Hilchot Pluralism, Part VIII: Simchat Torah

The Hilchot Pluralism series documents and analyzes the pluralistic practices that independent Jewish communities are developing.

Read this first:

• Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part I
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part II
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part III
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part IV
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part V
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part VI
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part VII
  

Back in January 2008, Part VII concluded:

Coming in Part VIII: I don't know. Maybe something with an actual concrete solution?

And it's taken almost 3 years to find something, but now here we are!

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Abstract

We look at Tikkun Leil Shabbat's first ever Simchat Torah celebration (last week), which successfully avoided taking a communal stance on whether or not it was yom tov.

The Broader Issue

This represents an attempt to achieve Stage-3 pluralism on the question of 1-day versus 2-day yom tov. (As we'll see, this solution is of limited generalizability, but still valuable.) This is an issue that will become more and more relevant in the future, due to various trends resulting in more intermingling between 1-day and 2-day people:

• cross-fertilization between Israel and the Diaspora (including Israelis living in the Diaspora and retaining their 1-day practice, and 2-day Diaspora Jews going to Israel and picking up the 1-day custom there)
• greater empowerment and education among people coming from 1-day backgrounds who may be more likely to retain their practice when making contact with 2-day Jews
• potential shifts in practice catalyzed by the upcoming calendar patterns
• the increased incidence of "shulhopping" (individuals participating regularly in multiple Jewish communities, and thereby having a greater need to define their own practice and identity rather than adopting a single community's practice)
• the more general trend of pluralistic communities defining themselves along lines other than the established denominational boundaries

Background on Simchat Torah

Contrary to popular belief, there is (technically speaking) no holiday called "Simchat Torah". Simchat Torah is the celebration of the completion of the Torah that typically takes place during the holiday of Shemini Atzeret. (Similarly, there is no holiday called "Seder"; seder is a ritual that takes place on the holiday of Pesach.) Shemini Atzeret is observed on 22 Tishrei (by those who do 1 day of yom tov), or 22 and 23 Tishrei (by those who do 2 days of yom tov). In most cases, communities that observe 1 day have their Simchat Torah celebrations on that one day (22 Tishrei), and communities that observe 2 days have their Simchat Torah celebrations on the second day of Shemini Atzeret (23 Tishrei). Of course, the day on which the Simchat Torah celebration takes place (whichever day that is) is often colloquially referred to as "Simchat Torah", but in more formal contexts (e.g. the kiddush, the Amidah), it is still called "Shemini Atzeret".

While the timing of Simchat Torah celebrations is highly correlated with a community's stance on 1-day vs. 2-day yom tov, there are some exceptions: Some Chasidic communities (and the Carlebach Shul in New York), which do 2 days of yom tov, do hakafot (dancing with the Torah) on both nights of Shemini Atzeret. And for various reasons, some communities that do 1 day of yom tov have their Simchat Torah celebrations on the night that would be the "2nd night", even though it is no longer yom tov for them. In some cities in Israel, you can find "hakafot shniot" (second hakafot) on the night of 23 Tishrei, originally for the benefit of visiting Diaspora Jews who were keeping two days, with musical instruments played by Israelis (who wouldn't play instruments on yom tov, but for whom it is no longer yom tov).

Background on Tikkun Leil Shabbat

Tikkun Leil Shabbat (TLS) is an independent minyan/havurah in the District of Columbia, founded in 2005. As its name suggests, it meets primarily on Friday nights. TLS has also had non-Shabbat services on several special occasions: Purim, selichot, and the second night of Rosh Hashanah. However, before this year, TLS never met on any of the three pilgrimage festivals, and therefore never had to take a stance on 1-day versus 2-day yom tov. (Yes, TLS has had Rosh Hashanah services on the 2nd night, but for reasons beyond the scope of this post, Rosh Hashanah is a separate question from the other holidays.)

TLS is an extraordinarily diverse community, with participants originating in all of the Jewish denominations and non-denominations, and TLS embraces pluralism. One of the constituent communities that merged into the current incarnation of Tikkun Leil Shabbat was the DC Reform Chavurah, which identified as Reform. Though the post-merger TLS has retained no denominational identification, TLS continues to have more participants from Reform backgrounds than most independent minyanim of its vintage. Combined with participants from Reconstructionist and other backgrounds, this means that the TLS community includes a number of 1-day-yom-tov people. They dwell alongside 2-day-yom-tov people, as well as people who don't have a firm position on 1 day vs. 2 days (but would go to a Simchat Torah celebration wherever and whenever the party is happening).

So all this means that the question of 1 day vs. 2 days was an actual question for TLS, unlike for many communities in which the answer is self-evident. It was a question that TLS never had to ask for its first 5 years, but it finally came up this year when TLS decided to do Simchat Torah. And the decision was made to avoid taking a communal stance on the issue.

The easiest way to do this might have been to hold the Simchat Torah event on the night of 22 Tishrei, which everyone agrees is yom tov. This would have been out of the ordinary for the 2-day people, but not objectionable in principle (cf. the Chasidic communities mentioned above that do hakafot on both nights). But among the people who had preferences on this question, more preferred to do it on 23 Tishrei. (And of course, 1-day people are already well-accustomed to compromising on this if they want to go to the happening Simchat Torah events.) And so the decision was made to do "Simchat Torah" on 23 Tishrei, but not take a position on whether or not this night was yom tov.

Here's how it played out in practice:

Ma'ariv

The event began with the evening service: a yom tov service for some, and a weekday service for others. Everyone davened together, and a packet was made up that had all the prayers for yom tov and for weeknights. The logistics were made immeasurably easier by the fact that the vast majority of liturgical differences between yom tov and weekday ma'ariv are in the Amidah, which is said silently at TLS. There are also a few minor differences in the parts said out loud:

• "Vehu rachum", at the beginning of the service, is said only on weekdays.
• Hashkiveinu has different endings for weekdays ("shomeir amo Yisraeil la'ad") and yom tov ("haporeis sukkat shalom...").
• "Vaydabeir Mosheh", before the Amidah, is said only on yom tov.
• [Some communities add an extra berachah before the Amidah on weeknights. However, TLS had already established a precedent, through several years of Purim services, of not being such a community.]

And so there was one primary sheliach tzibbur who led only the parts of ma'ariv that are common to both weekdays and yom tov (i.e. everything except the pieces noted above). There were also two helpers in the kahal, one for weekdays and one for yom tov, who loudly said the pieces specific to weekdays and yom tov respectively, leading whoever wished to join them.

What of nusach? The musical modes associated with the time of the day, time of the week, and time of the year situate the entire service in Jewish time. Since the sheliach tzibbur was representing the entire community, neither yom tov nor weekday nusach would have been appropriate, since this would have framed the communal prayer as a yom tov or weekday service. Instead, the sha"tz (when not leading non-nusach melodies) used High Holiday ma'ariv nusach, which some communities use for "Simchat Torah". This is associated with "Simchat Torah" as an event, not with a particular date on the calendar, and so it did not break the calendrical neutrality. (No one in attendance actually believed it was a High Holiday.) The weekday and yom tov helpers used weekday and yom tov nusach for their pieces, as appropriate.

Alternate proposals that were not implemented:

• Have two simultaneous leaders for the entire service, one for yom tov and one for weekday, diverging when the liturgy diverged and converging the rest of the time. This would have had the advantage of each leader leading a coherent service from start to finish. However, having co-leaders tends to be clunkier, since the leaders can't make adjustments in the moment without conferring with each other, and the differences between yom tov and weekday ma'ariv (listed above) were not significant enough to warrant this layer of complexity.
• Have one leader lead the whole service according to his/her own custom (weekday or yom tov), and one helper fill in the pieces for the other custom. After all, one might say, isn't this consistent with the principle in Part IV that the sheliach tzibbur need not represent the entire community, but simply one facet of the community's diversity? No, I think this case is different, because the framing of the service as a weekday service or a yom tov service (even if the differences in the words are small, outside the Amidah) is an act of much greater magnitude than differences here and there in the words of a service that has a communally agreed shared framing (e.g. as a Shabbat service). Furthermore, since almost no one there had any prior experience participating in a service where it was explicitly unstated whether or not it was yom tov, it would be much harder to convey this message through mere explanations than through actions. If the sha"tz led a [weekday | yom tov] service, people would walk away with the impression (correct or not) that the community was acknowledging [1 | 2] days of yom tov. It's not like going to a service where you hear the imahot included in shacharit and excluded in musaf, and you come to the conclusion that the community doesn't have a stance on the issue; in this case, the next opportunity to correct this impression wouldn't have been until next year.
  

Everything Else

After ma'ariv, there weren't really any other times when the yom tov / weekday issue had to be finessed; the rest of the event was fully compatible with both. The Simchat Torah celebration took place in one of TLS's regular Shabbat locations, so it was in walking distance for whomever TLS is usually in walking distance for.

Some of the hakafot were accompanied by musical instruments, and some were not. However, this wasn't explicitly a compromise between the 1-day and 2-day yom tov positions. After all, TLS's Friday night services alternate between instruments and a cappella, and everyone agrees that it is Shabbat. There are some people who attend only one type of service, but most attend both (though they may prefer one over the other). Thus, the yom tov vs. weekday question didn't really come up in the deliberations over instruments, except in that some people thought it was yom tov, and some of those people wouldn't go if there were instruments on yom tov (or would prefer no instruments on yom tov), and this was a reason for having some of the event without instruments. (I'm not aware of anyone who wouldn't go if there were instruments on yom tov, but didn't think it was yom tov that night. But maybe there were such people.) But, given that instruments are already not expressly forbidden at TLS on Shabbat, there were many other arguments both for and against instruments that had nothing to do with whether or not it was yom tov, and in the end this resulted in splitting the difference.

Torah was read. Yes, it's weird for 1-day yom tov people to read Torah on a day that isn't yom tov (or Shabbat, or Monday, Thursday, Rosh Chodesh, etc.). On the other hand, Simchat Torah is weird in general. There's a sense in general that this celebration of Torah is so exuberant that many of the usual rules and conventions of Torah reading are suspended. The most prominent example is that many communities never read Torah at night, except as part of their Simchat Torah celebration. (TLS is one such community. In fact, since TLS has only had evening services, this was TLS's first time reading Torah!) In this spirit, reading Torah on that night was entirely appropriate (or festively inappropriate) for everyone.

The evening didn't include any official kiddush or havdalah, but could have included both if desired, whether simultaneously, sequentially, or interwoven (and there were drinks available, and people could have done either for themselves).

Scope and Generalizability

A number of factors conspired to make this solution feasible, and at the same time limit its generalizability to other communal events on days with disputed status:

• Davening wasn't the focus of the event; it was just a warmup for the main event (hakafot and Torah reading).
• It was an evening service, so the Amidah is silent, and the overall structure of the service is almost identical for weekdays and yom tov.
• "Simchat Torah" allowed for a creative resolution to the nusach question.
• TLS does not meet every Shabbat, and does not meet on most holidays; this was a special event.
  

So the specifics of this solution are generalizable to other Simchat Torah celebrations on the night of 23 Tishrei, and with some adjustments, to other ma'ariv services and perhaps minchah too (particularly with a "heicha kedushah"). Beyond that, it gets more complicated. Communities that meet regularly for yom tov services (particularly morning services) and want to maintain a neutral stance on the number of days of yom tov have a more difficult task ahead of them (though the 2nd days of Sukkot and Pesach are a little bit easier because of the shared material between yom tov and chol hamo'ed services). Options might include offering multiple simultaneous service options (particularly if the disputed day is on Shabbat, when the community would be having services whether or not it is yom tov), or having a service on the 2nd day but making it clear that this represents only a segment of the community (while the 1-day observers are presumably going to work anyway). Other creative solutions are yet to be developed, but are likely to see much exploration in the years to come. Please leave a comment if you know of others.

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Now taking requests for Part IX.

Hilchot Pluralism, Part VII: Musical instruments redux

The other long-delayed HP7.

Previously on Hilchot Pluralism:

• Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part I
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part II
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part III
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part IV
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part V
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part VI
  

Additional prerequisite for this post:

• Myths and Facts: Musical Instruments on Shabbat
  

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I wrote in Part III:

I'm also not going to solve the issue of instruments on Shabbat. A service either uses instruments on Shabbat or it doesn't; I can't think of any other options. Some people attend minyanim like Kol Zimrah, where the leader is playing instruments, even though they personally wouldn't use instruments. But I can see how that wouldn't work for everyone. I suggested a "live and let live" approach in Part II using the example of writing on Shabbat, but I can see how hearing instrumental music as an integral part of the communal prayer that you're participating in would be much more conspicuous and harder to ignore than being in the same room as someone who is writing.

And Desh wrote in the comments to Part I:

Nothing comes to mind right now for a potential Part II. But I hope that some future Part addresses kashrut again, giving an alternate method. Because I really hope that the two-table method hasn't "solved" the kashrut "problem"; something about being "finished" with an aspect of pluralism feels unsettling to me.

In that spirit, I'm going to revisit the question of musical instruments, now that I've learned more about this topic. Of course, no universal elegant solution has presented itself since the publication of Part III; it is still the case that an event either includes the use of musical instruments on Shabbat or it doesn't (and the proposed alternative solutions merely involve finessing the definitions of "musical instruments" and "Shabbat" around the edges, but don't get at the root issue). However, I hope to provide some tools to improve the discourse, and along the way, reach some more general principles about pluralistic communities.

In a recent post about musical instruments on Shabbat, I wrote:

Of course, people may have all sorts of reasons for their practices, including aesthetic preferences, mimetic traditions, logical arguments, and cultural/denominational/communal identities. My goal is not to invalidate those reasons, but to knock them off their “halachic” high horse. The intended result is that when we’re discussing questions about musical instruments on Shabbat — in distinguishing one community from another, or talking about where we will and won’t daven, or determining policies for our pluralistic communities — we’ll have to be explicit about those aesthetic preferences, mimetic traditions, logical arguments, and cultural/denominational/communal identities, rather than simply playing the “I’m halachic and you’re not” get-out-of-jail-free card.

This post is similarly intended to move the pluralistic discourse forward and help us be explicit and honest about the bases for our principles and practices. To this end, I am proposing three useful distinctions that we should heed when we're having these conversations.

Playing Instruments vs. Hearing Instruments

Rabbi Ethan Tucker of Mechon Hadar has posted a document that includes a number of sources on the issue of musical instruments on Shabbat, and shows that halachic objections to musical instruments on Shabbat have historically fallen into two paradigms: shema yetakein (lest one come to fix an instrument) and hashma'at kol (making noise). Now halachic texts are not themselves sources of authority for pluralistic communities whose constituents do not share a metahalachic framework. (Does this mean that the stages of pluralism are meta-metahalachic frameworks?) However, I bring this up because these two paradigms are a useful categorization of the larger set of objections to musical instruments on Shabbat, whether or not they label themselves as "halachic" (a label that isn't so useful anyway in pluralistic communities where it has multiple meanings).

Classically, shema yetakein is the idea that music on Shabbat is problematic because of the possibility that it will lead to fixing an instrument (and whatever this means exactly, it is presumed to be something that is problematic on Shabbat). More generally, we can understand this paradigm as encompassing any objections to musical instruments that are based on playing the instrument: playing an instrument will lead to work or other activities that are unacceptable on Shabbat, or is itself work or otherwise an activity that is unacceptable on Shabbat. These objections are from the point of view of the person playing the instrument.

Hashma'at kol is the idea that Shabbat should be a day free of noise (or certain types of noise). More generally, this paradigm can encompass any objections to musical instruments that are based on hearing the instrument. Even someone who is ok with other types of noise on Shabbat might object to musical instruments, because the experience of hearing musical instruments is different from the experience of hearing other sounds.

Therefore, someone might object to musical instruments on Shabbat based on playing, hearing, both, or neither. ("Neither" means that this someone doesn't object to musical instruments on Shabbat. In this case, s/he doesn't need to give a specific reason for his/her non-objection, since in the absence of a reason otherwise, it is assumed that something permitted on weekdays is also permitted on Shabbat. The exception is if someone explicitly or implicitly accepts one of the reasons against musical instruments on Shabbat, in which case s/he needs a reason for why that reason is overridden.) Before we enter into pluralistic dialogue on this issue, we should each consider for ourselves which of these four categories we fall into.

Let's look at some examples of how this could play out in a pluralistic community.

In community A, everyone in the community objects to playing instruments on Shabbat. In this case, the question of whether musical instruments may be played on Shabbat in this community is a moot point, because no one is going to play them anyway even if the community permits it. As a result, in this singular case (and as we'll see, only in this case), people's views on hearing instruments are also moot, because there's not going to be any music to hear. (We'll set aside the possibility that people from outside the community would be brought in to play music, and assume self-sufficient communities.)

In community B, everyone in the community is ok with playing and hearing instruments on Shabbat. This is simple: in this community, instruments may be played on Shabbat, and there's no problem.

In community C, some people (call them Rachel) play and listen to instruments on Shabbat. Other people (call them Leah) object to playing instruments on Shabbat, but don't have a problem with hearing instruments on Shabbat. In this case, Rachel can play, and Leah can listen (or at least be in the same space), and there's no problem. This reduces to the writing-on-Shabbat example from Part II.

Community D is where things get complicated. Rachel is still around and plays instruments on Shabbat, and there are other people (call them Bilhah) who object to hearing instruments on Shabbat. And thus we have the irreconcilable situation described in Part III. The End. But now let's take a step back from the precipice and note that the variable that makes all the difference between community C (where a Stage-3 pluralistic solution is simple) and community D (where a long-term Stage-3 pluralistic solution is impossible) is constituents' stances on hearing instruments. Stances on playing instruments have no practical effect (except in the singular case of community A): communities B and C (which differ only on this axis) are able to have identical instrument policies.

This is important for communities that are attempting to tinker around the edges to come up with a creative solution. If these communities are looking for a pluralistic solution -- and that doesn't only include communities that identify explicitly as pluralistic, but communities that use any form of pluralism (even Stage 1) in their discourse, such as "We want to accommodate different practices in our community, and therefore we don't have instruments on Shabbat, since this allows everyone to participate", as opposed to non-pluralistic discourse (not that there's anything wrong with that) such as "We want to establish uniform standards of Jewish practice for our community, and therefore we don't have instruments on Shabbat, since we have decided that this is a communal value" -- then the question of whether and under what circumstances it is ok to play instruments on Shabbat is utterly irrelevant. If no one in the community thinks it's ok, then we have community A, where there's no demand for an alternate solution, so the conversation isn't happening in the first place. And if some people in the community think it's ok (as in communities B, C, and D), then this is only relevant to anyone else insofar as they have concerns about hearing instruments, as we said in Part II: "If Shimon's practices are contrary to Reuven's values, Reuven has no basis to prevent Shimon from carrying out Shimon's own practices, except to the extent that this interferes directly with [Reuven's participation in the community]." This is equally true even if we're not looking at instruments as a general class, but looking individually at specific types of instruments or specific circumstances under which instruments are played.

What this means is that any distinctions based in the shema yetakein paradigm -- for example, allowing only non-tunable instruments, or insisting that instruments not be tuned on Shabbat -- have no place in pluralistic discourse. It is to be assumed that whoever is playing an instrument will grapple with these issues on his/her own, or not grapple with them, as s/he sees fit, and it's no one else's business. On the other hand, distinctions based in the hashma'at kol paradigm -- distinguishing among instruments based on what they sound like -- are fair game. For example, there may be a basis for distinguishing between percussion and non-percussion instruments, because the experience of listening to them is clearly different (though if we're talking purely about the hashma'at kol paradigm, then it's not obvious which is more acceptable than the other; this is in the ear of the beholder), or between electric and acoustic instruments. On the other hand, there is no basis for distinguishing between a tunable drum and a non-tunable dumbek, or between a regular guitar and a hypothetical non-tunable guitar (manufactured perhaps by Mechon Zomet), since it's inconceivable that these distinctions make a difference in the experience of the listener.

In short, if Rachel wants to play an instrument, and Bilhah doesn't want the instrument to be played, then it has to be because Bilhah doesn't want to hear it, rather than because Bilhah doesn't want Rachel to play it.

This leads us to a corollary (which is a stronger version of axiom #2 in Part II): living in a pluralistic community necessitates suspending the principle of kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh (all Jews are responsible for one another). Instead, you have to take responsibility for yourself, and let other people take responsibility for themselves. If this isn't possible (for a given set of positions on a given issue), then you're not meant to be in a pluralistic community (or a community that is pluralistic on that issue and includes that set of positions), as we have said in Part VI. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Instruments on Shabbat vs. Instruments in Prayer

The question of playing/hearing instruments on Shabbat (which might be in a prayer context or a non-prayer context) is different from the question of playing/hearing instruments in prayer (which might be on Shabbat or on a weekday). These questions are often conflated because prayer on Shabbat is a core activity of many of our communities, but really they're separate. (Though fewer people would object in theory to instruments in weekday prayer than to instruments in Shabbat prayer, it's a question that comes up less because, outside of special events, weekday minyanim are more likely to be hurried and with fewer frills.)

A common set of objections to musical instruments is based on prayer aesthetics. Fine. That's an important conversation to have (and even among those who think that instruments are ok, there are better and worse ways to utilize instruments in prayer), but it should be acknowledged that this isn't a Shabbat issue. If your objection to instruments is based solely on prayer aesthetics, then 1) you shouldn't have a problem with non-prayer use of instruments on Shabbat, 2) to be consistent, you should be equally opposed to instruments in weekday prayer. On the other hand, if you think instruments are ok in weekday prayer and not in Shabbat prayer, then you should look for a reason other than prayer aesthetics to explain your position.

Fundamental Opposition vs. Aesthetic Preference

When we have an open Stage-3 environment, we can be honest about the basis for our personal positions. Are they based on fundamental principles or aesthetic preferences? The answer to this question, which is different for each person and for each issue, can also inform our discourse.

And I'm not saying (as it might appear on the surface) that one is always more important than the other. To be sure, there are cases in which aesthetic preference is less significant. For example, if some people in a community prefer raisin challah and others prefer sesame-seed challah, then there are a whole host of solutions -- have both kinds available every week; alternate every week; decide on one and let everyone else deal with it; compromise on plain challah -- and in the end, it doesn't matter that much. On the other hand, as we showed in Part VI, there are cases in which aesthetic differences are significant enough that they make a pluralistic solution not worthwhile even if one is possible. Indeed, we can all think of cases in which an aesthetic mismatch makes us uninterested in participating in a given community even if there is no principled objection on paper.

Differences in principles and values lend themselves more to the kind of rational analysis that characterizes the Hilchot Pluralism series. Aesthetic differences can defy this kind of analysis, and are both more bridgeable and less bridgeable.

So let's see how this applies to musical instruments.

This situation is asymmetric, because as I said in Part III, no one holds a mandate for musical instruments as a principled position (unless they've been backed into a corner by Stage-1 discourse), though they might have a principled position against a permanent prohibition on musical instruments. In the short term, the pro-instrument position is primarily based on an aesthetic preference, not that there's anything wrong with that.

As for the anti-instrument position, there are some people who won't take part in any event in which musical instruments are used on Shabbat for principled reasons (or if they do, then it's with the understanding that their identity is not represented in that community and they are there as a visitor), and there are some people who have an aesthetic preference against instruments (whether Shabbat aesthetics, prayer aesthetics, or both). For the former group, there is a good chance that we reach the insoluble situation that we started with. For the latter group, there might be more flexibility or there might not. It depends on the specific individuals and the specific community.

For communities in which the presence or absence of musical instruments is an important part of their communal identity, they've chosen not to be Stage-3 pluralistic on this particular issue, so there's nothing to discuss. For individuals whose aesthetic preference for the presence or absence of musical instruments is so strong that it's a dealbreaker, there's also not much to discuss; these individuals will be limited to participating in some communities and not others. May many diverse communities flourish.

Other possibilities arise if the community takes no single stand on the issue, and individuals see instruments vs no instruments as a preference but not a dealbreaker. For example, Tikkun Leil Shabbat alternates each time between instruments and no instruments, and most regular participants go to both styles of services, even if they like one better. This is possible in a specific context in which certain conditions are met, and wouldn't work in other contexts.

The point is that, in Stage-3 discourse, we should be honest about our motives. We shouldn't claim a more extreme position than we actually hold in order to shift the goalposts in our direction. On the flip side, we should also be honest about saying that a given development would make us less interested in participating in something, even if we can't claim a principled reason for it.

Coming in Part VIII: I don't know. Maybe something with an actual concrete solution?

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All was well.

Hilchot Pluralism, Part VI: The limits of pluralism

Previous episodes:

• Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part I
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part II
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part III
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part IV
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part V

This ongoing series documents and analyzes the pluralistic practices that independent Jewish communities are developing. This post, inspired by numerous comments on the previous posts, explores the limits of (Stage 3) pluralism. When is a pluralistic solution impossible or undesirable?

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Before we get started, a few reminders (found in Part II):

• A pluralistic community need not include everyone in order to be pluralistic. In fact, the examples in this post will show that if such a requirement were in place, then no pluralistic communities could exist.
• If I say that Reuven's practice and Shimon's practice can't coexist in a Stage 3 pluralistic community, that's not a value judgment about either of their practices; it just means that they're mismatched for this purpose. They should live and be well in separate communities, or in the same community (in which one of them will not have his identity fully actualized within the community's practice). (I might separately believe that Reuven's or Shimon's practice is wrong, but I won't mention that in this post, because the purpose of this post is community engineering, not criticism of individual practices.)
• It's ok for a community to take a stand on one side of an issue and thus be non-pluralistic on that issue. The community should just be honest that that's what's going on, and not claim to be a place for everyone.

With that in mind, let's look at some obstacles to Stage-3 pluralism.

The Meta-Pluralism Problem

Pluralism doesn't require meta-pluralism (pluralism about pluralism). Pluralism need not extend to encompass anti-pluralistic worldviews. You have to pay to play: if you want the protections of pluralism, you have to buy into pluralism yourself. This doesn't mean you have to believe that other positions are valid, but it does mean you have to respect their right to exist.

For example, during the recent controversy over the Jerusalem gay pride parade, supporters of the parade were accused of hypocrisy. The argument went something like "You liberals claim to be about pluralism and tolerance, but by having this parade, you're being intolerant of people who believe that homosexuality is wrong." The fallacy in this argument is that the anti-parade position was anti-pluralistic, and therefore did not warrant pluralistic protections. If the parade organizers had forced haredim to engage in gay sex, this would indeed have been intolerant and non-pluralistic. However, the haredi objections were directed at the very existence of the parade. No one can be expected to go out of existence in the name of pluralism. If the opponents of the parade want to maintain this anti-pluralistic position, they forfeit the right to use pluralism in support of their position.

More broadly, people who say "I can't be in a community where people are/do X" (where X = gay, Orthodox, pray, drive on Shabbat, whatever), and people who are/do X, can't coexist in the same pluralistic community (which sounds tautological as stated). Either the community decides to be pluralistic on this issue (in which case the former position is unwelcome, since it is anti-pluralistic), or the community decides not to be pluralistic on this issue and to place X outside the community norms (in which case people who are/do X can leave, or can stick around as guests but not as fully enfranchised members of the community).

The Classification Problem

Reuven and Shimon cannot form a Stage-3 pluralistic community together for a given purpose if Reuven's identity requires that the community formally recognize a classification among people that Shimon would perceive as making Shimon into a second-class citizen in violation of his own identity.

We have several examples of this from comments posted to past Hilchot Pluralism posts.

Sarah M comments on Part IV:

-what to do when there are community members who object to hearing kol isha, a woman singing?

If there is no singing at all in whatever this community is gathered for, then there's no issue. But if there is, there is no way to simultaneously be sensitive to people with kol isha concerns and avoid offending people who are operating outside of that paradigm. A policy that requires half the community to be literally silenced will not be perceived as benign by people who do not share the underlying worldview. Here again, the community must make a choice between two incommensurable policies, or demarcate space for both.

ALG comments on Part II:

There are Orthodox people who won't trust the kashrut of anyone who is not shomer(et) Shabbat according to Orthodox halacha, which means that even the two table system is impossible (you said it could be stage 3, not just stage 2, which would imply that it could work and no one could have to compromise).

The two-table system is about food, not about people. Anyone can bring food for either of the two tables as long as s/he follows the instructions correctly. For Table 2, some people can prepare the food in their own kitchens, while others have to use other people's kitchens or bring store-bought food, but anyone can find a way to do it if s/he wants. This is true even if the potluck is Table-2-only (or, of course, Table-1-only). There is no hierarchy of who is considered trustworthy; everyone is considered equally able to follow directions and make accurate statements.

If the community adopts a policy (even for just one of the two tables) that deems only some people as trustworthy, on the basis of their personal practices that take place outside of the context of this community and have no direct connection to the specific issue at hand (note that ALG's example is about people who are "shomer(et) Shabbat according to Orthodox halacha", not "shomer(et) kashrut", even though the issue at hand is about kashrut), then the community is implicitly adopting a particular set of personal practices as a communal norm. Even though people who don't hold these practices are equally able to participate in this hypothetical alternative two-table system that distinguishes among people (not just among food), the community has adopted a particular cognitive frame for "shomer(et) Shabbat" as normative. Establishing this frame means placing people with different frames outside the Stage-3 boundaries of this community. Therefore, the community must choose whether or not to adopt a norm about personal practice (even if this norm is not enforced and everyone is welcome to participate), and either way, someone will be excluded from Stage-3 participation.

The minyan check system (in any of its variations) doesn't share this problem, because any minyan definitions that arise, no matter how exclusive or offensive they may be to some individuals, emanate from other individuals, not from the community's policy. Once the community creates the infrastructure for the minyan check (and there is some disagreement about the proper infrastructure), it is completely impartial about the content of minyan counting.

The trichitza also doesn't share this problem, because people have a choice not to be classified at all.

The Aesthetic Preference Problem

This isn't actually a problem. But it's one answer to Sarah M's comment on Part IV:

-a discussion of when it might not be the best idea for everyone to be davening in the same room?

It's one thing if people want to do the same thing together, and are looking for a way to overcome their differences and make this happen. But if people aren't really interested in doing the same thing, then what's the point in doing it together? Someone is bound to be unhappy. Better they should do it separately, and come together for something more mutually agreeable.

To use davening as a concrete example (in response to Sarah M's comment), if you and I want to daven in the same basic style, except that we want to say slightly different words, or we want to wear different things, or we want to sit in differently composed sections, and so forth, then we've already discussed at length how to make this happen. But if Reuven wants a Classical Reform service with organ and choir, and Shimon wants a Carlebach-style service with lengthy communal "yai dai dai", and Dina wants yeshiva-style speed mumbling, and Tamar wants guided meditation, then it's unlikely that there is a way to achieve all of these goals while maintaining the integrity of each one. Beyond a certain point, each style gets watered down so that its quality (judged by its internal metric) suffers, and the people need to decide whether their desire to pray together outweighs the quality of their individual prayer experiences.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with answering "no" to this question. People can split up to pray in separate groups, or if the community has reasons that it wants to pray together, it can consider solutions such as alternating between different styles (as Tikkun Leil Shabbat does) without watering down each style. If the community decides based on aesthetic preferences to split for prayer (or something else), it can find other venues to come together.

The Education Problem

In economics, theoretical models of the market assume that people act like Homo economicus, operating rationally and with complete information. One way in which these models fail to predict actual market behavior, and in which markets fail to operate efficiently, is that real humans have incomplete information, so they are not able to make the decisions that would result in an optimal distribution of resources.

Jewish pluralism suffers from a similar disconnect between theory and practice. We can talk here in the ivory blogosphere about Stage 3 pluralism and creating a community that respects everyone's identity. But it doesn't work when people don't have enough education, experience, and/or self-confidence to have fully-formed Jewish identities that they can speak up for in the community's discourse.

One example is when the participants are at the stage in life when their identities overall are still in formation, let alone their Jewish identities. Mah Rabu correspondent EMM writes to us from the world of pluralistic Jewish schools:

“Pluralistic” Jewish schools welcome students whose families embrace substantially differing Jewish practices. Do any of these schools actually enact Stage-3 pluralism in their student communities? To the extent that a child’s Jewish identity does not satisfy BZ’s “robust and confident” criterion, it seems impossible in principle for these schools to be Stage-3 communities.

Consider the following situation: Peretz and Zerach attend a Jewish school with pluralistic ambitions. A teacher plans a siyyum celebrating the completion of a unit of study and invites students to contribute snacks to share with the class. The teacher, having read about the two-table system, sorts the food into hekhshered and non-hekhshered sets and informs the students about how the food was sorted. Peretz chooses to snack from the hekhsher-only table and Zerach chooses to nosh from both tables. Has Stage-3 pluralism occurred?

The answer depends on the degree to which the students’ decisions were informed and secure. Did Peretz snack confidently? Did Zerach nosh robustly? Perhaps Peretz and Zerach are somewhat precocious, and perhaps they have benefited from excellent instruction about kashrut, modern Jewish history, and Hilchot Pluralism. Even so, classical bar/bat mitzvah age notwithstanding, it would be a stretch to regard their decisions about religious observance as adult decisions unless Peretz and Zerach were at least 15 years old. More realistically, we might take our cue from the 26th amendment and regard the typical young person as capable of making informed decisions about nuanced issues only at the age of 18 years. Regardless of how one determines the precise cutoff age, most primary and secondary school students are not fully-fledged, confident, secure Jewish decision-makers.

Schools, therefore, are not Stage-3 communities of children. Perhaps, however, the students in such schools are merely surrogate decision-makers for their parents (or guardians). Are pluralistic schools Stage-3 communities of adults? To the extent that pluralistic institutions ought to value diversity and prepare students to make their own adult Jewish choices, the answer again is ‘no’.

Consider the following situation: A school maintains an enormous database of parent preferences about Jewish practice. The school requires parents to make these decisions for their children and requires students to abide by these decisions during school activities. Ignore the practical problems surrounding collection and implementation. In theory, such a school would include families with divergent home practices. Is this Stage-3 pluralism?

Maybe, but this school is failing to be pluralistic in the more profound sense of valuing diversity and preparing students to make their own confident adult choices. Parenting involves striking a balance between making decisions for children and letting children make their own decisions, with a gradual shift in emphasis to the latter as children get older. When a parent signs on the dotted line and enrolls a child in a school, the parent admits the school as a partner in the task of child-raising. A pluralistic school can be a safe place for a student to learn to experiment with their emerging adult Jewish identity within parameters defined by the school. If the parent makes every last decision about Jewish practice for a child, and if the school reinforces those decisions, who is teaching the child that diversity of confidently-chosen Jewish identities is a good thing?

The fact that Stage-3 pluralism is not strictly possible in these settings does not mean that these institutions should adopt a Stage-1 or Stage-2 approach or abandon pluralistic aspirations entirely. It does demand that they develop a vision of pluralism that honors the gradually emerging distinctness of parent and child. Jewish schools that aspire to fully-fledged pluralism will need to explicitly inform parents about the extent to which the institution will enforce the preferences of the parents (when they exist) and the extent to which it will promote the child’s development into an independent, informed, confident Jewish decision-maker.

Perhaps truly pluralistic Jewish education is impossible below a certain age, and it is necessary to gain a non-pluralistic foundation so that one can function later in pluralistic settings.

Though pluralistic Jewish schools are multiplying, the vast majority of active Jews continue to attend secular schools or non-pluralistic Jewish schools, while participating in non-pluralistic Jewish communities outside of school, and have their first exposure to Jewish pluralism in college. Hillel is an organization on campuses throughout the world that is committed to producing pluralistic Jewish communities. Some Jewish students are ready for that when they get to college, and others aren't. This disparity is a major reason why most Hillels are never pushed to move beyond Stage 1.

The root of the problem is not simply that 18-year-olds are at a wide range of levels of Jewish education and preparation when they get to college. The problem is that this disparity is correlated with denominational background (and yes, most active Jews get to college with some sort of denominational affiliation in their history, even if those labels are less meaningful in post-college life).

Many Orthodox 18-year-olds have a solid Jewish background. Often they've spent a year in yeshiva after high school. They have lived in a functioning Jewish community where Judaism is lived on a daily basis by regular folks, and they have an image of the type of community they want to emulate. They may not know much about non-Orthodox Jews or Judaism, but they know about themselves and their own form of Judaism. They know enough to be in command of their own Jewish lives during college and to express their preferences and needs in the wider community's discourse.

In contrast, many 18-year-olds from Reform backgrounds (even active ones) lack this solid foundation. Back home, Jewish life was centered on the synagogue, where it was the rabbi's job to know what was going on, so regular people never had to figure it out for themselves and become self-sufficient. Maybe they've had Jewish "peak experiences" at camp or at NFTY conclaves or on an Israel trip. But these experiences, valuable though they are, are so self-contained and dependent on a specific environment that is (by design) isolated from ordinary life that they fail to provide tools for incorporating Judaism into ordinary life. These students have always experienced Judaism in places where someone else was in control of the environment, and don't have experience creating these Jewish environments for themselves. But they're ready to try. Maybe. If they know where to begin. But it's confusing. They're just starting to figure things out.

So the two groups arrive at Hillel and collide. Two groups that together personify Erikson's fifth stage: identity vs. role confusion. One group confidently knows everything, in that way that only adolescents can, and one group is having an identity crisis, in that way that only adolescents can. One group is asking "What are the laws, precepts, and ordinances that our God has commanded you?" and one group is asking "What is this?". And they're broken down on lines of ideology and practice, with Orthodox Jews primarily falling into the first group and liberal Jews primarily into the second.

And somehow they're supposed to cobble together a pluralistic Jewish community where everyone's identity is respected. That's not going to happen when one group of students are confidently asserting their identity and another group of students are timidly trying to feel theirs out. So even though everyone has the best intentions, the result is frequently Stage 1, because the students with the most confidence and knowledge end up having the greatest influence on the discourse, so the Orthodox cognitive frames become the frames for the whole community.

My proposed solution will come as no surprise: create robust liberal Jewish communities so that children (and adults) can develop solid knowledgeable liberal Jewish identities, and will then be ready to take part in Stage-3 pluralism. Any attempt at pluralism without this foundation is putting the cart before the horse, and has little chance of success (if success is defined as Stage 3).

Coming in Part VII: ???

Requests?

Hilchot Pluralism, Part V: Quorum call

The story so far:

• Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part I
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part II
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part III
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part IV

This ongoing series documents and analyzes the pluralistic practices that independent Jewish communities are developing. Since the series has gotten popular, I should emphasize that I should get no credit for the actual innovations described therein; I'm just collecting and blogging them (albeit not just as a disinterested anthropologist, but as a proponent who wants to see Stage 3 pluralism spread).

Like Parts III and IV, Part V (or should that be Part not-V?) will address issues of communal prayer.

***

Certain parts of the prayer service (most notably, barechu, kedushah, kaddish, and Torah reading; see Mishnah Megillah 4:3) require a minyan of 10 members of some set M. In the absence of a minyan, those parts are omitted. This is agreed upon by pretty much all Jews (who are praying in the first place). The disagreement is about the composition of M.

The major split is between two schools of thought:

• M1) M includes all Jews over age 13
• M2) M includes all male Jews over age 13

And there are additional border cases with room for disagreement: Who is a Jew? What about 12-year-old girls? And so forth.

This post deals only with approaches to the binary question of "Is there a minyan in this room right now?", separating it from the question of "Now that there is a minyan, who can do stuff?". In communities above a certain size, this binary question rarely has a practical impact, because a minyan is always present (by anyone's definition). However, in communities where people don't show up on time, this question can mean the difference between stalling and proceeding, and in smaller communities, it can determine whether Torah is read at all.

In most Jewish communities, there is no internal disagreement on this question. The community generally agrees on either M1 or M2 above. Sometimes there are questions about the border cases, but this is generally framed as an issue of communal standards rather than an issue of pluralism. The pluralism question arises when people who adhere to M1 and people who adhere to M2 want to pray together in a Stage 3 setting where both of these identities are respected.

Some communities, for a variety of reasons, require the presence of 10 men and 10 women for a minyan. This ensures that a minyan is present by the M2 definition (and, it goes without saying, by the M1 definition, which may or may not be a consideration in these communities), while ensuring that both men and women have indispensable roles. As I said about other practices in Part III, "[t]hese minyanim are meeting a real need for a particular set of people ... but they're not providing a permanent solution that will make it possible for everyone to pray together in Stage-3 harmony. And again, they're not claiming to." This policy is problematic for people who are looking for (many understandings of) an egalitarian community, because roles are still assigned based on gender, even if this is applied symmetrically to both genders. Also, the way this policy is usually implemented, these minyanim wait (if necessary) for 10 men and 10 women before starting the parts of the service that require a minyan. It is assumed that 10 and 10 will eventually show up. But what happens if they never do? (I'm asking because I don't know.) If only 10 men and 7 women show up, will these minyanim really forgo reading Torah (etc.)? If the answer is yes, then this is problematic for people who count by M1 and for people who count by M2, since they all agree that a minyan is present, yet they are skipping something that many would consider an obligation on the community when a minyan is present. If the answer is no, then the policy isn't even truly symmetric. (UPDATE: This isn't just hypothetical; here's one real-life account.) To quote again from Part III, "[t]hat's not to say that these minyanim don't have an important place among all the other types of minyanim. But they are not a Stage-3 solution that includes people who seek to be in a community that is fully egalitarian."

***

There is (at least) one solution at the communal level that can encompass a multiplicity of individual identities: define a minyan communally as "10 consenting adults", i.e. 10 people who count each other as a minyan. Does anyone know the origin of this practice? (You haven't let me down on the history of the trichitza or the two-table system.)

Jews In The Woods's fall 2006 mid-Atlantic gathering devised an ingenious method of implementing this definition: before each point in the service where a minyan is required, call "minyan check". At this point, raise your hand if you believe that a minyan is present in the room that includes you. Count the hands. If the number is greater than or equal to 10, proceed as if there is a minyan. If not, proceed as if there is not a minyan. Thus, the presence or absence of a minyan is determined on the spot by the grassroots, rather than by a contentious policy.

(A variation has been suggested in which you raise your hand if you believe that a minyan is present in the room, whether or not it includes you. I have not yet been able to understand this one. It seems to me that any cases in which this method yields a different result from the other one involve some kind of logical contradiction.)

The minyan check method accords with the principles established in Part II: no one is compelled to violate his/her own core values, and no one is prevented from carrying out his/her own practices.

Let's look at two thought experiments to illustrate this:

1. Bilhah believes a minyan is present, Zilpah believes a minyan is not present, and the count is less than 10. In this case, the parts of the service requiring a minyan are skipped. Bilhah may be unhappy about this, because she believes a minyan is present, but she has no right to count Zilpah or anyone else toward the minyan without their consent. The minyan is formed by voluntary participation, and there aren't 10 people who are willing to constitute themselves as a minyan, so no minyan can be formed. Bilhah misses the opportunity to say certain prayers with a minyan, but she would miss that opportunity anyway if Zilpah et al. weren't there.

2. Bilhah believes a minyan is present, Zilpah believes a minyan is not present, and the count is greater than or equal to 10. In this case, the service proceeds as though there is a minyan. Zilpah may be unhappy about this, because she believes no minyan is present, but she has no right to prevent Bilhah and 9+ others from constituting themselves as a minyan and praying accordingly. If she doesn't want to take part in these parts of the service, she can leave the room or close her ears at those times, and she would still be missing no more than if everyone agreed with her that a minyan was absent.

Bilhah (in case 1) or Zilpah (in case 2) might prefer that the community take a pause and wait until a minyan (of consenting adults) is present by her definition. Sorry, but that's not a right that anyone is entitled to. If you (as a participant or a communal leader) want to be sure that a minyan (by your definition) is present for a certain part of the service, then make sure 10 people whom you count and who count themselves as a minyan show up on time; don't expect everyone to wait.

There are a few practical complications with the minyan check method, but nothing that sinks it entirely. First of all, each of the parts of the service that require a minyan also require a shaliach/shelichat tzibbur -- a prayer leader, but literally "a representative of the community". The sha"tz should be chosen from within the minyan. But in practice, the sha"tz is generally chosen in advance, before the composition of the minyan is known. So it's possible that the minyan check will yield a positive result, but the designated sha"tz doesn't consider him/herself part of this minyan, and therefore can't serve as sha"tz. In this case, the community can appoint a new sha"tz to pinch-hit for these parts. (The original sha"tz isn't missing out on anything, since s/he wouldn't have led those parts anyway, given that composition of people.) Ok, that's easy enough to do on the fly for barechu and kaddish, but what do you do about Torah reading when the people who prepared the parsha don't believe that a minyan is present? That presents a larger practical challenge.

Another possible complication is that, if all logical possibilities are considered, a positive result from the minyan check does not necessarily mean that there is any set of 10 people all of whom count themselves and each other as a minyan (the desired result). However, in practice, the set of minyan-definitions that people actually hold isn't all that complicated. The Venn diagram would be made up almost entirely (if not entirely) of concentric circles. For example, I don't think there is anyone on earth who doesn't count women in a minyan, but counts men who have had Reform conversions. (Yes, as ZT points out, there are people (like lame-duck Sen. George Allen) who are considered Jewish by Orthodox standards and not by Reform/Reconstructionist standards, because they have Jewish mothers but don't have Jewish identities. However, in practice, anyone in this situation with enough of a Jewish identity to be present in this pluralistic Jewish community and to honestly raise his/her hand during the minyan check would be considered Jewish enough by all standards.) If all minyan-definitions are concentric, then there are no weird paradoxes.

A third issue is imperfect information when it comes to some of the less obvious (i.e., non-gender-related) questions of personal status. However, this is not a complication specific to the minyan check system; it can be dealt with (or not dealt with) in exactly the way it would if the community had a single minyan definition.

***

Coming in Part VI: The limits of pluralism. In what circumstances is there no pluralistic solution?

Hilchot Pluralism, Part IV: Microscopic prayer issues

Prerequisites:

• Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part I
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part II
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part III

Please read the series in order, so that the terminology will make sense. Thanks!

This ongoing series documents and analyzes the pluralistic practices that independent Jewish communities are developing. Part III addressed some macroscopic issues related to prayer (egalitarianism, musical instruments, separate vs. mixed seating), the types of issues that come up more often in the one-sentence (or even one-word) descriptions of minyanim, and that people use more often for advance screening of which minyan they attend. Part IV will zoom in on microscopic issues, focusing on the minute-by-minute experience of prayer.

***

Again, we'll start with the low-hanging fruit.

First up: the question of what people (whether civilian participants or prayer leaders) are wearing during prayer. Kipah? Black hat? Snood? Sombrero? Nothing on their heads? Tallit? Tefillin? And does the person's gender affect the answers to these questions?

The answer: WHO THE **** CARES? Worry about yourself, and let other people wear what they want, as long as they're not naked.

Peshita, mahu d'teima? (Aramaic for "Well duh, that's obvious, why did you have to bring it up in the first place?")

I think it's a generation gap. Previous generations saw more of a need for uniformity and making sure that everyone is doing the same thing, while our generation has more of a sense of e pluribus unum, recognizing that our differences make the community what it is, and are not a threat.

Thus, in the older generations, there were Classical Reform synagogues that insisted that people not cover their heads, and on the flip side, there are other synagogues (including some that claim to be egalitarian) that ask men to wear kipot, and even have a kipah patrol to enforce this. I hear that at Camps Ramah, there are separate minyanim that define their differences primarily based on whether girls (over age 13) are wearing tallit and tefillin. In our generation, these are much more likely to be non-issues; we don't understand why there should be any problem at all with praying with people who are wearing different things.

Ka mashma lan. (Aramaic for "That's why you might have thought otherwise. But no.")

One might think that the standards should be more stringent for the sheli(a)ch(at) tzibbur (prayer leader, or literally "representative of the community"), because s/he is a, well, representative of the community. To that I respond, what is the community? And I refer back to the axioms in Part II that define a Stage-3 pluralistic community. If the community in question is a Stage-3 community that includes both Reuven and Shimon, then both Reuven's and Shimon's practices are representative of (a slice of) the community, and therefore either Reuven and Shimon, when serving as sheliach tzibbur, can follow his own practices and still be faithfully representing the community. If Reuven wears a bowtie and Shimon doesn't, then when Reuven is sha"tz, his bowtie-wearing doesn't interfere with Shimon's prayer, except insofar as Shimon feels that he can't be in a community with bowtie-wearers. But if Shimon really does feel that way, then (by the definitions in Part II) Reuven and Shimon can't be in a community together that is Stage-3 pluralistic on this issue. Divisions happen (though in my opinion, this is a rather stupid thing to divide on, and it would be better for Shimon to rethink the issue).

Perhaps some exceptions should be made, where it is reasonable for a community to establish boundaries for what the sheliach tzibbur is wearing. Mishnah Megillah chapter 4 (also known as chapter 3 in the Gemara - don't ask) establishes some 2nd-century guidelines for this: if someone insists on wearing all white (refusing to lead prayers in colored clothes), or insists on being barefoot, then they shouldn't be allowed to be sha"tz. The reason for this is explicit -- it's to screen out members of some heretical sect. (Essenes? Jewish-Christians? Historians, help!) What are the 21st-century equivalents? Wearing a cross? A Yechi kipah? Perhaps. So I can see putting restraint on this type of speech. In that case, the Stage-3 boundaries of the community don't extend to include people with Christian or Meshichist beliefs, but that's a common place to draw a line anyway.

Even in this case, the restraint should only apply to the sha"tz and not to civilians. See axiom #3 in Part II. If you disagree with what someone is doing, tell them why and have a conversation about it; don't legislate it.

***

Next slam-dunk issue: Choreography of prayer. Some people have minhagim about when to stand and sit during the service. Others don't, and just follow what the people around them are doing. Among those who have personal minhagim, there are differences among these (Artscroll's attempts at homogenization notwithstanding).

The solution seems obvious: Don't tell people what to do! Abolish "Please rise" and "You may be seated", as well as the visual versions of these directions. "But then how will people know when to sit and stand?" You just have to have enough trust that people (if not everyone, then at least a critical mass) are sufficiently educated and intrinsically motivated that they'll make appropriate choices without instructions. This, in turn, requires that people actually be sufficiently educated and intrinsically motivated to make those choices. This is what I meant when I wrote (way back in "Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism"):

In order to make this kind of pluralism [Stage 3] possible, it is necessary for the various Jewish identities to be robust and confident. The insecurity and ignorance in some parts of the Jewish world would make those parts be swallowed alive under this model, which is one reason that this stage is not so widespread yet.

There is an irony in the fact that this particular type of pluralism (regarding prayer choreography) is more common in Orthodox congregations (which are supposed to be, um, orthodox) than in Reform congregations (which are supposed to be pluralistic). If you go into an Orthodox synagogue and stand when other people are sitting, or vice versa, then no one will look askance at you; they'll be too absorbed in their own prayers. I double-dog-dare you to attempt the same thing in a Reform synagogue. The source of the difference is that Orthodox communities can assume that people are intrinsically motivated, whereas Reform communities assume that people are only going to do what they're told to do. Liberal Jews need to find intrinsic motivations, so that this assumption will cease to be accurate. It's a chicken-and-egg problem: the leaders assume that the participants are dependent on directions (so that they provide directions), and the participants assume that the leaders will provide directions (so that they remain dependent). In case you haven't guessed, standing and sitting during prayer is only a microcosm of a larger issue. I challenge the Reform movement to come up with a vision of what Reform prayer services would look like, and what Reform communities would look like, if all participants were self-sufficient.

***

Liturgy (the words).

First of all, each individual can say whatever words s/he wants in his/her personal prayers. This is not a normative statement of how I think things should be; it's a statement of fact, since this is masur lalev (entrusted to the heart) and any rules would be impossible to enforce (whether by policies or by social norms). In a future blog post (outside of the Hilchot Pluralism series), I'll post about my own choices in what I say and don't say, in order to open up a conversation about the content, pursuant to axiom #3 of Part II.

So the pluralism question here is about what the sha"tz (leader) does. I'll discuss Kol Zimrah's practice as one example of a pluralistic approach to liturgy, but there are other approaches out there too.

Kol Zimrah's policy is that the service adheres macroscopically to the traditional structure of the liturgy, but the leader may make microscopic changes to the traditional text (at the word or phrase level).

What does this mean?

Macroscopic structure:

KZ has no "official" siddur. Any participant is free to bring whichever siddur s/he wants, or no siddur at all. Our community includes people who say every word of the liturgy, people who sing along with the parts that are being sung together but reflect silently during the non-sung parts, and people who don't say any of the words but hum along with the music. Maintaining the full macroscopic structure of the liturgy provides maximal freedom for all these people to participate, as long as everyone understands that they can individually opt out of any prayer. If Plonit (a participant) is opposed to saying Psalm 96, then while the community is singing Psalm 96, she can substitute another prayer in its place, or meditate silently. If Plonit is leading the service, then she doesn't have to sing Psalm 96 out loud, but she should still leave time between Psalms 95 and 97, so that those who want to say Psalm 96 can still do so. If the leader had the option of skipping straight from Psalm 95 to 97, then (a) someone who wanted to say Psalm 96 would be asymmetrically inconvenienced (compared to Plonit's inconvenience of waiting while others are saying Psalm 96), and (b) the macroscopic variations from one time to the next would make the participants much more dependent on paying attention to what the leader is doing, and would make it more difficult for them to find their own groove. KZ's rule of thumb is that a person familiar with the liturgy should be able to follow the service without directions, and the requirement to follow the macroscopic structure without deletions is for the purposes of inclusivity and clarity, not to make a unified communal statement that all of these prayers are required.

Microscopic changes:

Plonit may not skip Psalm 96, but she may say "mechayei hakol" or "mechayei hameitim" or "mechayei kol chai" as she chooses, or may include or exclude "v'al kol yoshevei teiveil" as she chooses. This may be more contentious than the other issues discussed above, but the principles underlying this practice have already been laid out in this post.

As discussed above, it is assumed that each participant is intrinsically motivated in his/her prayer. Therefore, if Plonit (leader) says one version of a prayer, this does not preclude Reuven (participant) from saying another version at the same time. With one exception, the leader never has exclusive responsibility for ensuring that participants fulfill their individual obligations.

[The exception is the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Individual participants aren't blowing their own shofarot, so the only way they can fulfill the mitzvah of shofar is by hearing the communal blasts. Therefore, our current practice is about covering all the bases.]

Anyone who believes in an individual obligation for prayer can fulfill that obligation on his/her own, even when praying with a community. Rather, the leader's role is to ensure that the community fulfills its communal obligation (in whatever way we understand that obligation). If Reuven believes that Plonit's version of the prayer is invalid, then the result is (according to Reuven) that Reuven is yotzei (= "has fulfilled his obligation") and Plonit is not yotzeit. (Meanwhile, according to Plonit, either Plonit is yotzeit or she doesn't have the concept of "yotzei(t)" in her system. And Plonit has no opinion on whether Reuven is yotzei, because he hasn't done anything in public, so she has no way of knowing.) However, according to axiom #2 of Part II, Reuven has no basis to object to this, because it's not his business whether or not Plonit is yotzeit.

Therefore, Reuven's only possible basis for objection is if he believes that the community is not yotzei. To address this, we'll ask again: What is the community? If the community includes both Reuven and Plonit in a Stage-3 way, then both Reuven's prayer and Plonit's prayer are valid expressions of prayer coming from the community (albeit not necessarily valid for each individual in the community). There just needs to be an explicit understanding that the prayer leader is praying on behalf of him/herself as a representative of the community, but does not necessarily represent every individual in the community. (This is no different from an individual giving a d'var torah that some people disagree with.) Afterwards, Reuven and Plonit can argue freely about why they disagree. If Reuven can't be in a community where Plonit's version of the prayer can be expressed, then he doesn't actually want to be in a Stage-3 community with Plonit (once again, not that there's anything wrong with that).

That said, perhaps a line can be drawn for prayers that are actually idolatrous. But I can't think of any practical examples of this that have come up (with the possible exception of Yechi, depending on one's view). In almost all cases, the variations that come up just represent different ways of praying to the One. We may disagree on whether it is permissible to include the phrase "Elohei Sarah" in the Amidah, or on (if it is permissible) whether it is desirable, but I don't think anyone disagrees that God was in fact the God of Sarah (whatever we mean by "God" and whatever we mean by "Sarah").

***

Coming in Part V: ???

What other problems and solutions should be documented? The line is open for requests.

Hilchot Pluralism, Part III: Macroscopic prayer issues

Prerequisites:

• Taxonomy of Jewish pluralism
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part I
• Hilchot Pluralism, Part II
  

This series documents and analyzes the pluralistic practices that independent Jewish communities are developing. After a long delay (from February break to April break), here is the long-awaited Part III, focusing on communal prayer.

To end the suspense now, I'm not going to solve any major unsolved problems in this post.

As far as I know, there is still no way to have a minyan that is both gender-egalitarian (meaning that people are not classified by gender) and compatible with a version of halacha that requires that prayer leaders be of a particular gender. (Maybe Jews in the Woods will figure it out someday; they haven't yet, but not for lack of trying.)

Contrary to popular belief, minyanim in the style of Shira Hadasha (where men are poreis al shema and oveir lifnei hateivah (i.e. men lead shacharit/musaf/mincha/ma'ariv), and women lead peripheral services such as kabbalat shabbat and pesukei dezimrah, and people can read Torah and have aliyot without regard to gender) do not accomplish this. And generally they don't claim to. These minyanim are meeting a real need for a particular set of people (and, in some cases, providing a sufficiently high-quality prayer experience that people outside that set are willing to compromise their principles and pray there), but they're not providing a permanent solution that will make it possible for everyone to pray together in Stage-3 harmony. And again, they're not claiming to. The reason they don't provide this solution is because they're not actually egalitarian (nor, generally, do they claim to be). The set of public roles that one can have in the community is still prescribed by one's gender. I can't ever lead kabbalat shabbat, my female friend can't ever lead shacharit, and 10 Jewish adults (of whatever gender) can't count themselves as a minyan. Yes, a service led by men and women is better (from the perspective of greater inclusion) than a service led only by men. But it is no more egalitarian. Being "mostly egalitarian" is like being "a little pregnant". That's not to say that these minyanim don't have an important place among all the other types of minyanim. But they are not a Stage-3 solution that includes people who seek to be in a community that is fully egalitarian.

I'm also not going to solve the issue of instruments on Shabbat. A service either uses instruments on Shabbat or it doesn't; I can't think of any other options. Some people attend minyanim like Kol Zimrah, where the leader is playing instruments, even though they personally wouldn't use instruments. But I can see how that wouldn't work for everyone. I suggested a "live and let live" approach in Part II using the example of writing on Shabbat, but I can see how hearing instrumental music as an integral part of the communal prayer that you're participating in would be much more conspicuous and harder to ignore than being in the same room as someone who is writing.

In Stage 1 and Stage 2, some people insist that they "can't" pray or "aren't comfortable" praying in a service where instruments are used on Shabbat. Therefore, it appears that the pluralistic solution is no instruments on Shabbat. The people who want instruments on Shabbat are then backed into a corner, so we respond that we "need" to have instruments in order to pray, and make fools of ourselves in the process. Of course we don't "need" instruments, and shame on Stage-1 discourse for twisting us into making ridiculous statements like that. In limited circumstances, having a Shabbat service/event without instruments is a perfectly reasonable way to accommodate everyone. In Stage 3, the problem arises when looking at the long view. While it may be acceptable for everyone to go without instruments for any one particular instance, it becomes unacceptable (from a Stage-3 identity perspective) if people are forced to never pray with instrumental music. So the best achievable solution is what we already have: pray together (without instruments) some of the time, and pray separately (with and without instruments) some of the time. In my world, this is achieved by attending multiple independent minyanim that meet on different weeks.

That's as good as we can do, but maybe that's not so bad; maybe Stage 3 means having lots of options, and identifying with the big picture, not necessarily identifying with every option.

***

Now that I've listed the issues that I don't think can be pluralistically solved at the present time, let's start picking the low-hanging fruit.

The trichitza* should have appeared in the Year In Ideas. I'm not being sarcastic. It's an elegant idea that didn't exist, and then someone came up with it, and everyone said "Why didn't I think of that before?"

[Linguistic excursus on the word trichitza: Some have suggested that this word is problematically constructed, because the "tri" means 3, and the "chitza" means "half", so "trichitza" suggests three-halves or one-sixth, when a meaning of one-third is desired. This doesn't bother me, because chatzi can refer to any fraction less than a whole, not necessarily a half, so "trichitza" can still mean "dividing in three". Some have suggested meshlisha as an alternative. This also successfully carries the connotation of "three" while sounding like the source word mechitza. However, as I have discussed elsewhere, it runs into grammatical problems, because a Hebrew word cannot start with two shevas. This problem might be avoided with the word mashlisha, with a patach, which can be understood as a participle of the nonexistent hif'il verb l'hashlish, to divide into thirds. The word meshalesh(et) might also mean the same thing ("something that divides something into thirds"), using a verb form that already exists, but lacks the assonance to mechitza. Finally, some have suggested meshlitza as a hybrid. I don't really understand this one. In addition to the two-sheva problem, a shoresh (particularly one that is shelamim) can't really be split like that; a shoresh is an indivisible morpheme.]

I think the trichitza may have originated at Jews In The Woods, but don't know for sure; can anyone confirm the origin? (Disclaimer: I've never been to JITW, and never been to a minyan with a trichitza.)

The idea is simple: divide the prayer space into three sections, one non-gendered, one women-only, and one men-only. If people want to pray in a space where they are not classified by gender, they can do so, and if they want to pray in a single-gender space for whatever reason (because they believe that this is required by halacha, or because they would be distracted by the presence of the opposite sex, or because they believe in masculine/feminine "energy"), then they can do so. There's something for everyone, and no one is coerced.

The beauty is that it automatically shifts in response to consumer demand: if everyone wants mixed seating, then *poof*, the single-gender sections cease to exist (since no one is sitting there), and if everyone wants separate seating, then *poof*, the mixed section ceases to exist. And if Reuven feels lonely because he's the only person in his section, then, well, he's still getting the best outcome that he can reasonably hope for in the context of that community: the alternatives are either that Reuven prays in a way that he doesn't want to, or the rest of the community is coerced into praying in a way that they don't want to, both of which are suboptimal outcomes. If Reuven's loneliness outweighs his reasons for being in his section, then he can always switch to the other section. And if not, then he can either stay where he is and deal with it (knowing that he is in a community where his choice is respected albeit not shared), or find another community with more like-minded people. Life is about making choices, and taking responsibility for one's choices.

Now that the trichitza idea is out there, there's no going back. Any minyan that has constituents who prefer separate seating and constituents who prefer mixed seating, and that takes no official stance that one of the options is invalid, should have a trichitza. In particular, the minyanim [N.B. not the same as the Shira Hadasha-style minyanim discussed above] that combine egalitarian prayer leadership with separate seating (despite the preferences of many people in their communities for non-gendered seating) have no excuse. They may have started out with separate seating as a "compromise" (hello, Stage 2), but such compromise is unnecessary now that the trichitza option exists. It's possible for these minyanim to move to Stage 3 on this issue if they want to.

It distresses me that some supporters of these minyanim refer to them, tongue in cheek, as "separate but egal". This is no laughing matter. Comparing one's community to Jim Crow segregation should create some serious cognitive dissonance. If one believes that the two situations are analogous (full disclosure: I actually sort of do, and Brown v. Board of Education has taught us that "separate but equal" is inherently unequal) then one should strive to rectify this rather than accepting it cheerfully, and if one believes that they're not analogous, then the comparison to historical hatred and oppression isn't appropriate even as a joke.

***

Ok, this post has gone on long enough that it's time to publish, and there are lots of prayer-related issues that haven't been touched yet. This post hit some macroscopic prayer issues; Part IV (coming soon) will focus on microscopic prayer issues, such as liturgy. What topics do you want to see in Part V and beyond?