Several weeks ago, our Beit Midrash held a Shabbaton with the theme, "21st Century Shabbat: Ancient Roots, Modern Meaning". Afterward, someone approached me with a good question. While she praised the excellent presentations, she wondered why no one had cited Abraham Joshua Heschel.
She was right to wonder. Certainly, Heschel's The Sabbath was written to address the modern meaning of Shabbat. His ideas are deep, his writing is grand. So why wasn't he cited? I told her, "I think many don't know what to make of him."
I certainly did not mean this as an insult to Heschel; how could I judge anyone, let alone someone who wrote so meaningfully and about whom I know so little? I was simply describing a reality: Abraham Joshua Heschel's work generally does not appear in Orthodox yeshivot. Separate from his personal religious practices, he taught at Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary, the chief ordaining bodies of the Reform and Conservative movements, and to many this means that holding him up as an authority would promote movements which are at odds with Orthodoxy on fundamental issuesof belief and law.
One could no more expect Orthodoxy to endorse JTS and HUC than one could expect Lakewood to endorse someone like me, who represents university education and Zionism, or expect me to endorse Neturei Karta, which represents virulent anti-Zionism.
But the reality is not as simple as "Teach at JTS/HUC and the yeshivot will exclude you."
Consider the case of Shaul Lieberman – erudite talmid chacham, writer of important works on Tosefta and Yerushalmi, among others. And he taught at JTS, and he authored the controversial "Lieberman clause" addendum to the ketubah. In some Israeli yeshivot he is studied, and some sefarim quote his work. With Shaul Lieberman, teaching at a non-Orthodox rabbinical seminary was not enough to put him beyond everyone's pale.
And then consider the case of Shlomo Carlebach – a reputed talmid chacham, although best known for his music, which is sung in Orthodox shuls and yeshivos. But he was also the founder of the "House of Love and Prayer" in San Francisco, and his well-established reputation includes behavior with women which is certainly prohibited by halachah and which some might include in the category of yeihareg v'al yaavor.
So why is much of the Orthodox establishment comfortable having Carlebach in, ambiguous on Lieberman, and negative on Heschel?
Is one "in" because he publishes classic Torah scholarship (Lieberman), or because he is endorsed by Orthodox leaders (Carlebach – and Lieberman, according to some stories), or because his sins are not viewed as undermining general Orthodoxy (Carlebach)?
Is one "out" because he supports non-Orthodox institutions (Lieberman, Heschel), because his published canon focusses on spirituality rather than traditional text (Heschel) or because he has a falling-out with an Orthodox leader (Lieberman)?
Is the decision based on the actions of the individual, or the individual's potential threat to the institution that is Orthodoxy?
The practices of exclusion are not that interesting to me, but the question of how people choose definitely interests me.