New Writings from R. Kook and Assorted Comments, part 4

Marc B. Shapiro

Continued from here.

Returning to the issue of creation, I found an interesting comment in R. Hayyim Hirschensohn’s commentary on Rashi, Nimukei Rashi. For those who are unaware of this commentary, I recommend that you examine it. You can order a bound copy (even soft-cover) very cheaply at hebrewbooks.org. I think that this is one of Hirschenson’s greatest works.[1]

In his comment to Gen. 1:13 Hirschensohn writes that belief in eternity (which here apparently means eternal matter in the Platonic sense, not an eternal universe in the Aristotelian sense) is not heretical, just foolish. He explains that something foolish by definition cannot be heretical, and gives an example: If you say that 2+2=5 this is false, but it is not heretical. It would be interesting to develop this theme further, and to see to what conclusions it takes you.

Also regarding creation, see his comment to Gen. 2:6 where he explains how evolution fits in with Torah, and where he differs with Darwin.[2] He sees support for his view in Rashi, although he acknowledges that Rashi himself didn’t have evolution in mind. Rather, one can explain Rashi in accord with modern views even though Rashi himself had no knowledge of modern science. Here is an example where a book, in this case Rashi’s commentary, is explained with no concern given to original intent, the notion being that a book has a life of its own and is not bound to the interpretations of its author. I cited material on this theme in Studies in Maimonides, and there is a good deal more I can add from traditional Jewish writings. (In my Hakirah response to Buchman, I promised to explore this issue in a future Hakirah article).

Here is Hirschensohn’s passage:

אל יחשוב הקורא שדעתי שרש”י ז”ל ידע מענין ההתפתחות והי’ לו שיטה מצוינה מיוחד בזה, שאהי’ בזה לצחוק לכל שומע, אמנם דעתי שרוח הקודש הופיע בבית מדרשו ופירושו בהפסוקים מתאימים לפרש על ידיהם שיטות פילוסופיות וטבעיות לפי אמתתם

Quite apart from his main point, I find Hirschensohn’s opening words here fascinating. We get a sense of whom he felt he was writing for when he says that if he were to claim that Rashi knew of the most advanced scientific thought, that it would be regarded as laughable. I think that even today if someone were to attribute prophetic-like scientific knowledge to Rashi, there are some circles where this would not occasion laughter, but great respect, on the assumption that as with Hazal, Rashi’s knowledge in these matters is all-encompassing.

I could have an entire post on the provocative material in Nimukei Rashi, but let me just give a couple of more examples. In his commentary to Gen. 4:16, Hirschensohn says that prophets can make mistakes, just like the rest of the people of their time. He says that they can even make such errors when it comes to principles of faith:

כי לא כל הנביאים ידעו הפילוסופיא האלקות האמתית . . . יכולים לטעות בטעותים אשר בני אדם בדורם טועים

He applies this insight to prophets who lived before the giving of the Torah. However, those prophets who lived after the Revelation at Sinai and were able to study Torah in a proper philosophical fashion were spared these types of errors.

ורק נביאי ישראל אשר למדו תורת ה’ עמדו מן התורה ומן החכמה ודעת על אמתת הפילוסופיא האלקות . . . כי הנבואה לא בא להודיע רק את הדבר אשר הודיעה מפורש ובשאר דברים יכול האדם להשאר בטעותיו הקדומים ורק התורה עם החכמה והדעת המה מודיעים את האמתית [!] ועקרי האמונה והפילוסופיא . . . כי הקב”ה חפץ שהאדם יהי’ דורש למצא את האמת לא ליתן לו את האמת בנבואה בלתי דרישה וחקירה.

In a previous installment of this series I dealt with Maimonides’ view that prophets can make errors, with the proof being how Ezekiel’s prophecy was based on incorrect science. I also noted Ralbag’s claim that one of Abraham’s prophecies contained an error. In other words, Hirschensohn’s basic point has an honored precedent.

However, as far as I know, no one prior to Hirschensohn claimed that prophets could make errors in basic theological points. Yet Hirschensohn’s argument is very strong, for his proof is from Cain. Cain must be regarded as a prophet, as God spoke to him. Yet Cain also erred in a basic theological point, as he didn’t think that God’s knowledge was all-encompassing. This incidentally illustrates why according to Maimonides the entire Cain and Abel story cannot be understood as historical. While Hirschensohn is able to say that “not all prophets knew the true divine philosophy,” for Maimonides this is the basis of prophecy and the only way it comes about. The notion that Cain, or Adam for that matter, could have developed his mind philosophically in order to achieve prophecy is obviously not a serious proposition. Therefore, according to Maimonides, it is clear that God never spoke to Cain. In other words, from Maimonides’ perspective the story never actually happened, and must be understood as a philosophical or moral tale.

This interpretation of Maimonides is nothing new. Lawrence Kaplan has already noted that the standard commentaries on Maimonides’ Guide—Efodi, Shem Tov, Falaquera, Ibn Caspi, and Narboni—leave little doubt that in their mind Maimonides’ position is that the births of Cain, Abel, and Seth are to be understood allegorically.[3] When it comes to the Cain story I think the matter is fairly clear-cut, for if a brute like Cain can be regarded as a prophet this would contradict Maimonides’ entire philosophical understanding of what prophecy is.

R. Hananel Sari makes an interesting point that is relevant to what we are discussing.[4] He calls attention to the fact that matters which Maimonides does not regard as having been real historical events are treated as such, for educational or spiritual purposes, in the Mishneh Torah. Maimonides himself writes about how this was the practice of ancient courts in dealing with the Wayward Woman (Hilkhot Sotah 3:2):

ומגידין לה מעשה יהודה ותמר כלתו, ומעשה ראובן בפילגש אביו על פשטו

Sari offers two examples of this phenomenon in Maimonides’ writing. One is the story of the angels coming to visit Abraham, which Maimonides famously understands to have taken place in a dream. Yet from Hilkhot Evel 14:2 the reader would assume that Maimonides understood this event to have actually occurred. The second example Sari offers relates to Cain and Abel. According to the standard medieval commentators to Guide 2:30, Maimonides understands the Cain and Abel episode allegorically. Yet as Sari points out, in Beit ha-Behirah 2:2 Maimonides treats the Cain and Abel story as historical: והוא המזבח שהקריב עליו קין והבל

In fact, it is not only in the Mishneh Torah that we find the phenomenon Sari discusses, but in the Guide as well. Thus, while in Guide 2:42 Maimonides tells us that the entire story of Balaam and the donkey happened in a vision, in Guide 2:6 he speaks of the movements of the donkey as if this was an actual event.[5]

With regard to the story of Cain and Abel, Shalom Rosenberg has explained how Maimonides understood it allegorically:

Cain and Abel embody two types of life which epitomize the fullest development of human potential in man before he has reached his rational level. Maimonides refers here to the legend which says that before Adam begat his third son, Seth, his children for 130 years were demons.[6] For Maimonides, there is no doubt that the demons mentioned in this legend are none but Cain and Abel. Both Cain and Abel stand, for Maimonides, as symbols of types of life which have not reached their full perfection. This is the meaning of demons. For what, after all, is a demon? A demon is created when reason and thought, which are devised for protecting man’s perfection, are exploited by all sorts of devices which produce evil consequences. Thus, Maimonides sees the existence of demons as the most widespread sort of existence, the existence of human beings who are endowed with reason, but use their reason for evil purposes. Thus, a demonic existence is that of Abel, who—as one of Maimonides’ commentators remarks—stands for the fool, or for foolishness. But Cain, too, stands for man who had arrived at many technological achievements, but the purpose of these achievements is evil. When this evil predominates, it becomes the source of murder and war. These are the devices of human reason when used for evil purposes.[7]

Herbert A. Davidson writes:

Maimonides had hinted that the scriptural story of the creation of adam has in view the bringing forth of the entire human species, in other words, mankind in general; that in the rabbinic account of the formation of Eve out of Adam’s side, the male aspect of the original Adam symbolizes the human intellect, and the female aspect, man’s nonintellectual nature; that the serpent’s temptation of Eve and Eve’s temptation of Adam are an allegory for the deflection of the human intellect by the lower faculties of the human soul; that the names of Adam’s first sons, Cain and Abel, have allegorical significance, and that there is significance in Seth’s being the son of Adam from whom the entire species is descended.[8]

In 2000 R. Nissim of Marseilles’ commentary on the Torah, Ma’aseh Nissim, ed. Kreisel, was published, and it too deals with Cain and Abel. R. Nissim states explicitly (p. 271):

וכן שלשה בני אדם: קין והבל ושת – משל. או אם נמצאו ונולדו לאדם, יש בקריאת שמותם רמז והערה לשלש שלמויות האדם.

I think everyone who reads R. Nissim’s commentary will conclude that his preference is for the first possibility, namely, the non-historicity of Adam’s three children.

* * *

1. In this post I referred to what I termed an anti-intellectual comment from R. Kook’s Shemonah Kevatzim. I noted the radical nature of this comment, as it places the Jewish masses, and their natural morality, on a higher plane than the talmudic scholars.[9] I also noted that it is not surprising that R. Zvi Yehudah, recognizing the subversive nature of the comment, did not publish it.

R. Ari Chwat called my attention to the fact that, unlike R. Zvi Yehudah, the Nazir actually published the same sort of comment in Orot ha-Kodesh, vol. 2, pp. 364-365 (=Shemonah Kevatzim 1:140). While here too R. Kook speaks of how the masses need the Torah scholars, again we see that it is actually the Torah scholars who have more to learn from the masses then the reverse. Note how R. Kook privileges the masses, not only when it comes to natural morality, but in a whole host of areas. We see here how R. Kook felt that excessive book learning, with all of its details, had a negative effect on the pure Jewish soul.

הצד הבריא של היושר מצוי הוא באנשים גסים יותר ויותר ממה שהוא מצוי במלומדים ומוסריים, בעלי מחשבה. יותר מובהקים הם המלומדים בדברים הפרטיים של המוסר, בחוקיו ודקדוקיו, אבל עצם הרגשתו זאת היא מצויה באנשים בריאים טבעיים, שהם הם המון, עם הארץ. ולאו דוקא בהרגשת המוסר השרשית עולה הוא ההמון על אנשי הסגולה. גם בהרגשת האמונה, הגדלות האלהית, היופי, החושיות, הכל אשר לחיים בדרך ישרה, בלתי מסוננת על ידי הציורות המלאים שכר אגמי נפש של הדעה והחכמה הוא יותר בריא וטהור בההמון

Again I ask, is this not incredibly subversive? Since the writings of the early hasidic masters, have any of our great sages written anything that so undermines the status of the rabbinic elite? I will have more to say about this, with additional citations in R. Kook’s writings, in future installments to this series.

While not going to the extreme of R. Kook, let me mention a couple of other non-hasidic examples where book learning is “put in its place”, as it were. The late R. Mordechai Elefant told the following story: R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski once asked R. Elijah Hayyim Meisels, the rav of Lodz, why a man of his stature didn’t publish a book. R. Elijah got up, went into the other room, and came back with ledgers full of lists of widows and orphans whom he had helped. He told R. Chaim Ozer, “This is my sefer. All my life I was like you. I thought the important thing was to write a sefer on the Rambam. But as I got older, I realized this sefer is more important.”[10]

R. Hayyim Haikel Greenberg[11] recorded the same lesson in the name of another sage:

שבעת שהיה צעיר חשב שכל העולם זהו ספרים – ועכשיו לעת זקנותו העלפען א ארימע אלמנה אוף שבת און אאידען, וויכטיקער ווי אלע ספרים.

Greenberg mentions that after publishing this he was criticized by many important rabbis, but R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg supported him:

מי כמוני שאוהב ספרים ומחברים וכל העולם שלי זהו רק ספרים – ואני אומר בפה מלא ובלב שלם יישר כח שהדפיס והעתיק זאת.

In speaking of opposition to book learning, here is a text that is simply unbelievable, and which I have never seen mentioned in the scholarly literature.

It is from Midrash ha-Gadol on Genesis (Mossad ha-Rav Kook edition). I don’t understand how the lesson is derived from the verse, but the lesson itself is clear enough: too much Torah study will lead to heresy. This is the sort of thing that one might expect to see in a medieval Catholic source, in justification of keeping the laity ignorant. Yet here we find the same attitude in a Jewish source. There are examples in rabbinic literature where we see that Torah study can have a negative result,[12] but I don’t know of any other text that is so blatant in its opposition to “excessive” Torah study. In the highly unlikely event that there are any high school students reading this who have been slacking off in Torah study, and have been challenged by their rebbe or parents to explain their inaction, see what happens if you pull out this text to explain matters.

I had seen this text a few years ago, and wanting to include it in the post I ordered the volume from interlibrary loan. The copy sent to me was from the University of Pennsylvania, and was originally found in the personal library of the late Dr. Judah Goldin. On the page we are looking at, Goldin underlined the strange passage (and also noted it on the first page of the book). On the side he added a reference to Targum Ps. Jonathan, Num. 22:5. Here it says that Balaam (who is identified with Laban) acted foolishly “from the greatness of his wisdom.” In other words, it was Balaam’s great wisdom that led to his thinking that he could curse the Israelites. Yet this passage only refers to Balaam’s general wisdom. It says nothing of Torah knowledge leading him astray.

With regard to R. Kook’s comments about the natural morality of the simple Jew, Joel Rich sent me chapter 4 of R. Soloveitchik’s Reflections of the Rav, ed. Besdin. The chapter is entitled “The Profundity of Jewish Folk Wisdom,” and is well worth reading. Yet you don’t find in R. Soloveitchik the notion expressed by R. Kook, that the natural morality of the simple Jew is superior to that of the scholar. For R. Kook, the simple Jew has something that the scholar does not have, and the scholar has that which the simple Jew lacks (halakhic knowledge). In this way, each can learn, and indeed is dependant, on the other. In dialectical fashion, the result of this will be a new type of Jew who combines in himself the best of both the scholar and the simple Jew. This is parallel to R. Kook’s discussion of the role of the non-religious. In the creation of the new Eretz Yisrael Jew the non-religious have that which is lacking among the religious, namely, the attachment to the physical world and the strength which Jews used to have when they lived on the Land, but which was forgotten during the long Exile. So the non-religious will bring that to the table, and the religious Jew will obviously bring Torah and spirituality. The result with be a synthesis of the two and the creation of an Eretz Yisrael Jew who, while being both Torah observant and spiritually enlightened will also be strong physically, able to build roads and fight wars. This is how Jews lived in days of old and how they are supposed to live when they return to the Land of Israel.

While R. Soloveitchik might have been attracted to dialectical-type thinking, there was no way that he would see the masses as having anything to give the halakhic scholar. The most the Rav speaks of in this essay is that the common man, even in his speech, reflects Torah values, but not that he is superior in any way to the learned ones.[13]

In this essay the Rav offers a beautiful interpretation of the aggadah in Niddah 30b that before birth a fetus learns all of the Torah and then forgets it when he is born:

Rabbi Simlai is apparently saying that every Jew comes into the world with a natural responsiveness to Torah teaching. Every Jew begins with a share in Torah was vested him before his birth, and, though he is made to forget it, it is preserved in the deep recesses of his soul, waiting to be awakened by study and a favorable environment. Scholars, of course, convert this latent knowledge into actual living knowledge; but the simple Jew also has a share. Some members of the Massorah[!][14] community are scholars whose knowledge is well formulated and codified, while others, though unlearned, may be endowed with inspired and intuitive Torah wisdom . . . [W]hen a Jew studies Torah, he finds it native to his spiritual personality and he responds to it readily.

R. Shalom Messas[15] also offers an interpretation of this Aggadah. According to him, it means that before birth God planted in the fetus the ability to study all of the Torah. The angel, who causes him to forget, represents the yetzer hara which distracts people from studying Torah[16]:

אלא האמת דאין כאן לא מלאך ולא שו”ד, והכל רמז ומשל בעלמא, והכוונה היא כמו שאמרנו, שבשעה שיצר השי”ת את העובר, נתן בו כחות עצומים באופן שיכול לעתיד ללמוד כל התורה אם ירצה . . . ויש בכחו ללמוד את כולה, וכשיוצא לאור העולם בא מלאך הוא הטבע, שכאשר מתחיל לצמוח מתערב עמו היצה”ר ומראה לו יופי הטבע והבריאה ונמשך אחריהם, ומעכבים עליו מללמוד תורה

This, too, is a beautiful perspective. I think people will therefore be surprised to learn that R. Messas was actually criticized by two separate authors, each of whom thought that his allegorical understanding of the Talmud was incorrect. In their opinions the Talmud should be taken literally, that the child really does know all of the Torah. Both of these authors refer to a “yeshivishe story” (with minor discrepancies between them) about how a certain baby was born knowing all the Torah, and from the moment of his birth began “talking Torah.”

I always wonder when I hear Torah knowledgeable Jews repeat such nonsense as this yeshivishe story. What does this say about the Torah they learnt that they can be so gullible? I think the best we can say is that there is a difference between having book knowledge and being wise, and it is the latter that appears to be in such short supply. R. Messas replied to one of the authors in Shemesh u-Magen, vol. 2 pp. 322ff, and here is his reply to the second one, from Shemesh u-Magen vol. 3, p. 325.

I think R. Messas deserves a lot of credit for responding in such a polite fashion. Yet I have no doubt that if you spoke to him privately about this, his words would be much harsher in reflecting on how Torah students can be so foolish in believing such nonsensical stories.[17]

2. I have often been asked if I have pictures of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg. As a matter of fact I do, and here are two that I was given by Moshe Weisz of Zurich, who in the 1960’s was a student in the Montreux yeshiva. In the second picture, Weisz is the one handing Weinberg his coat.

There is actually an amazing picture of Weinberg from his time in the prisoner of war camp. I would have loved to include this in my book, but the person who showed it to me refused to allow me to do so. He didn’t think it was respectful to a great Torah sage for people see him in this state. Yet why is this disrespectful? How was Weinberg supposed to look in such circumstances? Was he supposed to have a black suit and hat? Obviously, Jews did not look their normal selves during the years of the Holocaust. Here, for instance, is a picture of the Belzer Rebbe, R. Aharon Rokeach, with R. Herzog. It appears in Shaul Maizlish, Rabanut be-Sa’arat ha-Yamim, p. 61.

The Belzer Rebbe was one of those rebbes who, for religious reasons, did not like to have pictures taken of himself. Yet because R. Herzog exerted so much effort in order to secure permission for the Rebbe to enter the Land of Israel, he agreed to have his picture taken when R. Herzog requested this. (Or Yisrael 21 [5761]. p. 257). This last source also records the following great story, told by R. Aharon about his father, the previous Rebbe R. Yissachar Dov.

פ”א דיבר מרן מוהר”א מענין זה בשם אביו זצ”ל שאמר שבספר יערות דבש כתוב דברים חריפים אודות עשיית תמונה, אבל היות שכל היהודים אינם מקפידים ע”ז אין ברצוני להיות פרוש מהם, שכלם יהיו בגיהנום ואני יחידי יהיה בגן עדן, טוב לי להיות עם כלל ישראל ביחד

(Yes, I know that someone will point out the irony of R. Yissachar Dov saying that he would rather be in gehinnom with the Jewish people when his son chose precisely the opposite course, and left the gehinnom of Europe. Here is not the place to go into this story. Suffice it to say that I find Monday morning quarterbacking very distasteful. In this case it is even worse, as R. Aharon’s children and grandchildren were all murdered.)

Here is a picture of R. Jacob Avigdor, whom I believe was a Belzer, from those difficult days (together with happier pictures).[18] Does anyone think this reduces him by showing how he looked during the Nazi years?

Incidentally, Moshe Weisz also told me about how in November 1965 Weinberg gave a hesped for four recently deceased rabbis, among them R. Yerucham Warhaftig and R. Eliezer Yehudah Finkel. These latter two were good friends of Weinberg, and Weinberg’s friendship with Finkel went back to their youth. After the eulogy Weinberg asked everyone in the room to stand up. They stood silently for around ten seconds and then he asked them to sit down. I presume this was intended as a show of respect rather than as a moment of silence, since the latter could be done sitting down.

Since I have spoken about pictures in this post, let me also include this picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. It appears courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and I thank Rabbi Jerry Schwarzbard who first showed it to me a few years ago.

As you can see, it is an Israeli stamp from 1999, and it can now be added to Shnayer Leiman’s collection of stamps of rabbis.[19] Yet for some reason the stamp was never put into circulation. I have been unable to find the reason for this, and there is no mention of the stamp in Maya Balakirsky Katz’s recently published The Visual Culture of Chabad (Cambridge, 2010). There are many Lubavitchers who read the Seforim Blog. Perhaps one of you knows the story of this stamp and why it was never released.

As for Balakirsky Katz’s book, I urge Lubavitchers to read it, without preconceptions, and offer their opinions. It appears, to me at least, to be a quite interesting book. I stress the need for no preconceptions since Balakirsky Katz has now been placed by Lubavitchers in the “enemy camp”, along with other contemporary authors such as R. David Zvi Hillman z”l, David Kamenetsky, David Berger, Bryan Mark Rigg, David Assaf, Menachem Friedman, and Samuel Heilman. Balakirsky Katz angered Chabad with her recent article in the AJS Review 34 (2010; “An Occupational Neurosis: A Psychoanalytic Case History of a Rabbi”), and this article is summarized in the new book (but is only a very small part of the book). She argued that the Rebbe R. Shalom Dov Baer Schneersohn (Rashab) was the rabbi who visited the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel in 1903. In those meetings the rabbi spoke about being sexually molested from his youth until his marriage. He also told about his sexual dreams and how he masturbated,[20] and described how his own brother carried on an improper relationship with his (i.e., the rabbi’s) wife (although it does not appear to have led to actual adultery).

I understand that Lubavitchers will regard Balakirsky Katz’s argument as beneath contempt. They will also regard as scandalous the fact that her essay was published in such a prestigious journal as AJS Review. I would not even ask them to dignify the argument with a response, any more than a non-Lubavitcher should be asked to respond to such claims about a close family member; for a hasid, the feelings for a Rebbe are just like those of a close relative. Yet there is a lot more to the book than the few pages dealing with the rabbi and Stekel, and I wonder how Habad insiders will appraise the rest of what she says.

Appendix

To be continued.