My favorite night of the year has always been the night of
Shavuot, when I go from hill to hill of the seven hills of my
beloved city of Efrat, giving Torah study class after Torah
study class until the early-morning daybreak service.
During my nocturnal walk I am constantly greeted by groups
of Efratites of all ages - men, women and children - walking
to the classes of their choice; often they excitedly stop me
with a question engendered by a previous lecture.
On this one magical night of the year all of Efrat becomes
miraculously transformed into one large and glorious beit
midrash (House of Study), whose majestic message pulsates with
the words of the Psalmist, "Arise and exultantly sing the song
of Torah into the night…."
This year, however was different. Instead of joyous songs,
I heard jarring sobs. Instead of the Torah scrolls in the arks
and the Torah books on the shelves dancing with rapture and
rejoicing, they reeled with dismay and disappointment. The
very letters of black fire were weeping, the very parchment of
white fire was wilting.
Yes, this Shavuot night, my beloved Torah was crying.
YOU SEE, my Torah has always rejoiced with song because
"its paths are paths of pleasantness and all of its highways
lead to peace." The Torah is the expression and will of the
Divine Presence, who is a "God of unconditional and
freely-given love, of compassion, long-suffering patience,
truth and cleansing purity."
My Torah especially rejoices with song on Shavuot, when we
read the Book of Ruth, the scroll of lovingkindness, the story
of a forlorn and forsaken Moabite widow who is lovingly
accepted into the Jewish homeland, faith and community as a
righteous proselyte. Her loneliness is transformed into
domestic peace and security in Efrat in the loving arms of a
noble and proud son of Judah.
The lovingkindness of Boaz and Ruth toward each other as a
couple - as well as toward Naomi - merit their being the
grandparents of King David, the eventual redeemer of Israel
and the world. The world will be rebuilt and redeemed only
through the lovingkindness of a Torah and a nation which
embraced the Moabitess Ruth as one of their own and provided a
suffering widow with love and family.
WHAT HAS happened to our Torah of late? An entirely
different narrative is being written, the very antithesis of
the love and compassion of the Scroll of Ruth. My Torah has
been stolen away, hijacked, by false and misguided
interpreters. My Torah is crying because of rabbinical court
judges who have forgotten that the major message of the Exodus
from Egypt is for us to love the stranger and the proselyte.
They have forgotten the 11 prohibitions against insensitive
words and actions toward converts - and the talmudic stricture
that we are not to be too overbearing or exacting toward a
would-be proselyte (Yebamot 47). They have forgotten
Maimonides's ruling that even regarding a convert who merely
went to the mikve (and became circumcised if male) - even if
the conversion was for a personal romantic or venal reason,
and even if the convert has returned to former idolatrous ways
- he or she remains Jewish (albeit a Jewish renegade); her or
his religious marriage remains intact, and lost objects must
be restored to him or her. (Maimonides, Laws of Forbidden
Relationships 13,14).
MY TORAH is crying because these judges have, in the name
of Torah, disrupted and possibly destroyed hundreds if not
thousands of families of converts, whose children and even
children's children were brought up and accepted as Jews -
only now to learn that their forbears' conversions have been
retroactively nullified.
My Torah is crying because these judges have, in the name
of Torah, disgraced and reviled an outstanding rabbinical
leader, Rabbi Haim Druckman, a scholar who has dedicated his
entire life to the Torah of Israel, the people of Israel and
the land of Israel, and allowed an atmosphere to develop in
which his name and personage have been dragged through the
mud. They have forgotten that "an elder scholar must be
treated with precious graciousness" and that "Torah scholars
must advance peace in the world."
MY TORAH is crying because these same judges have made it
impossible for countless women to find happiness in marriage;
because they have caused wives to live as captive women to
unscrupulous husbands who hold them up for ransom in the name
of "purity of Israel." They forget the talmudic directive that
"to free a grass widow, our sages invoked many leniencies."
They forget the plea of the Maharsha at the conclusion of
Tractate Yevamot: "God must grant courage to rabbinical judges
so that God may bless lonely and suffering women with the
peace that comes from domestic tranquility."
My Torah is crying because this Torah of peace and
compassion has been perverted and hijacked by judges who,
despite their erudition, have failed to learn the lesson of
the Scroll of Ruth, failed to internalize the purpose for
which Torah was given to the world.
And so the tears of converts and would-be converts, the
tears of grass widows and women who are anxiously, frantically
and hopelessly waiting for rabbinical courts to obligate their
intransigent husbands to grant them their freedom merge with
the tears of the Torah itself.
These tears of the Torah and outsiders looking in at "pure
Israel" are preventing the redemption, a redemption which can
come only on the basis of lovingkindness to the "other" -
stranger and convert, widow and grass widow, those who are
chained and long to be free.
Our Torah is crying because she is, tragically, now in
chains.
The writer is the founder and chancellor of Ohr Torah
Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs, and chief rabbi of
Efrat.
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