International Rabbinical Fellowship Press Release: "New Orthodox Rabbinical Group Established"

International Rabbinic Fellowship

347 West 34th Street

New York, NY 10001

Press Release

Contact: Rabbi Jason Herman, Executive Director

Phone: 917.751.5265

Email: jlherman@jlherman.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

9 A.M. EDT, November 20, 2009

new orthodox rabbinical Group established

Rabbis from across the United States, Canada, South America, Israel and Hong Kong came together last week to officially establish a new and long awaited organization of Orthodox Rabbis. The International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF), several years in the making, is the brainchild of Rabbi Avraham Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in Riverdale, the Bronx, New York, and founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, and Rabbi Marc D. Angel, Rabbi Emeritus of New York’s oldest Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel, and director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.

A board and officers was elected consisting of the next generation of Orthodox Rabbis who have shown themselves to be at the forefront of modern Orthodox leadership. The organization’s 120 or so founding members elected Rabbi Barry Gelman, Rabbi of the United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston, Houston, Texas, as the IRF’s first President, Rabbi Hyim Shafner, Rabbi of Bais Abraham Congregation, St. Louis, Missouri, as Vice President of Education and Communication, Rabbi Nissan Antine, Rabbi of Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah, Potomac, Maryland, as Vice President for Membership and Conferences, Rabbi Joel Tessler, Rabbi of Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah, Potomac, Maryland, as Vice President, Rabbi Saul Strosberg, Rabbi of Congregation Sherith Israel, Nashville, Tennessee, as Treasurer, and Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, Rabbi of Congregation B’nai David-Judea, Los Angeles, California, as Secretary. A code of ethics that will bind the new group was provisionally adopted.

This first conference of the International Rabbinic Fellowship included the voting into reality of several new initiatives that promise to transform the Orthodox community and perhaps the Jewish world. A committee to formulate new procedures for Orthodox conversions, so much in the news in Israel and the United states as of late, was appointed. The committee is tasked with presenting to the IRF a final outline of requirements and processes for Orthodox conversions to be adopted by the membership in June at its annual meeting. The committee’s chairs are Rabbi Dov Linzer, Head of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in New York City and Rabbi Joel Tessler, Senior Rabbi of Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah, Potomac, Maryland.

Though Orthodox Judaism does not ordain women as rabbis, several Orthodox women who serve in a handful of Orthodox congregations in rabbinic capacities were present. A long discussion was held at the conference on the question of admitting women acting in a rabbinic capacity as full voting members among the Rabbis. The group voted to task the membership committee with creating criteria for the potential consideration of admission of women. If the IRF votes to admit women, criteria for membership will also be voted on in June. The IRF recognizes that there are highly capable women serving in rabbinic roles and as such the group might benefit from their presence, ideas and guidance. This heralds the first time that an Orthodox rabbinical group has entertained the possibility of admitting women as full members into its ranks.

For more information about the International Rabbinic Fellowship and the proceedings of its seminal inaugural conference held this past Tuesday and Wednesday November 17-18, please contact any of the following members:

Rabbi Barry Gelman, tel. 713.723.3850, email

Rabbi Hyim Shafner, tel. 314.583.4397, email

Rabbi Nissan Antine, tel. 301.279.7010 x 209, email

Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, tel. 310.276.9269, email

Rabbi Marc D. Angel, tel. 212.724.4145, email

Rabbi Jason Herman, IRF Executive Director, tel. 917.751.5265, email

Vlog Post On Our Last Week in New York

More on Meiri

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I attended an AJWS event where Professor Moshe Halbertal spoke to past attendees of their Rabbinical Student Delegation trips (of which I was one, having gone to El Salvador), wherein, although he spoke about Rabbi Menachem Meiri,* he nicely framed the larger discussion. Professor Halbertal wrote an article on the aforementioned Meiri several years back that is pretty well-regarded on the topic.

What isn't as well-known is that Rabbi Aryeh Klapper gave a lecture (“Paskening Like the Meiri: Reflections on Jewish Attitudes Toward Gentiles and Halakhic Integrity”) which I attended a few years ago (although I re-listened to here and here). Although I found many ideas interesting in the lecture, I'm going to transcribe several interesting excerpts.

The first is on the interest in the Meiri:

In the draft of an article I am trying to write about this,** I think the fun paragraph I wrote about this was:

The mere existence of the Meiri has been a source of comfort for Orthodox Jews with universalistic tendencies. The reason that one wants to pasken like the Meiri is because of his unique position about Jewish-Gentile relations that appeal to those of us who have discomfort with laws that make sharp distinctions as to the obligations one has toward Gentiles as opposed to Jews and particularly those laws that seem to imply that basic standards of ethics are limited within the Jewish community.

A very fascinating section was where he discussed the importance of Meiri's writings and how they were attempted to be suppressed:

One is I want to preserve the uniqueness of Judaism, so if I say that all that you need to be a good person is x, then what’s special about Judaism? Secondly, one has the sense that somehow that being part of a community means that you relate to members of the community differently than you relate to non-members of the community. So then there should be some way that family members see themselves as obligated differently to each other, they’re should be some difference.

Now the Meiri offering a way possibly to level all of those distinctions, therefore, was seen as, both because he is seen as diminishing the uniqueness of Judaism and diminishing the unique bonds of Jews to each other was seen as very threatening. And because of this, a whole series of objections were raised. A stark way of framing this – and I’m going to quote this article again where I said

Meiri’s evident willingness to subject halakhah to moral critique and Meiri’s position to say not just "I think this is the halakhah", but I think if you don’t think this is the halakhah, then you’re doing something very wrong. And not just technically wrong, but morally wrong, because there is no justification for treating people like this. So Meiri’s evident willingness to subject halakhah to moral critique raised alarm among traditionalists. As a result, various legends and methodological positions have grown up with the purpose of limiting Meiri’s halakhic and hashkafic impact. These include the claim that Meiri’s works were unknown in halakhic tradition before the 20th century, that his work was published by the memorized transmission of unique manuscripts in the Vatican library, and, therefore, the Jesuits had infiltrated pro-Gentile glosses into the text.

When I was in yeshivah, there was, in fact, a very elaborate story about this: that Meiri was unknown to many for many years. One man who had a photographic memory was allowed into the Vatican library one day a year; he would read the Meiri and come back and write it down very quickly. That’s how the Meiri was published and the Meiri was unknown before this. Now one has to be suspicious because isn’t it funny that a work which exists only in the Vatican library happens to have these pro-Gentile glosses.

All very nice but regrettably not true. Not true at all. If you look at the Harvard Library catalog, you’ll see that the Meiri is published as early as 1830….

Another interesting quote:

The fundamental claim that Halbertal makes is that Meiri thinks that there is no avodah zarah in Christianity and, therefore, you can be engaged with their worship – all those prohibitions are moot. And Rabbi Henkin claims no, you can’t do that. Halbertal makes this claim based on this terminological precision. Here, I have to make a reference to quote Rabbi Saul Berman, who taught me the notion of Predictive Principles in Halakhah. If I want to set up the claim that A always goes with B, I have to know in advance whether a certain object is going to be B or not. So Professor Halbertal has these three categories, which are Civil Discrimination, Indirect Contact with Idolatry, and Social Contact. And there are 60-70 cases. So I had my students – what I did was, instead of giving them Professor Halbertal’s neat categorizations, I gave them all these cases in the order in the Talmud, and I said “Take every case and put it in either category A, B, or C.” And it turns out that the categories are not good predictive principles. On the whole, except for a few cases, the students distributed randomly as to whether these laws fell into category A, B, or C. So, it’s difficult to test Professor’s Halbertal’s thesis on a broad level.

Another:

Whenever Meiri makes these radical claims, he only makes them by implication. For example, he says here עובדי אלילים, one is not obligated to save them because they have no דת. This is the law regarding paternity of people who have no דת. When he makes the non-radical claims, he says "but, with regard to those who have דת...,". When he makes the radical claims, he leaves out the "but". He just does the implication. Pretty consistent. So you have to wonder: does this mean that Meiri really believes these things but can't get away with it or he's just seeding the tradition and hoping someone will come along and pasken like it? Is he cluing you in that this is really just apologetic and don't believe any of the other places he said it, either? I don't know. It's tough to imagine that he says it in so many times and yet, at the same time, there is a pattern - to me, and I have to show you all of the cases - that the more radical he gets halakhically, the less likely it is for him to spell out the implication.

One last one:

...Rabbi Henkin's really compelling argument is there's some silence - there's so many places that Meiri has the opportunity to just tell us "Christians are not עובדי עבודה זרה." He says the Sefardic rabbis write that Muslims are not עובדי עבודה זרה. He never says it about Christians. He has so many opportunities, it's suspicious.

-

* Meiri had previously been discussed on my blog here.

** The paper on which he was working was presented as "The Meiri’s Halakhah about Christians and Christianity: A Response to Halbertal" at the Association for Jewish Studies 39th Annual Conference in December 2007.

Is There a Jewish View on Same-Gender Marriage In the Public Sphere?

With the votes in Maine and Washington today, I saw some stuff on Twitter that made me think about it, especially Alan's tweet that says "Doesn't understand these anti-marriage-equality folks in DC: why do they think their (dumb) religion has say over CIVIL marriage? Jews don't."

This got me to thinking: is this so? Does Judaism believe that a same-gendered marriage may occur?
What makes this a not simple discussion begins with the following midrash, commenting on Lev. 18.3 (even though verses 2-5 are part of the introduction to verses 6-23, with verses 24-30 being the conclusion to the middle section), the rabbis treat verse 3 as referring to something not [necessarily] in verses 6-23 (Sifra 9.8):

כמעשה ארץ מצרים וכמעשה ארץ כנען לא תעשו, יכול לא יבנו בניינות ולא יטעו נטיעות כמותם תלמוד לומר ובחקותיהם לא תלכו, לא אמרתי אלא בחוקים החקוקים להם ולאבותיהם ולאבות אבותיהם ומה היו עושים האיש נושא לאיש והאשה לאשה, האיש נושא אשה ובתה והאשה ניסת לשנים לכך נאמר ובחקותיהם לא תלכו

"Like the actions of the land of Egypt or like the actions of the land of Canaan you shall not do" - Is it possible that [this means that] there shall not be built buildings nor shall there be planted plantings like them? What can be learned out from this passage is that "In their particular ways you shall not walk" - I would have only said 'in their particular ways which they have distinguished as being particular to them and to their fathers and to the fathers of their fathers.'

So what did they do [that was problematic that this verse is prohibiting]? A man would marry a man and a woman would marry a woman; a man would marry a woman and her daughter and a woman would be married to to men. Therefore, it is said, "In their particular ways you shall not walk."

If that were the end of the story, it could just be that these are things Jews, alone, are to avoid, while whether or not gentiles are to avoid them is unclear. However, what further complicates the matter is the notion of the 7 Noahide commandments, which, according to Jewish tradition, are to be followed by gentiles. One of these seven is widely known as Sexual Morality - included in this commandment are a number of sexual prohibitions, including incest, bestiality, and adultery, but also includes homosexual sex between two men (but not between two women).

However, if this sexual morality aspect were to include the prohibition on marriages mentioned in the midrash, then, according to Jewish tradition, not only for Jews is same-sex/gender marriage prohibited, but also for non-Jews. And, if Jews are supposed to be the light to the nations, then we shouldn't be helping the rest of the world in a direction that is not in their best interests. On the other hand, this discussion could only arise when Jews could be able to contribute to the conversation....

My Visit to the Hospital Today

Today, I went to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital for the first time ever (which is interesting since this is the main hospital in the area (and I ran past it many times when I used to be able to jog) and I have lived here for five years and my last week here).

My pain started earlier this week. On Tuesday, when I was riding the subway, because of how another rider was sitting, I sat next to my wife, albeit on a ridge between seats. Although I experienced some uncomfortability in my tailbone, I thought nothing of it. The next day, I woke up with a little soreness there; the following day, a little bit more. I had merely thought I had bruised my tailbone and was hoping it would get better on its own. By Friday evening, the pain was certainly not a little bruise, but I couldn't just go to the doctor's office. On Saturday, I began to have trouble walking and, by Saturday night, my walking was very limited. So, today, we headed over to the hospital to get my pain checked out.

The doctor who saw me identified the issue as a pilonidal cyst, which is an abcess of pus near my tailbone. When I told him what I thought had caused it (the pressure from the subway seat, he dismissed that idea (although, it's unclear, precisely, what causes pilonidal cysts).

The procedure consisted of various local numbing shots and then a cut to open up the pocket of pus (none of which was comfortable). I then waited about 15 minutes for it to air out (for the [bad] bacteria to die. I thought I was past all of the pain, but the next part where there was string put in the area where the pus had been and it was surprisingly painful. And with a bandage put on top, that was it.

We then headed out of the hospital (thank you, honey, for waiting for me the entire time with our daughter), had a friend graciously give us a ride back to our apartment, and now it's time to recover.

Criticism and Acceptance of the Shulhan Arukh

On Thursday, while waiting at the doctor's office, I came across the following quotation from Asher Siev's 1943 PhD dissertation "The Period, Life and Work of Rabbi Moses Isserles" (Yeshiva University) on page 73 concerning criticism of the Shulhan Arukh:

R. Moses Yafeh, a pupil of R. Isserles, felt that the Shulchan Aruch, both of R. Caro and R. Isserles, is inadequate because it fails to give the sources of each law. This caused him to compose his Levushim in which he elaborates, gives the origin and reason of the law, and often disregards Rabbis Caro and Isserles together. R. Meir of Lublin (MaHaram of Lublin) opposed the Shulchan Aruch and also the Levushim on the ground that many stumble and misinterpret the law as a result of consulting such abbreviated works.
There were others who objected to the Shulchan Aruch. These objections resulted from a belief that the simplification and codification of the Law will do more harm than good, for it will discourage intensive study and also will serve as a tool in the hands of ignorant people who, with the aid of such a digest, will pose as Rabbis and scholars.

However, Siev continues on pp. 73-74 concerning the acceptance of said work:

Nevertheless, the Shulchan Aruch was accepted by the greatest majority of the Rabbis of the day. The Sefaradim accepted the authority of the Bet Yoseph, while the Ashkenazim reserved the right to follow R. Isserles whenever the two disagreed. The pupils of R. Isserles helped in spreading his works as well as influence amonth the Rabbis of all lands. The more prominent of these are R. Joshua Falk (סמ"ע) and R. Benjamin Ashkenazi (בעל שו"ת משאת בנימין). The former, being the first to place a commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, endeavored to side with its authors and to explain every difficulty and objection that was raised against them. He took special pains to justify R. Isserles and was even accused of inserting in the writings of his teacher interpretations of which the latter never dreamt. R. Salnik wrote: “In all the lands of the Ashkenazim, the opinions of R. Isserles were accepted and we follow him in everything.” Also, “since this decision came from my teacher, R. Moses Isserles of blessed memory, far be it from me to be lenient and lift my head against him.”
After these eminent authorities, there followed a host of others who strengthened the influence and authority of the Shulchan Aruch. Of them, we may mention R. Isaiah Segal Hurwitz (השלה), who testified that, already in his day, the decisions of R. Isserles spread in all lands, R. Joel Sirkish (ב"ח), R. YomTov Heller (תוס' יו"ט), R. Jacob Joshua b. R. Zvi (בעל שו"ת פני יהושע), R. Samuel Zeinvil, R. Menachem Mendil of Nikelshpurg (צמח צדק) and his son-in-law, R. Gershon Ashkenazi (עבודת הגרשוני) etc.
The authority of the Shulchan Aruch was even more strengthened after the two valuable emendations of R. David Segal (ט"ז) and R. Shabtai Katz (ש"ך). These eminent scholars added invaluable lucidity to the texts and put the seal of final approval to the great work of the Bet Yoseph and R. Isserles.

On Our Cultural Epistemic

I found the following quote to be tremendously interesting (from here):

we denizens of the third millennium CE make constant recourse to specialists whose art has no basis in empirical discovery or other Enlightenment values. We shape our moral and aesthetic imaginations through reading Lord of the Rings or watching The Matrix series. We sate our appetites for stylized violence by watching Pulp Fiction and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. We depend on an acupuncturist for healing and we practice yoga. We are pulled in by Yom Kippur or the Old Rugged Cross.

On the Rabbinic Concept of Exegesis: A Quote from Faur

A somewhat interesting rabbinic statement that is not easy of which to make heads or tails is found on page 5a in the Babylonian Talmud in the tractate of Berakhot:

א"ר לוי בר חמא אמר ר' שמעון בן לקיש מאי דכתיב (שמות כד) ואתנה לך את לוחות האבן והתורה והמצוה אשר כתבתי להורותם לוחות אלו עשרת הדברות תורה זה מקרא והמצוה זו משנה אשר כתבתי אלו נביאים וכתובים להורותם זה <גמרא> {תלמוד} מלמד שכולם נתנו למשה מסיני

Rabbi Levi, son of Hama said Rabbi Simeon, son of Lakish: "What is it that is written And I will give you the tablets of stone and the direction and the commandment which I have written to guide them? 'tablets' - these are the ten statements; 'direction' - this is Scripture; 'and the commandment' - this is Mishnah; 'which I have written' - these are the Prophetic writings and Hagiographa; 'to guide them' - this is Talmudic learning; to teach that all of these were given to Moses from Sinai."

As mentioned earlier this week, I have discovered the treasure trove of articles written by José Faur online and one such article that I read was his "Law and Hermeneutics in Rabbinic Jurisprudence: A Maimonidean Perspective," Cardozo Law Review 14 (1993): 1657-1679, which included the following explanation of the above rabbinic quotation (p1658):

The idea of writing as creation reflects the rabbinic concept of exegesis. It generates rather than discovers, meaning. Commenting on the verse, "and I shall give you the tablets of stone, and the law and the commandment which I wrote to instruct them," the rabbis taught as follows: "'the tablets of stone' - this is the Miqra [(Scripture)]; 'the law' - this is the Mishnah." If the text is like stone, then exegesis is the "a blow of a hammer," giving forth various sparks. Like the stone, the text itself remains inviolable and absolute, whereas the explanations and commentaries flee like sparks. In explaining the polysemic character of the Scripture, the rabbis stated, "Just as each blow of a hammer strikes forth many sparks, a single verse unfolds into many senses." Exegesis serves to reinforce and supplement the oral tradition; it can never be the explanation of a text. In contemporary terms, this means that the rabbis viewed the text as a semiological composition whose unit, the word, is a sign which is not subject to definition; it is either recognized or not. As Émile Benveniste shows, "[i]n semiology there is no need to define what a sign signifies. For a sign to exist, it is necessary and sufficient that it should be received and that it should be related somehow to other signs." At the semiological level, whether or not a sign signifies is a matter of recognition, not interpretation. "Does the entity in question signify?" The answer must be an unequivocal yes or no. "If it is yes, everything was said, and it is registered; if it is no, it is rejected, and also everything was said." Exegesis pertains to the semantic aspect of the word, where meaning is generated by establishing new connections.

This is in contrast to the general way of seeing it (pp1657-1658):

Rabbinic texts are ordinarily examined through hierarchical distinctions and categories peculiar to Western classical studies. The basic assumption underlying this methodology is that the rabbinic truth is essentially platonic. As such the purpose of rabbinic exegesis is to "uncover" the text and reveal its "true meaning." This method reflects the scholastic view that the "literal sense" of the Scripture is what the author intended. Once the "intention" of the author has been determined, the text itself becomes insignificant - a "metaphor" marginal to its "true meaning." The object of interpretation thus becomes displacement of the text. This view is intrinsic to Western tradition, in general, and Christianity, in particular, where writing is displaced on behalf of logocentrism. The classic example of this type of hermeneutics is the Christian Scripture interpreting, and thereby displacing, the Hebrew Scripture. It is worth noting that John's logos (word) is "unwritable," and therefore anti-book and anti-text. By way of contrast, the logos of Philo and the memra (word) of the rabbis do not exclude writing; writing is creation itself.

I find the above to pretty interesting when considering rabbinic statements and their generation.

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The rabbinic quote about the sparks:

דבי ר' ישמעאל תנא (ירמיהו כג) וכפטיש יפוצץ סלע מה פטיש זה מתחלק לכמה ניצוצות אף מקרא אחד יוצא לכמה טעמים

Moving to California: Heading to the Other Coast For an Exciting Job

After living in New York City for over five years, my wife, my daughter, and I are moving out to Long Beach, California! And even though we just moved into a new apartment less than two months ago, we are packing right back up again.
On 9 November, we will be heading out to Long Beach, California to begin our new jobs. Rachel will be the new Executive Director at the Long Beach Hillel and I will be providing rabbinic support to colleges and high schools in the Long Beach area and in Orange County (my predecessor called the position the Alevy Family Campus Rabbi as part of Alevy Jewish Student Services).

Oh, and here's where you can get jealous: the average temperature year-round is in the 70s ;)

A Medieval Changing of Judaism

This past shabbas, I read an interesting article, José Faur, "One-Dimensional Jew, Zero-Dimensional Judaism," Annual of Rabbinic Judaism 2 (1999): 31-50 after finding a bunch of articles of his and have started liking them a lot. In the aforementioned article, the following excerpt (pp. 43-45) was wildly fascinating:

Underneath the noise produced by the anti-Maimonideans rested a single issue: is Judaism a one-dimensional or a multi-dimensional system. If Judaism is one-dimensional, then any differing view ought to be repressed at all cost. The anti-Maimonideans embraced Christian ideology. They also adopted the ways of the Church. First and foremost, Judaism was to be conceived as a "religion" - a term for which classical Hebrew has no terminology-in the precise one-dimensional sense designated by the Catholic Church.⁴⁹ Their triumph led to the erosion of the multi-dimensional values of Israel, converting Judaism into a religious system mirroring Christianity. Systematically, the building blocks of Judaism were vacated from their original semantic connotations and imbued with a sense originating in Christendom. A good example is Kabbalah, originally standing for "the authoritative tradition" stemming from the Talmudic Court of Justice, the geonic academies, and the Rabbinic masters of Old Sepharad. The anti-Maimonideans transformed this term to indicate the mystical and the folklore, "even in the hands of the old men and women of our people" - to the exclusion of the legal traditions of the Talmudic Court of Justice, the geonim, and the Rabbinic masters of Old Sepharad.⁵⁰ Another such term is semikha. As noted by Abarbanel, it came to denote Christian "ordination" with no connection to the institution bearing this name in Rabbinic tradition.⁵¹ Similarly, "Talmud learning" - the rallying cry of the anti-Maimonideans - was nothing more than a blunt adaptation of the scholastic methodology of auctoritas (authority). In compliance with scholastic intellectual tradition, certain auctores (authors) were invested with authority; in turn, these auctores were divided into majores (= rishonim) and minores (= aharonim). Consequently, the Talmud was not to be approached directly but through a prism of interpretations and opinions expressed by a hierarchy of auctores. "Proof' consisted in citing one or more of these auctores, without having to have recourse to the subject matter itself.⁵² The purpose of the de-authorization of the Mishneh Torah was to convert halakhah into "canon law," in the precise Christian sense, whereby jurisprudence could be conditioned (from a legal perspective: "manipulated") to "theological" considerations.⁵³ The ultimate roots for the model of the "ideal" Jewish ghetto are to be found Augustin's Civita Dei, not in the Talmud. Political leadership and the cultivation of mundane sciences were to be regarded as pernicious and obtrusive to spiritual life and faith.⁵⁴ Faith meant, simply and plainly, obedience to the "superior." The most fundamental duty of the Jew became faith in the infallibility of the clergy (emunas hakhomim), especially in their transmission of lore professed to have been received through esoteric means. As in Christendom, it is the act of subordination that renders the individual a fidelis (faithful), "because the subject has faith in the superior's institutions."⁵⁵ The source of this doctrine, continuing to shape the very soul of Judaism, was first formulated by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century, who declared that, "the verdict of the superior-no matter whether just or unjust-had to be obeyed by the inferior subject."⁵⁶ Accordingly, "rationalism," i.e., the application of critical knowledge by the fidelis, is an act of insubordination. Church policy developed along these lines. As noted by a prominent historian, "What was demanded was not criticism but credulity."⁵⁷ Contrary to biblical and Rabbinic law postulating that even the Supreme Court of Israel at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem is subject to error,⁵⁸ the anti-Maimonideans regarded their own rabbis as inerrant, like the head of the Catholic Church. In recent times, they were endowed with the power to penetrate the "mind of the Torah" (daas torah) and issue decisions based not on the classical texts of halakhah but on a special insight to which only they have right of entry. This doctrine was first formulated by Paul as the "Spirit of the Law," with the express purpose of abrogating the Law.⁵⁹

Lots of very interesting changes happened, apparently....

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Notes from the excerpt above:

49 The present Hebrew dat denoting "religion" is a neologism. In the Scripture and Rabbinic literature, dat means "law."

50 See, "A Crisis of Categories: Kabbalah and the Rise of Apostasy in Spain," pp. 46-48

51 See "Texte et Société," n. 130, pp. 698-699.

52 See José Faur, "Sanchez's Critique of Authoritas, in Peter Ochs, ed., The Return to Scripture in Judaism and Christianity (Mahwah, 1993), pp. 259-260; "Texte et Société," pp. 98-99.

53 Cf., "Monolingualism and Judaism," pp. 1719-1724.

54 See In the Shadow of History, pp. 204-207.

55 Quoted ibid., p. 33.

56 Quoted ibid., p. 36. For a survey of the subject, see ibid., pp. 28-29, 32-34.

57 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers (New York), p. 572.

58 See "Law and Hermeneutics," 1666-1669.

59 See "Monolingualism and Judaism," pp. 1719, 1721-1724, 1732-1736. For an in depth analysis of the psychological background, see "De-authorization of the Law: Paul and the Oedipal Model," pp. 222-243. The power to penetrate the mind of God was first claimed by Balaam the pagan prophet bent on cursing Israel, see Num. 24:16.