My new book, Faith Without Fear, is about modern Orthodoxy. The definition of this term is of course subject to debate, but I believe there would be broad consensus among thinking adherents of the ideology that it includes the following central features: an appreciation of the enormous religious significance of the state as well as the Land of Israel; a commitment to enhancing the role of women in religious and communal Jewish life; openness to secular studies, including the humanities; and a determination to integrate our current scientific understanding of the world with traditional faith rather than reject that understanding (the theory of evolution being a key case in point).
Traditionally in Judaism, there is a type of fear that is an integral part of faith. This is what is known as yirat Shamayim - "fear of Heaven" - a keen sense of awe and reverence before God. I have written the book because I feel that too often, modern Orthodoxy is affected by a different and unhelpful kind of fear. To be sure, the intellectual world of modern Orthodoxy boasts much excellent scholarship and lively debate. But we also need to have the courage to frontally address the huge challenges posed by modernity.
The issue to which the longest chapter of the book is devoted is a key example. Despite a very recent upsurge, far too little attention has been paid overall to the issue of Torah min Hashamayim, Torah from Heaven. Orthodoxy, including modern Orthodoxy, has tended to shy away from this issue for at least two reasons.
First, the theological stakes are very high. The idea of Torah as divine revelation is one of the most fundamental principles of traditional Judaism. Secondly, attacks on the concept of Torah from Heaven are rooted in parts of the academic world and in disciplines and vocabulary foreign to the vast majority of Orthodox people and in particular to Orthodox rabbinic scholars and leaders. In the UK in particular, a third factor is the spectre of the "Jacobs affair" of the 1960s, which still haunts Anglo-Jewry. I argue in my book that avoiding the issue is intellectually dishonest and no longer even feasible in a world in which we can access the conclusions of academic biblical scholarship via a few clicks on Google. I argue that our tradition contains resources which allow us to be both intellectually honest and to develop a view of Torah from Heaven that may be unconventional but is still Orthodox, and which, unlike the views of thinkers such as Rabbis Louis Jacobs and Zev Farber, does not involve accepting what is known as the documentary hypothesis (which argues that the text of the Torah is a composite of different sources).
Faith Without Fear deals with other issues too. There have not been enough Orthodox rabbinic voices putting forward the view that feminism is essentially positive. Although feminism is, of course, a complex and varied intellectual phenomenon, it includes as central components ideals that are key to a modern Orthodox understanding of Judaism, such as the fundamental equality of men and women and the importance of human dignity and justice. The book argues that the prevalent kinds of apologetics around this issue are unsatisfactory.
Shutting down debate is a symptom of weakness
Instead, male and female halachic scholars need to work to develop the halachah as it pertains to women in a way that is substantial but which is also gradual, responsible and faithful to the halachic process, allowing the community to sense continuity rather than rupture with the Torah observance of past generations of our people. There have been extensive, positive developments in women's roles and opportunities within Orthodoxy in recent decades, and there are many more to come.
The book also addresses topics that tend to be far less widely discussed but which are both intrinsically significant and also help to shed light on the fundamental nature and commitments of modern Orthodoxy. These include modern Orthodoxy's complex relationship with Jewish mysticism and the nature of its hopes for the messianic era. Chapters are also devoted to the status of modern Orthodoxy and its key ideological competitor within the Orthodox world, namely Charedi Orthodoxy, as heirs of pre-modern Jewish tradition, and to the question of modern Orthodoxy's wider perspective on faiths outside Judaism and on the doctrine of chosenness.
Faith Without Fear advocates faith with courage. Intellectual openness is a sign of strength. Evading important issues or shutting down debate about them is a symptom of weakness. Modern Orthodoxy needs to become a morally and intellectually fearless interpretation of Jewish faith for contemporary Jews committed to classical Jewish tradition.
