Post-Halachic Halacha
Avoid the halachic Rabbi/rabbit hole!
Standing on the verge of that chasm,
Seeing the darkness so deep
Don’t take the bait!
For once having fallen you will always lose.
There will always be a Litvak or worse a Brisker
To entrap you with the brilliance of their Halachic construction!
You will have already lost.
Realize only this, as a poor consolation
Halacha is a late historical cultural construction
A product of the medieval mind’s obsession with
Imprisoning its mythical rich late antique tradition
In a rational exoskeleton (looking apologetically over their philosophic shoulders)
Like their Arabic Mutakallim compatriots
Snuffing out all individualism and anarchy.
Codified in the RAMBAM, ROSH and TUR
Now finally we have a constitution
needing generation after generation of further finessing.
Its elitist interpreters-all male-from then down to the 20th century
Poskim, brilliant jurist alike-
Pontificate about women’s bodies and judicial rights,
Their t’shuvot etched in black ink on white paper
Reflecting the collective male communal fear
The dark letters mirroring the black veils,
They would have women wear
hiding all female anatomical parts that might inflame
The communal male androgyny.
You still flock to their altar
Bend the knee at their confessionals,
Check in at the halachic counter,
Where the Dayan, grey faced, bearded and wise
pronounces the p’sak “treif”!
90% of the time- you know it!
Begging for a little leeway?
A gap in the door?
To allow for the egalitarian this or that
But my darling
he sees right though you
He has a radar for this going back to the Chasam Sofer’s battles with Reform
Trained in guerilla warfare
He sees your intent
And like all others under threat
buttons down the hatches in Kansas for the impending cyclone.
Give it up already girl!
The Wizard is exposed behind the curtain.
But none see him for what he is.
Once free of this social construction of violence
This travesty over the bodies of others
Return to the texts!
After all they inhabit you
Like some mythic creature
They require your ongoing attention
The trace you will leave is on their interpretation
Stripped of moralisms and halachic implications.
They will play their notes though you
Allowing your soul to sing.
Ironic how brainwashed we were growing up
As to the ills of reform and liberals!
How they began the “slippery slope” theory in orthodox shuls in Germany
Now infesting all orthodox theology. Mendelssohn became the ultimate villain
(I remember Rabbi Cooper’s diatribes against Louis Jacobs in 1966
using the slippery slope argument in our high school Rabbinics class)
As if we could have avoided modernity…
By using Hirschian, Hoch Deutsch or Rabbi Sack’s flowery Cambridge accent
As if we could ignore modern Bible Criticism High or Low! As if we could accommodate all this in “Modern Orthodoxy”
No wonder the Kiruv movement, the Breslovers and Chabadskers
The Art Scrollers and the Aish sophisticates have appeal
Where else is there a feeling to be found for authenticity?
The young have seen through all the Soloveitchik apologetics
Flocking to Carlebach as a yearning for the real homey mythic experience
There is no alternative.
But the truth must emerge
Nevertheless
And it is painful
The mouth can no longer articulate the liturgy staring accusingly from the pages
The voice cannot sing the melodies
The buttocks cannot sit on the firm wooden pews
The mind can no longer listen to the priest’s homiletics
Only silent witnessing
Like a Quaker
Awaiting the spirit to move one to the inner voice
That never comes.
A silence that can only tolerate veneration under a dark Atterbury sky
In awe of Orion pursuing Lepus
Or a late Beethoven Quartet.
In awe of my father’s devotions
Daily performing in the month of Elul
His shofar, loud and shrill
Decades of commitment
His refusal to eat, to this day, without seeing the hechsher
Having sacrificed so much during the war for the kashrus
His t’fillin donned daily having stood up to Captain Smith of Her Majesty’s Merchant Navy
“in those boxes is your bible too!” melting the hardened heart of Smith (who then relented
and saved his t’fillin from being thrown overboard.)
Then sharing them with other prisoners for the remainder
of the nine-week voyage to Australia
in U boat infested waters of the South Atlantic.
All these halachic observances
Will they die with me?
How can I sincerely face their bite?
Each observance another indictment
Each Mitzva an arrow of criticism
Every movement scrutinized for the Brisker chumrah
And found wanting
What happens when each Mitzva represents another wound?
Another festering sore?
From the psychological wounds
To the spiritual opportunity
To dig deeper into the well of compassion
For the little boy
Embarrassed and ridiculed
Skin too dark for the British school
Conditional love-only available
Still finding the deeper space wide enough
Only the texts now give healing
And allow for my wounded interpretation
A little peace of mind
