Denomination

Modern Orthodox Judaism

Also Known As Modern Orthodox · Modern Orthodoxy

Judaism

Modern Orthodox Judaism holds the binding authority of halakhah together with full participation in secular education, work and civic life. Its intellectual ancestry runs through Samson Raphael Hirsch in nineteenth century Germany and, in the United States, through Joseph B. Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University, whose students shaped a generation of American rabbis. It is distinguished from Haredi Orthodoxy less by any single ruling than by its posture towards the world outside the community, including the state of Israel, which most Modern Orthodox thought reads in positive religious terms.

Facts

Belief

Defining Doctrinal Position

Halakha binding, with secular education, work and civic participation affirmed rather than merely tolerated 2

Doctrinal Position Detail

Halakhah is binding, and secular education, work and civic participation are affirmed rather than tolerated 2

Position on Sexuality

Same-sex sexual relationships are held contrary to teaching; LGBT individuals are welcomed as members but not ordained, and same-sex unions are not blessed 3

The Rabbinical Council of America's own standing declaration holds that the Torah, which forbids homosexual activity, sanctions only the union of a man and a woman in matrimony, restated in a December 2011 joint declaration by a hundred Orthodox rabbis affirming that Orthodox views on the question are not changing. No source read denies ordinary synagogue membership or communal belonging to a gay Modern Orthodox Jew; the objection runs to sanctioning the union itself rather than to a person's standing in the community.

Sexuality Position Detail

The Rabbinical Council of America, the leading Modern Orthodox rabbinic body, holds the binding position that the Torah forbids homosexual activity and sanctions only the union of a man and a woman in matrimony. On 5 December 2011 a hundred Orthodox rabbis signed a public declaration reinforcing that position, stating that unions not sanctioned by Torah law are not Orthodox weddings and that those who conduct them are not Orthodox rabbis, while also affirming the dignity of every person and forbidding personal abuse toward gay members of the community. No source found denies a gay Modern Orthodox Jew ordinary synagogue membership or communal participation; the doctrinal line runs against sanctioning or officiating the union rather than against belonging to the community. 4

Origins

Place of Origin

Germany, in Samson Raphael Hirsch's nineteenth century thought, later centred on Yeshiva University in the United States. 1

Founder

No single founder; Samson Raphael Hirsch and Joseph B. Soloveitchik are its formative thinkers 2

Position Profile

Key Text

Norman Lamm's Torah Umadda, which sets out the movement's synthesis of Torah study and secular scholarship. 5

Trajectory

Membership Over Time

Pew Research Center's dedicated 2013-fielded analysis of U.S. Orthodox Jews found roughly three in ten (31 percent) identifying with the Modern Orthodox movement specifically, against six in ten (62 percent) identifying as Haredi (ultra-Orthodox); Pew's own later 2020 Jewish Americans survey states its Orthodox subsample was too small to repeat this breakdown, so this remains the only figure of its kind on this axis. 7

Membership Figure As Of

2013-01-01 7

Basis of the Membership Figure

Independent Survey 7

Organisation

Governance

No central authority 6

Ordination

Restricted to men 1

A stream of Orthodox Judaism; rabbinic ordination is male-only across every Orthodox stream, the dimension of Orthodox Judaism's own classification that does not vary by jurisdiction.

Practice

Liturgical Language

Hebrew 2

A stream of Orthodox Judaism; matches Orthodox Judaism, already carried as hebrew.

Liturgical Language

Aramaic 2

A stream of Orthodox Judaism; matches Orthodox Judaism, already carried as aramaic.

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 5

Observance

Observance Note

Associated with institutions such as Yeshiva University in New York, which frame the movement's combination of halakhic observance with engagement in general education, professional life and the state of Israel. 6

Learn More

Torah Together with the World

The position is a synthesis, and its two nineteenth century sources phrased it differently. Samson Raphael Hirsch, in Frankfurt, argued for Torah im derekh eretz, Torah together with the way of the world, meaning that secular learning and civic participation are not a concession to be minimised but a proper part of a religious life, provided that halakhah is not negotiated. He built a community that separated institutionally from the reforming majority around it while remaining fully engaged with German culture, which is a combination that requires constant explanation.

In the United States the formulation became Torah Umadda, Torah and secular knowledge, associated with Yeshiva University, where a student takes a full undergraduate degree alongside a full day of Talmud. Joseph B. Soloveitchik taught there from the 1940s and ordained a very large proportion of a generation of American Orthodox rabbis. His writing, particularly The Lonely Man of Faith and Halakhic Man, gave the position an intellectual account of itself rather than a merely practical one, describing a religious personality that is neither a mystic withdrawing from the world nor a scientist reducing it.

What follows in practice is a community whose members work in every profession, whose children attend day schools that teach both curricula seriously, and whose religious commitments, on kashrut, on sabbath, on family purity, are not visibly lighter than those of communities that keep more distance from the surrounding society.

Institutions, Israel, and the Arguments Inside

The movement is carried by institutions rather than by a single authority. Yeshiva University and its rabbinical school in New York, the Rabbinical Council of America as the rabbinic body, the Orthodox Union for congregations and for kashrut certification, and a network of day schools and of study programmes in Israel form the American shape of it. In Israel the corresponding world is religious Zionist: the hesder yeshivot that combine study with military service, the state religious school system, and a rabbinic tradition running through Abraham Isaac Kook.

The religious reading of the state of Israel is one of the clearest markers separating this stream from Haredi Orthodoxy. Where Haredi thought has generally been neutral or hostile towards a state established by secular means, most Modern Orthodox and religious Zionist thought reads its establishment in positive religious terms and treats service to it as a religious obligation.

The internal arguments are about direction. One is whether the community has drifted towards greater stringency and away from the confident engagement Hirsch and Soloveitchik described, a tendency often discussed under the heading of a slide to the right. Another concerns the roles open to women, where advanced Talmud study for women is now widespread and ordination is not: the Rabbinical Council of America resolved in 2015 that it would not ordain women or recognise such ordinations, and a smaller group of institutions has proceeded differently.

Modern Orthodox Judaism

16 entries

Origin Period Start Year

Solitary or Communal

Category of Practice

Who Performs It

Practice Status

Scholarly Standing

Cadence

Obligation

In Group

Hakafot

Hoshanot

Kabbalat Shabbat

Kever Avot

Maariv

Mincha

Musaf

Observing the Sabbath

Pesukei Dezimra

Pilgrimage

Prayer

Sefirat HaOmer

Selichot

Shacharit

Soferut (STaM Scribal Art)

Yahrzeit

Associated With

Belongs to Tradition

Branch Of

Governed By Polity

Holds Element

Held Differently

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Position On

Uses Liturgical Language

View At A Past Year