Elhanan Nir is a poet, author of various books of Jewish thought, editor of the literary supplement of the Makor Rishon newspaper, and a Ram at Yeshivat Siach Yitzhak in Efrat. He has now published his first novel, “Rak Shnenu†(“Just the Two of Us,†Kibbutz Hameuhad, 2017, 198 pp.), which is a penetrating portrait of the Religious Zionist community in Israel, as told through the prism of one extended, and unhappy, family. It touches on so many different aspects and challenges of the world it portrays, in ways that are more particular to life in Israel but also with serious relevance for American Modern Orthodoxy, and I highly recommend it to anyone that can handle the beautiful Hebrew with which it is authored. (Israeli critics have made comparisons to Agnon, which I believe are overstated, but that’s for another time.)
The central character is Yonatan Lahavi, a teacher at a Jerusalem yeshiva high school. In one scene we witness the following exchange between Yonatan and his student Ben-Tzur in a halakhah shiur. I thought it presented so many stimulating points for consideration that I wanted to bring it before the Lookjed community (in my rough translation of the passage from pp. 163-164). It is important to note, lest the quoted section give a false impression when taken out of context, Yonatan is not on his way toward being “off the derech.†He is, in fact, a quite sincere, dedicated teacher, and even more so a student of Torah (becoming a teacher came at the expense of not signing on long-term as a yeshiva student with the promise of becoming a gadol). Nevertheless, the scene captures something of the early onset mid-life crisis the novel documents. Mindful that we are discussing a piece of fiction, I am nevertheless curious about other educators’ responses to Yonatan’s dilemma, as well as to the actual challenge from his student which sets it off. Discuss.
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“Let’s return to the laws of cooking on Shabbat,†said Yonatan. “I want to do a quick review. Our topic was the matter of ‘bishul achar bishul’ with liquids. We saw that the Ashkenazim are actually more lenient about this matter than the Sephardim…†Ben-Tzur interrupted him and said rather angrily, “But, rabbi, what difference does it make—Ashkenazi or Sephardi? If it’s permitted, then it’s permitted; if it’s forbidden, then it’s forbidden! The question is: What did God say? Leave me alone with where my grandmother was born. Who cares?â€
Ben-Tzur inhaled, stared at Yonatan, his tone shifting from anger to a scornful laugh. “Tachles, all the halakhot which vary according to where you come from just prove that the whole thing isn’t serious,†he added. Yonatan tried to explain the importance of each person following the customs of his forefathers so that the chain of tradition shouldn’t be broken, but he knew that his words were not convincing. Why was he telling them things that he himself no longer believed in, things which were just remnants of the passionate and naive days of his first year in yeshiva, but were now like a hangnail—no longer a piece of his body, yet refusing to break off. Why does he fear to share with them the complex and perplexed spiritual world which truly occupies him? Why doesn’t he talk to them about the beauty of halakhah, and the constant need to enable it to progress, to free it of all its fears which do not allow it to respond to new challenges? On the complexity of modern religious life, in which we are simultaneously citizens of different and contradictory worlds? Why, in place of sincerity, did he choose to fatten them on the old, moldy religious ideas, which he himself had been stuffed with, causing them to grow sick of it all, exactly as he had?
Rabbi Jeffrey Saks
Director, ATID - Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions & WebYeshiva.org
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2017 06:48AM by mlb.
