Author Description

Challenges to the tenets of Judaism abound in the modern world. Scientific discoveries and theories sometimes seem to negate fundamental principles of the Torah and often call into question the reasoning be-hind individual halakhot. Humanist values and widely accepted ethical norms sometimes clash with Torah thought and the teachings of our Rabbis. This edition of Hakirah focuses on these clashes and the different approaches taken both recently and historically to confront modernity. A recent book by a prominent Rosh Yeshiva who is also an accomplished mathematician takes an extreme position in the “Torah and Science” debate that has been waging within the Torah community for almost ten years. His position is that Hazal were infallible in matters of science and that all Rishonim adhered to this position. A review of this book by an Orthodox physicist takes issue with some of the book’s claims, focusing primarily on the author’s dismissal of the reliability of science. In our Jewish Thought section, a leading Orthodox bio-ethicist seeks to define “Modern Orthodoxy,” by detailing what modernity stands for and by putting forth his own vision for an Orthodoxy that would in-corporate these values within halakhic Judaism. Another article puts forth the idea that the concept of mamlekhet kohanim demands that Judaism always remain distinct from the civilizations around them and their accepted norms and that Torah values are unique and eternal. A special section, Hassidim and Mitnagdim, contains articles dealing with the different approaches taken by these two groups in confronting modernity. The first essay goes back to the period of the haskalah and contrasts the attitude of some in the Mussar movement to haskalah, that “the good in it was to be embraced and the evil it entailed was to be fixed,” with the attitude of Hassidus, which stood for total distancing. The second essay, “On Confrontation with the Secular World,” translates a siha given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe at a