Rav Kook’s Missing Student

Rav Kook’s Missing Student[1]

by Bezalel Naor

Recent years have seen a breakthrough regarding the elusive identity of “Monsieur Chouchani,” the mysterious vagabond who in the capacity of mentor, exerted such an incredibly profound effect upon the Nobel-laureate novelist Elie Wiesel as well as the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in the post-war, post-Holocaust years in France. I am referring to the identification of Chouchani as none other than Hillel Pearlman, an early student of Rav Kook in his short-lived Jaffa Yeshivah.[2]

Pivotal to the identification (which we shall not enter into here) is a letter that Rav Kook penned from exile in St. Gallen, Switzerland to two students of the Yeshivah. We offer the letter in English translation:

With the help of God

6 Tishri 5676 [i.e., 1915]

A good conclusion[3] to my beloved soul-friends, each man according to his blessing,[4] the dear “groom,” the Rabbi, sharp and encyclopedic, crowned with rare qualities and character traits, our teacher Rabbi Hillel, may his light shine; and the dear “groom,” exceptional in Torah and awe of heaven, modest and crowned with rare character traits, Mr. Meir, may his light shine.

Peace! Peace! Blessing with abundant love.

My dear friends, for too, too long I delayed the response to your dear letter. In your goodness you will give me the benefit of the doubt. Only as a result of the preoccupation brought on by the pain of exile and the heart’s longing produced by the general situation (God have mercy), were things put off.

Many thanks to you, our dear Mr. Meir, for your detailed letter, whereby you deigned in your goodness to write to us in detail the state of our family members in the Holy Land, especially the state of the girls, may they live.[5] May the Lord repay your kindness and gladden your soul with every manner of happiness and success, and may we together rejoice in the joy of the Land of Delight upon the holy soil, when the Lord will grant salvation to His world, His land and His inheritance, speedily, speedily, soon.

And you, my beloved Mr. Hillel, all power to you for your dear words, upright words pronounced with proper feeling and the longing of a pure heart. We are standing opposite a great and powerful vision previously unknown in human history. There is no doubt that changes of great value are hidden in the depths of this world vision. There is also no doubt that the hand of Israel through the spirit, the voice of Jacob,[6] must be revealed here. Far be it from us to treat as false all the deeds and events, the longing for general life, that we experienced the past years. As much as they are mixed with impurities; as much as they failed to assume their proper form, their living description, their true life—we see in them in the final analysis, correspondence to the holy vision, unmistakable signs that things are happening according to a higher plan. The hand of the Lord holds them, to pave a way for His people, weary from its multitudinous troubles, and also for His world, crouching under the weight of confused life.

It is certainly difficulty at this time to trace which is the way of the process, but in this respect we may be certain: The terrible wandering of such great and essential portions of our nation residing in Eastern Europe, where the spiritual life of Israel is concentrated, and the necessity of rebuilding physically and spiritually new communities, educational institutions and Torah academies—will bring numerous new results, certainly for good. From those new winds that have been blowing in our world for the past half-century and more, something is to be derived, if we can purify them, erecting them upon foundations of purity and holiness. The opinions and longing for spiritual and physical building of Israel; the mighty desire of building the Land and the Nation, despite external and internal obstacles; the visions tucked away in the hearts of numerous thinkers to uplift the horn of Israel and its spirit, to bind together the strength of life with the sanctity of the soul, the talent of understanding with the depth of faith, immediate implementation with longing for salvation—all these are things that will bear fruit, and the Master of Wars, blessed be He, will grow from all of them His salvation.[7]

One thing we know for certain, that we are invited to great projects: philosophic projects; literary and publicistic projects; practical and social projects; projects at the interior of eternal life and projects of temporal and secular life; projects that remain within the border of Israel; and projects that overflow and touch the streams of life of the world at large and their many relations with the world of Israel, which was, is, and will be a blessing to all the families of earth,[8] as the word of the Lord to our ancestor [Abraham] in antiquity.

My beloved, I request that you write to us whatever is [happening] to you, your situation in detail, whether in spiritual or material matters; whatever you imagine might interest us, whether of private or public affairs. For all I will be exceedingly grateful to you, with God’s help.

I am your fast friend, looking for your happiness and success, and your return together with all our scattered people to the holy soil in happiness and success. May the Lord bless you with all good and extend to you peace and blessing and a good conclusion, as is your wish and the wish of one who seeks your peace and good all the days, longing for the salvation of the Lord,

Abraham Isaac Ha[Kohen] K[ook][9]

In order to understand the contents of the letter, the better to grasp the identities of its two recipients, we must first acquaint ourselves with the circumstances in which it was written.

For one decade, from 1904 to 1914, Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook served as Rabbi of the port city of Jaffa (precursor to Tel-Aviv). During those years in Jaffa he taught a select group of students in a yeshivah of his own making. (This yeshivah is not to be confused with the famous Yeshivah Merkaz Harav founded by Rav Kook in Jerusalem in the early 1920s.) In summer of 1914, Rav Kook set sail for Europe to attend the Knessiyah Gedolah or World Congress of the recently organized Agudath Israel movement. Due to the outbreak of World War One (on Tish’ah be-Av of that year), the conference was cancelled. Unable to return to Jaffa, Rav Kook remained stranded in Europe for the duration of the War, first in St. Gallen, Switzerland, where his needs were provided for by a sympathetic Mr. Abraham Kimhi, and later in London, where Rav Kook served as Rabbi of the Mahzikei Hadat synagogue in London’s East End.[10]

Much concerning the Jaffa yeshivah remains shrouded in mystery. No archive remains of this short-lived institution.[11] Thus we are pretty much left in the dark as to the curriculum,[12] enrollment, and even location. Fortunately, significant headway has been made in this direction in the recent article by Moshe Nahmani of the Yeshivat Hesder of Ramat Gan, “She’areha Ne’ulim—Yeshivat Harav Kuk be-Yaffo” (“Closed Gates—The Yeshivah of Rabbi Kook in Jaffa”).[13] Through painstaking research, the author was able to put together a list of students. Researchers had no difficulty identifying the “Hillel” of the letter as Hillel Pearlman. It was merely a case of “connecting the dots.”[14] But Nahmani was baffled by the “Meir” who is one of two co-addressees in our letter.[15]

I believe that I have solved the mystery of the missing Meir. In 1977, I was a visitor to the home of Rabbi Mayer Goldberg of Oakland, California. Rabbi Goldberg was a successful businessman (at that time in real estate) and a Jewish philanthropist, especially supportive of yeshivot or rabbinical academies. Rabbi Goldberg revealed to me that he had studied under Rabbi Kook in Jaffa.[16] He then went on to share with me a teaching of Rav Kook that I have since repeated on many an occasion. He said that before being exposed to Rav Kook’s teaching, the term “yir’at shamayim” (“fear of heaven”) had only a restrictive, narrowing connotation. Rav Kook explained the term in a totally different light. By the term “yir’at shamayim,” Rav Kook conveyed to his young listeners the vastness, the enormity, the infinitude of the universe.

Reading Moshe Nachmani’s article concerning Rav Kook’s yeshivah in Jaffa, and his bafflement as to the full identity of the student named simply “Meir,” I recalled my meeting with Rabbi Mayer Goldberg. I resolved that during my forthcoming visit to the East Bay area (as it has come to be known) I would meet with the late Rabbi’s children to learn from them more details of their father’s involvement with Rav Kook. What emerged from our discussion (conducted on February 14, 2013) is the following reconstruction of events.

Mayer Vevrick was born circa 1890 “near Kiev.”[17] At some time before World War One, Mayer boarded a ship from Odessa to Jaffa. In the words of his daughter Rachel Landes:

Once he arrived in Jaffa, he sought out the yeshiva of Rabbi Kook. Rabbi Avraham Kook was a world renowned scholar and it was there my father headed to study further. He became a “hasid,” a follower of the Rabbi, and thoroughly enjoyed his studies there. He lived in Rabbi Kook’s home.[18] He studied Talmud…with Rashi and the commentaries, for many hours a day with the other young men. These were the happiest days of his life, with uninterrupted Torah study, and the joy of learning with Rabbi Kook. Mayer adopted [Rabbi] Kook’s philosophy and was guided by it for the rest of his life.[19]

In World War One, Mayer left Jaffa for Egypt. There he was held by the British in an internment camp. Eventually, with some ingenuity, he was able to book passage on a boat to the United States.[20] Initially he resided on the East Coast. In Boston, he received a ketav semikha (writ of ordination) from Rabbi [Joseph M.] Jacobson. The semikha was written by Rabbi Jacobson on the spot in recognition of Mayer’s knowledge of Torah.[21] Later, Rabbi Mayer relocated to the West Coast, first to Washington State and finally to California.[22]

What becomes apparent from the letter of Rav Kook is that “Meir” remained in Jaffa after Rav Kook’s departure for Europe (followed almost immediately by the outbreak of World War One), and thus was in a position to give the Rav an update on the welfare of his daughters left behind in Jaffa. What also becomes apparent, is that in the Fall of 1915, “Meir” and his companion Hillel were no longer in the Land of Israel but somewhere else, for in his concluding remarks Rav Kook expresses the wish that they return to the Holy Land. This is consistent with Rabbi Goldberg’s biography, whereby he (along with countless other Jews of Erets Israel) was forced to flee the Holy Land at that time.[23]
This also coincides with the reconstructed biography of Hillel (Pearlman). Both students of Rav Kook, Hillel (Pearlman) and Meir (Goldberg) ended up in the United States in World War One. Whereas we are being told that Hillel (Pearlman) later left the United States for Europe and North Africa, reinventing himself as the mysterious “Monsieur Chouchani,” Mayer Goldberg remained in the United States.

Rabbi Mayer Goldberg passed away on September 25, 1992, a centenarian.[24] Shortly before his passing, Rabbi Goldberg had published in Jerusalem a collection of kabbalistic insights (culled from his marginalia in the books of his library), entitled Margaliyot shel Torah (Pearls of Torah). Much of the material in the book is attributed to the kabbalistic work Yalkut Reubeni.[25] My attention was riveted to an unattributed piece, which would appear to originate with Rabbi Mayer Goldberg himself:

In Exodus 2:12 we read that Moses slew the Egyptian (who was beating a Hebrew) and buried him in the sand. The Hebrew words are: “Vayyakh et ha-mitsri vayitmenehu ba-hol.”

Rabbi Goldberg observes that the word “ha-mitsri” (“the Egyptian”) has the same numerical value (gematria) as the word “Moshe” (“Moses”). In other words, Moses slew himself! The Rabbi then goes on to explain that what is truly conveyed by the verse, is that Moses slew the opinions of Egypt. Moses, growing up in the house of Pharaoh, had imbibed secular knowledge stripped of Godliness. So in other words, on a deeper level, what Moses was actually slaying was himself, or a part of himself that was thoroughly Egyptian in outlook. He then buried that secular learning devoid of Godliness “in the sand.” Here the Rabbi plays on the word “hol,”which may have another meaning beside “sand”: the secular. This is to say, Moses buried that tainted learning in the secular realm.[26]

Mayer Goldberg in youth:

Rabbi Mayer Goldberg in rabbinic attire:

[1] The writer wishes to express his gratitude to Eve Gordon-Ramek and Robert H. Warwick, children of the late Rabbi Mayer Goldberg, for their invaluable contribution to the preparation of this article.

[2] Prof. Shalom Rosenberg, former Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who was present at the time of Chouchani’s death in Uruguay, was so convinced of the identification that he named his son “Hillel” after his revered master. See Moshe Nahmani, “Mi Kan Hillel,” Mussaf Shabbat, Makor Rishon, 3 Ellul, 5771 [2.9.2011]; Yair Sheleg, “Goodbye, Mr. Chouchani,” Haaretz, Sept.
26, 2003; Solomon Malka, Monsieur Chouchani: L’énigme d’un maitre du XXème siècle (Paris, 1994). Recently, a website has been devoted exclusively to Chouchani. At www.chouchani.com we are told that a film is being produced of the life of Mr. Shushani!

I have two anecdotes to contribute to the growing literature on Chouchani, the first heard from Prof. Andre Neher (1914-1988), the second from Rabbi Uziel Milevsky (former Chief Rabbi of Mexico).

·
My dear friend Andre (Asher Dov) Neher z”l had been a distinguished professor of Jewish studies at the University of Strasburg. I knew him in his last years after his retirement to Jerusalem. Neher told me that in his youth, his father had hired Chouchani to teach him Talmud. At their initial meeting it was decided that they would study Tractate Beitsah. Chouchani said to the young Neher: “In the next hour I can either teach you the first folio of the Tractate, or sum up for you the entire Tractate!”

Similarly, in the final phase of Chouchani’s career (in Montevideo, Uruguay), Rabbi Aaron Milevsky (1904-1986), Chief Rabbi of Uruguay, hired Chouchani to tutor his young son Uzi in Talmud. Chouchani rewarded Uzi’s diligence by allowing him to quiz him on any entry in the dictionary. Uzi asked Chouchani for the Latin name of some obscure butterfly, which Chouchani was able to supply without hesitation! (Heard from Rabbi Nachum Lansky of Baltimore, shelit”a, quoting Rabbi Uziel Milevsky z”l.)

At the onset of this article I wish to clarify one point. Should the identification of Hillel Pearlman with “Monsieur Chouchani” one day prove incorrect, that would in no way affect the positive identification of Rav Kook’s addressee “Meir” as Rabbi Mayer Goldberg of Oakland, California. The identification of the mysterious “Meir” as Rabbi Meir Goldberg is in no way contingent upon the identification of Hillel Pearlman as “Chouchani,” but rather stands on its own merits.

[3] Traditional blessing for the New Year uttered between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

[4] Cf. Genesis 49:28.

[5] While Rav Kook and his Rebbetzin (as well as their only son Tsevi Yehudah) were together in Europe, their daughters were left behind in Jaffa, and Rav Kook was most anxious as to their welfare. The family would not be reunited until after World War One, when Rav Kook returned from European exile to the Holy Land.

[6] Genesis 27:22.

[7] Allusion to the conclusion of the Yotser prayer recited in the morning service: “ba’al milhamot, zore’a tsedakot, matsmi’ah yeshu’ot” (“Master of wars, Planter of righteousness, Grower of salvations”). A year into World War One, Rav Kook already envisioned that the outcome of the War would be a shifting of the center of Jewish life from Eastern Europe elsewhere, as well as the further advancement of the building of the Holy Land.

[8] Genesis 12:3.

[9] Igrot ha-Rayah, Vol. III (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1965), Letter 740 (pp. 2-3).

[10] Mr. Jacob Rosenheim, organizer of the Knessiyah Gedolah, subsequently penned a letter of apology to Rav Kook, for by extending the invitation to him to attend the conference, Rosenheim had indirectly brought about Rav Kook’s misfortune.

[11] Moshe Nahmani posits that it existed for 6-7 years from 1909/10-1915.

[12] We do know that one subject on the curriculum, namely Kuzari by Rabbi Judah Halevi, aroused the ire of the Jerusalem zealot Rabbi Isaiah Orenstein. See my translation of Orot (Spring Valley, NY: Orot, 2004), p. 236, n. 169.

[13] Available on the website www.shoresh.org.il, dated 4/17/2012 or 25 Nissan, 5772.

According to Moshe Nahmani, the true reason that so little is known of this earlier yeshivah of Rav Kook is that Rav Kook himself suppressed publicity concerning its inner life, for fear that should word of the curriculum leak out, the yeshivah would come under attack from the ever vigilant rabbis of Jerusalem. (In fact, Rav Kook’s teaching of Kuzari to the students was sharply criticized by the zealous Rabbi Isaiah Orenstein of Jerusalem.) Nahmani believes that Rav Kook was dispensing the arcane wisdom of Kabbalah to the students—sufficient grounds for keeping publicity away from the yeshivah. (But the Kabbalah may not have been the standard Kabbalah as taught in Jerusalem. We know that one of the instructors in the yeshivah was Shem Tov Geffen (1856-1927), an autodidactic genius who fused the study of Kabbalah together with mathematics and physics.) Of course, this is speculation on Nahmani’s part. What is factual, is that Rav Kook taught in Jaffa the Kuzari of Rabbi Judah Halevi and Maimonides’ Eight Chapters (Maimonides’ introduction to his commentary to Tractate Avot or Ethics of the Fathers)—which in themselves represented a departure from the standard curriculum of the contemporary yeshivot.

[14] In one day, 26 Iyyar, 5675, Rav Kook sent two letters from St. Gallen to America (Igrot ha-Rayah, Vol. II [Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1961], Letters 733-734 [pp. 329-330]). The first letter is addressed to Rabbi Meir Berlin asking that he lend assistance to Rav Kook’s student, newly arrived immigrant Hillel Pearlman. The second letter is addressed to Hillel Pearlman himself, expressing pain that he too was exiled from the Holy Land, and offering encouragement, as well as the practical suggestion that he establish contact with Rabbi Meir Berlin, and with Rav Kook’s staunch friend Dr. Moshe Seidel, who might be in a position to help. In a postscript Rav Kook, noting that Hillel Perlman had spent some time in the house after Rav Kook’s own absence, asks for details concerning the welfare of the two Kook daughters left behind in Jaffa, Batyah Miriam and Esther Yael. Logic dictates that our Hillel is Hillel Pearlman of the earlier letters. What eventually became of Hillel Perlman and whether he in fact “morphed“ into “Monsieur Chouchani” remains something of a mystery. See Moshe Nahmani, “Mi Kan Hillel?”

[15] “She’areha Ne’ulim—Yeshivat Harav Kuk be-Yaffo,” Part II, note 51. So too in Nahmani’s earlier article “Mi Kan Hillel?”

[16] He told this writer that before arriving in Jaffa from his native Russia, he had studied under the “Gadol of Minsk.”

According to the memoir of Rabbi Goldberg’s daughter, Rachel Landes, “My Father, Mayer Goldberg” (October 15, 2009), her father grew up in Krementchug, Ukraine. She also writes that at one point in his career, her father studied in a Yeshivah Gedolah under Rabbi Zimmerman. Though Landes does not specify that the Yeshivah was located in Krementchug (to the contrary she writes that the Yeshivah was in Kiev), one ventures a guess that this Yeshivah of Rabbi Zimmerman was actually that of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Halevi Zimmerman, Rabbi of Krementchug. The latter was the father-in-law of Rabbi Baruch Baer Leibowitz (famed student of Rabbi Hayyim Halevi Soloveitchik, known as “Rabbi Hayyim of Brisk,” and himself Rosh Yeshivah of Knesset Beit Yitzhak, first located in Slabodka, and between the two World Wars in Kamenetz) and grandfather of Rabbi Dr. Aharon Chaim Halevi Zimmerman (1915-1995), Rosh Yeshivah of Beit ha-Midrash le-Torah (Hebrew Theological College) in Skokie, Illinois. (Rabbi Dr. Zimmerman’s father, Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Halevi Zimmerman was the son of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Halevi Zimmerman of Krementchug.) But again, this is mere conjecture on my part.

[17] According to Rachel Landes’ memoir, her father was born in Krementchug. In his Application for a Certificate of Arrival and Preliminary Form for Petition for Naturalization (1940), Mayer writes that he was born in “[illegible] near Kiev.” Mayer adopted the surname “Goldberg” in the United States.

[18] The fact that Meir (or Mayer) resided in the Kook home would explain how he was able to supply Rav Kook with information concerning the Rav’s daughters. Nahmani noted that Rav Kook had earlier asked Hillel Perlman for details concerning the girls, the assumption being that Hillel Perlman had resided in the Rav’s home (though that is not explicitly stated in Rav Kook’s letter to Hillel Pearlman). See Moshe
Nahmani, “Mi Kan Hillel?”

[19] Rachel Landes, “My Father, Mayer Goldberg” (2009), p. 2.

[20] According to Mayer Warwick Goldberg’s Application for a Certificate of Arrival and Preliminary Form for Petition for Naturalization (1940), he booked passage on a Greek steamship from Alexandria, Egypt to New York under the assumed name “Othniel Kaplan” in Spring of 1915 or 1916. Writing twenty-five years after the fact, Mayer could no longer recall the precise date, whether the arrival in New York had taken place in Spring of 1915 or Spring of 1916. We are in a position now to aid his memory. We know from Rav Kook’s letters to Rabbi Meir Berlin and to Hillel Pearlman, both datelined “St. Gallen, 26 Iyyar 5675,” that as of Spring 1915, Hillel Perlman was in America. In order for Rav Kook’s letter of 6 Tishri, 5676 to be addressed jointly to Hillel and Meir, Meir too would have had to reside in America by Fall of 1915. That could only be so if Meir (or Mayer) arrived in New York in Spring of 1915—not 1916!

[21] The fact that Rav Kook does not address Meir by the title “Harav” in the salutation (as he does Hillel) indicates that Meir was not yet an ordained rabbi in the Fall of 1915.

[22] According to information supplied in his 1940 Application for…Naturalization, Mayer resided in New York City and Brooklyn from 1916 to 1917; in New Haven and Colchester, Connecticut from 1917 to 1919; in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington from 1919 to 1922; in San Francisco from 1922 to 1930; and in Oakland from 1930 to 1940.

[23] To quote from Rachel Landes’ memoir (p. 2): “…World War I broke out. The Turks, who were in control of Palestine, sided with Germany, and Russia was on the side of the Allies. My father, being from Russia, found himself classified as an enemy alien. The Turks began to round up all foreign nationals. It became clear that my father could not stay there.”

[24] At the 24th Annual Banquet of the Hebrew Academy of San Francisco, held on Sunday, December 6, 1992, a moving tribute was paid to the recently departed Rabbi Mayer Goldberg.

[25] Yalkut Reubeni (Wilmersdorf, 1681), by Reuben Hoshke HaKohen (Sofer) of Prague (died 1673), is a kabbalistic collection on the Pentateuch.

[26] Rabbi Mayer Goldberg, Margaliyot shell Torah (Jerusalem, 5750), p. 112. The Hebrew original reads:

ויך – 36 כמנין ל”ו כריתות [משנה, כריתות א, א], משה כרת את המצרי, כרת את החיצונים, ויטמינם בחולין. המצרי שהרג משה – הדעות של מצרים שמשה למד, חיצוניות בלי אלוהות –הרג וטמן בחולין, כי מש”ה בגימטריא המצר”י.

‘Masa’ot Yerushalayim’ and the ‘Sabba Kaddisha’ R. Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari

‘Masa’ot Yerushalayim’ and the ‘Sabba Kaddisha’ R. Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari

By: Moshe Maimon

One of the greatest and most unique Torah scholars, Sephardic or otherwise, of the past 100 years was R. Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari . His life spanned about a century[1] and his prolific rabbinic career included stints in Istanbul, Damascus, Safed and Jerusalem. Besides for being an outstanding scholar with a near-photographic memory he was also extremely diligent and was a prodigious writer of responsa and novellae. Additionally, he was renowned as an independent thinker and outspoken critic of many of the societal norms prevalent around him including Zionism and modernity, and he had little tolerance for those who he felt had strayed from the torah-true path.[2] This quality earned him many admirers and not a few adversaries, but all admitted that R. Shlomo Eliezer’s sole motivation was the truth and he did nothing for personal gain. Indeed, despite his considerable means, he lived a life of asceticism and completely shunned any form of publicity.

Amongst his native Sephardic brethren he was known as ‘Chacham Mercado Alfandari’.[3] This unusual-sounding surname; ‘Mercado’, meaning ‘purchased’ in Ladino, was somewhat common in his native Turkey and was indicative of the fact that it’s bearer had undergone a symbolic ceremony in his youth whereby he was ‘sold’ and redeemed. This practice is mentioned in Sefer Hasidim (#245) and was widespread in Sephardic lands.[4] My Great-uncle, Sam Bension Maimon, himself a Turkish native, in his book The Beauty of Sephardic life (p. 188) has this to say about that interesting custom:

This practice of “purchase,” was followed by a family that was blessed with a newborn baby, but had previously suffered the loss of an infant before the new arrival. In order to ensure the life of the muevo nasido (newborn baby), they would go through a formality in which a relative or a friend would “purchase” this baby from the parents, thus transferring ownership. This was done to outsmart the evil spirits and ward off their fatal hold on this family’s offspring that was marked for a fatal accident. So, if it was a boy, he was called Mercado; or if it was a girl, she was called Mercada.[5]

Today, however, he is more popularly known as ‘the Sabba Kaddisha’ which was the title bequeathed upon him by the Minchas Elazar of Munkacz; R. Chaim Elazar Shapira, who was largely responsible for bringing this sage to the attention of the greater public especially in Europe among the Ashkenazim. This also was used as the title of his response – שו”ת הסבא קדישא. In a sense, the Munkaczer was also responsible for shaping the perception that many people have of R. Alfandari, as his perspective as detailed in his writings and in Masa’ot Yerushalayim, is the lens through which many see the Sabba Kaddisha.

The Munkaczer, after hearing about this extraordinary personality almost completely coincidentally, gradually became convinced that this sage was the ‘Holy elder’ or Sabba Kaddisha of the generation. According to a personal Hassidic tradition he had, the Holy Elder of every generation was capable of bringing the Messiah. This is what drew this great Hassidic leader, born and bred in Ashkenazic/Hassidic Hungary to R. Alfandari, although from a distance it might have seemed that the two made strange bedfellows. R. Alfandari, for his part, was delighted to make the acquaintance of an important Torah leader who shared his extreme views on Zionism and modernity.

Masa’ot Yerushalayim; Journey To Jerusalem: A review

There are various sources which provide biographical information on this unique sage,[6] but predominant among them is the detailed account of the Munkaczer Rebbe’s trip to meet R. Alfandari in the late spring of 1930 shortly before the latter’s passing. This account was written by a follower of the Rebbe, who accompanied him on his trip, by the name of R. Moshe Goldstein. The book, entitled Masa’ot Yerushalayim which also contains a biographical section on R. Alfandari[7] was first published 1931 in Munkacz and has been published many times since. This monumental meeting between east and west is a most interesting narrative and in addition to providing insight into the lives of these great scholars, it also allows for a view of pre-war Israel which is the backdrop for this meeting.

The book was recently translated into English by Artscroll (in 2009) and is called Journey to Jerusalem. It is this last work which I will focus on. Unfortunately, instead of adhering to their usual high standard and putting in the type of quality effort they have come to be known for into producing a professional edition of this classic, I found it to be lacking in many basic areas. First off, it is essentially just a simple translation from the original, complete with the archaic syntax such as ‘the Holy Rebbe’, ‘the Holy shul’, etc. Generally speaking, such prose, although sounding fine in Rabbinic Hebrew, nevertheless grates on the ears when rendered into English.

Additionally, the ’famed’ Artscroll system of transliteration[8] was dropped in the case of this book, instead they adopted in many instances
the Hungarian Hasidic mode of pronunciation. Understandably, this can be accepted when mentioning the Minchas Elazar who was known to his Hasidim as the Minchas Eluzar; but what justification is there, on the other hand, for spelling out Rabbi Eluzar son of Rabbi Shimon (p. 136) and Rabbi Eluzar Azikri (p. 157)?

In one instance (p. 205) they transliterated the Hebrew spelling of the Isle of Rhodes (רודיס) and thereby refer to “…The great Rabbi Rephael Yitzchak Yisrael, rav of Rudis (!)”.

In one case a faulty translation of the original completely corrupts the meaning of the sentence such as when discussing the origin of the famous Abohab Synagogue in Safed the author writes parenthetically:

אינו נודע אם זהו בעהמח”ס מנורת המאור או זקינו.

In English they got it backwards and wrote (p. 148):

It is unclear whether it was he or his grandfather who authored the Menoras Hamaor.

So much for style, but when it comes to content there are also quite a few editorial blunders such as when they refer to the Maharit (= Moreinu Harav Yosef diTrani) as Rabbi Yitzchak (!) of Trani (p. 204). One particularly egregious oversight can be found in the following paragraph (from p. 142 – 143):

The story is told in the holy Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol’s accounts of his travels in Eretz Yisroel that because of Rabbi Alkabetz’s great wisdom, the gentiles envied him, and an Arab killed him and buried him under a tree in his garden. When the tree bore fruit early, people investigated. The crime was discovered, and the murderer was hanged on that very tree. This story is recorded in the holy work Kav Hayashar (chapter 86) about Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz.

Besides for the obvious problem with this story being that R. Shlomo Ibn Gabirol preceeded R. Alkabetz by 500 years, there are two contradictory sources given for this tale, namely the supposed ‘accounts of R. Ibn Gabirol’s travels’ (a non-existent work) and Kav Hayashar. A quick check with the Hebrew Edition will reveal the source of this error. Here is the original:

ולפלא, כי המעשה שהביאו בספרי תיירי ארץ הקודש מהקדוש מה״ר שלמה בן גבירול שמרוב חכמתו נתקנאו בו אומות העולם, וישמעאל אחד הרגו והטמינו תחת אילן בגן שלו, ועל ידי שהתאנה חנטה פגיה קודם זמנה חקרו, ואכן נודע הדבר ונתלה הרוצח על אותו אילן, מובא בספר הקדוש קב הישר (פרק פ״ו) על מה״ר שלמה אלקבץ ז״ל, יעיין שם.

What he is saying is that he was amazed to find that different accounts of tourists’ travels in Israel record a story supposedly about R. Shlomo Ibn Gabirol, while in Kav Hayashar it is reported to have happened to R. Shlomo Alkabetz. This is indeed an important bibliographical point, but In truth this legend is actually quoted in Shalshelet hakaballah regarding Ibn Gabirol[9] and although the authenticity of this sefer is often questioned, there can be no doubt that the legend predates R. Shlomo Alkabetz and indeed no contemporary sources indicate that R. Alkabetz had anything but a peaceful end. Even though all early prints of Kav Hayashar that I have checked say R. Shlomo Alkabetz, the context leaves no doubt that it is a mistake and should read Ibn Gabirol.[10]

Censorship and political correctness in Masa’ot Yerushalayim

It is clear that the English edition is a translation from the latest Hebrew Edition published in 2003[11] by Emes publishing ltd. (the official publishing house of the Munkacz Hasidim in Brooklyn).[12] This addition is somewhat different from the first edition and I am not sure on what basis these changes were made. In addition to the footnotes which were actually parenthetical remarks included in the text in the original they have added numerous footnotes expanding and cross-referencing the material[13] and there is no differentiation made between the original footnotes and the later ones. There are also various differences in the text itself. For instance the original edition when describing the Grave of R. Haim ibn Attar, (the author of Ohr Hachaim) the first edition (p.25b) adds:

‘סמוך למנוחת האוה”ח הקדוש שם ג”כ מנוחת אשתו ושתי יבמות שהיו לו לנשים’

The 2003 edition is less shocking in it’s revelation by stating instead:

‘סמוך למנוחת האור החיים הקדוש שם גם כן מנוחת שתי נשיו‘

This is also the version found in the English translation and if memory serves correct, contemporary restorations at the actual gravesite reflect the veracity of the later edition. In fact, this may be the reason they took the initiative, justified or not, to change the text.[14]

On another occasion the altering of the text was clearly intended to avoid possible fallout with today’s Yeshiva adherents. I refer you to the passage in the first edition (p.87b-88a) which recounts how certain members of the Hareidi Rabbis of Jerusalem approached the Munkaczer Rebbe in an attempt to find a solution to the problem of the negative effect the recently established Hebroner yeshiva was having on native Jerusalmite youth on account of the former’s modern style of dress.[15] The Rebbe hastened to consult with R. Alfandari who wisely advised him not to make a commotion over it as such a fuss would only have negative ‘political results’. It reads like this:

בהיות רבנו שליט”א בתוככי ירושלים באו אליו גדולים חקרי לב מהרבנים החרדים שם ליהנות ממנו עצה ותושי’ כדת מה לעשות ע”ד ישיבת סלאבאדקע שהיתה מלפנים בחברון ואחר הפרעות והשחיטות ר”ל נעתקו משם וקבעו ישיבתם בירושלים והמה רובם ככולם (אם כי למדנים הם) הולכי קצוצי פאות וזקן ומגדלי בלורית ורגילים לזה ממדינתם ובהיותם בחברון שאין שם ישוב חסידים מהאשכנזים כ”כ לא הזיקו לאחרים משא”כ פה בקרתא דשופריא עיר מלאה חכמים חסידי עליון ירעו וישחיתו לנו ולבנינו ותלמידי ישיבתנו שילמדו מהם ח”ו בדמותם כצלמם.

רבנו בשמעו את כל התלאה הזאת הלך להתייעץ עם הסבא קדישא הרב מהרש”א אם להרעיש עליהם כעת אחרי שנמלטו על נפשם מהפראים וכו’. והוא השיב בחכמת שלמ”ה אשר בקרבו כי יש לחוש בעודם בחמימות מהרוגי חברון שנשחטו גם מתלמידי ישיבתם (ובתוכם יראי ה’ הי”ד) ואם ירעישו עליהם יכנסו תחת כנפי אותו האיש קוק וכל משרד הרבנות הציונית שר”י ועי”ז יתרבה חילם עי ישיבת סלאבאדקי מפורסמת בעולם והראש מתיבתא שלהם מפורסם ללמדן ע”כ שוא”ת עדיף כעת…

וכשאני לעצמי כשבאו תלמידי סלאבאדקא לביתי לדבר דברי תורה, וראיתים בלי זקן ופיאות ומגדלי בלורית, אמרתי להם על הכתוב (שיר השירים ב, יד) הראיני את מראיך (צלם אלקים על פי התורה. ואחר כך) השמיעיני את קולך בדברי תורה. אבל כשהוא ההיפך לא אדבר עמכם, ודחיתים כי הם באמת מחריבי קרתא קדישא. וכן יעשה גם הדר״ת להזהיר לאנשי שלומו ויראי אלקים להתרחק מישיבתם, אבל לא לצאת עתה בקול רעש מטעם הנ”ל עכתד”ה.

The 2003 edition censors this passage and simply writes:

בהיות רבינו שליט״א בתוככי ירושלים באו אליו גדולים חקרי לב מהרבנים החרדים שם ליהנות ממנו עצה ותושיה כדת מה לעשות על דבר פרצה מיוחדת שנפרצה בעיר ה׳. ושאל רבנו להסבא קדישא מה לעשות במחיצת כרם בית ישראל שנפרצה. וענה לו הסבא קדישא כי יש לחוש וכו’ על כן שב ואל תעשה עדיף כעת…

וכן סיפר הסבא קדיש אל רבינו כשבאו תלמידי ישיבה מסוימת לביתי לדבר דברי תורה, וראיתים בלי זקן ופיאות ומגדלי בלורית, אמרתי להם על הכתוב (שיר השירים ב, יד) הראיני את מראיך (צלם אלקים על פי התורה. ואחר כך) השמיעיני את קולך בדברי תורה. אבל כשהוא ההיפך לא אדבר עמכם, ודחיתים כי הם באמת מחריבי קרתא קדישא. וכן יעשה גם הדר״ת להזהיר לאנשי שלומו ויראי אלקים להתרחק מהם, אבל לא לצאת עתה בקול רעש, עד כאן תורף דבריו הקדושים.

There is no reason to suspect that this was done to protect the identity of R. Kook, because this edition shows little sympathy for R. Kook, in fact in the preceding paragraphs dealing with R. Alfandari’s opposition to R. Kook, the Chief Rabbinate[16], and even to Agudath Israel, nothing is omitted and the material is buttressed with lengthy footnotes detailing all the letters written by various Rabbis opposing Zionism in general and the Chief Rabbinate in particular. It is obvious that sensitivities for the Slabodka Yeshiva are at the root of this censorship. This is also why the next passage (from p. 88a), which I am loath to reproduce here, detailing R. Alfandari’s assessment of R. M.M. Epstein and R. Kook is also omitted in the 2003 edition.

Needless to say the English edition not only follows lead of the 2003 edition in censoring the Slabodka passages but also omits all of the anti R. Kook passages such as this one, from p. 229 in the 2003 edition:

כשבאו אליו אח”כ אנשים גם רבנים או אדמורי״ם שבאו לא”י, ושמע שהיו אצל ׳קוק׳ רב חראשי של המשרד חציונית והחפשים, לא אבה לקבלם להכניסם לביתו, ואמר הלא כבר היה אצל קוק[17] ומה יחפצו ממני, ומדוע אתם פוסחים על שתי חסעיפים.

Gone too are the following statements regarding Agudath Israel attributed to R. Alfandari, and with them a possible window into the special relationship he shared with the Munkaczer:

פעם אחד שאלו אותו לחוות דעתו בענין האגודה. והשיב שאין חילוק בין הציונים והמזרחים והאגודים רק בשמא, וחוט המקיף את כולם הוא הכסף והשתררות ולא כבוד שמים. על כן היה אוהב מאוד כששמע מצדיק ואדמו״ר אשר לא כרע לבעל לשום אחת מהמפלגות וכתות הנזכרים לעיל, ואדרבה מוחה בהם ומקנא קנאת ה׳ צבאות. ואמר כי מדה זו אהוב לו מן הכל ועולה על כולנה יותר מבקיאות התורה והפלגה בחסידות וזכות אבות, אם כי רב הוא.

Understandably, the English speaking audience this book is intended for is not as virulently anti-Zionist as the Munkacz/Satmar Hasidic base that the Hebrew edition was intended for and certainly wouldn’t countenance any anti-Agudah sentiments and therefore excised the more extreme passages from its translation. It is therefore all the more surprising that the following passage got by the careful eye of the censor and made it into the English edition on P. 178:

We found out that the main reason they did not keep their word was because they were afraid of their rabbi and leader, Yaakov Maier, a member of the official rabbinate, which the Sabba Kaddisha strenuously opposed. Immediately after the Sabba Kaddisha’s demise the zealous Torah scholars of Jerusalem warned Yaakov Maier not to come eulogize him.

Obviously they did not realize that despite R. Yaakov Meir’s affiliation with the Rabbinate as the Sephardic Rishon L’zion, nevertheless he was widely respected by virtually all segments of orthodox Jewry[18]. Indeed another popular Artscroll biography actually lauds R. Yaakov Meir for forging a close connection with Jerusalem’s Ultra-Orthodox Eidah Hachareidit and working together with them on various occasions.[19] Most likely, the American proofreader did not know who this famous Israeli-Sephardic personality was and thus allowed this disrespectful passage though.

In conclusion

The biographical information available on R. Alfandari is sparse, and precious little of it pertains to the bulk of his life before his move to Jerusalem in his final decade. There is certainly much more to the picture we could gain from a fuller biography of his life, also taking into perspective the vastly different milieu that he sprouted from. Yet, the detailed picture we have from the period of the Munkaczer’s visit certainly is an accurate portrayal of at least one dimension of his great personality. As I have demonstrated, the reader is best served consulting the original version where possible to obtain a more complete and accurate snapshot of this historic encounter.

In the case of R. Alfandari, this sort of contest for understanding and presenting his legacy is a testament to his greatness, his broad appeal, and to his own multi-faceted personality. He is certainly worthy of further in-depth study, and a full-length professional biography would certainly give us much to learn from and be inspired. However, this will only be true if the study is free of the constraints of bias and preconceived notions.

[1] It is difficult to pinpoint his exact year of birth and many different dates have been given. Masa’ot Yerushalayim, on the basis of a statement of R. Shlomo Eliezer regarding his involvement in the Damascus Blood Libel of 1840, assumes that he had to have been born at least by 1810 and thereby making him 120 years old at the time of his death in 1930. In Ohalei Shem (pinsk 1912) p. 507 he is mistakenly referred to as ר’ חיים(!) מירקאדו אלפנדרי, and this has caused many to overlook his entry there, but there it states that he was born in 1846. Most sources give 1826 as the year of his birth.

[2] This quality was unique even among Ashkenazic Rabbis of that era but certainly among the Sephardic Rabbis. See what R. Yosef-Zundel of Salant had to say about his Sephardic contemporaries in Ha-tzaddik R. Yosef Zundel M’Salant p. 37 to wit ‘רבני הספרדים שיחיו…אעפ”י שהם ת”ח וצדיקים אכן אין הם יודעים מעניני האשכנזים כלל… ודאי כוונתם לש”ש אמנם יותר טוב היה להם השתיקה ולא להתערב בעניני האשכנזים’ .

[3] His name has understandably been misunderstood and misspelled by Ashkenazic writers. See for example: Mara D’ara Yisrael vol. 2 page 201 where he is addressed as כמהר”ר אלעזר מלכאדו אלפנדרי.

[4] In fact, the Hida writes in glosses to Sefer Hasidim (Brit Olam ad. loc.): ‘בראותי דברי רבנו הנאני דכך נוהגים במדינת תוגרמה ומתקיימים ונמצא שרש הענין בדברי רבנו ז”ל’. See also the other sources referenced in R. Margolies edition. R. Eliezer Brodt pointed out that some Ashkenazic scholars have also followed the advice of Sefer Hasidim, such as the Aderet; see his Seder Eliyahu p. 30.

[5] The practice of calling a child by anything other than his given surname may seem strange today but it had a parallel among Sephardim not too long ago, where many firstborns were called “B’chor” to the point of where his official surname was all but forgotten. See Keter Shem Tov (Keidan 1934) vol. 1 p. 680 where he writes: ‘המנהג בא”י וסת”מ כשנולד בן בכור, מלבד שם העריסה, קוראין אותו בשם “בכור” ולנקבה “בכורה”, ושם העריסה משתקע לגמרי. ואם יש לו משרה דתית קוראים לו רבי בכור, חכם בכור, או האדון בכור’.

[6] Including articles in these two publications here and here. The latter article by R. Aharon Surasky was later expanded and included in his Orot Hamizrach.

[7] This section was printed recently as the introduction to a new work of R. Alfandari’s published from manuscript by Ahavat Shalom (2011), as part of new initiative to publish more of his writings, called Yakhel Shlomo. Surprisingly, they attribute the article to the noted Jerusalem Kabbalist R. Yeshaya Asher Zelig Margolies. I am not sure how they could have made that mistake since it was clearly part of R. Goldstein’s work although he does credit R. Margolies, among others, for providing him with valuable information on R. Alfandari.

[8] See here.

[9] See here. The language used by R. Goldstein is too similar to that of Shalshelet Hakabbalah to be a coincidence and it is therefore surprising that he gave such a vague reference. The story is also recounted in Divrei Yosef (Jerusalem 2011) p. 81 with regards to R. Shlomo Ibn Gabirol.

[10] In the edition published by Machon Haktav (Jerusalem 2001) available here they have corrected it but leave no clue as to on what basis they did so. The legend itself has been shown to be inaccurate. See Yeshurun 25 pp. 769-770 and also R. Eliezer Brodt’s fine article here.

[11] The prologue to the English edition, basing itself on the Hebrew תשסד, mistakenly claims it was published in 2004.

[12] Available here.

[13]Some of which just don’t make any sense, such as this one (from the English edition p. 152): ‘Rabbeinu David ibn Zimra, who taught much Torah and had many great students. He wrote over 2000 halachic rulings, of which only 300 were printed.’ I can’t figure out what is the basis for this statement as there are actually well over 2000 responsa printed from the Radvaz.

[14] R. E. M. Reich pointed out that in Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim vol. 3 p. 10, the author states that although according to folklore the two women buried adjacent to the Ohr Hachaim were יבמות, in reality they were his two wives. Interestingly enough, the account in Masa’ot Yerushalayim mentions three women altogether. It would seem that Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim is the source for this change as you can tell by looking at the interesting footnote in the 2003 ed. (ad. loc.) which was lifted straight from Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim. To wit: מקובל כי הן .היו נשים גדולות ומופלאות במעשיהן, ומנהגיהן היה להתעטף בטלית ולהתלבש בתפלין על דרך שאיתא במיכל בת שאול The only difference is that in Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim this is only reported with regards to the second of his two wives. See also R. Rueven Margolies’ Toldot R. Chaim ibn Attar pp 45-46. Interestingly, he records an unsubstantiated report that there were four יבמות in addition to the two wives.

[15] It is noteworthy that R. Dov Cohen, a Slobodka student at that time, reported that the transition to Jerusalem was smooth ‘and almost completely devoid of any opposition’. See his memoirs: Vayelchu Shneihem Yachdav (Feldheim 2009) p. 250.

[16] R. Alfandari was so opposed to the Rabbinate that when he heard that R. Tzvi Pesah Frank, who had been close with him, had become involved with the Rabbinate, he remarked that it was ‘חמץ שנמצא בפסח’. I heard this from a descendant of R. Asher Zelig Margolies.

[17] It is instructive that in a written correspondence reproduced on p. 228 of the 2003 ed., R. Alfandari refers to R. Kook respectfully as הר’ מהרא”י קוק ה”י even when disagreeing with him sharply. It may be the zealotry of R. Goldstein who saw fit to leave out the honorifics in this quotation.

[18] To be sure, his appointment to this position after the death R. Elyashar in 1906, was not without controversy, as many favored R. Elyashar’s son to succeed him over the Alliance-trained and Zionist-inclined R. Yaakov Meir. In some cases he proved himself to be too right-wing for some factions, such as when he opposed the Vaad Ha’leumi for giving women the right to vote. See B’toch Hachomot (Jerusalem 1948) pp. 334-335.

[19] See Guardian of Jerusalem (Artscroll 1983) p. 401.

A Letter from R. Nathan Kamenetsky

A Letter from R. Nathan Kamenetsky

In response to my last post on the Seforim Blog, R. Nathan Kamenetsky sent me a long e-mail. Because of its value to those with an interest in the Lithuanian Torah world, I asked Rabbi Kamenetsky for permission to post it here, and he graciously agreed – Marc Shapiro

The central figure, albeit a mostly passive one, in the story I shall tell below is R’ Maisheh Finkel, one of the twin sons who were the youngest children of the Alter of Slabodka, born around 1887. The other twin was R’ Shmuel Finkel, whose son became a caterer in Chicago and is the father of the recently deceased son-in-law of R’ Bainish Finkel (son of the the Alter’s oldest son R’ Laizer-Yudel), R’ Noson-Zvi Finkel, a namesake of his great-grandfather the Alter of Slabodka who served as the Rosh of the mighty Yeshivat Mir of Jerusalem for about thirty years.

R’ Maisheh was far superior in Torah talent to his twin R’ Shmuel. Someone described to me R’ Maisheh’s learning pose; he would pace back and forth the length of the beit midrash, and if someone asked a good question, R’ Maisheh would give him one reply as he passed the questioner on the first time he transversed the beit midrash, then give him a second answer when he passed by him a second time, and a third answer when he passed him by for the third time. Raised by his mother – the Alteh lived in Kelem, not Slabodka, till the latter part of the first decade of the 20th century: see MOAG pp. 594-596 — the Alter had at first sent him to learn under R’ Baruch-Ber Leibowitz in Hlusk, and then brought him to Slabodka. R’ Maisheh married Zlateh, the daughter of the Slabodka Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Moshe-Mordkhai Epstein, in 1913, and was appointed as a maggid shiur in the Slabodka Yeshiva.

When the Slabodka Yeshiva opened a branch in the city of Chevron in the winter of 1925, R’ Maisheh was sent along with the first talmidim to be a maggid shiur there. The Alter himself came to Palestine in the summer of 1925 – not as the mashgiach, but as a retiree – and three months later, R’ Maisheh died. Chiddushei Torah of R’ Maisheh Finkel were published beginning in 1986 by R’ Chaim-Dov Altusky, Rabbi Pinchas Scheinberg’s late son-in-law, under the name “Chiddushei Hagram Mislabodka” (together with “Chiddushei Hamasbir”, with the last word created from the acronym of Harav Morainu Soloveitchik Ber Yosheh, Reb) on various massekhtot. Rabbi Altusky had gotten R’ Maisheh’s manuscripts from a (posthumous) daughter-in-law of R’ Maishe’s.

Before we go on with the story, I will quote Rabbi Altusky from one of the introductions of “Chiddushei Hagram Mislabodka” where he quotes R’ Yeruham Levovitz, celebrated Mashgiach of the Mirrer Yeshiva, as having written about R’ Maisheh: “I always said that in a generation which has a great timber as he (ilan gadol kamohu), Israel is not yet widowed (od lo alman Yisrael), and in his light shall we see radiance (b’oro nir’eh or).” Rabbi Altusky points out that R’ Yerucham wrote this when such greats as R’ Chaim-Ozer, R’ Shimon Shkop, R’ Baruch Ber Leibowitz and the Kovner Rav fully functioned; but Rabbi Altusky does not explain why it was R’ Maishe Finkel’s presence that assured R’ Yeruham that lo alman Yisrael. The Alter and his talmid R’ Yeruham saw the ideal gadol baTorah, the ilan hagadol, as one who is equally great in Torah and in Musar – and this combination was very rare to find. They both saw that R’ Maishe filled that prescription – also cf. MOAG pp. 805-806 on what the Alter thought of his son.

Verily, according to one of Altusky’s introductions, R’ Maisheh was “designated (m’yu’ad)” to succeed both his father as Mashgiach and his father-in-law as Rosh Yeshiva; this is surely something that his daughter-in-law had heard within the family and passed on, together with the manuscripts, to Rav Altusky. Also see MOAG pp. 756 and 765 that R’ Maisheh would be his father’s agent to carry through sensitive matters. [Do you, R’ Mailech, have my Improved Edition or only the original MOAG? The Improved Edition has a asterisked footnote on page 1278 regarding the Alter’s high estimation of his son and also pertains to the subject of your landmark book, viz., to R’ Yehiel-Yankev Weinberg.]

Now to the body of the story. I shall tell it in the way it came to me. My father had said several times, “The (Slabodka) Yeshiva was so dear to the Alter, that he would be willing to sacrifice a child for it.” I never understood what he meant by this Aqaidah metaphor (nor did I question my father about it) until I arrived in Israel and repeated it to R’ Laizer Goldschmidt, a dayyan on the Beit Din Hagadol and husband of Miriam nee Plachinsky, a granddaughter of the Alter of Slabodka, asking him what my father had meant. He explained that Slabodka talmidim attributed R’ Maisheh death at so early an age to his having broken his engagement to another girl in order to marry R’ Moshe-Mordkhai’s daughter. He had been engaged to Chava-Leah Hutner of Warsaw (who later became the wife of R’ Tzvi-Yehudah Kook). (You may look up MOAG pp. 791-798 where I conjecture that this breakup brought about [in a convoluted way] R’ Hatzqel Libshitz’s decision to turn down the rabbanut of Kovno – thus opening the door for R’ Avraham-Dober Kahana-Shapiro’s appointment.) Incidentally, when R’ Yitzchak Hutner, later of Yeshivat Rabbenu Chaim Berlin, came to study in Slabodka after WWI, the Alter was ill at ease with him because he was closely related to the jilted young lady, and had his major talmid R’ Avrohm Grodzinsky, by then part of the Musar-hanhalah – see MOAG p. 806 – deal with the neophyte.

And why did R’ Maisheh break up? Because the wife of the Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Moshe-Mordkhai, insisted on it: she insisted that R’ Maisheh marry her daughter Zlateh. The Alter of Slabodka felt that if he would enter into bad relations with (Menuhah Epstein, and hence with) R’ Moshe-Mordkhai, the yeshiva would suffer. And he was willing to sacrifice his son on the altar of Yeshivas Slabodka. It is said that when the Alter was told of his son’s demise, he repeated Job’s words (3:25) “What I greatly feared is come upon me; what I had apprehended has come on me.” In MOAG, I have an excursus on pp. 1061-1064 about the power certain wives of rashei yeshiva wielded in some old yeshivot – especially the Netziv’s (niece, who became his) second wife, sister of R’ Baruch Epstein. When R’ Maisheh broke his engagement, R’ Hayyim Soloveichik was angry with the Alter, saying, “For politics one does not embarrass a Jewish daughter” – see MOAG pp. 419-420.

But I had a problem: if Menuha Epstein was intent enough on having the ‘iluy Maisheh Finkel marry her daughter that she would have him break his earlier engagement, why did she allow him to get engaged to someone else to begin with? Why didn’t she interfere with Maisheh Finkel’s proposed shiddukhim immediately?. This was bothering me for a long time – until I heard another story about R’ Avrohm Kalmanowitz, of Va’ad Hatzalah fame, from a son of his sister, R’ Osher Katzman, an author of many popular articles in the Aguda monthly “Dos Yiddisheh Vort” (and whose son Eli’ezer is on the editorial board of “Yeshurun”).

R’ Avrohm Kalmanowitz had learned in Slabodka, having come there from the town of Aishishok (the town perpetuated by Yaffa Eliach) where he learned with its rav, Reb Zundel Hutner. In his famous speeches in the United States after WWII, Rav Kalmanowitz would often refer to his study sessions with Reb Zundel and would recall that they studied through the long commentaries of the Shakh in Section 25 of Hoshen Mishpat (about the laws of a judge who erred in his ruling) – and that Reb Zundel lamented that there is no one “nowadays” who learns thoroughly through the subject at which the Shakh had toiled so hard. R’ Avrohm then studied under Reb Laizer Gordon in Telz (see fn. t on p. 964 of MOAG), and, by the time he came under the wing of the Alter of Slabodka, he was already close to 20 years of age. By that time he had already completed the 4 Sections of the Shulkhan ‘Arukh. In fact, when he arrived in Slabodka, he would look down upon a bachur his age who had not completed covered as much Torah as he had. He was considered a ‘iluy in the yeshiva, and there was an ongoing debate among the talmidim of the Yeshiva on who was the greater ‘iluy, Avrohm Kalmonowitz or Aaron Sislovicher (later Kotler). In fact, when R’ Avrohm died, in 1964, two years after R’ Aaron Kotler, my father za”l remarked, “The last member of our chabhurah in Slabodka is gone.”

According to “Kulmos Hallev”, a volume about Rav Kalmanowitz and “his Da’ath Torah and spiritual fervor (sa’arot ruach)” (published by his family in Jerusalem, 1996), p. 4, R’ Zundel had spread his pupil’s fame as a “wondrous ‘iluy” and the Alter sent a wagon to fetch him and bring him to Slabodka; the Alter then arranged that he should learn together with his talented son R’ Maisheh. R’ Avrohm’s father,
who served as rav in Volhyn, in the town of Barashi, near Rogachov, once came to Slabodka to see how his son was faring. When the Alter told him, “He can already lead half the world,” he became upset, and said, “I sent him here to learn, not to lead.”

The story Katzman told was as follows: R’ Avrohm had gone home for Pesach, at a time when two shiddukhim were being proposed to him; one was a daughter of his rosh yeshiva R’ Moshe-Mordkhai Epstein, and the other was an orphaned daughter of the Rav of Rakov, a town between Volozhin and Minsk, and he had already met both young ladies. From home, he wrote out two envelopes addressed to the two female candidates, and then sat down to write out the letters he was planning to send them. First he wrote the letter to the Rakov girl and he put her letter into an envelope and took it to the post office. He then wrote a letter to the Epstein girl, and as he was putting the letter into the remaining envelope — woe is him! – he saw that the remaining envelope was the one addressed to Rakov. This meant that the letter to the Rakov girl would arrive at the home of the Epstein girl. He rushed to the post office and asked the postman to return the letter he had given him, but the postman refused. R’ Avrohm went on to offer the postman up to 10 Rubles to get his letter back, but the postman explained that the law is that once a letter is in his hand he must deliver it only to the addressee. In short, when the Rakov girl’s letter arrived in Slabodka, and the daughter of R’ Moshe-Mordkhai saw that Avrohm had even considered another shiddukh but herself, the proud granddaughter of the famous Kovno philanthropist R’ Shraga-Feivel Frank (cf. MOAG Index), was beside herself, and decided she would hear no more of Avrohm Kalmanowitz.

When I heard this story I pieced two and two together, to wit: in the winter of 1913, Rebbitzen Epstein was not interested in Maisheh Finkel because she had as good a catch, if not a better one, for her Zlateh in Avrohm Kalmanowitz, the latter being not only a great ‘iluy, but a tall, handsome and charismatic leader as well. So why should she care if R’ Baruch-Ber Leibowitz, by-this-time the Rosh Yeshiva of Knesset Beit Yitzchak, the “other”, non-Musar, yeshiva in Slabodka, had cast his eye on Maisheh for his daughter (see MOAG p. 525), and why should she care if Maisheh gets engaged to Chava-Leah Hutner of Warsaw? At the beginning of that winter, R’ Moshe-Mordkhai presented R’ Avrohm with an effusive Certificate of Ordination (Smikhah) testifying that he is “a wondrous baqi in all of Shas with Tospoth, and in the posqim, rishonim v’acharonim, as one of the greats of the generation.” The Certificate manuscript is pictured on the page facing page 1 of “Kulmos Hallev”, and is laid out in print on p. 5, together with ordinations by R’ Elya-Barukh Kamai, Rav of Mir, and R’ Rephael Shapiro of Volozhin, both awarded to R’ Avrohm about a month later than R’ Moshe-Mordkhai’s, the manuscripts of which are pictured on the page following p. 220 of “Kulmos”, the last page of the volume.

It is worth noting that in transcribing the manuscript of R’ Moshe-Mordechai, the family misread one word, for, after praising the ordainee as “yet from his youth he stood out as a wondrous ‘iluy,” the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth written lines read: “Va’yiph va’yigdal va’yehi l’erez may’arzei Hatorah (he became beautiful and grew to become a cedar among the cedars of Torah),” while the printed transciption misreads the beginning of the quotation, that is, its first word, to: “Aph va’yigdal va’yehi (he also grew and became).” The family obviously did not realize that R’ Moshe-Mordkhai used the language of Ezekiel 31:7 which describes “a cedar of Lebanon, that is Assyria (Verse 3)” which “Va’yiph b’godlo (became beautiful in its greatness)” to describe R’ Avrohm who, after being a wondrous ‘iluy in his youth, grew to become a cedar-like tall and handsome young man and one of the Torah cedars of his generations. (I had seen the manuscript Smikhah before “Kulmos Hallev” was published, and I immediately connected R’ Moshe-Mordechai’s expression to Ezekiel. I’ll just add that R’ Moshe-Mordechai used the expression from his by-heart knowledge of the verse, and did not look up the verse in a Tanakh before penning it, else he would have spelled the word “va’yiph” with two Yoddim – and the family would not have been mislead to read his Vav and single Yod as an Aleph, “aph” instead of “va’yiph“.)

I believe that R’ Moshe-Mordkhai wrote the extremely flattering Smikha when R’ Avrohm was a candidate to become his son-in-law, but R’ Avrohm obtained the other two smikhot soon thereafter because he was also interested in the Rakov girl whose hand was offered together with her late father’s rabbanut of the town of Rakov – as you know from the case of R’ Yehiel-Yankev Weinberg of Pilvishok, a town would keep its rabbinical post vacant until their deceased rav’s daughter would find a match suitable to take over the rabbinate. Therefore, R’ Avrohm sought out ordinations from well-known rabbanim who served in towns close to Rakov, not in faraway Slabodka. During the same winter that the Epsteins were sure that R’ Avrohm would close a shidduch with their Zlateh, R’ Maishe became engaged to the well-to-do and pedigreed Chava-Leah, daughter of R’ Yehudah-Laib Hutner, a Motz in Warsaw who also owned a printing company. After Avrohm’s Pesach blunder, Zlateh was left with a second-choice mate, one who was already engaged, Maisheh Finkel: her mother took care of the rest. Under the hand of the daughter-in-law who supplied Rav Altusky with R’ Maishe’s Torah manuscripts, I saw the ketubah of Zlateh and Maisheh: they were married two months after the Pesach debacle, in Sivan 5673 (June 1913), and one of the two witnesses thereon is my grandfather, R’ Bereh-Hirsh Heller, the “younger” mashgiach of the Slabodka Yeshiva. Rav Kalmanowitz went on to wed the Rakov girl and its rabbinate, and became known throughout his lifetime as “the Rakover Rav”. It is said that R’ Laizer Rabinowitz, who succeeded his father-in-law the Minsker Godol, R’ Yeruham-Yehudah-Laib Perlman, as Rav of Minsk, took no major action in that metropolis without first discussing it with Rav Kalmanowitz. The latter verily became a great Torah leader as the Alter had predicted.

I’ll end by doing justice to the historically underrated Rav Kalmanowitz. During the First World War, Rav Kalmanowitz organized aid for the refugees who streamed from Poland into Russia, as recorded at length in “Kulmos Hallev”. He also went on to become close to the Chafetz-Chaim and followed the latter’s guidance in klal Yisrael activism. When the Mirrer Yeshiva underwent a financial crisis, he became the major fundraising representative of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Europe, and then traveled to America on behalf of that yeshiva. Because he was not a simple executive director but a great talmid chakham, he was given the title of “Nasi” of that yeshiva, and was promised that he would eventually deliver shiurim therein. (Nowadays, many religious institutions raise their stature by claiming to be uner the “n’si’ut” of one gadol or another. But the first to hold that title was Rav Kalmanowitz, who not only contributed his good name to the Mirrer Yeshiva, but earned the title by literally saving it from collapse.)

But delivering shiurim in the Mirrer Yeshiva never worked out for R’ Avrohm. I conjecture that it was due to the opposition of Reb Yeruham Levovitz, the Mashgiach who shared at least equally with the Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Laizer-Yudel Finkel, the adulation of the talmidim. As a ba’al Musar who sought to raise the stature of bnai Torah who devoted themselves exclusively to Torah study, R’ Yeruham felt that super-activist Rav Kalmanowitz was an improper role model. (See MOAG pp. 573-576 that R’ Yeruham disagreed strongly with the Chafetz-Chaim’s approach to the training of yeshiva students.) Instead, the Mirrer Yeshiva fulfilled its obligation by providing a group of its outstanding talmidim to set up a kolel in Otwotzk (near Warsaw) for its Nasi to head. The Kalmanowitz family told me that R’ Avrohm always looked back at that time in his life when he sat and learned in the Mir-sponsored kolel as the happiest period of his lifetime.

In spite of this, Rav Kalmanowitz could not bring himself to shun the public arena for long. He returned to his activism and became Rav of Tiktin, an ancient and highly prestigious rabbanut. His many activities on behalf of Jewry and his prolific writings about them are recorded in “Kulmos Hallev”, a book which should be read by all bnai Torah. When the Second World War broke out, he happened to be fundraising in the United States, and there became the linchpin of the Vaad Hatzalah organization. Among other accomplishments, he raised the monetary means to sustain the Mirrer Yeshiva throughout its Shanghai exile. In connection with this supreme achievement, there is a famous vort which R’ Avrohm expounded. He asked: why did the lion claw and injure Noah when he was once late feeding it in the Ark, when, after all, he had fed it in time all the other meals? And he answered: there can be no excuse for treating the very last lion in the world in any manner less than royally. Rav Kalmanowitz used this bon mot when asking people to contribute to saving the last yeshiva remaining when the Jewish world was destroyed with the onset of the war.

I’ll end with an exchange between gedolim that R’ Yankel Leshinsky witnessed and relayed to me. The three Slabodka talmidim, R’ Reuven Grozovsky, R’ Avrohm Kalmanowitz, and R’ Aaron Kotler were meeting in the Vaad Hatzalah office, and a heated argument broke out between Rav Kalmanowitz and Rav Aaron Kotler as to which course of action to take. Rav Kalmanowitz lost his composure and said, “Listen R’ Aaron, if I had sat and learned all the years as you did, I would have been greater than you.” To which R’ Reuven retorted, “Yes, R’ Avrohm, but R’ Aaron did learn!” The point is that Rav Kalmanowitz sacrificed the pinnacle of personal rank in favor of the public needs: and he was never properly appreciated for it.

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

Marc B. Shapiro

1. I recently published a translation of Hirsch’s famous lecture on Schiller. You can see it here.

At first I thought that this lecture remained untranslated into English for so long because of ideological concerns. (I still think that this is the reason it was never translated into Hebrew.) Yet before the article appeared, I was informed that the reason it did not appear in the English translation of the Collected Writings of Hirsch was not due to ideological censorship, but censorship of a different sort (see the article, note 2). I will let readers decide if this was a smart choice or not. I plan on publishing another translation from Hirsch which has also never appeared in English or Hebrew, and which many people will regard as not “religiously correct” for the twenty-first century.

With regard to the Schiller lecture, I thank Elan Rieser who called my attention to the following: Hirsch quoted Schiller as saying about a plant, “What it [the plant] unwittingly is, be thou of thine own free will.” It so happens that this very thought also appears in the Nineteen Letters, Elias translation, p. 56: “The law to which all forces submit instinctively and involuntarily—to this law you, too, are to subordinate yourself, but consciously and of your own free will.” This shows that even in his earliest work, Hirsch was influenced by Schiller.

While on the topic of non-Jewish writers influencing German rabbis, here is another example which might lead some to wonder if we have crossed the line from influence into plagiarism. (I do not think so, as I will explain.) Rabbi Marcus Lehmann (1831-1890) was a well-known German Orthodox rabbi. He served as rabbi of Mainz and was founder and editor of the Orthodox newspaper Der Israelit. Apart from his scholarly endeavors, he published a series of children’s books, and is best known for that. These were very important as they gave young Orthodox Jews a literature that reflected traditional Jewish values and did not have the Christian themes and references common in secular literature. Yet despite their value for the German Orthodox, R. Israel Salanter was upset when one of Lehmann’s stories (Süss Oppenheimer) was translated into Hebrew and published in the Orthodox paper Ha-Levanon. Although R. Israel recognized that Lehmann’s intentions were pure and that his writings could be of great service to the German Orthodox, it was improper for the East European youth to read Lehmann’s story because there were elements of romantic love in it. This is reported by R. Isaac Jacob Reines, Shnei ha-Meorot, Ma’amar Zikaron ba-Sefer, part 1, p. 46. Here is the relevant passage:

והנה ברור הדבר בעיני כי הרה”צ רמ”ל כיון בהספור הזה לש”ש, ויכול היות כי יפעל מה בספורו זה על האשכנזים בכ”ז לא נאה לפני רב ממדינתינו להעתיק ספור כזה שסוף סוף יש בו מענייני אהבה.

This passage is followed by another, which was made famous by R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg in Seridei Esh, vol. 2 no. 8. This is Weinberg’s well-known responsum on co-ed groups. He describes how R. Israel Salanter visited R. Esriel Hildesheimer and saw him giving a shiur in Tanakh and Shulhan Arukh before young women. R. Israel commented that if a rabbi from Lithuania would institute such a practice in his community they would throw him out of his position, and rightfully so. Yet he only hoped that he would be worthy enough to share a place in the World to Come with Hildesheimer: הלואי שיהי’ חלקי בג”ע עם הגה”צ ר”ע הילדסהיימר.

Weinberg doesn’t say where he learnt of this story, but it comes from Reines, who heard it directly from R. Israel Salanter. Yet Weinberg’s recollection was not exact. Before World War II, Weinberg had access to Shnei ha-Meorot, and he refers to it in his essay on Reines (Seridei Esh, vol. 4, p. 355, originally published before the War). After the War he no longer had access to this book, and thus was not able to check R. Israel Salanter’s exact words. Although, based on Weinberg, people often repeat Salanter’s comment that he hopes for a share of the World to Come together with Hildesheimer, he never actually said this. Here are his words, as recorded by the only witness, Reines, and I hope that from now on the great R. Israel Salanter will be quoted accurately. (The passage in the parenthesis is a comment from Reines himself.)

הלכתי לבקר גם את ביה”ס אשר לבנות, ששמעתי שגם שם מגיד הרה”ג הנ”ל [הילדסהיימר] איזה שעור, ומצאתי שבחדר גדול ורחב ידים עומד באמצע שולחן גדול וסביב השולחן יושבות נערות גדולות, והרה”ג הנ”ל בראש השלחן מגיד לפניהם שעור בשו”ע (הוא אמר לי אז גם באיזה הלכה שאמר להם אבל שכחתי) והוסיף לומר בזה”ל “ברור הדבר בעיני כי כוונת הרב היא לש”ש, וגם נעלה הדבר בעיני מכל ספק, כי כל התלמידות האלה השומעות לקח מפיו תהיינה לנשים כשירות, תמלאנה כל המצות שהנשים חייבות בהן, תחנכנה ילדיהן על דרכי התורה והאמונה, באופן שיש לומר בוודאות גמורה ומוחלטת כי הרה”ג הנ”ל עושה בזה דבר גדול באין ערוך, בכ”ז ינסה נא רב במדינתינו לעשות ב”ס כזה, הלא יקראו אחריו מלא ומן גיוו יגרשוהו; ואין ספק כי יהי’ מוכרח לנער את חצני’ מן הרבנות כי לא תהלמו עוד”, כל הדברים האלה דבר הרה”ג הצדיק הנ”ל בהתרגשות מיוחדה והתלהבות יתירה

Returning to Lehmann, one of his short stories is titled Ithamar. Eliezer Abrahamson called my attention to the fact that chapter 17 tells the same story as is found in Lew Wallace’s classic American novel, Ben-Hur, Book 3, chs. 2-3. I prefer to call this “borrowing”, rather than plagiarism, since Ben-Hur was a worldwide sensation and Lehmann was not trying to hide his borrowing. At that time, any adult reading Lehmann’s book would know what he was basing the chapter on, and that he was providing a Jewish version of certain episodes. In fact, the name of the main character of Lehmann’s book, Ithamar (not a very common name), is also the name of the father of the main character of Ben-Hur (Judah ben Ithamar ben Hur). By naming his character Ithamar, Lehmann was signaling his debt to Wallace.[1]

Regarding Lehmann’s stories, in the 1990s they also appeared in a censored haredi version. Ha-Modia actually published an article attacking this “reworking”. Here it is, followed by the response. (You can right-click to open larger images, or download it as a pdf here.)

I found these on my computer and don’t remember anymore how I got them (and unfortunately, there is no date visible on the articles). Click them to enlarge.

2. Not too long ago Hakirah 13 (2012) appeared, and as with the previous issues, it is a great collection of articles. The other Orthodox journals have to ask themselves why Hakirah has been so successful in overshadowing them. I think the answer is obvious. Hakirah is not afraid to take risks in what they publish. They don’t mind rocking the boat a bit, and dealing with controversial matters. I want to respond to two articles in the issue. The first is R. Elazar Muskin’s piece in which he discusses a 1954 Yom ha-Atzmaut event in Cleveland, which featured R. Elijah Meir Bloch, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telz yeshiva. From the article one sees that Bloch had a positive attitude towards the State of Israel. Before reading further, I suggest people look over Muskin’s article again, so you can best appreciate that which will follow. You can find the article here.

Muskin notes that Bloch’s letter justifying his appearance at the Yom ha-Atzmaut event was published in R. Joseph Epstein’s 1969 book Mitzvot ha-Shalom. Although there have been many books that express a positive, or tolerant, view towards Zionism, anti-Zionist extremists chose to focus on this volume. Muskin quotes Gerald Parkoff who wrote as follows in a letter published in the Torah u-Madda Journal 9 (2000), p. 279:

When the first edition of the Mizvot ha-Shalom was published, the unsold inventory, which represented most of the extant copies, was kept in Rabbi Epstein’s garage. As it turned out, the sefer came to the attention of some misguided people[2] who were particularly upset with Rabbi Epstein’s association of Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch with Yom ha-Azmaut. They proceeded to burn the first edition of Mizvot ha-Shalom in Rabbi Epstein’s garage. Subsequently, the perpetrators of this dastardly act were found and brought to a Satmar Bet Din. Financial restitution was then made to Rabbi Epstein.

As Parkoff notes, when the next edition of the work was published, Epstein took out Bloch’s letter, so as not to have another confrontation with the extremists. Yet something doesn’t make sense. Why would Satmar (or Satmar-like) extremists care about a letter from Bloch in Epstein’s book? What does this have to do with them? The extremists certainly had no interest in defending the honor of an Agudist whose ideology is rejected by them just as they reject the Mizrachi position. So why would they care about Epstein’s book at all?

If you compare the first edition of Mitzvot ha-Shalom to the second edition, the answer is, I think, obvious, and it has nothing to do with the Bloch letter. Pages 605-624 from the first edition are omitted in the second edition. The first few pages of this is Bloch’s letter, but beginning on p. 612 there is a section titled “Al ha-Geulah ve-al ha-Teshuvah.” This section is a rejection of R. Joel Teitelbaum’s views (in which, by the way, Epstein refers to the writings of R. Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, R. Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, and R. Menachem M. Kasher). The very title of the section is an allusion to the Satmar Rav’s book, Al ha-Geulah ve-al ha-Temurah. While Epstein’s views are expressed respectfully, it is easy to see why the extremists would have gone after him, as a means of upholding the honor of their Rebbe. They presumably also saw the following passage, p. 611, as directed against the Satmar Rav, and even if it wasn’t directed against him personally, it is certainly directed against his followers.

אמנם השטן מרקד בין תלמידי חכמים על תלמי הפירוד והפילוג בישראל להטיל קטטיגוריא ביניהם, עד כדי השמצת שמות אהלי תורה ויראה, ועד כדי הורדת כבוד גדולים ארצה בכתבי פלסתר והוצאת דיבה, ללא חשש הלבנת פנים, וחטא מבזה תלמיד חכם, ונמצאים נכשלים בחטאים יותר חמורים מאלה שבאו לצעוק עליהם.

On p. 615 he writes as follows (even referring to the Satmar Rav’s views as “has ve-shalom”):

עיני גדולי וצדיקי הדור רואים נסים ונפלאות (ראה לעיל מבוא, מ”מ 32) – קול דודי דופק – אם אתחלתא דגאולה, אם רק פקידה, אם רק רמז רמיזה “מן החרכים” מאבינו שבשמים לריצוי, לפיוס – בהדי כבשי דרחמנא למה לן – איתערותא דלעילא הקוראת לאיתערותא דלתתא – וכי כל זה אך אור מתעה הוא חו”ש? (ראה “על הגאולה ועל התמורה עמ’ כ’ . . . )

I found a relevant “open letter” in the R. Leo Jung archives, File 2/1, at Yeshiva University. I thank the Yeshiva University Archives for permission to reproduce the letter here.

From this letter we see again that the issue had nothing to do with Bloch. Yet since there were other people attacking the Satmar Rav’s views during this time, I still think we need an explanation as to why these crazies decided to focus on Epstein. From the “open letter” it would appear that this was just another way to attack R. Moshe Feinstein, who wrote a haskamah for Epstein. In the “open letter” it states that if R. Moshe does not retract his haskamah then those behind the letter will take action. This action no doubt includes the burning of Epstein’s sefer.[3]

Here is how these wicked people expressed themselves, sounding just like mobsters:

משה’לע תדע שזה היא האזהרה האחרונה שאם לא תתחרט ברבים על ההסכמה שכתבת להספר הנ”ל לא נבוא עוד בכתב רק בידים נעשה מעשים נבהלים שתסמר שערות ראשך שתבוש להראות פרצופך הטמא.

Regarding R. Elijah Meir Bloch, he was a real Agudist, even serving on the U.S. Moetzet Gedolei ha-Torah. Yet his positive view of the establishment of the State of Israel is not unexpected. I say this because his father, R. Joseph Leib Bloch, Rosh Yeshiva of Telz and also rav of the city – the combination of rosh yeshiva and city rav was not so common [4] – appeared to be inclined to a type of Religious Zionism. Here is his letter to R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, published in the latter’s Li-Netivot Yisrael (Beit El, 2001), vol. 1.

I realize that R. Joseph Leib Bloch is usually portrayed as a strong anti-Zionist. This needs further investigation, but it could be that his opposition was only against secular Zionism and what he regarded as the Mizrachi’s compromises with the secular Zionists. From his letter, we see that he had a much different view of R. Kook’s Degel Yerushalayim.[5]

The letter above that of R. Joseph Leib Bloch is from R. Avraham Shapiro, the Kovno Rav, who unlike many other Lithuanian gedolim was a real opponent of Agudat Israel. (Another noteworthy opponent was R. Moses Soloveitchik.) Here is R. Shapiro’s picture.

R. Shapiro also was a supporter of Religious Zionism and a great admirer of R. Kook. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a biography of his life. Those who want to know a little more about his attitude towards Zionism can see his 1919 letter to R. Kook in Iggerot la-Re’iyah, no. 94. Here he writes as follows:

החלטנו שבהמעשים הפוליטיים להשגת חפצנו באה”ק, כלומר העבודה לפני אסיפת השלו’, נלך ביחד עם הציונים שלא בהתפוררות כבאי כח מפלגה ומפלגה, כי אם כבאי כח כל העם העברים בסתם. למטרה זו נבחרה קומיסיה פוליטית לבוא בדברים עם הציונים, וכבר נעשה הצעדים הדרושים לזה. מקוה אני שתמצא הדרך להתאחדות הפעולות.

We see very clearly from this letter that the Kovno Rav supported working with the non-Orthodox Zionists in order to achieve the Zionist objective, which became a real possibility after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War 1.

In a 1921 letter to R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, Iggerot la-Re’iyah, p. 557, the Kovno Rav refers to the Agudah paper Ha-Derekh in a mocking tone: כפי שראיתי מ”הדרך” לא-דרך. In this letter he tells R. Zvi Yehudah that it is important for the Orthodox in Palestine to be involved in the political process that was set up by the British Mandatory authorities. Yet instead of doing that, he claims that the Orthodox have turned a large portion of the women against them, alluding towards the Eretz Yisrael rabbis’ ruling forbidding women’s suffrage, a ruling which R. Avraham Yitzhak Kook was at the forefront of. Look at these words and remember that the one writing them was one of the greatest poskim of his time, the great rav of Kovno, not some minor Mizrachi figure:

האומנם חושבים הם את השתתפות הנשים לאיסור גמור המפורש בתורה שאין אומרים בו מוטב יהיו שוגגים כו’? לדעתי הסכילו עשה.

This opposition to women voting in Israeli elections has disappeared from the haredi world, for obvious political reasons. Yet examination of haredi writings leads to the conclusion that female suffrage is only a hora’at sha’ah, and that if the haredim ever became a majority the right to vote would be removed from women. But I think that this is more theory than reality, as I can’t imagine that even a haredi society would take this step as the backlash from women would be quite significant. As for the followers of R. Kook, do they also think that female suffrage is hora’at sha’ah and hope for a day when the vote will be taken away from women, for all the reasons R. Kook offered? Based on a recent statement by R. Aviner, it appears that for some of them the answer to this question is yes.

The Kovno Rav ends his letter to R. Zvi Yehudah with these strong words against Agudat Israel:

כנראה אסע אי”ה בקרוב בשביל צרכי צבור ללונדון. כמובן לא בשביל אגודת-ישראל. כנראה אחר כ’ את האספה בפ”ב. מה דעתו עליה? אנכי בכוונה לא נטלתי חלק בה, לפי שכל מעשיהם עד עכשיו אינם רצוים בעיני ואינם בדרך האמת. הדו”ח של רוזנהיים לא הי’ אמת. הקומיסא הפוליטית איננה יודעת מאום מאשר עשו ולכה”פ אנכי איני מסכים על כל דרכיהם שהזיקו רק להאורטודקכסיא ולא לאחרים. אני אומר זאת לכל מפורש מבלי התחבא בהשקפתי.

I mention the Kovno Rav’s opposition to Agudat Yisrael not only for its historical significance, but also because it brings us back to a time when Agudat Israel actually did something other than put on a big Daf Yomi celebration every seven years.[6] There was a time when Agudat Israel tried to accomplish great things, so there was reason to oppose it by those who thought that it was moving in the wrong direction. Today, however, what is Agudat Israel? There was a time when it was a movement, and today it is a lobbying organization, pure and simple, and without much influence at that. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t even have a website or a journal. You sink into oblivion, only to be remembered in another seven years at the next Siyum ha-Shas.

In a 1931 letter to R. Kook, Iggerot la-Re’iyah, no. 273, the Kovno Rav asks R. Kook if he agrees with him that a world congress of rabbis should be convened – אספת רבנים עולמית . I mention this only because in later years it became almost an article of faith in the haredi world that such rabbinic gatherings were absolutely forbidden. The fear was that the gatherings would make decisions at odds with the haredi Daas Torah. The only way to make sure that their followers would not attend these gatherings, where they might actually hear different viewpoints, was for the haredi leaders to ban these gatherings.[7] This is as good an example of any of how the haredi leadership uses its rabbinic “muscle” for political goals. If someone were to ask on what basis can one state that it is forbidden for rabbis with different viewpoints to gather to discuss issues, the answer is obviously not going to be that the Talmud or Shulhan Arukh says it is forbidden. It is forbidden because the gedolim say it is forbidden, i.e., Daas Torah.

R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg writes as follows about the Kovno Rav (Kitvei ha-Rav Weinberg, vol. 2, p. 234):

ועלי להעיר כי הגאון דקאוונא שליט”א הוא אחד מגדולי הדור בזמננו, אחד המוחות היותר טובים שבתוכנו. ואעפ”י שאנשים ידועים משתדלים להשפילו ולהמעיט את ערכו, מ”מ אי אפשר להחשיך את אור תורתו וחכמתו.

What does Weinberg mean when he speaks of those who oppose the Kovno Rav and try to minimize his importance? Who are these people and what led them to this judgment of the great Kovno Rav? Let me thicken the plot. The late R. Tovia Lasdun wrote to me as follows: “Kovner Rav was a great person, but his views did not always meet the views of the Orthodoxy [!]”[8] By “Orthodoxy” he meant Lithuanian yeshiva world Orthodoxy. From what we have seen already, namely, his anti-Agudah stand and the other points I noted, one can begin to understand why there would be opposition to the Kovno Rav from yeshiva circles.

R. Jeffrey Woolf recorded the following story about the Kovno Rav. He heard it from an eyewitness and it is very illuminating.[9]

The pre-war Jewish community of Kovno (Kaunas, today) Lithuania was divided into different components, divided by the Neris River. On the one side was the general community, which was made up of every type of contemporary Jewish religious and cultural population. Indeed, the community was a bit notorious for a lackadaisical form of religiosity. On the other side of the Williampol bridge, was the famous Slabodka Yeshiva, a flagship of the Mussar Movement. As might be expected, relations between the two sectors were often tense. There was a saying attributed to the Alter of Slabodka, R. Nosson Zvi Finkel זצ”ל, that the bridge from Kovno to Slabodko only went one way.

Coping with the myriad of challenges, modernization and secularization in Kovno was its illustrious rabbi, R. Avraham Dov-Bear Kahana-Shapira זצוק”ל, author of the classic collection of responsa and Talmudic essays דבר אברהם, and known more popularly as the ‘Kovner Rov.’ One central concern of his was the alienation of young Kovner Jews from the synagogue. Thus, when the administration of the Choral Synagogue came to him with an intriguing approach to the problem, he jumped at it.

The idea was to have the synagogue’s cantor, the internationally renowned tenor Misha Alexandrovich, offer public concerts that would feature classical חזנות alongside renditions of serene Italian bel canto compositions. The hope was that this type of cultural evening would draw modernizing young Jewish men and women to the synagogue, where they would socialize and (perhaps) find mates.

The first concert was a smashing success and more were planned. Everyone was thrilled, except for the heads of the Slabodka Yeshiva. They turned angrily to the Kovner Rov and demanded that he intervene to stop the concerts. They were indecent, the Rashe Yeshiva objected. The led to fraternization between men and women, and in the synagogue. Worse still, they might corrupt yeshiva students.

The Kovner Rav listened quietly, and then firmly rejected the Yeshiva’s objection. “You are responsible only for your yeshiva,” he asserted. “I am responsible for the spiritual welfare of all of the Jews of Kovno.” The concerts, he declared, would continue.

Returning to R. Elijah Meir Bloch, there is another relevant source and that is found in Chaim Bloch’s Dovev Siftei Yeshenim. (There was no familial relationship between the two Blochs.) As we have discussed numerous times, one can’t believe anything that Bloch wrote, and all of the letters of gedolim he published must be assumed to be forgeries. However, this only applies to the letters he published of deceased individuals, but the letters he published of living figures are indeed authentic. In vol. 1 (1959), p. 392, he published a letter he received in December 1944 from Jacob Rosenheim, the president of World Agudat Israel, then living in New York. Chaim Bloch had written to him asking on what basis the Agudah was now supporting the establishment of a Jewish state. Rosenheim replied that this policy was based on the decision of the “gedolei ha-Torah.” He also mentioned that this support was dependent on two important points. (1) The State had to be run according to Torah, and (2) that the new State would be accepted peacefully by the Arabs. He states that if the Arabs and the world governments agree to the establishment of the State, then there is no prohibition of שלא ימרדו באומות. He also adds that there is no prohibition to establish a state without a Temple, i.e., a State before the coming of the Messiah.

Chaim Bloch strongly rejects Rosenheim’s words, and declares that based upon what Rosenheim writes, there is now no difference between the Agudah and the Mizrachi. This was exactly the claim of the Edah Haredit in Jerusalem, and eventually it and the Agudah would go their separate ways.

The end of Rosenheim’s letter is of interest to us, because after stating that he personally doesn’t believe that in the current (end of 1944) circumstances there is any chance of a Torah state, he adds that R. Eliezer Silver and R. Elijah Meir Bloch do think such a Torah state is possible. I don’t know what this says about the political acumen of Silver[10] and R. Elijah Meir Bloch, but it shows that R. Bloch had a very optimistic view of the religious development of the future State.

Rosenheim concludes his letter by stating that, unlike Silver and R. Elijah Meir Bloch, “we” (by which he must mean the rest of the Agudah leadership) regard the creation of a State as a real catastrophe. Rosenheim and the others assumed (correctly) that the non-religious would be the majority and that this would create a very difficult circumstance for Orthodox Jews. Their preference was that the land remain under British control, with religious freedom given to all. Rosenheim’s comments today appear surprising, but we must remember that from the perspective of most Agudists, nothing was worse than having a secular “Hebrew State”. Many of them assumed that Zionist control of the Land of Israel would lead to anti-religious measures (which turned out to be correct in some instances). Others might even have believed that the Zionists were to be suspected of wanting to kill the Orthodox![11]

Regarding R. Elijah Meir Bloch, let me call attention to one more interesting source. In the volume Yahadut Lita, vol. 2, pp. 234-235, Bloch contributed an article on Agudat Israel, in which, as mentioned, he was very involved. In this article he says the following, which fits in very well with what we learn from Muskin’s essay (I have added the emphasis).

“אגודת ישראל” בליטא, כמו מרכז “יבנה”, התענינו גם בהפצת הדיבור העברית והשתמשו בטקסיהם בדגל הכחול-לבן, שכן סיסמתה של ה”אגודה” בליטא היתה ללחום רק נגד הדברים שהם בניגוד להשקפתה, אבל לא נגד דברים נכונים כשלעצמם, אף שאחרים דוגלים בהם בדרך מנוגדת להשקפת העולם החרדית. סיסמתנו היתה שכל דבר טוב שייך לנו, אף שאחרים הרימוהו על נס, ונקבל את האמת ממי שאמרו. אדרבה, בזה יכולנו לרכוש את דעת-הקהל לצדנו בהיות מאבקנו רק נגד הדברים שהם בניגוד למסורת.

As Bloch says, the approach of the Lithuanian Agudah was not to oppose something just because it was supported by the non-Orthodox. Just because the non-Orthodox spoke in Hebrew in their schools and used the blue and white flag didn’t mean that the Orthodox had to avoid these things. (I have to admit that for Agudah members to use the blue and white flag strikes me as very strange, as from its beginning this was a Zionist flag, not a flag for the Jewish people as a whole.)

In his article, Bloch describes how in the 1930s two hundred Agudah halutzim went on aliyah, after hakhsharah at Tzeirei Agudah kibbutzim in Lithuania. Sounding very Zionistic, he notes that among them were those who took part in defense of the yishuv against Arab attacks: ופעלו במסירות למען בנין הארץ.[12]

* * * *

In a previous post I asked two quiz questions. No one was able to answer no. 1, which means that the prize will remain for the winner of a future quiz. These were the questions.

1. Tell me the only place in the Shulhan Arukh where R. Joseph Karo mentions a kabbalistic concept? I am referring to an actual concept e.g., Adam Kadmon, Ein Sof, etc.

2. If more than one person answers the above question correctly, the one who answers the following (not related to seforim) will win: Which is the only United States embassy that has a kosher kitchen?

Nachum Lamm and Ari Zivotofsky both got the answer right for no. 2. The embassy is in Prague and the ambassador is Norman L. Eisen. I had the pleasure of davening with him every morning on my trip to Prague last summer. You can read about him here.

Now let’s turn to the question no. 1. The first thing to note is that there are many halakhot in the Shulhan Arukh. If R. Joseph Karo was a mystic, as in the title of Werblowsky’s book on him,[13] one would expect to see evidence of this in the Shulhan Arukh, and also in the Beit Yosef. Yet we don’t have this, and references to the Zohar and even basing halakhot on the Zohar have nothing to do with whether one should be thought of as a mystic. By the 16th century the Zohar was a canonical text, so referring to it says nothing about whether one is a mystic, neither then nor today.

However, we know that R. Joseph Karo was a mystic because of his book Magid Meisharim, which recounts his visions of a heavenly figure, who taught him over many decades.[14] Interestingly, R. Leopold Greenwald denied that Karo wrote this book. He attributes it to an anonymous לץ.[15] This reminds me of something I noted in an earlier post. See here where I mention how Abraham Samuel Judah Gestetner denies that R. Jacob Emden wrote Megilat Sefer, his autobiography. Gestetner claims that it could only have been written by a degenerate maskil! (There is no doubt whatsoever that Emden wrote the work.)

Despite the fact that the Shulhan Arukh does not generally mention kabbalistic ideas, there is one place, and only one place, where he indeed does so. It is in Orah Hayyim 24:5, where he states that the two tzitzit in front have ten knots, which is an allusion to the ten Sefirot:

כשמסתכל בציצית מסתכל בשני ציציות שלפניו שיש בהם עשרה קשרים רמז להויות

* * *

I am happy to report that this summer, God willing, I will once again be leading Jewish history-focused tours to Central Europe and Italy. (A trip to Spain is being planned, but will not be ready by the summer.) For information about the trip to Central Europe, please see here.

Complete information about the Italy trip will will soon be available on the Torah in Motion website.

To be continued

[1] With regard to Ben-Hur, there are at least eight different Hebrew translations, and they all censor Christian themes in the novel. See Nitsa Ben-Ari, “The Double Conversion of Ben-Hur: A Case of Manipulative Translation,” Target 12 (2002), pp. 263-302.

[2] Why such lashon nekiyah? I can think of many more appropriate ways to refer to such criminals.

[3] In the introduction to Iggerot Moshe, vol. 8, p. 27 (written by the sons and son-in-law), it states that some Satmar hasidim would come to R. Moshe for advice and to receive blessings. But on p. 26 it also records as follows:

בגלל עמדת האגודה לגבי ארץ ישראל וההתנגדות החריפה של חסידות סטאמר לעמדה זו, הוחלט אצלם לתקוף את רבנו ופסקיו (כך ספרו לרבנו אנשי נטורי קרתא בירושלים כאשר היה שם בשנת תשכ”ד). כמטרה להתקפה זו נבחרו תשובותיו בעניין הזרעה מלאכותית ושיעור מחיצה של עזרת נשים. מחלוקת זו שלא היתה לאמיתה של תורה גרמה לרבנו עגמת נפש מרובה. התקפות אלה לא היו רק באמצעות מאמרים ותשובות, אלא גם בהתקפות אישיות חירופים וגידופים, מעשי אלימות, איומי פצצות, הטרדות טלפוניות ושריפת ספריו.

[4] His father-in-law, R. Eliezer Gordon, also held both positions, as did his son, R. Avraham Yitzhak Bloch (who was martyred in the Holocaust). Although in the U.S. the Telz yeshiva adopted a very anti-secular studies perspective, this was not the case in Europe. R. Joseph Leib Bloch was very involved with the Yavneh day school system in Lithuania, which incorporated secular studies (and also Tanakh), and in the context of Eastern Europe can be regarded as a form of Modern Orthodox education. It is also significant that in Yavneh schools Hebrew was the language of instruction for all subjects. The preparatory school (mekhinah) of the Telz yeshiva also contained secular studies (which the government insisted on if students wanted to be exempted from the draft).

The graduates of Yavneh attended universities, in particular the University of Kovno, and they had an Orthodox student group named Moriah. By the 1930s, Lithuania had begun to produce an academically trained Orthodox population. Had the Holocaust not intervened, much of Lithuanian Orthodoxy would have come to resemble German Orthodoxy. This is important to realize since people often assume that Bnei Brak and Lakewood are the only authentic continuation of Lithuania, when nothing could be further from the truth. What R. Ruderman attempted to establish in Baltimore was, speaking historically, the true successor of the pre-War Lithuanian Orthodox society’s dominant ethos. (I am speaking of Orthodox society as a whole, not the very small yeshiva population.)

In speaking of R. Joseph Leib Bloch, Dr. Yitzhak Raphael ha-Halevi Etzion, the head of the Yavneh Teacher’s Institute in Telz, writes as follows:

בדברי על הגימנסיה העברית לבנות “יבנה” בטאלז ובהזכרי על החינוך בעיר בכלל אינני יכול שלא להזכיר את דמותו המופלאה והדגולה של הרב ר’ יוסף ליב בלוך זצ”ל, רבה של טאלז וראש ישיבתה. אחד הרבנים הגדולים והקנאים ביותר של ליטא – היה הראשון שהבין את הנחיצות של חינוך עברי דתי-מודרני לבנות ולבנים.

See “Ha-Zerem ha-Hinukhi ‘Yavneh’ be-Lita,” Yahadut Lita, vol. 2, pp. 160-165.

R. Shlomo Carlebach wrote as follows, after describing the creation of the Kovno Gymnasium, a Torah im Derekh Eretz school established by R. Joseph Zvi Carlebach (Ish Yehudi: The Life and the Legacy of a Torah Great, Rav Joseph Tzvi Carlebach (Brooklyn, 2008), pp. 74, 76):

The Kovno Gymnasium left a deep impression upon the Lithuanian Torah leaders, who could not help but notice the enthusiastic response to the Torah im Derech Eretz educational approach on the part of students and parents. They realized that this approach caused no compromise in Yirat Shamayim. The enormous upheaval in the political and social structure of Jewish society throughout the land, in the aftermath of war, threatened the stability and loyalty of Jewish youth. Under those circumstances, these Torah leaders felt an urgent need to introduce a similar educational program, on a broad scale, by reorganizing existing schools and establishing new ones, where subjects in Derech Eretz would be taught alongside Limuday Kodesh.

At the behest of the Telzer Rav, Rav Joseph Leib Bloch, a world-renowned gaon and Rosh Yeshivah of the equally renowned Telzer Yeshivah, Dr. [Leo] Deutschlaender, director and guiding spirit of the Keren Hatorah Central Office in Vienna, was summoned to Kovno to organize, in consultation with the Rav [Joseph Zvi Carlebach] such an educational system, to be called Yavneh. . . . At its conclusion, he published a summary of the “Yavneh educational project” in the “Israelit”. He reported that separate teachers’ seminaries for men and women had been established in Kovno, in addition to “gymnasium-style high schools in Telz, Kovno, and Ponevesh, and approximately 100 elementary schools spread throughout the land.”

It is interesting that when the late, unlamented, Jewish Observer published a review of this book by R. Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer, the editor felt constrained to insert the following “clarification,” knowing that its readers would be shocked to learn that Lithuanian Torah Jewry was not an enlarged version of Lakewood.

The best part of this “clarification” is the final sentence. I wonder, why does such a careful scholar and talmid hakham as Rabbi Carlebach need to have his book vetted by “gedolei Torah and roshei yeshivos”, who for all their talmudic learning are not known as experts in historical matters? Since the Agudah gedolei Torah and roshei yeshivot are prepared to cover up historical truths (as seen in their signing on to the ban of Making of a Godol), why in this case did they agree to allow the masses to learn what really was going on in Lithuania? Is it because they too feel the need to change the direction of American haredi Orthodoxy to a more secular studies friendly perspective, and this could help set the stage for this?

Returning to Telz, the question remains why Telz in Cleveland adopted such an extremely negative outlook regarding secular studies? Maybe a reader can offer some insight. R. Rakeffet has reported that R. Samuel Volk of YU, who was himself an old Telzer, commented that Telz in Cleveland distorted what Telz in Europe was about.

An interesting story about the Cleveland Telz was told to me by Rabbi M.C., a Cleveland native (and YU musmach). He was at the Telz high school and upon graduating decided to go to YU. R. Mordechai Gifter summoned M.C.’s mother and told her that if her son goes to YU, within a few months he will no longer be religious. She then angrily demanded that R. Gifter return to her all the years of tuition she had paid. She said: “If you tell me that after all the years my son has studied here, it will only take a few months at YU before he becomes non-religious, then the education you offer must be pretty lousy, and I want my money back!”

R. Dov Lior recalls that R. Zvi Yehudah Kook had a similar reaction when at a meeting of roshei reshiva with Minister of Defense Shimon Peres a haredi rosh yeshiva claimed that putting yeshiva students in the army could lead to them becoming non-religious (Hilah Wolberstein, Mashmia Yeshuah [Merkaz Shapira, 2010], p. 296):

הרכין הרב צבי יהודה את ראשו כולו בוש ונכלם. הרי צבא ישראל, צבאנו הוא, ולא צבא הפריץ הנוכרי, ולכן חובה עלינו להשתתף בו. זאת ועוד, האם המטען שהבחורים קיבלו בישיבות אינו חזק דיו שיש לחשוש כל כך לקלקולם?

[5] See his Shiurei Da’at (Tel Aviv, 1956), vol. 3, p. 65 (in his shiur “Dor Haflagah”), where we see that he was also opposed to messianic Zionism, so it appears that he didn’t really understand R. Kook’s ideology.

הגאולה אי אפשר להביא על ידי תחבולות בני אדם ואי אפשר לדעת אותן, נעלה ונעלם הוא ענין הגאולה, ולכן תבא בהיסח הדעת, כי לא ידעו בני אדם אל נכון איזה מצב הוא הראוי לגאולה.

[6] In all the discussions recently about the success of Daf Yomi, I didn’t see anyone note that one of the reasons this success is so surprising is that the whole notion of Daf Yomi goes against what for many years was the outlook of the rabbinic elite. The Shakh, Yoreh Deah 246:5, quoting the Derishah, states that laypeople should not only study Talmud but also halakhah, which he thinks should be their major focus as practical halakhah is שורש ועיקר לתורתינו. It is not hard to understand the point that since a layperson’s time is limited, he will get more out of his learning by focusing on practical material. If, for example, one has an hour a day to learn, what makes more sense: to go through hilkhot Shabbat or to study Talmud? While people today prefer Talmud, the Shakh prefers halakhah, and I don’t know of any rabbinic figures in years past who disagreed with the Shakh. This Shakh is also mentioned in the introduction to the Mishnah Berurah. While it is obvious that one who has time to learn both Talmud and practical halakhah is in the ideal circumstance, how did we get to the situation where those whose time is limited are now encouraged to focus on Talmud? The credit (or blame, depending on your outlook) for this development can, I think, be laid at Artscroll’s door, for Artscroll made learning Talmud exciting for the masses, in a way that halakhah is not, and maybe can never be.

Daf Yomi is so revolutionary precisely due to its democratic ethos, that everyone is welcome to study that which used to be the preserve of only the elites. Much like American universities opened up higher learning to the masses, and created a situation where for the first time in history texts such as Plato and Aristotle were now taught (or spoon-fed) to all, so too, for he first time in history, Daf Yomi allowed Talmud to become a product of mass consumption.

[7] See e.g.. R. Eleazar Shakh, Mikhtavim u-Ma’amarim, vols. 1-2, no. 111.

[8] Rabbi Rakeffet has reported the following story that he was told by R. Bernard Revel’s widow, Sarah. When the Kovno Rav was in New York he was at some gathering with Revel. Revel told him that he had to excuse himself as he had yahrzeit and had to go recite kaddish at a minyan, The Kovno Rav replied: “You also believe in that?” The implication was that the notion of saying kaddish on a yahrzeit was folk religion, not something that Torah scholars take seriously. Mrs. Revel was shocked when she heard the comment, but Rakeffet is probably correct that this was an example of Lithuanian rabbinic humor.

[9] See here.

[10] I heard from a Holocaust survivor that in 1946 Silver came to Kielce. Dressed in a military uniform, he gave a speech telling the people to remain in Poland in order to rebuild Jewish life there. The man who told me this thought that Silver’s speech was directed against the Mizrachi. (Silver was in Poland on July 4, 1946, the date of the infamous Kielce pogrom, yet I don’t know if his visit to Kielce was before or after the pogrom.) Silver was not a chaplain, but rather an emissary of Agudat ha-Rabbanim and Vaad Hatzalah. “The American government agreed to Silver’s wearing an Army uniform so its insignias would add to his protection in areas where anti-Semitism was still rife.”Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Silver Era (Jerusalem/New York, 2000), p. 228.

[11] It has been reported that R. Moshe Sternbuch claims that he was told by R. Velvel Soloveitchik that his father, R. Hayyim, once expressed fear of not being left alone with a religious Zionist. He was worried that the latter would kill him, since the Zionists are suspected of shefihut damim. See Mishkenot ha-Ro’im, vol.1, p. 271, quoting Om Ani Homah, Sivan 5732. (I don’t know if Sternbuch is being quoted accurately, but I can’t imagine that R. Hayyim would ever have said this about a religious Zionist. A number of his own students and relatives were religious Zionists!). The exact same fear was, according to Moshe Blau, expressed by R. Joseph Rozin, the Rogochover:

הלא הם [הציונים] חשודים על הכל, הם חשודים גם על שפיכות דמים

See Yair Borochov, Ha-Rogochovi p. 70. (After the killing of Jacob de Haan, this viewpoint was given some basis.) See ibid., where Blau also quotes the Rogochover as saying that the reason he stopped publicizing his anti-Zionist views was because he was asked to do so by his daughter, who was married to R. Yisrael Abba Citron, the rav of Petah Tikvah. Citron was a Mizrachi supporter and it was creating problems for him that his father-in-law was attacking the Zionist movement. Regarding Citron, see the fascinating book-length biography of him that appears at the beginning of his volume of hiddushim, published in 2010.

[12] As Eliezer Brodt noted in his last post, Bloch’s son, R. Yosef Zalman Bloch, Be-Emunah Shelemah (Monsey, 2012), pp. 115-116, quotes a strongly anti-Zionist and anti-Mizrachi letter of the elder Bloch, attempting to leave the impression that when it came to this issue his father had a completely negative attitude. However, as we have seen, the truth is more complicated. In general, Y.Z. Bloch’s book is quite a strange mix of wide learning combined with unbelievable nonsense, a point alluded to much more gently by Brodt. On the very page that he quotes his father’s view of Zionism, he tells us that one who does not believe that God’s individual providence encompasses everything in the world, even the animals, insects, falling leaves, etc. הרי הוא כופר בעיקר, ואין לו חלק לעוה”ב. He says that the sages in earlier times who didn’t have this perspective were tzadikim and they are at present in Olam ha-Ba, but today, after the matter has been “decided” by the Masorah, holding such a position is heretical. Leaving aside the question as to why he feels he is a prophet and can in bombastic fashion declare who has lost his share in the World to Come (something he is fond of doing in this book), does he not realize how many great Torah scholars from even recent generations he has (inadvertently?) condemned as heretics?

This is all so obvious to me that I don’t see any need to cite “authorities.” But for those who want this, let me offer the following. A few years ago, an author writing in Mishpahah asserted that one who believes that animals are not subject to individual providence, it is like he is “eating fowl with milk” (which is a lot less severe than Bloch’s judgment that such a person is a heretic with no share in the World to Come). R. Meir Mazuz, Or Torah, Tamuz 5769, pp. 867-868, responded to this strange assertion by citing many authorities who indeed held this position, and he mentions nothing about it being “rejected by the Masorah.” He concludes:

אבל אטו מי שסובר כדעת הרמב”ם והרמב”ן והרד”ק ורבינו בחיי וספר החינוך ומהרש”א והרמ”ק ומהר”י אירגאס והגר”א נקרא אוכל בשר עוף בחלב?

A large section of Bloch’s book is designed to show that the only acceptable Torah belief is that the sun, planets, and stars revolve around the earth. As for Copernicus, he refers to him as קופירניקוס הרשע שר”י (p. 351 n. 36).

Among his nuggets of wisdom is that astronomy is the most heretical, and anti-Jewish, of all the sciences. P. 387 n. 1:

וצריכה למודעי, דספרי חכמת התכונה גרעי טובא יותר מכל שאר ספרי חכמתם, שמלאים אפיקורסות ושנאת הקב”ה ר”ל, שנאת דת יהודית, ושנאת האמת, שטויות ושגעונות, עד שיש להתפלא מה טעם יהיו “חכמיהם” וספריהם האלו כל כך מטופשים ומלאי ארס הכפירה יותר מכל שאר ספרי חכמיהם.

Since, as he states, these scientists are not only heretics but also stupid fools, one can only wonder how they were able to figure out how to put a man on the moon.

On p. 331 he refers to the view of R. Jacob Kamenetsky (without mentioning him by name) that the first four chapters of Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah are not to be regarded as Torah but as פילוסופיא בעלמא. See Emet le-Yaakov (New York, 1998), pp. 15-16. Bloch sees this as absolute heresy, and he quotes R. Yehudah Segal of Manchester as saying that even if the Hatam Sofer or the Noda bi-Yehudah said this, we would not accept what they said, and would be forced to reinterpret their words. Bloch quotes this approvingly, and this illustrates the problem. He is so locked into his dogmatic assumptions that his mind is closed and doesn’t want to be confused with the facts.. If most people were shown an explicit text of the Hatam Sofer or Noda bi-Yehudah that diverges from their dogmatic assumption, they would conclude that their assumption of what is “acceptable” needs to be revised. But Bloch refuses to even acknowledge the possibility that people greater than him might have a different perspective on what constitute the fundamentals of faith.

Bloch advocates this approach even when it comes to the rishonim (p. 117):

ואפילו מה שכתבו עמודי העולם הראשונים ז”ל, אם אינו מתאים עם האמונה הפשוטה הברורה שבה”אני מאמין”, וכפי שנמסרה לנו ה”אני מאמין” מאבותינו ואמותינו הצדיקים והצדקניות, הַניחו אותה בקרן זוית.

On p. 336 Bloch goes further than merely rejecting the Copernican outlook that earth revolves around the sun. He also denies that the earth rotates on its axis. According to him, it is a Torah truth that the earth stands still: שהארץ עומדת על עמדה ואינה זזה כלל.

The absolute craziest thing he says, in a book filled with absurdities, is that the sun, moon, and all the stars [!] revolve around the earth every twenty-four hours!:

שהשמש והירח וכל הכוכבי-לכת וכל הכוכבים וכל צבא השמים סובבים יחד את כדור הארץ בכל עשרים וארבע שעות.

I guess it is a neat trick that stars so many light years away (i.e., trillions of miles away) are able to circle earth each day. (Our galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of stars.) But seriously, is one supposed to laugh or cry when reading this? How should one relate to a rabbi who so dishonors the Torah by claiming that this is Torah truth, and a required belief of any religious Jew?

On p. 289 Bloch writes:

והא דמצינו לפעמים שאחד מרבותינו הראשונים או אחד מגדולי האחרונים ז”ל אשר מימיהם אנו שותים, אמרו על איזה אגדתא שזה גוזמא, תדע לנכון דלא משום שח”ו לא הרכינו ראשם לכל הנאמר בגמרא, וחשבו שמה שרחוק מהמציאות שלעינינו בהכרח יתפרש רק כגוזמא, אלא דכך היתה קבלתם דזה המאמר המובא בתלמוד לא נאמרה מעיקרא כפשוטה אלא כגוזמא.

Everything in this sentence is incorrect, and is contradicted by numerous explicit statements in rishonim and aharonim.

[13] Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic (Oxford, 1962)

[14] Regarding why R. Joseph Karo doesn’t mention the maggid in his halakhic writings, see Eliezer Brodt, Likutei Eliezer (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 106ff. As usual, Brodt shows incredible erudition.

[15] Kol Bo al Avelut (Brooklyn, 1951), vol. 2, p. 31, in the note. Greenwald elaborates on this position in Ha-Rav R. Yosef Karo (New York, 1953), ch. 8.

Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

by David S. Farkas*

Abstract

Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir of Troyes) is known today primarily for his Biblical commentary, which is often seen as a forerunner to modern academic study of the Bible. Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary, by contrast, is often dismissed as merely a more “prolix” version of his grandfather Rashi, devoid of the critical methods that make his Biblical commentary unique. While a proper study of Rashbam’s Talmudic exegesis has yet to be written, this exploratory essay seeks to demonstrate that many of the hallmarks of modern academic study are all featured regularly in Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary. Several examples are cited for each of a wide variety of academic fundamentals, including Rashbam’s awareness of the development of the Talmudic text; appreciation of general Talmudic methodology; distinctions made between the stama d’gmara editors and the actual statements of chazal they edit; and the Rashbam’s preference for critical editions of the Talmud.

Likewise, examples are shown highlighting Rashbam’s use of field research, and his aversion to wild or exaggerated statements of
fact. In brief, the essay takes some initial steps towards dispelling the prevailing notion of a “split personality” Rashbam when it comes to his commentaries to the Torah and the Talmud, and seeks to show the uniformity and consistency shown throughout his entire corpus.

*Mr. Farkas, an attorney practicing as in-house labor counsel for FirstEnergy Corporation, received his rabbinic ordination from Ner Israel Rabbinical College in 1999. He lives with his family in Cleveland, Ohio.

Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

David S. Farkas

Professors of academic Talmud are not known for their practical social experiments, but here’s one that would be interesting to try:
Take two men, each unknown to each other, and each reasonably knowledgeable in both traditional learning and modern methods of study. Put each of them in separate rooms, one with a Rabbinic Bible (Mikraos Gedolos) on the complete Torah, and one with the tractates of Bava Basra and Pesachim of a standard edition of the Babylonian Talmud. Tell each individual he can take as long as he needs to study the commentary of Rashbam upon each [perhaps this is why the experiment remains only a hypothetical] and report back when he’s done. When the subjects return, ask each of them independently: Is Rashbam a traditional commentator, or is he a modern academic? As a corollary, the professor should ask his students a follow-up question: What do you think the two subjects will answer?

No hard data exists for a definitive answer, but I suspect most students would answer that subject #1, holding the Bible, would think Rashbam an academic, while subject #2, with the Talmud, would think him a traditional commentator. However, and paradoxically, I also think the subjects themselves, having just studied the material in isolation, would both provide the identical answer, and would find the Rashbam thoroughly modern in both.

To be sure, the question in the experiment above is somewhat misleading, as obviously Rashbam was a traditionalist through and through, and no one would ever seriously claim otherwise. Rabbi Samuel ben Meir of Troyes (c. 1085-1158), the grandson of Rashi, was clearly well grounded in the learning of his times and fellow Ballei Tosafos. But his commentary to the Torah has long stood out for its eye-opening and often daring interpretations of scripture. Rashbam does not hesitate to state what he believes to be the straightforward meaning of the verse, the peshat, even when it conflicts with the opinion of chazal before him. In this way Rashbam is often seen as something of a forerunner to academic students of the Torah, who use modern methods of study to arrive at what they believe to be the original meaning of the text.[1]

Despite this, Rashbam’s commentary to the Talmud is often entirely ignored by academics, not to say disdained. In her book concerning Rashbam’s commentary to Job, Sara Japhet notes that a proper study of the characteristics of Rashbam’s Talmudic exegesis has yet to be written.[2] In its entry on Rashbam, the Jewish Encyclopedia devotes considerable space towards analyzing his biblical commentary, but dispenses with his Talmudic commentary with little more than a single sentence, and that only to dismiss it as “much weaker than Rashi.”[3] And in his review of Elazar Touitou’s Rashbam Scholarship in Perpetual Motion, Mordechai Cohen concludes with three suggestions to augment existing scholarship on Rashbam, one of which urges a greater focus upon Rashbam’s biblical commentaries beyond the Pentateuch.[4] Nowhere, however, is any suggestion made to consider Rashbam’s Talmudic output.

This neglect shows no sign of change anytime soon. Typical are the comments of one knowledgeable blogger, who writes, concerning a major conference organized by Bar Ilan University in 2011 devoted to the study of Rashbam:

“It amazes me, the amount of attention that scholars of medieval biblical exegesis lavish on a fairly limited corpus. I must admit that it also frustrates me that despite all this enthusiasm for studying Rashbam’s biblical exegesis, his Talmudic commentaries and, to an even greater degree, his Halakhic writings have received virtually no attention whatsoever.”[5]

Indeed, the conference referenced by the writer focused exclusively on Rashbam as a pashtan on Torah and Kesuvim – with not a single session devoted to his writings on shas.

We do not have Rashbam’s commentary to shas. Although there is evidence that he wrote much more, we are left essentially with his commentary to most of Bava Basra (“BB”) and the last chapter of Pesachim.[6] Still, this amounts to nearly 370 pages of commentary, more than enough to get a firm sense of his methods. “Prolix” is a word often used to describe his Talmudic commentary. “Peshat”, however, is not. This seems strange. Why would one man’s commentary be so markedly different from one arena to the next? If Rashbam’s commentary displays all the signs of modern methods of study in his commentary to the Torah, why, then, does his commentary to the Talmud seem so devoid of the same?

The purpose of this brief essay is to show that, contrary to the common misconception, Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary displays precisely the same hallmarks of intellectual honesty and modern methods as he displays in his work on the Torah. Below I cite concrete examples to prove the point. However, there needs to be a framework for this type of study. Nearly every single Tosafos in shas probes into the text, yet few would mistake their methods for that of a modern critical approach. What, then, are the hallmarks of the modern method in which we can test the hypothesis we began with?

There is certainly no definitive answer to this question. One writer identifies no less than six different aspects of what he calls the “scientific-academic” approach to the Talmud, and in passing notes that “the approaches termed “academic” or “scientific” today are actually closer to the approaches of classical Talmudic scholars than those in use by traditional religious institutions today.”[7] Many others have written about the academic study of the Talmud without any attempt to reduce the approach down to a specific list of methods.[8] Accordingly, with no pretenses to believing the following to be exhaustive, this author will follow in the footsteps of at least one of his forebears in identifying the following six prerequisites necessary for a proper academic approach to the study of Talmud:[9]

1) An understanding of how the Talmudic text developed over time; a recognition of the layers within each sugya and how the existence of such layers can help us better understand the text;

2) A recognition of the stama d’gmara; an appreciation of the fact that the anonymous editors of the Talmud sometimes paraphrased or
otherwise edited the actual statements of the tannaim and amoraim;

3) An attempt to use the best critical editions available;

4) A feeling for the overall methodology of the Talmud as an organic whole, to aid with understanding the immediate text at hand;

5) A general sense of rationalism, or an aversion to wild or exaggerated notions;

6) A willingness to use field research beyond the bare text to clarify the meaning of difficult or obscure terminology.

No doubt others could add or subtract from this list, or refine it in some other way. However, the foregoing represents at least a decent summary of some of the more fundamental elements of a modern critical approach to the study of Talmud. And with that in mind, let us see if these methods are employed by Rashbam in his commentary to Bava Basra and Pesachim.[10]

* *
*

Development of the Text

In the following examples Rashbam demonstrates a keen understanding of how the development of the Talmud affects the understanding of the passage in front of him.

1) אמר רבא א”ר נחמן מחאה בפני שנים ואין ואין צריך לומר כתובו מודעא בפני שנים ואין צריך לומר כתובו הודאה בפני שנים וצריך לומר כתובו קנין בפני שנים ואינו צריך לומר כתובו וקיום שטרות בשלשה

ואין צריך לומר כתובו. שטר מודעא כללא דמילתא כל מידי דזכות הוא לו אין העדים צריכין ליטול הימנו רשות והא דלא כייל ותני להו ולימא מחאה ומודעא וקנין בפני ב’ ואין צריך לומר כתובו היינו משום דרבא קאמר להו משמיה דר”נ ולאו בחד יומא שמעינהו אלא כל מילתא שמעה באפי נפשיה והדר חברינהו רבא כחדא כסדר כמו ששמען . . . .

2) וכדרבא דאמר רבא כל האומר אי אפשי בתקנת חכמים כגון זאת שומעין לו מאי כגון זאת כדרב הונא אמר רב דאמר רב הונא אמר רב יכולה אשה שתאמר לבעלה איני ניזונת ואיניA עושה

מאי כגון זאת. באיזו תקנת חכמים היו מדברים בבהמ”ד שעליה אמר רבא כל האומר אי אפשי בתקנת חכמים כגון זאת התקנה שאנו מדברים בה שומעין לו:

3) תנן התם אמר רבן שמעון בן גמליאל לא היו ימים טובים לישראל כחמשה עשר באב וכיום הכפורים שבהן בנות ירושלים יוצאות בכלי לבן שאולין שלא לבייש את מי שאין לו בשלמא יום הכפורים יום סליחה ומחילה יום שנתנו בו לוחות אחרונות אלא חמשה עשר באב מאי היא אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל יום שהותרו שבטים לבא זה בזה מאי דרוש זה הדבר דבר זה לא יהא נוהג אלא בדור זה רבה בר בר חנה אמר רבי יוחנן יום שהותר שבט בנימן לבא בקהל דכתיב ואיש ישראל נשבע במצפה לאמר איש ממנו לא יתן בתו לבנימן לאשה מאי דרוש ממנו ולא מבנינו רב דימי בר יוסף אמר רב נחמן יום שכלו בו מתי מדבר דאמר מר עד שלא כלו מתי מדבר לא היה דיבור עם משה שנאמר ויהי כאשר תמו כל אנשי המלחמה למות מקרב העם וסמיך ליה וידבר ה’ אלי לאמר אלי היה הדיבור עולא אמר יום שביטל בו הושע בן אלה פרדסאות שהושיב ירבעם על הדרכים שלא יעלו ישראל לרגל רב מתנה אמר יום שנתנו הרוגי ביתר לקבורה דאמר רב מתנה אותו היום שנתנו הרוגי ביתר לקבורה תקנו ביבנה הטוב והמטיב הטוב שלא הסריחו והמטיב שנתנו לקבורה רבה ורב יוסף דאמרי תרוייהו יום שפוסקין בו מלכרות עצים למערכה

יום שהותר שבט בנימן. כל הנך אמוראי לא פליגי אלא מר גמיר האי מרביה ומר גמיר האי מרביה

In the first example (BB 40a), Rava records a series of halachic rulings he heard in the name of Rav Nachman, concerning the amount
of witnesses various transactions had to be conducted in front of, and which transactions, if they were to be recorded, required explicit verbal instructions from the parties. Rashbam wonders why all the like instructions were not presented as one simple rule, rather than stating each separately. He explains that what appears to be one statement in the name of Rav Nachman, actually took place over many separate occasions. Rav Nachman, at various times, taught about the various types of transactions, and Rava himself wove them together into a single statement. Thus, while it might appear verbose in our text, Rava would have misquoted his teacher were he to have quoted him as though Rav Nachman had given a general rule. Instead, Rashbam explains, Rava quoted him accurately, one statement at a time.

In the second example (BB 49b), Rava pronounced a ruling that when one declines a rabbinic ordinance designed as an aid, “in such a situation” we accept his decision. The Gemara asks what exactly “such a situation” is. Rashbam clarifies that Rava issues his ruling in the context of a live discussion in the beis midrash. Thus, he explains, what the Gemara really wants to know is, “what subject were they studying that day, when Rava made his pronouncement?” In so stating, Rashbam demonstrates an awareness that the give-and-take on any page of the Talmud did not take place in a vacuum (as we read it today), but rather, in the context of a lively study hall. This awareness leads to a clearer understanding of the text.

In the third example (BB 121a), we read a long series of explanations from amoraim, explaining why the 15th day of Av is considered a day of celebration. On the surface of the cold page of the Talmud it appears to be a great debate. Rashbam explains that it is no debate;
rather, each amora is merely registering what he heard from his teacher in an isolated setting. In other words, the amoraim might indeed differ in their explanations, but it was not in the context of an actual argument. The difference is significant, because an actual debate implies that one does not agree with the reason advanced by the other. As Rashbam explains it, there is reason to suspect that the amoraim would have disagreed with the other explanations. They may well have agreed with these other explanations, they simply never heard them offered.

Here, then, are several examples where Rashbam shows a keen understanding of the development and background of the Talmudic passage. These examples, and others like it provide vivid illustrations of how knowing the background of a Talmudic passage gives one a clearer picture of the text being studied.[11]

Editors (Stama D’Gemara) of the Text

In recent years an approach to the study of Talmud known as Revadim (“layers”) has gained some degree of traction. The approach seeks to uncover the various historical layers, or strata, often present in the Talmud, as a means to achieving clarity. In the following two, Rashbam provides us with the kernel of this idea, by showing the importance of knowing when an amora or tanna is speaking, and when the
anonymous editors of the Gemara are speaking. It is not often easy to pick up where the one ends and the other begins.

4) איתמר רב הונא אמר רב הלכה הלכה כדברי חכמים ורב ירמיה בר אבא אמר שמואל הלכה כרבי עקיבא אמר ליה רב ירמיה בר אבא לרב הונא והא זמנין סגיאין אמריתה קמיה דרב הלכתא כרבי עקיבא ולא אמר לי ולא מידי א”ל היכי תניתה א”ל איפכא תנינא משום הכי לא אמר לך ולא מידי

אמר ליה איפכא. לר’ עקיבא בעין רעה ולרבנן בעין יפה וגמרא הוא דקמפרש דאיפכא הוה תני רב ירמיה ומיהו איהו לא אמר לרב הונא לשון זה איפכא תנינא שאם היה יודע שאין רב הונא שונה כמותו לא היה לו לתמוה דהיינו הך דבין לרב הונא בין לרב ירמיה הלכתא דבעין רעה מוכר

אמר רב הלכה כדייני גולה אמרו ליה רב כהנא ורב אסי לרב הדר ביה מר משמעתיה אמר להו מסתברא אמרי כדרב יוס

כדרב יוסף. גמרא הוא שקיצר דברי רב אבל רב לא הזכיר רב יוסף שהרי קדם לו רב הרבה דורות

Example # 4 (BB 65a) is cited by Professor Ta-Shma, in his survey of the literary history of European and North African Talmudic commentary, as a “particularly interesting” example of Rashbam’s focus on Talmudic methodology.[12] The passage concerns a debate between R. Akiva and the Sages over an easement in a particular piece of property, and whether or not it is automatically included in a bill of sale. Rav Huna said in the name of Rav that the halacha follows the Sages, rather than R. Akiva. Rav Yirmiyahu then told Rav Huna that he often said “the opposite” to Rav, and wondered why Rav never said anything to him.

Rashbam explains that Rav Yirmiyahu himself did not actually use the words “the opposite”, because it would then have been obvious to him why Rav never said anything. Rather, says Rashbam, when the discussion between the two men occurred, Rav Yirmiyahu actually detailed how he had heard the halacha reported. The report was – as the stama d’gemara tells us in a paraphrase – the opposite of how Rav himself reported the halacha. In other words, the discussion between Rav Yirmiyahu and Rav Huna never transpired in the way one would think from reading the text of the Gemara alone.

In the fifth example (BB 51a) the Gemara discusses whether one can obtain adverse possession (chazaka) in the property of a married woman. Rav held one could not, while the “Judges of the Exile” [Shmuel and Karna] held one could. When two of his students later heard a contrary ruling from Rav and asked about it, Rav said he was referring to the case mentioned by Rav Yosef. Rashbam explains that Rav could not possibly have mentioned Rav Yosef by name, since the latter lived several generations later. Rather, he continues, the stama d’gemara is abridging Rav’s statement. In actuality, Rav proceeded to describe a case similar to a case described earlier by Rav Yosef, in which case Rav would agree that one could have chazaka. In this way, the text of the Gemara makes perfect sense.

Here, then, are two examples where Rashbam demonstrates how knowing when the first person is speaking, and when the editor
is speaking, helps us with our grasp of the Gemara.

Use of Critical Editions

Although “critical editions” as we know them did not exist in his time, Rashbam’s frequent citations to the “precise editions” or his usage of comparative texts is based upon the very same principles of scholarship used in preparing today’s critical editions. In a famous statement, Rashbam’s brother Rabbeinu Tam remarked that for every statement amended by Rashi, his brother Shmuel, basing himself upon older texts, would amend twenty.[13] The following are some examples.

6) וכדברי ר”ע בית רובע מאי לאו דזבין ליה סאה לא דזבין ליה חצי סאה

ה”ג וכדברי ר”ע בית רובע מאי לאו דזבין ליה סאה לא דזבין ליה חצי סאה. והכי קפריך מאי לאו דזבין ליה סאה ואפ”ה לא אמרי’ נותן חצי רובע לכל חצי סאה דהוי מחילה אלא כיון דהוי ליה בין כל המותרות שיעור גנה הדרי כרב הונא חצי רובע הוי מחילה לחצי סאה כי היכי דרובע הוי מחילה לסאה ומשני דזבין ליה חצי סאה הלכך חצי רובע הוי מחילה וטפי מחצי רובע יעשה חשבון רובע דהוי שיעור גנה יחזיר כן נראה בעיני ועיקר וכן מצאתי כתוב בספרים מדויקים

7) אמר רבא בלע מצה יצא בלע מרור לא יצא בלע מצה ומרור ידי מצה יצא ידי מרור לא יצא כרכן בסיב ובלען אף ידי מצה נמי לא יצא

בלע מרור לא יצא. דבעינן טעם מרור וליכא דמשום הכי קפיד רחמנא למרר את פיו של אוכל זכר לוימררו את חייהם (שם א) כך מצאתי כתוב בכל הספרים ובפי’ ר”ח ורבינו פי’ בלע מרור יצא א”א שלא יהא בו טעם מרור בלע מצה ומרור יחד ולא אכל עדיין לא מזה ולא מזה ידי מצה יצא ידי מרור לא יצא הואיל ולא לעסו ואכל מצה עמו אין לו שום טעם ולפי הכתוב בספרים צריך לפרש בלע מצה ומרור ידי מצה מיהו יצא דלא תימא אף ידי מצה לא יצא דאיכא תרתי לריעותא שלא טעם טעם מצה וגם לא נגע בגרונו שהמרור חוצץ בינתיים

In these two examples (BB 104b) and (Pesachim 115b) Rashbam shows how he uses the best available texts. In the first example Rashbam recites the explanations of the text, stating that it (the explanation) is based upon what he found in the most “precise” texts. Similarly, in the second example he gives an explanation from what he found in “all the books”, implying that he used more than one edition in preparing his commentaries.

These examples can also be multiplied, see Pesachim 108b (Ketani Mihas) and BB 85b (bein pesak) (in some editions) for similar usages. On other occasions Rashbam tells us he consulted “older texts” (e.g., BB 87a and 87b.) In general, Rashbam frequently employs language telling us how the proper text should read. As noted by R. Ephraim Urbach, “Rashbam devoted great attention to clarifying the Talmudic text.”[14]

Talmudic Methodology

In his Biblical commentary, Rashbam devoted great attention to uncovering the conventions and methodology of scripture.[15] In the following examples, we shall see that Rashbam devoted no less attention to the general principles and postulates used by the Talmud.

8) איידי דתנא רישא כו’. לא גרסינן ושיבוש הוא ויש מפרשים דאשובר קאי ולמימרא דאיהי יהבה השכר ולא הבעל ואיידי דתנא רישא בדידיה משום גט שהבעל נותן שכר תנא נמי בדידיה גבי שובר ולאו דוקא ואין זה שיטת גמרא למיתניה בדידיה שיקרא משום רישא

9) יתיב רב אידי בר אבין קמיה דרב חסדא ויתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דרב הונא הא דאמרת שינוי מקום צריך לברך לא שנו אלא מבית לבית אבל ממקום למקום לא א”ל רב אידי בר אבין הכי תנינא לי’ במתניתא דבי רב הינק ואמרי ליה במתניתא דבי בר הינק כוותיך ואלא רב הונא מתניתא קמ”ל רב הונא מתניתא לא שמיע ליה ותו יתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דנפשיה הא דאמרת שינוי מקום צריך לברך לא אמרן אלא בדברים שאין טעונין ברכה לאחריהן במקומן אבל דברים הטעונין ברכה לאחריהן במקומן אין צריך לברך מאי טעמא לקיבעא קמא הדר

ה”ג במתני’ דבי רב הינק כוותיך ותו יתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דנפשיה ולא גרסי’ מתני’ אתא לאשמועי’ ושיבוש גמור היא שכן הוא שיטת הגמרא להשמיענו האמורא דבר המפורש בברייתא דזימנין שאין הכל בקיאין בברייתא וגם האמורא עצמו זימנין דלא ידע לה לההיא ברייתא עד דמייתי ליה סייעתא מיני’ ולפי שראו דיתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דנפשיה וטעו לומר מכלל שחזר בו ממה שאמר למעלה משמיה דרב הונא והגיהו בספרים קושיא זו ואינה אלא שני דברים אמר רב חסדא בההיא ברייתא חדא משמיה דרב הונא וחדא משמיה דנפשיה

In example #8, cited above with no Talmudic text, Rashbam tell us (BB 168a) that a certain proposed text should be deleted or otherwise not included in the Talmudic passage. The particulars need not concern us, but Rashbam dispenses with the proposed text by calling it mistaken, and observing that is not the method of the Talmud to teach us a mistaken ruling, simply in order to bring us to a different conclusion.

In example #9 (Pesachim 101b), Rashbam employs nearly identical language, again in deleting the existing text, which had questioned why an amora (Rav Chisda, in this case) would teach us a halacha if it was already known from an earlier baraisa. Rashbam rejects the text, explaining that it is indeed the way of the Talmud for an amora to teach us something, even thought that “something” might be found explicitly in an earlier baraisa, because not all amoraim were familiar with all the baraisos. In the particular case in front of us, Rashbam proceeds to explain, someone had thought to amend the text because Rav Chisda appeared to be retracting from a statement he made earlier. Rashbam explains that there was no retraction, and it was a mistake to amend the text.

Thus, here again are two examples where Rashbam’s knowledge of what Talmudic methodology consists of, and what it does not consist of, not only clarifies the meaning of the Talmudic passage, but actually helps us with establishing the correct text itself. Other examples are adduced by Professor Ta-Shma.[16] In this regard, Rashbam was simply employing the same methods and methodology he had already established in his Biblical commentary.

Aversion to Exaggeration

As it is important for students of any discipline to separate fact from fiction, it is likewise important to distinguish the literal from the exaggerated. Understanding the difference, Rashbam demonstrates, can bring meaning to otherwise incomprehensible Talmudic passages.

10) א”ר לוי משאוי שלש מאות פרדות לבנות היו מפתחות בית גנזיו של קרח וכולהו אקלידי וקליפי דגלדא

משוי שלש מאות. לאו דוקא וכן כל שלש מאות שבש”ס

11) אמר רב זביד האי יומא קמא דריש שתא אי חמים כולה שתא חמימא אי קריר כולה שתא קרירא

כולה שתא חמימא. כלומר רוב השנה

12) ארבעה דברים צוה רבינו הקדוש את בניו אל תדור בשכנציב משום דליצני הוו ומשכו לך בליצנותא ואל תשב על מטת ארמית איכא דאמרי דלא תיגני בלא קרית שמע ואיכא דאמרי דלא תינסב גיורתא ואיכא דאמרי ארמאית ממש ומשום מעשה דרב פפא ואל תבריח עצמך מן המכס דילמא משכחו לך ושקלי מנך כל דאית לך ואל תעמוד בפני השור בשעה שעולה מן האגם מפני שהשטן מרקד בין קרניו

שהשטן מרקד. לאו דווקא אלא משוגע כדמפרש לקמן

In example #10 (Pesachim 119a) R. Levi informs us it took three hundred mules to carry the keys of Korach’s treasure houses. Rashbam, in a typically understated way, tells us the number 300 is an exaggerated number, “and so too are all uses of the number 300 in shas”. Presumably Rashbam would say the same of other such common numbers in shas, such as 400 or 13. They are mere exaggerations, and not to be taken literally.[17]

In example #11 (Bava Basra 147a), R. Zvid posits a sort of “Groundhog Day” rule for predicting the weather: If the first day of the New Year is warm, all the rest of year will be warm. If it is cold, all the rest of year will be cold. Rashbam is sensitive to the overstatement, and explains that “all” merely means “most”, thus removing the hyperbole from R. Zvid’s statement.

In example #12, Rabbeinu Hakodesh [R. Yehuda Ha-Nasi] gave four bits of advice to his children. The fourth directive is to avoid standing in the path of an ox when it comes out of the swamp, because at that time “the accuser (satan) is to be found between its horns.” Here again, Rashbam informs us that the statement is not intended to be literal, and merely means that an ox at that time will be found in a state of agitation.

Thus, in these cases and others like it, the Rashbam displays a marked tendency towards the rationalist point of view, and away from
the hyperbolic or exaggerated.

In one important way, however, the sense of rationalism found within Rashbam’s commentary must be qualified, and that is when it comes to matter of halacha. In his commentary to the Torah, Rashbam focused simply on explaining the meaning of the text, with no attempt to grapple with or address the halacha. Thus, Rashbam felt no constraints in explaining the plain meaning of the verse as he saw it. In his Talmudic commentary, however, Rashbam has an entirely different goal. This does not mean Rashbam was a “halachically
responsive, but anti-peshat Talmudic exegete”, as one notable authority has argued.[18] Rather, it simply means Rashbam allowed himself more freedom in his works on the Torah than he did on shas. To refer to Rashbam as “anti-peshat”, seems to this writer an unfair characterization of Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary.

Field Research

A charming old tale, whose origins are lost in time, speaks of a heated debate among scholars debating the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth. After many days and nights of arguing, a novel solution is proposed: head to the nearest stable and count! The outrageous proposal is met with frowns and disgust, and thus the scholars are doomed to continue the debate forever more.

The moral, of course, is that “book-learning” alone is insufficient; it must be accompanied by actual field research into the realia of the subjects being studied. In our times, this issue has often been characterized as the debate over knowing what Rashi wore as opposed to what he said.[19] The truth is that both are important, as demonstrated by Rashbam in the following examples.

13) אמר רב יהודה אחד אומר אכלה חטים ואחד אומר אכלה שעורים הרי זו חזקה מתקיף לה ר”נ אלא מעתה אחד אומר אכלה ראשונה שלישית וחמישית ואחד אומר אכלה שניה רביעית וששית הכי נמי דהויא חזקה

מתקיף לה ר”נ אלא מעתה כו’. ר”נ לא היה יודע טעמו של רב יהודה המפורש לפנינו דבין חטין ושעורין טעו אינשי אלא ס”ל דהא דקאמר רב יהודה אחד אומר אכלה חטין ואחד אומר אכלה שעורין כו’ לאו באותן ג’ שנים דקמסהיד האי מסהיד האי דא”כ עדות מוכחשת היא ותיבטל אלא ס”ל לר”נ דה”ק רב יהודה אחד אומר אכלה חטין ג’ שנים כפי מנהג עובדי אדמה ואחד אומר אכלה שעורים שלש שנים כפי מנהג עובדי אדמה והיינו שש שנים בדילוג ושאלתי לעובדי האדמה ואמרו לי שלעולם כך הוא המנהג שנה אחת חטין ושנה אחת שעורין כן כל הימים ואינה צריכה שביתה כלום ה”ז חזקה שהרי אין מכחישים זה את זה כלל וממ”נ כל אחד מעיד שאכלה שני חזקה והלכך הויא חזקה דדמיא להא דר’ יהושע בן קרחה דאמרי’ בפירקין לעיל (דף לב.) אין עדותם מצטרפת עד שיראו שניהם כאחד ר’ יהושע בן קרחה אומר אפי’ בזה אחר זה וטעמא דר’ יהושע מפורש בסנהדרין בפ’ זה בורר דאע”ג דאמנה דקמסהיד האי לא מסהיד האי מיהו תרוייהו אמנה קמסהדי והכא נמי תרוייהו אחזקה קמסהדי

14) אמרו עליו על רבי עקיבא שהיה מחלק קליות ואגוזין לתינוקות בערב פסח כדי שלא ישנו וישאלו

קליות. קלי מחטים ישנים דחדש אסור עדיין בלילה הראשון של פסח ומקומות יש בספרד שמייבשין חטים ישנים במחבת על גבי האור ואוכלין אותם עם אגוזים בקינוח סעודה מפי רבינו שמואל החסיד

In example #13 (BB 56b), the issue at hand concerns adverse possession. If one witness sees the occupier taking wheat, and the other says he observed him taking barley, this is sufficient to take possession. R. Nachman demurred, observing that were this to be the case, if one witness observed the occupier taking crops in the first, third, and firth years, while another witness reported it in the second, fourth, and sixth years, it would also be sufficient. In explaining why this troubled R. Nachman, Rashbam asserts that the passage is dealing with the method of crop farming. In passing, Rashbam tells us “I asked the farmers, and they told me this was their custom, to plant wheat one year, and barley the next year, without any need to leave the ground fallow.” The Rashbam thus approached the experts – farmers, in this case – to know their precise methods, so that it would help him understand the sugya.

In the 14th and final example (Pesachim 109a), Rashbam wishes to explain the word “keliyos”, which are to be distributed to children on Passover eve, as a mean to keep the children up. Rashbam explains (citing another source) that such “keliyos” are actually made from the old grain (yoshon), and reports that there are places in Spain where such “Keliyos” are eaten regularly as a sort of dessert.

Thus, in these examples we see how Rashbam would cite others or speak to others to ascertain technical terms or practices. Rashbam would not hesitate to use field research or go “outside the page”, if it helped him understand the text.

*
* *

We have shown, I hope, that the impression some have of a Rashbam whose greatness shines through only in his Biblical works is profoundly mistaken. The examples above show the Rashbam using the full range of modern research tools to examine the Talmudic text in front of him. Far from using dual approaches to the Torah and the Talmud, Rashbam employs a single, unified method throughout his
commentary.

Though unquestionably lengthier than that of his illustrious grandfather, Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary displays all the hallmarks of intellectual rigor that have endeared him to so many moderns. If the academic community, or indeed, anyone wishes to see a complete picture of the man and his methods, it would do well to look again, for the first time, at Rashbam’s commentary to shas.

[1] See, e.g., Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (Oxford University Press, 2011) “Since its emergence in the Middle Ages, Peshat has remained an important focus of Jewish Bible Study (and in modern times has been viewed as a forerunner of the historical critical method) (etc.)” (Entry on Peshat); Cf. also the remarks of Professor Martin Lockshin upon the publication of his two-volume edition of Rashbam’s commentary to the Torah, referring to Rashbam as the most prominent among the Northern French scholars whose style “closely resembles the work of modern academic Bible scholars today.” (Cited in York University YFile, 9/11/09.)

[2] Sara Japhet, The Commentary of Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on the Book of Job (Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 2000) p 9-10, cited by Mayer Gruber, Rashi’s Commentary to Psalms, (JPS, 2004) at 43.

[3] Entry on Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam). The entry found in Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem 1972) is no different substantially.

[4] Rashbam Scholarship in Perpetual Motion (Mordechai Cohen) JQR 98:3 Summer 2008, 388-408.

[5] http://manuscriptboy.blogspot.com/2011/05/peering-through-conferenceshttpwwwblogg.html.

[6] Ephraim Urbach, Ballei Ha-Tosafot, Volume I, p.53. As Urbach explains, two different editions of Rashbam’s commentary on Bava Basra exist. In this essay I have used the (lengthier) edition found in the standard volumes of the Vilna shas.

[7]Pinchas Hayman, Implications of Academic Approaches to the Study of the Babylonian Talmud for the Beliefs and Religious Attitudes of the Student, printed in Abiding Challenges: Research Perspectives on Jewish Education (Freund Publishing House, Bar Ilan University 1999) pp 375 ff. See also the (negative) review of Dr. Hayman’s article by Rabbi Gil Student on the popular Torah Musings (formerly Hirhurim) website, May 24, 2004.

[8] Shamma Friedman, Five Sugyot From the Babylonia Talmud: The Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud (Jerusalem 2002) English Introduction; idem, “The Talmud Today” appearing in Jewish Book Annual, www.atranet.co.il/sf.talmud_today.pdf.
and the extensive bibliography and websites listed therein.

[9] Some (but not all) of these points overlap with the six points listed by Hayman, supra.

[10] Of note, in Rashi’s Methodology in his Exegesis of the Babylonian Talmud (Jerusalem, Magnes Press 1980), the late Dr. Yona Frankel writes only that Rashbam “occasionally followed the approach of Rashi in Bava Basra, and occasionally did not follow him.” (p. 201.) It is beyond the scope of this exploratory essay to examine the influences upon Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary, and the ways in which he contributed to the Tosafos (“Tosafos shelanu”) that appear in standard texts of the Talmud. The academic nature of Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary is evident there as well. (See e.g., Zevachim 102b s.v. Parich, where Rashbam deduces from the unusual language of R. Achai that the passage must date from Geonic times.) However, our limited inquiry must be limited to an examination of Rashbam’s sustained running commentary, rather than selected statements as they appear in Tosafos.

[11] See also Rashbam to BB 141a (D’tanya) for a similar example.

[12] Yisrael Ta-Shma, Ha-Safrut Ha-Parshanit La-Talmud (Jerusalem 1999) at 63. Ta-Shma devotes several pages to Rashbam’s commentary, but not specifically to the more academic features of it.

[13] Sefer Hayashar, Introduction (Zhitomir 1869)

[14] Ballei Ha-Tosafot,supra, at 47.

[15] See The Torah Commentary of Rabbi Samuel Ben Meir (1982, unpublished doctoral dissertation for Harvard University) by מורי Rabbi Moshe Berger, at 77. (“A major characteristic of both Rashi and Rashbam’s Torah exegesis is their search for darkei hamikraot . . . . Indeed, it is probably this element more than any other that has won for these exegetes the admiration of modern scholars . . . (etc.)”

[16]Ta-Shma, supra, citing Rashbam to BB 39a amar rava; 43a yihu; 51a kidirav Yosef, and several others.

[17] See Rashi to Shabbos 119a s.v. treisar, stating the number 13 is an exaggerated number. (תריסר עיליתי דדינרי. עליות מלאות דינרי זהב וגוזמא בעלמא הוא כלומר הון עתק מאד כך פירש רבינו הלוי וכן בכל מקום כגון תליסר גמלי ספיקי טריפתא (חולין דף צה:) וכן תליסר טבחי דלעיל)

[18] David Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis (Oxford University Press 1991) at 170

[19] See Shamma Friedman, Five Sugyot, supra.

Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb? A Contribution Toward the Identification of the Authentic Grave of the Vilna Gaon

Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb?

A Contribution Toward the Identification of the Authentic Grave of the Vilna Gaon

Shnayer Leiman

1. Prologue

This essay attempts to identify the authentic grave of the Vilna Gaon (d. 1797).1 As will become apparent, it surely is not the grave that Jewish pilgrims are shown today when they visit Vilna. We shall attempt to identify his authentic grave by applying the biblical rule: על פי שני עדים יקום דבר “a matter is established by the testimony of two witnesses.” We shall cite two different kinds of witnesses. One witness will represent primarily תורה שבכתב, i.e., literary evidence. The other witness will represent primarily תורה שבעל פה , i.e., oral history.

2. Introduction

Three Jewish cemeteries have served the Vilna Jewish community throughout its long history. The first Jewish cemetery, often called by its Yiddish name der alter feld (Hebrew: בית עולם הישן), was north of the early modern Jewish Ghetto of Vilna, and just north of the Vilia River (today called the Neris) in the town of Shnipishok. It served as the main Jewish cemetery until 1830, when, due to lack of space, it was closed by the municipal authorities. The following photograph, taken in 1912, presents an aerial view of the first Jewish cemetery, looking north from Castle Hill in the old city. One can see the Neris River flowing south of the cemetery; portions of the fence surrounding the cemetery; and the house of the Jewish caretaker of the cemetery near the north-western entrance to the cemetery. (Each of the following images may be enlarged and viewed in higher resolution by clicking on them.)

Such famous rabbis as R. Moshe Rivkes (d. 1671), author of באר הגולה, and R. Avraham Danzig (d. 1820), author of חיי אדם, were buried in der alter feld. See the following photograph for the grave of the חיי אדם in the old cemetery.

The second Jewish cemetery, in use from 1831 until 1941, was east of Vilna proper, on a mountain overlooking the nearby neighborhood called Zaretcha. Here were buried famous Maskilim such as Adam Ha-Kohen Lebensohn (d. 1878), and famous rabbinic scholars such as R. Shmuel Strashun (d. 1872), R. Avraham Avele Pasvaler (d. 1836), R. Shlomo Ha-Kohen (d. 1906), and R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzenski (d. 1940). With 70,000 graves in place in 1940, the second cemetery ran out of space, and a third Jewish cemetery was acquired and dedicated by the Vilna Jewish community shortly before the outbreak of World War II. It lies north-west of central Vilna, in Saltonishkiu in the Sheshkines region, and is still in use today by the Jewish community in Vilna.

The Vilna Gaon, who died in 1797, was, of course, buried in the first Jewish cemetery. That cemetery was destroyed in the Stalinist period circa 1950, but just before it was destroyed we are informed by the sources that the Gaon was moved, perhaps temporarily to the second cemetery,2 but certainly to the third cemetery, where he rests today.

Let us enter the third cemetery and stand before the Ohel ha-Gra.

It is a modest and narrow Ohel. When one enters the Ohel, one sees seven graves laid out from left to right, with five tombstones embedded in the wall at the heads of the graves.

The tour guides inform the visitors that the Gaon is buried in the fourth grave from the left. Indeed, directly above his grave, embedded in the wall, is a tombstone that clearly identifies the grave as that of the Gaon. One wonders who else is buried in the Ohel. The narrow confines of the Ohel, and the poor lighting in the Ohel, make it almost impossible to read the tombstones. One American publication identifies the others as R. Shlomo Zalman, the father of the Gra (d. 1758); R. Avraham, the son of the Gra (d. 1809); R. Yehoshua Heschel, Chief Rabbi of Vilna (d. 1749); R. Shmuel b. Avigdor, last Chief Rabbi of Vilna (d.1793); R. Avraham Danzig, author of חיי אדם; and Avraham b. Avraham, the legendary Ger Zedek of Vilna. Another American publication presents a different list that includes R. Moshe Rivkes, author of the באר הגולה , and Traina, the mother of the Gaon. In Israel, several published lists know for a fact that R. Shmuel Strashun was moved together with the Gaon, and now rests in the new Ohel. All these accounts are imaginary.3

When one reads the accounts of the reinterment of the Gaon, and of those buried in his Ohel today, it becomes apparent than more than bodies were moved. Wherever possible, the original tombstones were moved together with the dead and then reset at the head of the graves. All one has to do is read the tombstone inscriptions in order to identify who was moved. Reading from left to right, buried in the Ohel ha-Gra are:

1. R. Zvi Hirsch Pesseles (d. 1817). A relative of the Gaon, whose grandfather, R. Eliyah Pesseles (d. 1771), helped finance the Gaon’s study activity.

2. R. Yissachar Baer b. R. Shlomo Zalman (d. 1807). A younger brother of the Gaon, he was a master of rabbinic literature who was also adept in the exact sciences.

3. R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz (d. 1797). Distinguished Kabbalist, he was the author of פרפראות לחכמה and נפלאות חדשות. He married Minda (hence: Mindes), the daughter of R. Eliyahu Pesseles, mentioned above (grave 1). A close associate of the Gaon during his lifetime, he and the Gaon share a single tombstone in death.

4. The Gaon.

5. Minda Lipshutz (date of death unknown). She was the daughter of R. Eliyah Pesseles and the wife of R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz.

6. Devorah Pesseles (date of death unknown). She was the wife of R. Dov Baer Pesseles, a son of R. Eliyahu Pesseles, and the mother of R. Zvi Hirsch Pesseles (grave 1).

The seventh grave is unmarked, that is, it is without a tombstone. The tour guides will tell you that it contains the ashes of Avraham b. Avraham, the legendary Ger Zedek of Vilna.4

A pattern emerges. Clearly, the original plot in the Shnipishok cemetery belonged to the Pesseles family, one of the wealthiest and most distinguished in Vilna. The Gaon found his resting place here due to the generosity of his relatives and friends in the Pesseles family. More importantly, when a hard decision had to be made in 1950 or so regarding who should be moved from the old cemetery in Shnipishok, it was not the greatest rabbis who were moved and reinterred. It was neither R. Moshe Rivkes, nor R. Yehoshua Heschel, nor R. Shmuel b. Avigdor, nor R. Avraham Danzig, nor R. Shmuel Strashun. Nor was it the Gaon’s father, mother, or son. It was the Gaon and the persons to his immediate right and left; the Gaon saved not only himself, but also those buried in proximity to him.

3. The Problem

While the identification seems reasonable, the ordering of the graves is problematic. Anyone familiar with traditional Jewish cemeteries will know that some keep men and women separate, while others are mixed. Clearly, the old Jewish cemetery in Shnipishok was mixed. But even when mixed, husbands and wives tended to be buried next to each other. So too mothers and sons. Yet in the Ohel ha-Gra, R. Zvi Hirsch Pesseles is buried at the extreme left, whereas his mother Devora is buried at the extreme right. Neither is buried next to his or her spouse. Even more puzzling is the fact that the Gaon rests in between Rabbi Noah Mindes Lipshutz and his wife Minda Lipshutz. Now it may be that Rabbi and Mrs. Lipshutz were not on speaking terms, but this was hardly the way to decide where the Gaon should be buried.

The problem assumes prodigious proportions when we examine Israel Klausner’s קורות בית-העולמין הישן בוילנה, published in Vilna in 1935. Klausner visited the Shnipishok Jewish cemetery, recorded some of the tombstone inscriptions of its most famous rabbis and, more importantly, drew a precise map of the location of each grave. It is important to note his orientation, as he drew the map. Klausner stood at the northern entrance to the Jewish cemetery, looking southward toward the Vilia River. See the depiction of the Ohel ha-Gra in Klausner’s map.

The graves in the Ohel ha-Gra, from left to right, are numbered 20-27. Some of those numbers represent two graves of persons buried immediately next to each other. Klausner, in his narrative, identifies the occupants of graves 20-27 as follows:

20. a) ר’ שלמה זלמן אבי הגר”א

b) ר’ אליהו שתדלן

21. a) ר’ יהודה ב”ר אליעזר (יסו”ד)

b) חיה אשת ר’ יהודה ב”ר אליעזר (יסו”ד)

22. ר’ צבי הירש פעסעלעס

23. דבורה פעסעלעס

24. מינדה פעסעלעס ליפשיץ

25. a) ר’ נח מינדעס ליפשיץ

b) הגר”א

26. ר’ ישכר בער אחי הגר”א

27. ר’ יהושע העשיל ב”ר שאול

This, then, is a complete list of all those who were buried in the original Ohel ha-Gra in the old Jewish cemetery. That Klausner has the order perfectly right can be seen from the following photograph.

Notice the inscription פ”נ הגאון רבינו אליהו in the center of the photograph, near the roof-top of the Ohel. Turning to the extreme left of the Ohel, where the roof slopes down almost to the ground, one can see two grave markers above a single tombstone.

When enlarged, the inscriptions above the tombstone clearly read (from left to right): פ”נ אבי הגר”א and ר’ אליהו שתדלן, exactly in the order recorded by Klausner (see above, grave number 20). When we compare Klausner’s list with the present occupants of the Ohel ha-Gra, it becomes clear that those who moved the Gra from the first to the third cemetery, moved the graves numbered 22-26, a total of six persons altogether, from the original Ohel ha-Gra. The seventh grave, unmarked, remains unidentified and could have come from any part of the old cemetery, and not necessarily from the Ohel ha-Gra.

When we enter the Ohel ha-Gra today, we need to bear in mind that we are entering from the south and looking north. We see the mirror image of what Klausner depicted on his map. Thus the expected order today should be:

The expected order solves all our problems. On the extreme right, Devorah and her son R. Zvi Hirsch are buried next to each other. In the center, R. Noah and his wife Minda are buried next to each other. And the Gra is second from the left. It is the actual order that creates our problem. Devorah and R. Zvi Hirsch are separated; neither is buried next to his or her spouse. The Gra is buried in between R. Noah Lipshutz and his wife Minda. אין זה אומר אלא דרשני.

One more piece of evidence needs to be introduced before we attempt to solve the problem. Israel Cohen, British Zionist and world traveler, visited Vilna twice before World War II. Regarding the Shnipishok cemetery, he records the following: Most famous of all is the tomb of the Gaon Elijah, who lies in the company of a few other pietists on a spot covered by a modest mausoleum which is entered by an iron-barred door.

The tombstones, with long eulogistic epitaphs, are not enclosed within the mausoleum, but stand at the back of it, in close juxtaposition and closely protected by a thick growth of shrubs and bushes.

Israel Cohen, Vilna (Philadelphia, 1943), pp. 415-416. Cf. his Travels in Jewry (New York, 1953), pp. 149-150.

4. The Solution

It seems obvious that those who moved the Gaon to the new Jewish cemetery made one slight adjustment relating to the ordering of the graves. They moved R. Zvi Hirsch from the extreme right to the extreme left. We will never know with certainty why they did so. What was gained, perhaps, is that now all the males were together on the left, and all the females were together on the right. By moving R. Zvi Hirsch to the extreme left, the Gra was now the third grave from the left. But the actual order today appears to have the Gra as the fourth grave from the left, and buried in between R. Noah and his wife Minda.

We need to remember that in the old Jewish cemetery the tombstones were outside the Ohel ha-Gra, each tombstone opposite the remains of the person it described, with text of the tombstone facing in a northerly direction. Indeed, every tombstone in the old Jewish cemetery was placed opposite the remains of the person it described, with the text of the tombstone facing in a northerly direction.

We also need to remember that the Gra and R. Noah shared one tombstone.5

The Gra’s epitaph was on the right side of the tombstone; R. Noah’s epitaph was on the left side of the tombstone. This was in perfect order, since inside the Ohel, the Gra was to the left of R. Noah, and R. Noah was to the left of, and next to, his wife Minda. In the new Jewish cemetery, the six graves were laid out exactly as in the old cemetery, with the exception of R. Zvi Hirsch as indicated. But it was decided to place the original tombstones inside the Ohel, at the head of each of the graves. Instead of facing in a northerly direction, with texts that could be read only by standing outside the Ohel, the tombstones, now reversed, faced in a southerly direction, with texts that could be read only when standing inside the Ohel. Doubtless, this was done in order to protect the historic tombstones from exposure to the elements, from deterioration, and from vandalism. Also, the tombstones now immediately identified who was buried in each grave. Unfortunately, when the single tombstone shared by the Gra and R. Noah was reversed and set up inside the Ohel, it automatically (and wrongly) identified the third grave from the left as R. Noah, and the fourth grave from the left as the Gra, and caused a split between R. Noah and his wife. In fact, the Gra is the third grave from the left, and R. Noah is the fourth grave from the left – and R. Noah is properly buried next to his wife Minda. In other words, all Jews who visit the grave of the Gra today, pray, and leave qvitlach, at the wrong grave (i.e., at the grave of R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz).

The above solution was based upon an examination of the literary evidence, and upon an examination of photographs preserved mostly in books. I call this עד אחד (one witness), that is, the testimony of תורה שבכתב (i.e., the literary evidence). But a matter established by only one witness is precarious at best.6 Intuitively I was persuaded by the one witness, but hesitated to put the solution in print until more evidence was forthcoming. Fortunately, a surprise second witness has come forward בבחינת תורה שבעל פה (i.e., oral history). Rabbi Yitzhak Zilber (d. 2003) was a courageous Jew who lived most of his life under Soviet repression between the years 1917 and 1972, before ultimately settling in Israel. He published a riveting autobiography in Russian in 2003. It has since been translated into Hebrew and English. In his autobiography, Zilber describes how in 1970, under Communist rule, he visited the Ohel ha-Gra in Vilna. The Jew who took him to the Ohel had participated in the transfer of the Gra from the first Jewish cemetery in Shnipishok to the third Jewish cemetery in Saltonishkiu. As they stood before the Gaon’s grave, the Jew turned to Zilber and said:7

Remember the following forever: the Gaon’s tombstone is above the

fourth grave from the left, but the Gaon’s body is in the third grave [from

the left].

על פי שני עדים יקום דבר! “A matter is established by the testimony of two witnesses.”

NOTES

This essay should not be confused with an earlier essay of mine with a similar title, “Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb? A Mysterious Tale with Seven Plots,” Jewish Action, Winter 1998, pp. 36-41. The primary focus of the earlier essay was on the identification of the six persons buried together with the Vilna Gaon in his mausoleum (the Ohel Ha-Gra). The primary focus of this essay is on the identification of the grave of the Vilna Gaon himself. A version of this essay was read at a conference in honor of Professor Daniel Sperber, held at Bar-Ilan University on June 13, 2011. It is presented here in honor of the Vilna Gaon’s 215th yahrzeit on 19 Tishre, 5773.

The claim that the Vilna Gaon was moved temporarily from the first to the second Jewish cemetery appears, among many other places,

in Y. Alfasi, ed., וילנא ירושלים דליטא חרבה (Tel-Aviv, 1993), p. 9; Y. Epstein, “,דער יידישער בית-עולם אין ווילנע” ירושלים דליטא, October-November 1996, pp. 5-6; and N.N. Shneidman, Jerusalem of Lithuania (Oakville, Ontario, 1998), p. 161. An examination of eye-witness accounts of the reburial of the Gaon, and of much other evidence, yields the ineluctable conclusion that the Gaon was moved only once, directly from the first to the third Jewish cemetery.

See the references cited in the Jewish Action essay (above, note 1).

So reads the Hebrew sign above the entrance to the Ohel Ha-Gra. But the Ohel Ha-Gra was constructed over a three-year period between 1956 and 1958. I cannot say with certainty when the sign first went up, but logic dictates it did not go up before there was an Ohel. In all the early photographs of the Ohel I have seen, there was no sign at all. It surely wasn’t there during the period of Soviet domination of Lithuania, which means it first when up sometime after 1991. As such, it is hardly evidence for who is buried in the Ohel Ha-Gra. More importantly, one of the participants in the reinterment of the Vilna Gaon testified that he and his colleagues wanted to move the remains of Avraham ben Avraham, the Ger Zedek of Vilna, but could not locate his ashes in the old Jewish cemetery. See R.Yitzchak Zilber, To Remain a Jew (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 389-390.

For side by side transcriptions of the epitaphs on their tombstone, in clear Hebrew font, see R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz, פרפראות לחכמה (Brooklyn, 1995), p. 17.

I was plagued by the remote possibility that the movers, precisely because the shared tombstone required the Gaon to be to the right of R. Noah, switched the remains of the Gaon and R. Noah, and deliberately buried the Gaon in between Minda and R. Noah. (I considered this a remote possibility, because it is highly unlikely that any rabbi would allow such tampering with who was buried to the immediate left and right of the Gaon. As is well known, R. Hayyim Zvi Shifrin [d. 1952] presided over the reinterment of the Gaon. See R. Yaakov Shifrin, קול יעקב [Jerusalem, 1981], pp. 26-30.) If so, all the tombstones are accurately positioned in the Ohel Ha-Gra, even today. Cf. my deliberations in American Jewish Monitor , October 24, 2003, p. 18.

R. Yitzchak Zilber, op. cit. (above, note 4), p. 389.