The Pew Report and the Orthodox Community (and Other Assorted Comments), part 1

Marc B. Shapiro

There has been a great deal of discussion in the wake of the recent release of the Pew Research Center’s “Portrait of Jewish Americans.” Some have focused on the report’s evidence of increasing intermarriage and lack of any Jewish connection of many in the younger generation. Others have zeroed in on some of the survey’s anomalies and results that are simply not correct. For example, the survey informs us that 1% of Ultra-Orthodox Jews had a Christmas tree last year. I would be willing to bet that in the entire world there isn’t even one Ultra-Orthodox Jew with a Christmas tree, and 1% means at least a few thousand Ultra Orthodox households have Christmas trees. After adding in the Modern Orthodox, we are told that 4% of Orthodox Jews have Christmas trees. Being that the survey places the Orthodox at 10% of the Jewish population, and also tells us that there are 5.3 million adult Jews (another one the survey’s surprises), this leads to the result that more than 21,000 adult Orthodox Jews have Christmas trees in their homes.Since these results are not just improbable, but impossible, it raises the general question of how reliable the survey is when it comes to the Orthodox. Can anyone believe the survey when it tells us that in the 18-29 age bracket the Modern Orthodox only account for 1% of the country’s Jews while the Ultra-Orthodox account for 9%, or that in the 30-49 age bracket, the Modern Orthodox are 3% and the Ultra Orthodox 10%. We are also are told that 24% of Ultra-Orthodox Jews handle money on Shabbat but only 19 percent of Modern Orthodox Jews do so. (Who was it that said the Ultra-Orthodox are frummer than the Modern Orthodox?!)

When you read results like these you can only wonder what went wrong, and I hope we get some explanation as to how such results were generated. (Professor Jonathan Sarna has written to me that all surveys have absurd results for various reasons, and “one is to look at broad trends and ignore absurdities.”) Perhaps there was confusion about the way the questions were asked. Such confusion is the only way I can explain that only 64% of the Ultra-Orthodox agree that a person can be Jewish if he works on the Sabbath. The truth is that every Ultra-Orthodox Jew knows that a person who works on the Sabbath is still Jewish (albeit a sinning Jew). I presume that those who answered “no” to the question understood it to be asking if one can be a “good Jew” and work on the Sabbath. (In case anyone has been wondering, I use the term “Ultra-Orthodox” since that is what the survey uses. I don’t know why no one told the survey directors that this term is no longer regarded as appropriate.)

The sort of anomalies I have mentioned appear to be confined to matters of religious life, and other areas seem more believable. For example, we are told that 37% of Modern Orthodox households have incomes in excess of $150,000, which places them in the top ten percent of Americans. This strikes me as on the mark and illustrates one of the great problems with Modern Orthodoxy in the United States. Anyone who has been to Israel knows that there are non-haredi Orthodox Jews in all areas of life. You see men with kippot who are bus drivers, security guards, and doing every other job imaginable. Yet in the United States, Modern Orthodoxy has become largely an upper middle class phenomenon. The cost of a Modern Orthodox lifestyle, which includes expensive schools and camps, is simply beyond most people’s reach. I believe that this cost is a major reason why the Modern Orthodox camp has not picked up much in the way of ba’alei teshuvah.[1]

I have no doubt that many of the non-Orthodox admire the Modern Orthodox lifestyle, and would be willing to try it out, before learning the cost. Many non-Orthodox would also be happy to send their kids to Modern Orthodox schools, but they are not going to sacrifice a middle class lifestyle for this. Those who grow up Modern Orthodox and remain in the community are prepared to make the financial sacrifices (as well as limiting how many children they have). But for those who are not part of the community, the entry fee is simply too high. Needless to say, there are also those among the Modern Orthodox who drift away because of the financial cost, and this drifting often begin when the first child is enrolled in public school. As I see it, the financial burden is the great Achilles’ heel of Modern Orthodoxy, and what prevents it from any real growth. By the same token, those of us in the Modern Orthodox world must recognize that one of the great strengths of the haredi community is that there is room in it for everyone, from the wealthy real estate developer to the blue-collar worker. If, as so many predict, the future of American Orthodoxy is with the haredim, money (or lack of it) will play an important role in this story.

The Pew Report reported very high levels of intermarriage in the Jewish community.[2] Yet even among those who would never dream of intermarrying, we know that some engage in sexual relations with non-Jews. There is an interesting responsum in this regard by the late R. Moshe Stern, the Debrecener Rav, Be’er Moshe, vol. 4 no. 141.

R. Stern testifies to receiving numerous questions regarding this matter by the very people engaged in such behavior. For those who don’t know anything about R. Stern and who asked him questions, I can tell you that these were definitely not Modern Orthodox people or members of the Lithuanian yeshiva world.[3]

This volume of Be’er Moshe was reprinted in 1984 without any changes. However, sometime after that the volume was reprinted again. There is no indication of when this took place, as the title page is the same as the 1984 edition. (Presumably, the reprint was after R. Stern’s passing in the summer of 1997.)

The censorship of this responsum can only have one purpose, namely, so that people don’t learn about how some members of R. Stern’s community were having sexual relations with non-Jewish women.

What is the remedy for these men who are intimate with non-Jewish women? Repentance, of course. Yet there is a very strange opinion as to how to go about this repentance. R. Solomon Ephraim Luntshitz, in his Keli Yekar[4] to Numbers 19:21, says something which is so “out of the box” that I am shocked that it has not yet been censored from the Mikraot Gedolot. (Yes, I realize that it is just a matter of time.)

R. Luntshitz is discussing the statement in Yoma 86b: “How is one proved a repentant sinner? Rav Judah said: If the object which caused his original transgression comes before him on two occasions, and he keeps away from it. Rav Judah indicated: With the same woman, at the same time, in the same place.” In context, this means only what it says, but not that someone should actually put himself in this situation. Yet this is exactly the lesson R. Luntshitz derives.

He refers to Berakhot 34b, “In the place where penitents stand even the wholly righteous cannot stand.” R. Luntschitz cites an opinion that the ba’al teshuvah (penitent) of a sexual sin has to put himself in the exact same situation as he was before, that is, to be alone with the very same woman and overcome his inclination. This is not permitted to one who is “wholly righteous” since he is forbidden to put himself in this situation. But the penitent needs to do this in order for his repentance to be complete, and this explains how a wholly righteous one cannot stand where the penitent stands, since the penitent has to put himself in a situation that would be forbidden for the righteous one. R. Luntshitz explains that the very act of repentance, i.e., being alone with the woman, “makes the pure [the tzaddik] impure and the impure [the sinner] pure.”

This is a strange passage for any number of reasons, not least of which that the action of being alone with the woman is itself sinful, even if it never leads to any sexual activity. Yet R. Luntshitz tells us that in this case we have an exception, and true repentance requires intentionally putting oneself in the exact same situation one was beforehand and this time overcoming one’s inclination. Of course, there is no guarantee that the person will emerge successfully from this self-imposed test. R. Israel Isserlein reports such an occurrence, where an individual put himself in this situation in order to achieve proper repentance, but ended up sinning again![5] Sefer Hasidim earlier warned against falling into precisely this trap.[6]

R. Luntschitz’s point is also found in his Olelot Ephraim, vol. 2, no. 228, showing that he was entirely convinced of his position.

R. Luntschitz was the rabbi of Prague, yet a later incumbent of this position, R. Ezekiel Landau, strongly rejects R. Luntschitz’s point. He acknowledges that many shared R. Luntschitz’s error, which I think is interesting since I can’t imagine anyone having such an opinion today.[7] R. Landau doesn’t tell us who else advocated R. Luntschitz’s view, but R. Mordechai Harris,[8] R. Dovid Yoel Weiss,[9] R. Yaakov Levi,[10] and Nahum Rakover[11] provide sources. Among these sources are R. Joseph ben Judah Loeb Jacob, Rav Yevi (Netanya, 2012), to Psalms 36:3, who quotes the Baal Shem Tov as offering the same approach as R. Luntschitz.

Jewish men getting together with non-Jewish women is, of course, not a new thing. The Talmud, Sanhedrin 82a, already refers to this possibility with regard to Torah scholars (!), concluding: “If he is a scholar, he shall have no awakening [i.e., teaching] among the sages and none responding among the disciples.”[12] Avodah Zarah 69b-70a deals with the status of kosher wine on the table when Jewish men are sitting together with a non-Jewish prostitute. Yom Tov Assis, in his article “Sexual Behaviour in Mediaeval Hispano-Jewish Society,”[13] discusses the situation in Spain where it was not uncommon for Jews to have non-Jewish mistresses.[14] Avraham Grossman also deals with this matter and his discussion includes other parts of medieval Europe as well.[15]

In R. Judah ben Asher’s responsa (Zikhron Yehudah, no. 91), we are told about the problem of Jews having sex with their non-Jewish slave girls (and also having impregnating them). A few centuries later, R. David Ibn Zimra testifies that there were men, learned in Torah, who even thought it was permissible for them to have sex with their slaves.[16]

The fact that the prohibition on occasional sexual relations (דרך זנות) with non-Jewish women is only rabbinic[17] no doubt contributed to many not taking it very seriously.[18] Maimonides, Hilkhot Issurei Biah 12:2, writes:

אבל הבא על הגויה דרך זנות מכין אותו מכת מרדות מדברי סופרים גזירה שמא יבוא להתחתן. ואם ייחדה לו בזנות חייב עליה משום נידה, ומשום שפחה, ומשום גויה, ומשום זונה. ואם לא ייחדה לו אלא נקרית מקרה אינו חייב אלא משום גויה. וכל חיובין אלו מדבריהן.

R. Moses Isserles [19] even mentions the view of the Tur that intermarriage itself (דרך אישות) is only a rabbinic prohibition.[20] The Bah explains the Tur’s view, Even ha-Ezer 16, as follows, leaving no doubt as to the matter:

אבל בשאר אומות . . . אין בהן איסור כלל מן התורה ואפילו בא עליהן דרך אישות אלא גזירה דרבנן.

This approach, incidentally, could explain how Esther married Ahasuerus, as the prohibition on intermarriage was not yet established.

Maimonides disagrees with the Tur and assumes that there is a biblical prohibition to marry any non-Jew (דרך חתנות), not simply the seven Canaanite nations. Therefore, he claims that Solomon converted all the women he married.[21] However, R. Raphael Berdugo disagrees, and states that there was no halakhic problem with Solomon marrying these women without converting them.[22] This leads him to discuss the story of Pinhas killing Zimri and the whole concept of kana’in pog’in bo. R. Berdugo explains that kana’in pog’in bo only applies when dealing with sexual relations that are public, promiscuous, and the woman is an idolator.[23]

ולא אמרו קנאין פוגעין בו אלא דרך הפקר ועובדת ע”ז ובפרהסיא.

According to R. Berdugo, following the Tur, Jews who are married to non-Jews are only violating a rabbinic prohibition. I mention this since I recently met someone who thought that in messianic days intermarried Jews will be subject to kana’in pog’in bo. I originally thought that this was a clear error. If you look at Maimonides’ formulation, Hilkhot Issurei Biah 12:4, you find that contrary to R. Berdugo he indeed includes all non-Jews, not just idolators, as subject to kana’in pog’in bo. (And see his very strong words against Jewish-Gentile sexual relations in Hilkhot Issure Biah 12:6-7.) Yet he is just as explicit that the sexual intercourse has to be public, just like with Zimri.

כל הבועל גויה בין דרך חתנות בין דרך זנות אם בעלה בפרהסיא, והוא שיבעול לעיני עשרה מישראל.

Based on this, it was clear to me that according that according to Maimonides (following Avodah Zarah 36b) an intermarried Jew is not subject to kana’in pog’in bo, as living together is not the same thing as שיבעול לעיני עשרה. Even if one were to reject this point, in the very next halakhah Maimonides states:

ואין הקנאי רשאי לפגוע בהם אלא בשעת מעשה כזמרי . . . אבל אם פירש אין הורגין אותו.

This means that the act of zealotry must take place during the actual sexual act, or at least this is what I thought. But when I investigated a bit I learnt that while my understanding is shared by many, there are also many who assume otherwise. For example, the always interesting R. Shemariah Menasheh Adler states that an intermarried man is indeed subject to kana’in pog’in bo.[24] He claims that Maimonides’ statement just quoted only refers to one who is engaged in an act of promiscuous sex in public. With such a man he can only be killed in the act, but Maimonides is not referring here to a man who is publicly living with a non-Jew. In such a case, R. Adler claims, there is no need for the zealotry to be בשעת מעשה. As for Maimonides’ explicit words כל הבועל גויה בין דרך חתנות , R. Adler claims that this only refers to the first act of marital sexual intercourse, and that it needs to be in public for kana’in pog’in bo to be applicable, but not once they have already established a home and are living together. R. Adler also quotes R. Solomon Kluger[25] as agreeing with his basic point, and I have found others as well.[26]

We have seen lots of strange stuff in recent years. Is it only a matter of time before someone disgusted with the high rate of intermarriage decides to act the part of kana’in pog’in bo?

It is also worth noting that most commentators and halakhists assume that kana’in pog’in bo only applies when there is a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman, not the reverse. Despite this, we indeed have some examples in Jewish history of “honor killings”. For example, in 1311 a Jewish woman who married a Christian and became pregnant was killed by her brothers.[27]

In 1557 an Italian Jew killed his sister because her alleged sexual activity embarrassed the family. Elliot Horowitz, who mentions this case, adds: “Azariah Finzi, the girl’s father, saw fit to defend this action by his only son, asserting that it was ‘inappropriate for one calling himself a Jew, especially a member of one of the best families, to suffer a veil of shame upon his face, being mocked by all who see him for the blemish attached to his family’s reputation.’”[28]

In Teshuvot Hagahot Maimoniyot to Sefer Nashim, no. 25 (found in the standard printings of the Mishneh Torah), there is a responsum which describes how a woman cheated on her husband, apparently with a local non-Jew, and became pregnant. According to her father, she also killed her baby (“the mamzer”[29]) after it was born. Her father, worried that she would apostatize, asked, indeed pleaded with, the local rabbis to permit him to kill his daughter by drowning her in the river. The rabbis turned the request down.

בא אביה של שרה לפני שנים ממנו החתומים למטה ובא לימלך בנו להורות לו אם מותר להרוג בתו לטובעה בנהר ולאבדה מן העולם . . . [אמר אביה] אני מבקשכם בכל מיני תחינה שתתירו לי להורגה.

The case is actually quite sad since she was probably a teenager in over her head. The responsum describes how she would run away from home but her mother would convince her to come back. When her father rebuked her for her behavior, her reply was, “I am not the first woman who did something bad.”R. Asher Ben Jehiel, She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rosh 18:13, deals with a case of a woman who was intimate with a non-Jew and became pregnant from him. R. Asher affirms the local rabbi’s decision to cut off her nose. (See also R. Matityahu Strashun, Mivhar Ketavim [Jerusalem, 1969], p. 158 n. 3.)

Also relevant is a very strange story recorded in Ta’anit 24a. It begins by telling us that R. Yose ben Abin left his teacher, R. Yose of Yokeret. His reason was, “How could the man who showed no mercy to his son and daughter show mercy to me?” Let’s leave aside the story of R. Yose of Yokeret and his son. Here is what the Talmud records about him and his daughter.

He had a beautiful daughter. One day he saw a man boring a hole in the fence so that he might catch a glimpse of her. He said to the man, “What is [the meaning of] this?” The man answered: “Master, if I am not worthy enough to marry her, may I not at least be worthy to catch a glimpse of her?” Thereupon he exclaimed: “My daughter, you are a source of trouble to mankind, return to the dust so that men may not sin because of you.”

Although he did not physically kill his daughter, he did express the wish that she die (according to some it was an actual curse), and in the opinion of many commentators this is exactly what happened (see Hagahot ha-Bah, ad loc.). What makes this text so shocking is that the daughter was entirely innocent of any improper behavior. In other words, it was her very existence as a beautiful woman that created the problem, and as such it was better that she simply exit this world before any more men were led into sinful thoughts. I see no way that this story can be brought into line with mainstream rabbinic thought, despite many attempts to do so.[30] (At a future time I can present some lessons that contemporary moralists have derived from this story, which also are quite shocking.)

Returning to the matter of Jewish-Gentile sexual relations, while the Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer 16:1, following Maimonides, Hilkhot Issurei Biah 12:2, tells us that occasional sexual relations (i.e., no marital relationship) with a non-Jewish woman is only rabbinically prohibited,[31] R. Nissim of Gerona disagrees. Yet if we are indeed dealing with a Torah prohibition then what does the Talmud[32] mean when it states that the Hasmonean Beit Din decreed against sex with a non-Jewish woman? If it was already forbidden according to the Torah, there would be no need for such a decree.

R. Nissim suggests that the Hasmonean Beit Din’s decree was designed to add an additional penalty onto an already existing prohibition. It is not that occasional sex with a non-Jewish woman was banned by the Hasmonean Beit Din, but they merely added the penalty of lashes. The reason for this, R. Nissim points out, is that sometimes people are not concerned about heavenly punishments like karet, but they are concerned with an earthly punishment.[33]

Yet this is a minority view, and the standard approach is that there is no biblical prohibition on occasional private sex with a non-Jewish woman. Here is how the Encylopedia Talmudit sums up the matter[34]:

הבא על הגויה דרך זנות, איסורו מדברי סופרים, גזרה שמא יבוא להתחתן.

(In case people are wondering, I don’t think that this is the sort of information that should be spread among the masses, precisely because that some people might decide that violating a rabbinic prohibition is not such a big deal.)

I keep stressing Jewish men and non-Jewish women, since the situation of Jewish women and non-Jewish men has its own issues that should be postponed to another post. But with regard to Jewish women who are intermarried, let me note that according to R. Ovadiah Yosef, such a woman should be told to go to the mikveh. He also adds that she should not tell the mikveh lady about her situation (I assume because she might then be refused entry).[35]

To be continued.

 

In an earlier post here I mentioned some of the shocking things said by R. Chaim Kanievsky about R. Shmuel Auerbach. Someone asked me if I could put together a list of the harshest things said by Torah scholars about their contemporaries. This would be an interesting project, and we can also find some very harsh things in this regard in talmudic and midrashic literature. I must stress, however, that often these shocking (to our ears) statements are not as harsh as they sound, since they were not meant to be taken literally. Some rabbis use figures of speech that everyone understands are simply part of a literary genre.

Here is one such example. R. Abba Mari of Lunel, in his attack against the Jewish rationalists, tells us that if he had the power he would do as follows to his opponent[36]:

אקרע סגור לבו להיות בדמו ממרס.

This means “I will cut open his heart so as to stir his blood.” I am sure people in medieval times would also be offended by such a statement. Yet its meaning then was far removed from what it would mean today, and if any of our contemporaries spoke like this we would assume he needed to be institutionalized.

After reading the post, some also wrote to me to express dissatisfaction with the rabbinic leadership in the haredi world. Contrary to what some think, this sort of feeling is not new, and in every generation people have been disappointed with the rabbinic greats. Here, for example, is what appears in the anonymous letter printed at the beginning of R. Mordechai Benet’s Parashat Mordechai.

ואף הגדולים וחכימי דרא לא משגיחים רק לעצמם בלחודוהי לזכות עצמם בלחוד אבל לא לזכות דרא לעורר תשובה בעלמא.

Finally, a couple of people corresponded with me regarding the stories of great rabbis who had totally sublimated their emotions. There are other stories that could be told of rabbis who were not even (at least outwardly) emotionally affected by the death of a child. This is sometimes held up as an example of piety and acceptance of God’s decree. Yet R. David Ibn Zimra (Radbaz) had an entirely different perspective.[37] Regarding one of the “gedolei ha-dor” who when his son died did not shed a tear, Radbaz was asked if this is a good characteristic or not. In his reply, Radbaz does not mince words about how wrong this is, seeing such “piety” as cruel, un-Jewish, and evidence of a psychological problem (to use a modern formulation):

זו מדה רעה מורה על קושי הלב ועל רוע תכונת הנפש והיא מדת אכזריות והוא דרך הפילוסופים האומרים כי זה העולם הכל הוא מעשה תעתועים