Achdut is not Achidut

There is no area in which MO/RZ Rabbis feel a greater sense of inferiority towards Charedim than in the field of halakha and halakhic public policy. Ever since we established our own yeshiva system in the US and especially in Israel, there was always this feeling that we were playing second fiddle to the great "black-hat" world.

This feeling expresses itself mostly in the constant need for approval on the part of the non-Zionist/non-Modern Rabbinic elite. We jump and quote every authority who supported or honored Rav Kook, who supported secular studies or dabbled in philosophy. More than that, we do not dare take halakhic positions without achieving Charedi consent in the name of "Achdus", that mythical white elephant according to which halacha is perfectly uniform and unchanging, no disagreements involved.

It is a white elephant for two reasons:

First, the idea of a perfectly exact halacha is a myth made of whole cloth. There may have been (and to some extent, there still is) tentative agreement on the essentials and the ground rules, but as long as Toshba has existed, so have severe and powerful disagreements, big and small. These run from halachic minutae to issues of belief. Differences of geography (Ashkenaz and Sefarad and everything in between), temprament (rationality vs mysticism and so on), and culture (minhag vs written law) have always foiled any and all attempts to "unify" Jewish practice and belief beyond the basic ground rules.

The second reason, a corollary really, is that halachic achdut between MO/RZ Jews and Charedim on issues of contention is impossible. It can never happen, not now and not in a hundred years. It can not happen even if both camps were staffed with ge'onim on the level of Rav Moshe Feinstein and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. We differ irreconcilably on too many issues, to the point that we are pretty much two seperate edot.

The only way to ensure halachic "achdut" is to submit to the most virulent, extremist halachic positions. Unanimity, and even near-unanimity, can only be achieved by submitting to the dictates of Reb Nachum the zealot. One need only witness the rewriting of the positions of Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik to understand the absurdity of hoping for a unifying posek or godol hador.

Nowhere has this need for achdut caused more damage than conversion, both in the US and especially in Israel. The intentions are pure, but the result is an ever-increasing war against anyone to the left of the Rev Nachums of the world as invalid to the point of conversion invalidation.

So what's the solution? Simple. Return to the diffuse model of old, where each kehila decided its own parameters (within halacha, broadly defined). This will include issues of kashrut, conversion and so on.

You will reply that this will lead to machloket, of people not marrying each other, of not eating in people's houses. Too late, they already do so. The game of frum one-upsmanship has long since killed the idea of any kind of unity. The seperations are over and done with, and I, for one, am sick of kow-towing to Reb Nachum in the name of a false and useless Achdut.