the 19th century. There was the rise of ideological change through reform and there was the idea of social change through inter marriage. I hope that answers it, but if not, come back at me.

Q: Elliot says, what suggestions do you have for Jews who struggle to remain sane given the long-term current divisions amongst Jews. One are the most fundamental beliefs practises that define Judaism represents.

A: Listen, Elliot, I am sane because I have my understanding and interpretation of what Judaism is and I have studied enough to know something about which I talk and I have some expertise to do it. And as a result, I focus on the positive. I focus on the experience of living a Jewish life that matters to me and I do it my way. Quote, what’s his name? Frankie. So I think we all should be taking upon ourselves the decision as to what kind of Judaism we want to follow. Some want Kabbalah, some want mysticism, some want superstition, some want hocus-pocus, some want rational, some philosophical, whatever it is everybody chooses because we are different, we’re not the same. So I am not depressed, I’m saddened but not depressed about the conflict. But each one of us has to look after our own shop, look after our own souls, look after our own families and look after our own Jewish identity. And if you have a Jewish identity, whatever it is, stick to it unless you are convinced you should change. In which case change.

Q: Leslie, is there any tribe set community which ascribes to accommodation, tolerance of others, both Jews, others, and non-Jews?

A: Yes, there are a lot of communities to, we’ll call it to the left, but I don’t mean left in the political sense who are very, very tolerant with even within the Orthodox communities, ultra-Orthodox, there are very, very tolerant people who welcome people into their homes who are not judgmental. The problem is we only focus on the negative. This is what the press is nowadays. You only hear about young man pushes a woman off the bus. You never hear of a young man helping somebody onto the bus. You only hear about those Israelis who attack Arabs and Muslims. You don’t hear about those Israelis who welcome into their homes, who support them, who assist them, who even go into Gaza, try to help. There’s such another side. And the trouble is we only hear the negative. So don’t listen to the bloody biased press. The press is a disgusting phenomenon, which is the curse of our era because they are not objective and they do not give both sides of the stories. They are all dogmatic and politically motivated and after the money, I don’t care what they say, it’s what sells they care about and that’s what matters. More than two parties force of compromise, they should do. And compromise is considered so important in Jewish law and everywhere. So it upsets me that there isn’t enough compromise going on.

Q: Esther says, what will happen when the economy cannot sustain the country because half the population has no modern education, don’t work or serve in the military. What about Israel occupying 3 million people?

A: Esther, because it’s changing. The fact is that even now one of the most prominent Hasidic Rebbes of bells has said, I’m in favour of training people to have a career. In America for example, all Haredi tend to have a career. They’re told to go out and earn money. Things in Israel are different and they’re different because of the mistake of Ben-Gurion and agreeing to allow students to defer and postpone the military, which meant that if you didn’t go into the military you couldn’t get a job afterwards, which led therefore to this massive unemployment. 'Cause there are lots of ways of making a living without necessarily having an education. You have no idea how many Haredi millionaires there are, using the internet for all kinds of commerce and trade and dealing and they don’t necessarily have degrees and even if they don’t speak English, there are translations going on. But more and more of them are getting jobs, and more and more the Haredi world will say, only the elite should stay. Meanwhile, I have to say within the Haredi world, more women are going out and working proportionately and they are also earning vast sums of money. So one shouldn’t take this view one-sided, more and more Haredi men are serving in the military, but they’re still a minority. Things may change and not only that, but as technology takes over more and more Haredi people are learning how to use the computers and to help in the technological side of things. And so I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as everybody says it’s going to be as bad. Just as in the same way there are more and more secular Jews who are opting out of the army and leaving the country and we’re going away long before this broke out. There are Israelis all over the world wherever you go and have been always. And Jews have always moved around but still been loyal in one way or another to their homeland. So I think it’s nowhere near as bad as you think.

Jerry says reform community who look down on Chabad whereas you say Chabad are inclusive. Yes, Chabads a good, very good example of an orthodox organisation that welcome anybody and don’t ask where you come from or what degree of religiosity you adhere, so there are.

Q: Mernah asks, what’s the difference between the Beit Dins and Sanhedrin?

A: The same differences between the Supreme Court and the local courts. A Beit Din is just a local court where in every Jewish community there is a Beit Din. A Sanhedrin is a kind of a constitutional body set up to control a country as a whole. Supreme Court is the nearest I can use to describe it.

Q: What does God want, Gerald?

A: I’m not God. How do I know God wants? All I can say is coming back to I said before, that God wants us to be good human beings who care. He wants us to avoid being pagans, which means being selfish.

Q: Vivian, are you really suggesting I could compromise with Bezalel Smotrich?

A: No, I think there’re certainly horrible people who shouldn’t. I’m saying that the political process in the Knesset or in parliament or in any kind of democracy requires some kind of compromise. I if you like, would like as there was once upon a time, a ban on Kahanism because Kahanism was racist. I would like to see that introduced and hopefully it will at some stage because things take time. We look at things through a very short span we humans. And we don’t see that things can change.

Q: Mernah asks, can we please see the questions?

A: That’s a very good question, Mernah. I don’t know. I have to go back and ask the powers that be to see if that’s possible maybe so.

Q: Judith says, when one buys a set of Tefillin, should one expect it to contain appropriate parchment or is it hypocrisy the Jewish communities who are prepared to sell such item without parchments?

A: Well, Judaism, there were crooks everywhere. As I mentioned before, there were crooks, Jewish crooks in England in the 18th century who were hung for murder. So there’ve always been gangsters and there’ve been Jewish gangsters, there’ve been religious gangsters. But anybody who sells a set of Tefillin without the proper parchment and particularly if asked to be. Because sometimes you can buy them separately. You can buy a set of Tefillin without parchment and get your own parchment for a different scribe to put in them. But anybody who misleads another person is guilty of a Torah crime and it’s just as much a crime as eating non-kosher food or just as much a non crime as breaking Shabbat.

Q: Romaine, thank you for your balanced talk. Do you think the intrinsic splits in thinking represent an either cognitive conflict as religious necessity for Jews?

A: Well, you know, my lovely second daughter got an MA from the Hebrew University in trying conflict resolution and a lot of people try conflict resolution. I don’t think we found the answer to conflict revolution, not even between rival billionaires of this current world in which we live, I wish there was.

Erica says, in a liberal democracy, religious people can live as they wish. Once they have a state run by aggressive orthodox people who have rules impose you don’t necessarily want, but you don’t necessarily have to have aggressive people running it. Many of the ultra-Orthodox and orthodox community don’t want to have a series of laws that force religion on other people. I would like to see a split in Israel between religion and state. I think that would be very healthy, but why just pick on the most extreme and assume that everybody’s like that. After all, consider the most extreme ultra-Orthodox don’t want to have anything to do with the state. They don’t want to have a say about the state. They don’t necessarily get involved in politics in the state. All they want is their money.

Rose says, firstly, thanks for the hopeful outstanding talk. I just read that people with differing opinions in Israel are embracing each other. Yes, I’ve seen them. In fact, somebody actually told me they were at the Jerusalem train station when there were people who were going home from Jerusalem who had protested on the one side. You had those coming back to Jerusalem who protested at another protest on the other side. And as they were going up and down in the elevator, they were shaking hands across the divide. And I know of so many people in my own family, I have those who demonstrate on one side, those who demonstrate on the other side, and they’re still talking to each other. So don’t listen to all the bad news.

Q: Elliot, dear Rabbi, what guide us does the Torah provide about regarding transgender and gender reassignment medical intervention, as a conservative Jew, I find these things unacceptable and convinced that my parents who were liberal conservative Jews would find them appalling.

A: Look, there are two sides to this. There’s the fact that according to the Talmud, we knew that there were people who had mixed genders, transgenders, various genders, and they were treated with respect. In the same way that there were people who were homosexual. And even if homosexuality is not regarded as an ideal, there was no tradition of hounding them out or trying to ban them from anywhere. It was a private thing. We’re now living in a world where it’s become a political thing and once it becomes a political thing, you get into all kinds of trouble. Now I am not in any way an expert on anything medical.. And it does worry me that young children can make decisions about changing their body at an age before they are adults. And I consider this to be dangerous, it’s my opinion. But at the same time, I live in a land of America where the law of the land is the law. And if people want to do whatever they want to do, that’s their business. So if somebody wants to marry, shall we say, somebody wants to marry his house or her house and draws up a conflict declaring this is a marriage they’re entitled to, if the law of the land says that, The fact that it’s not what I understand as a marriage is my problem, not their problem, I like to see, want to see medical evidence. This is a matter of something which is new, which is debated, which might be resolved over time, but at this moment is not resolved over time. But I do believe that we have to treat people with respect, whatever their views are and however we may disagree with them, we have to treat them with respect. And each community, whether it’s conservative or orthodox or reform, comes to its own decision as to what it finds acceptable. And if you don’t like what they’re doing, move somewhere else, it’s as simple as that.

Q: Elliot asks, what guidance does the Torah provide?

A: Oh, sorry. That’s where I just got.

Thank you once again says Olivia, your words of wisdom. That’s sweet of you, Olivia, and thank you Nanette. That’s nice.

Yes, Simon, I agree there should be a separation of state and church as there should be in America. But even that is fraying a little bit. I’m very much in favour of it. And in fact, I have to tell you, my father, who was the Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues, principal Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues in London, and was head of the religious Zionist movement in 1948. And was a passionate Zionist all his life. He resigned from the religious party when it went into politics because he said, they would simply prostitute religion for political gain. And he was right. And I’ve always followed that example, even though actually he never told me that until I came back as an older person from Israel where I’d saw the clash between state and religion, which convinced me that I would oppose it. And he was surprised to find I agreed with him and I did.

Q: If parents have little difference of observance, what happens to the children?

A: Well, there are two sides to this. If you are living at home as a child, you have to do what your parents require of you. This was my attitude in bringing up my children, whatever your views are, so long as you are dependent on my table and dependent on my home, at home you do what I insist you do. What you do outside is going to be your business. So I think parents have to respect the choices of their children, but say to them, whatever your choices are, so long as you are living in my house, this is what I expect you to do. Parents should stand by their moral, ethical, and religious standards, but respect the fact that children will go their own way. And in my case, thank God it worked out very well. Each one chose his or her own degree of religious observance and they’re all religious observant today in different ways, even though we may disagree both politically and religiously.

Q: Elliot, with respect to Haredi you drew a panel to other associates, that tolerate similar sects really? Are there such parasitic sects Western countries?

A: Yes, there are Haredin in England, Haredin in Belgium, Haredin in America. They are Haredin all around the world, not so big as these ones. And they are allowed to get on with their own business. And even if on the one hand in some countries they ban schieta, they find other ways of getting the food in and they abide most of them by the law of the land. And particularly in places like London or like Belgium, they are supported, many of them by the welfare system. Welfare systems everywhere support people of different attitudes. Just they support Muslims and many of them believe in polygamy and oppose homosexuality and oppose all kinds of things that are law of the state. It’s not just a problem with Haredin it’s a problem with Muslims too, but thank God they are able to find ways of living and coping, they’re not all bad.

Rod, I agree with your view on the media, but how much more is the danger of social media, which in mine is a cancer? Yes, I agree with you. Social media is a massive, massive challenge. After all just think of this, somebody like Kardashian is somebody who reaches billions. How much does somebody with 5 million readers have a chance to get somebody with billions? And look at the Muslim world. The Muslim world has billions of people who promote their ideology, millions of jihadists who promote aggression and antisemitism. How many do we have? This is a massive, massive problem. And unless we do something about it, it’s only going to get worse. And similarly, AI is a massive problem, and the dependence of our children on social media is a massive problem. We have huge problems to deal with. It’s against this background that, you know, the Haredi world at one stage tried to ban all of this, but clearly did not succeed. And the only way it copes is, by creating an alternative lifestyle. And even that alternative lifestyle is slowly being modified. But that’s the battle they fight and that’s why they’re so anxious to have their own communities. And if they want to have their own communities, shall we say in Israel or America where people don’t walk around and sunbathe nude, that’s their right.

Q: Can we look forward to Israel evolving into Kahaneistan?

A: No, I don’t think so because I think there are far more people who oppose Kahane and Kahaneistan. And even in the government of Netanyahu,. Don’t forget that there’s a majority within Kahana, sorry, within the liquid movement that do not support the extreme. So it’s not as bad as people are making out. It’s horrible. I don’t like them. I wish they weren’t there.

Zoom user, there’s one uniting element. Whatever differences there are, we have a common history which goes back millenniums. Yes, that’s a good point we do. We do Rita, thank you.

Q: Livia Slar, weren’t musical instruments played in the temple. Jews from Shabbat, Why can’t Shabbat deserving Jews play them today?

A: Well that’s interesting. You have to thank the Kabbalahists, because after the temple was destroyed, the rabbis agreed. No more musical instruments, no more celebrations of this kind. And it wasn’t until the Kabbalahists, Insfut In the 16th century and Isaac Luria that brought music and singing back into Jewish life. 'Cause of course singing was, as you say, very important in the temple. Now the reason why there was opposition to music was not to music as such, but was to musical instruments. Very interesting, in 16th century Vienna, they did play music instruments in the synagogue before Shabbat came in. But once Shabbat came in, they stopped. And this was part of an idea of trying to make Shabbat as different as possible to the rest of the week. In those days it was through musical instruments. Now it would be through having your phone, having your television, having all the media that play music all the time, that is typical of our current culture. And the idea of Shabbat is to have something as different as possible. So that explains why they want to preserve a different atmosphere and don’t want musical instruments in the synagogue on Shabbat festivals, it’s a different approach.

Q: Has Israel not achieved a two states system? Would this satisfy the rest of the world?

A: I wish there could have been a two states system. That partition would’ve been a wonderful thing in 1948, but the Arab world rejected it. Now I cannot see it working because increasingly Hamas is taking over the Palestinian narrative. Hamas is dedicated to the destruction and the abolition of Israel, does not accept the idea of a two state solution. They together with Hezbollah propose the greatest threat to the Jewish people to Israel. Not so much the Palestinians anymore. I can’t see a two-state solution. I don’t know what a solution is. I wish I did know. I wish we could get them. I’d be prepared to make any concessions if I thought there could be peace.

Q: Simon, what about demographic studies that say exponential growth of Haredi will make Israel economically unsustainable?

A: I’m sorry. I think their information is wrong. They are projecting from now and they’re not taking into consideration changes that are taking place within the Haredi community before our very eyes. You have no idea how many wealthy Haredin there are outside Israel and inside Israel who are making phenomenal money, not just through property but through all kinds of different careers.

And no buses on Shabbat says Erica, yes, there are buses on Shabbat in Haifa. There always have because the municipality took a decision and there was a good example. So if Tel Aviv don’t want buses on Shabbat, they’ll take a decision. You know, you’ve got to look at the overall picture, not just pick on one example. If in Jerusalem they want to ban buses, the Jerusalem municipality could ban buses. They Don’t stop people driving in their own cars, do they?

Carol, there’s a case of a father in a very orthodox sect in London who wanted to leave the sect and he was forbidden to have any further contact with his children. Surely this can’t be right. I agree with you. I think this is a problem. I understand if his children then are living in a world which is anti-religious, because then that’s going to confuse the children even more because they live in a religious atmosphere one moment, then they go into another atmosphere where they don’t keep anything in maybe non-kosher food and whatever it is. That creates a problem. And it’s very difficult as any judge in family court knows. You have to try and find a compromise if you possibly can. But it’s not that simple. Nice to see we carry the same flag. Yes, I think that’s wonderful and I think that’s why I’m not pessimistic. Because I believe at the root we do all carry the same flag of wanting Jewish people to be able to live in a state of its own without oppression, without fear, but at the same time recognising that we are different. The situation in Israel, in my opinion, is a reflection of a fractiousness to Jews for their venture decisions.

Why can’t the world, quite right Elliot, completely agree with you Stuart, was not your negative characterization of the press rather too sweeping and harsh? Surely the press and other media, which in itself is highly diverse, notwithstanding its faults is still one of the great guarantors of our democracy compared to the autocratic nations with their totally. Government controlled media. Oh yes. I think that’s a very good point. However, I think we face a much bigger problem than the press, and I should have expanded to say, the social media. I think these are the bigger threat because frankly, by and large, fewer and fewer people are reading the press. Some people are, but the numbers are nowhere near where they once were. Compare that to the billions on social media. That to me is the real problem.

Thank you Wendy. Hazel, thank you as always. Please have your daughter look at friends fruits net for an organisation where conflict resolution, our son’s organisation in Israel, excellent, I’ll recommend that to all my friends and family.

Harold Tabak, just read, 70% of US Jews have married out of the faith. What’s the future of US Jewry? Well, because while the majority of those who are not religious, the statistics say something like this. When people take a census of the Jews in America, at least 30% say we are not Jews by religion. We’re mainly Jewish because we have some Jewish blood. Now that is indicative that you have to look at the Jewish community from two points of view. Do look here from the point of view of those Jews who actually care about Judaism and those care Jews who don’t, those who don’t are disappearing. Those who do are growing and getting stronger and taking a more important part of Jewish life. So I think American Jewish life is vibrant. It’s once upon a time, America was the dominant Jewish community because it was dominant and because reform was the dominant element in it, it is now losing its position certainly to Israel. Israel now is the dominant Jewish community, both secularly and religiously. Secularly produces much more Jewish music and art and literature than American secular Jewry does now. Although once it was different altogether. So I am not despondent, people like to marry out all the time. Some who marry out come back in. Some people who marry out change. But yes, overwhelmingly the tendency, including amongst Israelis who come to live in United States, is to abandon their Jewish identity. And so that is their right. As we once said, God doesn’t count his followers, he weighs them. It’s quality rather than quantity. After all, think of it, how come 15 million Jews, a minute amount, can play such a massive part in the world standing up to billions. So it’s quality that counts.

Shelly, you say if you don’t agree with one Jewish community find another. There are many issues which can contradict, nowadays it seems you have to totally agree with a group of all issues to be accepted. Yes, but you can go to another group. If you don’t agree, you can go to another group or you can compromise. You can decide, look, there are parts of this community I like and parts of this community I don’t like. I’ll participate in what I do like and I won’t participate in what I don’t like. But yes, I’m afraid some communities are, but there are other communities there are not. Again, take Chabad find the nearest Chabad community and see how they’ll welcome you in and you can choose. It’s true, it’s different if you live somewhere when there isn’t, but nevertheless, you can.

Q: Lockdown, are presenters able to see questions posted here?

A: Well, I’ll take that up to question answered to Viola Rosen.

Elise Strauss, I learned the Klezmer music began with non Jews who played to Jewish weddings, which often had their dinner on Friday night. The fact is all Jewish music origins from non Jewish sources, whether it’s eastern or western or what have you, all of them, you can see influences of every different culture in Jewish music in weddings and elsewhere. Klezmer in itself comes from the Hebrew word clay zener, which is musical instruments. They were there in the temple. So if we had them there in the temple, if we had them there in the bible, yes, in the Bible. They also must have come from somewhere before people were blowing trumpets long before the Jews were.

Ellie, Thank you. Monty, the Taliban have banned music in Afghanistan. Oh, the Taliban are a good example. That’s the sort of thing one finds horrific, but nobody I know is suggesting that we join the Taliban.

Jonathan, Roman synagogue’s music as it predates destruction of the temple. Thanks for that information, Jonathan. I didn’t know that. I’m glad to hear that. But I imagine that they don’t have musical instruments on Shabbat but beforehand.

Erica Lewis, the point is not democratic to abolish buses on Shabbat, if you don’t want to use it, it’s up to you. Well, that’s quite right. But if you don’t want buses barreling through your area on Shabbat, why can’t you say, I’d prefer if you take another route.

Shelly Shapiro, unfortunately, most Jews don’t know their own history to bring us close to their knowledge. That’s right, that’s why I think Lockdown University is so important because it does teach history. And I think teaching history, like teaching religion is a crucial important way of keeping our tradition alive. And it’s the biggest complaint I have against Jewish education today that they don’t do enough Jewish history and prepare students for going to university where they come up without the armour to defend themselves. Thank you Lorna.

Jonathan, sorry. Do have music on Shabbat. Okay, fine then if they do, that’s their business. Thanks for telling me.

Q: Julian Lemo, if they disagree as to how to keep Shabbat, that implies they followed a period that people didn’t and forgot how to and tradition has been broken or lost. Do we know anything about this period?

A: There have been times when traditions have been lost and at different times and our knowledge of traditions has varied. That’s why, for example, we had to have a moment. You’re called the period of the Masoretes who put together all the different variation of the texts that had been there before, before they could compose one central one. So yes, there have been times and different communities and communities have lost, and communities have arisen and communities have fallen and disappeared. Change is happening around us all the time. Once upon a time, Otranto and Bari in the heel of Italy were the biggest Jewish communities that existed with the biggest academies. Now there’s not a Jew there. When I was a rabbi in Glasgow, there were 15,000 Jews. Now there are only a couple of thousands. So communities come and go. Communities rise and fall, communities change, and new communities come. There’s always flux and alternative and variety. Julian says if they disagree to how to keep Shabbat, that implies they follow the, oh, sorry, you just answered that one I apologise. The next one. It’s known from previous civilizations that when people start marrying animals, it’s a sign the end of that consideration to prey. So would I imagine marrying a house to be too far away? Very, very funny. I do know people in America who marry their animals and inherits them. So that’s a new development.

But anyway, so here I’m going to end everybody. Thank you very much and hope to see you some other time.