From the Kavvanah blog: How does one combine the works of Deepak Chopra and Tony Robbins with the teachings of Rav Hershel Schachter? How does Dr. Phil and Marianne Williamson become part of the right wing of Modern Orthodoxy? In his just published book, Judaism Alive: Using the Torah to Unlock Your Life’s Potential, Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn incorporates thoughts from popular culture by citing the likes of the rock group Queen, Muhammad Ali, and among countless others seeking to combine what he thinks is the best of modernity to guide readers to a better life.
Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn, the author of Judaism Alive, has his rabbinical ordination and master’s in education from Yeshiva University, During his seven-year tenure as head rabbi of the West Side Institutional Synagogue in Manhattan, Rabbi Einhorn helped his synagogue achieve 70 percent growth. His out-of-the-box work was so successful that in 2010 the Orthodox Union gave him his own think tank to craft programming for other synagogues across America. In 2012, Einhorn moved back to his hometown of Los Angeles to serve as dean and rabbi of Yavneh Hebrew Academy. Rabbi Steven Weil called Einhorn “the top young Orthodox rabbi in all of North America.”
Einhorn finds himself right of center and considers Rav Hershel Schachter as his Rebbe and wears a black hat. Nevertheless, he states that “I do believe in learning from a wide array of teachers to the left and to the right.” Einhorn learned seven blatt every day, rather than the more Lithuanian Yeshiva approach of analytic study, thereby has completed learning the Talmud Bavli nine times. Einhorn also released a music album called Judaism Alive: A Musical Odyssey that went to #3 on the Itunes World Music Chart.
This interview was so open and direct that I do not have to pull out his relationship to popular culture since he is direct in his use and acknowledgement of pop psych, new-age spirituality, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist teachers, rock stars, and talk show celebrities. They are all a form of Torah for Rabbi Einhorn.
I had a long post on Rabbi Einhorn three years ago; it serves as a good compliment to this interview. He was also discussed in my Orthodox Forum article on Centrism and Popular Culture on the huge roll popular culture is playing in Centrist Orthodoxy. In that context I had discussed rabbis who are turning Orthodoxy into cruise ships of entertainment. If the left is turning toward social concerns, the right is turning to motivational speakers and a new form of Neo-Hasidism with their implicit social vision. This version is highly anthropocentric, neo-liberal in its concern for value, and peak this-worldly experiences.
Early Hasidim used kabbalah from 200 years prior because it was the language and spiritual resource that they knew. Yet, they were using it to express new ideas and start a new vision. Spiritual positions such as Rabbi Einhorn’s Judaism Alive use Hasidism and Neo-Hassidism from two hundred and fifty, or even hundred years ago, but here too it seems that it is because it is the spiritual language and tool at hand in which to create new ideas way beyond the Hasidic sources.
