What I Wish Orthodox Rabbis Understood About the People They Write Off

Stop Fighting Battles from 1885. Or 2006.

There is a critique of Halakhically Observant Judaism that goes back to at least Paul, probably further, and it goes like this:

“Why do you bother with so much irrational ritual law, which only serves to separate you from others, when you could just be a Good Person™ with some very vague but simple rules which can be applied universally? Reject your backward ways, your particularism, your need to preserve your separate identity, and join in with the universal fraternity of humanity and the things we all have in common through assimilation into the general”

It is the main critique of Judaism by Christianity, and has served as the basis of numerous movements within Judaism itself to reform itself to be more in line with universal (read: Christian and Western) norms. It is the main critique of Judaism by secularists and atheists, on the rare occasions they bother to remember there are religions other than Christianity. It is the critique of Judaism I grew up learning to target in my arguments for the relevance and meaning of a halakhically observant life.

It is the straw man that most halakhically observant rabbis use when describing critics of halakhic observance. These people do not realize that ritual connects you to your community both horizontally through the present and backward through time. They do not realize that ideals not concretized through action are worth nothing, and that ritual law trains us to act on the ideals that Judaism wants to express. These people simply do not want to have their own ideas challenged by voices in tradition and are too comfortable to engage in the hard work of dedicating themselves to following ritual law. That’s the straw man of the critic of halakhic observance that we have trained against, and managed to articulate a pretty compelling version of Judaism in response to.

It is also a straw man that no longer represents dominant trends on the Western left, and I don’t think anyone in the leadership of halakhically observant communities is realizing what is going on at the grassroots level, and what opportunities that presents.

To put it briefly, the current moment on the left is, after seeing the horrors done by colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, and other isms, intense skepticism and critical analysis of what I’ll call “default settings” and suspicion of culturally dominant narratives. No longer do large parts of the left see religion as something to be rid of; rather, the old criticism of religion is largely placed at the doorstep of Christian hegemony¹, and minority religions are seen as important cultural resistance in the face of colonialism, the more oppressed the better. The idea of Western Civilization having universally correct ideas on everything is actively questioned, especially in the ways that colonialism disrupted civilizations that were doing just fine before being “discovered”, and there’s a stress on the value of indigenous traditions² that were erased by modernity.

Typically, this manifests as, say, white people declaring themselves to have Native American ancestry and “oppression olympics” where the validity of your viewpoint depends on how marginalized your identity is. And there is a natural suspicion by religious believers of the kinds of ideologies that declare truth to be relative and not objective. But to take the Christian right’s side in these ideological battles over “Critical Race Theory” and “Political Correctness” or whatever Fox News is calling it now is to fundamentally forget what Judaism is. Unlike Christianity (and Islam), we are not a universal religion. We do not see the adoption of Judaism by the entire world as a goal.³ We do not proselytize. We do not seek to conquer or convert the world in the name of our God.⁴ We are a particularistic religion that has specific practices for specific people from a specific place that represent a specific cultural identity that refuses to be assimilated into the universal hegemon.

And in the past, that has been what people have condemned about Judaism. Our stubborn refusal to assimilate, to yield in the face of cultural colonialism, to remove the fences safeguarding our cultural identity, to abandon the practices that set us apart from others, has been the subject of critique, both from within and from without, sparking both antisemitism from outside and movements for reform from inside. The key to success in the new world was to join the universal sought by colonialism, to change how you dress, how you pray, how you eat, how you talk, the rituals you keep and the ideas that inspire you, and many of our people internalized those criticisms and attempted to implement changes in response, so they too could join the new ruling class.⁵ But at risk of playing “oppression olympics” myself, I think it is fair to say that historically speaking, we are much more similar to victims of colonialism than to its perpetrators, and I think identification with the latter is and was a grave mistake.

But what I am seeing from observing the discourse in Jewish spaces on the internet is that the kids today are recognizing this mistake for what it is⁶, and actively working to undo it. I’ve seen groups dedicated to “de-assimilation,” fielding questions about taking on new halakhic observances, how to wrap tefillin, keep shabbat, keep kosher, etc. No NCSY kiruv professional is in charge of this, this is coming from the kids themselves. I field questions from these kids occasionally; they genuinely want to keep halakha. There’s a love of Torah learning (enabled, perhaps, by the lowering of boundaries enabled by free online resources like Sefaria) that balances between irreverence and reverence, but seems to me like a genuine love of the material.⁷ What I am saying is, there is a genuine, grassroots return to halakhic observance that I have personally witnessed, one that reflects trends on the left towards acknowledgment of unique identities and cultural practices.

And what is the Orthodox community doing about this golden opportunity to teach Torah and raise levels of halakhic observance?

Absolutely nothing.

Because, you see, these kids have pronouns in their bios.

I’m oversimplifying, but only a little bit. These people are being dismissed largely because they’re on the wrong side of the culture wars from the Orthodox community, which is assumed to carry along with it certain attitudes towards halakha, its observance, and its observers. Not because of any actual breach in halakhic observance, but merely because they don’t seem to fit in the box designated “Orthodoxy”, and we’re getting these people completely wrong as a result, and thus missing out on opportunities to teach Torah and advocate for halakhic observance.

And look, I’m not going to rehash every argument about LGBTQ people in Orthodoxy right now, and frankly, my point here is that I don’t care. There are kids and young adults who genuinely want to observe halakha, but as themselves, and do not see their gender identities and sexual orientations as something they can just give up to fit into an Orthodox community. You can dismiss that as people “unwilling to sacrifice for their religion” or “unwilling to do the hard work of halakhic observance” all you want, but the facts on the ground do not bear this out. I know so so many trans people who are halakhically observant, but are essentially barred from Orthodox communities. Hell, I know halakhically observant trans converts. You can dismiss these people as “not in line with Torah attitudes about the sexual drive having to be limited and directed” all you want, but that is not what I am seeing from these people. If that were the case, there would not be demand for a Queer formulation of Hilchot Niddah, but apparently there is. These people that you write off because of their identities are trying their best to formulate a form of halakhic observance that fits the parameters of their existence, and it reflects a real genuine identification with the halakhic tradition and its goals after centuries of dismissal and neglect.

Does that mean that they’re Orthodox? Honestly, I don’t quite think it matters. Even if these kids aren’t “Orthodox,” whatever that’s supposed to mean, the existence of more liberal forms of halakhically observant and torah-involved communities is a good thing that we ought to be encouraging, rather than dismissing or actively combatting. What I’m seeing is a grassroots movement towards what I’ll call “Neo-Orthodox” halakhically observant communities, which use Orthodox definitions of halakha and norms of halakhic process but for more inclusive communities.⁸ ⁹

And while those communities build themselves up, there is still roles to be played for those of us who have expert knowledge of halakha. A problem with grassroots movements of halakhic observance that do not have leaders is that sometimes, you really do need an expert to weigh in, particularly on life and death issues. I have seen way too many posts in which a very serious halakhic problem was raised and it was answered by people who should not have been answering it. But if all you do is dismiss these people as the same kind of heretics and non-believers existed in 1886, then people will not reach out to you, especially if they assume their identities are not safe around you.

I’m sorta rambling here, my point(s) is (are):

1. There is a grassroots movement towards halakhic observance that reflects ideological trends on the left.

2. I think this is unequivocally Good News for the Jews.

3. I would like to see Orthodox leaders take these trends seriously and lend support when needed.

4. There is a need for outreach to such people and communities to establish lines of communication for serious, life and death halakhic questions, and that entails taking the identities and orientations of these people seriously and as a non-negotiable.

5. Previous stereotypes and canards about the non-Orthodox are woefully out of date and there is a need to recognize new realities and new trends among the left and the non-Orthodox towards halakhic observance.

One of the things that has truly sucked about Judaism since the Enlightenment has been the identification of halakhic observance with an ideological position rather than as a baseline of belonging in a community. An ideological community is self-selecting, and any time someone advocates for something unconventional or out of the box, the walls move in and they find themselves excluded. Thus, religious communities have very limited ability to evolve and are bound to only take seriously things that already have precedent. I’m not saying this a wholly a bad thing, but I do think it’s healthy for religious communities to have prophetic voices (for lack of a better term) who blaze new trails in Torah learning and halakhic observance. Having halakha once again be the province of all Jews will mean that unconventional voices will be allowed to find their own communities and test out new ideas and new ways of thinking, giving us a better sense of the divine truth that we have spent millennia trying to piece together.