Omnivore's Dilemma? I Don't Think So

R. Joel Roth, great jurist of the Conservative Movement (that wasn't sarcastic, btw - I have tremendous respect for the man as a thinker, speaker, lawmaker, and judge; though I fundamentally disagree with him on many topics), spoke at the Conservative Yeshiva on Sunday afternoon, in a talk (unfortunately) titled: "Two New Teshuvot on Eating Out." (Done chuckling yet? He was talking about restaurants.)

Roth presented two new תשובות that currently sit in front of the CJLS whose authors I will keep anonymous for the time being. (Why? Because the CJLS is still arguing about whether or not to even debate the תשובות themselves, for reasons that will become clear shortly, and the papers have not yet been published as such. Rabbi Roth was given permission to read the articles to us, but not to actually give them out, and so, in a move counter to my instincts, I'll add a סייג around the intellectual property issue - mostly because the תשובות, as they exist, are pretty embarrassing לדעתי.) One of them, the first in a proposed series of limited, בדיעבד allowances for eating in unsupervised restaurants, creates a tiny little window for eating good (read: non-supervised) pizza. The other attempts to usurp the mantle of the Conservative Movement's human rights-initiated changes to הלכה (including issues of ממזרות, divorce, women, and homosexuals - though let's not get me started on the abysmal and embarrassing Dorff-Nevins-Reisner preposterousness) towards the morally relevant subject of eating what we want to eat, creating a hogwash construction to excuse what already occurs by all but the most orthoprax of the movement.

As you've likely noticed, I agree with Rabbi Roth that the CJLS is wise to think about not discussing this topic at all - neither one of these תשובות says much of anything with which I (or, I imagine, most of anyone else, save for a tiny sliver on the right who would be happy to see the former decision adopted) would like to be associated.

What made Roth's talk interesting (other than his profound mastery of this stuff) was, as always, his discussion of the politics of the movement. Both תשובות seem to relish in citing Rabbi Tucker's idea of "metahlachic" arguments surrounding homosexuality and some of Rabbi Roth's halachic language, respectively, as ways of promoting their own validity in the wake of the obvious critiques against them. And Rabbi Roth never misses an opportunity to raise the (valid and compelling) critique that has, in my mind, become his calling card (which he restated on Sunday in even sharper terms) (I'm paraphrasing, of course): "The left talks about the needs for halachic pluralism until it gets what it wants, at which point the excitement about pluralism becomes moot in the wake of a new revolution that now 'captures the essence of what makes Conservative Judaism compelling and unique.'" This is a trend, I must admit, that I theoretically do not like, but one that I cannot figure out how to solve practically without falling into many of the traps we fall into in our failed (and, likely, futile) attempts to coexist with the Orthodox in situations of real ritual [read: kashrut; t'filah; conversion]. What is the נפקא מינה of halachic pluralism on the question of women, ממזרים, and homosexuals? [In addition to being a rhetorical question, I'd actually be happy to read anyone's answers to that question.]

Where I disagree with Roth is on his narrowly-defined understanding of what it means to be "a halachic movement," and his clinging to a hope that this adjective (halachic) can still be saved. It seems clear to me that the first תשובה (the more מחמיר one) is, as Roth says it is, a direct descendant of frum rabbinic Judaism, a תשובה that, I imagine, my brother-in-law would be able to accept, if not agree with (especially in the way it makes eating pizza outside of hechshered restaurants practically impossible) - it is a curt nod to the sociology of the movement while simultaneously yielding an halachic battering ram. But as the more מקיל of the two תשובות makes clear, in a world where 70+% of Conservative Rabbis are enjoying their local pizza wherever they like to eat it (Coronet's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Little Caesar's, that place across the street from Heschel, Imo's, that place next to the Vilas Theatre in ER, WI, Edwardo's, Sal and Carmine's, Sbarro, et c.), the question of whether the movement is halachic is now moot. The better question is to what extent can part of the Conservative Movement's tent include people who choose to remain in that paradigm - some of whom, I must tell you, I consider close friends. Or, to word it alternatively, to what extent can halachah play a dominant role in certain frameworks of the movement and a significant (if not veto possessing) role in others (many others?)?

For the central battle that Rabbi Roth is trying to fight long ago passed him by, if not before the passing of the driving תשובה and the widespread acceptance of Max Arzt's original paper (never voted upon) outlining an approach to eating broiled fish and steamed vegetables (and only broiled fish and steamed vegetables) in non-hechshered restaurants. Both of these opinions, made, I believe, in the early '50s, represented what we have now come to understand as "classical" Conservative approaches to halachic literature - rife with misinterpretation, application of a decision to things it never was meant to apply to, and lots of intellectual dishonesty.

Once we can get beyond this argument - and I think that Tucker, Cosgrove, and Kushner (in their aticles published in CJ in the last eighteen months [which, of course, I can't find anywhere on-line]) are pushing us correctly in that direction - we need Eisen to lead a charge for writing a new intellectual framework for the movement, one clearly influenced by 19th century German scholarship but not dominated by it - an American theology that is less interested in institutional sustenance than in speaking to the vast majority of Jews who are, at their core, our intellectual allies regardless of their sociological decisions that affect both their practice and their affiliation. These are colleagues at YCT, at Hebrew College, and throughout Israel. Describing their Judaism and articulating a compelling argument for them to see themselves in our work should be our goal.