Castles in the Air: Why ‘Modern Orthodoxy’ has never existed (Part 1)

A winter’s day in a deep and dark December. I am alone. Gazing from my window to the streets below on a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
Well, I can only say/mumble the first line to myself with any conviction for another few hours so I might as well make the most of it. I would also have to amend the second line to ever-present thin layer of ice. Incidentally, usually only Dylan merits the ‘italics’ treatment, but I feel that Paul Simon deserves the promotion as S+G have at least as many quotable lines and a far higher proportion in a fairly short career. Incidentally, if anyone knows of any vaguely competent contemporary lyricists I would be interested in hearing about them. Ed Sheeran is passable I suppose. I quite liked a few Passenger songs. I like Springsteen’s lyrics mainly because they make you imagine that you are driving down an American dust road in an epically significant convertible truck and have experienced it all. G-d bless America. The voice helps as well. I have little respect for singers who actually try and sing. Hoarse/ deep rumbling wins any day, viva Mark Knopfler. I digress.

 My title implies that I am taking the jump and becoming one of those people who comments on everything vaguely intellectual in the Jewish world, pinning words like sine qua non and ontological onto them, lets everyone know that I know about the dead-sea scrolls and making a hullaballoo about it on Facebook (yes I just used the word hullaballoo). The sarcasm of the above sentence will hopefully protect me from that fate. Hopefully. I like an uninterrupted forum to rant. It also implies that I'm going to conclude: Therefore everyone should be Chareidi. I warn you now that this is unlikely unless I take a time capsule back to sixth form. I have simply tried to learn from messers Kellner and Shapiro how to sell fairly parev material with classic titles such as 'Must a Jew believe anything' and the 'limits of Orthodox theology' (notice that limits sounds very like limitation which makes it appear more controversial).

  

In addition, as ‘New years’ approaches, you think about certain things. Yes I know it’s not Jewish and I don’t attribute significance to it in any meaningful way, but a change of the calendar year does evoke certain introspective feelings of Time, Time, Time see what’s become of me or, to quote the Floyd ‘And then one day you’ll find seven years have gone behind you no-one told you where to run you missed the starting gun’. And this brings me to one of my favourite topics: community and identity. What is it that really unifies us and brings us together in a meaningful sense/ how do we create that if we don't feel it? How should we aspire to live as Jews in the 21^st Century? Is there a singular utopian vision? Can we ever find it in the larger group as well as individual relationships? 

 Sitting here in London I struggle to find answers, but certain things have struck me about what might be called Modern Orthodoxy and I thought it might be interesting to express them in words and see if people have any views on them. 

In short, MO’s biggest strength and weakness is that it is defined principally as an idea rather than through concrete symbols. What many choose to see as a religious ideology or lifestyle choice, it seems to me, is in fact simply a particular expression of the religious spirit. The most distinctively ‘MO’ communities are those which have defined themselves by a particular course of action, usually in the dilution of religious strictures or innovative modernising programmes which many see as blurring the lines of Halacha. In response, many claim that this is not the ‘real thing’ because it doesn’t live up to the ideals espoused by certain rabbinic leaders, and this leads to the refrain of ‘It’s an ideal that can never work in practise, too dangerous etc.’ I am going to try and suggest something which seems pretty strange and try to explain it over the next few posts by looking at a few examples of the ‘integrated’ approach and how it expressed itself. The problem is that whenever I write too seriously I want to get side-tracked so as not to want to be ‘that guy’. So I make plans and fail to stick to them.

 My suggestion is this: Modern Orthodoxy has never existed, and can never exist as a religious ideology. It can only exist as an expression of the individual spirit. This differs from an ideology in a few ways that come to mind: 1.It is not a choice of lifestyle or something you subscribe to. It is a necessary spirit which everyone has within them and for many people is an essential part of being a religious Jew. 2. 'It' cannot be used to build communities around it as there are very few formal rules, or concrete symbols unlike in the Chareidi world. YU? American Orthodoxy, not ‘modern’. Very American Orthodoxy. 

Playing around with words? Maybe, but I will attempt to justify it. R. Hirsch in the 19^th Century? Medieval Spain? Rambam? Anyone community that ever studied/encouraged philosophy? All had ‘Modern’ elements but I will suggest that this was not their defining feature. I will conclude by suggesting that we maybe think about communal identity in ways that are not binary. I don't either have to be in box a or b. (Workers of the world, unite!) I may get stuck along the way but that’s part of the fun.

     

To conclude the intro, this started when I was highlighting different parts of the Kuzari a few months back before getting side-tracked (you notice a pattern emerging) R. Yehudah ha-Levi, in explaining the Jewish attitude towards observance of mitzvoth as opposed to fasting and ascetic practises writes through the mouth of the rabbi: “Did we not agree that one can only approach Gd through deeds which He commanded? Do you think that this closeness can be gained just by submission, humility, and the like?” Yet I noticed that for many thinkers in Jewish history, this rhetorical question is certainly not obvious. The desire for 'Devekut', a form of tangible connection with Gd beyond mere observance of commandments dominates large portions of Kabbalistic literature from the 16^th Century onwards, finding its most potent expression in the writings of Hasidut, and Maimonides makes it clear that without the philosophical quest, man can never reach his full potential. A full discussion of different approaches towards this topic is interesting and I recommend the opening chapters of David Hartman’s book on Maimonides which delineates different approaches towards this issue (and makes it somewhat clear how he wants Maimonides to think at the same time). Good day.