Some Literary, Scholarly & Halachic Perspectives on Medieval Ash

Some Literary, Scholarly & Halachic Perspectives on
Medieval Ashkenazi Attitudes Toward Martyrdom

by Yitzhak of בין דין לדין

Prose

George Eliot, in Daniel Deronda, depicts the ineffable, exquisite Mirah Lapidoth contemplating her recent abortive suicide attempt:

She went on musingly–

“I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the Eternal. I know our fathers slew their children and then slew themselves, to keep their souls pure. I meant it so. (George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Chapter XVII)

She elaborates, several chapters later:

Then I thought of my people, how they had been driven from land to land and been afflicted, and multitudes had died of misery in their wandering–was I the first? And in the wars and troubles when Christians were cruelest, our fathers had sometimes slain their children and afterward themselves: it was to save them from being false apostates. That seemed to make it right for me to put an end to my life; for calamity had closed me in too, and I saw no pathway but to evil. But my mind got into war with itself, for there were contrary things in it. I knew that some had held it wrong to hasten their own death, though they were in the midst of flames; and while I had some strength left it was a longing to bear if I ought to bear–else where was the good of all my life? (ibid. XX)

The one who “held it wrong to hasten [his] own death, though [he was] in the midst of flames” may be R. Hanina B. Tradyon:

מצאוהו לרבי חנינא בן תרדיון שהיה יושב ועוסק בתורה ומקהיל קהלות ברבים וספר תורה מונח לו בחיקו הביאוהו וכרכוהו בספר תורה והקיפוהו בחבילי זמורות והציתו בהן את האור והביאו ספוגין של צמר ושראום במים והניחום על לבו כדי שלא תצא נשמתו מהרה …

אמרו לו תלמידיו … אף אתה פתח פיך ותכנס [בך] האש אמר להן מוטב שיטלנה מי שנתנה ועל יחבל הוא בעצמו אמר לו קלצטונירי רבי אם אני מרבה בשלהבת ונוטל ספוגין של צמר מעל לבך אתה מביאני לחיי העולם הבא אמר לו הן השבע לי נשבע לו מיד הרבה בשלהבת ונטל ספוגין של צמר מעל לבו יצאה נשמתו במהרה אף הוא קפץ ונפל לתוך האור יצאה בת קול ואמרה רבי חנינא בן תרדיון וקלצטונירי מזומנין הן לחיי העולם הבא … (גמרא עבודה זרה דף י”ח ע”א)

Poetry

References to suicides and murders of children by their parents (and occasionally teachers) to avoid apostasy abound in both the Halachic and liturgical medieval Ashkenazic literature. A classic example from the former:

ואך את דמכם וגו’. אזהרה לחונק עצמו. ואמרו בבראשית רבה (ל”ד י”ג) יכול אפילו כחנניה מישאל ועזריה, תלמוד לומר אך. פירוש יכול אפילו כמו אלו שמסרו עצמן לקידוש השם שלא יוכל לחבול בעצמו אם הוא ירא שלא יוכל בעצמו לעמוד בנסיון, תלמוד לומר אך, כי בשעת השמד יכול למסור עצמו למיתה ולהרוג עצמו. וכן בשאול בן קיש שאמר לנערו שלוף חרבך ודקרני בה וגו’ (שמואל א’ פרק ל”א פסוק ד’). ומכאן מביאין ראיה אותן ששוחטין התינוק בשעת הגזירה…

ומעשה ברב אחד ששחט הרבה תינוקות בשעת השמד כי היה ירא שיעבירום על דת, והיה רב אחד עמו והיה כועס עליו ביותר וקראו רוצח והוא לא היה חושש. ואמר אותו רב אם כדברי יהרג אותו רב במיתה משונה, וכן היה שתפסוהו עכו”ם והיו פושטין עורו ונותנין חול בין העור והבשר, ואחר כך נתבטלה הגזירה, ואם לא שחט אותן התינוקות היו ניצולין: (דעת זקנים מבעלי התוספות בראשית פרק ט’ פסוק ה’, וכעין דבריהם עם קצת שינויים הובאו בבדק הבית יו”ד סימן קנ”ז בשם ארחות חיים)

Here are two poignant references, from the Kinos of Tishah B’Av, to suicide and the slaughter of children to avoid conversion and sin:

אראלים צאו וצעקו מרה / ספוד תמרור האגדו בחבורה
קול כחולה צרה כמבכירה / התאוננו על עדת שה פזורה
עלימו כי נגזרה גזרה / בחרי אף וזעם ועברה
ונתועדו בפרישות ובטהרה / לקדש שם הגדול והנורא
ואיש את אחיו חזקו בעזרה / לדבק [בו] ביראה טהורה
בלי לכרוע לעבודה זרה / ולא חסו על-גבר וגבירה
על פנים צפירת תפארה / אבל אזרו גבורה יתרה
להלום ראש ולקרץ שזרה / ואלימו דברו באמירה
לא זכינו לגדלכם לתורה / נקריבכם כעולה והקטרה
ונזכה עמכם לאורה / הצפונה מעין כל ועלומה

אז הסכימו גדולים וקטנים / לקבל באהבה דין שוכן מעונים
וזקנים דשנים ורעננים / הם היו תחלה נדונים
ויצאו לקראתם עזי פנים / ונהרגו המונים המונים
ונתערבו פדרים עם פרשדונים / והאבות אשר היו רחמנים
נהפכו לאכזר כיענים / והפיסו על אבות ועל בנים
ומי שגורל עלה-לו ראשונים / הוא נשחט בחלפות וסכינים
ובחורים עלי תולע אמונים / הם לחכו עפר כתנינים
והכלות לבושות שנים / מעלפות בזרועות חתנים
מנתחות בחרב וכידונים / זכרו זאת קהל עדת נבונים
ואל תחשו מהרבות קינים / והספידו על חסידים והגונים
אשר צללו במים הזידונים / לזכר זאת נפשי עגומה
(קינות לתשעה באב כמנהג פולין (מהדורת גולדשמידט)), “החרישו ממני ואדברה”, מספר כ”ג

Professors Simon Schwartzfuchs and Avraham Grossman disagree both on the quantity and significance of the liturgical poetry composed contemporaneously to the events of the First Crusade, and their divergent views on this question yield different inferences as to the magnitude of the Crusade’s impact on the ravaged German communities. Grossman details Schwartzfuchs’ position:

שוורצפוקס ממעיט ביותר ברישומן של גזירות אלה על הדורות הסמוכים ולאחריהם, וזאת הוא מסיק בעיקר ממיעוט העיסוק בהן ביצירה הרוחנית לענפיה ולסוגיה. עניין מיוחד יש בדבריו על הפיוטים. באותם ימים תפסו הפיוטים מקום נכבד בחיי הקהילות ולהדי הזמן ניתן בהם ביטוי מובהק. אם אכן לא נותר רישום הגזירות בהם, כי אז היה הדבר מעיד על מיעוט העניין בהן ועל הרושם הזעום שעשו על בני אותם דורות:

אשר לפיוטים שעניינם מסע הצלב הראשון, אשר ליקטו הברמן וקודמיו, מספרם הזעום מפתיע. הברמן הביא שניים שלושה פיוטים בני זמנו של מסע הצלב הראשון. יתרה מזאת, לא ברור כלל אם כולם דנים במסע הצלב. וכבר העיר ברון, שפיוטים אלה חוזרים על עצמם ועל ניסוחם, המעורפל במידה רבה, בכל הנוגע למאורעות שהם אמורים לתאר ולהזכיר (שוורצפוקס, “מקומם של מסעי הצלב בדברי ימי ישראל”, בתוך: ר’ בונפיל, מ’ בן-ששון, י’ הקר (עורכים), תרבות וחברה בתולדות ישראל בימי-הביניים, קובץ מאמרים לזכרו של ח”ה בן-ששון, ירושלים תשמ”ט, עמוד 257)

Yet Grossman himself disagrees:

קשה להסכים עם קביעות אלה מהטעמים דלהלן: מספר הפיוטים הקדומים המתייחסים אל גזירות תתנ”ו שהובאו בספרו של הברמן איננו ‘שניים או שלושה’. הוא הביא בספרו שבעה פיוטים כאלה, ועליהם יש להוסיף ארבע קינות של ר’ אלעזר ב”ר נתן (הראב”ן) המשולבות בתיאור הגזירות. למעשה, כבר כתב הברמן במפורש, כי הוא מביא לקט ומבחר מן הפיוטים על גזירות תתנ”ו, וכי הוא לא ירד למנות את כולם. בין אלה שלא הובאו על ידו יש לציין במיוחד את הקינה על חורבנה של קהילת וורמייזא שחוברה סמוך מאוד לאותן הגזירות, ואולי מיד עם סיומן, על ידי ר’ יעקב בר’ יצחק הלוי, בנו של ראש ישיבת וורמייזא…

בקינות אלה אין תיאורים כלליים של הגזירות אלא התייחסות מפורשת אל האירועים בשנת תתנ”ו. עליהם יש להוסיף פיוטים אחרים שנתחברו לאחר מסע הצלב השני וגזירות אחרות, אשר בהם תינו הכותבים את הצרות שתכפו עליהם מבלי להתייחס דווקא אל תתנ”ו, אך ניתן לחוש בבירור כי גם הן נלקחו בחשבון מניין הצרות. מדרך הטבע ישלב כותב מאוחר את פרעות זמנו עם אלה שקדמו להן ולא יסתפק בהזכרת הראשונות בלבד, ואין בעובדא זו כדי ללמד שנחלש או נעלם רישומן של הצרות הראשונות.

כללו של דבר, בתחום הפיוט נשארו הדים מרובים וקשים לגזירות תתנ”ו, ולכך יש חשיבות מרובה. הפיוט שימש באותם ימים ככלי הביטוי העיקרי להגיגיהם של בני הקהילות, ובו ביטאו את שמחותיהם ובעיקר את מכאוביהם ויגונם. יתר על כן, מסורות שונות היו מצויות בידי חכמי אשכנז שלאחר הגזירות, והן הועברו מדור לדור, תוך שמירת משמעותם של פרטים שונים הנמצאים באותם פיוטים שנתחברו על גזירות תתנ”ו. לפי מסורות אלה, אף שחלק מדברי הפייטנים נראים כתיאורים כלליים בלבד, נתכוונו בהם הכותבים לרמוז אל אירועים ממשיים שהתרחשו באותן גזירות. (אברהם גרוסמן, ‘שורשיו של קידוש השם באשכנז הקדומה’, בתוך: ישעיהו גפני, אביעזר רביצקי (עורכים), ‘קדושת החיים וחירוף הנפש, קובץ מאמרים לזכרו של אמיר יקותיאל’, עמודים 101 – 103)

Scholarship

Suicide and Infanticide in Halachah: A critique of Soloveitchik, Halbertal, and Berkovitz

All of this serves as an appropriate introduction to an analysis of Professor Haym Soloveitchik’s provocative discussion of medieval Ashkenazic halachic attitudes toward martydom in Halakhah, Hermeneutics and Martyrdom in Medieval Ashkenaz (Part I of II) (Jewish Quarterly Review, Volume 94 Number 1 Winter 2004 p. 77) [I am greatly indebted to Andy for drawing my attention to, and providing me with copies of Soloveitchik’s article, as well as the previously cited article by Grossman].

Soloveitchik opens by arguing:

Some fifteen years ago, I argued that there are occasions when cultural norms shape the perception of Halakhah, even on the part of its greatest thinkers. There is no pure empiricism in Halakhah, any more than in any other discipline. The simplest text, if it leads to unbelievable conclusions, will be either discounted or reinterpreted. The more outlandish the conclusions of the straightforward interpretation, the less plausible need be the reinterpretation. Despite its improbability, it will carry the air of verisimilitude to those who share the shock at the alternative. This does not happen often, but it does happen – even in such important areas of Jewish law as martyrdom.

The strange reasoning of the Tosafists on the subject of martyrdom does not, I contended, bear legal scrutiny. Both their justification of suicide when fearing that one might yield to torture and apostasize and their even more surprising defense of parents slaughtering infants to prevent them from being reared as Christians were post facto justifications of the conduct of Jewish communities during the first Crusade. …

The matter seemed fairly obvious to me, and I contented myself with one long footnote of documentation. This was evidently a mistake. Much to my surprise, this claim stirred considerable controversy. …

Clearly the matter needs to be treated in far greater detail. Let us turn to the Tosafist writings on martyrdom, examine them carefully, and see whether their hermeneutical sins on this topic are indeed so scarlet. …

Soloveitchik follows with an intricately detailed and closely reasoned argumentation showing that the Tosafists’ reasoning in this area is not compelling and arbitrary, but that, on the other hand, the dilemmas faced by the Jewish victims of the Crusades had been unbearably agonizing. [In a recent, brief post, Wolf2191 is dismissive of Soloveitchik’s entire argument, but I think it has more merit than he concedes, and that it is, in any event, worthy of a more detailed discussion.] Soloveitchik eloquently concludes:

The choice that now confronted the Jews probed the limits of the halakhah. The laws of martyrdom treat the issue of when one is obliged to lay down one’s life. What happens after one is dead is irrelevant legally, but only too relevant in real life. The fate of the child of the now-dead martyr was out of the purview of halakhah, but remained at the very center of Jewish concerns for their Jewish continuance. Halakhah could not adequately address that burning question, so Jews addressed it on their own. Halakhists endorsed their solution, some even rationalized it after a fashion. The inadequacy of their answers was not simply because they were given after the bloody fact, but also because the received halakhah was inadequate to resolve the tragic question raised by their present condition: What was the point of Jewish martyrdom if the children would be reared as Christians?

Although Soloveitchik’s arguments are, as I mentioned before, generally quite cogent, I believe that a couple of his points are erroneous. He writes:

Let us now turn to the issue of killing one’s children rather than allowing them to fall into the hands of the idolators (i.e. Christians). …

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the factors at work than [R. Meir of Rothenberg’s] responsum. It reads:

יהודי אחד שאל את ר’ מאיר שיחיה, אם צריך כפרה על ששחט(א) אשתו וד’ בניו ביום הרג רב בקופלינש עיר הדמים, כי כן ביקשוהו יען ראו כי יצא הקצף מלפני ד’ והתחילו האויבים להרוג בני קל חי הנהרגים על קדוש השם. וגם הוא רצה להרוג את עצמו במית(ו)תם אלא שהיצילו ד’ על ידי גויים.

וכתב לו: לא ידענא שפיר מה אידון ביה, כי ודאי ההורג את עצמו על ייחוד ד’ רשאי לחבול בעצמו, ואמר יכול כשאול, ת”ל אך. … אבל לשחוט אחרים צריך עיון למצוא ראייה להתיר, ומשאול אין ראייה לאיסור אחרי שצווה דוד להרוג אותו (וכן) בן איש גר העמלקי, שנאמר אנכ[י] מות(ו)תתי משיח ד’, [דדילמא משיח ד’] שאני. …

מיהו דבר זה פשט היתירו, כי שמענו ומצאנו שהרבה גדולים שהיו שוחטין את בניהם ואת בנותיהן. … ונראה להביא ראייה להתיר, דכי היכי דאמר יכול כשאול? ת”ל אך, ה”נ [הכי נמי] נימא דההורג את חבירו על קידוש השם מותר, דבההוא קרא כתיב ומיד האדם ומיד איש וגו’. …

ומי (שמטעינן) [שמטעינו] כפרה, הוא מוציא לעז על החסידים הראשונים. ואחרי שכוונתו היה טובה, מרוב אהבת יוצרינו יתברך שמו פגע ונגע (במעמד) [במחמד] עיניו, וגם הם חילו פניו על ככה …
וצור ישראל ינקום את נקמתינו ונקמת תורתו ונקמת דם עבדיו השפוך בימינו ויראו (עינו) [עינינו] [וישמח לבינו]

… [R. Meir’s] arguments are shot through with inconsistencies. … When confronted with a proof against the practice of slaughtering others from the Saul narrative, R. Meir points out immediately, and quite correctly, that nothing can be inferred from Saul as he was God’s anointed king. Yet a line later, he advances the permissibility of suicide for anyone confronting religious persecution from that very same narrative. R. Meir perceives the noncomparability of royalty and commoners when the argument is against the killing of others but not when the argument is in its favor. (p. 98)

This objection is specious; Maharam’s logic is perfectly clear and consistent. The enormity of killing God’s anointed king is greater than that of killing a commoner, so we cannot extend a stringency found in the context of the former to the latter. A leniency found in the context of the former, however, must a fortiori apply to the latter! Perhaps Soloveitchik is suggesting that just as Maharam distinguishes between royalty and commoners as the objects of suicide, so too ought he to distinguish between them as the perpetrators, and grant more latitude to the former, but this is a non-sequitur.

A subsequent argument made by Soloveitchik is more profoundly flawed. He cites the following remarks of Rav Moshe of Zurich (Hagahos S’mak):

ואותם הקדושים ששחטו עצמם וזרעם כשבאו לידי ניסיון מפני שלא רצו לסמוך על דעתן … והיו יראים שיעבירום הגויים על דת ויהיו שם שמים מתחלל על ידיהם, כולם יש להם חלק לעולם הבא וקדושים גמורים הם … ומכאן סמכו לשחוט הילדים בשעת הגזירה שאינם יודעים בין טוב לרעה לפי שאנו יראים פן ישתקעו בין הגויים בגיותן כשיגדלו, מוטב שימותו זכאים ואל ימותו חייבים, שכן מצינו גבי בן סורר ומורה שעל שם סופם ללסטם את הבריות ומחלל שבתות, לפיכך הוא בסקילה, עד כאן לשון האבי העזרי.

and proceeds to challenge them:

The problem with his analogy is simply that the law of the rebellious son was declared inoperative by the Oral Law, a declaration which found expression in the famous talmudic dictum “there never was nor could there ever have been a case of the rebellious son” (lo’ haya ve-lo ‘atid lihiyot). The inconceivability of punishing someone – and capital punishment at that – not for the commission of a crime but on the basis of a prognosis of crime was an halakhic impossibility. If the Palestinian sages of the first and second century could not condemn a rebellious son to death as the Pentateuch had ordered, how could a medieval parent condemn an innocent babe to death on its basis?!…

Soloveitchik then proceeds to eloquently explicate how inconceivably horrific to a medieval Jewish parent would the thought of his child growing up Christian have been, and then concludes:

Of all the arguments, that of the rebellious son is the most absurd and at the same time the truest. What had been inconceivable to the Palestinian sages of the first and second century – How could one predict with absolute certainty that a child would become a murderer?! – had become only too real for the tiny Jewish minority in medieval Europe. They could predict with frightening accuracy that a child would live a life of crime and infamy. Death in this world was a small price to pay to forestall a life of sin and death for an eternity; any caring parent would pay that price willingly.

The fundamental problem with Soloveitchik’s argument here is that the Palestinian sages of the first and second centuries said no such thing! The passage in question states:

מתניתין: … רבי יהודה אומר אם לא היתה אמו ראויה לאביו אינו נעשה בן סורר ומורה:
מאי אינה ראויה … אלא בשוה לאביו קאמר תניא נמי הכי רבי יהודה אומר אם לא היתה אמו שוה לאביו בקול ובמראה ובקומה אינו נעשה בן סורר ומורה מאי טעמא דאמר קרא איננו שומע בקלנו מדקול בעינן שוין מראה וקומה נמי בעינן שוין

כמאן אזלא הא דתניא בן סורר ומורה לא היה ולא עתיד להיות ולמה נכתב דרוש וקבל שכר כמאן כרבי יהודה איבעית אימא רבי שמעון היא דתניא אמר רבי שמעון וכי מפני שאכל זה תרטימר בשר ושתה חצי לוג יין האיטלקי אביו ואמו מוציאין אותו לסקלו אלא לא היה ולא עתיד להיות ולמה נכתב דרוש וקבל שכר אמר רבי יונתן אני ראיתיו וישבתי על קברו…

While a simple reading of the Gemara indicates merely that R. Yehudah and R. Shimon are setting forth technical reasons for the impossibility, or at least implausibility, of an actual occurrence of a בן סורר ומורה, Soloveitchik apparently understands that they are actually objecting in principle to the very idea of the בן סורר ומורה, and are therefore finding excuses to empty the law of practical significance. He, however, marshals not a shred of evidence for this reading. Moreover, we have seen that the Gemara subsequently cites a Beraisa which makes an identically worded assertion about the impossibility of a בית המנוגע. Is there some overwhelming ethical objection to that law, too?

It is important to note that the issue is not the plausibility or even correctness of Soloveitchik’s reading of the Gemara; the key question is merely whether Rav Moshe of Zurich (and the Ra’aviyah, if the attribution to him is correct) could have reasonably understood it in the way they did without a need to arrive at a predetermined conclusion. Insofar as the answer is in the affirmative, there is no basis whatsoever for terming the argument ‘absurd.’

Additionally, Soloveitchik neglects to mention the fact that these statements about בן סורר ומורה are apparently minority opinions and not normative! Rambam (Commentary to the Mishnah ibid. 71b), Meiri (ibid.) and Rav Ovadyah of Bartenura (ibid. 8:4) all state that the Halachah does not follow R. Yehudah. [I have not seen them, or anyone else, discuss whether the Halachah follows R. Shimon, perhaps for the very reason that his statement, contra Soloveitchik, is not prescriptive in the first place, and is merely expressing an assessment of the unlikelihood of an actual occurence of a בן סורר ומורה. This is indeed the understanding of Remah, as we shall see below.] Moreover, Rambam’s codification of the laws of בן סורר ומורה does not include the statements of R. Yehudah and R. Shimon, and it does not contain the slightest indication that the laws have no practical application (יד החזקה ממרים פרק ז).

The only clue that Soloveitchik gives as to the basis of his reading of the Gemara is a footnote reference to Professor Moshe Halbertal’s Interpretative Revolutions in the Making: Values as Interpretative Considerations in Midrashei Halakhah. Here is how Halbertal understands R. Yehudah’s statement:

תשובה אחרת והפוכה לדגם של גזרת מלך מצויה בתוספתא בדברי התנא קמא: ‘בן סורר ומורה לא היה ולא עתיד להיות’. כמו רבי שמעון בן אלעזר, תנא זה אינו מקבל את טענת ‘נדון על שם סופו’, אלא מציע לשאלת ‘וכי מפני…’ תשובה שונה לחלוטין מגזרת הכתוב. תשובה זו היא הקיצונית ביותר מבחינת המשקל שהיא מייחסת לטיעון מוסרי בפרשנות, ומהווה מודל שלישי של תגובה לבעיה המוסרית הטבועה בסוגייתינו. …

מדרשו של רבי יהודה … ודאי אינו נובע מהבנת הצמידות ‘אביו ואמו’ כפשוטה, שהרי צמידות זאת אינו מחייבת זהות מוחלטת בין ההורים אלא השתתפות שניהם בפעולת התפיסה…

בגישת רבי יהודה התנאים וההגבלות שנוצרו הם שרירותיים מבחינת תוכנם: אין כל טעם פנימי בדרישה שהוריו של הבן יהיו זהים בקולם, במראם ובקומתם. מטרתן של הגבלות אלו היא אפוא ביטול מימושה של הפרשה. (p. 59)

That which is self-evident to Professor Halbertal appears quite dubious to me; what evidence is there that R. Yehudah’s requirement of physical identity between the parents stems from anything other than technical textual, exegetical considerations? Indeed, the Gemara actually states similar requirements for the two Se’irim of Yom Ha’Kippurim and the two Zipporim of a Mezora (יומא דף ס”ב ע”א – ע”ב, ועיין תוספות ישנים שם, ציינו בגליון הש”ס בסנהדרין). Although Halbertal might argue that the derivations of the Gemara for those laws (inferences from linguistic superfluities) are more compelling than R. Yehudah’s, I think that anyone familiar with Talmudic exegesis must concede that it often involves textual arguments that we would not consider particularly compelling.

Rav Meir Ha’Levi Abulafia (Remah) elaborates slightly on R. Yehudah’s exegesis (יד רמה סנהדרין שם ד”ה מתניתין):

מאי טעמא דאמר קרא איננו שומע בקולינו משמע שני גופין וקול אחד ומאי קאמר קרא על כרחיך שוין קאמר ומדקול בעינן שוין מראה וקומה נמי בעינן שוין:

Remah seems to assume that R. Yehudah is engaged in typical and straightforward textual exegesis.

Halbertal continues with an analysis of R. Shimon’s position:

בהמשך מציע התלמוד זיהוי אחר לתנא הגורס ‘לא היה ולא עתיד להיות’:

אי בעית אימא רבי שמעון היא, דתניא אמר רבי שמעון וכי מפני שאכל זה תרטימר בשר ושתה חצי לוג יין האיטלקי אביו ואמו מוציאים אותו לסקלו? אלא לא היה ולא עתיד להיות, ולמה נכתכ, דרוש וקבל שכר. אמר רבי יונתן אני ראיתיו וישבתי על קברו.

ישנן שני דרכים להבין את שאלת רבי שמעון ותשובתו. אפשר ששאלת רבי שמעון היא הבעיה המוסרית ‘וכי מפני …’, ותשובתו – הפרשה לא ניתנה ליישום אלא ‘דרוש וקבל שכר’. לפי פירוש זה, בפנינו מתודה פרשנות מרחיקת לכת. שלא כרבי יהודה, שדורש את הביטוי ‘אביו ואמו’ ובאמצעיתו יוצר תנאים המונעים את חלות הפרשה, רבי שמעון אינו נזקק לדרשת הפסוקים אלא קובע מתוך הערכה כוללת שאין הם ישימים. לפי רבי שמעון, אין הפרשה עצמה קובעת את התנאים ההופכים אותה לבלתי אפשרית. לדעתו, העובדה שקיימת פה בעיה מוסרית מלמדת שאין ליישם פרשה זאת. הפרשן אינו נתלה בכתוב כלשהו כדי לבטל את הפרשה מתוכה: דיו בהעלאת השאלה ובהכרעה שהיא ניתנה ללימוד ולא למעשה, טיעון שגם אותו אין הוא מוכיח מהכתובים עצמם…מובן שאפשרות זאת בדברי רבי שמעון יוצרת תקדיש מדהים של חירות פרשנות שעל פיו אין כלל צורך בפירוש, אך קיימת אפשרות אחרת בהבנת דבריו.

האפשרות השנייה היא ששאלת ‘וכי מפני שאכל תרטימר בשר ושתה חצי לוג יין האיטלקי אביו ואמו מוציאין אותו לסקלו?!’ אינה שאלה מוסרית אלא שאלה אמפירית. לפי הפירוש האמפירי, לא ייתכן שהורים יקשו את לבם ויוציאו את בנם להיסקל בגלל מעשים כאלו, ומתוך כך אפשר להסיק שהפרשה ניתנה ללימוד ולא לעשייה. פירוש זה נסמך על כך ששאלת ‘וכי מפני …’ בנוסחה זאת אינה גורסת: ‘אמרה תורה יוציאוהו בית דין ליסקל’, אלא במקום ‘בית דין’ מופיע הביטוי ‘הוריו’. בדבריו של רבי שמעון אין אפוא בעיה מוסרית אלא קביעה אמפירית – שלא מצויים הורים כאלה שיוציאו את בנם להיסקל. עמדתו של רבי שמעון אינה משקפת אפוא שינוי ערכים אלא שינוי חברתי, ומה שנראה באפשרות מעשית במקרא נהפך לגביו לדבר אשר לא ייעשה…

Halbertal himself concedes that his former interpretation of R. Shimon is quite radical, and indeed, entirely uncompelled by the text, since he admits that there is an alternative reading, which he offers no reason for rejecting, and for which he actually suggests some support from the Gemara’s language. Moreover, he himself notes that Remah understands the Gemara according to this latter ’empirical’ interpretation:

ואיבעית תימא רבי שמעון דסבירא ליה דמילתא דלא שכיחא היא דליתו ליה אבוה ואמיה לבי דינא למרגמניה משום דאכל תרטימר בשר ושתה חצי לוג יין אבל לרבנן אף על גב דאינו נעשה בן סורר ומורה עד שיהו שניהם רוצים קסברי רבנן דלאו מילתא דלאו שכיחא היא דליתו ליה למרגמניה משום דמסקי אדעתייהו מאי סלקא ליה לבסוף: (יד רמה סנהדרין שם ד”ה מתניתין)

Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz apparently also understands the Gemara similarly to Professors Halbertal and Soloveitchik

… occasionally the ethical conscience of Halakha weakened the very purpose of the law and even declared it completely nonoperative. …

There was the case of the “stubborn and rebellious son” who was a “glutton and a drunkard” and did not listen to the voice of his parents. If his father and mother together agreed that there was no other course for them but to hand him over to “the elders of the city,” then – says the Bible – he should be put to death. “So shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee; and all Israel shall hear, and fear”…

One may judge such a law rather cruel. From the beginning it required a justifying explanation. It was said that the “stubborn and rebellious son” was put to death because of his threatening end. …

The regulations attached to the law by the teachers of the Halakha were so numerous and so meticulous that even if one had followed the biblical injunction, in practice the law would have been implemented very seldom. In fact, Rabbi Shimeon, one of the halakhic authorities of the Mishnaic period, declared that a case of the “stubborn and rebellious son” never happened and would never happen. The reason he gave had nothing to do with Halakha. For, “because this son ate meat to the value of a Tartemor [an old Greek coin] and drank half a Log [a large liquid measure] of good Italian wine, his parents would hand him over to be stoned to death!” Such things do not happen. The law may say what it pleases; it has no application in human experience.

Another Mishnaic teacher, Rabbi Y’huda, went even further. He “interpreted” the biblical text in such a manner as to show that if you followed its literal meaning, it would hardly be possible to make any use of this law. …

And now follows the most surprising conclusion of this entire discussion. “If so, why was it written [i.e. why was the law given at all]?” The answer is: “To interpret it [showing that it was not meant to be implemented] and to receive reward [from God] for its study.” As if it had been a test for the intelligence and the conscience of the student and the teacher.

A similar “interpretation” was also placed on another law of the Torah. The Bible decreed that if an entire city is led astray to idol worship by some of its inhabitants, it should be destroyed, including its inhabitants and all of their property. The law was an expression of Judaism’s desperate struggle against polytheism. Faith in the One God was the raison d’etre of Jewish existence. Without monotheism there could be no Jewish people. Yet to destroy an entire city was not an easy matter. Thus we hear that this law was never enacted. “Ir Ha’Nidahat [the destruction of the city led astray] – it never was, nor will it ever be.” How so? The answer is that the Bible says: “And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the broad place thereof and shalt burn with fire the city …” … Therefore, this Mitsva was given “in order to be ‘interpreted’ and to be rewarded” for an interpretation that shows that the law was never meant to be applied. (Not In Heaven, pp. 28 – 31. I am indebted to Michael Makovi for bringing this passage to my attention.).

Rabbi Berkovitz, too, fails to provide any convincing argument for these rather dubious readings of the Gemara (and he, too, conveniently neglects to address the third Halachah about which the Gemara declares לא היה ולא עתיד להיות, the law of Mezora).

Returning to Soloveitchik, I reiterate that it is crucial to remember that the issue at hand is not the modern academic understanding of the Gemara, or even the correct interpretation of the Gemara. [I absolutely refuse to bracket the word ‘correct’ with irony quotes.] The issue is simply how medieval scholars would have naturally, in the absence of a “perception shaped by cultural norms”, understood the Gemara. I have argued that neither Halbertal, nor Soloveitchik, nor Berkovitz have provided any basis, other than their own judgments, for their fairly radical reading of the Gemara in the first place, let alone for Soloveitchik’s assumption that the Rishonim read (or should have read) it that way. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, Soloveitchik ignores the fact that the positions of R. Yehudah and R. Shimon are not normative (a point not denied by Halbertal).

In summary, it is unacceptable to dismiss out of hand the reasoning of the Rishonim on the basis of speculative and uncompelling interpretations of what are anyway non-normative Talmudic statements.

Jews, Drinking & Kiddush Clubs

The popular press, in this case Newsweek, does not always get Jewish practices correct. Newsweek just published a short piece on Jewish drinking and specifically mention “Kiddush clubs.” While the article makes it appear that this is a new problem, (and to be fair, it seems that is what they were erronously told by those they spoke with), in fact, as is almost always the case, ain hadash tachas ha-shemesh – there is nothing new under the sun. First, the article claims that “Jews don’t drink – much. Historically, Jews have not had alcohol problems to the extent as some other religious groups.” This claim, that Jews don’t drink, echos the erroneous assertions of some non-Jews, especially during the temperance movement of the 19th and early 20th century in the United States. Much of the temperance movement was lead by certain Christians and pointed to Jews or more specifically the Old Testament in suport of banning alcohol. One particularly egregious mistake in doing so was to misinterpret the prohibitions of Passover. That is, the problem that some in the temperance movement were required to deal with is if Jesus drank wine at the Last Supper, then how can wine be bad? To answer this, some pointed to “Jewish” practice. Specifically, they noted that the Last Supper took place on Passover, “and we know that the Jews were scrupulous in using at this ceremony none but unleavened bread and unfermented wine.” Of course, while leavened bread is prohibited there is no related prohibition on fermented wine.[1] Professor Hayim Solovetick has shown that historically Jews were involved in the wine business and drank as much as their non-Jewish neighbors. These facts may have affected certain halachik rulings. This does not mean that Jews must drink alcoholic beverages. Although wine is mandated for numerous rituals, according to most, grape juice suffices. For this point we again turn back to the temperance movement and this time the effect of the 18th Amendment. The 18th Amendment prohibited the consumption of alcohol. However, the National Prohibition Act carved out an exemption that allowed for consumption for “religious rites.” As a consequence, there was a market for fraudulent rabbis and other religious figures that would permit the otherwise prohibited. To counter these scofflaws, R. Levi Ginzburg,[2] penned a responsum arguing that grape juice sufficed to Jewish religious purposes. This responsum remains the most comprehensive discussion of grape juice in Jewish law. Isaac Wise, authored an essay discussing the topic of how Judaism views being a teetotaler. Wise rejects this practice. Wise notes that “Isaiah, upbraiding the weakness of his people says: ‘Thy wine is adulterated with water.’ and the Psalmist sings: ‘And wine gladdens the heart of man.'” Wise continues and highlights the use of “mishteh, ‘a drinking occasion.” Accordingly, Wise explains that since “Moses and the Talmud are not opposed to the use of wine or strong drink. The Jew might consider it superfluous to be more orthodox than Moses, the prophets, or the rabbis of old.” Wise further argues that if the reason for prohibiting drink is due to the harm that may come from overindulging, there is a much more pernicious “evil” that of the amassment of wealth. Wise claims that “the wildest imagination [is] too feeble to depict a mere fraction of the woes and crimes caused by money. It makes rogues of honest men, and villains of generous souls . . . Money makes slaves, hypocrites, gamblers, thieves . . . [it] ruins virtue, beguiles innocences.” Thus, Wise concludes that “the use of wine or strong drink as a beverage is no moral wrong . . . the abuse of religion and prayer is worse than the abuse of liquor, [and] the present crusade [of temperance] will not remedy the evil; it is contrary to law and liberty, and it makes us ridiculous in the eyes of the civilized world.” As was the case with Wise, there can be no doubt that drinking has been a controversial topic for one reason or another. One of the more well-known cases of censorship relates to a ruling on wine. The Rama’s responsum on the consumption of ya’yin nesach was removed in most of the editions of his responsa. This responsum was so unknown that some charged the Rama never authored it and it was a forgery.[3] But we need not go so far afield as ya’yin nesach to find controversy. As is mentioned in the article, there are those who participate in Kiddush clubs and, (as would be expected), there are those who question such gatherings. What no one appears to mention is that the Kiddush club is not a recent invention. Instead, from at least mid-sixteenth century, such gatherings took place. Specifically, R. Moshe Yitzhak M’zia (1530-1600, most of his responsa were authored between 1560-80) in his Yefeh Nof was asked About the custom of the bachurim on Shabbat to leave the synagogue after the Torah is removed from the ark to drink whisky before the mussaf, is this permitted? If they do not sit down for a meal this is permitted because the law does not follow Rav Huna who prohibits tasting prior to mussaf.[4] According to this responsum, groups would leave to drink during the prayers.[5][5] From this responsum we can glean a few important facts about the custom during that period. First, such gatherings probably would not be called Kiddush clubs because they did not make Kiddush at all. Second, R. M’zia does not condemn the practice and expresses no outrage or suggestion that it stop. Instead, it appears so long as it was halachikally ok, R. M’zia was unwilling to challenge this practice.

[1] For more on the topic of unfermented wine (raisin wine) on Passover and its connection with the temperance movement see Jonathan Sarna, “Passover Raisin Wine, The American Temperance Movement, and Mordechai Noah,” HUCA, 59 (1988), 269-88. Additionally, see the fascinating article by Hannah Sprecher, “‘Let Them Drink and Forget Our Poverty’: Orthodox Rabbis React to Prohibition,” American Jewish Archives 43:2 (Fall-Winter, 1991): 134–179. Sprecher discusses the one Orthodox response to Ginzberg. Id. at 158. See, as well, Marni Davis, “‘On the Side of Liquor’: American Jews and the Politics of Alcohol, 1870-1936,” (PhD dissertation, Emory University, 2006), esp. chap. five (“‘A House Divided Against Itself’: American Jews Respond to Prohibition”), 190-250. Finally, see J. David Bleich, Contemporary Halakhic Problems, vol. V, 2005, chap. viii, “The Whiskey Brouhaha,” where he takes issue with the monkier used by a drinking club – the Glatt Cigar Society. Aside from actually drinking, Jews also authored parodies on drinking. One such parody is devoted to prohibition Gerson Kiss, Massekhet Prohibishon (Brooklyn, 1929), a description of which is found in in Sharon Liberman Mintz & Gabriel M. Goldstein, eds., Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein (New York: Yeshiva University Museum, 2005), 300. And, Y. Friedlander, the possible author of the well-known forgery Yerushalim on Seder Kodshim, also authored a drinking parody. This parody, however, focused on the hassidic custom of drinking for the purposes of tikkun. The parody is titled Sefer ha-Tikkun and is a “Shulhan Orakh” on all the various times and occasions to make a tikkun. See Baruch Oberlander, “Ha-Yerushalmi le-Seder Kodshim vehaMotzei le-Or Shelo,” Or Yisrael 15 (1999), 174-75; see also Boaz Haas, Ke-Zohar ha-Rakiyah, Jerusalem, 2008, 353 n.330 who also discusses the Sefer ha-Tikkun. For other examples of parodies see Eliezer Brodt’s post on the topic here. [2] As an aside, it worth noting that Ginzburg was originally a student of Telz Yeshiva and later in life went on to teach at JTS. However, after Telz relocated to the United States, he helped with the publication of the Teshuvot R. Eliezer from R. Eliezer Gordon, Rosh ha-Yeshiva of Telz. Ginsburg was thanked in the back of this edition in a full page, it appears that in some copies, (perhaps those disturbed to Telz students) Ginzberg’s name was pasted over. Additionally, on the topic of Ginzburg and Telz Yeshiva, Ginzburg authored an excellent five volume work on the Yerushalmi, Pirushim ve-Hiddushim al ha-Yerushalmi. R. Gifter and Ginzberg carried on a correspondence regarding this work which still remains in manuscript – but is facinating in its content.[3] See Y.S. Speigel, Amudim be-Tolodot Sefer ha-Ivri Ketivah ve-haTakah, Ramat Gan, 2005, 273 and the notes therein.[4] This responsum was first published by Assaf in his Mekorot l’Tolodot ha-Hinukh be-Yisrael, (in the original version it appears in vol. 4. no. 39:6, p. 43 and in the latest version, edited by Shmuel Glick, Jerusalem, 2002, it appears in vol. 1. P. 111). R. M’zia’s responsa remained in manuscript until 1986 when Mechon Yerushalim published them. This edition includes a biography of R. M’zia by Professor Eric Zimmer. Additionally, Zimmer authored an article on M’zia. See E. Zimmer, “The book Yefeh Nof of R. Yitzhak M’zia,” Kiryat Sefer 56 (1981), 529-545; E. Zimmer, Gahalaton shel Hakhamim, Jerusalem, 1999, 84-105.[5] This is distinct from the custom of stopping the prayers and everyone, not just the bachurim, going home to eat a snack and then study prior to the start of the Torah reading; this custom is discussed at length by R. Y Goldhaver. See R. Y. Goldhaver, Minhagei ha-Kehilot, Jerusalem, 2005, vol. 1, 200-208. R. Goldhaver’s work includes notes by the prolific and encyclopedic R. Shmuel Ashkenazi. On this topic of taking a break during services, Ashkenazi notes that Goldhaver made a common bibliographic mistake of attributing the Shu”t Hut ha-Meshulush to the author of the Tashbetz, R. Shimon b. Tzemach Duran, because both works were published together. See R. Shmuel Ashkenazi comments id., vol. 2, 316.

All New Posts are at a New Address

All new posts for the Seforim blog appear at the new address www.seforim.traditiononline.org However, you can still access the old post on this site or, all the old posts, including comments, have been moved to the new site and are accessible there.

More on Ma’adane Eretz on Shevi’it

More on Ma’adanei Eretz on Shevi’it

Between the ‘Inner Family Circle‘ and the Published Word

By Yitzchak Jakobovitz

a) In a recent post on the Seforim Blog, Rabbi Chaim Rapoport spoke of the extent to which some disciples of the late Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach have gone in order to disassociate their late mentor from the heter mechirah, a procedure that he defended robustly in his work Ma’adanei Eretz.

To this end, a censored version of the original work was published (bearing the title Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz), in which Rabbi Auerbach’s endorsement of the heter mechirah as a minhag yisroel Torah hee was eliminated. The new version also eschewed citations of, and expressions of reverence for, the late Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook (one of the primary proponents of the heter mechirah and other controversial positions).

In note 10 of his article Rabbi Rapoport wrote: “In the course of time we may yet witness the birth of reports to the effect that Rabbi Auerbach (and/or: the Rabbis who gave their glowing haskamot) regretted ever having published (written approbations for) his Ma’adanei Eretz. Clearly Rabbi Auerbach’s regret will have to have been expressed ‘be-sof yamav’, since in 1972/5732 he was evidently still enthusiastic about the project”.

Little did Rabbi Rapoport know that his tentative ‘prophecy’ had already been ‘fulfilled.’ A recent publication (dated Elul 5767) entitled Shemittah keMitzvatah, dedicated to a rebuttal of the efficacy of the heter mechirah, documents such a suggestion. This work published anonymously but with an abundance of haskamot (including an approbation from Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv shlit”a), quotes many authorities that expressed their opposition to and disdain for the heter mechirah.

In the preface, chapter 5 (page 19), the anonymous author quotes Rabbi Yitzchak Yerucham Burdiansky, a son-in-law of Rabbi Auerbach, in his eulogy for his revered father-in-law. According to Rabbi Burdiansky, Rabbi Auerbach would say to his family: “You can tell the Rabbis that it (the heter mechirah) is worth absolutely nothing. It is a mere mockery!” [1]

The author does not tell us how Rabbi Auerbach’s statements in the inner circle of his family may be reconciled with his own published Ma’adanei Eretz.[2] Indeed, Ma’adanei Eretz is not even mentioned! One may therefore readily assume that Rabbi Auerbach’s (alleged) change of mind occurred ‘be-sof yamav‘ (as Rabbi Rapoport had predicted!); in time enough to express this to his family, but too late in the day to publish his revised opinion! Consequently, Rabbi Auerbach’s (alleged) ridicule of the heter mechirah was evidently first publicised posthumously, at a hesped.

The Uncensored Edition is Back in Print

b) In the interim a new, uncensored edition, of the Ma’adanei Eretz has been published by “Beit Medrash Halachah, Moriah, Jerusalem 5768.” This edition is an exact replica of the original Ma’adanei Eretz as the publishers inform us on the back of the title page:

נדפס מחדש בשנת תשס”ח

שנת השמיטה במתכונתו הקודמת

כפי שנערך ע”י מורנו המחבר זצ”ל

ובהוראתו, במהדורת תשל”ב

בית מדרש הלכה

“מוריה”

This uncensored edition has evidently received the financial backing of a generous and zealous English philanthropist (who was disturbed by the attempt to rob the Olam haTorah of part of Rabbi Auerbach’s heritage). The same page continues:

מהדורא זו יוצאת לאור

בסיוע “קרן רחל”, לונדון

לזכרו של מרן המחבר זצ”ל

להגדיל תורה ולהאדירה

Students who wish to study the Ma’adanei Eretz as authored and published by Rabbi Auerbach himself can now do so without recourse to a library or rare bookshop that still has a copy of the original edition.

On the other hand, students who want to study a censored version of the work, albeit bearing exactly the same title as the original, can also do so with ease. For since the publication of Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz (and Rabbi Rapoport’s post thereon) a ‘Friedman edition’ of Ma’adanei Eretz has been released (with the blessings of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s family). This version bears greater similarity to the original work, both in external format and internal structure, but it is still heavily censored and spares the reader from having to confront the truth!

[1] בספר ‘שמיטה כמצותה – בענין מכירת קרקע לגוי להפקיע דיני שביעית בימינו’, עמוד יט (ההערות בשולי הגליון נכללו בחצאי ריבוע): “הרב יצחק ירוחם בורדיאנסקי שליט”א חתן הגרש”ז אויערבאך זצ”ל [רחוב ויסבורג 4 ירושלים] מעיד שחותנו דיבר בחוג המשפחה אודות ההיתר מכירה (פירסמו בהספד שהספיד חותנו), וז”ל, איר קענט זאגן די רבנים אז ס’איז גארנישט מיט גארנישט, ס’איז א ליצנות (ועשה בידו תנועה של ביטול) – אתם יכולים להגיד לרבנים שזה לא כלום, זו ליצנות – כי אין להם דעת למכור ולא מתכוונים למכור, וכן הרב אביגדור נבנצאל שליט”א מעיד בשמו של הגרש”ז אויערבאך זצ”ל, שאפילו לתלמיד ‘מרכז הרב’ לא התיר לאכול ירקות מ’היתר מכירה’ משום איסור ספיחין, ואין זה סותר למה שאומר הרב בקשי דורון שאמר לו הגרשז”א זצ”ל בנוגע לההיתר מכירה ‘שהרי יש מאירי’, משום שאם יש אחד מיני אלף שיש לו גמירות דעת אין כאן הפסד במכירה לפי המאירי אלא רק ריווח, אבל עכשיו שנתברר שכל דברי המאירי לא נכתבו אלא מפני אימת המלכות [כמו שביארנו בשער א’ פרק ז], בודאי אסור לסדר מכירה”

[2] Rabbi Auerbach’s remarks in his Minchat Shlomo 1:44-45 also imply that he did not consider the heter mechirah to be a total mockery.

Meir Hildesheimer – Historical Perspectives on Rabbi Samson Rapha

On the recent occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), Dr. Meir Hildesheimer of The Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch Cathedra for the Research of the Torah im Derekh Eretz Movement (Bar-Ilan University), delivered a paper entitled “Historical Perspectives on Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch,” at the Jüdisches Museum in Frankfurt (7 June 2008). The remarks below appear with the express permission of Dr. Hildesheimer.

Historical Perspectives on Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

by Meir Hildesheimer

1. Introduction

200 years ago, on June 20th, 1808 Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch was born. And this year, 2008 – is also the 120th anniversary of Rabbi Hirsch’s death; he died on December 31st, 1888. Rabbi Hirsch was an outstanding personality who is known as one of the founders of Neo-orthodoxy and the Torah Im Derekh Eretz philosophy. In orthodox Jewish circles he is remembered above all as an intrepid fighter against Reform Judaism and as an exemplary educator. And theologians, Jewish and Christian, appreciate his creative Bible commentary.

In my lecture I want to deal neither with Rabbi Hirsch’s philosophy nor with his exegesis of the Holy Schriptures, as these issues are well known and much has been written about them. I want to concentrate on his deeds and achievements form a historical point of view and to shed light on some aspects of his multi-faceted personality.

2. Biographical sketch

Let’s start with a brief biographical sketch. Rabbi Hirsch was born on June 20, 1808 (27th Sivan 5568) in Hamburg as first child of Raphael and Gella Hirsch.[1] His parents named him Samson. Later he used to join his father’s name to his own (“Samson Raphael Hirsch”), thus following a widespread custom of the period. Samson Raphael Hirsch had a close relationship with his parents whom he described as “the guardians of his childhood, the guides of his youth, and the companions of his mature years.”[2] His grandfather, Mendel Frankfurter, a great Talmudic scholar and serving as Rosh Beit Din of Altona, had a profound influence on his grandson, as had the charismatic Rabbi (Chacham) Isaac Bernays (1792-1849) who was appointed Rabbi of Hamburg when young Samson reached Bar-Mitzva age, and Rabbi Yaakov Ettlinger (1798-1871) whose Yeshiva in Mannheim Rabbi Hirsch attended. Conscious of the new legal requirements from rabbis, the latter advised him to study at an university. Rabbi Hirsch went to the Univertsity of Bonn where he befriended the slightly younger Abraham Geiger, leaving after studying for a year without earning a degree. Consecutively Hirsch served as rabbi of Oldenburg (1830-1841), Emden (1841-1847) and as Landesrabbiner of Moravia (1847-1851) before he accepted the call of a tiny religious association in Frankfurt called “Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft”. From 1851 until his death in 1888 he resided in Frankfurt.

3. Personality

Rabbi Hirsch was a puzzle for his contemporaries and has remained so for later scholars seeking to unravel the complex components of his personality. Various people described Hirsch as extremely introverted, some of them even as “remoted” and “cold”. His disciple in the Nikolsburg yeshiva Armin Schnitzer (later rabbi of Komorn), for example, wrote in his memoirs: “His demeanor was serious and introverted. He was not talkative.” Rabbi Hirsch’s following self-portrait, which he wrote as a young man, shows clearly that he was conscious to that perception:

“So it always goes with me when my inner soul is too full. Then it does not spill over the sides as is common in other people – no, inside there can be stormy, turbulent waves but on the outside, with pressures and counterpressures – only silence. I am like a clock whose inner components interact with each other constantly but whose hands are missing, so that on the outside it appears completely still. Superficial people hold a feather to the nose and proclaim it lifeless, but those whose comprehension is deeper sense from the ticking that there is indeed life inside. A wise man knows to attach the missing hands to the face, so that he can read the time …”.[3]

In the eyes of his fellow people – except those of his family and intimate friends who praised his warm and symphatetic heart – he looked not only cold and distant, but also very self-confident. Rabbi Hirsch’s tone was rarely conciliatory, whatever his intentions. He used to express himself in such confident terms that made him appear arrogant. His strong commitment to rabbinic Judaism turned him into an active polemicist in the Orthodox camp.

4. Fighter against Reform

Rabbi Hirsch’s father had been a merchant. He intended his firstborn son to go into his footsteps. But when growing up, Samson chose for himself another profession – that of a rabbi. According to his own words, the religious controversies waged in his native town Hamburg were of primary importance in the shaping of his career.

At the end of 1817, when Samson Raphael Hirsch was nine years old, a substantial group of Jews in his native town Hamburg joined together to offer an alternative public expression of Judaism and established the “New Israelite Temple Association in Hamburg” and in 1818 erected a house of prayer which they named “Temple”. The “Temple” was the first Jewish house of worship in German to use an organ on the Sabbath and a mixed choir in the services. The Temple Association also published a new prayerbook, in which many prayers were in German, and various sections added and deleted at will. The Hamburg rabbinate as well as some of the leading rabbinic personalities issued a prohibition against praying in the Temple or using its prayerbook. The Hirsch home was the venue of meetings and strategy sessions called to combat the threat posed to Torah Judaism by the Temple. Young Samson was apparently deeply affected by the gatherings in his parents’ home, and in his later years recalled that it was this struggle which first gave him the impetus to pursue his calling in life.

Rabbi Hirsch’s first writings, The Nineteen Letters and Horeb already represented the beginning of his active struggle against the Reformers. At this early stage, Hirsch tried to address the reformers and young people attracted by reform in conciliatory terms, offering a positive alternative to the Reformer’s approach. The rebuff he received from the Reformers drove Rabbi Hirsch on to more open opposition. His literary energy in the years immediately following was mostly spent as an active polemicist in the Orthodox camp and emerged gradually its most uncompromising and militant defender.

5. Secession

Rabbi Hirsch’s uncompromising stance toward Reform was also the reason for his struggle for the secession of his small orthodox community in Frankfurt called Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft from the main Jewish community.

Neither in Oldenburg and Emden nor in Moravia did Rabbi Hirsch propagate a schism in the Jewish community. On the contrary, when leaving Nikolsburg, he admonished the Jews of Moravia in his farewell letter to stay united. On the other side, he left the Moravian Landesrabbinat because he had received an “appeal from Frankfurt to go to the aid of a tiny group, whose very founding is, in my view, given the goals I had all my life, the most promising development that has occurred in Jewry within the last several decades. For now, for the first time, a Jewish community has been formed, which is openly and proudly dedicated to a most holy principle, in an area which has been successfully conquered by the faces of confusion (i. e. Reform). What can I do! This holy cause is the very one to which I have consecrated my life.”

The reason for his different behavior in different places is obvious: in places where Reform gains influence over the Jewish community and its rites, a God fearing Jew must strive to disassociate himself from these “wicked people” and erect his own, Torah true community; in places not endangered by religious innovators taking over Jews should stay united. For the same reason Rabbi Hirsch sided the secession from orthodox Jewry in Hungary in 1868, when the newly constituted Jewish congress was dominated by reformers.

When the Prussian government in 1875 passed a law that enabled the erection of additional Jewish communities at a certain place (called the Austrittsgesetz), and the Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft (IRG) was entitled to form an independent community. The Jewish community of Frankfurt, then dominated by the reformers, did not want a significant number of their members, i. e. taxpayers, leaving, especially not the richer ones like Baron Willy Rothschild who was associated with the Religionsgesellschaft. So the community agreed to provide for all the needs of its orthodox members – a thing it did not do in the past – and exempting them from funding the religious activities of the reformers. A disagreement arouse among the IRG members about accepting this generous offer or to secede and form an independent community. The rabbi of the IRG, Rabbi Hirsch, propagated the last option; he even issued an halachic statement that obliged the members to secede. But a significant number of them did not consent and succeeded in getting the halachic support of one of the most prominent orthodox rabbis in Germany at this time, Rabbi Seligmann Bär Bamberger of Würzburg. Rabbi Bamberger’s involvement lead to a sharp literary argument between the two rabbis, resulting in lasting mutual bitterness and a severe blow for Rabbi Hirsch personally: most of the IRG members did not leave the old community.

What motivated Rabbi Hirsch’s fierce struggle for secession? In Rabbi Hirsch’s opinion Israel is a nation and became a nation only through and for the Torah. Every Jewish community is a microcosm of the people as a whole, and just as Torah is the sole unifying force of the Jewish people, so must it also be the bond which unites each community. Every Jewish individual is not only required to take an active role in the community, but only by being part of a community can the individual fulfill his role as a Jew and find his true meaning and purpose in life. The community exists for the sake of the Torah. A community that does not act according to the Torah forfeits its right to exist. Naturally, it is forbidden to be a part of such community.

At the same time, Rabbi Hirsch felt there was no halachic imperative for Jewish communities to join together in a wider framework. It is not clear whether his later activities for uniting orthodox Judaism in an organization called Freie Vereinigung für die Interessen des orthodoxen Judentums (Orthodox Union) reflexes a change in his beliefs or were only for practical reasons.

6. The orator and writer

Rabbi Hirsch used two main means for disseminating his ideas: the spoken and the written word. Once he said of himself: “All my life I have engaged in thinking more than in speaking, and in speaking more than in writing.”[4] But in truth his abilities in all these fields were really masterful. As an orator of rare talent he was seemingly influenced by his rabbi and teacher Isaac Bernays who was one of the most famous Jewish preachers of his time – that means, in the German language. Once asked by his uncle, why he preferred delivering his sermons in German and not in Hebrew, he replied that law in East Friesland required him and the other rabbis to preach in the vernacular, and furthermore the Jewish masses were not proficient in the Holy language. In order to reach them one would have to speak their tongue. His first experience as an orator he had as a student at the University of Bonn, where he and Abraham Geiger established an “association for the cultivation of speech”, intended for future rabbis in order to train them to deliver popular sermons.

Besides of speaking in German, a number of additional factors contributed to the profound impression Hirsch made on his audience: the carefully chosen expressions, the fast tempo, originality of thought and cogency of argument. He spoke without a text, occasionally keeping a small Bible in front of him. In his early years he would commit his speeches to writing before he delivered them. By the way, he spoke only in public settings, never at festive meals and private celebrations. His gifts as a speaker do much explain the great influence he had on his contemporaries.[5] In Frankfurt, Rabbi Hirsch’s weekly Sabbath addresses was the bond which unified the members of the IRG and left his listeners inspired to put the ideals of the Torah into practice. A visitor to his synagogue commented: “I do not understand one word that was said, but one had the impression that nothing less than the prophet Isaiah was standing up there.”

Yet the influence of his writings were even greater for they reached a much greater audience and had also a significant impact on future generations until this very day. Rabbi Hirsch’s gifted pen produced a rich and varied output: Halacha, commentaries on the Pentateuch, the Psalms and the Jewish prayer book, articles on philosophy, Jewish weltanschauung and education, polemics, letters and responses. All his writings, including his letters and halachic responses, were stamped with his unique style and characterized by a warmth of feeling and a sense of closeness to God. His skill at capturing the sanctity and sublime beauty of Jewish life remains unparalleled. His style is characterized by long sentences quite typical for this period. It shows his perfect command of German language and literature. Rabbi Hirsch employed his mastery of German prose and modern literary techniques in the cause of classic Judaism. In these times the literary sophistication of this Orthodox rabbi took everyone by surprise. (His Hebrew writings – mostly responses – are written in a very special style too.)

His writings had a particular influence on the younger generation, and continued to affect German Jewry in the decades after his passing. His commentary on the Pentateuch, for example, were found in every home of religious Jews in Germany.

7. Rabbi Hirsch’s attitude to German culture

Rabbi Hirsch’s attitude toward German was not the same as that of the other traditionalists of his time who were conversant in that language. To the latter, it was a language they knew and employed, but nevertheless a non-Jewish language. Rabbi Hirsch, on the other hand, had a deep emotional feeling for German and a strong attachment to German culture that also went far beyond the modest requirements set down by the conservative Maskilim who advocated practical subjects as necessitated by social and economic considerations. Rabbi Hirsch had been educated in a gymnasium focusing on humanistic studies. Influenced by the atmosphere in his family who encouraged secular studies, he appreciated the humanistic spirit which permeated the German cultural climate as well as the aesthetics. In the first of the Nineteen Letters, Rabbi Hirsch makes his imaginary protagonist remark: “How can anyone who is able to enjoy the beauties of a Virgil, a Tasso, a Shakespeare, who can follow the logical conclusions of a Leibnitz and Kant–how can such a one find pleasure in the Old Testament, so deficient in form and taste, and in the senseless writings of the Talmud?” Before Rabbi Hirsch, no Orthodox Jew had ever expressed such sentiments, even as a prelude to their rebuttal.

Rabbi Hirsch was especially influenced by Hegel and Schiller. In a speech given in his school he founded on the centenary of the birth of the latter, he claimed that the universal principles of Western culture embodied in Schiller’s writings are Jewish values originating in the Torah.

Despite Rabbi Hirsch’s liberalism in matters of culture and education, he was critical of literature that he considered offensive from a religious or moral standpoint. Thus, while reading “Der Salon” by Heine, he grew so highly incensed by its blasphemous expressions that he wanted to burn the book and compensate the library for its destruction. Nevertheless, the fact that “Der Salon” was written by apostate did not prevent Rabbi Hirsch from reading it.

8. Torah Im Derekh Eretz

But with all his love for German language and culture, Rabbi Hirsch was well aware of the danger of scientific knowledge leading one away from religion. He, therefore, strongly opposed the tendency to simply put Torah and Derekh Eretz side by side for this would implement that both are of equal value. According to Rabbi Hirsch, however, there is a higher and a lower sphere: The Torah is the essential, the standard by which all education is measured, while secular knowledge is secondary or supplementary to Torah. Or in Rabbi Hirsch’s own words: “We are confident that there is only one truth, and only one body of knowledge that can serve as the standard… Compared to it, all the other sciences are valid only provisionally”.[6]

The totality of Rabbi Hirsch’s thinking and teaching has always been regarded as comprehended in the single phrase, Torah im Derekh Eretz. What does it stand for?

The concept of Torah im Derekh Eretz – universal and timeless – in the doctrine of Rabbi Hirsch has been defined as a synthesis of Judaism and modern culture, embracing art and literature to the extent compatible with Halakha (i.e. religious Jewish law). However, this synthesis is to be understood in a Hegelian sense: two contradictory forces contending with each other are reconciled and renewed on a higher level. In other words: Torah and life, Judaism and culture, do not just complement each other, but achieve complete identity. In his old age, Rabbi Hirsch devoted most of his teaching activity in his school to a subject which he called “The Spirit of the Jewish Theory of Laws”. In those lessons he strove to implant in the hearts of his students a love of Torah and to inspire them with the consciousness of Torah im Derekh Eretz as the unifying principle of all the religious commandments, molding them into a uniform context of a harmonious Weltanschauung and life-pattern.

9. Political attitudes and activities: the struggle for emancipation

On December 10, 1810 Hamburg, Samson Raphael Hirsch’s native town, was annexed by revolutionary France. In 1814 the French were thrown out of the city, but the revolutionary vision of liberty, equality and fraternity remained part of the city’s intellectual fabric. Gabriel Riesser, the famous Jewish lawyer and politician, was one of the leading advocates of Jewish emancipation and very much admired by Jewish youths. Rabbi Hirsch was also deeply impressed, despite Riesser’s decidedly non-religious attitude.

As other rabbis, Rabbi Hirsch, too, recognized the enormous spiritual threat posed by Emancipation. Nonetheless, he viewed it as both a challenge and an opportunity to demonstrate that the Torah is no less applicable to the new open society than it was in the Ghetto – but of course only on condition that the Jewish people would still be bound to the Torah’s laws.

In his Moravian time, Rabbi Hirsch had a first-hand experience of the negative side effects that came together with emancipation:

a. religious indifference;

b. the loosening of the bond between the individual Jew with the community which was expressed by refraining from paying community taxes – an act that brought the Jewish communities on the brink of bankruptcy; and

c. a substantial increase in anti-Semitism.

Seemingly this was the reason that from the time he went to Frankfurt, he did not engage in any more public advocacy to advance the cause of civil equality for Jews. In reevaluating the battle for equal rights, he wondered whether the all-out drive for emancipation at any price had not been grounds for the further deepening of the exile, and if it had not engendered renewed persecution and increased restrictions on Jews.[7]

10. Jewish Nationalism and the Colonization of Eretz Israel

Heaving heard about Rabbi Hirsch’s attitude towards emancipation as well as about his embrace of contemporary German culture, we now want to deal with his attitude towards Jewish nationalism and the colonization of Eretz Israel.

Rabbi Hirsch’s opinion is probably expressed best in his reply to Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer’s attempts to persuade him to support his activities concerning the colonization of Eretz Israel. Rabbi Kalischer of Thorn, was a forerunner of Jewish nationalism and the settlement of Eretz Israel. His philosophy connects Jewish nationalism, philanthropic activities and the strive for ultimate redemption. In his book Derishat Ziyyon, he explained his idea of the return to Erez Israel and stated his theory that redemption would come in two stages: the natural one through return to Erez Israel and working on the land, and the supernatural one which would follow. Furthermore, he preached that the first stage should involve a healthy economic foundation for the yishuv, a foundation which could only come about through the development of agriculture on a large scale. Accordingly, he recommended the establishment of an agricultural school for the younger generation.

In his reply, Rabbi Hirsch presented a clear and concise statement of his position concerning settlement of Eretz Israel as a goal in itself in the present era. In his opinion, according to the Sages of the Mishna and the Talmud, Jew’s obligation is only to be devout with all the strength he is granted, and to look forward to the redemption each day. Israel possessed land and statehood only as instruments for translating the Torah into living reality; neither is it a goal in itself, nor is it instrumental in bringing the redemption. Furthermore, Jewish statesmen like Disraeli and Cremieux cannot be viewed as harbingers of redemption, for it is impossible to imagine that G-d would choose people who reject the Torah as his agents. Finally, Rabbi Hirsch agreed that is was important to support those Jews who currently lived in Eretz Israel – he himself supported efforts to improve their conditions! – but he expressed concern that mass settlement activity would bring in its wake increased risk of Sabbath desecration and the transgression of the agricultural commandments unique to Eretz Israel. And when Rabbi Kalischer’s attempts to persuade him did not cease, Rabbi Hirsch wrote: “In my lowly opinion, there will not emerge from this any benefit for put Torah and Jewish tradition, and it is not fitting for God-fearing people to associate with the Alliance Israelite Universelle, whose leaders lack all commitment to Torah and to God’s coventant.” And in his letter to Rabbi Lipschitz, the secretary of Rabbi Yitchak Elchanan Spector of Kovno, he wrote that all the effords to bring the redemption in this way is a grave sin. Here again we have Rabbi Hirsch’s resentment from cooperation with non-orthodox Jews!

And now, let us see if – and how – Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s legacy, 120 years after his death, is still relevant. In order to do this we have to relate to Jacob Katz’s essay “Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch – ha-meymin veha-masme’il” (turning to the right and the to the left) published in 1987. Katz wrote that Rabbi Hirsch took a decisive right, i.e. conservative, position in issues concerning Judaism and its beliefs (see his fight against Reform), but may be called “left” concerning culture, science and the attitude towards modern society. As nobody after him succeeded to unite these juxtapposite positions, this apparent rift in Hirsch’s philosophy led to a selected adoption of his by different group of peoples.

The “right” components were readily adopted by ever growing parts of ultra-orthodox society, that means an uncompromizing struggle against everything that seemed a deviation from traditional Judaism as well as the abhorrence of a cooperation with non-orthodox people or groups, even if the goals are common. These circles will cite from Hirsch’s writings the passages useful for their purposes, but ignore other passages speaking, for example, of the need to learn a trade or gain seculat knowledge. It also seems that the ideological opposition to Zionism of Orthodoxy has its roots in Rabbi Hirsch’s philosophy (see above), that means many years before the the Munkatcher and the Satmarer Rebbes.

Other orthodox circles, especially Modern Orthodoxy, embraced Rabbi Hirsch’s openness to secular culture and science, combining “Torah” (i.e. rabbinic studies) with “Derekh Eretz”. But unlike their ultra-orthodox counterparts, they do not refrain from cooperating with non-religious Jews. This is especially right of Religious Zionism which is also – as its name inplies – Zionist.

Rabbi Hirsch stood in the focus of the dramatic intellectual and spiritual transformations that characterized German Jewry in the 19th century. His personality as well as his many-sided and varied activities on the fields of Bible exegesis, philosophy and leadership shaped the face of Neo-orthodoxy to a very high degree and their influence was felt not only in his own generation but also later on until to this very day.

Selected Bibliography:

Breuer, Mordechai, The “Torah-Im-Derekh-Eretz” of Samson Raphael Hirsch, Jerusalem-New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1970.

Klugman, Eliyahu Meir, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Architect of Torah Judaism for the Modern World, New York: Mesorah Publications, 1996.

Liberles, Robert, Religious Conflict in Social Context, Westport (Connecticut)-London: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Rosenbloom, Noah H., Tradition in an Age of Reform, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976.

[1] Rabbi Hirsch’s genealogy was researched by Eduard Duckesz and published in: Jahrbuch der Jüdisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft (also printed seperately).

[2] Dedication to Horeb (Altona 1836).

[3] Transcript (free rendition) by E.M. Klugman in the possession of the late Prof. Mordechai Breuer.

[4] Nineteen Letters, Letter 19.

[5] For example: Armin Schnitzer from his time in Nikolsburg as cited in English in Klugman, p. 324.

[6] Commentary to Leviticus 18, 4-5

[7] See Collected Writings II, p. 26.

Bitul ha-Tamid: the History and Application

Bitul ha-Tamid and Edgar Allan Poe* The Mishna in Tannit records that 5 bad events occurred on the 17th of Tamuz, one being the cessation of the daily sacrifice, the tamid.
The Talmud Bavli offers the background to the other four events. When it comes to the cessation of the Tamid, all the Bavli does is state “Gemara.” It is left to the Yerushalmi to fully explain the story. The Yerushalmi, (Tannit, 4:5), records that
the Jews to maintain the tamid worked out a deal with the Romans who were besieging the city. Everyday the Jews would lower down a basket full of
coins, and in its stead, the Romans would return the necessary animals. One day, the 17th of Tamuz, however, after the Jews gave the
requisite money, instead of the correct animals the Romans replaced
them with pigs. Thus, the Jews were unable to bring the tamid and the sacrifice stopped from that time on. As
mentioned, this story only appears in the Yerushalmi and not the Bavli. (Although the Bavli records a similar story, it is about the Hashmonaim and not the Roman’s, nor does it mention the bitul ha-tamid.)
Further, Josephus does not record it either (he briefly mentions that the daily sacrifice stopped on the 17th without giving details – see Wars of the Jews, book VI, chapter 2). Although these works do
not record it, Edgar Allan Poe does. Specifically, he has a story
titled “A Tale of Jerusalem” which, more or less, is this story
repackaged. You can read the whole story here. Basically, the story details the two priest whose job it was to lower
the baskets of gold. Poe ends with the pigs being raised instead. Not
only does Poe use this somewhat obscure story, he even injects some
detail that one would need to be versed in the original story to fully
appreciate. The priest in question are who belonged to the sect called
“The Dashers (that little knot of saints whose manner of dashing and
lacerating the feet against the pavement was long a thorn and a
reproach to less zealous devotees–a stumbling-block to less gifted
perambulators).” This is a play on the talmudic description of the
priests – that they are quick – kohanim zerizim hem. Poe assumes familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet to a degree that one would know the letter yud
is the smallest. As he says “thou canst not point me out a
Philistine–no, not one–from Aleph to Tau–from the wilderness to the
battlements–who seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod!” The question is where in the world did Poe get this. According to some it seems Poe got this from another novel from “1828, Zillah, a Tale of Jerusalem,
by Horace Smith (1777-1849). Poe incorporated whole phrases and
sentences from Smith’s story: “Poe’s story is more than a parody; it is
literally a collage of snatches of the Smith novel, cut out and pasted
together in a new order.” That being said, it seems that Poe was still
more familiar with this story than Zillah
and we are left to wonder did Poe study Talmud? He wouldn’t be the
first famous American author to do so. Thomas Jefferson had a copy of a
volume or two of the Bavli. Although, here, it would appear Poe one
upped Jefferson by being a baki in Yerushalmi as well. Bitul ha-Tamid in Later History Although the actual tamid stopped on the 17th of Tamuz, the phrase “bitul ha-tamid” continues to be used. According to some, Rabbenu Gershom, amongst the many takanot he was involved in, instituted bitul ha-tamid. Bitul ha-tamid as used in this sense means to stop the daily prayers. That is, if a person had a grievance, they could stop the prayers or public torah reading, until the community dealt with the issue. Some rishonim trace bitul ha-tamid to a Yerushalmi that records R. Yochanon telling someone to stop the prayers to have his way. (See Teshuvot ha-Rashba, vol. 4, no. 56). Bitul ha-tamid was a serious and well-recognized device. For example, the Or Zarua records that “on the week of parshat Emor, someone stopped the services, and there was no torah reading. Thus, they had to read both Emor and Behar the next week.” (Or Zarua, Laws of Shabbat no. 45). Note that there was no question about the legality of forcing the entire community, in this case Cologne Germany, skipping the torah reading. The only issue was how to make it up. The Sefer Hassidim records the process:

The one wishing to stop the prayers goes up either before barachu (or seder kedusha) to where the Hazan is standing. This person then closes the prayer book of the Hazan and announces “I am the one who stopped – [the word kalu or kalman possibly from clamour] and the hazan immediately stops the prayers. If he wants to stop the torah reading, he goes up to the steps before the ark and announces ‘I will not allow the torah to be removed.’ Some do this on the torah’s return – they stop the return. Sefer Hassidim no. 463.

Obviously, this device could not be used for any minor grievance, the question some deal with is exactly when this can be used. One of the teshuvot ha-Geonim records that in Bavel, they only allowed this to be used when a person refused to show up for bet din. That is, if someone sues someone and the party refuses to come to bet din, one can go to the recalcitrant person’s synagogue and make this announcement. In this same responsum, however, it records a different opinion that allows for one to collect on an outstanding debt – but, in the case of a debt collection to only do bitul ha-tamid once. The Sefer Hassidim, however, allows for bitul ha-tamid to collect necessary funds for the poor. As one would expect, it appears that this process became abused. The Sefer Hassidim, the source for much material on this topic also includes a warning to anyone who misuses this that they will have to pay for abuse of the process. Similarly, R. Efrahim Lunschintz in his Amudei Shesh explains that abuse of this process only harms god as he misses out on prayers he otherwise would have received. At base, it is understood that this is a powerful tool to get one’s grievances heard, but what is the rationale behind this custom? According to Goiten, and based on genizah materials, he explains that bringing one’s grievance before all – is demonstrative of the notion that bet din “were but representatives of the community, which, in principle, was the supreme judge. The biblical concept ‘the people shall judge’ (Numbers 35:24) was still very much alive.” Goiten notes that this process was not limited to men, and instead, the geniza preserves some “eloquently styled and beautifuly written appeals to the community by women.” Goiten posits that the women did not actually enter the men’s section but had someone reads these on their behalf. See Goiten, A Mediterranean Society, vol. II, pp. 324-26. A very different purpose for this procedure is espoused by a Lithuanian memoir. Basically, by this account, as “the Jewish townlets of Lithuania and Poland did not” have a well-developed press, “what weapon did the poor widow have at hand for calling public attention to the iniquities of, say, the money lender?” The answer, of course, “They delayed the reading of the weekly Portion on the Sabbath!” A story of a poor widow is provided to illustrate this point. She comes Shabbat morning, and is brought in to the main sanctuary on a cot where she moans

My child! My child! You are murderers! Take pity and give me back my child! . . . We children knew this woman quite well. . . All of us knew that this good old woman was now confined to her bed and quite helpless. And we also knew that the cause of her illness was due to the forcible drafting of her only son, Borukke the Tinsmith, into the army. We had also heard frequent comments at our homes on this heartless deed of the Town Elder in taking away this poor widow’s only son in exchange for the few hundred rubles he received from David Refoel’s for letting his own son – his fourth son- escape his duty, by finding a substitute for him in the son of the widow . . . The entire townlet knew of this iniquity and in the privacy of their homes had denounced it as a great outrage; but publicly they were afraid to speak of it. They were afraid to start a rumpus with the Elder who enjoyed the friendship of the town’s Chief of Police. Everyone in the Congregation immediately put aside his Pentateuch and paid the closet attention to the bed-ridden widow’s supplication. The only one in the assembly who pretended to be unconcerned in the matter and began to read aloud to himself the weekly Portion, was David Refoel’s. This painful scene lasted but a few brief minutes when from behind the Bimah there emerged Honeh the Shoemaker who, with his fists doubled, rushed over to the Elder and yelled out in a voice choking with anger: “If Borukke Tamar’s is not freed from military service you will all be sent in chains to Siberia! Do you think we don’t know that you have bought substitutes? Take care!” An informer usually was hated by the town folk. But in this case they all gave their approval to Honeh the Shoemaker . . . It took just about one week before Borukke’s claim to exemption on account of being an only son was properly recorded and he returned to his mother’s home, a free man. Saks, Worlds that Passed, pp. 79-85.

Although I haven’t seen this in print, I was told that when R. Solovetchik came to Boston there was no mikveah in Boston (there was one outside). R. Solovetchik instructed the women to stop the torah reading until sufficient funds were pledged for a mikveah. *A portion of this post appeared in a slightly different format a few years back. I have updated that portion and added about bitul ha-tamid generally. Additionally, much material on bitual ha-tamid appears in Simcha Assaf’s work, Battei ha-Din ve-Sidreihem (1924), pp. 25-29.

Some Literary, Scholarly & Halachic Perspectives on Medieval Ash