Halakhah (Jewish law) has often and problematically been taught as a set of dogmatic rules, only relevant to traditional streams of Judaism, but a new generation of Jews and Jewish educators are building a vision of halakhah that is mindful, meaningful, and able to inform the practice of all kinds of Jews.
“Halakhah-Goggles”
As an incoming rabbinical student enrolled at Yeshivat Maharat, the first Modern Orthodox institution to ordain Jewish women, I’m often asked why I am doing what I am doing. When explaining my religious orientation to people, I sometimes use the term “halakhah-goggles,” which is meant to capture how halakhah or Jewish law encompasses my actions. I see halakhah as an opportunity to bring holiness into my life: whether it be through performing a specific mitzvah, to being in nature, connecting with other people and feeling the Shekhinah between us, reading an amazing book, or listening to music. Halakhah has something to say about how I relate to others, go to the bathroom, spend my time, and what I eat; instead of nit-picky, I feel this makes every action an opportunity to become something special. I have to look for the kedushah, the holiness in all of those actions and ask myself: Why is this important to me, and how do I make it affect me in my life? When I become aware of these reflections, I believe I am guiding my actions to becoming kadosh/holy, calibrating with God’s will and empowering me as an agent of the Divine in this world.
Many are surprised when they hear this is not only how I perceive my everyday routine, but my life mission. Most people initially perceive me as an observant woman in a web of patriarchal practice, and assume I’m trapped – or worse, practicing something outmoded. I receive even more baffled reactions when I tell people I want to teach others about the beauty of the halakhic system. “Do you ever want to leave?” “You know, God won’t hate you if you stop.” “How can you perpetuate something that has caused so much pain over millennia?”
Yet, when I explain to others that seeing halakhah as providing framing and beauty to my life is what not only keeps me here but pushes me to share this view with others, Jews of all backgrounds are not only compelled, but genuinely shocked. Many young Jews perceive halakhah as hindering, as opposed to enriching, ranging from Orthodox to Reform and secular Jews – an interesting point of connected experience of mainstream Jewish practice. Only when I began entering Orthodox spaces full-time and interacting with non-Orthodox people in university, did I realize that the beauty and enhancement of halakhah in my life is actually the exception, as opposed to the norm.
The Concern of an Unintentional Halakhah
“I thought about halakhah as more of a rigid thing,” says Raffi Levi, who called me from his apartment in the Upper West Side. Levi comes from a Modern Orthodox background and day school education, and is now studying to be a rabbi through the progressive Modern Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in Riverdale, New York.
Levi believes that this perceived rigidity of halakhah is connected to non-emotionally attuned theological teachings in the Modern Orthodox day school system. “We learned Maimonides’ views about God being incorporeal and above human understanding. But that is really impersonal.” He sees this impersonal connection to God as leading to rote practice. “I wanted a relationship with Judaism, I wanted to experience it. If Jewish law is taught as a set of God-given rules, how are we supposed to relate – and even worship – if we don’t have a relationship with the God we are supposed to be communicating with through these ritual actions?”
This disconnect from God and halakhah as a holy system can make religious worship that is often performative, where no one is talking about the substance of the halakhah itself, leading to building communities based on social norms that often turn exclusive and judgmental.
This understanding of halakhah is perpetuated by the Orthodox education system, yet also manifests in non-Orthodox settings in their treatment of halakhah as a fossil. Alona Weimer, a graduate student and community organizer, grew up in a Reform synagogue. She felt that community members looked down on the halakhic practice of their Orthodox neighbors, especially after a situation in which a local Chabad rabbi refused to shake her mother’s hand, citing a traditional halakhic understanding of separation between the sexes. “I remember the community expressing annoyance at how ‘difficult’ and absurd it was to have to accommodate people who practiced Judaism in an ‘old-fashioned’ way,” she said.
In addition to disapproval of halakhah, there was also a lack of resources and knowledge of halakhic texts. Weimer became more traditionally observant after meeting open-minded Orthodox students on her college campus, yet still felt some foundational textual skills missing. “I had acculturated to the rituals and practices of shabbat, but still was lacking a lot of halakhic knowledge,” she said.
Michaela Brown, a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Boston, expressed similar frustrations with her Conservative Jewish community growing up. The Jewish education provided by her upbringing made any kind of religious practice fairly unappealing. “This whole ‘pick and choose your Judaism’ and not seeing mitzvot as critical to the system, actually turned me off of the system,” Brown said. It seems that by glossing over the minutiae of halakhah – the very actions that often become rote in Modern Orthodox settings – a richness of the Jewish tradition is lost.
A framework of rigidity, reward and punishment, minutiae and alienation often obscures halakhic practice for people with varying effects for different kinds of Jews. Orthodox Jews may feel lost when exposed to new social and cultural understandings that do not seem to match their practices at first glance, resulting in a lack of investment and connection in the halakhic system, and some leave the system altogether when doubts regarding halakhah begin to arise. When halakhah is perceived as a system of strict rights and wrongs, doubt sits uncomfortably in practice, creating a sense of bifurcation between ritual practice and experienced life. In non-Orthodox settings that paint halakhah as rigid and irrelevant, non-Orthodox Jews sometimes feel a sense of loss in their inability to speak the language of their tradition by not being well-versed in traditional texts and halakhic conceptions. Is it possible to balance maintaining the ‘bigger picture’ of what halakhah is trying to achieve while also being textually literate and knowledgeable of halakhic detail? On seemingly opposite ends of the religious spectrum, Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews are feeling confused as to how to relate to halakhah.
Discovering Mindfulness
Earlier this pandemic year, I began exploring mindfulness techniques as a way of regaining control over my context by acknowledging the lack of control. During my walking meditations, I began noticing a sense of focus on detail with intention: feeling the weight of my right foot when I let it land on the ground, focusing on my immediate surroundings, watching my mind drift and then gently bring it back to the present moment. I’ve often experienced this deep attention when my religious practice has felt the most right; deep intention accompanying all of my actions. Often, when I’ve discussed halakhic disillusionment with my Modern Orthodox friends, their concerns stem from the obsession with minutiae without thinking about how the minutiae connects to the larger picture and purpose of practice. But when they have felt calibrated in their practice – whether it be a really melodic Kabbalat Shabbat service, or better understanding the blessings over produce because they’ve watched vegetables grow in their gardens, or even standing during Torah reading to invoke re-living the covenant of Sinai – my friends have found their halakhic experiences to be meaningful.
Maybe the problem isn’t halakhah, but the lack of intention and purpose to accompany it. While halakhah in practice often lacks overall mindfulness, perhaps halakhah is really meant to be a Jewish divine mindfulness in which one orients oneself to the rest of the world. Halakhah is not meant to hinder; if it is perceived as such, it might be a pedagogical problem as opposed to an inherent one.
When I asked his thoughts on the subject of creating an intentional halakhah, Rabbi Josh Feigelson smiled widely. Feigelson is a rabbi who previously worked in the world of academia at University of Chicago Divinity School, and is currently the Executive Director of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.
“As someone immersed in the Orthodox world, I’ve often seen ritual practice become more about social performance than intentionality,” he said. “But I’ve also found in non-Orthodox contexts that there is a lack of development of the language of halakhah. I felt that when I became a parent, some kind of forced reckoning occurred about our religious practice: What exactly are we doing? And then I stumbled upon an article that gave language to something I’ve been looking for for a long time: halakhah as embodied practice.”
Feigelson cited an article from the anthology A New Hasidism: Branches, by Rabbi Ariel Evan Mayse, a professor of religious studies at Stanford University, entitled, “Neo-Hasidism and Halakhah.” By combining the spiritual world of Hadisic philosophy with the legal technicalities of Jewish law, Mayse creates a halakhic practice that is intentional and goal-driven. He compares it to gaining a blackbelt in karate, which is not a simple discipline, but the difficulties are an invitation to an all-encompassing and immersive lifestyle. A halakhic lifestyle is dedicated to God, but to a God that represents goodness manifesting in all possible realms, an aspiration that many can begin hoping for in the name of relationship and connection. It entails a mindfulness in every halakhic act. Mayse’s intentional halakhah sees halakhah as a tool for meaning-making.
Halakhah as Meaning-Making
After expressing the concerns about how halakhah is explained in Reform and Conservative Jewish contexts, Michaela Brown hopes to provide a different way to approach halakhah in her future rabbinate.
For Brown, halakhah creates a language of meaning towards an ideal. “Modern twenty-first century people are very selfish; we can eat what we want when we want, be where we want to go when we want. To feel the yoke of mitzvot, we accept responsibility to be thinking about how our actions are serving Hashem, making serving the world a really important practice. Halakhah is a way to analyze the choices we make, not just by how they affect ourselves, but affect the community we live in,” she said. “These everyday actions become a kind of spiritual relationship.”
Brown especially sees this when thinking about her place in American society; by answering to a higher calling, she can transcend cultural norms that trouble her. “For the Jew interested in halakhah as a framework for meaningful life, American culture isn’t a given. By thinking about halakhah as another mode of living, it helps me better question why American culture needs to be such a governing force in my life.”
Seeing halakhah as a meaning-making also entails a more personal connection and ownership of halakhic texts. Miriam Saperstein, a student at the University of Michigan who gathers students for religious experience, has found halakhah as a way to express their Jewish identity despite feeling previously alienated from Jewish practice. “I grew up in the Conservative movement as a white Ashkenazi Jew. As I grew up I was feeling especially alienated from the Jewish spaces I grew up in. My synagogue was not particularly accomodating to my trans identity, and going to day school started to feel like going to a country club with a mezuzah on it. I was feeling a real sense of dissonance between what I was praying for and the lived experience of the Conservative movement.”
As Saperstein attended university, they became more well-versed with Jewish texts in a way that led to ownership and confidence. Saperstein began to see how they could tap into halakhah as a resource from which to seek advice. Although it may not look like the halakhic observance of someone from a traditional Orthodox community, Saperstein’s Judaism is still informed by halakhic practice.
Even through the telephone, Saperstein beamed with joy when discussing the meaning these texts hold to them. “Halakhah becomes a tool to navigate the theoretical underpinnings of how to exist in the world in our community. It’s not just laws – I am not concerned that God will be mad at me if I practice otherwise, but I might be frustrated by not being able to interact with my community if we don’t have a shared sense of vocabulary. It allows us all to sync up.” A mindful halakhah becomes an invitation to religious practice, as opposed to a dogmatic acceptance, and one that welcomes rather than isolates, as it requires thoughtfulness about how halakhah impacts its practitioners.
Addressing the “Halakhically Curious”
All those I interviewed felt that they have been trailblazers in their communities, but that ultimately, a completely different pedagogical approach regarding halakhic education is necessary in order to build an intentional halakhah. Creating a new approach to teaching halakhah may begin by doing away with “yes or no” binaries. Weimer noted that picking up religious observance through osmosis with fellow undergraduate peers built a healthier relationship to the halakhic system. “Because no one was ever mandating that I must do x, y, or z in order to participate in these Jewish spaces, I had room for my own curiosity to flourish. I am extremely grateful for this, and for my innate eagerness which allowed me to ask many many many halakhic questions without shame.”
Brown echoed similar sentiments, emphasizing that “must/should” understandings of halakhah often lead to more judgemental communities. “We don’t want to shy away the halakhically curious. People are often messy, so different levels of observance but interest in the system should be more well-accepted. Can we think about halakhah in an expansive enough way that people can feel included even when they are not engaged fully?”
It is interesting to note that this seeming tension between halakhah and intentionality experienced by those in different Jewish denominations is a primarily Ashkenazi phenomenon. When speaking with Mira Zyali, a Religion major at Holyoke, she expressed reservations about this exploration of a more intentional halakhah in order to feel more religiously at peace, as Zylali thinks it is not as pressing of an issue in the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities. Ashkenazi communities affected by the Germanic Enlightenment split into denomination groups based on different conceptual understandings of the halakhah. But in Sephardic and Mizrahi communities, this division in religious praxis is non-existent.
“In the same congregation, there are people who don’t eat kasher, and people who do; there are people who won’t flip a light switch on Shabbat, and people who watch television. This diversity of thought and existence doesn’t delegitimize the holiness of the neshamot of the people who are in that congregation. Rather, our differences enrich the different perspectives we bring to making the world a better place,” Zylali said. There seems to be fruitful insight in non-Ashkenazi practice for future educators and experiencers of halakhah to take from how Sephardic and Mizrahi communities already function.
Shift in Halakhic Pedagogy
In order to implement this new understanding of halakhic pedagogy, more creative and interactive learning experiences are necessary. “It’s about massaging it into our nervous system – that’s the embodiment halakhah should provide.” says Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Program Director at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, who previously taught in the pluralistic Jewish day school system. In his time as a day school teacher, he noticed sincere curiosity from his students, who at young ages were searching for connections to something larger than themselves. He began educating his students by talking about halakhah as a spiritual practice, one that entails responsibility as opposed to obligation. He explained it to them as an ethical sensibility or even a kind of character refinement that cultivates consciousness of how we show up and engage with the world. It is an opportunity to invoke our meta-values in our everyday actions.
Feinsmith adds a helpful understanding of the halakhic mechanics of change when viewing halakhah as dynamic: when certain conceptions or minutiae of halakhah harm the meta-values, that’s when they need to be re-considered. “If meta-values are timeless, then the way they are enacted breathes and changes from one generation to the next. They should change. This appears with re-assessing gender roles in order to equalize access and power in the halakhah or even regarding the planet when we see it as a divine creation that must be protected.” Feinsmith sees mindfulness as the way to assess what these meta-values are that guide halakhah. “Mindfulness is a check-in on our inner life. It helps us see what is getting in the way of our innate goodness.”
Halakhah’s Halikhah
Rabbi Ariel Evan Mayse’s article on the future of Neo-Hasidism and halakhah invokes a similar understanding of halakhah as its translation: “walking.” But Mayse adds that halakhah is walking continuously – a journey that is not over, and ongoing for the rest of one’s life. A revolution about halakhic thinking to me seems to be beginning its halikhah, its “walk” as well. Pedagogical shifts are occurring in teaching the observance of a set of rules given by a God that seeks for good to be permeated through everyday actions. The status of the halakhic corpus in the observant Jew’s life is being taught to be an informant as opposed to an inhibitor, as an opportunity to be a microcosm of something bigger, providing exciting and empowering shifts of thinking for the future. A new generation of Jews, young and old, are creating a halakhah that is not gate-kept by the Orthodox community, but has the possibility to touch the lives of all kinds of Jews, making halakhah a journey any Jew can take part of, blurring the distinction between the Orthodox and the halakhically curious.
This new generation of Jews are leaders who understand the pain of a rigid halakhic system but see that the shift is about a change in mindset rather than doing away with the entire system. These leaders are slowly re-weaving together Torah and experience, creating new patches in a tapestry of Jewish tradition. As I embark on my own rabbinic journey, I hope to join them in bringing about this shift in Jewish collective consciousness.
