Only in America
With its shopping malls and gas stations, pizza shops and public library, Lakewood, New Jersey looks much like any American Everytown - except perhaps a little bit greener. The streets are wide and tree-lined, and within walking distance of the city center is a lake surrounded by forestland. Although young women in skirts, long-sleeved blouses and kerchiefs, pushing double baby strollers, are a common sight, so are Mexican immigrants, walking home from their shift in the kitchens of the town's fast-food restaurants. There is little to tell you, at first glance, that Lakewood is the new epicenter of ultra-Orthodox life in the United States.
That is, unless you peer into one of the seven or eight buildings (several are new and impressive, although the largest looks like a warehouse from the outside) that serve as the batei midrash or study halls of the Lakewood Yeshiva. If you opened the door anytime from early morning until after midnight, you would hear the cacophonic roar of hundreds of pairs of study partners engaged in illuminating millennia-old Talmudic disputes.
With 4,300 full-time students (including about 1,200 bachelors actively seeking matrimony as well as 3,100 married kollel students) and numerous others learning part-time, Lakewood is the largest yeshiva in the world today. The Mir in Jerusalem runs a close second. Lakewood might just be the largest yeshiva in history. "I get a rush" one student told me, "just from seeing so many people learning Torah."
Lakewood has managed to transform that quantity into quality. A young scholar I spoke to said he left Yeshiva University after a single visit to Lakewood. "I was astounded by the level of learning. I didn't think that Talmudei Chachomim (talmudic scholars) on the level of those I met here existed anymore in the world. "It goes to show," he continues, with a subtle swipe at modern Orthodoxy's philosophy of joining Torah learning with secular studies, "If you combine Torah with anything else, it takes away from the depth of learning."
If you continued standing near the entrance to one of the study halls, you might notice a sheet of notebook paper posted near the doorway. This is a color-coded seating map dividing the study hall into "haburas," clusters of students engaged in wrestling with a particular talmudic tractate, a special subject, or a section of the Code of Jewish Law. The great majority of the world's yeshivas concentrate on a handful of tractates known as "the Yeshivishe mesechtas" that raise theoretical issues around which much of the Lithuanian style of Talmud study revolves, but Lakewood has moved well beyond this model. At any one time, just about every section of the Talmud and Codes is being intensely studied by one of the 173 haburas operating in Lakewood.
The habura paradigm is a product of the decentralization of authority, at least within the confines of Talmud study, that is one of the signature marks of the Lakewood revolution. Four of the grandchildren of Lakewood's charismatic founder, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, who died in 1962, currently share the title Rosh Yeshiva. Although nearly universally beloved for their piety and wisdom, their role is largely titular.
"Lakewood has become too large to have a cult of personality," says Gershon Barnett, a successful Haredi businessman who studied at Lakewood during the 1970s and now has children learning there. "Nobody is saying you must do it this way, you have to come to my shiur (lecture). There are no overarching egos, no squabbles in the family. Nobody is working to make the place a dynasty. They really are working for the institution."
Learning, however, is not the only reason so many young men are enrolled in Lakewood. Attendance here has become a must for young Americans of marriageable age in elite ultra-orthodox "yeshiva" circles. If you want to marry a woman with an impeccable reputation from a well-connected family, you had better be learning at Lakewood while searching for a bride. Rumors abound within the ultra-Orthodox world of impending attempts to break Lakewood's domination by founding another prestigious yeshiva for young men just back from their now mandatory post-high school sojourn in an Israeli yeshiva. "The tzibbur (public) is itching for an alternative," one young man told me. "But until that happens, Lakewood is the only game in America."
Over the last seven years or so, sky-high real estate prices in the "old" Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn have also transformed Lakewood into one of the fastest growing Orthodox communities in America. Young couples from Brooklyn just starting out, affluent professionals looking for an Orthodox community with good schools and spacious homes, and retirees who want to spend their remaining years learning have all been pouring into new, exclusively Orthodox housing developments that have sprung up within a 10-mile radius of the yeshiva. Taken together, the yeshiva and the community that surrounds it are currently the hub and focal point of America's increasingly successful and self-confident ultra-Orthodox community.
Judaism's future
If demographic predictions are correct, the ultra-Orthodox, with their astronomical birth rate and infinitesimal assimilation rate, will at some point not too far off in time become the dominant face of American Jewry. "We're the future of American Judaism," says Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the savvy 42-year-old grandson and namesake of the Lakewood Yeshiva's founder. Kotler is currently the executive director of the yeshiva and its foremost ambassador to the outside world. Ultimately responsible for raising $20 million a year for the yeshiva, he is active in city politics and is on the board of the local medical center, to which he has succeeded in bringing world-class specialists who want to live in America's foremost Torah center. Because he may well be right about the future, it is important to be aware of Lakewood's present - its unprecedented success and the underlying tensions that are increasingly roiling its surface calm.
Officially known as Beth Midrash Gavoha, the Lakewood yeshiva was founded in 1943 by the brilliant and fiery Rabbi Aharon Kotler, a refugee from Lithuania, where he headed the renowned Yeshiva of Kletzk. After escaping Europe in 1941, Kotler spent most of his time during the war years as a prime mover within the Committee for Rescue, which attempted to save Jews from Hitler's clutches by lobbying, arranging visas and raising money for bribes and transport. One famous story has Kotler striking the table during a meeting with Henry Morgenthau, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's secretary of the treasury, and warning him that his position, which Morgenthau feared losing if he was perceived as interceding on behalf of his own people, was not worth the life of a single Jew. While still devoting his weekdays to rescue, Kotler agreed to begin teaching a tiny group of 14 promising young Talmud scholars on weekends. His condition: the new yeshiva would not be located in a major metropolis, which he saw as filled with unbearable distractions and temptations, but in Lakewood, a resort town with a number of kosher hotels but only a relatively small permanent population of Orthodox Jews. Kotler saw the lack of a large Jewish community in Lakewood as an advantage, a way of shielding his students from communal demands and insuring their relative isolation. He also asked for - and received - the final say on policy decisions in the new yeshiva.
At the time Kotler founded his yeshiva, the other great Torah scholars who had emigrated from Eastern Europe were in the process of negotiating a modus vivendi with reality as they had encountered it in the United States. Yeshivas such as Ner Israel in Baltimore, Maryland, Telz in Cleveland, Ohio and Chaim Berlin and Torah Vada'as in Brooklyn, New York allowed their students, under certain conditions, to attend college parallel to their yeshiva studies. In the atmosphere that prevailed among American Jews at the time, this seemed a reasonable accommodation: Who in their right mind would allow their daughters to marry a Talmud scholar who had no alternative means of making a living? But Kotler, who felt that the very survival of the Jewish people after the Holocaust depended on developing a cadre of scholars utterly devoted to Torah study, was unwilling to compromise. According to Yoel Finkleman, who wrote about Kotler's ideology of isolation in his doctoral dissertation, the yeshiva Kotler founded in America was more insular by far than the one he had headed in Lithuania. There his students had lived and boarded in the homes of townspeople, many of whom were Zionists and even socialists. Kotler was an active participant in communal politics, and a surviving photograph shows him posed with other, non-Orthodox members of the kehila, a representative body that helped run the town's affairs.
Once in America, however, Kotler eschewed all cooperation with non-Orthodox Jewish entities, and dissuaded his students from involvement in communal or political activity. He also attacked modern Orthodoxy, declaring that what they saw as small adjustments in philosophy and practice, which they had adapted as part of their religious life, constituted "the essence" of the destructive changes made by the Reform movement. He encouraged his students to see full-time Torah study as a lifetime occupation, not as training for a career in the rabbinate or in Jewish education. According to Finkelman, who based his research on three volumes of the collected sermons Kotler delivered to Lakewood students over the years, as well as on interviews with students of Kotler's, he also developed a radical theology that held full-time, lifelong Torah study as God's ideal for every Jew. In doing this, he implicitly rejected earlier models, set forth by luminaries such as Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, founder of the Lithuanian yeshiva movement, and Reb Nosson Zvi Finkel, the preeminent 20th century leader and thinker of the Eastern European mussar or ethics movement. In accord with the dominant opinion within the Talmud itself, these earlier authorities saw the combination of Torah and the pursuit of an honorable livelihood as a noble ideal appropriate for the vast majority of the Jewish people. In contrast, Kotler emphasized that leaving full-time Torah study was "sinful" and taught his students to believe that Torah study is the main conduit through which all God's blessings flow to the world.
By the year of his death, 1962, Kotler had managed to build Lakewood into a thriving yeshiva of 200 students with a reputation for seriousness and intense dedication. Still, Lakewood was just another yeshiva on the American scene. It was Kotler's son, Rabbi Shneur Kotler, who transformed Lakewood into something more: the flagship and standard bearer of the resurgent ultra-Orthodox community in America. Sacrificing the development of his own considerable scholarship, Kotler the son devoted himself to fund-raising, so he could enlarge the yeshiva's enrollment and support an increasing number of married students who received a meager stipend while continuing to learn for as long as they could hold out. He also began to send out groups of married students to establish kollels (yeshivas for married men) in cities with large Jewish populations where they would divide their time between studying Talmud and spreading the gospel of Torah learning to the population at large. There are now Lakewood satellite kollels operating in 30 cities across North America; one of the most recent, established in a north Philadelphia suburb with a large concentration of Russian Jewish immigrants, is made up exclusively of Russian-speaking Lakewood students.
Rabbi Shneur Kotler's focus on creating a large community of married students helped shape a new horizon for the ambitions of the brightest and most committed in the American ultra-Orthodox world: the possibility of learning Torah indefinitely as part of a large community of scholars. Kotler's decision to devote himself to institution-building rather than attempt to emulate his father's luster and charisma as a teacher was also fateful: it allowed a more independent model of study to emerge that proved immensely popular. At some point in time, Lakewood reached a critical mass of students. It was no longer just another yeshiva, however highly regarded, but a kind of Mecca - the place to be for the increasing number of young Americans raised to see Torah learning as the center of their lives.
Banned books
Skipping from Rabbi Shneur Kotler's untimely death in 1982 at the age of 63 to the year 2005 offers a lesson in the way success brings with it a whole new set of problems. Lakewood has come full circle: the primal drive for ideological purity and insularity that motivated its founding is now being tested by the needs and interests of the community the yeshiva itself has attracted - and by the children who have grown up in its midst. In Lakewood, a uniquely American form of ultra-Orthodoxy is testing its boundaries, and gauging the relative strength of the moderates and extremists in its midst.
One of these testing grounds is in the realm of the printed word. Three times over the last three years, yeshiva leaders have lent their names to bans on books published by writers from Lakewood or elsewhere within the ultra-Orthodox world. Each book had crossed a different boundary, tested different waters. One book, co-written by scholar and writer Rabbi Yosef Reinman, who lives in Lakewood, recorded a sharp but ultimately friendly polemic with Reform leader Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch. It was banned, and Reinman was forced to apologize and cancel a book tour, because it violated the ultra-Orthodox taboo against dialogue with official representatives of non-Orthodox Jewish movements. Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, Lakewood's popular mashgiach ruchani (spiritual supervisor, whose role is to lecture and advise students on their path to spiritual growth), a friend and ally of Reinman who had initially supported the book, was forced to recant his support as well.
Another book, "ZooTorah" by Rabbi Nissan Slifkan, was banned, in Lakewood and elsewhere, because, relying on earlier accepted authorities, it presented biological evolution as a legitimate possibility and argued that the pronouncements of Talmudic sages on scientific subjects need not be considered authoritative. Yet another banned volume, "The Making of a Gadol" by Rabbi Natan Kamenetsky, offered a detailed and intimate account of the relationships between various gedolim, or sages, in pre-war Lithuania, including anecdotes about rivalries and frictions between Torah greats. In a world where the Torah sages of earlier generations have been raised to the level of virtual infallibility, this kind of disclosure was considered threatening and unacceptable. The bans, I was told, were the result of pressure exerted on the ultra-Orthodox leadership by purists in Israel, who found allies within the Lakewood community itself. "The leadership is aware that it is walking a tightrope," I was told by one Lakewood intellectual, whose shelves hold books on Biblical archaeology and the latest scientific theories. "There are many different layers to the Haredi community. Here in Lakewood you have a community with thousands of people but no TV, no radio, no free press, and no magazines. Some people are very sophisticated intellectually - for them that won't work. But other people need the insularity - they couldn't handle things that might undermine their faith. So how do you balance a sophisticated worldview with the need to keep things under wraps? This balancing act requires a certain amount of control, to protect the general public from harm. One result of this is that you don't have the checks and balances you need. It would be healthy for the Haredi world to have more freedom of press to check the unlimited power of the leadership. But a totally free press - you can't have it. So you have an official line, and reality, and they balance each other out."
Another Lakewood scholar, who considers himself a moderate, told me that people like him have to learn to express themselves with caution. "There is a certain amount of intimidation. If you get a groundswell of people against you, calling you a kofer (a heretic), it can be a problem."
Youth in crisis
Ideology is only one area in which the leaders are being called upon to make fine-tuned decisions, balancing the needs of different segments of the community. An even more urgent challenge is developing a strategy to deal with the increasing number of Lakewood teenagers in rebellion against the strict ethos of the society in which they grew up. Some fall into a pattern of drug or alcohol abuse.
Chaim Abibi is the founder and director of The Minyan, a gathering place for marginal Lakewood teenagers where they can come to pray, hear a Torah class, or hang out - even if they are wearing jeans and have a tattoo on their forearm. These teenage dropouts from the strictures of Haredi life, a well known phenomenon in Israeli ultra-Orthodox society, are a burgeoning problem in Lakewood today, he says: "These kids come from every kind of family - they're the children of rosh yeshivas [heads of yeshiva] as well as kids from ba'alei teshuva [newly religious] homes or divorced families."
One longtime Lakewood resident comments, "The problem of marginalized kids is a volcano waiting to erupt." In some cases, the demand of total dedication to Torah learning that the system has long promoted can itself create the conditions for rebellion. "The problem is with people who are living this life not because they want to, but because of social pressure," a prominent Lakewood rabbi told me. "If the children feel the parents are trapped in this poverty-stricken kollel life they really don't like, then there will be trouble."
Increasingly, Lakewood's yeshiva heads are being called upon to decide between those factions within the yeshiva that are pressing them to wield a strong hand against any signs of disaffection and those who believe that the community must find a place for those who are unable to adapt to its regimented way of life. One flashpoint is Lakewood's kosher pizza shop, where on Saturday nights teenagers gather to sip sodas and ogle the teenage girls. The extremist factions have demanded that the pizza shop be closed, or at least limited to take-out orders, but advocates for the disenfranchised youths have so far successfully argued that if the shop is closed, the teenagers will hit the pool halls or bowling alleys, outside the reach of the Jewish community.
Most observers agree that one of the roots of the problem are the elementary and high schools, run by Lakewood alumni, which have become increasingly elitist and regimented in their approach. Children with learning disabilities, or who are just not potential talmudic stars, are often shunted aside, and there is little emphasis on individual expression. The rapid growth of the community has exacerbated the crisis.
"The elementary schools are pumping the kids through the system faster than the high schools can keep up," says Rabbi Dovid Wax, a businessman and scholar who moved to Lakewood several years ago. "On the one hand, the yeshiva people benefit from the new people in terms of tuition subsidies for schools, but on the other hand, they can't really control things anymore. They can't keep up the insularity or the discipline. A guy from Chicago is not going to have the loyalty to a rosh yeshiva from Lakewood."
The answer for many of the schools has been to become even more selective. Dozens of prospective high school students, boys and girls, have been left stranded, without a school this year, and even gentile real estate agents have begun warning house-hunters that they'd better line up a school for their children before they buy in the community. And some of the prejudices that have haunted the Israeli Haredi world are finally hitting Lakewood - one prominent high school for girls which for years admitted students of Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) origin has now changed its policy and announced it will admit only Ashkenazim.
The delicate web of relationships between the yeshiva and the town can create murky - and potentially explosive - situations. Josh (not his real name) grew up in a family shaped by Lakewood ideals. His father taught in a Lakewood satellite yeshiva, and five of his siblings live in Lakewood, where they either study in the yeshiva or help support a husband who does. Josh was the family's black sheep; he was thrown out of several ultra-Orthodox high schools because of disciplinary problems. Two years ago, at the age of 20, Josh moved to Lakewood in order to work in one of the dozens of new businesses serving the expanding population. He was in an unstable period in his life, eventually quit his job and spent most of the day in his room, where he was often visited by a friend - the grandson of one of Lakewood's yeshiva heads.
They would watch videos and smoke marijuana - provided, Josh told me, by the friend - until one day Josh got a caller ID-blocked call on his cell phone. "I have a message for you from Rabbi Schenkolewski," the voice at the other end of the line said. Josh immediately recognized the name. Yisroel Schenkolewski is a Lakewood-ordained rabbi, founder of a yeshiva high school for girls that serves the Lakewood community, a chaplain in the Lakewood police force, and a self-described askan or political activist, who works to advance the interests of the yeshiva community within Lakewood city politics.
"You're not wanted in Lakewood anymore," Josh was told. "You're corrupting one of the rosh yeshiva's kids. You should get out of town. And by the way," the caller added in a friendly and concerned tone, "I'd be very careful, because there are some hotheads here that want to break your bones." According to Josh, it was unclear whether Rabbi Schenkolewsi himself was behind the threat of violence. Enraged, Josh called Rabbi Schenkolewski and demanded to know how he could advise someone to leave Lakewood without even speaking to them directly and finding out what their situation was. Schenkolewski, Josh says, was unrepentant.
Reached by Haaretz, Rabbi Schenkolewski denied ever having issued a physical threat. Nor, he said, would he deliver a hostile message except in person. He did, however, confirm the essence of the story. "Have I ever told people to leave town, people who I thought were hurting the community?" Rabbi Schenkolewski asked. "Yes, I certainly have."
And yet, in the midst of turmoil and change, Lakewood is also showing amazing strengths. Rabbi Yitzhak Hazlivat, who has studied and taught in Lakewood for 32 years, says the learning has never been better. "There's something about the shefa, the material abundance in this period for the Jews in America, that can enable really deep learning. Reb Aharon Kotler turned the world around," Hazlivat continues. "When he began, no one in his right mind would want a Talmid Chacham for a son-in-law. Now there's competition for good Lakewood guys."
But the world has also turned Lakewood around. A., a real estate developer in his twenties who grew up in Lakewood, rebelled, but eventually returned to observance and to Lakewood, says that Lakewood has mutated into something new over the past few years. "The whole concept, that you have to go to kollel or you're not worth anything, that doesn't exist anymore - although I don't know if the kollel people know it. There's no stigma attached to working, and the drive for money - it's greater than ever. A lot of children of kollel-sitters who saw the poverty in their homes have gone out and started businesses - retail, nursing homes, you name it. There's a lot of money here."
And yet, he says, the values emanating from the yeshiva still continue to influence those who have left its bounds. "I belong to two organizations - Haverim and Bikkur Holim. If someone is stuck on the road with car trouble, or needs a ride to visit someone in the hospital, I get a text message on my cell phone. By the time I've managed to call back, someone else has already grabbed the mitzvah."
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=lakewood&itemNo=609176
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