Dilemmas of modern orthodoxy: sociological and philosophical

Judaism, Wntr, 1993 by Chaim I. Waxman

IN AN ARTICLE WRITTEN IN COMMEMORAtion of the one hundredth anniversary of the death of the late Samson Raphael Hirsch, founding rabbi of the organized Orthodox Jewish community in Frankfurt, Germany, the contemporary chief rabbi of that transplanted community in Washington Heights, New York City, Shimon Schwab, bemoaned the status which Hirsch had attained within the contemporary Orthodox community. Schwab declared that,

what is happening today makes me weep, literally. Of late, Hirsch has become the property of the left-of-center "Modern Orthodox" movement, consisting of those who are Mizrachi-oriented. They have changed the image of Hirsch from that of a vigorous fighter for Torat emet into that of a docile, dove-like apologizer for a watered-down version of convenient Judaism.(1)

In order to evaluate Schwab's assertion, it is important to understand precisely whom he had in mind in his characterization of "Modern Orthodox." There are at least two distinct types of Modern Orthodox, depending largely on the criteria used for defining the group. One is philosophically or ideologically modern, while the other is more appropriately characterized as behaviorally modern. In the category of philosophically Modern Orthodox(2) would be those who are meticulously observant of Halakhah but are, nevertheless, philosophically modern. Within this context, being modern means, at minimum, having a positive perspective on general education and knowledge; viewing oneself, from a religious perspective, as being part of, and having responsibility for, both the larger Jewish community as well as society in general; and being positively disposed to Israel and religious Zionism.

The behaviorally Modern Orthodox, on the other hand, are not deeply concerned with philosophical ideas about either modernity or religious Zionism. By and large, they define themselves as Modern Orthodox in the sense that they are not meticulously observant. In many ways, their definition of themselves as Modern Orthodox has the same basis as did those whom Marshall Sklare found to define themselves as Conservative. That is, when asked, "What do you mean when you say you are Conservative?" the responses were, typically: "Now -- I'd guess you'd call it middle of the road, as far as (not) being as strict as the Orthodox, yet not quite as Reformed as the Reformed," or "... I don't like the old-fashioned type, or the Reform. I'm between the two of them."(3) Similarly, most of those who define themselves as Modern Orthodox do so in reference to right-wing or "Sectarian" Orthodoxy, and they define themselves as modern in the sense that they are not as observant. As Heilman and Cohen put it:

Others, the so-called "Modern Orthodox," have tried to find a way of remaining linked to the contemporary non-Jewish world in which they find themselves and to the traditions and practices of Judaism to which they remain loyal. For some, this has meant little more than a nominal attachment to Orthodoxy while for others it has meant little more than a partial attachment to the demands of the tradition.(4)

This group is appropriately described as "modern" in the sense that those who see themselves as part of it are committed to the tradition, in general, but feel free to pick and choose in their observance of rituals. In contrast to the more traditional Orthodox, they do not observe all of the rituals as deemed obligatory by the traditional community. Their sense of "freedom of choice," although never articulated theoretically, is as evident as it is among many other contemporary Americans who view themselves as religiously traditional but, nevertheless, are selective in their religiosity.(5)

If this is the group to which Schwab was referring, then he is clearly correct in his complete rejection of the notion that Hirsch may be viewed as its founding father. Indeed, as Mordechai Breuer points out, selective-observance such as this was prevalent in German Orthodoxy even before Hirsch. Nor did Hirsch or any other recognized Orthodox rabbinic authority ever overtly condone many of the practices which were widely prevalent among a significant segment of the Orthodox community there.(6) Indeed, as previously suggested, many of those within this type of Modern Orthodoxy behave the way they do precisely because they are modern; thus, they feel that there are certain decisions which they are competent of making on their own and that they are not going to behave in ways which they see as inappropriate to modern society. The fact that they "identify" with Hirsch has as much validity as does the identification of many pro-Israel religious traditionalists with the late Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land, Abraham I. Kook. Most of them have never studied his works, and they attribute to him ideas and positions which he would have rejected outright.

On the other hand, Schwab may have had the ideologically Modern Orthodox in mind,(7) and, especially, the institution from which he is spiritually very distant, Yeshiva University.(8) Given his antipathy to that institution, he was probably upset with its establishment of a "Samson R. Hirsch Chair of Torah im Derekh Eretz." His personal views aside, it is, in fact, highly questionable whether Hirsch should legitimately be viewed as the founding father of the Modern Orthodoxy represented by Yeshiva University. Indeed, neither the approach of Hirsch nor that of the founding president of Yeshiva, Bernard Revel, to Torah im derekh eretz, were so clearly formulated that what those individuals actually intended is beyond dispute.