Looking for the second son to lead

how we became a group of goodie-goodies and how to change

epistemic status: a dvar torah

There is a popular modern (small m) orthodox (small o) teaching that goes like this. once upon a time we thought we should exclude the second son, (as the simple reading of the Hagadda seems to say), but now we know to include him and offer our unconditional love to every child. this “love based” approach will bring the wayward children closer to the true and the good than the exclusionary “fear based” approach.

I explained in this rant (yinglish) why I’m not a fan of the “hashem loves every child” approach. It is usually just a kind of manipulative love-bombing. More importantly, no wicked son with any self-respect would buy this approach. If i have a good question that undermines your views, I’d rather you kick me in the teeth than be subject to another of these “and tell me how does that make you feel”.

So much for the strategy, but the social history behind this change in approach and interpretation is fascinating and important. We should always be interested in the question “who was the first to ask this kind of question”. The first jew uncomfortable with what the Hagadda has to say to the second son should raise his hand. I wonder if the discomfort started on the side of the sons or on the side of the fathers. I conjecture it was a father who thought his second son was right but couldn’t admit it to himself who invented this genre. All therapies suffer from transference and countertransference.

Tonight I wish to propose a new reason we need to re-embrace the wicked son, based on a social history of my own. A popular question in a certain genre of religious intellectual history goes “where have all the smart ones gone?”. Once upon a time, there were all kind of heretical and semi-heretical views proposed by true torah scholars. Some of these heresies caught on, you probably belong to one of them and extoll the virtues of your particular group. Nowadays, it seems there are no cool heresies anymore, nobody is out there inventing anything as exciting as Maimonideanism or kabala or chasidus or sabateeanism, everyone is either a sincere believer in orthodoxy or not very jewish at all. This isn’t just a problem for academics looking for for transgressive theories to study, this is a problem for everyone.

My theory is that what happened is something like this. There are all kinds of people, some are critical some are credulous, some like to lead others like to follow, and so on. In a natural distribution, every community has all kinds of people. It doesn’t help much that the banner under which your community is organized says “we believe with perfect faith etc.” the critical kind of people will be there criticizing, and the freethinking style people will be there coming up with original thoughts. Each of these styles will be doing its thing, and so there will naturally be the rasha’s haggada and the chacham’s hagadda and so on. Some situations call for more critical thinking or risk-taking to succeed in and some less, so when the critical ones are needed they will be there.

However, a great sorting keeps on happening to us. In any period where the basic kinship-group belonging is given to choice, anyone whose style lies in struggling against this belonging, will naturally leave. So ever since the emancipation, most smart and creative jews have stopped belonging. We are continually sorting ourselves into groups of believing but sorta dumb and submissive people on one side, and disbelieving but creative and smart on the other. If you think this is a story out of the 19th century and isn’t happening today, I recommend you visit a yeshiva.

My theory is that the kinds of bubbles about which people talk when talking about orthodox triumphalism, are predicated on this sorting being temporarily stopped. After a period of sorting, a generation is born which again has a natural distribution, and since nobody told them you can just leave, some of them end up creating the innovations which are necessary for the next generation to thrive. I think this happened twice in the 20th century, about 1910-1930, and again 1970-1990. Every successful orthodox institution you know of was invented in one of these periods. Since then we are back in the old dynamic. (there is of course still the studious submissive type, which much of the past 40 years is based on, but will never create anything interesting).

So in order to save Judaism, we need to find a way to have the rebellious creative types stay with us. It’s a real shame what happened to to all of these chevra in the past 30 years, and they are our only hope. Now you will rightfully ask “why”? Maybe Rabbi Moses was just stuck but we can just do what Baruch did. The answer is since the world is less stable and we lost the optimism of progress, maybe there isn’t really anywhere to go. Secondly, we should create selfish reasons for creative types to create with us. We need to create and fund chairs of questionable positions which will be better funded and give more honor more easily than the outside.

I will finish with a chasidish story. A friend related how in a a period racked by religious doubts, he was referred to a certain chadisish rebbe who was said to be intelligent and might have answers. After discussing his questions for some time, the rebbe said “I know what you need, I think you should become a Rosh Kolel”. This friend thought the rebbe was psychologizing him, as if to say you probably don’t really have doubts you are just lacking some honor. But I wish to contrast this with another story I’ve heard of a different rebbe, who was asked by the kolel what to do with a guy who expressed some doubts. The rebbe replied nothing should be done to push him away, but care must be quietly taken to ensure this guy receives no teaching positions. The second rebbe was practicing regular fake kiruv, but I think the first was saying the truth, both for their good and for the communities: the solution to critical rebellious thinkers is to make them our leaders.