Here are two examples about the tension between liberalism and halachic Judaism I mentioned in my last post (dedicated to Alex Stein - see his blog at http://falsedichotomies.com/).
1.
Today I attended a learning session for Masorti Judaism staff led by Rabbi Daniella Kolodny. We were looking at a Masorti responsum on smoking by Rabbi David Golinkin (see volume 4) which, aside from unambiguously prohibiting smoking, attacked ultra-Orthodox poskim such as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein for failing to do so. Just to be clear: I agree with the teshuva; it's clear to me that smoking is contrary to basis halachic injunctions to save life and remain healthy. But I'm ambivalent about the value of applying halacha to this kind of issue. I have ultra-Orthodox acquaintances who won't paint their house before asking their rabbi what colour to choose. I wonder whether applying the authoritative framework of Jewish law to a question whose answer is self-evident in terms of modern science and common sense is the start of a slippery slope which leads, ultimately, to this kind of self-abasement. In other words, as liberal Jews, can we accept a pan-halachic perspective which holds that Jewish law has the capacity to dictate all our decisions, or should we limiting halacha to the areas where we actually need it (ritual matters, genuinely fraught ethical issues) and asserting our right to make our own decisions about most areas of life?
2.
But sometimes it's not clear what's a halachic issue and what isn't. For example, our rabbis were recently asked to comment on the question of same sex marriage in the UK. The Church of England and the Orthodox Chief Rabbi have come out against it and the Progressive Jewish movements (Liberal and Reform) among others have predictably been in favour. All the arguments for and against have been framed in moral terms: gay marriage is seen as either a good thing or a bad thing. Masorti Senior Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg issued a statement making clear that gay Jews are welcome in our communities, that he approved of same-sex civil partnerships, and that he wants to find a way of marking same-sex relationships with a religious ceremony. The subtext of this statement is that allowing same-sex couples to undergo kiddushin (Jewish marriage) is not a simple proposition - in other words there's a gap between what's moral and what's halachic (on this see Rabbi Jeremy Gordon's article quoted in the previous post).
Kiddushin is the legal procedure whereby a man acquires a woman (in the language of the Mishnah) - as such, it simply doesn't apply to same-sex couples. There's no moral judgement here, just a question of applicability. On the other hand, when synagogues register marriages in the eyes of the State, they are performing what is by definition an extra-halachic act, as Jewish marriage is a private contract in which the State or even the Bet Din has no role. To my knowledge, English law doesn't specify the form of religious ceremony people have to undrego before their synagogue can register them as legally married, and increasing numbers of straight couples are choosing alternative ceremonies in preference to kiddushin, which they see as patriarchal and sexist. What would happen if we instituted an innovative, religious commitment ceremony for same-sex couples, having nothing to do with kiddushin, but followed up by a registration of civil marriage under the auspices of the synagogue?
I'm not a rabbi and I'm certainly not empowered to influence this kind of decision. I'm more interested in it as a thought experiment which might help us think about the question of what is a halachic issue and what is an extra-halachic one. In most ways, halacha (and Judaism in general) plays too small a role in our lives as liberal Jews. But all too often halachic categories are invoked to prescribe particular solutions to what could be seen as social or political problems. I think we need to be very clear about which mode of thinking is relevant to which issue, bringing halacha to bear more intensively where appropriate, but fighting the corner for liberal values and autonomy wherever we can.
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