Monday, May 26, 2014

A Threefold Cord

I just got back from the annual kollel breakfast at Breuer's and I'm going to have to amend my formula. I used to think German Orthodoxy, or more precisely the KAJ kehilla as based on Hirsch was the mid-point between Charedism and Modern Orthodoxy, containing the best features of each. It has the seriousness of Charedism and the engagement with life and the world of Modern Orthodoxy, it has the dedication to Torah study of the former but the interest in all parts of Torah of the latter. With every encounter at KAJ I see the truth of this. But now I realize that there's a third quadrant and that is Chasidus. KAJ has the community feeling of Chasidus. This is the KAJ community concept, the self-contained community with a beis din, a mikvah, a day school, a kashurs organization, and in Washington Heights, a senior center.

This was a kollel breakfast. And yet it seemed like a community event, not a kollel event with kollel graduates. At such events I usually feel like an outsider since I didn't go to the specific kollel or yeshiva. This was the community supporting its kollel. The co-rabbanim were there as was a dayan, as was the kehilla president. The head of the kollel was there and I know him from the shiur he gives to baal habatim in Monsey. The chazan from Shabbos was there. I saw there many of the men from minyan.

And they saw me. Several remembered me from Shabbos. People kept saying hello to me. Usually it's the opposite. I go to chassanos or parlor meetings and approach people, trying to get them to talk to me. Here it was the opposite. I became almost reserved after my usual desperation for human contact became nullified with the genuine community feeling. I couldn't decide if I was a chasid or a yeshiva man or modern orthodox, the latter one because I didn't feel ashamed sitting there knowing that I might listen to Beethoven on the way home and even get a spiritual feeling from it. And then it hit me, I'm not any of those three. I am a practitioner of Torah Im Derech Eretz.

A Threefold Cord is Not Quickly Broken says Koheles (4:12). I know many people that seem to bounce between charedism, modern orthodoxy, and chassidus. I can't know if KAJ is the answer for all, but I'm guessing that it could be for some, a blend of these three derachim that by themselves are not the answer, a threefold cord that is strong and beautiful.

5 comments:

  1. I think regardless of the name or the place, what you describe takes the best from all three groups and blends them together.

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  2. I would add that if you look past writing style, and focus only on substance, some of R'SRH's writings definitely have Chassidish sensibility to them.

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    1. Are you referring to descriptions of the need for community or deveikus? R' Breuer has a whole essay where he talks about the chasidus and German Orthodoxy, but he means it in the generic sense of the term.

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  3. I meant Chassidic writings, as in the Baal Shem Tov's spiritual descendants.

    Some Chassidic writings, and some of Rav Hirsch's writings, use the similar sounds of different words in Tanach to add a nuance of meaning; which they use as the basis for insights and inspiration.

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  4. In the biography of Rav Breuer, the author states that the only other communities in the U.S. that formed full-service Kehillos were the Washington Heights KAJ community and Chasidic communities. I really love the idea of a three-fold cord as an ideal for any community. I'm guessing that Jewish communities in days of old this combination was much more common.

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