[net.religion.jewish] Assimilation & Its Discontents

kenw@lcuxc.UUCP (K Wolman) (01/28/85)

***From Asher Meth***

[Ken Wolman writes]

> In 1791, when France made its first moves toward emancipating
> its Jews, wasn't it the Sephardim who wanted to deny emancipation
> to their Ashkenazic brethren?  Didn't it take almost TWO years

------
[Asher Meth answers]

>> Didn't/doesn't emancipation lead to greater possibility of assimilation ?
>> In which group do we find greater assimilation - Ashkenazim or Sephardim ?
>> 
>> I do not know all the historical background implied by Ken Wolman, but must
>> not these factors be taken into account, especially when arguing a point
>> with Martillo ?
>> 
>>          asher meth
>>          allegra!cmcl2!csd2!meth
>>    ARPA  meth@nyu-csd2.arpa
----------------------------------------
Since I am about to "make trouble," Meth first of all deserves an
answer to clear up any misapprehensions about the posting.  I was
talking not about assimilationism but about POWER and the misuse of
same.  My point--perhaps improperly stated--was that the history
of oppression of Jew by Jew is nothing new, but that the names 
of the players may change.  Today, the Ashkenazim are in a power
position; many, unfortunately, use that power and influence to
turn their Sephardic brethren into an underclass.  I was attempt-
ing to place on the table an illustration that suggests that at
one time in our history, the proverbial shoe was on the other
foot and was used by the wearer to kick the "other" group with
equal ferocity and ill-will.  

Meth, however, has downplayed what HAPPENED and has focused instead 
on the assimilationism problem.  Again.  I did not want to discuss 
"Assimilation and Its Discontents."  But it is a real issue, and may 
as well be addressed.  

Again.  Sigh.  Just when I thought it was safe to put away my
smoke detector and asbestos suit. . . .

First of all, I am not given to posting based on a need to best
Yakim Martillo in an argument.  I have no doubt that Martillo can
bury me under a pile of facts, factoids, Gemora references, etc.  
The man's learning is prodigious.  But it is not Revealed from 
Heaven.  It may be challenged; and on the terms of the challenger, 
not Martillo himself.  (It's called "not fighting the other man's 
fight.")

Second, the word "assimilation" presents problems.  How do we
define it?  A nonobservant, totally secularized Jew living in
"The Suburbs" is assimilated.  A Reform or Conservative rabbi
may be said to be assimilated.  An Orthodox Jew living in the
United States, employed by New York University, Bell Laboratories,
or the Massachusetts Institute of Techology--and therefore not
earning his living by interacting primarily with other observant
Jews in a primarily Jewish environment--may also be said to be
assimilated.  We may even say Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch was
assimilated.  It is a matter of degree and definition.

That is the crux of the assimilation issue, as I understand it.
Definition.  Can any Jew who has accepted "The Freedom Of The
City" define him/herself as cut off from the majority culture?
Yes, it can be done: and has been done with significant success
by Hasidic and "ultra-Orthodox" sects in Brooklyn, New Square,
Monsey, and other communities.  These communities are largely
self-supporting and self-sufficient.  

Few of us, however, have the ability or willingness to live in
that way.  Like it or not, we have grown up in a late 20th
Century postmodern environment which MUST affect us: we can 
accept the culture, we can reject it--but we cannot ignore it.
The moment we seek accommodation with modernism and technology--
e.g., the moment we install "Shabbos timers" for our lights,
or have key-tiebars fashioned so we can lock our doors against
the more unsavory byproducts of modern civilization--we are in a
very broad sense "assimilating."  The moment a yeshiva divides
the day into religious and secular studies, we are assimilating.
The question is of DEGREE.

The objective of most self-aware CONSCIOUS Jews in the Diaspora
(perhaps even in Eretz Yisroel?) is to be IN the world without
being OF it, i.e., to avoid being sucked into the kind of non-
value systems that pollute much of the culture, irrespective of
religious faith and observance.  Let us say aloud that much of what
goes on in both religious and secular "communities" partakes to
a great extent of those non-value systems, even in businesses
connected with our faith.  A Hasidic sofer once told me that there
are men in the New York area who will write a pair of tefillin,
swear to their kashrut, and drive a cab on Shabbos.  Is the driver
assimilated?  The photo supply discount business is staffed 
floor-to-ceiling by Orthodox Jews; many of those stores have a
well-deserved reputation for cheating their customers irrespective 
of race, religion, or country of national origin.  Are the personnel 
of those stores assimilated?  An observant Jew owns slum buildings
and/or nursing homes in which people pass or end miserable lives
in conditions that often beggar description.  Is that man therefore
assimilated?

A matter of definition.  By MY definition--"someone who has
slopped from the trough of materialism at the expense of the
common humanity he/she shares AT LEAST with all other Jews, and
with gentiles as well"--they are assimilated.  They have adopted
an alien value system which has nothing whatsoever to do with
any Jewish tradition I ever heard of.  I would like someone who
has stayed awake to this point to cite me ONE reference in any
tractate, commentary or code where the accepted opinion allows
a Jew to cheat or abuse another Jew or a non-Jew, as in the
examples mentioned above.  

I am aware that the more commonly-defined assimilation has not
done wonders for Judaism as a faith and practice.  But let me turn
Meth's question around: if life in the pre-Emancipation ghetto was so
wonderful, for all its frumkeit, then why did so many Jews in Europe
run for the gates the moment they were opened?  Are we perhaps
romanticizing a period in our history that led to lives that were
religious, yes; but also nasty, brutish, and short?  And might
we attempt in our own lives to recognize that ACCOMMODATION
does not necessarily equal ASSIMILATION?
-- 
Ken Wolman
Bell Communications Research @ Livingston, NJ
lcuxc!kenw
(201) 740-4565

	. . . not Philip Roth . . .

abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles) (01/29/85)

Hear, hear!

meth@csd2.UUCP (Asher Meth) (01/31/85)

Or leyom chamishi leparshas Beshalach, 9 SHEVAT 5745

In respone to Ken Wolman .....

>Since I am about to "make trouble," Meth first of all deserves an
>answer to clear up any misapprehensions about the posting.  I was
>talking not about assimilationism but about POWER and the misuse of
>same.  My point--perhaps improperly stated--was that the history
>.....

I thank you, Ken, for clarifying your point.

However, as far as the definition of "assimilation" goes ....
Ken writes ...
------
>Second, the word "assimilation" presents problems.  How do we
>define it?  A nonobservant, totally secularized Jew living in
>"The Suburbs" is assimilated.  A Reform or Conservative rabbi
>may be said to be assimilated.  An Orthodox Jew living in the
>United States, employed by New York University, Bell Laboratories,
>or the Massachusetts Institute of Techology--and therefore not
>earning his living by interacting primarily with other observant
>Jews in a primarily Jewish environment--may also be said to be
>assimilated.  We may even say Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch was
>assimilated.  It is a matter of degree and definition.
>.....
>Like it or not, we have grown up in a late 20th
>Century postmodern environment which MUST affect us: we can 
>accept the culture, we can reject it--but we cannot ignore it.
>The moment we seek accommodation with modernism and technology--
>e.g., the moment we install "Shabbos timers" for our lights,
>or have key-tiebars fashioned so we can lock our doors against
>the more unsavory byproducts of modern civilization--we are in a
>very broad sense "assimilating."  The moment a yeshiva divides
>the day into religious and secular studies, we are assimilating.
>The question is of DEGREE.
...
>A matter of definition.  By MY definition--"someone who has
>slopped from the trough of materialism at the expense of the
>common humanity he/she shares AT LEAST with all other Jews, and
>with gentiles as well"--they are assimilated.  They have adopted
>an alien value system which has nothing whatsoever to do with
>any Jewish tradition I ever heard of.  I would like someone who
>has stayed awake to this point to cite me ONE reference in any
>tractate, commentary or code where the accepted opinion allows
>a Jew to cheat or abuse another Jew or a non-Jew, as in the
>examples mentioned above.  
...
>I am aware that the more commonly-defined assimilation has not
>done wonders for Judaism as a faith and practice.  But let me turn
>Meth's question around: if life in the pre-Emancipation ghetto was so
>wonderful, for all its frumkeit, then why did so many Jews in Europe
>run for the gates the moment they were opened?  Are we perhaps
>romanticizing a period in our history that led to lives that were
>religious, yes; but also nasty, brutish, and short?  And might
>we attempt in our own lives to recognize that ACCOMMODATION
>does not necessarily equal ASSIMILATION?

Sorry, Ken; but I must disagree with your definition and your examples.

Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch advocated "Torah 'Im Derech Eretz".
I would like to think of this as integrating and synthesizing the worldly
knowledge that one can gain from studying secular subjects, etc. into a larger
framework of a Torah-true life. We can perhaps interpolate this from the
explanation of the pasuk "yaft elokim leyefes, veyishkon beoholei shem", which
is explained as - the "yafyafus" (nice, good) of yefes should dwell in the
tents of Shem. (Please see the commentaries for explanations of this verse -
Bereishis / Genesis 9:27.) 
There is NO SUCH THING as assimilating the Torah into a secular world.
There is NO SUCH THING as accommodating the Torah to a secular way of life.
There is, however, a concept of accommodating the good of the secular world
and integrating it into a Torah-true life.

Examples in history of non-assimilation/accommodation :
(1) When Napolean fought the Russian Czar, different sects in the Orthodox
Jewish world supported different sides. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, it is told,
supported the Czar, even though life was VERY difficult for Jews, especially
religious ones, under the czar. He recognized the danger of EMANCIPATION - the
Jew would be EQUAL to his non-Jewish neighbor, in all the rights accorded them
under the civil law. The Jew, in order to "make it" in this "new, foreign"
world, would have to make changes, accommodations, for his religion, in order
to be "just like one of the boys". Religion, and its structured code of
morality and ethics, would be thrown by the wayside, if need be (and many felt
that it was neccesary), for the more "valuable" equality with all others.

(2) The Volozhiner Yeshiva closed its doors when the Polish government decreed
that ALL schools must offer secular subjects as part of their curriculum. The
yeshiva was not lacking students (or applicants) when it closed. The yeshiva
felt that if the government were to infringe upon its autonomy, it would lose
total control of what it could teach its students, and ultimately, the students
would not follow in the footsteps of their teachers, and would become
ASSIMILATED.

(3) Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch and the Orthodox Jewish community in
Frakfurt-Am-Mein impressed upon the government that their community was NOT the
same as the "other" assimilated Jewish (read - Reform, in this case) community.
Rather, they were an autonomous Jewish community and should receive their fair
share of return of taxes (read - revenue sharing plan). Why were they SO
opposed to being considered part of a GREATER Jewish community ?? Because of
the fear of ASSIMILATION and the total rejection of the yoke of the Torah
propounded by the "other" group.

---

Ken, your "broad sense" of assimilation is NOT assimilation; it is working
within the framework of the Torah and Halachah to incorporate technology and
science into an EXISTING TORAH FRAMEWORK (repetition is necessary, if only to
bang this into some people's heads). To quote the title of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's
chumash - we have a LIVING TORAH. Halachic process didn't stop in the past,
hasn't stopped now, and won't stop in the future. Torah is a LIVING thing, and
it also must be LIVED.

The yeshivos that offer a dual program of religious and secular studies
realize, as Ken mentioned, that to live in our world today one needs a basic
understanding of many different things. However, again, it must all be within
the framework of the Torah and its values.

I agree that people who adopt a value system different from that put forth by
the Torah are "on the wrong track". Call them assimilated, if you want. What if
all of society adopted a Torah-true value system - for non-Jews the 7 Noachide
Laws, for Jews the 613 commandments ?? What would you call a Jew who threw off
the yoke of the 613 and lived like a non-Jew, within the confines of the 7 ??
Is he assimilated ? Is he not living within an accepted value system ? Yet, he
is supposed to be within the framework of the 613 !! He is a nice person, an
upright member of "society". Ken, he is STILL assimilated.

The situation of the Jews who were able to leave their terrible, oppressed
lives in Europe and come to America, the "goldene medineh", is a tragedy in and
of itself. It was VERY hard to be a religious Jew in America in the early
1900's (read - through the '20's and '30's, if not even later, too). Check out
how long a religious Jew held a job - he was hired on Monday, came to his boss
early Friday afternoon to tell him that he was going home for Shabbos, and was
promptly fired; only to repeat the same sequence of events at another place of
business the next week. It is no small wonder that many found it hard to
continue living their religious lives as in Europe. Others came to America with
the notion that the old way of life is for the old country; in America,
especially if you want to make it, you have to be an American. No Shabbos, no
mitzvos, etc. You must ASSIMILATE with the populace and be like them. There
were those who still kept the traditions, but didn't necessarily pass them on
to their children. Hence, at least one lost generation of American Jews.

A similar thing happened when people went to Israel. Many people said - it is
enough that I live in a Jewish homeland. That is the extent of my Jewishness.
The Mitzvos are only there to keep us going if we are in exile. We have now
come home to our own land and can therefore live JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER NATION -
nationalism is the only important thing; religion is a thing of the past.

We all know how perverted our society is - in the last 25 years we have seen
society's morals change so drastically that it is terrifying. What kind of a
world do we live in ? This is NOT the way the HaShem wants us to live.

A person who is "good" and "proper" is just that - a good person.
A person who is "bad" and follows an improper value system is just that - let
us call him a bad person.

If the current trend in society and culture is that "anything goes", even what
we would call "bad" things, then one who follows that path can be referred to
as assimilating into that system.
However, when referring to assimilation in the religious sense, the definition
MUST include a framework of religious, moral, and ethical values by which we
measure a person.

The bottom line is that everything is relative to a given frame of reference.
I was referring to one frame of reference, and Ken was referring to another.


             asher meth
             allegra!cmcl2!csd2!meth
   ARPA :    meth@nyu-csd2.arpa