EXPOSÉ: Why Sefaria and Koren Are Now Treif

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By Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer 

I write the following without any agenda other than to share information that has already been made public voluntarily by the parties under discussion. It pains me to write anything that can hinder people’s Torah learning, but due to the fact that this public information is largely unknown to many people, it is important to make them aware.

I so fondly recall my early days of yeshiva in Yerushalayim. I, like all of my friends, proudly displayed my newly-purchased Jerusalem Bible, the beautiful Koren Tanach, at my makom in the beis medrash. The print, translation, paper and binding of my Jerusalem Bible were so appealing – really stunning. It was the new “must-have” sefer for every American in yeshiva who learned or at least consulted pesukim in Tanach.

Likewise, much later in my learning and writing endeavors, how I loved looking up all types of references in Sefaria. The comprehensiveness, clarity and ease of use were unmatched. ALHATORAH.org, Mercava and other such sites did yet not exist, but even had they been around then, I would have had no need for them, as Sefaria had it all, both in terms of content and usability.

My impression was that this problematic Sefaria material perhaps crept in due to poor filtering or editors not adequately scrutinizing submissions before posting. But recently, as reported several days ago, Sefaria announced its release of The Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation, in which male pronouns referring to Hashem are removed (e.g. “His voice” is replaced by “God’s voice”, “His covenant” is replaced by “the covenant”, etc.) and generic male nouns are neutered (e.g. “we are honest men” is replaced by “we are honest”, “the men enrolled” is replaced by “the persons enrolled”, etc.). Aside from this constituting Ziyuf Ha-Torah, the transgression of falsifying the words of the Torah (here in service of secular values that are not in consonance with the Torah, in this case), it also displays Torah ignorance, for every word or gender reference in the Torah is purposeful, and to disregard them and apparently assume that they do not matter stems from a troubling lack of knowledge.

For example, the Torah typically refers to Hashem in the male form, not because Hashem is male, but because Hashem’s attributes and interactions with the world are manifested by characteristics that are predominantly male in nature and in the human experience. On the other hand, the Shechinah is intentionally presented in the Torah as a female noun, as the Shechinah primarily represents Hashem’s attributes and interactions with the world as manifested by characteristics that are predominantly female in nature and in the human experience. Kabbalah likewise has specific male and female references for Hashem, depending on the unique Divine manifestation or illumination. To overlook this and conveniently make matters “gender-sensitive” distorts the Word of Hashem and exhibits ignorance.

If one does a more thorough search, it is clear that today Sefaria is packed with problematic material, from gay pride source sheets, to Rabbinical Assembly (Conservative movement) content, to Maharat (female Open Orthodox clergy) publications, and just about everything else from all “streams”, including the individual works of the founders of Conservative Judaism and contemporary Reform and Conservative clergy.

Sefaria’s newly-announced Jewish Women’s Writing Circle, led by Dr. Erica Brown, but also by Sara Wolkenfeld, the latter of whom is a rabbinic fellow of the David Hartman Center and is chief learning officer at Sefaria, consists of many Open Orthodox “rabbas” (female clergy, explicitly forbidden by an OU psak), and faculty members at Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS – Conservative), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) and Maharat, and other fringe and non-Orthodox institutions.

Again, this is all public information that has been voluntarily posted by Sefaria.

Some have addressed the concerns by stating that Sefaria does not claim to be Orthodox; while this may be true, Orthodox people use Sefaria with the assumption that it is indeed Orthodox, and my goal here is simply to inform people of what Sefaria contains and represents.

Koren Publishers is known for its many great sefarim, which almost all of us have and perhaps do use on a regular basis. Recently, I wrote a Times of Israel blogpost which addressed in part some problematic material found in the new Koren Lev Ladaat Humash. While one might have assumed that this was an odd exception to Koren’s normative adherence to tradition, attention must be drawn to some of Koren’s other publications, a few of which are cited in my post and others which do not appear there.

For example, Koren produces the Halakhic Realities series. Edited by Rabbi Zev Farber, who has publicly rejected the Torah’s Singular Divine authorship (see here and here), and issued under the auspices of International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF), an organization of male and female Open Orthodox clergy, this series includes articles by Dina Najman and Shmuly Yanklowitz and other Open Orthodox clergy and persona.

Koren also publishes Robert Friend’s Found in Translation: Modern Hebrew Poets. The Koren website states about Robert Friend:

Robert Friend was gay, and his sexuality found expression in his poetry well before the Stonewall era. According to Edward Field in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Shadow on the Sun is “remarkable in that, for its time, it contains so many poems about the author’s homosexuality.” Friend’s openness continued throughout his writing career.

This is all very disturbing, as while Koren publishes the works of some of the generation’s Torah luminaries, and it produces prominent sefarim for great and mainstream Orthodox organizations and institutions, it also disseminates the works of those whose views are decidedly not Orthodox, which can seriously mislead readers. When purchasing a Koren product today, the Orthodox buyer has to check whether the author is mainstream Orthodox or not.

 

Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer is Chairman of the Rabbinic Circle of the Coalition for Jewish Values, serves on the editorial board of Jewish Action magazine and a staff writer for the Cross-Currents website. He is a member of the RCA and NY Bar, and an account executive at a large Jewish organization based in Manhattan. Reposted from Cross Currents.

{Matzav.com}

20 COMMENTS

  1. Sefaria is available for download (Github, MongoDB, Python) maybe someone wants to take it over and run it as a new orthodox organization using a similar layout and data. I’m willing to sponsor it partially.

  2. Didn’t his “rebbe” (assuming it was a “mainstream” institution) question the gashmius of such an unutiliarian item crowding a shtender? A baal qoreh couldn’t use it, and “mainstream” Yidden don’t buy anything just for aesthetics. My rebbe would have said: “Nit git fir di Oygens”. He wouldn’t have lectured on philology or “mainstream” social ethics.
    An informed Yid desn’t need some self-acclaimed Kashrut board in order to live by the pure & simple lense: “Is this kosher.” If he has this consciousness, he’ll already be efficient and dexterious in getting the right Aetzeh.

  3. Sefaria and Koren are Treif?
    Sefaria includes material that is not Orthodox, it does not impose it upon anyone.
    It allows readers to choose whichever translation they prefer as their default, including Orthodox translations to Rabbi Gordimer’s standard.

    From their site:
    How does Sefaria choose which translations to add to the library?
    With such a large community of learners, we aim to offer a variety of translations when possible so that you can find a version that suits your needs.

  4. The basic Tanach and Siddur/Machzor/Kinot editions by Koren seem OK.

    As for the rest, that points to a problem with a sector of modern orthodoxy that is really modern non-orthodoxy in disguise. This sadly, is big enough to be a market.

  5. Thank you for posting. Informative post, anyone can confirm for himself (itself?), like I did, and stop using Sefaria.

  6. How is AlHatorah.org any better in your opinion? Who are their letters of recommendation and who are they? You bash two places, but then say you use the other version that is the same in terms of Hashkafa, maybe just one small step behind the other two/

  7. And you just woke up?
    Sefaria has been listing works on its app for years that are not kosher. But it does gives you the ability to ignore the problematic stuff.
    The Koren Steinsaltz translation and explanation of the Gemara has the chutzpa to frequently ignore Rashi. Etc.

  8. Unfortunately this is not new. I checked out Sefaria over 6 years ago and as a result never used them. They are run by Conservative and reform contributors and should not be trusted with Torah even without concrete evidence. The Emes does not exist with them. It does not need proof. It always pained me to see other frum people using their site. Hopefully this makes people aware not of just Sefaira, but that all Torah eminating from non-Torah tur valued sources cannot and should not have a place in our lives. Let us be Mispallel that the light of true Torah shines through to all, and these enthusiastic contributors will see the light of Emes and we can all one day enjoy their holy work.

  9. I knew about sefaria, checked that other suggestion the author moved over to (whatever that means), and in “who we are” first in alphabetic order is a lady rabbi, so to say. No kidding.

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