Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky, "On Family Minhag in a 'Mixed Marriage'"
David Shasha
To Eat Rice on Passover, or Not to Eat Rice on Passover, That is the Ashkenazi Question!
For those unfamiliar with Yeshivah of Flatbush High School longtime anti-Sephardi scourge Joel Wolowelsky, here is a small indication of his handiwork:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/U8gKI5bfWhM/m/t0o0TdrbBAAJ
And for those unfamiliar with YOFHS and the damage it has done to the Brooklyn Sephardic community and our literary-intellectual heritage:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/fqNkqS3zv4w/m/pyYTGcSo97UJ
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/EMoSaXR3lGA/m/9s4-ss1KAwAJ
In my brief note on Wolowelsky, I noted his intimate connection to fellow Washington Heights Supremacist Marc Angel, a marriage made in YU heaven.
Angel has just published a fascinating article by Wolowelsky that deals with Ashkenazi/Sephardi “intermarriage” and Jewish ritual customs:
https://www.jewishideas.org/article/family-minhag-%E2%80%9Cmixed-marriage%E2%80%9D
The complete article follows this note.
For those who might not recall, Angel rejected my article “A Broken Frame: Sephardic Occlusion and the Repairing of Jewish Dysfunction” from publication in the same journal, the inaptly-named Conversations, in which the Wolowelsky article appears:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZZLhopNWNnqMb0GW2OQGcripP8SnZojsmxamctBLDzU/edit
My rejected article was eventually published in Tikkun magazine:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TjFku-0Z8bD2BD4QuDxv6OWK5Lubd8Uj/view?ths=true
Before discussing the Wolowelsky article and its Ashkenazi ethnocentric motivations, I would like to present the primary problem that continues to animate the Ashkenazi/Sephardi binary and the racist imposition of White Jewish Supremacy.
I have addressed the conflict between Maimonidean Jewish Humanism, with its comparative historical understanding of the commandments, against the essentialist understanding of the Tosafist Nahmanides in the following article on Samson Raphael Hirsch:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1osm0botpWsc_L-yS0ZvOOD-FPmIY75vb7T83BjQI9wE/edit
Maimonides did not believe in the intrinsic “truth” value of the commandments, asserting that they were merely a shield to wean Jews away from paganism.
Cheeseburgers are not evil; they are just not Kosher. It is not more complicated than that. In fact, it is possible to make Kosher cheeseburgers by using non-dairy cheese. Jewish ritual law can accommodate change and flexibility to an astounding degree. It has kept Judaism vibrant for many centuries. Though if the Ashkenazi Orthodox atavists have their way, that might be a moot point.
Jewish taboos in the Maimonidean context are culturally tied to ancient Israel and its surrounding environment. While the commandments remain in force perpetually, they do not represent some intrinsic cosmic force.
The Catalonian Nahmanides, as he learned from the normative Ashkenazi tradition against Maimonides, believed in the occult magical nature of the commandments which speak to an intrinsic existential “truth” that is trans-historical and trans-cultural.
It was Nahmanides who spearheaded a school of Jewish Mysticism that forcefully rejected Sephardic Jewish Humanism, with its scientific and philosophical tendencies.
His legal thinking was tied to the Franco-German Tosafists and the arch Maimonides-hater Rabbi Abraham ben David, RABAD; a tradition that has been proudly extolled by Haym Soloveitchik, as we recently learned:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/RyhcyDDolcg
Hirsch, as with his heir and disciple Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Haym’s dad, held to the belief that the Sephardim, with their cosmopolitan Arabic cultural influences, were not as “authentically” Jewish as the Shtetl Ashkenazim with their contempt for the outside world.
My article on the “New Sephardic Jewish Binary” argues that Sephardim have abandoned their classical heritage in favor of the Haredi radicalism of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein on the one hand, or the radical Religious Zionism of Meir Kahane on the other:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EyglybEAkHmQ35sIU6XubsU92mLCM1FGO90ENj_NE-w/edit
Pick your Ashkenazi poison!
Wolowelsky does not at all comment on this Sephardic ideological assimilation to Ashkenazi Orthodox norms, which has largely been subsumed in the pedagogical process utilized by YOFHS over many decades, as Sephardim have gradually outnumbered Ashkenazim at the school, while at the same time relinquishing their cultural and religious heritage to those same Ashkenazim.
It is this assimilation process that has allowed Wolowelsky to maintain his firm control over the school with an iron fist; something that is known to anyone connected to the institution. Sephardi traditionalists can never get past him and his Ashkenazi ethnocentrism. It is all about fear and bullying.
Submit or die!
The issues he ignores are the primary ones facing Sephardim and Ashkenazim; not the problem of custom and ritual in the framework of “mixed marriages.”
That being said, it appears that Wolowelsky has certain ulterior motives in making his argument.
His article centers around two legal responsa, one published, the other unpublished, by Religious Zionist favorite Rabbi Hayyim David Halevy, which allows us to better understand the complex ways Modern Orthodoxy and Haredism function in contemporary Israeli society, and how they have affected the Diaspora and its anarchic Jewish deterioration.
Rabbi Halevy allows for nuance and flexibility for spouses to retain – or not retain – their traditional customs. More than this, Wolowelsky, as is his usual wont, cites the giants of the Religious Zionist movement – all Ashkenazim – to clarify the matter. And those giants are Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, and Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch. And, just for good measure, he also cites Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, but no Sephardic authorities other than HDH.
Note this well, as it reflects a very canny sense of Ashkenazi Cancel Culture which reflects the general YOFHS racist pedagogy.
The article does not mention differing customs among Sephardic and Ashkenazi groups internally, preferring the maintain a rigid Sephardi/Ashkenazi binary.
There are various traditions that separate different Sephardi and Ashkenazi groups based on country of origin; such as those between German and Polish Jews, as is also the case between Moroccan and Iraqi and Yemenite Jews. In the Syrian Jewish community, there are even minor variations between those hailing from Aleppo and those from Damascus.
These ritual differences are usually seen as rather negligible, and Jews who marry between groups do not face tangible problems in general Halakhic terms.
That being said, the underlying theme of the article is the internal Jewish factionalism that divides Ashkenazim, and the prominence of legal stringency, Humra, in the various Orthodox factions – because Wolowelsky is only acknowledging Orthodoxy as his ruling Jewish principle.
It is worthwhile to note here that Sephardim have generally avoided the harsh measures of Humra, and rejected the authoritarian tendencies of Da’as Torah, preferring instead to find ways of accommodation in the name of inclusion and communal harmony, Torach Sibbur.
It is a complex conceptual nexus that in my view serves to highlight the real point of the article: Rice and legumes on Passover.
The Kitniyot issue is a custom that does not reflect the empirical actuality of Hametz:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/kitniyot-not-quite-hametz/
Indeed, it is a very interesting PILPUL that makes Kitniyot both Hametz and not Hametz at the same time!
There are five grains, and five grains only, that, according to Jewish law, can ferment and become (any food that is leavened or has a leavening agent). These are wheat, barley, spelt (also known as farro), oats, and rye. These are also the only grains that can be made into matzah. Traditional Jewish law forbids eating, owning, or deriving benefit from these five grains in any amount and in any form throughout the holiday (other than when they are baked into matzah).
Although Kitniyot are prohibited according to the Ashkenazi custom, they are not treated exactly (Lav Davqa) like Hametz:
While one is prohibited to own, use, or benefit from hametz, Ashkenazic tradition for kitniyot only applies to consumption. One does not have to sell one’s kitniyot along with one’s hametz. Furthermore, one can continue to use cornstarch-based bath powder. Even medicines that use corn starch as a binder are permitted.
There has of late been a great deal of pressure on Ashkenazi Jews to relinquish to Kitniyot prohibition:
https://www.jta.org/2019/04/09/culture/the-passover-kitniyot-argument-isnt-worth-a-hill-of-beans
Back in 2015, Andrew Silow-Carroll pointedly noted the pressure to lift the ban, and the subsequent blowback:
But it turns out the Ashkenazi kitniyot lobby was stronger than you might think. In 2015, the Conservative movement’s rabbinic authorities lifted the ban on kitniyot for non-Sephardim. They reasoned that the ban was in Jewish historical terms fairly recent (what’s 800 years among friends?) and that modern concerns over nutrition, finances and even Jewish unity outweighed whatever qualms led to the original ban. And apparently, the kitniyot prohibition was tearing apart mixed marriages — that is, Ashkenazim married to Sephardim. Like God in Egypt, the rabbis heard the people’s plea.
But that only led to more angst. It’s one thing to complain when something is forbidden. But with choice comes responsibility: After all these decades, is the family ready for corn chowder at the seder? A lentil side dish? Rice with the brisket? Dare I eat a Pesach … risotto?
These aren’t culinary questions but essential questions about faith and tradition itself. Religious leaders of all faiths have long noted that there are at least two kinds of religious traditions: those that come down from above and those that percolate up from below. We call it rabbinic Judaism because rabbis were the lawmakers, setting the boundaries for what is and isn’t acceptable based on the Torah and the library of commentaries that followed.
But Judaism is also the lived experience of its adherents. And while the Passover diet is legally prescribed, it is also lived as a profound spiritual act. The Passover rituals — clearing the house of leavened products, eating odd foods at a festive meal, staring down at the pale tuna salad and tasteless matzah that is otherwise known as lunch — is for the faithful a physical embodiment of the Passover message: a liberation from the self you were, a taste of what your ancestors went through, an act of denial meant to mark the season and your commitment to a higher power.
Indeed, it is the Nahmanidean position of an intrinsic legal essentialism that permeates that final paragraph: the principle that there is a Platonic “idea” that permeates Jewish law which transcends time and space.
There is, to use a Yeshivish term to describe it, a Ruchniyus, an essential spiritual principle, that infuses ritual and which cannot be violated – even when the actual food in question can be shown to not be Hametz in actual empirical terms.
Wolowelsky wants to maintain the Kitniyot prohibition and to do it using the principle of family harmony, Shalom Bayit – and to cite a Sephardic authority to do so!
Rabbi Halevy takes up the case of a secular Ashkenazic man who had married a religious Sephardic woman and had agreed that her family’s traditions be those of their new household. After some time, he became observant and wanted to return to his Ashkenazic roots. The question was whether he may impose his Ashkenazic traditions on his wife and children. In responding, Rabbi Halevy explains how an individual moving into a monolithic community with minhagim different from his own differs from a woman marrying a man with different minhagim. In the first case, the community must maintain its monolithic character; the newcomer, therefore, must adapt completely to the customs of the community. But the underpinning of the rule in an inter-communal marriage is to maintain shelom bayit; therefore, the wife has no need to change her minhag if her actions do not interfere with the family dynamics. Thus, for example, there is no reason for her to change the nusah of the prayers she has been used to saying, or for an Ashkenazic wife of a Sephardic husband to eat rice on Passover as long as she prepares her husband’s meals with rice. In this case at hand, he concludes, the husband may require that his children now adopt his Ashkenazic traditions with him, but may require such a shift for his wife only in those cases that interfere with family harmony.
Having known Wolowelsky for many years, I can see the underlying issue in terms of the perennial tension between Ashkenazim and Sephardim at YOFHS, and in the larger Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish community more generally. It is quite appropriate that he used Angel’s self-hating “Sephardic” journal to publish the piece.
The article thus leaves much unspoken, as it bypasses the many difficulties that face Ashkenazim and Sephardim as we move forward in time.
Variations in custom do not practically affect Kashrut, Sabbath observance, or even the prayers, whose variations do not impact the basic structure of the legal requirements of the obligation. Jewish law remains tied to the Talmud, and differences in custom cannot serve to violate the rabbinic tradition.
But the one custom that has a disproportionate, and often deeply personal, impact on Jewish communities all over the world are those Ashkenazi Passover food prohibitions.
Indeed, for Ashkenazi/Sephardi interaction on the holiday it can make for some extremely uncomfortable Seders.
In the end, Wolowelsky’s article – with Angel’s approval – ignores the basic cultural issues that separate Ashkenazim and Sephardim; as it assumes that Ashkenazim have already erased the classical Sephardic heritage.
It does not engage the problem of White Jewish Supremacy and Ashkenazi cultural contempt for Sephardim; limiting the discussion to ritual matters pointedly related to Passover stringencies.
It does not appear that Wolowelsky wants to address Iris Leal’s Haaretz article that shows us how White Jewish Supremacy works in a real – and deeply personal – way that does not involve rice:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/EOtApHUPQpA
He avoids the issue because he believes that the Ashkenazim – much smarter than Sephardim – have already won the war. No need to belabor the point.
Except for rice on Passover.
So, rather than seek to resolve the Kitniyot issue in a modern scientific fashion, Wolowelsky’s unique brand of White Jewish Supremacy constructs a PILPUL that demands that the ban remain in effect.
Experience has shown us that he is a die-hard White Jewish Supremacist to the bitter end.
David Shasha
On Family Minhag in a “Mixed Marriage”
By: Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky
The requirement that children must follow the minhagim of their father has two well-established exceptions. First, when one moves permanently from one location to another he or she takes on all traditions of his new community, lest there be dissension in the community. Second, when a woman marries, she takes on the minhagim of her husband. Indeed, the second exception is often seen as an application of the first: a woman “moves” from her father’s home to that of her husband’s upon marrying and therefore assumes the latter’s traditions, whether more lenient or stringent than those of the former.[1]
In one of his responsa,[2] Rabbi Haim David Halevy offers a nuanced understanding of this requirement for an inter-communal “mixed marriage.” Rabbi Halevy (1923–1998) was Chief Rabbi of Rishon leTzion from 1951 to 1973, and then Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv from 1973 until his death. His set of responsa Aseh Lekha Rav covers a wide range of topics with a display of scholarship, a respect for tradition, and an awareness of new cultural challenges.[3] He called for creativity in halakha to solve newly-confronted problems, insisting that anyone who is simply bound to the written positions of previous generations is a “Karaite halakhist” who is attached only to the written letter.[4]
Rabbi Halevy takes up the case of a secular Ashkenazic man who had married a religious Sephardic woman and had agreed that her family’s traditions be those of their new household. After some time, he became observant and wanted to return to his Ashkenazic roots. The question was whether he may impose his Ashkenazic traditions on his wife and children. In responding, Rabbi Halevy explains how an individual moving into a monolithic community with minhagim different from his own differs from a woman marrying a man with different minhagim. In the first case, the community must maintain its monolithic character; the newcomer, therefore, must adapt completely to the customs of the community. But the underpinning of the rule in an inter-communal marriage is to maintain shelom bayit; therefore, the wife has no need to change her minhag if her actions do not interfere with the family dynamics. Thus, for example, there is no reason for her to change the nusah of the prayers she has been used to saying, or for an Ashkenazic wife of a Sephardic husband to eat rice on Passover as long as she prepares her husband’s meals with rice. In this case at hand, he concludes, the husband may require that his children now adopt his Ashkenazic traditions with him, but may require such a shift for his wife only in those cases that interfere with family harmony.[5]
In an unpublished later responsum[6] Rabbi Halevy addresses a follow-up question that further nuances his approach: What if after becoming religious, the husband prefers to remain with the Sephardic traditions of his current household? Rabbi Halevy sees no obligation (“vadai she-ein shum hovah”) for him or his children to return to his roots. At first glance, these two responsa seem contradictory. If it is an obligation to return to his Ashkenazic roots that empowers the husband to turn his family’s minhagim upside down, why is the husband in the second case permitted to remain with Sephardic customs? It is not due to the fact that he was not required to adopt the minhagim of his father unless he had personally observed them as an adult. That applies only to family minhagim and not communal customs, which are binding for future generations.[7]
For Rabbi Halevy, both decisions follow naturally from issues of shelom bayit. To understand that, we should appreciate that the concept of moving to a new community has changed in our modern world. Originally, the notions of place and community were generally interchangeable. One’s community was where one lived. Now our sense of community is pretty much divorced from physical locale. There is no “minhag New York” to adopt on moving into New York City; too many competing minhagim coexist in the city. But there is surely a minhag Habad, for example, to be adopted when marrying into a Habad family, whether one lives in Crown Heights or some far-flung location in which the Habad emissaries live. Each Ashkenazic husband in our responsa had “moved” into a Sephardic “place.” The second did it permanently; the first decided to “return home.”
Rather than seeing it as a prescribed ideal, the notion of the wife “moving” to the “place” of the husband may be viewed as a technique for maintaining shelom bayit. It would be a mistake to think that “ideal” families have no disagreements; divergence of opinions is unavoidable. Shelom bayit does not mean always avoiding arguments; it means being able to resolve them and not allowing them to fester. A well-established and agreed-upon plan known to the parties before the marriage helps bring shelom bayit. When couples from different locations are to marry, the Shulhan Arukh[8] sets out the circumstances under which the husband can compel his wife to move to his community. But these rules surely do not prevent the couple from deciding between themselves where they choose to reside, even if it be the husband who moves and adopts the different minhagim of his new community.
It would be interesting to debate the underlying rationale for the rule that the wife should defer to her husband, be it philosophic, sociological, or whatever. It should not be understood as fulfilling God’s declaration to Eve that “[your husband] will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). That statement is not an obligation, says Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein:
For example, at the beginning of the same verse it is said to Eve, “In pain shall you bear children.” No one questions a woman's right to facilitate limiting her suffering when giving birth, as in taking prenatal courses, an epidural or general anesthesia. We do not encounter a religious moral obligation to give birth in pain to one who is not so interested. Is that to be said in relation to the rest said there? Does the verse only describes a natural reality with which one may contend, or is any variation from the verse’s description in conflict with God’s will?
This question stands on the interpretive and ideological level. In relation to this specific issue, I follow the Rambam and posit that marriages are partnerships without mixing in concepts of ruler and ruled, ideas that are not at all relevant to our world. In the view of Hazal, the household is built on the husband honoring his wife as himself.[9]
Seeing a marriage as a partnership of equals opens up another dimension in the discussion of family minhag. Traditionally, marriage has been generally viewed as the woman leaving her parental community and entering that of her husband. But there is another perspective, one described by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik:
The Torah has defined the central commitment of the marital community in an unequivocal manner. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh" (Gen. 2: 24). There is an equation here. The marital community replaces the parental community. Until one’s marriage, the young man or woman belonged to a parental community consisting of three personae: the husband, wife, and child. On the day of their marriage they leave the community into which they were cast by the Almighty and substitute for it a marital community which they enter voluntarily, by free choice.[10]
Marriage is not just a successful partnership, but an existential community. Adam and Eve met and a new metaphysical community, not just a successful partnership, was born.[11]
When a new community is formed from two groups, its minhagim follow those of the majority group. If we see a marriage as the formation of a community in which neither member is dominant, we might well consider the position of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein that when two equal groups form a community, they may decide to adopt the lenient position on any issue, making it now permissible to all. Since on one issue one community might be lenient and on another issue stringent, the result may well be that the minhag created of the new community will not be identical to either half.[12] Those, then, who see a marriage as a new community formed by two equal components might well create a family minhag that will be an amalgam of the respective minhagim of the husband and wife. (This is not to suggest that Rav Moshe himself feels that a marriage is a new community formed from two equal components, but rather suggests how his principle applies for those who do.)
Rabbi Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch, late Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe in Israel,[13] approaches the issue of competing minhagim in new yishuvim (settlements) in Israel from the perspective of this being an age of Kibbutz Galuyot (Ingathering of the Exiles).[14] He insists that all community members should feel that their minhagim are valued, viewing all as equal in this respect. In the area of public prayer, the shaliah tsibbur should set the nusah for each service. On the Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur, where Ashkenazic and Sephardic services involve significantly different piyutim and melodies, the community should create an amalgamated nusah in which all community members’ traditions are recognized. Halakhic rulings of the yishuv’s rabbi should not decide one way for Ashkenazim and another for Sephardim. The popular notion that Sephardim always follow the Bet Yosef and Ashkenazim the Rama is not halakhically binding according to Rabbi Rabinovitch. The Shulhan Arukh was not accepted as a stand-alone authority, but rather an authority together with its commentaries. Each issue should be investigated independently and thoroughly by the contemporary posek, and the same ruling should apply to all.
R. Rabinovitch concedes that many rabbis require the wife to accept the husband’s minhagim in all matters. But, he says, in this period of Kibbutz Galuyot a wife should retain her minhagim that do not impact on her husband (like nusah tefilah), “but even with regard to minhagim that have impact on her husband, the two of them may agree on a unified minhag as they wish.”[15]
These decisions create a family minhag that obligates their children, until they might move to a different community when they in turn marry.
Notes
[1] See, for example, R. Moshe Feinstein, Responsa Iggerot Moshe, Orah Haym 1:158, “There is no ‘moving from one place to another’ greater than a marriage, and this is a permanent move.”
[2] R. Haim David Halevi, “Hovat isha linhog ki-minhag beit ba’alah,” Tehumin, vol. 6, 5745 [1985], pp. 79–84.
[3] See, for example, Haim Jachter, “Rav Haim David HaLevi: An Underappreciated Sephardic Gadol,” Jewish Link, available at https://jewishlink.news/features/27217-rav-haim-david-halevi-an-underappreciated-sephardic-gadol; and Hayyim Angel, “Embracing Tradition and Modernity: The Religious Vision of Rabbi Haim David Halevi,” Jewish Ideas, available at https://www.jewishideas.org/article/embracing-tradition-and-modernity-religious-vision-rabbi-haim-david-halevi. For a full study of Rabbi Halevy’s thought, see Marc D. Angel and Hayyim Angel, Rabbi Haim David Halevy: Gentle Scholar and Courageous Thinker, Urim, Jerusalem, 2006.
[4] R. Haim David Halevi, “Da’at Torah be’inyanim midiniyim,” Tehumin, vol. 8, 5747 [1987], p. 376.
[5] Writing from the perspective of how much authority the husband has over his wife, R. Moshe Feinstein concludes (Reponsa Iggerot Moshe, Even HaEzer, 2:12) that a husband cannot impose his personal stringencies on her. Thus he cannot restrict her from using a wig instead of a scarf as a head covering as that was his personal stringency and not the view of the majority of posekim. On the other hand, he rules (EH 1:59) that a wife whose community requires her shaving her hair must defer to her husband if he objects because she is obligated to please him in matters that affect them both. He argues later (EH 4:32(10)) that these two rulings are consistent.
[6] Addressed to me, dated 28 Tishrei 5755 [October 1, 1994].
[7] See, for example, R. Yair Bachrach, Havat Yair, no. 126.
[9] R. Aharon Lichtenstein, “Ma'amad ha'isha be'idan haModerni,” Alon Shvut Bogrim, Kislev 5736 [November 1975], number 23, pp. 110 f, available at http://etzion.org.il/he/download/file/fid/16488.
[10] R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Family Redeemed, eds. David Shatz and Joel B. Wolowelsky, (Toras HoRov, 2000), p. 29.
[11] Ibid., p. 17.
[12] R. Moshe Feinstein, Responsa Iggerot Moshe, Yore De’ah 2:16.
[13] See, for example, “Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on the passing of Rav Nachum Rabinovitch z”l,” available at https://rabbisacks.org; and Yoni Rosensweig, “My Rebbe – Rav Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch,” available at https://thelehrhaus.com/commentary/my-rebbe.
[14] R. Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch, Responsa Siach Nachum, nos. 86–87.
[15] R. Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch, Responsa Siach Nachum, no. 88.
Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky is Dean of the Faculty at the Yeshivah of Flatbush and a Consulting Editor at Tradition.
From issue 37 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals