Letters
LETTERS Cult Encounters To the Editors: I have read Michael Appell's article, "Cult Encounters" (November 1978), with a mixture of interest and concern. I am pleased that an article on this...
...Ready to pronounce the death of what he calls Orthodox folk religion, the beliefs and practices which emerge from custom, habit, improvisation, and a reliance on the eternal yesterday, he assumes that simply because a new English compendium of the code of Jewish law and practice has appeared, Orthodox Jews will read it and standardize their beliefs and behaviors accordingly...
...I do believe that the spiritual void that we have created in Judaism, which makes room for Jews for Jesus, Moonies, and others, is created by assuming away all the guts of our heritage...
...The scheduled interview with Nicki was canceled, rescheduled, and again postponed on several occasions...
...Today, for example, women's magazines are in vogue...
...We tried Hadassah, but got no response...
...It is the prospect of this long and fervently hoped for eventuality with which Fein confronts us as American Jews...
...This class is in lieu of the regular Hebrew class...
...If oppression of poor gentiles at the bingo table warranted a loss of membership in the United Synagogue, how about the harassment of a young Jewish girl...
...The entire affair left me (and the members of my congregation) with many unanswered questions...
...I was glad to see that Nicki did have the occasion to celebrate her bat mitzvah, but as for me, my questions never were answered and my doubts linger...
...One issue which I recall vividly from my childhood was the prohibition against bingo within the domain of the Conservative synagogue...
...Sander's credentials accompanying the article are very impressive...
...I, too, was amazed that the decision to grant Nicki a Shab-bat morning bat mitzvah was based on the exam...
...The Orthodox people I know believe this sincerely, and they also believe that God was therefore responsible for such events as the Holocaust...
...At the conclusion of the account there could only be one verdict—guilty as accused...
...Finally, when it seemed the evening was about to close, the rabbi quipped to those huddling around him: "Look, no one really listens to rab-bonim anyhow...
...Through my involvement with the local federation, I became acquainted with the Glasser family, particularly Mrs...
...Ethelyn Simon Piedmont, California Frustration, continued To the Editor: In response to your invitation to reply to the Nicki Glasser article (October 1978), and as one of the original 23 people to receive the printed letter, and as someone Mrs...
...Fein's position is that it is the confrontation by Jews, qua Jews, with the pressing social and ethical dilemmas of modern secular society that will provide a sustaining rationale which is consonant with historic Jewish values, and which is capable of uniting the diverse Jewish population...
...On several occasions we discussed her experiences with her synagogue, Mrs...
...Not so...
...If such topics were introduced, Appell would have written no article, for no one would be participating in any aspect of cult programming...
...May your subtle anniversary acknowledgment serve also as a proud forecast of your longevity...
...I have been a delighted reader for the past year and have just received my subscription for two more years...
...And on that, may I extend a hearty mazel tov...
...But let us join with Fein and assume optimistically that indeed the Jewish condition uncharacteristically will come upon benign times...
...The situation facing that synagogue was certainly a complex one...
...Initially, the Glassers seemed ready and eager to comply with these conditions...
...Here the evidence I perceive does not suggest a sympathetic response to a Jewishness centered on tikun olam...
...I hope that all momentum in the Jewish community isn't restricted to the two patterns I have identified: the traditionalists and the normalists...
...1 (November 1978) as being one "who advises Arabs on Congressional relations...
...Conspicuous in its absence in the analysis is any reference to the Holocaust, a watershed event in Jewish history, and clearly a commanding reality in contemporary Jewish life...
...In addition, the Glassers were to provide private preparation and training for Nicki...
...And that's to say nothing of our Jewish lives...
...They were questions given to people in rabbinical studies...
...Worse still, by not according the Solomon Schechter schools their due credit, the Conservative movement is telling Nicki and me that, for all practical purposes, a Solomon Schechter education is superfluous...
...We were about to give up when Jill announced that she had solved our problem by buying us a present...
...Did Nicki in fact have a background comparable or superior to other Jewish children enrolled in synagogue educational programs...
...The deprogrammer is infinitely more concerned about the individual, including the soul, than is the cult leader or member...
...it is destructive and it will not go away...
...Glasser who served as a volunteer...
...While this was a unique case, nevertheless, we attempted to treat the Glassers as we would treat any family new to the community who had a child of bar or bat mitzvah age with previous Jewish education in another community...
...You must be proud that Mr...
...Learning Disabilities To the Editor: I was overjoyed to see the article by Harris Faigel, "Jewish Education for the Learning Disabled" (December 1978...
...Not only did He create the world, but He controls day to day events...
...I have not been a member of Hogan & Hartson since June 1,1978...
...After an evening of questions and answers, facts and rules, the congregation adjourned for coffee and cake...
...I wish to send good luck to Nicki and her family, and I hope that her bat mitzvah was as meaningful as mine...
...But neither your article nor the articles by Adler or by Singer on the same topic really delved into a basic issue...
...I studied hard for it...
...But what about the generation behind me, those who will bear the responsibility for determining what happens to the Jewish people in the next century...
...Still, I hope I'm wrong...
...Although at this time I do not know of other such programs, many principals have shown interest in ours and a conference about the subject is planned by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations...
...illustrated reports of big games would find their way to our place every Saturday...
...Circulation for moment can only go in one direction, and that is up, considering the kind of writing that Gordon Sander puts forth to your readers...
...I was told by Mrs...
...Too bad his writing doesn't live up to his billing...
...But we also need a society that is awake to the reality of what cults really are, what their leaders stand for, and how dishonest they are in their approach to individuals and society...
...What is particularly noteworthy is that many of these traditionally religious activists come from non-Orthodox backgrounds...
...This viewpoint, which Rebbetzin Jungreis stresses, has done more harm than good by preaching this sectism...
...Who said...
...We all synthesize," as one of the Orthodox women (quoted later in that issue of moment) notes...
...We love it...
...She is disrupting the idea of peoplehood for which we must strive...
...If so, what will be the binding force to sustain the Jewish people...
...I respond to the writings of Moses Mendelssohn who, in the 18th century, first suggested the possibility of reconciling Judaism with the liberal ideologies of the Western World...
...I was able to answer maybe a little more than half—I guessed at most of the rest If this is why God brought us out of such trouble, to just chew up each others' throats, I don't think we deserved it...
...After reading it, I was astounded to see how our (my) people could react to one another...
...That view is that God controls everything...
...It is at such a time when the true colors of the cult are shown through the endless process of indoctrination, lack of sleep, control of diet, and direction as to how one spends every minute of every day...
...Therefore, tomorrow's Jews may no longer worry about Israel, but living in an essentially hostile non-Jewish world, they undoubtedly will be confronted with new threats to Jewish continuity in other parts of the world...
...I believe he was right...
...There is good reason to hope that many such programs will soon be in operation, helping children to succeed in otherwise self-defeating learning situations...
...Seeing I have so much Jewish religion, heritage and feeling in my life, I tried the questions that were asked of a girl my own age...
...People like us spend a fortune on subscriptions, receiving as many as seventeen magazines in a single day's mail...
...Gita Segal Rotenberg Montreal, Canada To the Editor: It was with a sense of relief that I read the response from the rabbi and chairman of the board of education in your November issue...
...But that the United Synagogue, via Rabbis Wiener and Kreitman, should claim that they have no jurisdiction in such matters is absurd...
...Glasser approached me now not as a friend but in my capacity as a rabbi of another synagogue...
...I also won the "Highest Academic Achievement" award, and I did not attend any Hebrew class whatsoever...
...Why not...
...Such statements emanate from the mistaken view that persons elect to join a cult...
...Orthodoxy is more than a culture...
...If prayers are not to be taken literally, how are they to be taken...
...And I would like to see that issue tackled head-on...
...It could be argued that the Holocaust has forever made the Jewish condition precarious...
...I attend Herz-liah High School...
...3) A personal interview with Nicki to enable me to get to know her a little bit better...
...Unfortunately, her showmanship is charismatic and audiences applaud her, instead of paying heed to the negative thrust of her statements...
...To me, a bat mitzvah meant everything...
...How pleased I was to be able to include my in-laws, Mr...
...When this is done, at least we can face the multitude of human problems that are always with us, including our new attitudes that will arise out of peace in Israel...
...When it became clear that the Glasser's congregation would not permit Nicki to have the type of bat mitzvah the family desired, Mrs...
...Can they dig down within their Jewish resources and instincts and find a new and meaningful definition of Jewish purpose...
...Does a record of past education justify the abandonment of current involvement in Jewish education...
...Because of peer pressure, fear, and continued indoctrination, they cannot separate themselves from the cult...
...After a maximum of one year in the Learning Center, all of the students so placed have been able to succeed in regular Bet classes...
...Among serious young Jews today I note two predominant patterns of Jewish identity, both of which are to be found among Jews in the two centers of Jewish life—Israel and America...
...Jack wanted us to order a paper from Jerusalem, post haste...
...The question is whether the contemporary American Jewish community can find a rationale for its existence other than crises and threats to Israel's existence...
...Our rabbi, Rabbi Mark A. Golub, I'm proud to say, would never allow such ridiculous stupidity to take place in our synagogue...
...Two weeks before the scheduled bat mitzvah I received a call from Mrs...
...Thus, 4! = 24 (or, if you will, Four...
...All entering students are given a gross perceptual test, en masse, and those showing signs of possible problems are watched closely by their teachers...
...Bold, in that it is predicated upon the assumption that there will be peace in the Middle East...
...Of course, if you say, "grant us peace," and if you do not believe that there is any force capable of doing this, I agree, you can't take prayer literally...
...In the first pattern, traditional Judaism is central: young Jews seeking a lifestyle based on the observance of halachah and the study of texts...
...Sander's articles antedated similar material later made public by the Anti-Defamation League...
...Therefore Jews have no obligations outside of their own community...
...And Jill, my daughter, has moved into her own house...
...And I really resent it being assumed away...
...Why have a Committee on Congregational Standards if it is true that you cannot implement its guidelines...
...I also attended my temple's religious school for two years (and of my own choice, I've decided to stay longer...
...They are just as adamant as some of the adults in my seminars...
...To me, such theology is repugnant...
...So, I'm an easy target for anyone who suggests a working fusion of the two ideologies which have meaning to me: Judaism and liberalism...
...Review copies of new magazines are all over my house and garden, and I have had to give some to my son Jack...
...It does involve that theology...
...May I take the liberty of referring interested educators and parents to the Winter 1977 issue of Compass for the article "Sweet Glow of Success...
...William Finegold Jamaica, New York To the Editor: I have just finished reading the last of your three-part series concerning Arab money and influence in the United States by Gordon Sander (September-November 1978...
...The enormity of the evil of the Holocaust, still not fully comprehended by most Jews, is likely to sustain—short of the end of days—persistent Jewish fears for their future...
...Linwood Holton Washington, D.C...
...Their aspirations are for Jews to be like everyone else...
...In moment's horrific tale of Nicki Glasser's frustrations at becoming a bat mitzvah, hampered as it were by her Solomon Schechter education, there is no question that her Connecticut rabbi showed the poorest of taste, bordering on offensive, when he gave her an impossible exam...
...I am not a member of Defenders of Wildlife, although I am a member of various other conservation organizations...
...In my opinion his report was truly a most informative and outstanding piece of work...
...Glasser that I doubted whether the children attending my congregation's school could perform well on such an exam...
...Personally, I was left with the feeling that I never heard the entire story and that more remained to be told...
...ances (and the repetition testifies to the inability of such books to become the "final word"), customs from the people have emerged anew again and again...
...Come now, rabbis...
...I am part of that generation whose values and attitudes were strongly influenced by the liberalism of the 1940's and 50's...
...The factorial rule assigns to a given integer the product of all the integers up to and including the given integer...
...It was called Moment, the new magazine for America's Jews...
...Yet, as the day for the scheduled bat mitzvah approached, we were still awaiting the transcripts and evaluation...
...Our problem is that there are too many magazines, and not enough time to read them all...
...They have rejected the diluted "plastic" Judaism of their parents...
...While I personally find Fein's call for tikun olam a convincing and attractive Jewish rationale, I'm not sure that it will appeal to the next generation...
...Congregations have an obligation to see that their students honored with a Shabbat bar or bat mitzvah meet the highest standards...
...And any honest Orthodox rabbi will admit that...
...I can understand the difficulty of that congregation or any congregation in allowing a child not engaged in a formal program of Jewish study within a day school or in an after-school context to become bar or bat mitzvah on Shabbat...
...Rabbi Howard A. Simon Margate, New Jersey Peace To the Editor: Leonard Fein's article, "In the Wake of Peace," (November 1978) is bold as it is thoughtful...
...David Caeser, in the moment family by identifying the place of acknowledgment of the anniversary in Volume 4 Number 1. In the world of mathematics (a world in which I spend a fair amount of time), an exclamation mark following an integer indicates the factorial function...
...Each might be expected, in the post-adversity era, to be a source of meaningful Jewish continuity, but none, Fein argues, is compelling...
...1 was for three years a special partner at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, 815 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C...
...It is not so much a denial of nor an embarrassment about being Jewish, as might have been the motives of assimilating Jews a generation ago...
...Glasser that she had been unable to arrange the accompanying social affair...
...They refuse to listen to any other point of view...
...The Nicki Glasser story as it appeared in the October issue was indeed a lengthy tale of woe...
...20006, a firm for which Senator Fulbright did then and now serves as something called "counsel...
...These Jews reject notions of the Jew as special or chosen...
...Bizarre—all of these magazines in our lives—and more all the time...
...Fein proceeds thoughtfully to explore alternative rationales for sustaining the Jewish people in the wake of peace in Israel...
...Jerry Steinman West Nyack, New York Arabs in America To the Editor: I would like to commend you on the fine series of articles by Gordon Sander on Arab influences in the United States (September-November 1978...
...No tutorial situation can possibly provide the variety of experiences, intellectual as well as social, which a congregational school attempts to give to its students...
...Against such a climate of opinion it requires some courage for the rabbi and board chairman to submit their account of the events...
...Whatever Sander (or Congress) may think of Defenders (Continued on page 12) of Wildlife had no relevance to the subject...
...Yet the anonymous congregation did offer to permit Nicki to have a bat mitzvah on other than a Shab-bat morning, a fact not recalled in the article...
...Rather, it is more a matter of taking Jewishness for granted—in order to normalize it...
...As a result, appropriate help has been obtained in the public school or with private tutors, and the child has been able to perform far better academically...
...Week after week, she ploughs through her own magazines, and guess what she wanted for her birthday...
...The objective reader could empathize with the frustration and anger on the part of the parent...
...Two more years of Harper's...
...These prayers were meant for people who believe in God, and if you don't, then you have a problem...
...You all come to classes, but you'll do what you want anyway...
...They are not ready to improvise...
...That has been and continues to be the living and breathing of Judaism, even among the Orthodox...
...While the two often coincided, there were issues over which the Conservative movement took a stand differing from that of the other trends in Judaism...
...Frequently, we have alerted parents to learning disabilities of which they were previously unaware...
...Glasser, informing me that the family had decided not to celebrate the bat mitzvah at this time...
...beautiful furnishings, sure, but also magazines wherever you look/ / tell her not to repeat my bad habits in her life, but she says these are new times, and that she must expand her own horizons, now that she's no longer a New Yorker...
...Though no halachic system, heretofore, had prohibited bingo, it seemed clear that in the spirit of g'milut hassadim, the poor of society were not to be exploited for synagogue fund-raising purposes...
...This is entirely erroneous...
...Appell states that "cult membership also implies a rejection of deeply rooted general values," and that "the growth of cults may well be seen as a response to the absence of discipline and authority in other social institutions...
...Was the consideration of an impending move to another town by the Glasser family (where their family would not as conveniently be able to join them for a simcha) the prime motivation for trying to have her bat mitzvah here and now...
...How do we expect to gain acceptance and respect from others if we don't respect ourselves...
...Purely on principle, the crack upset me so much that I couldn't get past it...
...It is not to restructure his life according to a preconceived plan agreed upon by parents and deprogrammer...
...I am 13 years old, a graduate of Solomon Schechter Academy in Montreal, Canada...
...Not only were the rabbi, the educator and the synagogue condemned as insensitive, unresponsive, and unethical, but the national body was indicted too...
...After long deliberation, both within the confines of our synagogue's ritual committee as well as the synagogue board, it was agreed that they could have the bat mitzvah in our congregation provided they would agree to meet the criteria that I would establish...
...Samuel C. Heilman Queens, New York To the Editor: We finally got around to reading your September issue, and were particularly interested in the questions you raised about Orthodoxy...
...They were totally unfair...
...Tense with anticipation, we opened the envelope...
...Tammy Feder Montreal, Canada To the Editor: Growing up as a preacher's kid, Conservative-style, I had two ethical systems to master, that of Judaism, and a more limited one of the Conservative movement...
...What I really hear is the echo of the consensus that we all grew up in the days when science and liberal humanism were our gods...
...Henry Lieberman Waban, Massachusetts Orthodoxy To the Editor: In his article on the character of contemporary Orthodoxy (September 1978), David Singer sounds like an editor carried away by a feeling about the importance of a new book...
...Such a view would suggest that Fein's basic premise is inappropriate: a Middle East peace settlement may be reached, but the Holocaust has irrevocably demonstrated the constancy of Jewish vulnerability...
...She doesn't want to depend on me for news...
...I am pleased that an article on this subject appeared in moment...
...Thoughts of the Holocaust will keep alive the classic Jewish concern that "in every generation they rise up and seek to destroy us...
...In Israel it is expressed as "we want to be a state like any other state...
...Bernard Reisman Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts To the Editor: I did enjoy and agree with your article, "In the Wake of Peace" (November 1978), but perhaps most of our uneasiness as Jews in the United States comes from the implications of the first sentence in that essay: "I know that prayers are not meant to be taken literally...
...The "folk," however, will always continue to shift and move around within the halachah without the fear of "am I doing it right...
...These criteria were as follows: (1) An official transcript and/or record to be forwarded to us from the Solomon Schechter School in Newton, Massachusetts, to verify Nicki's attendance and to make clear that she was a student in good standing...
...One thing is certain—as we are reminded in Proverbs 29:18: "When there is no vision the people perish...
...It drives me mad, and it must have something to do with mass psychology...
...Mrs...
...Judith Heilbraun Greenvale, New York Rebbetzin Jungreis To the Editor: Leonard Fein's Tav, "The Offense of the Defense" (December 1978) is well-put...
...Last year I served as interim rabbi in another smaller Conservative synagogue in the same Connecticut town where the incident took place...
...Singer's Stamford, Connecticut, notwithstanding, in most Orthodox communities the rules of Passover, like all the standards of "Torah-true" Judaism have been—and, I suspect, shall continue to be—a blend of the written word, custom and improvisation...
...Failure to do so smacks of sensationalism or, at the very least, sloppy reporting...
...4, No...
...And now it turns out that the letter of the law (compulsory Hebrew School attendance as a prerequisite to a bat mitzvah ceremony) takes precedence over the spirit of the law (a decent Jewish education as a prerequisite)—an ironic turn of events for the Conservative movement...
...Indeed, may each succeeding year add to and multiply your longevity...
...No one knows what the cult stands for when he becomes involved...
...However, this is never told to a prospective cult member until he or she has been isolated from society, removed from friends, family and a familiar environment...
...To accept unchallenged and unquestioned the "charges" gives the readers a prejudged view...
...In fact, we have thrown out everything else...
...I have come to expect higher standards from the staff of moment on the threshold of its fourth anniversary...
...Now their direction is inward and private: enrich one's own Jewish spiritual experiences and restrict one's vision and concern to the Jews and Jewish issues...
...I was entitled to attend only the English hours of study, and I learned more there about my Jewish heritage and present situation in Judaism than I did at my day school...
...Our family cares about Judaism, so we tried to select a national Jewish monthly that would satisfy us all...
...I was given the privilege and honor of becoming a bat mitzvah on the 16th of June, 1978, at my Reform synagogue, Temple Beth Shalom...
...That world is the domain of the gentiles—those responsible for the destruction of six million Jews...
...Rabbi David Maharam Emanuel Synagogue Oklahoma City, Oklahoma To the Editor: I'd like to express my anger and disbelief on your terrorizing story about Nicki Glasser...
...Milton Handis Teaneck, New Jersey To the Editor: In Gordon Sander's article on the Arab lobby, the writer refers to the NAAA as a "crank organization, about on par with Defenders of Wildlife...
...Several people followed the rabbi into the hall and pressed him with additional questions, all of which he fielded quite patiently...
...It's so good...
...Witness, for example, the Spanish tradition, the Frankfurt-am-Main, the Moroccan, the Bostoner, the Flatbusher, and so on...
...Furthermore, I believe that most moment readers are not single-issue-minded and have other concerns beyond those dealt with between the covers of moment...
...The Jewish family and community must respond in positive terms to this reality...
...To take that kind of a swipe at any responsible organization interested in wildlife is irresponsible, amateurish, prejudiced and downright vicious...
...in what comes across as a rather snide comparison...
...Penina C. Malin Longmeadow, Massachusetts...
...When Appell asks for "more campus workers and better facilities for the hundreds of thousands of Jews on campuses," he is absolutely correct...
...I will not pray to a God who creates a Holocaust, whatever his reason may be...
...If, after a month of school, the student shows obvious difficulty in learning Hebrew, he is referred to me for individual prescriptive teaching...
...I attended a pre-Passover seminar in an Orthodox synagogue during which all the laws of Passover were meticulously spelled out by a renowned rabbi...
...An apparent injustice had been committed and the imaginative way in which the account was printed, along with the "Rashi" comments in the margin, served only to heighten the feelings of indignation and rage...
...I would like to take this opportunity to compliment everyone that is responsible for making moment the fine magazine that it is...
...Would we allow Nicki to have a bat mitzvah at our congregation...
...One can only conjecture whether this expectation is an expression of unrelenting cosmic prophecy or an anachronistic, irrational fear which feeds a self-fulfilling paranoia...
...Perhaps what convinces me most that Singer is naive in his conviction that new books will re-order Orthodox life is my own research into that life...
...Having been dependent for so long upon adversity can we survive prosperity...
...Last year, it was sports...
...This is why deprogramming is necessary...
...And even if the truth rests somewhere between these two accounts, there are still two brief comments I would like to contribute to the discussion: The responses of Rabbis Wiener and Kreitman on behalf of the national body were entirely in order since each individual synagogue and rabbi act with complete autonomy...
...Where is this written...
...Furthermore, synagogues which continued to hold bingo games were definitely castigated, usually through forfeiting their membership in the United Synagogue of America...
...The leader, the cult, and its philosophy are never mentioned at this early stage...
...I did not have any specific information about whom Senator Fulbright represented, and I had no connection with his clientele even while I was a member of that firm...
...Maybe I should give you a slight background of myself...
...Glasser sharing her frustration and disappointment with me...
...Is one to conclude that the same can be said for the rest of the United Synagogue...
...Appell is correct when he states that all cult leaders "insist on total obedience to their leadership...
...But the one we knew about didn't offer enough to a serious American Zionist...
...Now that we know that runaway science leads only to destruction, and that men don't seem to be overwhelmed with goodwill, I come back to the question...
...We have run a Learning Center for perceptually disabled students in our school for the past three years, with great success...
...Prior to the Guyana massacre, it was difficult for those of us who have been involved in combating the influence of cults to find a receptive editor who would publish anything other than the sensational expose-type article mentioned by Appell...
...But in spite of these repeated appearOur family loves to read...
...Twenty Four...
...Housekeeping is now a cinch...
...As a member of the teaching staff at Heritage Academy, I have had frequent encounters with Orthodox students who argue that the worst intermarriage is "when a Jew marries down into the Conservative or Reform movements...
...The key question is what will happen to the mass of Jews—those not in either of the two camps, those on the margins, those who have nourished their Jewishness on the crises and glories of Israel...
...I am well-acquainted with the problem as I am a Learning Consultant in an afternoon Hebrew school on Long Island...
...Appell mentions "the cynicism" that surrounds deprogramming...
...Why not get others to write about such questions related to Orthodoxy...
...William Benswanger Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania To the Editor: It has been called to my attention that I am listed on page 17 of Vol...
...I (and many others of my generation) am not hard to convince...
...In contrast to the all-encompassing Jewish consciousness of the traditionalists a second pattern of contemporary Jewish identity seeks a low Jewish profile...
...The goal of deprogramming is to bring the person to the point where he can once more think for himself and make his own decisions...
...The threat of cults is real...
...It is clear that those holding such views would hardly be likely to want to assume the burdens of social and moral amelioration called for by tikun olam...
...I vividly recall an event that occurred during the several years in which I gathered notes for my study of Orthodox synagogue life that seems to me to crystallize the problem with Singer's analysis...
...Only those who have no ethnic or familial customs (folk religion)—i.e., the newly Orthodox (who I suspect find themselves in marginal communities like Stamford)—will depend (and even so only at first) on guides and codebooks, be they Rabbi Eider's summaries or the Jewish Catalog...
...Apparently Singer forgets that codifications of the law have appeared at least since the time of Joseph Caro and in every generation afterward and in almost every language that the Jewish people ever spoke or read...
...2) A summary of her past two years' work from her private tutor together with an evaluation of Nicki's progress...
...The unsuspecting individual is told to join with other friendly, caring, sensitive, feeling people in pursuit of some vaguely defined goal...
...Instead, young people are brainwashed into believing all that the cult says...
...Your lack of "jurisdiction in such matters of individual congregational policy" reduces the United Synagogue to another impotent bureaucracy...
...Glasser consulted, I feel I have an obligation to share some additional history...
...That issue: What is the role of God...
...It is a very significant expose of a growing octopus...
...I do see the "peace" in the "grant us peace" prayer as internal peace of mind rather than the opposite of war, but in either interpretation, the validity of the prayer stands for me...
...Rabbi Louis Stein Copiague, New York Subtleties To the Editor: Congratulations on the anniversary of moment...
...I have never advised Arabs on anything...
...Further, the canons of responsible journalism would dictate that an extensive investigation be conducted prior to the publication of the "complaint" and that the synagogue be offered the opportunity to respond in the same issue...
...In turn, Fein considers and rejects a series of elements, each of which historically has shaped Jewish identity: Israel, God, stiff-neckedness (in the face of external hostility), and ethnicity...
...To be Orthodox, one must accept the Orthodox view of God...
...One rule of responsible journalism is not to put the knock on anyone unrelated to the story just to make a point...
...And moment's strength is in relevance...
...The Holocaust adds to the disenchantment with ideas of a perfectible society or of the need to be responsible for the condition of the secular world...
...I heard her once and that was enough...
...this difference was the result of a heightened ethical sense, a respect for the spirit of the law— or so I was told...
...Prayers were written to be taken literally and seriously, and when they are they can speak to us today as they did yesterday...
...I beg to differ with him...
...Many of them have also been through an earlier liberal, social action phase and were disillusioned...
...Allegiance to halachah and the "Torah-way-of-life" is not identical to adhesion to standard procedures...
...Were we in fact being told the entire story about the background and history of the Glassers' dealings with their former congregation...
...I confessed to Mrs...
...Only one element, tikun olam, literally, repair of the world, offers the possibility of mobilizing the imagination and energies of contemporary Jews...
...They see such notions as chauvinistic and outmoded...
...I am also attracted by the essays of the Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen who, a generation later, identified the distinctive mission of the Jews as bringing to the world a heightened sense of morality and ethics...
Vol. 4 • January 1979 • No. 3
