A New Letter To Toby Katz and our Community

This past June I wrote an open letter to Toby Katz about her actions. I cited a number of quotes she made where she foolishly suggested that Orthodox Jews loved their children more than Reform and Conservatives do and made many other foolish remarks.

Well it seems that dear Toby has again opened her big trap and spouted off more nonsense. I laughed pretty hard when I read it because it is more proof of her foolish and uneducated bias against Jews who do not practice Judaism the way that she wants.

Here is an example:

Non-observant Jews who are nevertheless connected to an O shul and O rabbi for major life cycle events—girl baby-naming, bris, bar mitzva, wedding, funeral—are fundamentally attached to Judaism in a way that is simply not the case with a Jew who belongs to a “Conform” temple. Conform exists for only one reason—to make Jews psychologically and emotionally comfortable with their total disloyalty to the religion of their forefathers, to ease their conscience when they intermarry or do whatever they please."

So her argument is that nonobservant Jews who join an Orthodox shul are better than those that belong to a Conservative or a Reform shul. But why. She alleges that members of the Conservative/Reform shuls belong there so that they can "intermarry or do whatever they please."

That remark is false, but we'll set it aside for now. What I ask now is what is different between the two. Toby, you say nonobservant meaning that those people are not Shomer Mitzvot. It is clear that you have a problem with Jews who are not, but because they belong to an Orthodox shul you think that they have a stronger attachment to Judaism than those members of a Conservative or Reform.

That is just narishkeit and illogical.

The reason I refer to both Reform and Conservative as “Conform” movements is that both exist for the same reason—to help Jews conform comfortably to the prevailing secular ethos of America. Conform does very little to help people stay connected to Judaism, just the opposite.

One could make the argument that vast numbers of Orthodox Jews are unthinking automatons who have never dared to consider the possibility that their beliefs are wrong. They do not dare open their eyes to the possibilities that lie out there so they do as we see in Lakewood and ban the Internet or rail on about Slifkin and this and that.

Fortunately I am far more open and progressive than Toby and I have no problem saying that there are many who are not so provincial in nature in all of the branches of Judaism.

There is also another factor to consider, and that is the question of, to whom do we owe loyalty? It is true that we owe loyalty to all our fellow Jews and that we want—or should want—to maintain close ties between all Jews, and to make sure that all Jews feel welcome in our community.

Toby, your kiruv is outstanding. Make people feel welcome by badmouthing and demeaning them and then just so that you cannot be backed into a corner qualify it with a sad statement like this.

But we also owe loyalty to G-d. We do not have the right to falsify the Torah in order to make our fellow Jews feel comfortable. We hate to lose any Jews, we grieve over our fellow Jews who have elected to live in such a way that they will not have Jewish children—but we do have a mesorah, a chain of transmission, that has kept going father to son, mother to daughter, for three thousand years now, since Sinai. And we absolutely do not have the right to be the generation that breaks that chain.

Toby has it occurred to you that you offer no choices. It is your way or the highway. Do you really think that this is an effective way to make people feel welcome. You know life is full of black and white and shades of gray.

You do the Jewish people a disservice when you designate yourself as arbiter of morality and who is a Jew. You hurt all of us when you use such divisive language.

I stood with you and everyone else at Har Sinai and what I heard is different from what you heard. You are no better than anyone else and it would be better for all of us if you changed your attitude.

And since we all know that there is no one uniform approach to Orthodoxy we are never going to buy your arguments that it is better than Conservative or Reform because the fact is that there is disagreement and dissension there too.

You claim to that your arms are open, well so are ours. We are happy to welcome you to a community that doesn't try and maintain itself by turning on each other.

We are happy to make you part of the group. Really, our arms are open. You can continue to try and badmouth and belittle those who disagree with you. It is a tactic of insecurity and not built upon strength or you can accept that some people see things differently and work with us and not against.

It is really up to you. Either way we are not going anywhere.