A friend and former classmate of mine recently reminded me of a whimsical but sobering poem which we read in high school:
'Twas the night of the Geulah, and in every single Shtiebel
Sounds of Torah could be heard, coming from every kind of Yeedel.
This one in English, some in Hebrew, some in Yiddish.
Some “saying peshat,” and some “saying a chiddish.”
Up in Shamayim, the Aibeschter decreed:
"The time has come for My children to be freed.
Rouse the Mashiach from his heavenly berth:
Get him his chariot, head down to earth.”
The Moshiach got dressed, and, heart full of glee,
Went down to earth to enter the first Shtiebel he’d see.
"I am the Moshiach! Hashem has heard your plea!
Your Geulah has come! It's time to go free!”
They all stopped their learning; this was quite a surprise.
And they look at him carefully, with sharp, piercing eyes.
"He's not the Moshiach!" said one with a grin,
"Just look at his hat, at the pinches and brim!"
"That's right!" cried another with a grimace and frown,
"Whoever heard of Moshiach, with a brim that's turned down?"
"Well," thought Moshiach, "If this is the rule,
I’ll turn my brim up before I go to the next shul.”
So he walked right on over to the next shul in town.
Sure to be accepted, since his brim was no longer down.
"I'm, the Moshiach!" he cried, as he began to enter,
But the Jews wanted to know first if he was Left, Right, or Center
"Your clothes are so black!" they cried out in fright.
"You can't be Mashiach—you're much too far Right!"
"If you want to be Mashiach, you must be properly outfitted!”
So they replaced his black hat with a Kippah that was knitted.
Wearing his new Kippah, Moshiach went out and said:
"No difference to me, what I wear on my head.”
So he went to the next shul, for his mission was dear.
But he was getting frustrated with the Yidden down here.
"I'm the Moshiach!" he cried, and they all stopped to stare,
And a complete, eerie stillness filled up the air.
"You're the Moshiach?! Just imagine that!
Whoever heard of Moshiach without a black hat?"
"But I do have a hat!" the Moshiach then said.
He pulled it right out and plunked it down on his head.
Then the shul started laughing, and one said "Where's your kop?
You can't be Moshiach with a brim that's turned up!
If you want to be Moshiach and be accepted in this town,
"Put some pinches in your hat and turn that brim down!"
Moshiach walked out and said "I guess my time hasn't come.
I'll just return to the Heavens, where I came from.
"So he went to his chariot, but as he began to enter,
All sorts of Jews appeared, from the Left, Right, and Center.
"Please wait—do not leave! It's all their fault!" they said,
And they pointed to each other, and to what was on each other's head.
Moshiach just looked sad and said, " You don't understand."
And then ascended his chariot to get out of this land.
"Yes, it's very wonderful, that you all learn Torah,
But you seem to have forgotten a crucial part of our Mesorah.
"What does he mean?" "What's he talking about?"
And they all looked bewildered, and they all began to shout.
Moshiach looked back and answered, "The first place to start,
Is to shut up your mouths—and open your hearts.
"To each of you, certain Yidden seem too Frum or too Frei,
But all Yidden are beloved in the Aibeschter's eye."
And on his way up he shouted: " If you want me to come,
Try working a little harder on some Ahavas Chinam!"
For better and for (decidedly) worse, Orthodox Jewry finds itself sundered into sub-groups, making the person who declares him- or herself to be a Torah-true Jew with no need or wish for further description and segmentation an increasingly endangered species. As a friend of mine aptly put it, “The middle empties out,” with individuals and families who may have seen themselves as somewhere in the middle—perhaps successfully pursuing that rarest of all things, the Golden Mean—finding chinuch options supporting their vision to be meager to non-existent, and thus often and unhappily resigning themselves to sending their children to an institution serving as a “feeder” and an entrée into one group or another.
While the actual number of such camps or sub-groups may likely require the use of higher mathematics, the equation is often simplified to two very broad swaths of the Orthodox world today, namely, Modern/Centrist Orthodoxy vs. the Yeshivishe Velt, or, in Israel, Dati-Leumi vs. Charedi. Attempts at describing fault-lines have been made, and often include contrasting the groups’ attitudes and beliefs within the arenas of educational and professional pursuits, engagement with the non-Orthodox and non-Jewish “wider world,” the role and prominence of women, and the State of Israel.
At best, the situation is reductionist and regrettable; at its all-too-often worst, as we all know, it is but a euphemism for sinas chinam, for division and derision.
To add to the confusion, most people do not in fact tend to make their day-to-day decisions based on “shitah” or deep analysis; in fact, much of what we do—the quotidian questions of what we wear, where we shop, what’s for supper, what our Shabbosos look like—is based on not grand decisions, but on cultural immersion. So long as nothing strikes one as objectionable or terribly problematic, one is, like as not, apt to construct one’s own life as one sees life lived around one (a fact that Rishonim as disparate as Rambam and R. Yehuda HeChasid acknowledged). Much of what binds one into, and defines one as, a card-carrying member of the Modern Orthodox or Yeshivish world, is not so much halakhah—and not even that vague but all-important term, hashkafah—as it is, culture. “We” do things the way they should be and are done… “they” do things strangely, differently, wrongly, and so the list goes on….
In many cases, of course, we of the various sub-groups do cross paths, and, one hopes, in many cases true affection, or at the least tolerance and respect, may be maintained and/or gained. Yet this tolerance (and, rare enough)—even true friendship—is often accomplished via the tacit understanding that one will not discuss nor even touch upon any “hot button issue”—just those very issues which would do with brave and broad discourse, and which most desperately need to be saved from cultural myopia, if we wish to avoid the sartorial miseries experienced by our anonymous poet’s Messiah, and his resultant escape back to the Heavens.
There is much to be said on the subject of why Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s teachings of Torah Im Derech Eretz have not (yet) flourished as one would have thought they would, despite their being exceedingly well-suited to answer the concerns and dilemmas of contemporary Jewry in the Western World, the land of Israel most decidedly included.
It goes without saying that this situation is something that we are trying to remedy, and we invite all like-minded individuals—from all groups and sub-groups!—to join the cause. For the short-term, at the least, our group is not united by any physical “kehilla” or community, but only by shared goals and aspirations. While there is obviously much to be said for a physical, Hirschian community (and even more for TIDE schools and other educational institutions), it is my feeling that we should not ignore the unique benefits which the current situation offers.
Here we have an ever-growing group of motivated, deeply involved individuals who discuss and engage with all the “hot button” issues that most of us assiduously avoid when speaking with anyone who we don’t know to be “one of us.” Here we have professionals, academics, rabbis, mechanchim and mechanchos, students, “kelei kodesh” and businessmen and women, from widely varying backgrounds and geographical locations, with widely varying opinions and—here it comes, that loaded word—“hashkafos.” We, culturally, come from the MO and from Yeshivish world; some of us come from both worlds, some of us, from neither just quite. And yet, we are engaged and united in the common cause of propagating Rav Hirsch’s Torah Im Derech Eretz vision. What unites us is a belief that Rav Hirsch’s teachings of Torah Im Derech Eretz is an approach which deserves no less acceptance than any other current Orthodox sub-group or movement, and which can also, at the same, tremendously add to the bounty which each camp already offers (and help alleviate some of the less-than-perfect parts therein).
It is hard not to think of Rav Hirsch’s words describing Am Yisrael in its entirety, in exile, bereft of physical land and unity, in exile for shortcomings yet to be entirely corrected. Rav Hirsch sums up Chazal’s descriptions of the problems which led to the loss of the first and the second Batei Mikdash as, respectively, lack of courage and allegiance to the Torah, and sinas chinam, baseless division and hatred:
“We lack the courage and the independence of spirit to walk firmly and resolutely in our own path. We lack the strength, we lack the enthusiasm, we lack the self-knowledge and self-respect, we lack the unflinching adherence to God and His holy word…. The second [sin] is a deplorable splitting-up of the single Law of God, a meaningless division of the indivisible Torah into מצות שבין אדם לחברו ובין אדם למקום, duties of man to God and of man to man, and the still more deplorable transference of this idea from theory into practice.
Neglect of the specific Jewish duties towards God has dug our first grave, and neglect of our duties towards our human brethren produced our second downfall.”[1]
Rav Hirsch’s words ring as true and as urgently as ever in the macrocosmic sense in which they were uttered. They can, however, also be applied to the microcosm of his own teachings—to proudly carry on the mesorah of Torah Im Derech Eretz, with no need to either beg others for recognition, nor (ח׳׳ו) to berate, belittle, or bash any other outlooks. May we merit to do our share, as one small part of Klal Yisrael, currently not joined by any physical or cultural bonds, but by Rav Hirsch’s ideals alone.
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