Patience is an important virtue. It’s important of course interpersonally with one’s spouse or child one’s students and friends and everyone else. And — perhaps this one is the hardest of all — with oneself.

But it can also be an important tool to employ in addressing those who pose spiritual threats. Sometimes the best strategy is to allow such people to drop the pose and reveal who they really are and what they actually seek to do.

This seems to be what has happened with the Women of the Wall (WOW) whose chairlady Anat Hoffman has finally admitted that much of WOW’s agenda had nothing to do with prayer at the Kosel and everything to do with seeking to subvert Orthodox Judaism. As Haaretz reported Hoffman’s conditional agreement to move her group’s services to the Robinson’s Arch site was based on the realization that “changing the mindset of Orthodox Jews was not possible. ‘Women of the Wall is the right group for bringing about change in Israel but not the right group for bringing about change in the Orthodox world ’ she said.”

To her credit Ms. Hoffman also stated that “[o]ur Haredi sisters also have rights and we saw last Rosh Chodesh that they really don’t want — maybe not all of them but many of them — do not want to see a woman in a tallit and tefillin and they also have rights.” She appears to have come around to agree that the issue of WOW’s presence at the Wall ultimately comes down to one thing as discussed in this space some months ago:

Decency. Middos tovos. Plain mentschlichkeit. In other words: You’ve come to a really holy place; religious Jews hundreds of thousands of them have been davening here a certain way for as long as anyone can remember for what they believe are good reasons; they come at all hours and under all weather conditions from near and very far for very serious purposes and the way you do your prayers either makes it impossible for some of them to pray here as by your singing or is simply emotionally upsetting to many of them. So why do it? Aren’t you a nice person? Do you have something against these fellow Jews?

Sometimes the dropping of pretenses comes even more swiftly. Consider this example: On October 16 the Jewish Week reported that “in a slap in the face to Diaspora rabbis the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has rejected the word of one of American Jewry’s most well-known Orthodox rabbis” attesting to the Jewish status of an American Jewish couple wishing to marry in Israel.

The Riverdale-based rabbi in question says the Chief Rabbinate has accepted “countless” such letters of his in the past and that his “hunch is that it’s political having to do with the institutions I’m involved with.” His “hunch” is half-right: This indeed has much to do with the institutions he heads which are seeking to progressively undermine and discard evermore of the Torah’s core beliefs and practices under the banner of “Open Orthodoxy.” But that makes the opposition to him spiritual and theological not political.

Perhaps his past attestations have been accepted but that simply highlights how far beyond the pale he and his institutions have moved over time. Children on speeding trains too can’t believe how fast the world outside is spinning based on what they’re observing from the windows.

He insists further that the “issue is not me. The issue is primarily the wonderful people [who] have to seek letters from others rather than their own rabbi.” But of course the issue is precisely him. Like an agile goalie defending his net the rabbi deflects again and again in all directions. This time from the emotional angle: “[This] is deeply insulting to these rabbis and even more importantly to their own communities.” And then from theIsrael— or is it the monetary? — angle: “[Diaspora Jews] frankly don’t know why the State of Israel allows the Chief Rabbinate to undermine the credentials of religious Zionist rabbis who are among the staunchest and most vocal supporters of the State of Israel.”

But once again patience pays dividends because a mere four days after the Jewish Week article appeared any doubt as to whether the Chief Rabbinate’s rejection of his letter was “about him ” or instead about politics personal vendettas religious Zionism or anything else was laid to eternal rest — by the rabbi himself. In a JTA op-ed he discusses his “necessary ingredients for a belief in an ethical G-d.” His second criterion using Abraham and Moses as examples is

that G-d must welcome and even demand to be challenged. G-d’s covenantal relationship with human beings means that there are times when we are encouraged to question and even protest G-d’s mandates….Given this relationship between humans and G-d it is important not to overstep — that is it is important to confront G-d with reverence and humility. But it is equally important not to silence our inner ethical voices….In simple terms this would mean if G-d commands us to kill an innocent we have the responsibility to question to challenge to confront G-d….

From this perspective the Jewish doctrine of belief is a hybrid. It is not the ethics of the human being alone nor is it derived from G-d alone. It is an interfacing of the two with each demanding proper behavior from the other….[This] is an accurate reflection of our relationship with an ethical G-d. Questioning with respect. Challenging with reverence. Confronting with humility. And holding each other mutually accountable.

Abraham Moses and a rabbi from Riverdale. As I said it’s about him.

CONFRONTING THE UNTHINKABLE 

There are those unspeakable events that put one in an untenable position: One the one hand one must speak up for to remain silent in face of what has transpired is unthinkable; yet because what has occurred is itself unthinkable one has no thoughts to share one’s mouth opens to speak up but no words emerge.

So I’ll just share a piece I happened to learn this past week in Ayeles Hashachar the sefer of Maran HaRav Aharon Leib Steinman shlit”a on Parshas Chayei Sarah. He quotes the Chazal (Toras Kohanim Acharei 18) that theland ofCanaan was granted 40 years of peace prior to Bnei Yisrael’s entry into it as a reward for the fact that the Bnei Cheis honored Avraham Avinu by calling him “a prince of Hashem in our midst.”

The Canaanim were the most morally decadent of all peoples (see Rashi to Vayikra 13:8) yet the words of the Bnei Cheis spared all of the land’s inhabitants many hundreds of years later enabling them to enjoy a full 40 years of tranquility before Bnei Yisrael’s arrival. And Rav Steinman concludes:

If this is the reward for honoring a talmid chacham then mah norah how awesome is the punishment for one who disparages a talmid chacham about which the Gemara (Shabbos 119b) says “there is no cure for his wound ” and the Gemara elsewhere (Sanhedrin 99b) rules that he has no share in Olam HaBa.    

One wonders: If continued inhabitance of the Land even for the most decadent is a fitting reward for giving honor to talmidei chachamim what might be the catastrophic result for uttering words of insult or of daring to violently confront the holy aron bris Hashem the repository of Torah in our generation and of condoning the same?

Mah norah how awesome indeed.