WEEK THREE - Guest Post

Friends,

Carl Kinbar, Provost of MJTI, has graciously prepared for us a brief posting on the nature of the halachic process.

Some of your questions, including Paul's three most recent, touch on this issue.
Please read and enjoy. And please, don't resist the urge: interact!

Stuart

The Task of Engaging the Halakhic Process

As Provost of MJTI, I occasionally check the online classes to find out how things are going. I am very encouraged with the level of commitment and response indicated by your posts. Also, as chair of the Rabbinic Lit Department, I would like to post a add my thoughts to provide further context for your orientation to halakhah and the halakhic process.

One aspect of my understanding of halakhah stems from Yeshua’s statement, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others” (Mt. 23:23, NASB). It has been noted that the written Torah does not require the tithe of mint, dill, and cumin, which are considered spices, not crops.

Granted, one could argue that spices should be included in the tithing of “all your increase” (the third year tithe). I disagree, but the issue I am trying to begin with is that the clear Biblical emphasis on moral virtue (“justice and mercy and faithfulness”) does not negate even minor halakhic matters. Love and careful tithing are not opposites for Jews, but part of a larger whole.

The issue that I want to focus on, however, is what we do with what Shaul calls “the customs of our fathers” (against which he had done nothing; Acts 18:17), and James and the Jerusalem elders called simply “the customs” (Acts 21:21), according to which they believed Jews should live.

The Greek word is ethos (custom or practice). In Jewish thought, custom is not simply an optional ethnic frill, but an essential aspect of how Biblical law is shaped and expressed in the life of the Jewish people. This is why Shaul was so clear that he had done nothing against it (that is, neither violated it nor taught against it).

The thing is, as Jews, the customs or practices of our fathers have been developing for two millennia since the time of Shaul and the Jerusalem elders. We have no reason to believe that the customs that existed in Shaul’s time (which are largely undefined in Scripture) were annulled. We have every reason to believe that the generations of Jewish fathers that have lived since then legitimately developed customs and practices that continue shape us as a people.

After the Hurban (the destruction of the Temple), the Jewish sages sought both to preserve and develop these practices in a framework that eventually became known as halakhah. The early writings are preserved and elaborated most essentially in the Mishnah and Tosefta [which we study at MJTI R401: Rabbinic Literature 1] and in the Babylonian Talmud, also called the Bavli or simple “The Talmud” [which, along with the Jerusalem Talmud, we study in R402, Rabbinic Literature 2].

As we study these early documents, we realize that the sages’ primary concern was not to make rules for every conceivable situation, but to develop a halakhic process and construct a halakhic framework within which the practices of the Jewish people are embedded. Many, if not most, of the halakhic discussions in the Talmud do not even result in the definition of specific practices!

Since the Bavli was not a definitive halakhic encyclopedia, after its close in the sixth century C.E. we find many letters between rabbis asking about the proper practice for this situation or that. Respected rabbis would respond to these questions in documents that are now called responsa. Also, there were takkanot, authoritative rulings made in the light of perceived communal needs. At every step of the way, minhag (custom), originating among the “laity,” was incorporated in the halakhah. By the eighth century, the desire for a more orderly presentation of halakhah provoked lists and compendiums of rulings. The first massive halakhic code, covering the full range of Talmudic sources, was Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (Repetition of the Torah) in the twelfth century. Today, arguably the most important halakhic code is the Shulhan Arukh (Set Table), written in the sixteenth century.

Obviously, the history and practice of the halakhic process is communal, very far from “each man doing what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6). Although there have always been varieties of halakhic practice (by followers of different rabbis and, more broadly, in geographically distinct areas), there is broad general agreement on the shape of halakhah.

Enter reformist Judaism in early 19th century Germany. For reasons that are too complex to discuss here, there arose the demand for a Jewish service that would resemble the German Lutheran service in many ways: the sermon in the vernacular (German), less liturgy, instruments on Shabbat, and other practices. Traditional rabbis reacted by moving to the right. For example, although sermons in the vernacular were always halakhically acceptable, the more traditional rabbis banned them. What became liberal Judaism (Reform, Conservative, and later Reconstructionist) and Orthodox Judaism (which did not exist before the 19th century) moved farther and farther apart. Traditional and Chassidic Judaism continued to live in the Jewry of Eastern Europe, almost untouched by the western European ferment, until the Holocaust.

I want to highlight two important developments that have taken place since the Holocaust: (1) liberal Judaism has become increasingly acculturated, aggressively incorporating the values of liberal Western democracy and culture: (2) almost all surviving non-liberal Judaism has become Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox. The trauma of the Holocaust both destroyed Traditonal Judaism and re-enforced the Orthodox desire to preserve the past by becoming more stringent in the present.

So how do Messianic Jews relate to all this today? First of all, Messianic Jews must become well acquainted with the history and process of halakhah. It is not enough to decide what we feel about this or that practice. We need to understand the nuts and bolts of halakhic thought. In order to do that, we – or at the very least our leaders – need to engage Jewish texts, beginning with the Bavli. There is simply no substitute for learning how the halakhah is reasoned out and put together. We also need to engage with the responsa, the takkanot, and the codes. The alternative – dealing with the specifics of halakhah entirely out of context – is as unworkable as “fixing” one function of a computer without any reference to, or understanding of, the computer as a whole . Second, this must be a communal process. Those who insist that our entire response to halakhah should be on an individual, or even congregational, basis are essentially opting out of the process that has engaged the Jewish people communally for two millennia.

Chasidic, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Orthodox Judaism are all departures from the Traditional Judaism that thrived until the 19th century. The choice that faces the Messianic Jewish community is not which one to pick, but whether we will engage in the task of learning that will put us in the position to better understand the issues we are dealing with.

If all this makes you feel rather overwhelmed, join the club! But, as Rabbi Tarfon used to day, “It is not upon you to complete the task, but you are not free to desist from it” (Pirkei Avot 2:21). That is, wherever I am as a Jew, it is incumbent upon me to begin, to take baby steps, along with others who are committed to the task.