In high school, my friends and I dubbed our childhood neighborhood “The Shtetl.” Though we didn’t boast Yiddish names or a pushy matchmaker, like in the shtetls our grandparents grew up in, our shtetl, with its disproportionately high concentration of Jews, nevertheless rivaled its prior European counterparts in its sense of community and strong commitment to Jewish life. At times, truthfully, I wondered if anything had ever changed. The same issues that Tevye himself confronted keep me up at night as well—the particularities may be different, but the challenge of preserving tradition in the face of an ever-changing present is just as real in 2015 as it has ever been. Any attempt to engage with this endeavor requires a delicate balancing act that threatens to topple even the most experienced fiddler on the roof.
In her book The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition, Roberta Rosenthal Kwall tackles this perennial problem from a novel angle. Kwall presents a drastic shift in the way we discuss Jewish continuity, calling her new paradigm “cultural analysis,” a methodology which views law and culture as mutually influential and historically inseparable. Through this analytical lens, Kwall brings a fresh perspective to the questions that for generations have plagued those committed to Jewish survival.
In the first few chapters, we learn about the principles of applying cultural analysis. Through a guided tour of the origins and evolution of Jewish law, known as halacha, it becomes clear that the lawmaking process is not as self-contained as was once thought. Though the law-making process was by-and-large quite formalistic, Kwall presents various examples that suggest that the surrounding culture, or even the prevalent culture within Judaism, was reflected back into the halacha. She points out that the practice of telling stories at the Passover seder parallels the Greco-Roman convention of intellectual discourse at the table and that wearing a kippah was initially nothing more than a widely respected custom, highlighting that law and culture work in tandem to produce societal norms. Utilizing the terms “Top-Down” and “Bottom-Up,” Kwall describes the different sources and inspirations for halachic development, providing new vocabulary for when we ponder the role of halacha in our lives today. When we have these important discussions, we cannot limit ourselves to matters of the law exclusively – cultural analysis urges us to consider the predominant culture as well.
Another large section of Kwall’s book is devoted to explaining who exactly is asking these questions and how different people have responded. Kwall takes the pulse of contemporary Judaism, providing an intricate picture of the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox movements. Each denomination has responded to Judaism in the modern era in a different way, the right side of the spectrum shifting the emphasis to halacha and the left stressing a strong cultural connection. No movement, however, has forsaken either law or culture entirely – an impossible and impractical feat – sending the message that the intersection of these two characteristics of religion carries weight no matter where one affiliates. This section also doubles as a clear interpretation of the most recent Pew report, a study whose findings have tremendous significance for world Jewry in 2015.
Every day, Judaism grapples with challenges that are, in the words of Tevye himself, “posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes.” These new issues, such as feminism or homosexuality, strengthening Diaspora identities or legislating Israeli society, beg the question: Is halacha able to take on Jewish survival in the twenty-first century by itself? Is culture? At this crucial junction for Judaism, maintaining authenticity is of paramount importance, and this mission, argues Kwall, is why we need cultural analysis. By using cultural analysis, we can identify the meta-halachic values that have undergirded the whole project from the beginning and use them to preserve the essence of halacha in our society. The middle ground between freezing the tradition and forsaking it altogether lies in recognizing the overall nature of the society tradition demands of us and building our communities based on this more nuanced vision. By working from within the tradition while acknowledging its influences from without, as cultural analysis advocates, we can ensure that the Judaism our grandparents held so dear in the shtetl will mean just as much to us, their grandchildren, too.
Avidan Halivni is a student at Columbia University.
