Authenticity as aesthetic (or: what is coherence and integrity?)

In the Forward, Jay Michaelson says that "the myth of authenticity has got to go." In the liberal circles that he and I travel in, this claim isn't all that surprising or challenging. I believe he's mostly talking to those of us whose subconscious, when asked to provide the image of an archetypal Jew, summons up a fundamentalist of our time or a prehistorical figure - anything but one of our own hyphenated, conflicted kind. But the hyphenations and conflicts, say Michaelson, are part and parcel - perhaps even the most admirable element - of Judaism. Most of what we value is transient, and always in flux.

What should we pursuing if not this myth? Michaelson gives several rephrasings of what I presume is meant to be the same idea: whatever religious, literary, or cultural form "speaks to the depths of what it is to be human," "get[s] to what matters" or is "resonant." Finally, though, he comes down to the core of his alternative definition: "a personalized notion of authenticity measured by integrity and individual coherence." I don't know what that means, but let's say for the sake of argument I pretend to. I can think of two problems with this.

First, coherence is a cousin of consistency, the hobgoblin everyone loves to hate. There's a reason for that: we all know complete bastards who are thoroughgoing and consistent in their personal behavior. What resonates with them, unfortunately, is nothing the rest of us would touch with a 10-foot pole. I suppose this is why "integrity" makes an appearance, but that's a slippery fish itself, and Michaelson owes us a more rigorous definition.

The second problem is that Judaism, for all its flux and change, is not predominantly a collection of individual non-interactors, each (with integrity and individual coherence, naturally) pursuing their own direction: a Brownian-motion people. Things get popular and define, in large measure, the majority of the Jewish community. So American Jews like "bagels and not jahnoon" because there are more Ashkenazic Jews than other varieties. Similarly, "Joseph Caro’s legalistic Shulchan Aruch" beat out his radical, mystical “Maggid Mesharim” because the former became popular and frequently referred to while not the latter. It's not complicated: people seek community. As sociologists (most notably Arnold Eisen) have pointed out, the majority of American Jews light Chanukah candles and make some sort of Passover Seder even if they don't know or care about the halachic or historical underpinnings of the holiday.

The problem, in short, is that whatever Michaelson's aesthetic (for that's what it is - and I mean that as a believer in the importance of aesthetics), there will still be practices and assumptions regarding Judaism which the majority of a certain community of Jews adopt. Unless "internal Jews" like him find a way to convince the rest of us what exactly he means by that coherence and integrity, we will be left out of his aesthetic. I don't know whether that would be more to his or our detriment.

Permissible criticism, or O-bashing part II
Second in an intermittent series of friendly, well-meant criticism.

What do we talk about when we talk about what's wrong with Orthodoxy? A commenter on my previous post suggested that what I'm trying to do here is a "tit-for-tat" in response to Avi Shafran's Moment article "The Conservative Lie." I hope not. Shafran's argument can be summarized as follows: Conservative Judaism claims that it adheres to halachah. However, Conservative Jews and their leaders are predictably lenient, lax in observance; and cavalier about the importance of halachah to their movement. These facts show, says Shafran, that Conservative Judaism is a failure.

I doubt Shafran's interpretation of the evidence. But even taking these claims at face value, Shafran is only applying Orthodox criteria to the Conservative movement, finding the two don't match, and exclaiming, "See! Conservative Judaism is a failure!" It is a failure in Orthodox terms, but these terms are not the only valid ones. Conservative Judaism's approach to halachah is multi-faceted, and Conservative Torah scholars do not speak with one voice -- that very fact makes it very difficult to say how halachah plays a role in Conservative Judaism. (The same could be said about Orthodox or Reform Judaism, as far as that goes.) That Conservative Jews are lax in their observance, or even that they do not recognize the importance of halachah, is a problem to be solved, not an indictment of Conservative Judaism. Laxness of observance and halachic ignorance have afflicted Judaism forever. They might even be the status quo.

Shafran understands halachah according to its ultra-Orthodox interpretation: strict constructionism. But Conservative Judaism can be (and, I think, tries to be) both halachic and lenient. This dichotomy is unfathomable to Shafran, but does not make it any the less true.

The reason I'm rehashing Shafran's old essay is to try and make a stab at what I have to do to criticize Orthodoxy in useful ways. A commenter on my last post suggested that I should not judge Orthodoxy by Conservative standards. Certainly not. But, on the other hand, I can't judge Orthodoxy by Orthodox standards, for two obvious reasons: first, I'm not Orthodox; and second, because Orthodoxy might be too various to define usefully. A possible way out is sociological. Clearly, Orthodoxy plays a necessary role in Jewish society. (Not the only necessary role, or the most authentic role, but a necessary role. I make this claim because it's defensible.) If we can figure out what makes Orthodoxy necessary, and (further) point out where Orthodoxy is departing from this necessary role, this might be a useful beginning for outside criticism of Orthodoxy. In short: not to criticize Orthodoxy for what can't be by its very nature, but for what it should be and is departing from.

Maybe I've set myself too hard a task, because there's not just one necessary function which Orthodoxy performs. Let's try anyway. One definite function of Orthodoxy is to present itself as a uniquely authentic, traditional Jewish religious culture. I'm using the term "present itself" not to be snide, but to recognize that Orthodoxy is mythic (in the positive sense of myth popularized among Conservative Jews by Neil Gillman), fervently believing in its own authenticity. Whether or not that authenticity is unique is not germane to our present discussion. What matters is that Orthodoxy itself is unique by its belief in that authenticity. It's a self-creation through mythogenesis.

Call this the Myth of Religious-Cultural Authenticity. The hyphenate is important, because it's the subject of my first criticism -- which, like much else I'm saying here, is not original. Today's Orthodox Judaism is in danger of ignoring the "cultural" half of its motivating authenticity myth, and focusing exclusively on the "halachic." Not that Orthodoxy should (God forbid) change its fervent adherence to its own halachic standards (though what those standards are, how they're articulated, and how they're actually observed, is a fascinating, fraught, and ultimately very confusing terrain). But halachah to the exclusion of culture can drain Orthodoxy of what makes it convincing and meaningful not just to its followers but to its non-Orthodox observers: a central myth of traditional living as carried through the generations. (Alan Brill wrote about this in scholarly fashion in an article in Edah, which I discussed here. Also here, here, and here.)

I'd like to suggest that the sector of Orthodoxy which is managing to preserve both ends of the authenticity myth is the Charedi (and in particular the Chasidic) sector, and that modern Orthodoxy, though it is well-nigh tangent at times to my own Conservative Judaism, is most susceptible to this over-halachization I'm criticizing here.

Obviously, this is all a footnote to Rupture and Reconstruction.