Learning Made Easy
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T his is not my Purim column. But I did learn from the Jewish Week that New York Jewry has just endured another Limmud Conference an event I’ve described in the past as “part college seminar part ’60s-era Woodstockian throwback part singles mixer with Jews of any or no movement invited to peddle their sundry versions of Judaic teaching whether containing any truth or none at all.” This event annually visits Jewish communities around the world and the recent conference was New York’s 13th. So now that it’s reached that milestone can it please leave Jewish life permanently as those “bar mitzvah-ed” tend to do?
Thanks for the Jewish Week or else I’d not have known it took place. How would I? Although the article is subtitled “popular big-tent conference drew a big crowd ” I don’t believe an attendance of 750 in the largest Jewish community in the western hemisphere quite qualifies even if it did “welcome its largest-ever group of Reform Jews with a delegation of 26 members from Central Synagogue the 2 300-family Reform synagogue in midtown Manhattan.” It really says that.
The article’s headline is “Limmud Conference Tests Limits of Pluralism.” Let me spare you the need to read the entire thing to find out its test mark — it flunked. Let us count the ways:
Limmud NY president Penny Arons said “a major effort was made to be inclusive and to provide a safe space allowing for difficult topics to be discussed.” That’s why this year for the first time there were sessions like: “Facing My Insecurities: Why I Think Terrible Thoughts When I See Ultra-Orthodox Jews ” and “The Western Wall Controversy: Genuine Spiritual Quest or Contrived Distraction from American Jewry’s Religious Bankruptcy?” Just kidding.
And I’m sure you figured this one out on your own but the inclusivity push led to a certain topic pushing all others nearly off the schedule so that the Limmud Conference could just as well have been titled “Limmud: A Conference About Alternative Lifestyles and a Few Other Things.” According to the article the “largest-ever presence of [alternative-lifestyle-niks] participated this year and sessions on the topic were represented in nearly every time slot throughout the conference…”
Like the Universalist Unitarian Convention I wrote about several months ago this conference too sported “signs on bathroom doors indicating that the several facilities were gender-neutral.” But don’t worry Limmud is inclusive so conscientious objectors to this setup were invited to use the facilities at the Holiday Inn down the block. Assuming they could get past the front-desk clerk there in time.
Alas not everyone got the memo on inclusivity. One attendee a Conservative rabbette-in-training “said she is a pluralist up to a point. ‘I believe in a pluralism of substance ’ she said which requires agreement ‘on the big things.’ She would be opposed to having sessions taught by someone who doesn’t view women as ritual equals for example.”
But apparently she would still allow Orthodox Jews in the door at Limmud. Not so another participant a self-described “halachic egalitarian ” for whom the Orthodox are simply persona non grata: “The mainstream Orthodox community seems to be occupying its time with shutting people out. Why should we invite them into a space like this if they’ve decided time and again to reject inclusivity?” Question: After reflecting upon what she had just said and realizing that she too has now chosen to “reject inclusivity ” did she then make a beeline for the exit to the hotel?
Lest we think Limmud is rife with such intolerant self-contradictory types the writer hastens to assure us that “[it] should be noted though that all Jews are welcome at Limmud NY but not surprisingly those who are more rigid about their beliefs — religious or political — tend to stay away.” One presenter Doreen Seidler-Feller is quoted as referring to inclusivity as a veritable “sacred cow” for Limmud NY participants. Note to Ms. Seidler-Feller: I don’t know much about Hinduism but in Judaism we ritually slaughter sacred cows.
More confusion or just delusion: The article quotes a YU rabbinical student who is on Limmud’s steering committee as saying that “[w]e celebrate diversity while letting people be who they are. There’s a difference between ‘I accept what you do’ and ‘I accept who you are.’ The difference is subtle but important.”
Yet earlier in the article the fellow who arranged for the attendance of that 26-person contingent from the Reform temple said they were treated warmly and “did not feel embarrassed to take out a phone on Shabbat because they felt their practice was viewed as equally valuable and authentic.” Apparently the rabbinical student’s subtle “tzvei dinim in pluralism” might have made him feel comfortable about participating but was lost on his fellow participants.
Perhaps the greatest test of Limmud’s pluralism was the attendance of a “chassid from Borough Park [who] came for the day on Sunday but quickly backtracked on his offer to be quoted in this article after he found out that several panels featured those who left the ultra-Orthodox community and now assail its way of life. ‘I thought this was just about learning Torah but that is not the case ’ he said.”
Poor fellow. He assumed that a conference named Limmud was actually a place for limmud not realizing that with classes that “ran the gamut from a session that compared the story of Moses to other mythological heroes [afra l’pumayhu —EK] to a family yoga class to a search for the best kosher chocolate ” the name Limmud is what the Gemara calls lashon sagi nahor. An enlightened conference indeed.
Speaking of this Jew the article says that “dressed in traditional chassidic garb — a long black coat curly peyos and a black hat — he stood out in a crowd that featured colorful kippot on female and male heads.” What a strange thing to say in an article devoted to touting the pluralism and inclusivity of this event. Weren’t garb and opinions and forms of Jewishness that “stood out in a crowd” the order of the day at Limmud? Or could it be that in a crowd of hundreds all busy displaying their own personal twist on rejecting G-d and His Torah all different but ultimately all boringly similar the chassid with his “transgressive” faithfulness to G-d and Torah was the only truly different one who ironically made this event pluralistic?
But what I’d really like to know — which would also clarify conclusively how Limmud fared on its pluralism test — is what thoughts were filling all those “female and male heads” featuring “colorful kippot” when they beheld the chassid in their midst.
Contact Eytan Kobre directly at kobre@mishpacha.com
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