Author: David J. Fine
Hillel teaches us: “Do not separate yourself from the community” (m. Avot 2:4). Throughout history, rabbis have interpreted that charge as a challenge to avoid the temptation of quiet learning and individual fulfillment. Rather, the rabbi must seek the application of theory to practice by engaging with the people and taking on the task of the original rabbi, our teacher Moses, in sharing and teaching Torah. The very word “rabbi”—which means “teacher”—has meaning only in relation to the other. For whom is one a rabbi? In this article, I address five challenges that Conservative rabbis encounter in their communities. How do we become true rabbis in teaching halakhah?
The Linguistic Challenge
Every teacher must figure out how to communicate the ideas of the subject one is teaching. The language—the vocabulary, grammar, and culture—is the tool that teachers use for each subject. Whether it is mathematics or metaphysics, chemistry or critical theory, one uses the symbols and vocabulary that communicate a particular culture of learning. In the Conservative Movement, this is particularly challenging because the very language of halakhah that should be our best tool in communicating its content is foreign to most Conservative Jews. The overwhelming majority of Conservative Jews do not have facility with Hebrew, needless to say Aramaic. Even the ability to read Hebrew letters has significantly decreased in the last generation, as evidenced by the increase in transliterations in our liturgical publications. Halakhah uses a technical vocabulary that is built on a language that our people do not speak or read.
Beyond the meanings of words, we must also teach concepts. If I use the terms lekhatḥilah and bediʿeved I need to explain the concepts in clumsy English as “before the fact” and “after the fact.” (The Latin terms ab initio and ex post facto do not help much either.) The terms deʾoraita, derabbanan, and minhag can be translated as “Toraitic,” “rabbinic” and “custom,” but these words hardly do justice to the complex systemic concepts of basic legislation, secondary legislation, and common law. Torah shebikhtav and Torah shebeʿal peh are terms that speak to ideas beyond the literal meanings of Written Torah and Oral Torah. The vocabulary and the meanings behind the phrases must be explained whenever we teach halakhic argumentation and reasoning.
The challenges of language in teaching halakhah go beyond terms and phrases. The theological ideas that give substance to the halakhic mindset require far more significant translation. When I say that something is a “sin,” I need to explain that in halakhah, a “sin” does not mean that you are going to hell, but it is generally more significant than an assessed late fee on a bill. A late fee still implies accountability, whereas a “sin” is far more theoretical, but in the language of halakhah, a transgression of the law does imply culpability. When one teaches halakhah in the Conservative Movement, each lesson must entail a certain explanation of words, terms, and concepts, and one can rarely do justice to each as a digression from a lesson on a specific halakhic question. In my own rabbinate, I hope that as I return again and again to certain ideas and concepts, my listeners will, over time, be better able to hear what I am trying to teach. All teachers hope for that, as pedagogy is too often defined by its aspirations than its results. Yet the linguistic challenges are the easiest to overcome in teaching halakhah in the Conservative Movement.
The Structural Challenge
Conservative Judaism proudly proclaims itself as “a halakhic movement,” distinguishing itself from the other non-Orthodox streams by its commitment to halakhah. However, one would be hard pressed to argue that members of Conservative synagogues live halakhic lives in contradistinction to members of Reform synagogues. There might be a higher number of kosher kitchens in the homes of Conservative congregants, but that number is still a minority and so cannot be a defining characteristic of Conservative Jews. I must also categorically reject the solution of dismissing the majority of Conservative Jews as not “true” Conservative Jews. We have enough demographic challenges without writing off 90 percent of our constituency. Back in 1988, the Movement’s only published platform of belief, Emet veEmunah, described the Conservative Jew as “a striving Jew” defined through aspiration rather than commitment.1 The devotion to halakhah through other-than-personal commitment has been represented in the structural ideology of Conservative institutions. The rabbi is the mara deʾatra (another technical term that requires multiple levels of unpacking), the halakhic authority of the synagogue. Codified into rabbinic contracts, synagogue bylaws and the United Synagogue standards, the mara deʾatra concept means that the rabbi of the synagogue is the ultimate authority on all halakhic questions. Matters of Jewish law cannot be determined by votes of the ritual committee or board of trustees. While opinions will and often need to be addressed there, the final arbiter is the rabbi. This structural edifice of ideology was meant to establish the authority of halakhah in Conservative institutions through the authorized authority of the local rabbi.
However, the mara deʾatra concept has always worked better in theory than in practice. First, there is a structural conflict within the synagogue, because American congregations (that are not part of the Catholic church) have long been established as autonomous corporate entities, each governed by its board of trustees. Even if the bylaws establish the rabbi’s authority to make determinations of halakhah, the board can always remove the rabbi from office. The rabbi’s contract guarantees compensation, not authority. Second, by restricting the rabbi’s authority to “matters of Jewish law,” the rabbi’s real authority as leader of the community is often diminished to the restricted “ritual sector” of synagogue decision-making, whereas halakhah should ideally inform everything we do. Finally, while the Movement insists on the local rabbi’s authority, this diminishes the role of the central authority. The central halakhic body, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), functions more as an advisory council than a high court for Conservative rabbis. CJLS decisions can thus become authoritative by minority votes of the committee members, and even decisions passed by broad majority of the twenty-five voting members are not enforceable upon local rabbis. Yes, there are “Standards of Rabbinic Practice” and other expectations of rabbis that are enforced by the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue (such as the prohibition against Conservative clergy to solemnize intermarriages), but those are matters of union discipline more than halakhic authority.
While the CJLS’s authority is limited vis-à-vis the local rabbi (mara deʾatra), its decisions are significantly respected throughout the non-Orthodox world. As a carefully balanced (and prolific) body of individuals (rabbis and others) who care about halakhah, the decisions of the CJLS are influential beyond the boundaries of the Conservative Movement. The reason for this is that true authority—and especially religious authority—is earned rather than conferred through institutional structure. A successful congregational rabbi is one who is listened to because of the teacher one has become, not because of clauses in the rabbinic contract and congregational bylaws. In this realistic sense, the structural challenge of teaching halakhah in the Conservative Movement can be overcome by de-emphasizing the institution and focusing on the Torah that is taught. We should not say that halakhah is relevant because we are Conservative Jews. Rather, we should say that we are Conservative Jews because halakhah is relevant.
The Functional Challenge
What is the function of halakhah in our lives? What role does it play? The structural problem of halakhah in the Conservative Movement, as discussed above, is that the siloing of the rabbi’s authority over ritual matters in the Conservative synagogue implies a severe limitation of the effect of halakhah on our lives. When I teach halakhah in a Conservative synagogue, it is easy to explain why the CJLS should take a position on whether or not one can count a Torah scroll as the tenth in a minyan but much harder to explain why one is not permitted to smoke a cigar. (I voted against the latter question. I wrote the paper on the former.) Forbidding smoking on the grounds of a synagogue is one thing, but to say that all smoking is forbidden makes a broader statement, namely, that halakhah makes a claim on the entirety of our lives. I believe that it should and does, regardless of that (or any other) particular question. The challenge is how to teach the functionality of halakhah to Conservative Jews for whom that worldview cannot be presumed.
In the last fifty years, there were two major halakhic debates in the Conservative Movement, and both were narrowly focused on the structural and functional impact of the determination of law: Could women be ordained as rabbis? And could gays and lesbians be ordained as rabbis? The debate over women rabbis, which extended to the general inclusion of women in ritual, echoed through every layer of the movement, from the Seminary to the synagogue, schools, and camps. Although many feared that the debate about homosexuality would cause the same fissures and pain that people remembered about the debate over women, it engaged rabbis and seminaries but did not tear communities apart. What so many failed to understand at the time was that “egalitarianism” affected the way that Jews prayed together, while Jewish sexual ethics were understood by most of our constituency as pertaining to the private domain. Everyone could understand, and many had strong feelings about, whether women should serve as clergy, as the nature of worship was a clearly ritual matter over which halakhah still had control. But sexuality is primarily expressed in the bedroom, a very different location than the bimah. From a halakhic perspective, the debate about homosexuality was extremely intense because of a conflict between a Torah verse and contemporary ethics. (The terms of the debate are less intense on egalitarianism because the Torah does not know about rabbis or synagogue services.) But this debate was far less relevant to most Conservative Jews, who did not share the premise that halakhah should have dominion over the private sphere.
Conservative Jews might differentiate themselves from other non-Orthodox groups in wanting their worship services and synagogue programming to follow the rules of halakhah, at least as they are interpreted by Conservative rabbis, but halakhah as a system of law does not limit itself to the four walls of the synagogue. Teaching how halakhah can function in the business world, in politics, and in private life is a formidable challenge. The teacher of halakhah must explain not only why the halakhah in a specific case should be x and not y, but also that halakhah is a body of law that governs the totality of life, not just individual questions.
The Philosophical Challenge
Underlying the functional challenge of teaching halakhah is a commitment to philosophical autonomy among Conservative Jews. While Conservative Jews will ask halakhic questions of their rabbis, they usually do so from a perspective of intellectual curiosity rather than compliance with rabbinic authority. Traditionally, one is not supposed to ask a question of a rabbi if one is not prepared to comply with the response. Most Conservative Jews, however, are not prepared to surrender their personal autonomy in that way. They may be prepared to submit to the rabbi’s judgment about a ritual matter in the synagogue, but they reserve the right to make their own decisions about what they eat and when they go to work.
Teachers of halakhah in the Conservative Movement need to understand the gulf that exists between the presumptions of Jewish law and the autonomous nature of the constituency of Conservative Judaism. Too often, Conservative Judaism’s commitment to halakhah is challenged by emphasizing the distance between what the movement preaches and how the rank-and-file observe. However, the philosophical distance is far more critical than the (low) levels of religious practice. Judaism has always assumed a failure on the part of the people to comply with the demands of Jewish law. From the Torah’s account of the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai to the High Holiday prayer book’s collective “We Have Sinned” liturgies, Judaism understands that Jewish behavior varies from the aspirational. What we must not give up on teaching, though, is that the aspirational is still the commanded. We must recommit to teaching that what we understand halakhah to be is what ought to be, and what ought to be is categorically imperative.
(Most) rabbis in the world do not have enforcement power for their decisions. Jews need to choose the law out of will, not compulsion. Some dismiss the relevance of Jewish law as a legal system if there is no enforcement power. Legal systems, however, should be conceived as cultures of meaning. Jewish law throughout most of its long history has depended on voluntary compliance. The rabbis taught the famous midrash that God gave the people the choice to accept the Torah while holding Mount Sinai over their heads. The context of that homily, however, should be understood as a culture of religious freedom which allows the individual Jew to choose other, nonrabbinic Judaisms or other religions entirely. Personal autonomy should not be feared as a new modern threat to authentic Judaism. Rather, we should recognize it as an authentic grounding of Jews throughout history. The teacher needs to embrace that and open the student’s eyes to why one should care about and aspire to live by halakhah. Commitment can come from the ground of personal autonomy rather than through its rejection.
The Theological Challenge
The greatest challenge facing the teaching of halakhah in the Conservative Movement is theological. Since we do not hold that the Masoretic Text (or any other ancient version of the Bible for that matter) is the perfect transcription of God’s verbal revelation of law, on what basis should halakhah hold authority over the observant Jew? Solomon Schechter recognized this challenge as the central theological project of what become the ideology of Conservative Judaism. Writing back in 1896, he explained: “It is not the mere revealed Bible that is of first importance to the Jew, but the Bible as it repeats itself in history, in other words, as it is interpreted by Tradition…the centre of authority is actually removed from the Bible and placed in some living body.”2 In other words, the historical approach to Judaism (that is, the founding ideology of Conservative Judaism) means that the biblical and rabbinic literatures are human products of the Jewish pḥeople through the experience of Jewish history. Each generation attempts to best understand what God commands through its reading of the inherited tradition refracted through its own understanding and context. The authority on “God’s will,” including the meaning of that concept, will vary from age to age and is determined through that refractive historical process rather than being restricted to the words of the Bible as codified millennia ago. We in the Conservative Movement believe that this is how halakhah has always worked and is the only way that any legal (or other system of cultural values) can work. We believe, in theological terms, that God agrees with our decisions and, we hope, is proud of our deliberations. Yet I imagine that every Conservative rabbi has been challenged at least once by a congregant with, “Rabbi, where does it say that in the Torah?”
The rabbis and teachers of Conservative Judaism need to take responsibility for our failure to communicate this most fundamental aspect of our theology. Most people find it difficult to understand any religion in historical terms, reading religion instead as timeless eternal philosophy that is either true or false. The reality of the halakhic process is more nuanced, allowing for multiple and conflicting opinions, which can all be correct in reflecting “God’s will” in theological terms. Even the sophisticated historian and bestselling Israeli intellectual Yuval Noah Harari cannot understand how religious systems evolve. In his latest work, Harari writes that “religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism propose that their ideas and rules were established by an infallible superhuman authority, and are therefore free from all possibility of error, and should never be questioned or changed by fallible humans.”3 He contrasts religious scriptures to secular authoritative documents like the United States Constitution, which, unlike the Torah, has an amendment clause so that it can be corrected as deemed necessary. He does not understand that the rabbinic concept of Torah shebaʿal peh (“Oral Torah”) establishes that amendment clause by giving the rabbis the right to interpret the Torah and adjust its meaning, even if it does so through the language of the continuity of revelation. Recognizing that religious traditions require institutions, such as the rabbinate or the church, to provide authoritative interpretations of Scripture through the ages, he dismisses that evolutionary process as correcting human errors rather than amending divine will: “Jewish Orthodoxy accepted the possibility that the rabbis who composed the Mishnah and the Talmud might have erred in personal matters” he writes, “but when they came to decree religious doctrine, God ensured that they would make no mistake.”4 He criticizes the evolution of Catholic doctrine as blaming all “errors” (like anti-Judaism) on fallible humans rather than on a Scripture that needs changing. On this point, Harari is wrong. The doctrine of papal infallibility, for example, is not a failure of a system that is incapable of correcting error. Rather, it is the “technology,” to use his term, that the Catholic Church has devised whereby the pope is able to redefine doctrine for a new age. The same applies to the authority of the rabbinate through the process of halakhic decision-making. Our agreement that rabbis have the authority to determine Jewish law is what makes the Torah a living evolving document for every generation.
We can look back to Joel Roth’s seminal work, The Halakhic Process: A Systemic Analysis, to help articulate a response to Harari’s challenge that religion is an outdated system of information (or of values) because it cannot fully correct itself. The premise of Roth’s book is that Jewish law is a legal system and functions like all legal systems. The distinctions between basic, secondary, and common law; the role of precedent; the scope of judicial authority; and the existence of an amendment procedure are the bedrocks of every legal system, halakhah included.5 In a critical chapter in the book, Roth argues that halakhah has a means to annul a Torah law, called in Hebrew ʿiqqur davar midʾoraita. While not a procedure that is easy or frequently employed (Roth never employed that authority himself), it does exist, and it must exist, Roth argues, for the halakhic system to be a legal system. Indeed, the amendment procedure of the United States Constitution may be more difficult to employ today, in our age of intense political polarization. In an emotional critique of religious traditions and their view of homosexuality, Harari compares the Bible to psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM), a scientific “Bible” that is regularly revised, including in 1974 when homosexuality was removed as an “illness.” Comparing that scientific process to religions, Harari quips: “You would never hear a pope announcing to the world, ‘Our experts have just discovered a really big error in the Bible. We’ll soon issue an updated edition.’”6 That reminds me of the debate over homosexuality and halakhah, when I was asked, “Are you going to have the verse in question whited out from your Torah scrolls?” Both comments reflect a failure to understand how halakhah, and legal systems in general, work. When the United States Constitution is amended, the amendments follow the text. The text itself is not changed. When courts apply interpretations of law codes, annotated codes are published that update the law in the notes. Rabbinic codes and responsa literature are like church canons; they update Scripture to explain how it is understood in each place and time.
We need to teach our constituency that this is the way halakhah works, rather than a watered-down version of a more authentic form of what Harari calls “Jewish Orthodoxy.” The theological challenge of teaching halakhah demands that we explain how our decisions are at the same time humanly fallible and yet divinely perfect. We have to become better teachers of halakhah if Conservative Judaism will continue to claim to be “a halakhic movement.” Through understanding the linguistic, structural, functional, philosophical, and theological challenges of teaching halakhah in the Conservative Movement, we can imagine how we might do so.
David J. Fine was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1999 and received his Ph.D. in modern European history from the City University of New York in 2010. He is the senior rabbi of Temple Israel and Jewish Community Center in Ridgewood, New Jersey, an adjunct professor at the Abraham Geiger College and the Academy for Jewish Religion, and a member of the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.
1 Emet veEmunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism (Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue, 1988), 57.
2 Solomon Schechter, Studies in Judaism, First Series (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1896), xvii–xviii.
3 Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (Random House, 2024), 71.
4 Harari, Nexus, 106.
5 Joel Roth, The Halakhic Process: A Systemic Analysis (Jewish Theological Seminary, 1986).
6 Harari, Nexus, 109.
A long chain of hand in hand in hand in hand
Flowing around and between trees
Getting scratched and bruised by the rough bark
Refusing to let go
Even as our chain grows branches
And some fingertips barely brush the ones in front.
Ripples of caution get passed back along with reminders
The rules of walking this path.
See, I tell the one behind me
This forest isn’t scary.
Just keep holding on
And you’ll see the flowers bloom
Feel the power of waterfalls
Experiment with how far you can stretch
Discover the values
Embedded beneath your feet.
The wind whispers with us
“This is the way,
The path we walk
The boundaries that constrain and free us
Keep us together
As we walk together
To build the world.”
Rabbi Suzanne Brody serves as the Director of Ithaca Beit Midrash and is both a member of the CJLS and the JEA board. She is the author of multiple books of poetry, a historical fiction mixture of poetry and prose, and a murder mystery.
As this issue of Masorti: The New Journal of Conservative Judaism was in the final stages of preparation for publication, the Rabbinical Assembly, the JTS community, and the people of Congregation Beth Sholom of Teaneck, New Jersey were left bereaved by the untimely passing of Rabbi Eliezer Diamond, the Rabbi Judah Nadich Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at JTS. Rabbi Diamond was, at a very early stage in his long and distinguished career, my own teacher of Mishnah and Codes at JTS. As this issue of our journal is devoted to the theme of “Teaching Halakhah in the Conservative Movement,” we remember Rabbi Diamond not only as an academician skilled at teaching rabbinic texts, but as a personal exemplar of joyful Halakhic observance and spiritual devotion to generations of JTS students and aspiring rabbis. May his memory be a blessing.
The articles in this issue include the perspectives of seminary leaders, academics, congregational rabbis, religious educators, camp enthusiasts, leaders of Conservative Movement affiliated organizations, and Conservative laity. I am particularly grateful that the teachings and leadership of our teachers, Rabbis Mayer Rabinowitz and Joel Roth are represented in these pages. Both provide extended and detailed insights into our subject matter through interviews and discussions conducted with devoted students. No examination of “Teaching Halakhah in the Conservative Movement” would be complete without them.
We read in Pirkei Avot 6:3 that “One who learns from another one chapter, or one halakhah, or one verse, or one word, or even one letter, is obligated to treat that individual with honor.” How much greater is our debt of honor to the contributors to this special issue of Masorti, as well as to those masters whose work they describe and explore.
It is my hope and prayer that the discussions and essays in this special issue of Masorti will help embolden Conservative Movement leaders at all levels and of varying perspectives to rededicate ourselves to the teaching of Halakhah as the very heart of Conservative Judaism. As Rabbi Susan Grossman observes in these pages:
“Engaging in the teaching and communal learning of halakhah from a Conservative/Masorti perspective can foster a depth of reflection and consideration that helps us all become better individuals, better Jews, and a better People, contributing to the building of a kinder, better world.”
Or, to paraphrase the saintly teacher of a very different religious tradition: “Teach Halakhah at all times; use words when necessary.”
Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is editor of this journal. He has served on both the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards and on the Joint Beit Din of the Conservative Movement.
Joel Roth, Hakol kol Yaʿakov. The Institute of Applied Halakhah at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2023.
David Golinkin, ʿAseh lekha rav, volume 2. The Institute of Applied Halakhah at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2024.
The two volumes being reviewed are recent publications of The Institute of Applied Halakhah at The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. The first volume, Hakol kol Yaʿakov, is a collection of halakhic essays and responsa by Rabbi Joel Roth spanning a number of decades, while the latter, ʿAseh lekha rav, volume 2, is a collection of more recent responsa by Rabbi David Golinkin. These two figures have been central to the development of halakhah within the Conservative and Masorti movements for many years through their writings, the many students whom they have taught, and their public speaking. On the one hand, I approach writing this review with the hesitation of putting my head between two large mountains (t. Yevamot 1:10), but there is also no beit midrash without something new (b. Hagigah 3a). The following are a few thoughts that came to mind when reading these two important volumes; these thoughts are less about specific halakhic opinions and more about process, method, and the place of halakhah within our communities. I will begin with Roth’s volume and then Golinkin’s.
In his responsum “May a Minor Read from the Torah,” Roth demonstrated conclusively that until the Magen Avraham, a seventeeth-century commentary on the Shulchan Arukh by Avraham Gumbiner, the overwhelming majority of halakhic opinion was that it was permitted for minors to read from the Torah. “All the primary sources allow a minor to read from the Torah. The commentators on those primary sources, though occasionally adding minor restrictions, clearly accept the ruling found in those sources.” Roth then continues:
Therefore, in the absence of any better explanation of the reasoning of the Magen Avraham, except for the possibility that he felt that minors, by definition, do not know lemi mevarekhim (a contention we find difficult, to say the least), we must follow the clear and unambiguous ruling found in the primary sources, supported by many of the commentators (Roth, 104).
I am less concerned with the topic itself than with the claim that “we must follow the clear and unambiguous ruling found in the primary sources” (emphasis mine). This statement is somewhat tempered toward the end of the responsum, where he writes that “[it] therefore seems that, given the halachic sources discussed and the conditions of our synagogues, children under 13 years of age may be allowed to read from the Torah” (Roth, 105, emphasis mine). Halakhic discourse is often the result of the tension between what we understand to be a clear halakhic opinion found in literary sources and the behavior and expectations of our communities, as well as our desire to bridge the gap between these factors. The halakhic sources may unequivocally permit a certain behavior, but that does not mean that we must adopt that behavior when it goes against accepted communal traditions.
The second issue that I want to address is the role of a centralized law committee in our movement, whether it be the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) or the Vaʿad halakhah in Israel. In his responsum “Kashrut of Cheese: A New Issue,” Roth addresses the possible implications of new information about the production of cheeses manufactured without rabbinic supervision and whether certain ingredients have the status of davar ḥadash, an ingredient of non-kosher origin that has gone through so much change that it is no longer considered non-kosher. After examining the halakhic sources and modern cheese production, Roth offers a number of possible options that the CJLS could take, and I want to bring the following quote from the option that Roth supports.
The fourth option, the one I recommend, is for the Law Committee to disseminate this paper to the membership of the RA in order to present the facts before them, and suffice with that action alone. The advantage of this course of action is that it fulfills our responsibility to let our membership know that there is some new information about the kashrut of cheeses that they ought, at least, to, be aware of. This paper will provide them with the relevant data and allow them to act responsibly as marei de-atra [halakhic authorities for their communities]. In this instance, I do not think we will be remiss in our obligation to provide guidance to the membership of the RA by taking this action. Individual rabbis may be less qualified than the CJLS to determine whether something is halakhically davar hadash, and they may be unaware of certain decisions of the Law Committee that are based upon a psychological premise. Once provided with that information, however, individual rabbis are not less qualified than the CJLS to determine for themselves whether the psychological factors still apply and to take whatever actions they deem appropriate (Roth, 129–30). [The psychological factors are how people would relate to a davar ḥadash of pig origin.]
The status and role of law committees within our movement has been discussed on more than one occasion, and here Roth sees the CJLS as a vehicle for empowering individual rabbis to make their own decisions and not just defer to a decision of the Law Committee. I would even go so far as seeing its role as empowering all individuals, not only rabbis, to make their own informed halakhic decisions.
These examples and others in this volume show Roth’s sensitivity to the place and role of the halakhic process within our communities and institutions, whether someone is a rabbinic leader, a Ramah camper, or a member of a Conservative synagogue.
Golinkin’s ʿAseh lekha rav, volume 2 (ALR) consists of responsa that were previously published in his Responsa in a Moment, volume 5 (RIM) along with some additional material. I would like to bring a few examples from Golinkin’s ALR to illustrate how critical scholarship and historical inquiry have a role to play in the halakhic decision-making process.
The first is an example that Golinkin himself brings in his introduction, where he briefly discusses his methodology of writing responsa; it is a source that is brought in a responsum addressing mourning practices during the COVID pandemic. Golinkin corrects the text of a responsum of the Maharil that is brought by Moses Isserles in his commentary on the Shulchan Arukh. On the basis of the corrupted text, it seems that the Maharil was of the opinion that “one does not need to mourn in time of plague” (RIM, 24; ALR, 15). Golinkin shows that the corrected text actually addresses only one mourning practice, that of sitting on the ground.
The importance of Golinkin’s thorough examination of the sources becomes clear when you compare his discussion with that of the respected Orthodox halakhic authority Asher Weiss. In his volume of responsa on the COVID pandemic, Minḥat Asher: Mageifat hakorona, Weiss devotes a number of responsa to mourning practices during a pandemic, and in each of them he has to address the Maharil’s opinion (see responsa nos. 145–47). Weiss, whose responsa demonstrate a far-reaching command of halakhic literature, offers numerous explanations as to why this opinion was not and should not be accepted as halakhah, but that it is a corrupted text is not one of them.
A second instance of how textual scholarship might influence halakhic decision-making relates to food cooked by a non-Jew. The common term to describe this area of halakhah is Bishul ʿakum, which literally means food cooked by an idol worshiper. As Golinkin shows, clarifying the correct reading of halakhic sources is essential when addressing this issue. ʿAkum is an abbreviation of ʿovdei kokhavim umazalot—namely, idol worshippers, a term that was introduced into the Talmud and halakhic literature by Christian censorship. Therefore we need to stress at the outset that the correct term for food cooked by non-Jews is bishulei goyim and not bishulei ʿakum. The reading goyim (non-Jews) appears in the uncensored editions of m. Avodah Zarah 2:6, Rambam, Laws of Forbidden Foods, 17:9ff., and Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deʿah 113. The change has halakhic significance. If the Mishnah was referring to food cooked by ʿakum or idol-worshippers, it would be possible to permit these foods today because Muslims, according to all posqim, and Christians, according to many, are not idol worshippers. But the original reading is goyim and not ʿakum. (RIM, 245–46; ALR,137–38)
These are but two of the many examples in which Golinkin weaves into his responsa the fruits of textual and historical scholarship, showing how different disciplines can help enrich the halakhic decision-making process.
Both Joel Roth and David Golinkin have been indefatigable and inspiring sources for us and helped create what I would call a “usable halakhic past” to help guide our lives and communities. These two volumes are worthy representations of their scholarly output, and we can only hope to continue to benefit from their work.
Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky, Ph.D., is the Senior Salesforce Administrator at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades and book review editor of this journal.
Gila Fine, The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud. Maggid, 2024.
For Gila Fine, author of The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic, a reader’s relationship with the stories of the Talmud reflects a person’s relationships with any Other. Fine offers four of the most common responses to complicated talmudic texts, which parallel how humans deal with difficult Others. The first is all-out rejection, an assumption that a text is too difficult and will never speak to the reader. “This relationship can never be.” A second possible response is accommodation, where the text stays unchallenged, and readers “sacrifice their identity” to make the relationship work. A third response is subjection, where the reader redefines the text and forces it to meet the modern era. “The text loses its integrity so that the readers may maintain theirs.”
Fine chooses a fourth approach for her book, one built on negotiation. Instead of pushing her own reading onto the text, she understands her role as one part of a mutual connection.
We must bring our whole selves to the encounter with the talmudic text, as we must allow the Talmud to bring its full self to its encounter with us…. It is only when we are who we are, and accept the Talmud for what it is, that a true relationship, a real act of reading—where we learn and evolve and grow—can occur. (xv–xvi)
For those of us who love Talmud but wonder if it loves us back, this book offers us a powerful tool for breaking down any form of dysfunction.
Fine understands “revision” in Adrienne Rich’s sense of the word, as a re-visioning, a “seeing with fresh eyes” that involves a new way of looking at some of the most famous stories of women in the Talmud. For each one, she unpacks a classic female archetype by exploring the cultural and literary history that created it. Using a literary perspective, Fine analyzes the language, the cultural context, and the locations where each story takes place, ultimately breaking down each archetype to reflect a “complex, extraordinary woman, as misunderstood by her own world as by generations of readers” (xiii).
As one example, Fine associates Beruria with the archetype of overreacher (or, as Fine calls her, The Overreacherix) in the tradition of Prometheus, Sisyphus, and Icarus. While these mythic figures reach for the sky or the heavens, Beruria’s overreach involves stepping over to a man’s side of the world, “engaging in a typical masculine pursuit…an act of hubris.” Looking through the lens of the rabbis, this is flying too close to the sun. Is this their critique of Beruria or simply a recognition of the state of the world? Fine suggests the latter, offering a perhaps overly generous reading, as she understands the rabbis to be critiquing rather than creating these gender norms. “It is through their stories that the rabbis articulated their ethics of otherness.” Is this enough to let the rabbis off the hook? Or is it a wishful reading? By playing with this otherness, are they not also cementing it into reality? Fine’s arguments open up a whole series of fascinating questions, begging for a ḥevrutah (or book group, for that matter) to unpack and discuss.
In addition to the feminist rereadings, Fine’s book is replete with amazing new ideas about Talmud in general, including a surprisingly original read of tannur shel ʿAkhnai, among other classics, and articulating the life lessons in passages that we may know well. For instance, in the rabbinic story of the destruction of the Temple, the Talmud suggests that the humility of Rabbi Zekharia ben Avkulas is what brought it about. Fine brings home the core teaching embodied in that suggestion:
For this, precisely, is when humility goes wrong. When it undermines our confidence. When it paralyzes. When the fear of making a mistake prevents us from doing anything—which is often the greatest mistake of all. So humble are the rabbis, so lacking in conviction and a sense of their own authority, they dare not take a stand where one is urgently needed (72).
The breadth of Fine’s research is astounding, as she calls on the work of scholars, philosophers, and influencers from across the ages and makes her footnotes almost as interesting as the body of the book. It is in the rereadings that she sometimes seems to push her faith in the rabbis too far. Did they really “see women as fully fledged human beings who ought to be regarded as such?” Did they really “wish for all Others to be treated this way?” It feels like an overly optimistic fantasy to imagine that the rabbis saw women in this generous light, but even when the reader might be unconvinced, the book lifts up these stories and brings fresh eyes to our reading. This is a powerful addition to the study of aggadah, allowing readers a way in, a path to bringing our own voices to the text with integrity. It is good therapy for those of us who want an open, honest relationship with the Talmud, and, just as important, it is a loving, joyful read.
Rabbi Abby Sosland is the Morah Ruchanit (Spiritual Advisor) and Talmud chair at the Leffell School in Westchester, New York.
“I weep for you with all the letters of the alphabet.”
– Chaim Grade, Yiddish novelist, mourning the 1952 murder of
twenty-four Jewish Russian intellectuals, which was ordered by Stalin
Chapter 1
1 Alas! How can this be? Jerusalem, the once great and populous city, the crown jewel among city states, now sits alone, like a widow: forlorn, bereft, servile!
2 Bitterly she weeps through the night, tears running down her cheeks. There is no one to tender her loving comfort. All her presumed friends have betrayed her. They are now her enemies.
3 Consumed by misery and overwhelmed by abject servitude, Judah is consigned to exile, with no prospect of rest or respite. All the forces of persecution have placed her in dire straits.
4 Desolate of holiday pilgrims, the very streets of Zion mourn. Her gates are all deserted. Her priests sigh in despair. Her young daughters anguish. She is bitter and despondent.
5 Enemies of Zion are ascendant! Her detractors are serene and sated. God has chastened Jerusalem for her many transgressions. She sees her infant young led into captivity by the enemy.
6 Fair Zion is deprived of all her glory. Her princely leaders now roam about like deer: in desperate search of pasture, powerless as they flee before the predator.
7 Gone is all she cherished in former times. Now suffering pain and degradation, Jerusalem has no one to support her. Her people have fallen into the hands of an enemy who derides her undoing.
8 How grievous must be Jerusalem’s sin! She is an outcast. Those who once esteemed her now hold her in contempt, for they have seen her debased and dishonored. She herself gasps and recoils.
9 Impurity sullies her! She can give no thought to the future. She has fallen so terribly low; she is disconsolate. See, Lord, how the enemy has compounded my anguish!
10 Jerusalem’s enemies have laid hands upon her and all she holds dear. She has beheld foreigners—debarred by Your command from even entering Your covenantal community—invading her very Sanctuary.
11 Keeping themselves alive by trading prized possessions for food, her groaning populace searches for bread. Look, Lord! See my wretchedness!
12 Look about, all you passersby, and see. Is there any pain like that which I have suffered? That which I have borne? That which the Lord, in His righteous wrath, has inflicted upon me? May you never know the like!
13 My very bones burn with the fire God dispatched from on high; I am beset, ensnared in the net God Himself spread for me. He has left me desolate in an age of misery.
14 Neck bowed by the heavy yoke of my transgressions, I bear a burden imposed on me by God’s own hand. My strength is gone. The Lord has reduced me to so lowly a state, I shall never rise again.
15 Our God has repudiated all the men of stature in my midst. He has designated this season for the predation of our youth. He has trampled, as in a wine press, virginal Fair Judea.
16 Plaintively I bewail these losses, my eyes filled with tears. Any measure of comfort, of spiritual recovery, is but a distant hope. My children, too, are inconsolable. The enemy is triumphant.
17 Quite without anyone to comfort her, Zion extends her hands in vain supplication. At God’s command, Jacob is beset, surrounded by his enemies. Jerusalem is a befouled outcast in their midst.
18 Right the Lord is, for I have violated His word. Hear me, fellow nations; behold my anguish: my young sons and daughters have been taken into captivity.
19 So I call out to those who have professed their love for me, but they have deceitfully turned against me. My priests and my elders have perished in the city, as they searched for food in their desperate effort to survive.
20 Take note of my distress, Lord: my innermost soul is in torment! My heart is broken within me, for I know how wrong, how faithless I have been. The sword may threaten outside, but it is my inner recesses where I sense death.
21 Upon hearing my sighs, none came to comfort me. All my enemies heard of my misfortune and rejoiced that You have brought about the recompense You threatened. May they suffer the same fate!
22 View their Wickedness, and eXecute justice upon them, just as You have penaliZed me for my many transgressions. My sighing is endless; I am sick at heart.
Chapter 2
1 Alas! How can this be? The Lord in His anger has utterly rejected Fair Zion. From the very heavens, He has cast majestic Israel down to Earth, sparing, in His day of wrath, not even the Sanctuary that was His footstool.
2 Broken and battered are the dwelling places of Jacob. Mercilessly, the Lord has, in His anger, razed to the very ground the fortress strongholds of Fair Judea. The kingdom and its nobles are profaned.
3 Cut down is the pride of Israel! In His anger, God has withdrawn His protective right hand in the very presence of the foe! He has loosed a raging, all-consuming fire upon Jacob.
4 Deploying His bow like a sworn enemy, taking aim like a bitter foe, God has slain all He formerly looked upon with such favor and delight. He has poured out His wrath like fire upon Fair Zion’s shrine.
5 Executing His onslaught like a foe, God has laid waste to Israel, laid waste her fortifications, destroyed her fortress strongholds. He has multiplied weeping and wailing, keening and crying in Fair Judea.
6 Felling His own Tabernacle like a crop ripe for harvest, the Lord has destroyed His cultic center. Zion’s festivals and Sabbaths are consigned to oblivion. In His fierce anger, God has renounced king and priest.
7 God has rejected His altar. He has spurned His Temple and ceded to the enemy the walls of our sacred citadel. It is now they who raise a commotion in the House of the Lord, as on a Festival day.
8 He determined to destroy, to dispatch the walls of Fair Zion. The Lord was calculating in His resolve and did not withdraw His hand from the destructive plan. He brought grief to every wall and rampart; they anguish together.
9 In ruins lie her gates; her beams and buttresses are broken. Her king and her nobles have been exiled. Torah is no more. Her prophets are granted no further vision from the Lord.
10 Jerusalem’s elders sit low on the ground, wrapped in sackcloth, placing dust upon their heads in mourning for Fair Zion. The young daughters of Jerusalem are bowed in abject grief.
11 Keening and weeping at such length that my eyes have no more tears, I am aggrieved to my very core. I spew bitter bile on the ground at the downfall of my beautiful nation, at the sight of children and suckling infants sheltering in the streets of a once renowned city.
12 Languishing like those mortally wounded, asking for their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” Their tender lives expire in the street, clutched to their mothers’ bosoms.
13 My beloved Jerusalem, how can I do you justice in describing your beauty? With what images can I console you, innocent Fair Zion? Your tragedy is as profound as the sea. Who will bring you healing?
14 Negligent prophets spoke only of trivial, unimportant matters. They did not address your corruption so as to restore you to your proper course. Their prophecies dwelt on superficial trivialities.
15 Onlookers wave dismissively at the very sight of you. They hiss and shake their heads at Fair Jerusalem, the city once celebrated for its consummate beauty, a joy to all the Earth.
16 Petulant enemies jeer at you, hissing and gnashing their teeth. They say: “We have destroyed her! How we have waited for this day; now it has finally come about!”
17 Quashing His own inclination to mercy, the Lord has made good His threatened course. He has carried out the devastating sentence He prescribed in ages past. Now your prideful enemies, your bitter foes can rejoice over You.
18 Rest not your eyes! Grant yourself no respite! The walls of Fair Zion cry their hearts out; let your tears flow like a mighty stream, day and night.
19 Stand ready! Call out in the night, at the earliest of watches. Pour out your heart like water in the very presence of the Lord. Extend your hands to Him in prayerful intercession for the lives of starving infants, expiring at every street corner!
20 Take note, Lord! Behold the victims You have dealt with so heartlessly! Mothers consuming their own fruit: helpless newborn babies! Priest and prophet: slain, Lord, in Your own Temple!
21 Underfoot, young and old alike lie in the street. Our young daughters and our sons, felled by the sword. It is You who killed them on Your day of anger. You butchered them. You showed no mercy.
22 Vindictive foes have done away with children I struggled to raise and to nurture. On the Lord’s day of Wrath, none survived eXtermination, none whom You called to account escaped Your blaZing fury.
Chapter 3
1 Affliction has been my constant lot, subject to the rod of God’s own wrath.
2 Absolute darkness drives my destiny, impels me to my fate.
3 Again and again, throughout the day, His hand has struck at me.
4 Beaten until my flesh and skin are worn away, He has broken my bones.
5 Buffeted by misfortune, I am immured in my own misery.
6 Benighted as those long dead, I dwell in gloom and obscurity.
7 Confined as I am, I cannot escape. My chains weigh heavily upon me.
8 Cry and plead as I may, my prayers go unheeded.
9 Confounding my path with great obstacles, He has left me nowhere to turn.
10 Doom portends from the Lord; He is a bear on the hunt, a prowling lion.
11 Disrupting my life’s course, He has left me in a wretched state.
12 Deploying His bow against me, He takes aim and looses His arrows.
13 Eviscerated am I by the lethal cache within his quiver.
14 Enduring the mockery of the nations, I am made a laughingstock.
15 Enduring a full portion of bitterness, I have had my fill of gall.
16 Flinging me down into the dust, He has ground my teeth with gravel.
17 Forget contentment! My soul is bereft of peace.
18 Forsaking all hope of recovery, I acknowledge before God: “I am lost.”
19 Gall and poison recall my affliction, they mirror my misery.
20 Grieved by recurring memories, my spirit is brought so very low.
21 Grasping for hope, I take this truth to heart:
22 Heavenly grace is not entirely ended; God’s mercy is never exhausted.
23 How abundant is Your faithfulness, renewed with every morning.
24 He is my portion, my soul insists. I therefore maintain hope in Him.
25 It is good to trust in the Lord, to seek Him and so gain His favor.
26 It is good to nurture silent hope, to await the Lord’s salvation.
27 It is good to shoulder this task beginning in one’s youth.
28 Just wait in lonely silence, for this is the moral load imposed by God.
29 Judicious abasement is our course; there may still be hope.
30 Just or not, forbear, welcome the humiliating blows of your attackers.
31 Know that the Lord does not reject in perpetuity.
32 Kindness abounding, God shows mercy after His corrective measures.
33 Key to His justice: God does not inflict gratuitous suffering.
34 Lowly prisoners trampled underfoot?
35 Lawful rights shamelessly denied?
36 Laxity in defense of justice? These the Lord will not abide.
37 Man’s plans will come to naught, unless the Lord ordains it.
38 Misfortune and success alike emanate from the divine will.
39 Misguided are our grievances. Let us regret only our own sins.
40 Note well and thoughtfully our ways. Let us turn back to the Lord.
41 Not our hands but our hearts we must lift up to God in Heaven.
42 Noxious sins we have committed, and You have not forgiven us.
43 Openly pursuing us and cloaked in anger, You have slain without mercy.
44 Obscuring Yourself as in a cloud, You remain impervious to our pleas.
45 Objects of disgust and revulsion have You made us among the nations.
46 Perpetually our enemies decry us.
47 Panic and peril are our lot, insecurity and instability.
48 Pools of water issue from my eyes at the downfall of my beautiful people.
49 Quailing and crying without end, I find no relief.
50 Quietude eludes me. May God in Heaven look upon my plight.
51 Quaking with grief, I see all that has befallen the daughters of my people.
52 Relentlessly my foes hunt me, as those who stalk a game bird.
53 Relegating my life to the pit, they hurled rocks at me.
54 Rising waters engulfed me; I was sure I was finished.
55 Sinking to the darkest depths, I called upon Your name, O Lord!
56 Shut not Your ears; hear my voice, my plea, my entreaty!
57 Salvation was forthcoming as I called upon You. You said: “Have no fear!”
58 Taking up my cause, Lord, You redeemed my life.
59 Think of the wrongs my enemies have inflicted. Divine Judge, bring me justice!
60 Their vindictive plots against me surely do not escape Your attention.
61 Ugly invective and unsavory scheming against me, You have heard it all.
62 Uttering threats, my enemies plot against me all day long.
63 Unstinting, my foes’ every movement is orchestrated to harm me.
64 Vengeance Will be Yours, Lord. VeX them as befits their crimes.
65 Vouchsafe for them only heartache. Your curse be upon them!
66 Vanquish them! In Your Zealous wrath, root them out from under the very heavens of God!
Chapter 4
1 Alas! How can this be? That which was golden has grown tarnished. Once lustrous gold is dull and debased. Precious gems lie discarded in the gutter.
2 Beloved children of Zion—gold in their own right—Alas! They are now discounted as earthen shards, the leavings of some unknown artisan. How can this be?
3 Could jackals deny their young? Refuse to suckle their pups? Yet my once beautiful nation has descended into just such cruelty, like scavenger birds abandoning their nestlings in the desert.
4 Desperate and destitute, suckling infants thrust out their tongues in thirst; young children ask for bread, but not a slice is to be had.
5 Elites who once feasted on delicacies expire in the streets; those raised in luxury are glad to eat from garbage heaps.
6 Forsooth, the punishment of my beloved nation exceeds even that imposed upon Sodom, which was destroyed in but a passing moment, with no such protracted suffering.
7 Gentlemen once purer than the driven snow, as wholesome and hale as milk, their radiant complexions ruddier than rubies,
8 Have grown ashen and sickly, unrecognizable as they roam the streets, their skin hanging on bones now brittle as kindling wood.
9 It is better to die by the sword than to fall victim to hunger, succumbing to stabbing hunger pangs, without even weeds or wild plants to sustain you.
10 Judean women, renowned for their compassion, have been reduced to cannibalizing their own children, just to survive amid the destruction of a once beautiful nation.
11 Kindling a fire in Zion which razed it to its very foundations, the Lord has loosed His full measure of fury, pouring out His blazing wrath.
12 Landed nobles, kings and their peoples will hardly believe that such vile enemies could penetrate the gates of Jerusalem.
13 Measured was this punishment for the sins of her prophets, the iniquity of her priests, who tolerated the shedding of innocent blood in her midst.
14 None could so much as touch their garments in veneration, so soiled were they with blood, as they wandered aimlessly through the streets.
15 “Off with you! You carriers of defilement!” they would cry at their approach. “Off with you! Stay away! Do not touch us!” So they just roamed and rambled about endlessly. Even other nations said “You may no longer dwell among us.”
16 Providence has expelled them. God will countenance them no more, just as they no longer show deference to their priests, nor are they gracious toward their elders.
17 Quietly we have waited; expectantly we wait still, but the nation is powerless to act. Even now it is in vain; our search for assistance only strains our eyes.
18 Routed and driven from the very streets, our end is at hand. Our days are done; the end has come.
19 Swifter than eagles in flight were those who pursued us. They drove us into the mountains; in the wilderness they lay in wait for us.
20 The Lord’s anointed king, our salvation, our very life’s breath, was caught up in their snares, he whose protection afforded us the opportunity to live as a nation among others.
21 Unto you, Fair Edom—dwelling in the Land of Uz—this bitter cup will pass in due course. In your drunkenness, you will reveal your shame.
22 Visiting fitting punishment upon you, Fair Edom, God will expose your sinfulness. But He Will eXile You no further, Fair Zion; your punishment is complete.
Chapter 5
1 Remember what has become of us, Lord. Just look and see our deplorable condition.
2 Our rightful inheritance has been usurped by strangers. Our homes have gone to outsiders.
3 We have been orphaned, bereft of a father. Our mothers are as widows.
4 We must pay to drink our own water. Every scrap of firewood comes at a price.
5 Our pursuers are breathing down our very necks. Though exhausted, we have no prospect of rest.
6 We have turned to Egypt, imploring them for relief, and to Assyria to provide us with bread.
7 Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we suffer the consequences of their transgressions.
8 Slaves rule over us and there is no one to free us from their clutches.
9 We obtain bread at the risk of our very lives; mortal danger is everywhere.
10 Our skin burns like an oven; our hunger has left us feverish.
11 They have ravished women in Zion, our young daughters in the towns of Judah.
12 They have hanged our princely leaders with their own hands, sparing not even the elderly.
13 Young men are forced to carry millstones; young boys stumble under the weight of firewood.
14 The men of experience and wisdom no longer convene to offer counsel; young men have desisted from their music.
15 Our very capacity for joy is extinguished; our jubilation has turned into mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head. Oh! Woe! All because of our sins.
17 Our hearts are sick over this! Our eyes are beclouded,
18 Because of Mount Zion, reduced to ruins, now the haunt of foxes.
19 Though You, Lord, will reign forever. Your throne is secure for all generations.
20 How could You so thoroughly forsake us, abandoning us for so very long?
21 Allow us to return to You, Lord, and we will return in sincere contrition; renew us as in days long ago!
22 Or have You absolutely rejected us? Are You that thoroughly infuriated with us?
Allow us to return to You, Lord, and we will return in sincere contrition; renew us as in days long ago!
Notes on Translation
The goals of this translation are threefold. The first is to render the meaning of the Hebrew with reasonable accuracy, remaining faithful to the original, and the second is to replicate the pattern and effect of acrostics without unduly altering the content. It is the defining assumption of this translation that the acrostic form is critical to the message of the book, its ritual function, and its literary artistry. Finally, the third goal is to provide an accessible and felicitous English version that will serve the academic demands of the student and the standards of the scholar but no less so the spiritual and liturgical needs of the individual worshipper and congregation.
The English alphabet, at twenty-six letters, is longer than the Hebrew aleph-bet with its twenty-two letters. The final verse (or, in chapter 3, verses) of each acrostic chapter thus begins with the letter V: for example, “View their wickedness….” To maximize the acrostic effect of the translation in English, each V verse also includes the letters W, X, Y, and Z, which are highlighted, even though they are not necessarily at the beginning of words: for example, “He Will eXile You no further, Fair Zion.” The anomalous change in the order of the peh and ayin verses in chapters 2–4 is not reflected in this translation.
For a study of the function of acrostic in biblical literature generally and the book of Lamentations specifically, see Joseph H. Prouser, “Darkness on the Face of the Deep: Lamentations as Midrash on Creation,” Conservative Judaism 56, no. 4 (2004), 37–42. For a discussion of constrained writing in biblical translation, see Joseph H. Prouser, Initial Instructions: A Translation Celebrating the Book of Genesis in Lipogram (Ben Yehuda, 2016), xi–xvii, 97–102. The title of this translation and its epigraph are taken from Chaim Grade, “Elegy for the Murdered Yiddish Writers” (Ikh veyn af aykh mit ale oysyes fun dem alef-beys). The victims of Stalin’s purge were members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
1:1 How can this be? On the interrogatory nature of the term eikhah, see Kenneth Brander, “Between ‘Eicha–Lamentations’ and ‘Ayeka–Where Are You?,’” Times of Israel (blog), July 20, 2018, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/between-eicha-lamentations-ayeka-where-are-you/, who writes: “Eicha, God; how? How did we get to the point that there is such a rift between Your ‘chosen people’ and Yourself?” See also Marita Anderson, “Eicha: The Most Difficult of Questions,” Atlanta Jewish Times, August 12, 2016, and commentary below on 4:2 and 5:22.
forlorn, bereft, servile While these adjectives are not attested explicitly in the Hebrew, they dramatize and clarify the force of the “widow” imagery: the social displacement, emotional isolation, and material desperation of the widow in the biblical world.
1:2 presumed friends Compare NJPS: “allies.”
1:3 Judah This form of the exonym is used for the national designation Yehudah. When used in its more poetic, combined, metaphorical form (bat Yehudah, betulat bat Yehudah), “Judea” is used. See, e.g., 1:15; 2:2, 5.
rest or respite This translation reflects the alliteration of [lo] matsa Manoah.
dire straits About the concluding words of this verse, bein hametsarim, NJPS notes “meaning of Hebrew uncertain.” For a brief discussion of the term, see Joseph H. Prouser, “Say Little, Do Much: The Three Weeks,” Crescent City Jewish News, July 14, 2023.
1:12 May you never know the like! The phrase loʾ aleikhem is moved from the beginning of the verse for clarity.
1:16 Any measure of comfort, of spiritual recovery, is but a distant hope. Compare NJPS: “Far from me is any comforter / Who might revive my spirit.”
1:21 May they suffer the same fate! In direct contradiction to the sentiment in 1:12, “May you never know the like.” This dramatic contrast evinces the disorientation and conflicted emotional state of the bereft mourner.
2:1 utterly rejected This translation identifies yaʿiv as derived from toʿeivah, which is often rendered “abomination”
2:5 weeping and wailing, keening and crying This reflects the assonance of taʾaniyyah vaʾaniyyah.
2:8 determined to destroy, to dispatch The threefold alliteration reflects the assonance in ḥashav… lehashḥit ḥomat. The repetition of the guttural ḥet onomatopoetically suggests a choking death rattle, hence, “to dispatch.” Compare Genesis 22: vayyiqaḥ et hamaʾakhelet lishḥot et beno.
2:9 beams and buttresses are broken This reflects the threefold assonance in ibbad veshibbar beriḥeha.
2:10 Jerusalem’s elders sit low on the ground…mourning for Fair Zion. This translation avoids the unsolicitous, because historically charged, “Elders of Zion.” See NJPS.
2:12 like those mortally wounded, asking for their mothers Treating ḥalal (“mortally wounded”) as the subject of leʾimotam yoʾmru (“asking for their mothers”) is based on the tragic, if well-documented history of battlefield wounded calling out for their mothers. See, for example, “‘Mother!’ The Cry of War’s Wounded; Mrs. Philip Snowden, Here, Calls Their Appeal the Most Terrible Feature of Battle,” New York Times, June 27, 1915. Viscount Snowden was a member of Parliament and the first Labour Party Chancellor of the Exchequer. See also “When Soldiers Cried for Morphine, Their Mothers,” Morning Call, May 27, 2002.
2:14 trivial, unimportant matters This is a translation of shavʾ vetafeil. As William Bennett observed, “If we are surrounded by the trivial and the vicious, it is all too easy to make our peace with it,” quoted in John Hood, “What Bill Bennett Used to Understand,” National Review, August 25, 2016.
2:19 Stand ready! The Hebrew word here is commonly translated, “arise,” “rise,” or “get up.” As suggested by the statement of Urban League president Marc Morial: “We stand ready to work together, where possible, in helping rebuild not only homes and businesses, but most importantly, lives of those who so desperately need our help.”
2:20 heartlessly. . . . helpless The translation captures a symmetry reflecting the ironic etymological connection of ʿolalta and ʿolalei: God toys cruelly with the People of Israel, while loving mothers dandle their infants.
3:5 immured This is a translation of banah ʿalay vayyiqaf. To immure is literally “to enclose within walls,” here, in biting contrast to the demolition of Jerusalem’s city walls; see, e.g., 2:7, 8, 18. Immurement was a particularly cruel (and slow) form of execution, mentioned by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian Wars: “there was no length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.” See also Sir Walter Scott’s notes to his epic poem “Marmion”: “among the ruins of the abbey of Coldingham were some years ago discovered the remains of a female skeleton which, from the shape of the niche, and the position of the figure seemed to be that of an immured nun.” Apt parallels to the subject matter of Lamentations, both of these sources describe desecrations in places of worship.
3:6 Benighted as those long dead, I dwell in gloom and obscurity. “Benighted” (bemaḥshakim) as in John Milton’s “He that has light within his own clear breast May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself his own dungeon.”
3:23 How abundant is Your faithfulness, renewed with every morning. Both the liturgical timing and the specific language of Modeh Ani were inspired by this verse. It is intriguing that our first prescribed words of prayer each day, taught to the youngest of children, are drawn from Lamentations. For additional liturgical references to Lamentations, see also 3:66; 4:11; 5:21.
3:28 moral load See discussion of this term in Laura Frances Callahan, “Motherhood and the Moral Load,” Think 20, no. 58 (2021), 55–68.
3:40 let us turn back to the Lord Just past the mid-point of the book (3:34), this verse anticipates the contrition and penitence prescribed in the penultimate 5:21 (“Allow us to return to You”), providing internal symmetry to an already exceedingly structured book.
3:47 Panic and peril…insecurity and instability. The alliteration is based on paḥad vafaḥat…hasheiʾt vehashaver.
3:48 beautiful people This translation reflects the image of the nation personified repeatedly in Lamentations as an innocent young girl: bat ʿami.
3:50 Quietude eludes me. This translation is inspired by Maya Angelou: “In silence we listen to ourselves, and in the quietude, we may even hear the voice of God.”
3:59 Divine Judge, bring me justice! Here I am approximating poetic repetition of the Hebrew verb root in shaftah mishpati. Compare Abraham’s plea in Genesis 18:25: “Will the Judge (shofet) of all the Earth not do justice (mishpat)?” The image is enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence (“Appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world”).
3:61 ugly…unsavory This translation reflects the assonance of herpatam…mashevotam.
3:63 orchestrated to harm me This plays on the musical nuance of manginatam (verb root nun-gimel-nun).
3:66 Vanquish them! In Your zealous wrath, root them out from under the very heavens of God! See commentary on 4:11; the conclusion of the Haggadah passage, shefokh hamatkha.
4:2 How can this be? This is the only use of the word eichah outside the opening words of chapters 1, 2, and 4. Its reprise here is unexpected and jarring. To capture this effect, the question (“How can this be?”) is displaced, separated from the interjection “Alas!”
4:7 wholesome and hale This translation suggests the assonance in zaku nezireha.
4:10 cannibalizing their own children, just to survive The horror here suggested—arguably the most disturbing in an already unsettling book—may well be hyperbolic stock imagery of disaster. See the responsum of Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, Responsa from the Holocaust, ed. B. Goldman; trans. Y. Leiman (Judaica Press, 2001), #112, “Cannibalism”: “One cannot imagine, let alone describe, the hunger that raged in the concentration camps and the ghettoes among the Jews. Even so, the Jewish people did not descend from their level of sanctity; they never ate human flesh.”
beautiful nation See comment on 3:48 above.
4:11 pouring out His blazing wrath This verse is the basis of the bitter expression in the Passover Haggadah: shefokh hamatkha (“Pour out Your wrath”).
4:13 who tolerated the shedding of innocent blood The prophets and priests did not personally shed blood. Compare b. Sotah 46b, which comments on the expiatory ritual of the heifer killed in response to an unsolved murder (Deuteronomy 21:1–6).
4:15 roamed and rambled This translation reflects the alliteration of ki natsu gam-naʿu.
4:16 countenance This word reflects penei Adonai…penei kohanim.
4:17 Quietly we have waited; expectantly we wait still This translation captures the double formulation of betsipiyyateinu tsipinu. The cadence and rhetorical effect intended here are modeled on Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which is famously replete with biblical imagery and allusion: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, (that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away).”
4:18 Our days are done This phrase is incorporated into the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (“The Day is Done”) and the music of Peter Yarrow (“Day is Done”), as well as the lyrics popularly (although not officially) associated with the military bugle call “Taps” (“Day is done; gone the sun”).
4:20 salvation This word evokes the theologically charged messianic nuance of meshiaḥ Adonai.
4:21 Land of Uz It is not clear whether the biblical land of Uz is a real location or a fictional one. Utz may carry the meaning of “counsel,” which would be especially fitting in the context of Job. This verse might accordingly be rendered “Unto you, Fair Edom—heed my counsel—this bitter cup will pass in due course. In your drunkenness, you will reveal your shame.”
5:5 breathing down our very necks That is, ʿal tsavvaʾreinu nirdafnu. Compare NJPS: “We are hotly pursued.”
5:15 our jubilation has turned into mourning Alternatively: “The Sabbath, the source of our joy and jubilation, has turned into a time for mourning.”
5:16 Oh! Woe! This translation evokes the formality of oy naʾ.
5:18 haunt of foxes See “Fox Spotted along Walls of Temple Mount Sparks Talk of Prophecy,” Jerusalem Post, July 27, 2023 (Tishah b’Av 5783).
5:20 How could You This translation evinces indignant incredulity, as in Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler: “How could you do such a thing! To that harmless old soul!” The rhetorical question here introduces the interrogative voice with which the book concludes; see 5:22.
5:21 Allow us to return to You This expression is in the prayer recited at the conclusion of the weekday, Sabbath, and holiday Torah service liturgies.
5:22 have You…Are You…? The final verse is rendered in the interrogative, which befits the devastated bewilderment of a nation stripped of its land, sovereignty, and religious cult. It also reflects the pained and perplexed refrain of Lamentations, the only book of the Hebrew Bible whose very name is a question: Eikhah?! “How can this be? How could this possibly have befallen us?” So, too, the incredulous “Are You that thoroughly infuriated with us?” Understanding this verse as a question places Lamentations in the rarified scriptural company of Jonah and Nahum, both of which conclude with questions. Furthermore, ending a book with a question in order to dramatize the tragic nature, dystopian vision, or social criticism of the work is a well-established literary pattern. Examples include Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (“And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (“Are there any questions?”) and Ernest Hemingway’s biblically allusive The Sun Also Rises (“‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’”).
5:21 [reprise] Allow us to return to You In the liturgical chanting of Lamentations on Tishah b’Av, the entire verse is customarily repeated in unison following 5:22 in order to conclude the reading. This avoids concluding with the more discouraging strains of 5:21.
Joseph H. Prouser is rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and editor of this journal.