Will Modern Orthodoxy Survive?

Dr. Alan Brill has a brilliant analysis of the question:
Will Modern Orthodoxy Survive?

Here’s an excerpt:

Modern Orthodoxy is both terminable and interminable. All constructions of modern Orthodoxy are culturally situated and ever bound to a specific time. Even a single version consists of many trends, sub-movements, and cultural shifts.

All varieties of modern Orthodoxies have commonalities based on ideology, people, institutions, and texts, yet they are all terminable in that the resources, concerns, needs, and connections to other movements are all tied to a specific era. In our modern age, these constructions change regularly and rapidly, not that there is any specific need to respond to change, to assume any agency to change, or even to accept the changes.

One can personally continue to argue for a given ideology, but often one finds that it is hard to hold back time. There will no longer be a mass migration of near-illiterate peasant Russian Jews, nor will there likely be a need again for a response to the high modernism of Kant, Freud, or Existentialism; however, the need for articulate ideologies will remain an interminable need for religious communities.

Modernism and mid-20th century modern Orthodoxy may be gone, but, we can see that each era with their own ideology offers the needed construction for its community.

2 comments on “Will Modern Orthodoxy Survive?

  1. All hashkafic options represent reactions to specific challenges to Torah observance. IMO, the following question always arises-when does the hashkafic option segue from being a supplement in hashkafa to supplanting and rationalizing departures from Mesorah and Halacha?

  2. One could state the same with Haredi judaism:

    “Ultra-orthodox judaism is both terminable and interminable. All constructions of Ultra-Orthodoxy are culturally situated and ever bound to a specific time. Even a single version consists of many trends, sub-movements, and cultural shifts. “…

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