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(from Sh'ma 13/245, January 7, 1983)

Jewish Tradition is Not Unitary

By David Novak

The key phrase in Rabbi Spero's paper (Spero) is, "They can...for the sake of klal Yisrael bring their procedures for marriage and divorce into line with the Orthodox." This is his key phrase and it reveals his key error. For it assumes that Orthodoxy and Jewish Tradition are synonymous. But, which "Orthodoxy" is he talking about--the RCA, the UOJC, the Agudas Harabbonim, Lubavitch, Satmar, etc., etc? His own paper refutes the assumption that there is one "Orthodoxy" with which all the rest of us must now fall "in line." And is there one Jewish Tradition which, he assumes, is synonymous with Orthodoxy? Hardly. There is no major halachic (much less theological) issue which is not the subject of continuing debate in Jewish Tradition.

To cite but one example, alluded to by Rabbi Spero. If a Jewish couple were married by a Reform rabbi and the woman remarried another Jewish man without having received a get from the first husband, according to no less an Orthodox authority than Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (Igrot Mosheh, New York, 1961, E.H., no. 76), her second marriage is valid and the children born of it are not mamzerim. (On halachic grounds I believe Rabbi Feinstein's arguments to be quite weak, and so do many other halachists, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox.) So here we have Orthodox Rabbi Feinstein ruling one way and Orthodox Rabbi Spero ruling against him. So who is the real Orthodox posek (authority)?

Jewish Tradition Up For Debate

I agree with Rabbi Spero that one cannot ascribe to the type of shallow relativism which simply says, in the words of a famous Yiddish farce, "You are right and you are right--and you too are right!" Authentic conviction requires that we believe our own view is true and others are less true, if not totally false. Nevertheless, no one should automatically assume a priori that his or her view is necessarily synonymous with Jewish tradition. That must be demonstrated a posteriori in each specific area. Such careful demonstration should be the content of ongoing debate within the Jewish community, characterized by the learning and reason we have learned to expect and love in the classical sources. On this level, numbers mean nothing. (Rabbi Spero employs a favorite Orthodox argument today which emphasizes their increasing numbers as proof of the truth of their position.-- Obviously such an argument was not employed when Reform and Conservative numbers were increasing.) As the Mishnah notes, "Even if ninety-nine say the law is so, and one says otherwise, listen to him when he is in accordance with Tradition" (she'amar kehalachah--Peah 4.1).

It is interesting to note that all of Rabbi Spero's arguments are against Reform, even though he lumps Reform and Conservative together. On what Orthodox grounds would he either accept or reject Conservative conversions and divorces which, as the head of a Conservative Beth Din, I can assure him are as traditionally processed as any Orthodox ones?

Over a decade ago my friend, Prof. Jakob J. Petuchowski of HUC-JIR, proposed a similar unanimity in American Jewry on questions of personal and marital identity for the sake of klal Yisrael ("Plural Models Within the Halachah," JUDAISM 19.1/Winter 1970). However, to his chagrin and that of many others outside the Orthodox camp, we have sadly come to learn that the Orthodox establishments in virtually all their varied forms are interested only in compliance with Halachah which will give them political hegemony over all of Jewish life. For many of us, the call for unity cannot be the same as a call for unconditional surrender!