God's Voice: Audiotaped Sermons in Israeli Haredi Society

Introduction

The complex relationship between religion and technology, as well as its numerous implications for religious and political groups in the modern world, has been extensively dealt with by academic researchers. Most scholars have focused on the use of printed materials and visual technologies by fundamentalist groups; ² less attention has been given to the major role of audiotapes in certain radical religious groups, for example, in Iranian society prior to Ayatollah Khomeni’s Islamic revolution of 1979, and within certain American Christian groups. ³

Within Haredi society, thousands of audiotapes and videotapes can be found—in Hebrew, English, Yiddish, French, Russian and other languages. These audio- and videotapes are popular primarily in Israel and America. They cover most, if not all, of the numerous factions of this society—Hassidim and Mitnagdim, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, the “faithful” and those returning to faith (known as hozrim biteshuvah), men, women, and children. Not only do both men and women listen to live sermons, as well as recorded ones, but both sexes preach—women speak only to women, and men to both sexes. ⁴

Audio and video material includes various genres: Jewish rituals and behavioral norms, scholarly Talmudic lessons, sermons, and children’s stories. These tapes can either be purchased or borrowed at affordable prices, as we shall see below. Interestingly, this use of technology has been virtually untouched by scholars who study Haredi society. Focusing on homiletic literature and other talks, this article attempts to examine several methodological aspects of these tapes and shed light on their importance vis-à-vis the understanding of contemporary Haredi life and religion from various points of view. ⁵ Tapes and videos seem to provide an additional perspective on the role preachers and their sermons can play within a society rich with religious conflicts, between both the believers and themselves, as well as between Haredim and secular Israelis. ⁶

Haredi Society in Academic Research

The historical context within which Haredi society should be viewed is that of Jewish Orthodoxy. Jacob Katz has defined the origins of Orthodoxy as a “reaction to exiting the ghetto and to the Reform movement.” As Katz has pointed out, Orthodoxy is characterized by the self-consciousness of a minority in constant defense against the dangers of modernity, in both Jewish and non-Jewish forms. Menachem Friedman and Yoseph Shelhav sum up the two main characteristics of Haredi society: a complete obligation to East European Jewish tradition and to Halakhah—with a clear tendency to the extreme. ⁷ As much as this definition may be true, it is based on the Ashkenazi Haredi experience and thereby excludes that of the Sephardi Haredim—a new group which has not yet been adequately researched. We must search for additional ways to classify Haredim, but nevertheless, we have some idea about the group’s core in contemporary Jewry, on the basis of which we can relate to most of its members.

Although an overview of the academically oriented works on Haredim that have been done over the last generation has yet to be compiled, it is permissible to state that the vast majority of research and writing has been done by scholars from the social sciences, mostly sociologists and anthropologists. ⁸ Only a handful of works that attempt to deal with the ideological or theological aspects of Haredi society have been published in recent years. These works focus on the writings of rabbis and other religious leaders and do not delve into the problematic relationship between the leaders and their lay followers. ⁹

The expressions of popular religious beliefs among North African and other Sephardi Jews who emigrated to Israel, mostly in the years following the establishment of the state, have received a great deal of attention by scholars from social science disciplines. Works on this topic have described in detail the different pilgrimages to places where rabbis and mystics are believed to be buried; the popular beliefs in supernatural forces among those Sephardim who are still alive, and much more. Even though these are not originally Haredi phenomenons, they have become increasingly popular in Haredi society, certainly when discussing...