Edah and the "Luchos Ho'edus"

By Rabbi Dr. Moshe Dovid Tendler

An editorial in the February 12^th edition of The Jewish Week accuses me of not "fighting fair" in my criticisms of Edah. However, the issue is not one of fairness. Rather, the issue is truth and integrity. What (perhaps better said, who) is Edah? What is its agenda? In two recent letters to the editor of that publication, my statements were severely criticized. I should like to respond to these criticisms and, at the same time, reaffirm their accuracy and truth.

The thrust of my observations was to identify Edah as a new movement with an old, failed mission - to legitimatize revisionist forms of Judaism. In the main, feminism is the engine that drives Edah's train. Its cargo is a toxic load of pluralism; its destination is the legitimization of the Reform clergy. Ironically its message is described as "Ahavas Yisroel" but in reality it can only lead to the destruction of all that is sacred to those who honor in practice the covenant of Sinai.

In one of the two aforementioned critical letters, one of the founders of Edah denies that "trucking (his word not my word) with gay, non-Orthodox rabbis is a sin." How frightening that this educator of our teenage youth, who should be preparing them for a life of kedusha by defining human sexuality in Torah terms, places his imprimatur on the behavior patterns of those who have defaced the Godly image. Has this self-declared scholar ever studied the Torah laws of "Kesher Reshaim?" He questions my statement, which I hereby reaffirm, that without a single dissenting voice, the entire Rabbinic faculty of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, an affiliate of Yeshiva University (inaccurately referred to in the above publication in shorthand fashion as "Yeshiva University"), instructed the administration of Y.U., that it can not associate with Edah. The names of certain Edah conference presenters may be faculty members of other divisions of Yeshiva University, but they are not on the faculty of RIETS - "the Yeshiva" - the raison d'etre of Yeshiva University. It was disingenuous to suggest that some halachic imprimatur was conferred on Edah because of the participation of faculty members of Werzweiler, Stern, Cardozo and the like.

Edah's mission is to interact with the liberal clergy and thereby legitimatize the illegitimate. In a personal conversation with the Executive Director of Edah, I was told that his "mission is Tochacha" (i.e., rebuke of the non-Orthodox in order that they correct the error of their ways). I posed this query twice: "Will you greet a patrilineally descended, gay, non-theist clergyman of the Reform movement as a colleague?" He answered in the affirmative, explaining that to do otherwise would impair his ability to perform the mitzvah of Tochacha!

He went on to justify his position by reminding me that my great teacher Rav Soloveitchick, zt"l, approved participation in the Synagogue Council of America, where the Orthodox and liberal clergy cooperated. This insulting attempt to dodge the accusative finger of halacha by attributing to my great Rebbe that which he considered anathema taints, in and of itself, the integrity of the mission of Edah. The now defunct Synagogue Council limited its activities to representing the Jewish community vis-a-vis the outside world - "klapei chutz." It did not, nor was it intended to deal with the fundamentals of Jewish belief and practice such as conversion, intermarriage, the Jewish character of the State of Israel, etc. Indeed, Rav Soloveichick, zt"l, ruled that one must forego the great mitzvah of Shofar on Rosh Hashana rather than enter even a Conservative temple to hear the blasts.

We are long past the point of "Tochacha" with the liberal clergy. By their decisions on patrilineal descent, non-ritual conversion, and rejection of Torah laws of divorce and the institutionalized abandonment of mitzvos, they have split Am Yisroel. We are now two species in the biological sense. We cannot interbreed! There is no escaping the fact that a patrilineal descended person or non-halachic convert is not a Jew. A child born to a woman who is remarried without benefit of halachic divorce (Get) is a "mamzer" - bearing the mark of bastardy, never to marry within the Orthodox (or Conservative) communities.

The Reform leadership knew of these consequences when they abrogated Torah law but they mistakenly assumed that by now Orthodoxy would be no more - that they would be dancing on our graves! Tragically, we are standing at the gravesite of their Jewishness as their children overwhelmingly intermarry and lose their identification as Jews.

Whoever accepts as a colleague or as a variant Jew of a different denomination, a patrilineally descended or non-ritually converted non-Jew as a Jew, is plainly devoid of scholarship and has left the pale of Judaism. Whoever interacts with Reform clergy in matters concerning our religious commitments, here or in Israel, is, in fact, legitimatizing their heresy and blasphemy and thus, has left the pale of Judaism. Add to the issue of Jewish identity the reality that Reform clergy approve of same-sex marriages, permit "bloodless circumcision" to substitute for the Covenant of Abraham, and officiate at mixed marriages with Christian clergy, and Tochacha becomes an opportunistic defense of collaboration with those who defile all that is holy and sacred to Judaism.

When did Christians become "Goyim" rather than remain within Am Yisrael as sinful Jews? I surmise that this occurred after Paul's Mission to the Gentiles, when requirements for conversion were relaxed and mitzvos were abolished. Reform is perilously close to the red-line, by its abandonment of the practice of the faith of Judaism and pursuit of the God of Autonomy.

Edah is a Trojan horse with the enemy concealed within. The founder-in-hiding of Edah fired the first cannon several years ago. He declared: "God broke His covenant with Israel when He did not intercede during the Holocaust. We, as Jews, are no longer obligated to observe the mitzvos of the Torah. If we do so it is a voluntary act." Blasphemy substituting for psuedo-scholarship!

The above should explain why I stated that the Edah leadership "lack integrity, are engaging in deception, are ignorant of Halacha and lack scholarship. The composite result is to place them outside the pale of Judaism." By what authority do I "imperiously" (as I am charged) make these declarations? By the Divine authority granted every Jew who would teach the truths of Hashem's Torah to all who would listen.

May Hashem assist me in my studies that I err not!

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