Rav Avi: Hi, welcome to Responsa Radio, where you ask and we answer questions of Jewish law in modern times. I'm Rabbi Avi Killip, speaking with Rabbi Ethan Tucker, Rosh Yeshiva at Mechon Hadar, a center for higher Jewish education based in New York City. Hello!
Rav Eitan: Hi Avi, how are you?
Rav Avi: I'm great, how are you?
Rav Eitan: Doing great.
Rav Avi: "I have a chronic pain condition that makes it uncomfortable for me to stand with my feet together for more than a minute or two. What issues do I have to keep in mind when leading musaf davening on shabbat? Do I need to stand with my feet together for the entire repetition, or are there leniencies around this practice in certain situations or for certain parts of the repetition?" So, why don't you start us off with just a basic where does this notion of standing with one's feet together come from?
Rav Eitan: Okay. So, the Talmud Yerushalmi reports a tradition that you have to line up your feet together during the amidah. The phrase is "yechaven raglav," but there's actually two traditions there as to what that phrase means. So one says it means side-by-side, like the angels, about whom it says in Yechezkel, v'raglehem regel yeshara, their leg was a straight leg, which means you act like you have one foot. This is what people are familiar with, who, you know, stand with their feet together for kedusha and the amidah, yechavehen reglav, this tradition means you put your two feet together as if they're one. There's another tradition in the Yerushalmi which says yechaven raglav means to align your feet like the priests, and what does that mean? The priests would ascend the altar on a ramp, and they would walk such that their toe would go near their heel. Essentially think about, like, how people walk in a pageant, you know, the Miss America walk, right?
Rav Avi: Like a balance beam, it sounds like.
Rav Eitan: Like a balance beam, exactly. So that's an alignment which is a different alignment not like one foot at all, but sort of in a very clear straight line, your two feet together. Okay. Now, the Talmud Bavli only appeals to the image of the angels, and as is normally the case when the Talmud Bavli says one thing and the Talmud Yerushalmi says another, the Talmud Bavli's version completely dominates later discussion and practice, and the image and the guidance that we find in the Shulkhan Arukh and what we teach people to do is that one foot kind of posture. And that's what this, the questioner is describing as finding very difficult, that some people have that posture really puts a strain on various parts of their body. This person's also saying staying in one place is a larger issue, but let's talk about just sort of that for a moment. So, that would seem to be the rule: you gotta have your feet together.
However, the Tur, a code earlier than the Shulkhan Arukh, cites the Yerushalmi, just sort of says hey, there's this tradition about the priests, and later commentators try to understand, well, why did he do that? Like, why did he throw that in? And one pretty common interpretation of the Tur is that he did this in order to signal that the position of -- if you have your feet like the priests, kind of aligned in that way, that's a legitimate fallback position when you can't for some reason it's impossible to have your feet side by side. In other words, that the Tur was not disagreeing, okay, the ideal way is to have it together, but they assume he brings the Yerushalmi to say if for some reason you can't have your feet together, it doesn't mean you do nothing; you at least try to line them up.
And Arukh Hashulkhan is explicit that this consideration should be employed when someone would suffer from pain having their legs together. Right? So he says if you have someone for whom that one foot position is gonna cause them pain, they should do this other thing where they put their feet in the position of the kohanim, and that for them is the proper posture.
Rav Avi: So already I think it's validating for someone who suffers from chronic pain or who feels that they have any disability to be able to look back into the sources and see that they are not the first person trying to reconcile these two realities of pain from this position and the desire to fulfill this posture while davening.
Rav Eitan: Yeah. And here, actually, there's a source that goes even further, and it's relevant to this person specifically, who seems to experience pain from any kind of fixed position, and it's not clear that the Arukh Hashulkhan's suggestion of aligned feet will work much better. Where a number of later authorities, including the Mishnah Berurah, Rav Yisrael Meir Hakohen from 19th, 20th century Poland says that, you know, this whole requirement to have your feet in a certain position is the ideal rule, but it's not a kind of sine qua non for the prayer to count. It's not as if you pray the amidah without your feet together, that invalidates the amidah; it's the way you're supposed to do it. And actually, we know this because we know in other contexts it's perfectly valid to pray while sitting. Right? If you're unable to stand, it's not like you don't pray the amidah; you might be on an airplane, you might be in any other number of contexts, so obviously there's times where we tell people to pray even though they can't be in the ideal position. And the Mishnah Berurah and others emphasize, look, any time you're dealing with someone who just can't have their feet together in that position, they should still pray. Okay? Now, Rav --
Rav Avi: And is that different if they're leading the davening.
Rav Eitan: Okay, good. So now let's get to this.
Rav Avi: They're leading the prayers?
Rav Eitan: Yeah, that's where I think we get to a slightly more complicated place, and we start juggling values in various ways. So Rav Moshe Feinstein gets a question of this sort as well, and he adds another dimension which really goes to what you're saying. He rejects the Arukh Hashulkhan for two reasons. He says you should not ever actually do this alignment of foot front and back because he says first of all, as a sort of formal legal principle, that doesn't appear in the Babylonian Talmud at all. So very nice, it appeared in the Talmud Yerushalmi, but that gets shunted aside. If the Bavli ignored it, then presumably that's a marginalized position.
But then he says something else. He says, ein la'asot d'var tamua b'shaat tefilah b'beit knesset, a person should not do something weird in shul during davening. Basically Rav Moshe says this thing which you have dug up in a text, no one recognizes that as anything normal, and when you're talking about being in a public place like shul, it's not just about what's an acceptable way of doing the prayer; what's gonna be your effect on the people around you? And he says for that reason, maybe, maybe in private, I would think that's okay, but in public you shouldn't try to do some odd combination of your feet to fulfill this obligation. And he just says, you do your best to have your feet together as much as you can, and if you can't, you can't.
And then he really gets to our question. He says, if this person has already been established as a prayer leader, so imagine someone who, they're the chazzan, or for years they have led musaf on the shabbat of their father's yahrtzeit, or any number of things that makes them sort of really invested in that position and the community associates them with that position, you don't remove that person because then maybe later in time they can no longer stand with their feet together. They're doing their best, that's all the law demands, and that's sufficient. Now, on the one hand, this is a very kind of a --
Rav Avi: So it sounds at first like he's being harsher, saying don't do weird things in shul, fit in, but then actually in the end, maybe what you're getting at is that he's more lenient in that he's saying you don't have to do this position number two, just do your best at position number one, and if not, that's okay?
Rav Eitan: Yeah. Well, I think for him there's a big difference between doing something weird and doing your best. Doing your best, he sort of imagines the optics of, okay, I can tell this person is as much as they can trying to conform to the standard of holding your feet together, and for whatever reason they can't quite do that. Doing something weird is, I've adopted a completely different system than what anyone else does, and it's unfamiliar and unrecognizable as in any way, you know, connected to what other people were doing. That seems to be I think the difference he's playing with. And once you have a sort of space where the person is doing their best, he says with respect to this issue, okay, that's all you can demand.
Now, there's another element here, and this is where I think we have to sort of complete the question. Note, Rav Moshe Feinstein says you don't remove such a person, but the implication is you would not select someone who could not hold their feet together from among an eligible group of daveners in order to lead the davening. I mean, he doesn't say that directly, but it's sort of implied that, ah, you know, you don't have to ruin someone's established pattern of davening on account of this, but should you necessarily choose such a person in the first place? And what this really leads us to, I think, is the much deeper question which maybe we'll get to come back to in sort of other forms in future episodes, which is what is the role, if any, of disability in terms of determining qualifications for leading tefilah? Right?
And I think if we're honest here, we have two real values that are in conflict here. Value one is recognizing that certain deviations from the norm of what people expect are indeed distracting, and they may actually destabilize a norm that's powerful and important for the community, for the sources that are informing us. That's sort of value one. Value two is emphasizing that all people are beloved by G-d as they are, and as they're created. And those two are real. I actually think you don't do anyone any service by denying either of those. The question is, how does one think about and synthesize that? And of course in any given context, how we think about how democratic the position of prayer leader is, and what its sort of function in the lives of individuals are is going to lead to very different syntheses. This is one very particular question of a slew of questions that have come up over the ages.
Rav Avi: In terms of thinking of these two competing values of on the one hand something can be distracting, truly distracting, and on the other hand, G-d loves all people, I think sometimes what's in between those two realities is, does the community truly love that individual? Because in the situation you're describing of the person who has been davening that same service, who has been leading that same service for years, it's usually a case of them standing in a different way, probably won't be that distracting, because the community knows them, is familiar with them, and will not be surprised, you know, knowing that they had something happen this year to see them standing in a slightly different way. I think it'll be a lot less distracting. So in some ways I think I understand that dichotomy as a call, maybe even a requirement, that we know each other and are familiar with each other in community, and the better that we know each other, the less distracted we will be as a community. Maybe that's an obligation that falls on us, as opposed to necessarily the individual.
Rav Eitan: Yeah. So, on the distracting front, I think you're absolutely right, and that's a piece where the kind of community ethos changing and having an ethos of inclusion and disability access and all of those things has a profound effect. I don't think it directly addresses certain norms, at least through the language of distraction, norms that may have their own kind of internal logic and message to them. For instance, this may be a question we get to another time also -- requirement in certain parts of the service to stand, right, which are intended to convey a certain kind of vitality, a certain kind of standing at attention, et cetera. I don't think the question of someone, let's say, who's in a wheelchair or unable to stand for some other reason is just an issue of distraction when you're grappling with that; there, this is a real competition of two values here where to value someone who is unable to stand as being able to perform that ritual in the same way, I think unquestionably destabilizes, to some degree, at least potentially destabilizes to some degree the critical importance of the requirement to stand. It's favoring the inclusion and sort of embrace of that person, and the role that they can bring, over that value.
Now again, I want to sort of just share quickly two texts here, and then we can talk it out, and you could tell me more of what you think. As I mentioned, one of the contexts where this has come up is for instance in the context of a blind person leading davening. And you have a really kind of poignant debate here, where you have one source is the Chavot Yair, who's a modern authority, who in terms I think that are very hard to confront in the context of contemporary discourse around disability, comes out very very opposed to someone who is blind leading the davening. And while he sort of grudgingly creates space for it, he says but you certainly shouldn't do it on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and he is sort of talking through, I think he's trying to honestly confront that he feels that the shaliach tzibbur, the prayer leader, in some way is signalling a certain kind of robustness, vitality, even health, all sorts of things, that he is worried that the kind of inclusion of someone who is suffering from a very serious disability, which also in his time, before the invention of Braille, is even more sidelining than it is in today's society, will actually have an impact on the kahal's ability to focus not just from an issue of distraction, but to sort of feel effectively led.
And that's sort of one piece, when I talk about that one value, that's what I think, and if you want to understand what's the Chavot Yair doing, he's playing with that. He's engaging with that in a real way. A flip source is the Maharam miRotenburg, who is earlier, but deals with someone who has actually had both of his arms amputated, and whether he can serve as a prayer leader. And he says, right, complete articulation of the other side of the spectrum, obviously that person is appropriate; it's actually a bigger mitzvah than having anyone else lead, because it will demonstrate, basically, that G-d loves all people, including those who have been broken. Lehishtamesh b'keilim sh'vurim. And we are unlike, he says, unlike the earthly political order that shuns such people aside; this is a way of actually demonstrating that's not how the kingdom of heaven works.
Now, there the Maharam, I think, is really giving -- that's what it sounds like to give voice to that other second value. His questioners are unsure, but he's saying don't just think about -- actually what I find interesting about that text -- don't just think about sort of including that person, do they have the ability to lead; what's the implicit theological message you might be sending by assigning them that role.
Rav Avi: The thing that's great about that response in terms of, like you were saying, today's modern disability theory, is that it's an answer that explains why inclusion is good for the whole community, and not just good for the individual. It doesn't say because this person may feel left out, and if we let them be the leader, that'll make them feel good about themselves; it says no, there's actually a value, the whole community is gonna be better off and have a better understanding of how G-d relates to them and to the world, if this person has this leadership position.
Rav Eitan: Right. I think it does articulate that. Then the difficult piece, ritual by ritual, is we are all embedded in various kinds of material culture and material religious cultures that presume certain abilities and certain skills, right? A Torah scroll is biased towards vision, right? Not only the scroll itself, but also certainly halakhot and requirements that say you're not allowed to read it by heart. And that's a challenge. I mean, I grapple with that, sort of how when you think about, we're geographically biased, right? A requirement, a religion that requires you to take a palm branch, you know, once a year, is geographically biased to having some connection towards subtropical zones.
And I think minimally as a starting point, even if we don't have all the answers, I think one of the things that this question I find useful for is, what do various halakhot basically presume in terms of various ability and capacity? A halakhah that requires you to stand with your feet together is not just a protocol; it's also assuming something about the ability to stand in one place without moving. And who does that write in and how does that write out? And in that particular case I think we've seen some interesting sources that say okay, well, to the point that that requirement is going to actually bar someone from participating, it's not enough of a non-negotiable criterion for the amidah that we should be treating it that way.
Rav Avi: I want to go back just for a minute to your very, very first text that you brought us from the Yerushalmi, that gave us two models, angels versus priests. Because I've only ever heard the angels one, as you said, becomes more popular because it gets picked up in the Talmud Bavli. But I'm struck by the idea that a primary way in which we as human beings are different from angels is our physicality and our physical bodies. And that I always understood the be like angels as a way of trying to say, you know, ignore your body, maybe, a little bit, or the body is not a part of what you're doing right now essentially. I'm curious if you see that idea in the text, or is that something that my teachers in a modern context picked up and overlaid into that?
Rav Eitan: It's a beautiful reading. It hadn't jumped off the page at me, but it's compelling in many ways. And then it's interesting, because the kohanim become in their own way as priests a kind of counterpoint to that, where they're actually emphasizing, no, I have two feet, and one goes here and one goes there. And that's, yeah. I mean, I think you're certainly right that the motif of angels is something that conveys disembodiment. I mean, I think the place that we most think of ourselves as embodying an angelic state of being is on Yom Kippur, when of course we practice the most extreme form of ignoring our bodies, and that does seem like the right lens to think about some of these details.
Rav Avi: Whereas the kohanim are maybe the category that we have the most restrictions based on their physical bodies. They are supposed to have working bodies in order to do their job as kohanim, and we're left with this question of which model -- do we need the working bodies, or is the body really not at heart of what's happening here?
Rav Eitan: It's nice. So that's another reading -- you could be another acharon explaining the Tur here, why does the Tur bring that Yerushalmi back? And maybe he has some sensitivity, even if only subliminally, to the idea that he doesn't want the only word on how one stands in prayer before G-d to be a completely disembodied mode.
Rav Avi: I want to end with one other drash, one other explanation that I heard once about the value of standing with your feet together, and I heard this from Rabbi Jessica Kate Myer, don't know exactly who she picked it up from or if she thought of it. The idea that when you stand with your feet together, everybody, even people without a chronic pain issue, you're a little bit off-balance, it's a little bit hard to balance, and that sometimes when we are standing in prayer to G-d, we want to pray from a place that's not a perfectly balanced place, a place where we feel that vulnerability and that we can physically embody that by standing in a position that's not necessarily the most comfortable place.
Rav Eitan: Beautiful.
Rav Avi: Thanks.
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