It's Not (Really) About the Pronouns

Why The Gatekeepers Hate Sefaria

So I’ve spent the last two days dunking on a very silly article from R. Avrohom Gordimer about Sefaria.

I should note the following:

1. Literally everyone who has ever met him describes him as a nice person. To a degree that is unusual.

2. I once went to a shiur of his that was excellent

3. By all accounts he has outstanding knowledge of his area of expertise, the kashrut of dairy.

   I am criticizing ideas here, not people.

For those that don’t know about Sefaria, it is an online library of Jewish texts, many of which are presented in translation, and it is completely free, and also, what the hell, why don’t you know about Sefaria, get on that right now.

One of the functions of Sefaria is a sourcesheet builder, that is very easy to use. You make a sourcesheet, and then there’s a drop down menu, and you add sources to it, or you look up sources and then add them to your sheet from a sidebar. It has, without exaggeration, revolutionized Torah study by making an easier way to build one. I come from the old days where you had to print out sources, tape them to a piece of paper, and then copy the sheet of paper. I save so much time.

Full disclosure: I worked for Sefaria for a week managing their social media as a GSUFYO crossover.

I was also present at what I think was the first public meeting about Sefaria. My uncle had posted about it because he’s friends with some of the people involved, and I took one look at the description and high tailed it downtown. The description was so good it got me to go outside willingly.

And at that meeting, I remember when they presented the sourcesheet function, because there were audible gasps, it was that earth shattering. I remember thinking “oh boy, this is life-changing”

What it also has allowed is anyone with an internet connection to put together a sourcesheet presenting their own ideas, perspective, chiddushim, what have you. Especially given the sources available in translation (including all of Shas!). Though I sometimes have issues with the quality of those translations¹ , they are for the most part very good, and there is enough choice in translation that you can find one you like.²

Consequently, there has been an explosion in Torah learning fueled by Sefaria that I don’t see people talk about much. I see on Twitter a level of engagement with the texts of our tradition that would have been unthinkable to me is 2010. My sense is that this is because that explosion is among people who are not usually reached or even noticed by large institutions. That ends up meaning that a lot of people who would ordinarily be shut out from engaging in the Jewish textual tradition have finally been given access. That includes non-Orthodox people, that includes women, that includes LGBTQ people, Jews of color, people more on the left of the political spectrum, lots of people have access to the text that for one reason or another did not previously have access. And those texts are being learned and valued and connected to in a way that is genuine and full of love and respect. These people may not practice Judaism in the same way that I do, but they are coming at it with a level of textual engagement at the grassroots level in a way that I think is unique in history.³

I think this is a good thing. It is good for Jews to learn Torah. It is good that Jews are connecting to their heritage through our shared textual inheritance. It is good that more types of people are learning Torah and providing more varied perspectives than we have had previously. It is good that Jews are resisting assimilation and strengthening their identification with Knesset Yisrael. Even if it does not lead to Orthodox practice, I would much prefer an engaged and informed Reform and Conservative Judaism than whatever the alternative to that is. I do not spend my days wishing for the disappearance of a majority of Am Yisrael no matter how convenient it would be for the ideology of the community I happen to identify with.

I do not think R. Gordimer thinks this is a good thing.

Now, granted, his main issue seems to be with a recently added translation that uses gender neutral terms for God. Basing himself on kabbalistic ideas of masculine and feminine aspects of God, he argues that the usage of the masculine pronoun denotes God appearing to us in ways we perceive as masculine, and hence the more faithful translation is to translate God as having masculine pronouns.

I buy the point that an analogy does generally need to be translated literally to convey the exact point that analogy was trying to make in the original, though I do wonder where he was when Artscroll translated Shir HaShirim. But I don’t buy that argument enough to make it an ikkar emunah, for the following reasons.

1. Doing so would on its face violate an actually explicit ikkar emunah, to not ascribe God any physical or even definitive characteristics.

2. I further do not buy that all gendered language in Tanach must be translated as such. Hebrew has grammatical gender, with objects having genders. The genders of objects are obviously not meant to be seen as actually denoting their genders. I have never seen any translation that preserves the genders of objects in Tanach. You would not say “Shimshon saw the jawbone of a donkey and picked her up”. That would be silly. Consequently, assigning God a gender merely because the pronouns used are masculine does not necessarily mean it ought to be translated that way.

3. Given that Hebrew does not actually have a gender neutral pronoun, the closest to that is male pronouns, because male is seen as sorta the default. So using masculine pronouns might already be gender neutral. Again, think about how objects get gendered. The default is masculine, and its feminine when you add a ה or ת to the end. It’s not that we assume everything is male unless told otherwise, its that we use the default grammar until we need to describe something feminine.

4. The idea that God has male and female attributes is an idea that is primarily from the mystical tradition, and conflating it with peshat to the extent that you’re not Orthodox if you don’t see that as peshat? Unnecessary.

5. Even if you accept that idea, the point of such statements is that, possessing both “masculine” and “feminine” qualities is that God is beyond our conceptions of gender, and that when God is referred to in the masculine it is only from our limited understanding, I hear the point about preserving analogy, but to take it that far, so that it is assur to refer to God in more accurate terms? I don’t buy it.

6. The premise that a totally unbiased translation exists is without warrant, which is why its so important to read sources in their original language. Every translator makes interpretive decisions and to point to an interpretive decision that has solid theological grounding as heretical is to fundamentally misunderstand what translation is. Why stop there? Why not get on Onkelos’s case for minimizing anthrophormism?

Which is why I don’t think it’s really about the pronouns. It is the fact that Torah is being learned by people who R. Gordimer does not think ought to learn it which is really bothering him. Torah is for only one type of person, and when people who don’t fit into that mold learn Torah, it is bad, and must be condemned and stopped. It apparently does not matter if what they’re doing has sound theological and textual basis, people who do not fit the mold of what R. Gordimer sees as acceptable presentations of Judaism must be kept away. It doesn’t matter that the idea that God is gender neutral is so obviously a consequence of ikkarei emunah, the fact that that fact is being used by feminists and LGBTQ people is enough to fight against it.

There is basis for the gatekeeping impulse. There are different levels of knowledge of the texts and facility in reading them in their original language, and a respect for expertise and accomplishment and a distrust of ideas formulated on the basis of secondary sources seems to me to be basic to the idea of scholarship in general. But you risk the danger of building a fence so high no one can get over it, placing Torah not as part of the life of every Jew, but as an artifact in a museum, placed behind glass to be gazed at, not held, monitored by security, only available for study by select scholars wearing gloves who have filled out all the necessary forms in triplicate.

Torah is not an artifact. Torah does not need an alarm system to protect it. Torah belongs to klal yisrael. Torah is books in a library, open to all who have a library card,⁴ each book handled with care and caution by those who read it but whose dog-earedness testifies to the love shown to it by every person who read it.

This is not an attitude attributable to secular values or whatever. This goes back to the very first perek of Gemara I learned inside, the fourth perek of Brachot. Rabban Gamliel is deposed as Nasi for his treatment of Rabbi Yehoshua. R. Elazar ben Azarya. And with Rabban Gamliel no longer in charge, a change is introduced to the study hall.

תָּנָא אוֹתוֹ הַיּוֹם, סִלְּקוּהוּ לְשׁוֹמֵר הַפֶּתַח וְנִתְּנָה לָהֶם רְשׁוּת לַתַּלְמִידִים לִיכָּנֵס. שֶׁהָיָה רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל מַכְרִיז וְאוֹמֵר: כׇּל תַּלְמִיד שֶׁאֵין תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ, לֹא יִכָּנֵס לְבֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ.

It was taught: On that day that they removed Rabban Gamliel from his position and appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya in his place, there was also a fundamental change in the general approach of the study hall as they dismissed the guard at the door and permission was granted to the students to enter. Instead of Rabban Gamliel’s selective approach that asserted that the students must be screened before accepting them into the study hall, the new approach asserted that anyone who seeks to study should be given opportunity to do so. As Rabban Gamliel would proclaim and say: Any student whose inside, his thoughts and feelings, are not like his outside, i.e., his conduct and his character traits are lacking, will not enter the study hall.

Rabban Gamliel was a gatekeeper, only admitting students to the beis medrash if they were תּוֹכוֹ כְּבָרוֹ, if their inside matched their outside, if their motivations were pure, if they had the right ideology, the right influences, passing every purity test with flying colors. But the guard is removed. What happened next? The end of the mesorah as it was dragged into the street and torn apart by the unwashed masses? The distortion of the Torah into something unrecognizable to previous generations.

Nope.

הַהוּא יוֹמָא אִתּוֹסְפוּ כַּמָּה סַפְסַלֵּי. אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: פְּלִיגִי בַּהּ אַבָּא יוֹסֵף בֶּן דּוֹסְתַּאי וְרַבָּנַן. חַד אָמַר: ..אִתּוֹסְפוּ אַרְבַּע מְאָה סַפְסַלֵּי. וְחַד אָמַר: שְׁבַע מְאָה סַפְסַלֵּי

……..⁵

תָּנָא: עֵדֻיוֹת בּוֹ בַּיּוֹם נִשְׁנֵית. וְכׇל הֵיכָא דְּאָמְרִינַן ״בּוֹ בַּיּוֹם״, הַהוּא יוֹמָא הֲוָה. וְלֹא הָיְתָה הֲלָכָה שֶׁהָיְתָה תְּלוּיָה בְּבֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ שֶׁלֹּא פֵּירְשׁוּהָ.

The Gemara relates: On that day several benches were added to the study hall to accommodate the numerous students. Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Abba Yosef ben Dostai and the Rabbis disputed this matter. One said: Four hundred benches were added to the study hall. And one said: Seven hundred benches were added to the study hall……

It was taught: There is a tradition that tractate Eduyyot was taught that day. And everywhere in the Mishna or in a baraita that they say: On that day, it is referring to that day. There was no halakha whose ruling was pending in the study hall that they did not explain and arrive at a practical halakhic conclusion.

Hundreds of benches added to beis medrash! An entire masechta written. A day so momentous it is referred to as “on that day!” Every halakha in doubt solved! Opening the doors did not distort the Torah and it did not ruin the Torah. On the contrary, the inclusion of viewpoints that had until now been shut out allowed for an explosion of Torah. But what about Rabban Gamliel?

הֲוָה קָא חָלְשָׁה דַּעְתֵּיהּ דְּרַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל, אֲמַר: דִּלְמָא חַס וְשָׁלוֹם מָנַעְתִּי תּוֹרָה מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל. אַחְזוֹ לֵיהּ בְּחֶלְמֵיהּ חַצְבֵי חִיוָּרֵי דְּמַלְיִין קִטְמָא.

……

Rabban Gamliel was disheartened. He said: Perhaps, Heaven forbid, I prevented Israel from engaging in Torah study. They showed him in his dream white jugs filled with ashes alluding to the fact that the additional students were worthless idlers.

Scared that he had prevented Am Yisrael from learning Torah, Rabban Gamliel has a dream that shows him his concerns weren’t ill founded. There is some legitimacy to gatekeeping, if only to underlie basic standards of truth and scholarship. He was coming from a legitimate place. And yet:

וְלָא הִיא, הַהִיא לְיַתּוֹבֵי דַּעְתֵּיהּ, הוּא דְּאַחְזוֹ לֵיהּ.

The Gemara comments: That is not the case, but that dream was shown to him to ease his mind so that he would not feel bad.

His perspective and motivations were legitimate, but as a practical manner, it is impossible to argue that he had not prevented Torah learning. Regardless of the content of the souls of the newly admitted, before we didn’t have Eduyot, and now we do. Before, we had unsolved halakhic problems, now we do. The legitimacy of your motivations does not excuse its practical effects, of distancing klal yisrael from Torah, from preventing the incorporation of new perspectives that allow us to comprehend more Torah. The maintenance of standards of scholarship does not mitigate the chilling effect such policing, often with real implications for people’s parnassa has on people who would otherwise have creative and interesting things to contribute. And Rabban Gamliel seems to accept this:

וְאַף רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל לֹא מָנַע עַצְמוֹ מִבֵּית הַמִּדְרָשׁ אֲפִילּוּ שָׁעָה אַחַת.

And even Rabban Gamliel did not avoid the study hall for even one moment, as he held no grudge against those who removed him from office and he participated in the halakhic discourse in the study hall as one of the Sages.

I hope to one day study with R. Gordimer in a Beis Medrash with no guards, where new Torah can be taught, where perspectives formerly shut out get their chance to be incorporated into our masorah, where longstanding problems in halakha can be solved, where all of klal yisrael can come and learn together.