Letter to Jewish Press on Slifkin Controversy

The following is my letter to the Jewish Press on the Slifkin Controversy(9/13/06 edition). Please contact me by e-mail(see profile) if you have any comments.

Middle Ground

The part of Rabbi Student’s article I related to most was where he wrote of “… personal pain” and “a very loud cry of anguish being voiced…” This moves beyond Rabbi Slifkin’s books, or even the general topic of the interface between Torah and science.

Addressing issues and hashkafos (Torah philosophy) without addressing people’s individual feelings will not bring peace and resolution. True, tolerance and pluralism should not be a cause for accepting any possible distortions in hashkafah. The oft-quoted Netziv on tolerance in the preface to Bereishis can indeed be abused, like any other Torah source. But I feel there should be at least an acknowledgment, on both sides, of the plight of individuals caught in the middle of all of this. Realizing and acknowledging this, on both sides, is part of empathy – nosei b’ol im chaveiro.

Whenever I participate in discussions of the issue, I stress that I am sanguine about the future. I am sometimes challenged for my optimism, but I nevertheless believe there is good reason for it. Somehow, people with different hashkafos will have to learn to accept and live with each other. The Jewish people have survived many tough challenges in the past, and we will survive this one as well.

Baruch Horowitz
(Via E-Mail)