January  2013

It was not that long ago. It was a time when the conferences of the Israeli Agudat Yisrael party that claimed to represent all "truly" religious Jews were held in Yiddish. I still remember my excitement when the Sepharadic Shas party was just getting off the ground in the early eighties. At last, there would be a moderate religious voice that would represent the community with which I largely identified. It was a community that took its beliefs and traditions very seriously. But it was also a community which identified with the Jewish people as a whole and with the state of Israel in particular, something that the historical polemics of the Ashkenazi world seemed to make more problematic. At its head was Rabbi Ovadya Yosef, who had shown himself to be exemplary of this approach. Though to my right, he had served as Chief Rabbi of Israel, had shown openness to the religious Zionist community and had positive relations with many secular Israeli leaders. Moreover, his willingness to compromise territory and interest in social justice rang true to my understanding of what was dictated by a broad Torah perspective.

There was one cloud that hung over my joy. That was the knowledge that this party was started with the approval and patronage of Rabbi Elazar Mencachem Man Shach. If Rabbi Yosef represented most of what I believed in, Rabbi Shach represented just the opposite. Known for his strident position towards the secular, he took an equally militant stance towards many religious groups and individuals that I respected the most. Among those he publicly and harshly censured were no less figures than the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz and Nechama Liebowitz. But a poor man is willing to pay the price. Those that felt like I, pretended that this sponsorship wasn't there and proceeded to support the new party.

Several years later, to my great satisfaction, Shas broke away from Rav Shach; or perhaps he broke away from them. Having dwarfed the Ashkenazic haredi parties, Shas had become too powerful for many in the Ashkenazi community. Hence it was time to put it in its place, which Rav Shach did in characteristic fashion. Calling Shas leaders immature, he sealed the break between the two groups.

Yet the day after this break I was surprised to see that rather than forging a completely independent course, the leaders of Shas had slowly developed Ashkenazic attitudes. One heard anti-Zionist polemics coming from those who were voted in by career soldiers, policemen and other highly nationalist Sepharadim. Out of respect for Rabbi Yosef, many stayed with Shas, choosing to ignore these outbursts which were, after all, still more muffled than what one heard from the Ashkenazi rabbis. Regardless, many saw that this was not how they understood their own orientation.

Last year, a rabbi of stature finally had the courage to say what many knew to have been true all along – that Shas had never been willing to meet its promise. It had lost the opportunity to take the pragmatic but fiercely proud vision of Judaism that has so much potential to build bridges within Israel and without. Finally someone like Rabbi Haim Amsalem has come forward to tell us that the emperor is without clothes. Finally, someone was willing to proclaim that extreme positions are not a part of the mainstream Sepharadi legacy. Finally, someone was willing to say that the culture of learning for all men is unreasonable, destructive and ultimately foreign to historical Judaism.

True, there is value in pushing many religious men to study in very specific circumstances. After World War II, when the Hazon Ish took up such a vision, he was doing so to recreate the yeshivot that had been destroyed in Europe. Such a need was real and important. Similarly, when Shas first emerged there was a need to do the same for a Sephardic community then much in need of religious scholarship and religious leadership. In both of those cases, there was an emergency that required special treatment. Today, neither emergency is still present, and one needs wisdom and courage to recognize and say that times have changed. Here too, Rabbi Amsalem is showing that wisdom and courage.

There is disagreement whether Rabbi Yosef has gone along with the Ashkenization of Shas or whether he is being unduly influenced by his younger leadership, the most influential of whom studied in Asheknezi yeshivot. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter. As Rambam said so many years ago, one must take the truth from whoever is saying it. If the truth abut the Sepharadic heritage is coming from Rabbi Amsalem's party and not Rabbi Yosef's, then it should be accepted.