David Assaf – A Farewell to Eitam Henkin

A Farewell to Eitam Henkin

by David Assaf

Professor David Assaf is the Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair of Jewish Studies, the Chair of the Department of Jewish History, and the Director of the Institute for the History of Polish Jewry and Israel-Poland Relations, at Tel-Aviv University.

A Hebrew version of this essay appeared at the Oneg Shabbat blog (6 October 2015) (http://onegshabbat.blogspot.co.il/2015/10/blog-post.html), and was translated by Daniel Tabak of New York, with permission of Professor David Assaf.

This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog.

Eitam Henkin (1984-2015), who was cruelly murdered with his wife Na’ama on the third day of Hol Ha-Mo‘ed Sukkot (1 October 2015), was my student.

Anyone who has read news about him in print media or on websites, which refer to him with the title “Rabbi,” may have gotten the impression that Eitam Henkin was just another rabbi, filling some rabbinic post or teaching Talmud in a kollel. While it is true that Eitam received ordination from the Chief Rabbinate, he did not at all view himself as a “rabbi,” and serving in a rabbinic post or supporting himself from one did not cross his mind. His studies for ordination (2007-2011) constituted a natural, intellectual outgrowth of his yeshiva studies; they formed part and parcel of a curiosity and erudition from which he was never satisfied. Eitam regarded himself first and foremost as an incipient academic scholar, who was training himself, through a deliberate but sure process of scholarly maturation, to become a social historian of the Jews of Eastern Europe. This was his greatest passion: it burned within him and moved him, and he devoted his career to it. Were it not for the evil hand that squeezed the gun’s trigger and took his young life, the world of Jewish studies undoubtedly would have had an outstanding, venerable scholar.

I spent that bitter and frenzied night outside the country.The terrible news reached me in the dead of night, hitting me hard like a sledgehammer. In my hotel room in Chernovich, Ukraine, so far from home, my thoughts wandered ceaselessly to those moments of sheer terror that Eitam and Na‘ama had to face, to the horror that unfolded before the eyes of the four children who saw their parents executed, and to the incomprehensible loss of someone with whom I had spoken just the other day and had developed plans, someone on whom I had pinned such high hopes. There was a man—look, he is no more . . .

The next day, I stood with my colleagues in Chernovich, near the house of Eliezer Steinbarg (1880-1932), a Yiddish author and poet mostly famous for his parables. In a shaky voice I read for them the fine parable about the bayonet and the needle—in the Hebrew translation of Hananiah Reichman—dedicating it to the memory of Eitam and his wife, who in those very moments were being laid to rest in Jerusalem.

The Bayonet and the Needle

A man (a Tom, a Dick, or some such epithet)

comes from the wars with a rifle and a bayonet,

and in a drawer he puts them prone,

where a thin little needle has lain alone.

“Now there’s a needle hugely made,”

the little needle ponders as it sees the blade.

“Out of iron or of tin, no doubt, it sews metal britches,

and quickly too, with Goliath stitches,

for a Gog Magog perhaps, or any big-time giant.”

But the bayonet is thoughtfully defiant.

“Hey, look! A bayonet! A little midget!

How come the town’s not all a-fidget

crowding round this tiny pup?

What a funny sight! I’ve to tease this bird!

Come, don’t be modest, pal! Is the rumor true? I heard

you’re a hot one. When you get mad the jig is up.

With one pierce, folks say, you do in seven flies!”

The needle cries, “Untruths and lies!

By the Torah’s coverlet I swear

that I pierce linen, linen only…It’s a sort of ware…”

“Ho ho,” the rifle fires off around of laughter.

“Ho ho ho! Stabs linen! It’s linen he’s after!”

“You expect me, then, to stitch through

tin?” the needle asks. “Ah, I feel if I like you

were bigger…”

“Oh, my barrel’s bursting,” roars the rifle. “My trigger—

it’s tripping! Oh me! Can’t take this sort of gaff.”

“Pardon me,” the needle says.“I meant no harm therein.

What then do you do? You don’t stitch linen, don’t stitch tin?”

“People! We stab people!” says the bayonet.

But now the needle starts to laugh,

and it may still be laughing yet.

With ha and hee and ho ho ho.

“When I pierce linen, one stitch, and then another, lo—’

I make a shirt, a sleeve, a dress, a hem.

But people you can pierce forever, what will you create from them?”

Eitam was a wunderkind. I first met him in 2007. At the time he was an avrekh meshi (by his own definition), a fine young yeshiva fellow,all of twenty-three years old. He was a student at Yeshivat Nir in Kiryat Arba, with a long list of publications in Torah journals already trailing him. He contacted me via e-mail, and after a few exchanges I invited him to meet. He came. We spoke at length, and I have cared about him ever since. From his articles and our many conversations I discerned right away that he had that certain je ne sais quoi. He had those qualities, the personality, and the capability—elusive, unquantifiable, and indefinable—of someone meant to be a historian, and a good historian at that.

I did not have to press especially hard to convince him that his place—his destiny—did not lie between the walls of the yeshiva, and that he should not squander his talents on the niceties of halakha. He needed to enroll in university and train himself professionally for what truly interested him, for what he truly loved: critical historical scholarship.

Eitam went on to register for studies at the Open University, and within three years(2009-2012), together with the completion of his studies at the yeshiva, he earned his bachelor’s degree with honors.Immediately afterwards he signed up for a master’s degree in Jewish history at Tel-Aviv University, and under my supervision completed an exemplary thesis in 2013 titled “From Hibbat Zion to Anti-Zionism: Changes in East-European Orthodoxy – Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin (1828-1915) as a Case Study.”

Eitam, hailing from a world of traditional yeshiva study that is poles apart from the academic world, slid into his university studies effortlessly. He rapidly internalized academic discourse, with its patterns of thinking and writing, and began to taste the distinct savors of that world. To take one example, in July 2014 he participated in an academic conference—his very first—for early doctoral students,both Israeli and Polish, that took place in Wrocław, Poland. There he delivered (another first) a lecture in English, and got deep satisfaction from meeting other similarly-aged scholars working on topics that overlapped with his own. I asked him quite often whether as an observant Jew he found it difficult to study at the especially open and “secular” Tel-Aviv campus. He answered in the negative, saying that he never felt any difficulty whatsoever.

I was deeply fond of him and respected him. I loved his easygoing and optimistic personality, his simple humility, the smile permanently spread across his face. I loved his positive approach to everything, and especially loved his sarcastic humor, his ability to laugh at himself, at his world, at the settlers (so far as I could sense he was very moderate and distant from political or messianic fervor), at the Orthodox world in which he lived, and at the ultra-Orthodox world that was his object of study. He was a man after my own heart, and I have the sense that the feeling was mutual. When I told him one time that I was prepared to be his adviser because I was a stickler for always having at least one doctoral student who was a religious settler, so as to avoid being criticized for being closed-minded and intolerant, he responded with a grin…

More than my affection for him, I respected him for his vast knowledge, ability to learn, persistence, thoroughness, diligence, efficiency, original and critical manner of thinking, excellent writing style, ability to learn from one and all, and generosity in sharing his knowledge with everyone. In my heart of hearts I felt satisfaction and pride at having nabbed such a student.

Immediately after finishing his master’s degree, Eitam registered for doctoral studies. 2014 was dedicated to fleshing out a topic and writing a proposal. Eitam was particularly interested in the status of the rabbinate in Jewish Lithuania at the end of the nineteenth century, and he collected a tremendously broad trove of material, sorted on note cards and his computer, on innumerable rabbis who served in many small towns. He endeavored to describe the social status of this unique class in order to get at the social types that comprised it in the towns and cities. In the end, however, for various reasons that I will not spell out here, we decided in unison to abandon the topic and search for another. I suggested that he write a critical biography of the Hafetz Hayyim , Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen of Radin (1839-1933), the most venerated personality in the Haredi world of the twentieth century and, practically speaking, until today. (Just two weeks ago I wrote a blog post describing my own recent visit to Radin, wherein I quoted things from Eitam. Who could have imagined then what would happen a short time later?) Eitam was reticent at first. “What new things can possibly be said about the Hafetz Hayyim?” he asked skeptically, but as more time passed and he deepened his research he became convinced that it was in fact a suitable topic. As was his wont, he immersed himself in the topic and after a short time wrote a magnificent proposal. At the end of March 2015 his proposal was accepted to write a doctorate under my guidance, whose topic would be “Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen (Hafetz Hayyim): A Biography.”

A short time later I proposed Eitam as a nominee of Tel-Aviv University for a Nathan Rotenstreich scholarship, which is the most prestigious scholarship granted today to doctoral students in Israeli universities, and, needless to say, it is competitive. Of course, as I predicted, Eitam won it. He responded to the news with characteristic restraint, but his joy could not be contained. It was obvious when I gave him the news that he was the happiest man alive.In order to receive the Rotenstreich Scholarship, students must free themselves from all other pursuits and devote themselves solely to scholarship and completion of the doctorate within three years. Eitam promised to do so, and he undoubtedly would have made good on that promise. He would have received the first payment in November 2015. Now, tragically, we have all lost out on this tremendous opportunity.

One could goon and on singing Eitam’s praises, and presumably others will yet do so. I feel satisfied by including a letter of recommendation that I wrote about him to my colleagues on the Rotenstreich Scholarship Committee. Recommenders typically tend to exaggerate in praising their nominees, but let heaven and earth be my witness that in this case I meant every single word that I wrote.

May his memory be blessed.

[1] Eliezer Shtaynbarg, The Jewish Book of Fables: Selected Works, edited, translated from the Yiddish, and with an introduction by Curt Leviant, illustrated by Dana Craft (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003), 20-23.

* * * *

12 Nissan 5775 – 1 April 2015

RE: Recommendation for Mr. Eitam Henkin for the Rotenstreich Scholarship (22nd Cycle)

I hereby warmly recommend, as it is customarily said, that my student Mr. Eitam Henkin be chosen as a nominee of the faculty and university for a Rotenstreich Scholarship for years 5776-5778..

Henkin, who completed his Master’s studies at Tel-Aviv University with honors, and whose proposal was just now approved as a PhD candidate, is not the usual student of our institution, and would that there were many more of his caliber. One could say that I brought him to us with my own two hands, and I have invested significant time and much energy convincing him to register for academic studies so that at the end of the day he could write his doctorate under my guidance.

Henkin is what people call a “yeshiva student,” and he has spent his adult life in national-religious Torah institutions, wherein he acquired his comprehensive Torah knowledge, assimilated analytic methodology, and even received rabbinic ordination. As a scion of a sprawling, pedigreed family of rabbis and scholars, he has also revealed within himself an indomitable inclination to diverge from the typical path of Torah and invest a serious amount of his energy in historical scholarship. Naturally, Henkin gravitates toward studies of the religious lives and worlds of rabbis, yeshiva deans, and spiritual trends among Eastern European Jews in the modern period. His enormous curiosity, creative thinking, and natural propensity for study and research with which he has been endowed, as well his impressive self-discipline and independence, assisted him in mastering broad fields of knowledge through his own abilities and without the help of experts. The scope of his knowledge of Jewish history more generally, and of the Jews of Eastern Europe more specifically, including familiarity with the scholarly literature in every language, is cause for astonishment.

What is more, Henkin has already managed to publish twenty scholarly articles (!) and even a book (To Take Root: Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the Jewish National Fund [Jerusalem, 2012], co-authored with Rabbi Avraham Wasserman, but in practice the research and writing were wholly Eitam’s). Most of them deal with varied perspectives on the spiritual and religious lives of the Jews of Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. It may be true that these articles were published in Torah-academic journals, which we often refer to—not always with justification—as “not peer-reviewed,” but I can attest that the articles in question are scholarly in every sense; they could undoubtedly be published in recognized academic journals. I do not know many doctoral students whose baseline is as high and impressive as that of Eitam Henkin.

Given that I see in Henkin a promising and very talented scholar, I have placed high hopes in the results of the research he has taken upon himself for his doctorate under my guidance: the writing of a critical biography on one of the most authoritative personalities—one could say without hesitation the most “iconic”—of the Haredi world of the last century, Israel Meir Hakohen of Radin, better known by his appellation (based on his famous book) “the Hafetz Hayyim.” We are speaking of a personality who lived relatively close to us in time (so there exists a relative abundance of sources), yet remains concealed under a thick cover of Orthodox hagiography. One cannot exaggerate the enormous influence of the Hafetz Hayyim on the halakhic formation, atmosphere, and lifestyle of the contemporary Haredi world, with all its factions and movements, and especially what is referred to as the “Litvish” world. Nevertheless, to this day no significant study exists that places this complex personality—with the stages of his life, his multifarious writings, communal activities, and the process of his “sanctification” after his death—against the background of his time and place from an academic, critical perspective that brings to bear various scholarly methodologies.

Henkin’s doctoral proposal was approved literally a few days ago,and I am convinced that he will embark upon the process of research and writing with intense momentum, keeping pace with the timetable expected of him for completion of the doctorate.

At this stage of his life, as he intends to dedicate all of his energy and time to academic studies, Henkin must struggle with providing for his household (he has four small children). He supports himself from part-time jobs of editing, writing, and teaching, but his heart is in scholarship and the great challenge that stands before him in writing his doctorate.

Granting Eitam Henkin the Rotenstreich Scholarship would benefit him and the Scholarship. Not only would it enable him to free himself from the yoke of those minor, annoying jobs and dedicate all his time to scholarship, but it would also demonstrate the university’s recognition of his status as an outstanding student. I try to exercise restraint and minimize usage of a description like “outstanding,”and I certainly do not bestow it upon all of my students; Henkin, however, deserves it. The scholarship would assist him, without a doubt, in realizing his scholarly capabilities through writing a most important doctorate, which would add a sorely needed and lacking layer to our knowledge of the world of Torah, the rabbinate, and Jewish life in Eastern Europe of the preceding generations. As for my part, as Eitam’s adviser I obligate myself to furnish the matching amount of the scholarship from the research budgets at my disposal.

Warm regards,

Professor David Assaf

Department of Jewish History

Head of the Institute for the History of Polish Jewry and Israel-Poland Relations

Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair of Jewish Studies

* * * *

In my archive I found a document that Eitam wrote (in Hebrew) for me in preparation for his submission for the Rotenstreich scholarship. He described himself with humility and good humor:

Scholarly “Autobiography”

by Eitam Henkin

My name is Eitam Henkin. I was born in 5744 (1984) and raised in Religious Zionist Institutions. I studied in a hesder yeshiva and served in the Golani Brigade as an infantryman and squad leader.I married during my army service. After being discharged, I began to study in a kollel in order to receive ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel (which I completed in 5771, 2011). At the same time, I began independent writing and research in the field of history out of a personal interest for this field that I have had as far back as I can remember (some describe this as “being bitten by the bug of history,” but with me perhaps we may be talking about a congenital predisposition).

As things go, the fields of interest that I began to research fell within the boundaries closest to the world in which I was ensconced: the rabbinate and rabbis. I published my first articles in 5767-5768 (2007-2008) in an annual journal published (under my editorship) at the hesder yeshiva in which I studied. After about a year, I began publishing articles in outside publications linked to Religious Zionism, such as Akdamot and Ha-Ma’ayan.

At the same time, I began to make my way into the world of academia. In the wake of an article I wrote about Rabbi Baruch Epstein’s memoirs Mekor Barukh and his attitude to Hasidism, I reached out (in 5767, 2007) to Prof. David Assaf for advice on aspects of the article, and on Prof. Assaf’s initiative the conversation turned into a meeting in which I was introduced to the possibility of entering the world of the professional historian, after which I took my first steps on my academic path.

I pursued my bachelor’s degree in history at the Open University—a path that proved quite practical given my other activities, and after completing it (with honors) I registered for a master’s degree in the department of Jewish history at Tel-Aviv University, where I finished (in 5773, 2013) my thesis titled “‘From Hibbat Zion to Anti-Zionism: Changes in East-European Orthodoxy – Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin (1828-1915) as a Case Study,” which I wrote under the supervision of Prof. Assaf and which received a grade of 95. I subsequently signed up for doctoral studies, and very recently my doctoral proposal was accepted, with the topic “Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen of Radin (Hafetz Hayyim): A Biography,” also under the supervision of Prof. Assaf.

In tandem with my progress in academic studies (which have moved from being a side interest to being front and center in my life, even if not the only thing), I continued my historical research and writing independently, publishing articles in various journals, although they were not peer-reviewed. To this day, I have published in this manner over twenty articles on Jewish history, in which my research interest has focused on two fixed pieces: Jewish society in Imperial Russia at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, which has been primary and central, and within that more specifically the Orthodox segment of the population and rabbinic circles; and the second piece is the life and times of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook.

My aforementioned thesis and the doctoral work I have begun relate to the first piece. Also connected is the critical biography that I wrote on my own (before and during my first years of academic study) on Rabbi Yehiel Mikhl Halevi Epstein, author of the Arukh Ha-Shulhan, a biography that was accepted for publication by the academic press of Touro College in the United States and which is to appear in print over the coming year.

Related to the second piece, aside from many articles, is my latest book, which I co-authored with Rabbi Avraham Wasserman by his invitation, titled To Take Root: Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the Jewish National Fund. It was published in 5772 (2012) with the support and funding of the Jewish National Fund.

Parallel to my academic studies and scholarly publications, these days I also serve out of personal interest as the section editor for historical articles in the journal Asif, put out by the Union of Hesder Yeshivot (continuing my build-up of editorial experience via additional projects in preceding years). Similarly, from 5770 (2010) on I have given lectures on the history of halakha at Midreshet Nishmat in Jerusalem. This year I am a doctoral fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum. It should be self-evident, however, that I expect to concentrate my main interest and scholarly efforts in the coming years on my doctoral work on the Hafetz Hayyim.

Please note

The Seforim Blog is proud to provide a platform for freewheeling debate in a productive spirit. We do not moderate comments, because there has been no need. While tongues sometimes get sharp, we believe that overall the mood in the comments section has been in the spirit of comaraderie, with our readers and commenters sharing the bonds of a common interest and love of Jewish learning.

Recently, to our dismay, the comments section has been transformed to something else. We cannot accept a situation where every post becomes a mean-spirited argument. We have waited and tolerated this long enough, hoping to see whomever should consider themselves addressed by this post come to this realization on their own and use their considerable scholarly talents wisely and cease dragging the Seforim Blog down.

Please view this as a polite but firm request and a warning. If nothing changes soon, then unfortunately we will have to revoke the commenting privileges of whomever is responsible.

Sincerely,

The Seforim Blog administrators.

The Torah’s Jewish Sense of an Ending: A Yasher Koyach to Moses

The Torah’s Jewish
Sense of an Ending: A Yasher Koyach
to Moses

by James A. Diamond

James A. Diamond,
Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo. He
is currently a Fellow of the Jewish Philosophical Theology Project sponsored by
the Herzl Institute in collaboration with the John Templeton Foundation. His
latest book is Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon, published by
Cambridge University Press (http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/maimonides-and-shaping-jewish-canon). This is his first
contribution to the Seforim blog.

Every year, the joy I experience
on Simchat Torah, is somewhat
diminished by the apparent dismal ending of Deuteronomy whose closing we
celebrate on the way back to creation and beginnings once again. Rather than
climaxing in the rebirth of a nation and entry into the territory long ago
divinely promised as a homeland, it ends in death and a frustrated life. Not
only does it conclude on a morbid note, but it does so regarding Moses, the
noblest protagonist of the narrative, the one who least deserves a premature
death. His career begins with his first venture outside the cocoon of a
privileged life within the royal palace walls, triggering an empathic act of
heroic proportions. Without any knowledge of the Israelite God or the
principles and norms that God stands for, Moses reacts violently out of an
inherent sense of justice to prevent human suffering inflicted by those he was
raised to recognize as compatriots. His subsequent intervention in an
aggressive dispute among his own native tribesmen, also to prevent maltreatment
of another human being, meets with a ‘mind your own business’ attitude, along
with an ominous prospect of betrayal. Rejected by the Hebrew community to which
he belonged by birth, and by his adoptive Egyptian community in which he was
nurtured, for his opposition to injustice no matter its source or target, he
became alienated from both. There remained no choice but to live out his life
in exile- a stranger in a foreign land.[1]

A divine commission, plunging him
back into that very orbit of rejection to complete what he had started,
shattered what little peace he found in an estranged existence. He in fact
proved himself to be precisely the most qualified to lead by marshaling
repeated arguments against his qualifications for the mission of national
liberator, ranging from insignificance (Who
am I?)[2] to lack of confidence (They
will not believe me)[3] to inarticulateness (I am not a man of words).[4] The politician who doesn’t seek out
position, and who is compelled by others to run for public office on the
strength of his principled reputation, is the one least likely to fall prey to
the seductions of power that accompany that office. In fact the rare objective
description of Moses’ character in the Bible, a humble man, more so than any man on earth,[5] reflects a sense of self-effacement that rules out self-interest
as a decisive factor in his public life. Hesitatingly, he accepts and liberates
the Israelites only to encounter years of incessant complaint, ingratitude, and
rebellion. Ceaseless aggravation and insult escalated to the outrageous extent
of the peoples’ longing to return
to the “comforts” of that very hellish existence Moses had fought so courageously
to release them from.

This is the man that God summons
to the top of a mountain where he can almost touch everything he had dreamed
of, fought for, and ardently dedicated himself to, and on whom God then
abruptly drops the curtain- and there you
shall not cross.[6] It is difficult to see this as something other than
unbecoming of God, profoundly deepening the pain of a leader who is on the
precipice of his life’s goal. Why would God prevent Moses from taking that tiny
step necessary to consummate his mission? Why would God withhold a future from
the man who was not only instrumental in attaining it, but was the man who
originally surrendered his own entire regal future in the name of justice? At
the end of the annual cycle of Torah readings, are we to celebrate a malevolent
God who punishes his most devoted “friend” by denying him the joy of completing
a quest He Himself imposed upon him? And shouldn’t the punishment fit the
gravity of the crime? Slighting God’s honor (You did not affirm my sanctity in the eyes of the people),[7]
surely does not warrant sanctioning it as a capital offence by denying Moses
the fruits of his relentless sacrifices when they are within reach. And
finally, doesn’t this reading land precisely in the season for forgiveness, a
time for the supreme Being to have set a supreme example of mercy,
graciousness, and magnanimity, when the simple cost would have been to yield
His own glory? God seems to have missed the lesson of Moses’ humility.

As always though, in the long
history of Jews reading their sacred texts, those texts’ problems goad the
reader into rethinking what may at first seem obvious or apparent. As the
eminent biblical scholar James Kugel points out, the Bible’s irregularities, in
this case morally and theologically troubling aspects, are the grains of sand
that irritate the oyster-like Jewish interpretive tradition to construct pearls
around them.[8] Perhaps the way to approach this final episode is to reconsider
God’s “punishment” as really a favor and concession to Moses’ character and
sensibility. On closer examination it may in fact be graciously consistent with
Moses’ biography, and superbly commemorates who he authenticated himself to be.

The key to these final verses is
their casting of Moses’ relationship to God in terms of equals who meet each
other face to face. Earlier in the
Torah that same phrase, face to face, captures the familiarity of a
normal human conversation, as one man
speaks to another.[9] Genuine dialogue can only take place when both participants
express their own views, assert their own personalities, and are open to
debate. Any conversation wholly dominated and monopolized by one participant
amounts to a monologue that promotes only listening but not responding or true
engagement. Understood in this way we become mindful of Moses’ inaugural
meeting with God who, for the first time in biblical history, formally
introduces Himself by name. However, the puzzling name, I will be whoever I will be (ehyeh asher ehyeh),[10] is
a tautological non-name. Rather than a being that is fixed by definition,
confined to a particular place, and possessing jurisdiction over an exclusive
domain, God tells Moses that He cannot be pigeon holed into a pre-conceived
framework that a specific name might enable. God is a being in flux,
encountered differently by different human beings in different circumstances.
He is an evolving God, rather than a God that simply and immutably is, there to
be called on ritually by those privy to His name. As such, this open-ended non-name conveys a relational being, a God of
perpetual becoming, that cannot but be elusive. God is continually shaped and
reshaped by the respective partners with whom She establishes relationship.
Moses’ life is paradigmatic of this Jewish spiritual model.

Returning to Moses’ origins,
God’s awareness of Israel’s suffering in Egypt immediately follows a quick
succession of Moses’ actions, all sharing the common feature of interventions
curtailing injustice and oppression. Considering the literary progression of
events it is quite plausible to conclude that Moses’ autonomously motivated
acts instigated by his own “seeing,” or evaluation of circumstances, provokes
God’s immediately reported own “seeing” and “knowing” of Israel’s suffering- And God saw the Israelites and God knew.[11]
The Jewish Publication Society’s translation exquisitely captures this
nuance with its rendering of “knew” as “and God took notice of them.” In other
words, God, who was oblivious to human suffering until then, was inspired to
emulate Moses’ moral activism with His own moral awakening- an act of maturity
with which the declaration “I will be” resounds. Rashi’s comment on “God’s
knowing” expressively understands this divine realization as an emergence from
apathy, transitioning from “ignoring the plight of His creation” to “focusing
His attention on them.” God’s new consciousness, compelling His own
intervention is evoked by Moses’ example. It is a premiere instance of God
imitating man, the inverse of the primary religious mandate of imitatio dei, or emulating God.

Both in the Bible itself and
later rabbinic traditions Moses continues in this vein of affecting and shaping
God’s will and actions. When God categorically declares His intentions to wipe
out the Israelites in response to their worship of the golden calf, Moses
refuses to accept it as an irrevocable fait accompli and argues God out of it.
It is as if God announces His genocidal intent in order to provoke a visceral
moral response to it – “Nu, Moses, what do you have to say?” What God doesn’t
want, it seems, is the silent submission to His will so often associated with
religious orthodoxy. The Rabbis positively accentuate the boldness of what
normally would be taken as insolence by picturing Moses grabbing God and
threatening not to release Him until He submits to the demand of a pardon.[12]
Moses proves his spirituality precisely by refusing to blindly succumb to
divine fiat, and instead, transforming God Herself with his extraordinary
devotion to humanity. An opinion in the Talmud even portrays God as lamenting
the death of Moses for the loss of the one who mediated between Him and His
children.[13]

Indeed, the Rabbis push this idea
radically further. The ancient rabbis noted Deuteronomy’s inconsistencies long
before modern biblical criticism “discovered” them. However they offered a far
more radical and ethically provocative solution than the determination of
different author’s hand at play in the composition of the text. Some laws in
Deuteronomy, which contradict previous versions of them in the Torah, are
attributed to Moses’ own creative revisions, which God subsequently endorses.
For example, Moses replaces God’s explicit endorsement of vicarious punishment
in Exodus, visiting the iniquity of
fathers on children, with a just antithetical version in Deuteronomy- every person shall be put to death for his
own crime.[14] Moses doesn’t simply amend and repeal divine
legislation and theology to keep it current. He humanizes God.

Against this background the
Torah’s ending is recast from a cruel insensitive scene into one that
poignantly depicts a final reunion of two dedicated friends who have mutually
enriched each other’s existences. Should Moses have extended his leadership
tenure and guided the people into the land he would have been faced with simply
more of the same anguish and suffering he had experienced up until this point.
It would surely have entailed the wrangling, the complaints, the jealousy, and
the power struggles that accompany the burdens of state building. God privileges
the visionary Moses with an ocular vision- and
God showed him the whole land[15] – that guarantees the posthumous success
of his efforts. God does not invite Moses up the mountain to deny him entry
into the Promised Land (I have let you
see it with your own eyes But you
shall not cross there[16]), but rather to preempt the pain of doing so,
while assuring him that his vision will inevitably become a reality. The verse
reads better as “I have let you see it with your own eyes and there you need not cross.” Moses is thus spared
being mired in the partisan machinations that, as the historical record of the
books of Joshua to the end of Kings evidence (let alone the contemporary
history of the modern Jewish state!) would certainly have ensued. His record
then of autonomy and initiative, even in the face of divine obstinacy, is
preserved and remains untarnished by the political intrigue that would have
inevitably consumed him to the very end.

The final three verses spell out
the absolute uniqueness of Moses’ three pronged legacy- an unparalleled face to face intimacy of with God; the
efficacy of the miracles that the Lord
sent him to display in Egypt against Pharaoh; and all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before
Israel.[17] Moses’ singularity is first evident in his private
life communing with God, and then in two dimensions of his public life,
combatting enemies and sustaining friends. Yet, note the subtle distinction
made between Moses as God’s emissary vis-à-vis the Egyptians in the second last
verse, and Moses in his own capacity vis-à-vis Israel in the last. It may have
taken miracles to convince the taskmasters of the Israelite God’s invincibility
to release their repressive stranglehold on their slaves. However, the
establishment of a cohesive nation and its continuing viability cannot rest on
miracles and otherworldliness. That requires human autonomy and human
sensitivity to the social, political, and moral dimensions of a human polis,
which Moses qua Moses independently
sets in motion for his successors to follow.

Rashi’s Torah commentary
analogously ends with a striking midrashic explication of this final verse that
accentuates its extraordinary emphasis on the human dimension. Rashi oddly
identifies that awesome power wielded
by Moses in front of the entire nation of Israel with his breaking of the
Tablets at Sinai. As Rashi states, Moses “decided on his own to break the
tablets publically and God’s will acquiesced to his will, offering him
congratulations (yishar kochacha) on
breaking them.”[18] Rabbinically the Torah’s ending picks up on its patent
sense of concentrating on human capability, but empowering it to the utmost
extent of overcoming God, of persuading God to defer to the human perspective.
In fact this midrash is the very source for the idiomatic salutation of yasher koyach (may your strength be
firm) in response to any job well done, particularly those that benefit
community. Every single positive human accomplishment and societal contribution
then resonates with its origins in Moses’ exertion of the very outer limits of
human capacity.

This is why it is so important
for the Torah, despite its minimalist narrative style, to emphasize the
seemingly superfluous detail of the hiddenness of Moses’ grave- no one knows his burial site to this day.[19]
Given the phenomenon prevalent in our own time of worshipping dead
saints, it is not difficult to imagine the idolization Moses’ gravesite would
have certainly attracted. Shockingly perhaps to many, yet soberly, Moses
Maimonides discourages frequenting cemeteries and halachically rules in his
legal code against the erection of monuments on the graves of the righteous (tzadikim), “for their words are their
memorials.”[20] As Moses’ life and death illustrate, Judaism must
never lapse into a cult of the dead but must be a celebration of life. Moses’
grave is concealed precisely so that the focus will always be directed toward a
life lived and profound teachings transmitted.

There is a well known debate in
the Talmud concerning the authorship of the last eight verses in the Torah that
record Moses’ death, with one opinion attributing them to Joshua’s hand.
However, even those that consider Moses to have penned the report of his own
death admit that there is a change in its manner of transcription, imagining
Moses writing in an inconsolable silence, “with tears.” Even more moving is the
alternative interpretation of this phrase where the words on the parchment were
literally inscribed with tears rather than ink. An intriguing halakhic consequence
regarding the rules governing the formal reading of these final verses in the
synagogue informs this heartrending debate. Its ambiguous Talmudic formulation
that a single
individual reads them
attracts a number of interpretations, but the dominant one is that they must be
read as one unit by one person without any interruption (Rashi).[21] Maimonides
however interprets it stunningly and uniquely as dispensing with the standard
requirement of a prayer quorum of ten males (minyan) for their recitation! His rationale is “since the sense of
these verses refers to what occurred after the death of Moses they have become
distinct.”[22] Maimonides’ ruling strikingly affords a normative
framework for my philosophically theological reading the Torah’s final scene.
His halakha captures the shift in narrative focus and mood of the transition
from ink to tears, from the people at the foot of the mountain to Moses alone
at its summit, from community to the solitary individual. It promotes a
dramatic reenactment of everything I have argued about Moses’ characterization
in these final verses- a demarcation of a private space for the individual, for
the emergence of one’s uniqueness, for a semblance of the relational spiritual
intimacy of the face to face, and for
the creative power of the single person who stands out from the crowd. By
granting halakhic legitimacy to this Torah reading outside the formal framework
of a minyan, Maimonides transforms every Simchat Torah into the possibility of
momentarily experiencing, however partially, the awesome power of Judaism’s incomparable lonely man of faith.

And so the Torah ultimately
climaxes, neither with an impressive tombstone, nor with preternatural
transcendence that is the subject of its penultimate verse, but with the spiritual
strength and moral defiance of a single human being. It carves out a space for
human beings in what can all too often slip into a dangerously God intoxicated
universe that overwhelms human autonomy rather than inspire it. It concludes
with humanness rather than godliness. That is Moses’ life and that is his
epitaph- a joyful and Jewish sense of an ending.

_____________________________________________________

[1]
Exodus 2:22.

[2]
Ibid, 3:11.

[3]
Ibid, 4:1.

[4]
Ibid, 4:10.

[5]
Num. 12:3.

[6]
Deut. 34:4.

[7]
Num. 20:12.

[8]
See his seminal study in James Kugel, “Two Introductions to Midrash,” Prooftexts 3:2 (May 1983): 131-155,
reprinted in Geoffrey Hartman and Sanford Budick, eds., Midrash and Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986),
95-97.

[9]
Exod 33:11.

[10]
Exod 3:14.

[11]
Ibid, 2:25.

[12]
bBerakhot 32a.

[13]
bSotah 13b. Here I follow Rashi’s
explanation. Maharsha, in his Hidushe
Aggadot, actually identifies this talent directly with assuaging God’s
anger against Israel because of the golden calf incident.

[14]
On this see Tanhuma, Shofetim 19.
There are many other sources where not only Moses, but patriarchs, other
prophets, and even rabbinic sages convince God of the correctness of their
opinions and actions. To mention just a select few see for example Shemot Rabbah 15:20, Bereshit Rabbah, 44:21; and Midrash Tehillim 4 that commences with
the idea that this ability singles out the greatness of the Jewish nation.

[15]
Deut. 34:1.

[16]
Ibid, 34:4.

[17]
Ibid, 34:10-12.

[18]
See Sifrei 357 and bShabbat 87b.

[19]
Deut. 34:6.

[20]
Mishneh Torah, Avel, 4:4.

[21]
bMenachot 30a; bBava Batra 15a.

[22]
Mishneh Torah, Tefillah, 13:6. Rabad,
caustically attacks this ruling as “bizarre,” sarcastically questioning
“Where did the quorum go?”

Lithuanian Government Announces Construction of a $25,000,000 Convention Center in the Center of Vilna’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

Lithuanian Government Announces

Construction of a $25,000,000 Convention Center

in the Center of Vilna’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

by Sid Leiman

According to Russian statistics, Vilna had close to 200,000 inhabitants just prior to World War I, roughly forty percent of whom were Jewish, more than thirty percent were Polish, and about twenty percent were Russian and the rest consisted of small Lithuanian, Byelorussian, German and Tartar minorities.[1]

In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was convened by the winning parties of World War I. Its purpose was to map the future of postwar Europe. When the status of Vilna came up for discussion, the Lithuanians claimed Vilnius as the rightful historical capital of independent Lithuania; the Poles rejected such claims on the basis of the cultural and linguistic affinities of Wilno to Poland. The Soviet regime, in diplomatic isolation, voiced its opinion that although Vilna had been part of Russia, the Bolsheviks were ready to share it with the oppressed peoples (mostly peasants) of Lithuanian and Byelorussian origins. Nobody asked or wanted to hear what Vilne meant to the Jews.[2]

I. Prologue.

In the summer of 1935, the municipal authorities of Vilna, then under Polish rule, announced that a sports stadium would be constructed on the site of Vilna’s oldest Jewish cemetery.³ At the time, the graves and tombstones of such greats as R. Menahem Mannes Chajes (d. 1636), one of Vilna’s earliest Chief Rabbis; R. Moshe Rivkes (d. 1671), author of Be’er Ha-Golah, a classic commentary on the Shulhan Arukh; R. Shlomo Zalman (d. 1788), younger brother of R. Hayyim of Volozhin and a favorite disciple of the Gaon of Vilna; R. Elijah b. Solomon (d. 1797), the Gaon of Vilna; and R. Abraham Danzig (d. 1820), author of Hayye Adam, a digest of practical Jewish law, stood in all their glory together with several thousand graves of all the Jewish men, women and children who had lived and died in Vilna between the years of 1592 and 1831.[4]

Tombstone Inscription of R. Menahem Mannes Chajes (d. 1636), embedded in the wall at the extreme left, in the Old Jewish Cemetery.

Tomb of R. Shlomo Zalman (d. 1788), younger brother of R. Hayyim of Volozhin, in the Old Jewish Cemetery.

Tomb of R. Elijah b. Solomon (d. 1797), the Gaon of Vilna, top right, in the Old Jewish Cemetery.

Grave and Tombstone Inscription of R. Abraham Danzig (d. 1820), center, in the Old Jewish Cemetery.

R. Chaim Ozer Grodzenski, spiritual leader of Vilna Jewry, as well as the leading Torah authority of his generation, interceded on behalf of Vilna and worldwide Jewry. He made it clear than no such desecration of a Jewish cemetery would be tolerated by the Jewish community. When the municipal authorities informed him that under the laws that applied at the time any cemetery not in use for one hundred years or more (the old Jewish cemetery was closed in 1831 due to lack of space) could be demolished by government decision, R. Chaim Ozer was adamant and informed the authorities that Jewish law prohibits the desecration of any Jewish cemetery, whether or not presently in use. Moreover, R. Chaim Ozer informed the authorities that the Jewish community would not comply in any way with the immoral demands of the municipal government. An attempt at a compromise was then made by the authorities; they were prepared to allow the section where the famous rabbis were buried to remain standing, so long as the Jewish community would agree to allow the government to demolish the remainder of the cemetery – where ordinary folk, i.e., men, women, and children were buried. R. Chaim Ozer ruled out any such compromise solution and, instead, engaged in a tireless, worldwide lobbying campaign, in an effort to persuade the government officials to rescind their decree.[5]

R. Chaim Ozer Grodzenski (in 1939).

When some rabbis in Palestine – sensing the gravity of the situation – issued a broadside calling for the grave of the Gaon of Vilna to be exhumed so that his remains could be transferred to the Holy Land, R. Chaim Ozer was livid. For, explained R. Chaim Ozer, by acquiescing to the exhumation and transfer of famous rabbis, one in effect consigns the rest of the cemetery to mass destruction. Moreover, it sets a precedent for all governments in Europe – just transfer the famous rabbis out of the Jewish cemetery and the Jews will agree to abandon the remainder of the cemetery.[6] The upshot of R. Chaim Ozer’s wisdom and intransigence was that under his watch,

no sports stadium was constructed on the old Jewish cemetery.[7] R. Chaim Ozer died on August 9 [= 5 Av], 1940.[8] Vilna, and arguably world Jewry, would never again have a leader who so deftly and gracefully combined within himself mastery of Torah, practical wisdom, and an unswerving commitment to the dissemination and protection of Jewish values – with profound and unstinting loyalty to his people, both living and deceased – under any and all circumstances.

II. Statement of Faina Kukliansky, Chairperson of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius, August 15, 2015:[9]

Despite a Jerusalem Post story that would suggest otherwise (“Anger Flares Over Lithuanian Sports Palace,” Sam Sokol, 8/11/2015) there is today a remarkable consensus in Vilnius that the site of the former Snipiskes Cemetery and the graves beneath must be protected. On this matter, the government of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Jewish community which I chair, and the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe (CPJCE), which is Europe’s foremost halachic authority on cemeteries, all agree.

Attention is now focused on the abandoned former Soviet Sports Palace, which partially sits on the cemetery grounds and in its current condition is mostly a gathering place for graffiti artists and alcoholics. The government rightly wants to remove the building and turn it into a center for conferences and cultural events. Because the building itself has been designated an architectural heritage site, no significant structural changes are possible, but the interior will be renovated. The surrounding area will be maintained as a memorial park with inscriptions that describe some of the most famous people who were buried there.

The Lithuanian government and the CPJCE have an agreement dating to 2009, concerning the cemetery site. Even though we are only in a planning stage and still months away from any construction, recent discussions between the two have worked out an understanding for dealing with the renovation of the former Sports Palace. The CPJCE will provide rabbinic oversight and ensure that there are no halachic violations in the course of the work that takes place. The government has further agreed to limit the type of activities that will take place in the renovated center so that they are in keeping with the special nature of the site.

If anything, this should be a cause for celebration and a model for how other governments in our part of the world should deal with similar challenges of respecting and protecting Jewish cemeteries and the mass graves of Holocaust victims.

So what accounts for the “angry voices” in your story and the outrageous claims that a “desecration” is taking place?

No doubt some of those quoted are simply uninformed, and this fuller explanation will assuage their concerns. But sadly there are others who do know better but are using this issue to advance their own personal feuds and grievances. Some of them are rivals to the CPJCE, and while they would never publicly criticize its eminent Chairman, Rabbi Elyakim Schlesinger, they pretend not to know his involvement here. Perhaps even more destructive is the role being played by our community’s former rabbi, Chaim Burstein. His contract was recently terminated – he has spent more days abroad on his personal business than serving our Jews here in Lithuania – and so he is spreading these stories in order to attack me. It pains me to say these things, but your readers should know the truth.

As a proud Litvak who has the honor to chair a small but resilient Jewish community I have been part of many difficult struggles during these past decades as we have pressed the Lithuanian government to return former Jewish property and pressed the Lithuanian people to squarely confront the history of our Holocaust-era past. Those struggles are not over, but we have had much success. How ironic that as we now have Lithuanian leaders who are prepared to see clearly what happened in the past, we have fellow Jews who refuse to see clearly what is happening today.

Faina Kukliansky

III. Response to the Chairperson of the Lithuanian Jewish Community:

On August 15, 2015, Faina Kukliansky, Chairperson of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, issued a statement regarding the planned $25,000,000 Convention Center to be constructed by the Lithuanian government, and funded in large part by the European Union’s Structural Funds Program, in the center of Vilnius’ oldest Jewish cemetery – in use from the 16^th through the 19^th centuries – in the Shnipishkes (Yiddish: Shnipishok) section of Vilnius.

In the opening paragraph of the statement, Faina Kukliansky assures all concerned “that the site of the former Snipiskes cemetery and the graves beneath must be protected.” Her assurance, however, rings hollow, for as one reads on, it becomes apparent that she fully supports the idea of a Convention Center being constructed over the remains of the Jews buried in the cemetery.[10]

Ms. Kukliansky writes about the “abandoned former Soviet Sports Palace, which partially sits on the cemetery grounds.” One gets the impression that perhaps an annex to the Soviet-era Sports Palace, or its outer wall, sits on the cemetery grounds. In fact, the Soviet-era Sports Palace sits squarely in the very center of the old Jewish cemetery.[11]

Soviet-Era Sports Palace in Vilna, as it looks today, in the Old Jewish Cemetery.

Ms. Kukliansky continues: “Because the building [i.e., the Soviet-era Sports Palace] itself has been designated an architectural heritage site, no changes are possible.” Really? It was in the Soviet period that all the tombstones were systematically removed from the cemetery between 1948 and 1955, and it was in the Soviet period that a Sports Palace was constructed over the dead bodies of thousands of Vilnius Jews.[12] Now who was it that designated the Soviet Sports Palace an architectural heritage site? If it was the Soviets, what has this to do with Independent Lithuania? If, however, it was Independent Lithuania that made this designation, then rectification is long overdue. Indeed, the government of Lithuania should recognize the Shnipishkes Jewish cemetery as a heritage site of the Jewish community of Vilnius from the 16^th through the 19^th centuries. It should certainly not condone and perpetuate the Soviet desecration of a Jewish cemetery. That the EU supports such misuse of funds is nothing short of scandalous. Surely, there is ample room in and around Vilnius for the construction of a Convention Center someplace other than smack in the center of historically, the single most important Jewish cemetery in Lithuania and one of the most important in all of Europe.

Ms. Kukliansky labels those who disagree with her as “simply uninformed” or having a particular axe to grind. She does not entertain the possibility that building a Convention Center over a Jewish cemetery is not everybody’s cup of tea. I’m afraid it is Ms. Kukliansky who seems to be unaware of how many thousands of graves remain on the site, of how often bones have surfaced in recent years on the face of the cemetery,[13] and how despite prior agreements with the Lithuanian authorities, two entire buildings were constructed in recent years on the cemetery grounds.[14] Does she really believe – as she claims – that the construction of a $25,000,000 Convention Center will involve no excavation outside the present perimeters of the Soviet-era Sports Palace? Does she really believe – as she claims – that the type of activities that will take place in the renovated center will be in keeping with the special nature of the site? I wonder who is “simply uninformed.”

Faina Kukliansky writes: “If anything, this should be a cause for celebration and a model for how governments in our part of the world should deal with similar challenges of respecting and protecting Jewish cemeteries and mass graves of Holocaust victims.”

Nations of Eastern Europe take note! If you want to deal with respecting and protecting Jewish cemeteries, learn from the Vilnius experience. First remove and destroy all Jewish tombstones, and afterwards excavate wherever possible and destroy the remains of those who were buried there. Then build a Sports Palace or a Convention Center in the heart of the Jewish cemetery! Make certain that the new structures are designated architectural heritage sites, so that they cannot be dismantled. This should be followed by a celebration of how Jewish cemeteries have been respected and protected in the most proper fashion.

Faina Kukliansky is to be congratulated for assuming the responsibility of leading a “small but resilient Jewish community.” Sadly, she makes no mention of the fact that heartfelt and pained voices have been raised by a number of distinguished members of her small community, voicing strong opposition to the construction of the Convention Center in the Jewish cemetery.[15] But there is another issue here. Faina Kukliansky is much too modest in thinking that the “small and resilient Jewish community” of Vilnius is her only constituency. The Vilnius Jewish cemeteries belong not only to Vilnius and its Jewish community. The spiritual, as well as the genetic, descendants of the thousands of men and women buried in the Shnipishkes and Zaretcha Jewish cemeteries live the world over. They remember their ancestors, study their writings, often live by their teachings, and should have the right to pray at their graves in a cemetery not desecrated by a Convention Center.

Faina Kukliansky would do well to weigh carefully the consequences of the precedent she is setting. By lending her support to the construction of a Convention Center over the old Jewish cemetery, she places in jeopardy every Jewish cemetery in Europe and, perhaps, elsewhere as well. True, she claims that she relies on a rabbinic ruling issued by the CPJCE in London. Distinguished rabbis the world over, however, have raised their voices in unison against the construction of a Convention Center in the old Jewish cemetery, rendering the London opinion – at best – a minority one. These voices include the leading halakhic authorities in Israel¹⁶ and the United States,¹⁷ and the present heads of the great yeshivot that once graced Lithuania, which due to the Holocaust and Soviet repression had to resettle elsewhere.¹⁸ Faina Kukliansky would also do well to remember the voice raised long ago by her pre-World War II predecessor in Vilna, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzenski. He did not allow the Polish government to desecrate the very Jewish cemetery that is about to be desecrated by the Lithuanian government with her approval.

Sid Leiman
Professor Emeritus of Jewish History and Literature
Brooklyn College

September 13, 2015
Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah 5776

Notes:

[1] Laimonas Briedis, Vilnius: City of Strangers (Vilnius, 2009), p. 168.
[2] Briedis, op. cit., p. 195. [The Briedis quotes have been slightly edited by me for the sake of clarity. -SL]
[3] See Yaakov Kosovsky-Shahor, ed., אגרות ר‘ חיים עוזר (Bnei Brak, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 400-401. Cf. Dov Eliach, הגאון (Jerusalem, 2002), vol. 3, p. 1142. See also the brief notice in Israel Klausner,
וילנא ירושלים דליטא: דורות האחרונים (Tel-Aviv, 1983), vol. 2, p. 554.
[4] For a concise history of the old Jewish cemetery in Vilna, see Israel Klausner, קורות בית העלמין הישן בוילנה (Vilna, 1935).
[5] In general, see Kosovsky-Shahor, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 400-405.
[6] Kosovsky-Shahor, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 402-403.
[7] A soccer field, just north of the old Jewish cemetery, was initiated in 1936 and eventually became Zalgiris Stadium when construction was completed by the Soviets in 1950. See Antanas Papshys, Vilnius: A Guide (Moscow, 1980), p. 127. It is still in use in Vilnius.
[8] For a moving account of his funeral, see Yosef Friedlander, “The Day Vilna Died,” Tradition 37:2 (2003), pp. 88-92.
[9] Faina Kukliansky’s statement was translated from Lithuanian into English and posted on August 15, 2015 on the Lithuanian Jewish Community website here. For the full context of the “Convention Center on the Old Jewish Cemetery” controversy, and for a comprehensive paper trail of statements made by Faina Kukliansky and the various parties involved in the controversy to date, see here. This site exists due to the incredible industry of the indefatigable Professor Dovid Katz of Vilnius, who also has prepared a register of all public voices that have been raised in opposition to the proposed construction of a Convention Center on the old Jewish cemetery, available here.
[10] One suspects that Ms. Kukliansky distinguishes between the land under the former Soviet-era Sport Palace (which, due to the excavations necessary for its construction, presumably led to the disposal of all Jewish remains that had been buried there) and the land surrounding the former Soviet-era Sports Palace (which presumably retains the remains of all those Jews who had been buried there). Thus, she feels comfortable with the construction of a Convention Center over the former Soviet-era Sports Palace. In terms of Jewish law, however, such a distinction is meaningless. Once a Jewish cemetery is consecrated it becomes a hallowed place, much like a synagogue. Like a synagogue, it cannot be used for secular purposes and it may not be desecrated in any way. And like a synagogue, it retains its sanctity whether or not Jews are actually present at any specific time or on a specific day. The Jewish cemetery remains hallowed in its entirety, even if all the remains have been removed from it; how much more so if remains are strewn throughout the cemetery! On the hallowed status of a Jewish cemetery, see, e.g., R. Jacob Moellin (d. 1427), ספר מהרי“ל: מנהגים (Jerusalem, 1989), laws of fasting, p. 270; R. Elijah Shapira, אליהו רבה על ספרי הלבושים, to שלחן ערוך אורח חיים 581:4, note 39; and R. Judah Ashkenazi (d. circa 1742), באר היטב, and R. Samuel Kolin (d. 1806), מחצית השקל, to שלחן ערוך אורח חיים 581:4. In all the passages just cited, every Jewish cemetery is described as a מקום קדוש, i.e. a holy place – which is precisely why Jewish cemeteries are designated as places appropriate for prayer. When a municipal office building, or an apartment house, or a convention center is constructed on a Jewish cemetery, it as an act of desecration. Ms. Kukliansky seems upset about “the outrageous claims that a desecration is taking place.” The claims are hardly outrageous; it is the desecration that is taking place that is outrageous.

That a Jewish cemetery retains its hallowed status even if some or all the remains are removed from it and buried elsewhere is an official ruling of many rabbis, including R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (d. 1995), one of the greatest halakhic decisors of modern times. At שו“ת מנחת שלמה (Jerusalem, 1999), vol. 2, responsum 88, p. 338, he rules unequivocally: “A Jewish cemetery, even if should happen that its remains have been exhumed, remains prohibited [for secular use, or for being sold to a second party], and always retains its character as a Jewish cemetery.” Cf. R. Moshe Feinstein,אגרות משה: יורה דעה חלק ג (New York, 1982), responsum 151, pp. 418-419.
[11] This can be seen by examining maps of the Jewish cemetery prepared during the last 200 years, as well as detailed photographs of the Jewish cemetery taken in the last 100 years. Even U.S. intelligence reports released by Wikileaks concede that “the Sports Palace property indisputably rests in the middle of the former cemetery.” See here.
[12] The Soviet-built Sports Palace, used primarily for volleyball and basketball games, was opened in 1971 and remained in use in Independent Lithuania until 2004.
[13] The evidence here is shocking indeed. See, e.g., Binyomin Rabinowitz, “Can Anything Be Done to Save the Remnants of Vilna’s Old Jewish Cemetery,” Dei’ah VeDibur (August 31, 2005), pp. 1-9, available online here.
[14] See, e.g., the Wikipedia entry on “Jewish Cemeteries of Vilnius”: “The Palace of Concerts and Sports (Lithuanian: Koncertų ir sporto rūmai) was built in 1971 right in the middle of the former cemetery. In 2005, apartment and office buildings were built at the site,” here.
[15] See, e.g., Ruta (Reyzke) Bloshtein’s stirring plea to the Lithuanian government online here.
[16] E.g, Rabbi Samuel Auerbach of Jerusalem, son and successor of R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.
[17] The list is much too long to be included here. Suffice to mention: Rabbi David Feinstein (head of Mesivta Tiferet Jerusalem), Rabbi Aharon Feldman (head of Ner Israel Rabbinical College), Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky (head of Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia), and Rabbi Aaron M. Schechter (head of Mesivta Chaim Berlin).
[18] These include Rabbi Chaim Dov Heller, head of the Telz Yeshiva, formerly in Telshiai, Lithuania; Rabbi Osher Kalmanowitz, head of the Mirrer yeshiva, formerly in Mir, Greater Lithuania (today in Belarus); and Rabbi Aryeh Malkiel Kotler, head of the Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, formerly in Kleck and Sluck, Greater Lithuania (today in Belarus).

Review of Dovid Bashevkin’s Sefer Berogez Racheim Tizkor

By Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz

Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz, a musmach of Beth Medrash Govoha, is the Rabbi and Director of the

Monmouth Torah Links community in Marlboro, NJ.

אהרן יצחק הלוי ארץ

כי הוא ידע יצרנו:

הערות והארות, ציונים ומראה מקומות, על עניניבחירה, חטא, ותשובה.

מיוסד על ספר “ברגז רחם תזכור” להרב דוד אליקים בשבקין.

Introduction

In wrath, remember mercy. For He knows our nature . . .

God knows the nature of every generation, Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin has written a Sefer uniquely appropriate for the nature of ours[1].

Take a trip to your local Jewish bookseller during this time period, and you will find numerous seforim, old[2] and new[3], on the themes of sin and repentance. Although they certainly vary in style and quality, a common denominator among many is the heavy reliance on Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuva and Sha’arey Teshuva of Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerondi[4]. And this is to be expected. Timeless classics, these works of the great Rishonim are unmatched in their systematic and detailed discussion of sin and punishment, free will[5] and repentance, and are a prerequisite study for any serious discussion of Teshuva.

But therein lays the dilemma.

For although Rabbeinu Yonah maps out the exalted levels of Teshuva that one should certainly strive for, they seem not to be for the faint of heart. Is our generation really up to the task of embracing the sorrow, suffering, and worry, the humbling and lowering oneself[6], without allowing for the concomitant sense of despair[7] and despondence[8]?

And how many of us can honestly stand before the Creator, and proclaim that we will “never return” to our negative actions, to the extent that God Himself will testify that this is the case[9]? If confession without sincere commitment to change is worthless[10], does repeating last year’s failed commitments not require choosing between giving up and fooling ourselves?

This is where B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor comes in. Based heavily on the thought of Izbica in general, and Reb Tzadok ha-Kohen of Lublin in particular, it discusses the value of spiritual struggle, the interplay between determinism and free will, the redemptive potential of sin, and the status of those who have not yet arisen from their fall.

In a refreshingly humble[11], almost apologetic, essay at the Seforim blog, R’ Bashevkin expresses hope that his work brings “the much needed attention these thinkers deserve in contemporary times,” while delivering a message of “comfort and optimism[12],” without being disloyal “to the type of avodas Hashem . . . they hoped to engender[13].” I think he was successful on all accounts.

Overall, the sefer is a good introduction to R’ Tzadok for those who are not familiar with his thought, and offers many insightful and fascinating comments even for those who are. Some that I found particularly interesting includethe insight into why R’ Mesharshiya cursed Ravina that he should come to permit forbidden fats (Yevamos 37a, B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor p. 16), what important lesson can be learned from the Talmudic teaching that one who responds Amein Yehay Shemy Rabbah with all his might is forgiven even if he has a trace of idolatry (Shabbos 119b, p. 18), what benefit is there in requiring that anyone appointed to the Sanhedrin know how to purify a sheretz (Sanhedrin 17a, p. 19), why does the Talmud expound so harshly on the sins of Achan (Sanhedrin 44a, p. 36), a new understanding of why one may lie for the sake of peace (Yevamos 65b, p. 84), and what possibly could be negative about being attached to Torah (p. 23).

In the aforementioned essay, the author hopes that, in keeping with its theme, the work is read with a “measure of mercy.” He has nothing to worry about. My main critiques are that some of the discussion of the more controversial statements of Izbica required more elaboration[14], the lack thereof leads to a seeming conflating of two similar, yet far from identical, concepts, and more contrasting and supporting texts (both from within Izbica and R’ Tzadok’s thought and without) would have made for a stronger case and deeper understanding.

My hope is to fill in these gaps in some small measure. Hopefully it will further enlighten those whose appetite was whet by this fine work.

ועתה באתי להעיר כדרכו של תורה, ואת והב בסופה.

“הכל בידי שמים אפילו יראת שמים!”

א) בסי’ ג’ שו”ט בטוטו”ד בענין מה שנראה שהוא חידוש נועז[15] מבית מדרשו של האיזביצ’א, דהכל בידי שמים אפילו יראת שמים[16], ודיש מושג של עבירות שהם למעלה מבחירת האדם[17].

וקודם כל אעיר, דכנראה עירבב שני דברים דומים אבל לא שוים. דהיסוד הראשון הוא דהכל בידי שמים אפילו יראת שמים, דהיינו דכל מה שהי’ הוה ויהי’ הוא בדיוק רצונו יתב”ש, כל מעשי המצוות וכל העבירות, דוכי יעשה בעולם דבר שלא ברשות קונו ובלא חפצו? כל אשר חפץ ה’ עשה בשמים ובארץ! וכשמדברים על דרך זה, אין שום חילוק בין עבירות שהן למעלה מבחירתנו ואלו שתוך שדה בחירתנו. “כל מה שחטא הי’ גם כן ברצון השם יתברך” (צדקת הצדיק אות מ’). “ולעתיד יתברר כן על כל חטאי בני ישראל וכו’ שיתברר שהיה מסודר מאמיתות רצון ה’ יתברך שיהיה כן ואם כן גם בזה עשו רצון ה’ יתברך” (מחשבות חרוץ אות ד’). הכל הוא מאתו יתברך.

והענין השני הוא כשמדברים מתוך עולם הבחירה[18], דע”פ פשטות בחירה הוא ד”נדע בלא ספק שמעשה האדם ביד האדם” ו”עושה כל מה שהוא חפץ ואין מי שיעכב בידו מלעשות הטוב או הרע,” ומשו”ה “דנין אותו לפי מעשיו” (רמב”ם פרק ה’ מהלכות תשובה), ואעפ”כ חידש האיזביצ’א ד”לפעמים אשר יצר האדם מתגבר עליו עד שלא יכול לזוז בשום אופן ואז ברור הדבר כי מה’ הוא” (מי השילוח פרשת כי תצא כ”א:י”א), ו”פעמים יש אדם עומד בנסיון גדול עד שאי אפשר לו שלא יחטא” (צדקת הצדיק אות מ”ג)[19].

הרי דיש שני ענינים נפרדים, שניהם חידושים נפלאים, ושניהם מבית מדרשו של האיזביצ’א.

ב) אבל באמת, כד נעיין היטב בזה, נמצא הרבה סייעתא לשני החידושים בדברי חז”ל ובתורתן של גדולי ישראל אף מאלו הרחוקים מתורת איזביץ, דבעיקרי התורה ויסודותיה תורה אחת היא לכם[20].

“שאין מציאות כלל ללא השם יתברך וכו’ ולא שיך כלל לעבור על רצונו, כי אין שום מושג ללא רצונו יתברך. ואף כאשר האדם חוטא, אינו עובר על רצון השם יתברך, אלא זה גופא רצונו יתברך, ורק האדםטועה וסוברשעושה נגד רצון השם, ועל זה יענש על שסובר שעושה נגד רצון השם יתברך. ואיתא בחז”לשבפרשת האזינו מורמז כל הבריאה כולה, וכל מעשי האדם לעולם וכל זה כבר יצר הקדוש ברוך הוא בעת בריאת העולם, והאיך יתכן שיעבר על רצון השם, והרי הכל כבר נברא ונוצר על ידו.”

הרואה דברים אלו בודאי יחשוב דתורת איזביץ יש כאן.

ואינו כן. אלא מבית מדרשו של בעלי המוסר, מפי המשגיח המפורסם הרה”ג ר’ יחזקאל לוינשטיין ז”ל יצא הדברים (אור יחזקאל, שיחות אלול עמוד ס”ז – ס”ח). ולהפתעתי מצאתי שדבריו הובאו גם בספר ממחבר מפורסם של חסידי ברסלב[21]. הרי דתורת ברסלב, איזביץ, ובעלי המוסר, כולם מסכימים לעצם היסוד דהכל בידי שמים, ללא יוצא מן הכלל.

ומקור הדברים לכאורה הוי במדרש (במדבר רבה, פרשת נשא, פרשה “יג סי’ י”ח):

“אע”פ שאירע לשבטים שבא לידיהם מכירת יוסף את סבור שלא היה בא לידם אותו המעשה אלא א”כ היו רשעים במעשה אחרים לאו אלא צדיקים גמורים היו ולא בא לידם חטא מעולם וכו’ אלא זה בלבד ומתוך גנותם סיפר הכתוב שבחם שלא היה בידם עון אלא זה בלבד ולפי שמכירת יוסף זכות היה לושהיא גרמה לו למלוך וזכות היתה לאחיו ולכל בית אביו שכלכלם בלחם בשני רעבון לכך נמכר על ידם שמגלגלין זכות על ידי זכאי.”

ולכאורה תמוה, דאף דלבסוף היה לטוב עדיין צ”ע מה דה”זכות” מתייחס להם דהא מפורש במדרש דמכירת יוסף היה “עון.”

אלא לכאורה הכוונה הוא דכל ענין מכירת יוסף הי’ עצה עמוקה של אותו צדיק הקבור בחברון[22] ובהכרח ירדו בנ”י למצרים דעצת ה’ היא תקום. הרי דבמכירת יוסף, אף דנחשב להם לעון, אפ”ה היו השבטים שלוחא דרחמנא לקיים גזירותיו. ומעשה אבות סימן לבנים[23], דכן הוא בכל מה שאירע בהעולם, הכל הוא לקיים רצונו יתברך[24], וזהו אף בהעבירות שאדם עושה[25], אבל בעבירות אין התועלת והטוב שיצא ממעשי אדם מתיחחסים לו[26], ואדרבה נענש עליהם אף שמעשיו היו “גופא רצונו יתברך[27].” אבל כל זה כשלא עשה תשובה, אבל אצל שבטים שאמרו “אבל אשמים אנחנו על אחינו” (בראשית פרק מ”ב פסוק כ”א) שהוא תשובה על מעשיהם (עיין בשערי אהרן בשם הזוהר ועוד) נעשה להם זדונות כזכיות ממש וכמו שלא הי’ עון כלל, דיבוקש עון ישראל ואיננו, וכל הטוב הנמשך ממעשיהם מתייחס להם כזכות ממש[28] (עיין בזה בס’ תקנת השבין סי’ י’ אות ט). הרי דאף מעשי העבירות הוי קיום רצונו יתברך.

ג) וכל זה הוא בנוגע להענין הראשון (ד”כל מה שחטא הי’ גם כן ברצון השם יתברך” ו”אף כאשר האדם חוטא וכו’ זה גופא רצונו יתברך”). ובנוגע הענין השנית, דהוא דאף כשמדברים על עולם הבחירה אפ”ה לפעמים יש מציאות דיש עבירות שא”א שלא יכשל בהן, בזה היטיבו אשר דברו בזה ב”ברגז רחם תזבר” דשפיר משמע מפשטות שיטת ר’ אלעאי (קידושין מ.) דיש ענין בזה.

ובאמת, יש עוד כמה מקומות בש”ס דמשמע כן. עיין צדקת הצדיק (אות מ”ג) דהביא מגמ’ ברכות ל”ב. “משל לאדם אחד שהיה לו בן הרחיצו וסכו והאכילו והשקהו ותלה לו כיס על צוארו והושיבו על פתח של זונות מה יעשה אותו הבן שלא יחטא,” וכן מגמ’ כתובות נ”א: “כל שתחלתה באונס וסוף ברצון אפי’ היא אומרת הניחו לו שאלמלא לא נזקק לה היא שוכרתו מותרת מ”ט יצר אלבשה” “הרי דזה מחשב אונס גמור אף על פי שהוא ברצונה מכל מקום יצר גדול כזה אי אפשר באדם לכופו.[29]”

ועייו בס’ יד קטנה (ריש הל’ תשובה) דהאריך לחדש דיש ענין “רב וגדול למאוד” בוידוי פה אף בלי חרטה[30] ובלי עזיבת החטא[31], ובכל דבריו מיירי במי ש”אין לו שלטון וממשלה על חוזק כבד לבבו להטותה באמת” ו”הרי הוא כמו אנוס מן חוזק כבד לבבו,” הרי דנקט לדבר פשוט שיש מצבים ויש אנשים שבשום אופן א”א להם לשוב מדרכם הרעה.

ועיין בס’ מכתב מאליהו ב”קונטרס הבחירה” (ח”א עמוד קי”ג) שביאר הגרא”א דסלר זצ”ל לא רק דיש עבירות שהן למעלה מבחירתנו, אלא רוב מעשינו הוא למעלה או למטה מנקודת הבחירה שיש לכל או”א. ועיין שם בהערה מהרב ארי’ כרמל דהמקור לדבריו הוא מדברי ר’ אלעאי בקידושין שם. הרי לא רק דכן ס”ל לר’ אלעאי אלא נקטינן כדבריו[32].

ויש לציין שבדברי הנחל נובע מקור חכמה כנראה מבואר דלא כזה. עיין ליקוטי מוהר”ן (תנינא, תורה ק”י) “שמעתי, שאיש אחד שאל אותו: כיצד הוא הבחירה? השיב לו בפשיטות, שהבחירה היא ביד האדם בפשיטות. אם רצה עושה, ואם אינו רוצה אינו עושה. ורשמתי זאת, בי הוא נצרך מאד, כי כמה בני אדם נבוכים בזה מאד, מחמת שהם מרגלים במעשיהם ובדרכיהם מנעוריהם מאד, על כן נדמה להם שאין להם בחירה, חס ושלום, ואינם יכולים לשנות מעשיהם. אבל באמת אינו כן, כי בודאי יש לכל אדם בחירה תמיד על כל דבר, וכמו שהוא רוצה עושה. והבן הדברים מאד[33].”

ד) אבל עיין שם בצדקת הצדיק שסיים ביסוד גדול “אבל האדם עצמו אינו יכול להעיד על עצמו בזה כי אולי עדיין היה לו כח לכוף היצר.” ובס’ ברגז רחם תזכר שם הביא מעוד כמה מקומות בתורתו של הכהן הגדול שכן הוא, והביא ביאור נפלא בזה מבעל פחד יצחק, ויסוד זה שייך בשני הענינים, בין מה דהכל הוא מהשי”ת ובין מה דיש עבירות למעלה מהבחירה, בכולם אסור לנו בפועל להכחיש הבחירה בשום פנים ואופן וחייבים אנו להלחם ביצרינו בכל נימי נפשינו[34].

ואם כנים אנחנו בזה[35], דמצד אחד תורת איזביץ יש לו יסודות נאמנים וקיימים בדברי חז”ל והרבה ס”ל כמותו, ומצד שני דבפועל אסור לנו להכחיש הבחירה כלל וכלל, יש כאן תמיה גדולה — א”כ מה כל הרעש הזה על תורתו, מה חרי האף הגדול הזה דלא רצו להדפיס ספריו ואף שרפו ספריו באש ר”ל[36]?

וכד נעיין היטב בזה, נראה דעיקר הרעש על חידושו הי’ על מה דגלא רזין מעלמא דאתכסיא, רזין עילאין וטמירין שכיסה עתיק יומין ולא איתגלאו מכמה דרין. ובזה הניח מקום לטעות בדבריו (כאשר כבר הי’ ר”ל) להחליש חומר החטא. והיטיב דבר בזה הגאון המקובל ר’ יצחק מאיר מרגנשטרן שליט”א מירושלים ד”מדרגה זו וכו’ אין מגלין אותה אלא לצנועים, ומכל שכן שאין לדרוש בה בקול רעש גדול, כי אם בדוקא בסוד ובהעלם גדול, דחלילה לאדם שיחשוב קודם החטא דהכל מרצונו יתברך וכיוצא באלו מחשבות פגול, דבזה עלול הוא להתיר מה שאסרה תורה וכו’ והרי הוא בכלל אחטא ואשוב אין מספיקין בידו לעשות תשובה, ודייקא אחר שכבר נכשל רח”ל בחטא, אז ישיב אל לבו לשוב אל ה’ בכל לבו ובכל נפשו, ולא יעלה על דעתו דאחר שנתרחק הנה מכאן ואילך הרי הוא מרוחק ושוב לא יזכה לראות אור השמש, דאינו כן, דודאי בפנימיות בדרך העלמה הכל היה כרצון השי”ת לצורך תיקון העולם, אלא דכבוד אלקים הסתר דבר.”

ובימינו כבר דורשין סתרי תורה, שפוני טמוני חול דתורת איזביץ, ברבים, בקולי קולות וברעש גדול. ואפשר דכן צריך להיות. דבדור חלש, ודור שרבים משתוקקים להרגיש בחוש ד”קרבת אלקים לי טוב,” יש צורך גדול לדמות לשכינה ולהחיות רוח שפלים ולב נדכאים[37], ללמוד זכות על החוטא (אבל לא על החטא), ואפילו אם הוא בעצמו הוא החוטא[38], ולהבין דלפעמים באמת יש נסיונות שהם למעלה מנקודת בחירתנו, ושהכל הוא עצת ה’, ואל לנו ליפול בעומק היאוש ודכאון[39]. ועכ”ז צורך להדגיש דבעצם תוקף הנסיון יש לנו ללחום ביצר בכל כחנו, ואין לנו להתיאש מלהתגבר עליו בטענת שאין ביכולתנו.

במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים

ה) וכשם שחייב ללחום ביצה”ר וחלילה לחשוב קודם החטא דהחטא הוא רצונו, כך אסור לעמוד במקום נסיון. ומפני זה יפה הביא (בעמוד מ”ט) לתמוה על דברי הכלי יקר (חקת י”ט:כ”א) דבעל תשובה מותר וצריך לעמוד במקום הנסיון שנפל מתחלה, ואף להתיחד עם אותו אשה אשר חטא, ואם יתגבר על יצרו בזה נחשב בעל תשובה גמורה. ויפה כתב לתמוה על דבריו.

ויש להוסיף בזה דברי המי השלוח (ח”ב פרשת יתרו עה”פ לא תשתחווה להם ולא תעבדם) “ולא תעבדם שלא תעשה מהם עבודה להש”י בהכניסך לנסיון בדי שתתגבר על יצרך וכו’ ואפילו אם מכוין שעי”ז יתגבר כבוד שמים בהתגברו על היצר.” ועיין רמב”ם פ”ב מהל’ תשובה ה”ד “ומתרחק הרבה מן הדבר שחטא בו.” ועיין צדקת הצדיק אות ע”ג, ובס’ מגדים חדשים (ברכות ל””ד ע”ב ובמילואים שבסוף הספר) הביא מכמה ספרים דכתבו כעין דברי הכלי יקר, וגם אלו החולקין על דבריו, ועיין שם בשם לקט יושר (ע’ קל:ו) “שאחד רצה לעשות כדלעיל ועשה העבירה שנית,” ועיין בס’ שערים מצויינים בהלכה (ברכות שם) שהביא מכמה מקומות דמבואר דלא כהכלי יקר, וכתב דדבריו בזה תמוהין[40] )אבל לכאורה מדברי הירושלמי הובא בערל”נ סנהדרין כ”ב. יש ראי’ לשיטת הכלי יקר, וצ”ע(.

חדש ימינו כקדם

ו) בעמוד ס”ט הביא פירוש נפלא (מר’ שמחה ווליג נר”ו) דהכוונה במדרש איכה (ה’:כ”א) “חדש ימינו כקדם כאדם הראשון כמד”א (בראשית ג’) ויגרש את האדם וישכן מקדם לגן עדן” דהכוונה הוא דוקא לאחר החטא, דבזה מיירי הפסוק. וכבר מזמן אמרתי כן לעצמי ולאחרים, והדבר מפורש בחדושי רד”ל שם “שאחר שנתגרש לקדם עשה תשובה ונתקבל ברצון.”

ובזה אמרתי דאפשר להגן על הרמב”ם מקושייתו של הריטב”א. דעיין כתובות (ח.’) דאחד מברכת חתנים הוא “שמח תשמח ריעים האהובים כשמחך יצירך בגן עדן מקדם ברוך אתה ה’ משמח חתן וכלה.” ועיין רש”י שם “בגן עדן מקדם דכתיב ויטע גן בעדן מקדם וישם שם וגו.'”

ועיין בריטב”א שם דכתב וז”ל “גירסת רש”י ז”ל כשמחך יצירך בגן עדן מקדם וכן הגירסא בכל הספרים וכן הכתוב אומר ויטע ה’ אלהים גן בעדן מקדם וישם שם את האדם והרמב”ם ז”ל גורס מקדם בגן עדן ואין הלשון הזה מתוקן כראוי, כי הלשון הזה נאמר על האדם כשנתגרש מג”ע וישכןמקדם לגן עדן ואע”פ ששם אמר לגן וכאן אמר בגן שמא יבא לטעות אדם בענין וגם בלשון[41].

ולפי דברי המדרש דברי הרמב”ם א”ש. דזהו גופא מה מברכין להחתן וכלה, שהקב”ה ינהג עמהם ברחמים כאשר עשה לאדם וחוה אף לאחר הנפילה, לאחר שנפל מאגרא רמא שהי’ יושב בג”ע והיו מלאכי השרת צולין לו בשר ומסננין לו יין (סנהדרין נ”ט:) לבירא עמקתא של בזעת אפך תאכל לחם (בראשית ג’:י”ט), אבל לא גירש אותם מיד אלא נתן להם את השבת “אדם שמר את השבת בתחתונים והיה יום השבת משמרו מכל רע ומנחמו מכל שרעפי לבו” (פרקי דר”א פרק כ’)[42], ויעש להם כתנות עור, וכמש”כ רבינו בחיי שם “ע”ד הפשט רצה ליחס פעולת ההלבשה אליו יתברך להורות על אהבתו וחמלתו על יצוריו, שאע”פ שחטאו לא זז מחבבן, והוא בעצמו השתדל בתקונם ובגמילות חסדים. והנה כל זה חסדי הש”י, ועל זה אמר הכתוב: (דניאל ט, ז) “לך ה’ הצדקה ולנו בושת הפנים”. ולפי”ז א”ש הגמ’ בסוטה (י”ד.) “דרש ר’ שמלאי תורה תחלתה גמילות חסדים וסופה גמילות חסדים תחילתה גמילות חסדים דכתיב ויעש ה’ אלקים לאדם ולאשתו כתנות עור וילבישם” ולא מנה החסד שעשה עמהם לפני החטא בהכנת כל צרכי החתונה (עיין ברכות ס”א., ב”ר פרשה ח’ אות י”ג) דעיקר החבה והחסד הוא לאחר החטא, דאפ”ה לא זז מחבבן, ועיקר הברכה הוי דוקא “מקדם לגן עדן” ולא “גן בעדן מקדם[43].”

לכוף את יצרו עדיף

ז) בעמוד ע”ד הביא (מהגר”ר גרוזובסקי זצ”ל בשם הגר”ח חלוי) דהמחלוקת עם רשעים “צריכה להיות כשנאת הבעלים לעכברים שמצטער על שישנם וצריך לבערם ולא כחתול הנהנה ממה שיש לו לבער ולאכול.” וכתב דזה א”ש לשיטת הרמב”ן עה”ת לבאר למה נענשו המצריים אע”פ שהיתה גזירה על כלל ישראל, וק”ו לגבי ישראל “אם דחה אותו האיש יותר מן הראוי וכו’ הרי זה בכלל שנאה גמורה וגדול עונו.”

ויפה כתב. אבל יש להעיר ולהוסיף, דלפי דברי הרמב”ן בפרשת לך לך (ט”ו:י”ד), אף אם לא דחה אותו יותר מן הראוי כלל, אלא בדיוק במדה המחייבת, כל שנהנה מעצם השנאה כחתול לעכבר, הרי בכלל שנאה האסורה וגדול עונו. דהא ברמב”ן שם איתא כמה טעמים למה נענשו המצריים, דטעם אחד הוא שהוסיפו על הגזירה, ושוב כתב ד”אם שמע אותה ורצה לעשות רצון בוראו כנגזר אין עליו חטא אבל יש לו זכות בו וכו’ אבל אם שמע המצוה והרג אותו לשנאה או לשלול אותו, יש עליו העונש כי הוא לחטא נתכוון, ועבירה הוא לו.” וזהו טעם שנית דשייך אף כשלא הוסיפו כלום. ודון מינה ואוקי באתרה.

ושמעתי לפרש (כמדומני בשם אחד מאדמור”י גר) “וירא פינחס וכו’ ויקם וכו’ ויקח רמח בידו” — אבל הקנאים תמיד יש רמח מזומן בידיהם . . .

“אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא”

ח) בעמוד ט”ו הביא קושיית התוס’ (שבת נ”ה: בד”ה ארבעה) על הגמ’ דארבעה מתו בעטיו של נחש, דצ”ע מהפסוק בקהלת (ז’:כ’) “כי אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא.” וכתב לפרש ע”פ דברי השלה”ק (מס’ תענית, פרק תורה טור, סי’ קמ”ד – קמ”ה) “שטמונים בתוך הנפילות והמכשולות של צדיקים הכח והדחיפה לעשות טוב.” וענין זה הוא באמת בריח התיכון של כל הספר, דכל הנפילות הם בעצם לטובותינו, וכל הירידות בעצמותן הם לצורך עלי'[44], ושהכל הוא עצת ה’ לטוב לנו לחיתנו.

אבל עדיין פירוש השל”ה בלשון הפסוק דחוק. ושמעתי ממו”ר המשגיח הרה”ג ר’ מתתיהו סלומון שליט”א (בשם רבו הרה”ג ר’ אלי’ לפיאן זצ”ל) לפרש על פי דברי ר’ יונה (בשע”ת שער הראשון אות ו’) “אמת כי יש מן הצדיקים שנכשלים בחטא לפעמים, כענין שנאמר כי אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא,” דלכאורה תמוה דמתחלה אמר דיש מן הצדיקים, דהיינו מקצתם, דנכשלים בחטא, והביא ע”ז פסוק דאין צדיק בארץ אשר לא יחטא, דמשמע דכולם חוטאים. ותירץ הרה”ג ר’ אלי’ ז”ל דבאמת מצינו צדיקים אשר אין חוטאים, אבל צדיקים אשר עושים טוב בהם אין מי שלא יחטא. דהיינו, שפיר אפשר להיות צדיק לעצמו ולישב בזוית ולעבוד את ה’, אבל מי שמלמד לאחרים ועוסק בצרכי צבור “לעשות טוב[45]” א”א לו שלא יחטא[46].

ועצם יסוד הדברים כבר נמצא במשך חכמה פרשת נח (ט’:כ’), בפתוחי חותם להחת”ס (נדפס כהקדמה לשו”ת יו”ד), ובספורנו סוף פרשת בראשית (ו’:ח’)[47].

ולפי”ז מיושב קושיית התוס’, דהארבעה מתו בעטיו של נחש, עם כל צדקתם שאין לתאר ואין לשער, לא מצינו שלימדו והשפיעו על אחרים ועסקו בטובת העולם[48] באותו מדה[49] שעשו אאע”ה, משה רבינו, ודוד המלך, דהם (אע”פ שחטאו) קיימו רצון ה’ למען אשר יצוה את בניו ואת ביתו אחריו, צדיקים כאלו זכו לעצמם וזכה לדורי דורות, ומצדיקי הרבים ככוכבים יזהירו, וצדקתם עומדת לעד[50].

ונמצא, שלא רק “שטמונים בתוך הנפילות והמכשולות של צדיקים הכח והדחיפה לעשות טוב,” אלא הדחיפה לעשות טוב הוא גרמא לנפילות, ואעפ”כ זהו רצונו יתב”ש.

“בנים אתם לה’ אלקיכם”

ט) בעמוד ל”ד הביא מר’ צדוק הכהן (תקנת השבין סי’ ט”ו, אות פ”ד) שהמקור להענין ש”אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא” הוא משיטת ר”מ בקידושין ל”ו. דבין כך ובין כך נקראו בנים, והלכה כמותו דדייק קרא[51].

ויש לציין למש”כ בהגדה של פסח “מגיד משנה” (לבעמח”ס שו”ת משנה הלכות ז”ל) דגם בעל ההגדה סתם כר”מ. ד”כנגד ארבעה בנים דברה תורה,” דאף הרשעים דהוציאו עצמן מן הכלל וכפרו בעיקר עדיין נקראו בנים למקום. וזה תואם שיטתו (בשו”ת משנ”ה ח”ו סי’ כ”ז, כ”ח, ל[52]’) המובא ב”ברגז רחם תזכר” (עמוד ע”ז, ובצדק כתב המחבר ד”ניכרין דברי אמת”) לחלוק על דברי האדמו”ר ממונקאטש זצ”ל[53], וס”ל דחייב להתפלל על נדחי ישראל שישובו בתשובה שלמה.

וכדברי המשנ”ה הוא מנהג כלל ישראל, וכמו שהוא בנוסח תפלת זכה שאומרים בכניסת יום הקדוש[54] “ובתוכם תרחם על פושעי עמך בית ישראל ותן בלבם פחד הדר גאונך והכנע לבם האבן וישובו לפניך בלב שלם וכו’ גם כי הרבו אשמה לפניך עד שננעלו בפניהם דרכי תשובה אתה ברחמיך הרבים תחתור להם חתירה מתחת כסא כבודך וקבלם בתשובה וכו'[55].”

“אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא”

י) בסי’ ב’ הביא שיטת האג”מ (אבה”ע ח”ד סי’ פ”ג) דכל סוגיית הגמ’ (סנהדרין מ”ד.) בענין “ישראלאע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא” הוי רק דברי אגדה[56] להשמיענו חביבות ישראל להקב”ה שאפילו בשעה שהן חוטאים קורא אותן ישראל. ומבואר בדברי האג”מ דכוונת רבי אבא בר זבדא בגמ’ שם “אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא” הוי על שאר כלל ישראל (ולא על עכן) דאע”פ שגם הם נחשבו כחוטאים מחמת ערבות[57], אפ”ה עדיין שם ישראל עליהם, וכתב האג”מ דכן משמע מדברי רש”י שכתב “מדלא אמר חטא העם עדיין שם קדושתן עליהן.“

ויש לציין שכעין הבנת האג”מ בהגמ’ וברש”י כתבו עוד מהאחרונים. עיין שו”ת אפרקסתא דעניא (ח”ב או”ח סי’ י”ט) וז”ל “ותו דעל גוף הדבר אני תמה, שהביאו מאמרם ז”ל, אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא לענין המומר עצמו, הרי בסנהדרין שם הכא קאמר “חטא ישראל” אר”א ב”ז אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא, אמר ר”א היינו דאמרי אינשי, “אסא דקאי ביני חילפי אסא שמה ואסא קרו לה”. ופרש”י מדלא אמר חטא העם, עדיין קדושתן עליהם עכ”ל. והרי הכונה הפשוטה לפענ”ד, דאע”פ שנתחייבו כל ישראל בחטאו של עכן מטעם ערבות, מ”מ קרי להעם בשם ישראל, דעדיין קדושתם עליהם, וזה מבואר במשל שהביא אסא כו’ דהיינו הצדיקים וכו’ אבל חילפא גופא לא קרו לי’ אסא” עכ”ל האפרקסתא דעניא. וכן הוא בשו”ת דברי יציב (אבה”ע סי’ ס”ב, אות ז:כ”ג) “חטא ישראל אמר ר’ אבא בר זבדא אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא, אמר ר’ אבא היינו דאמרי אינשי אסא דקאי ביני חילפי אסא שמיה ואסא קרו ליה עיי”ש. וכו’ והנלע”ד בביאור הענין, דהנה רש”י בסנהדרין שם ביאר חטא ישראל מדלא אמר חטא העם עדיין שם קדושתם עליהם עכ”ל, וכו’ והיינו דקאי על כלל ישראל שקדושתם עליהם אע”פ שחטא עכןוכו’ ולמד הש”ס מכאן דישראל הוא היינו שכלל ישראל נשאר בקדושתו אף שהחוטא ביניהם, וזה כוונת רש”י עדיין שם קדושתם עליהם. ועל זה הביא המשל וכו’, וה”נ כלל ישראל אף שעומדים ביניהם רשעים מ”מ לא נפגמה קדושתם וישראל הם, אמנם המומר עצמו לא נקרא ישראל. “

אבל אף דבהבנת הגמ’ ורש”י שוה דבריהם, בעצם הענין חילוק גדול יש. דלהדברי יציב משום דהגמ’ מיירי בהציבור א”כ א”ש הני שיטות דס”ל דמומר לגמרי דינו כעכו”ם, דהא לגבי היחיד אין כאן ענין “ישראלאע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא[58]” (וכעין זה הוא באפרקסתא דעניא שם), משא”כ להאג”מ אין צורך כלל להענין דאע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא, דבודאי מומר דינו כישראל, משום דלא שייך המציאות לישראל שיעשה בדין נכרי.

ואף דבעצם סברת האג”מ נראין דבריו[59], אבל מה שהוסיף דהפוסקים שנראו מדבריהם ד”אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא” הוי מקור להלכה צ”ל דרק מליצת הלשון בעלמא הוא, בצדק העיר בזה בספר “ברגז רחם תזכר” (עמוד ל”ה) דמדברי המרדכי (יבמות סי’ כ”ט) לא משמע כן. ובאמת כן הוא בהרבה מקורות, בראשונים ואחרונים, דשפיר משמע מלשונם דהשתמשו ב”אע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא” כמקור גמור להלכה ולא רק כמליצת הלשון[60] — לדוגמא עיין חידושי רמב”ן (ב”מ ע”א:), ב”י או”ח סי’ נ”ה, גר”א יו”ד סי’ קנ”ט ס”ק ד’, טושו”ע ונו”כ אבהע”ז סי’ קנ”ז (עיין שם בגר”א ס”ק ז’), וכהנה רבות.

גדולה עבירה לשמה

י”א) בעמוד פ”א – פ”ב הביא להקשות על שיטת הנפש החיים (פרק ז’ בפרקים שלאחר שער ג’) דענין העבודה על דרך “עבירה לשמה” לא היתה נוהגת אלא קודם מתן תורה לבד, וצ”ע דהא עצם הלימוד (בנזיר כ”ג:) הוא מיעל דהיתה זמן רב אחר מ”ת. וכתב לתרץ דבאמת קושיא מעיקרא ליתא, דבית הקיני לא מבני ישראל המה, ודברי הנפש החיים אמורים רק לגבי העבודה דכלל ישראל.

אבל באמת אינו ברור כלל דיעל לא היתה מבנ”י. דעיין ילקוט שמעוני (יהושע רמז ט’) “יש נשים חסידות גיורות הגר, אסנת, צפרה, שפרה, פועה, בת פרעה, רחב, רות, ויעל אשת חבר הקיני.” אבל עיין בזית רענן שם די”ל שנתגיירה לאחר המעשה. ועיין בזה בדורש לציון להגאון הנו”ב (סוף דרוש ב’ ד”ה בו ביום) ובשו”ת בית שערים חלק אורח חיים סימן לד.

אבל באמת מצינו בחז”ל ובראשונים דכבר נתגיירה בשעת מעשה. דהא מצינו שהרגה לסיסרא ביתד ולא בכלי זין כדי שלא לעבור על איסור כלי גבר, ואיסור זה שייך אצלה רק אם כבר נתגיירה. עיין בזה ברש”י[61] נזיר נ”ט., בגליון הש”ס שם (דהביא דכן הוא בתרגום ובילקוט), בשו”ת אגר”מ (או”ח ח”ד סי’ ע”ה), ובשו”ת (בצל החכמה ח”ה סי’ קכ”ו).

ולתרץ הקושיא על הנפש החיים — עיין מש”כ הנצי”ב (העמק דבר סוף שלח), ובפירוש “הקדמות ושערים” על הנפש החיים שם (אות ב’), ובהערות לנפש החיים (בני ברק, תשמ”ט, אות 7)[62].

הערות שונות

י”ב) בעמוד פ”ד הביא לדון בענין לעבור על איסור קל להציל מהחמור, והביא מס’ עקידת יצחק לחלק דזהו רק היתר ליחיד אבל לא לרבים. עיין בס’ “לבושה של תורה” להרב פסח אליהו פאלק שליט”א (סי’ מ”ד אות ג’ – ה’) מש”כ בענין זה בכלל, ובענין שיטת העקידת יצחק בפרט.

ובענין זה שמעתי בשם גדולי ישראל דאף דיש מתירין להזמין אנשים שאינם שומרי תו”מ לסעודת שבת במטרת לקרבם ליהדות, אף אם יודעים שיחללו בשבת כשבאים ברכב, אבל הוראה זו אין מגלין אלא לצנועין, אבל א”א להיות הוראה כללית לכל או”א[63].

ואפילו בנוגע הוראה ליחיד, לפני כמה שנים שאלתי את הגרי”ש אלישיב זצ”ל בנוגע לאחד מבני קהילתי, איש יקר שרצה לקרב לתו”מ אבל לצערו במציאות א”א לשמר שבת לגמרי כהלכתה עדיין מפני לחץ משפחתו, אם מותר לי ללמדו האיך לחלל שבת באופן שיעבור רק מדרבנן וכו’. והשיב דמותר ללמד הסוגיות עמו והוא ערום יעשה בדעת, אבל אסור לפסוק וללמדו מה שיש בפועל לעשות כדי לחלל השבת.

י”ג) בעמוד צ”ד העיר (בדרך אגב) בענין אם שייך לומר דאפשר לחלוק על הגמ’ דהא ב”ד יכול לבטל דברי ב”ד חבירו ע”פ י”ג מדות. ולכאורה יש להעיר דמבואר בכמה מקומות דלעתיד יהי’ ההלכה כב”ש (עיין הרב שמואל אשכנזי, אלפא ביתא תניתא דשמואל זעירא, ח”א עמוד 241 – 244), וא”כ מבואר דלעת”ל ישתנה הדברים מדינא דגמ’. אבל לכאורה זה גופא דינא דגמראשב”ד יכול לסתור חבירו. ודכמו דמה דהתשבי יתרץ כל ה”תיקו” שבש”ס לא הוי סתירה להגמ’ כמו כן הך כללא דב”ד יכול לבטל דברי חבירו. ואדרבה — אם א”א להם לבטל בית דינו של ב”ה א”כ זה גופא יהי’ ביטול דינא דגמ’ דנפסק שיש בידם לבטל דברי ב”ד אחר.

ועיין בזה בגמ’ יומא פ’ ע”א וברש”י שם, בדברות משה (יבמות פרק ד’ הערה נ”ט), ובס’ “באמונה שלמה” (להרב יוסף זלמן בלאך שליט”א, עמוד בעמוד שי”א – שי”ב הערה ד’).

י”ד) בעמוד צ”ה העיר בענין לפרש בדברי הראשונים מה שלא כיונו במובן ההיסטורי. יש לציין למה שהביא הרה”ג ר’ מיכל שורקין שליט”א (ס’ מגד גבעות עולם ח”ב עמוד ז’) מסורה שקיבל הגרי”ד הלוי סאלאווייציק ז”ל מאביו הגר”מ ומדודו (בעל עבודת המלך) “שהרמב”ם כתב את ספרו ברוח הקודש, ולאחר שנכתבו הדברים, אין הרמב”ם בעל הבית” על היד החזקה ושפיר אפשר לתרץ את דברי הרמב”ם אף כשתירץ הרמב”ם באופן אחר בתשובותיו (והביא שם דכעין זה כתב האו”ת אף בנוגע להשו”ע). וכנראה דכן קיבל הגר”מ ז”ל מפי קדשו של אביו הגאון החסיד הגר”ח מבריסק, וכמו דמצינו שביאר הגר”ח דברי הרמב”ם במ”ת אף שכבר כתב הרמב”ם בתשובה לחכמי לוניל דיש ט”ס במשנה תורה (עיין הל’ נזקי ממון פ”ד ה”ד ובכס”מ ובחידושי רבינו חיים הלוי שם), וכן מפורסמת שמועה כזו בעולם הישיבות בשם הגר”ח, ומסורה זו היא אף למעלה בקודש, דכן ס”ל זקני הגר”ח הנצי”ב והגר”ח מוואלאזהין ז”ל, עיין בשו”ת נשמת חיים (ב”ב תשס”ב, סי’ ס”ז) דכתב הרה”ג ר’ שלמה הכהן מווילנא להגר”ח ברלין (בנו של הנצי”ב) וז”ל “וכן שמעתי מפי אביו הצדיק זצ”ל שאמר בשם חמיו זקנו הצדיק מו”ה חיים מוואלזין שיש לומר פירוש בלשון הרמב”ם והשו”ע אם הוא עולה ע”פ ההלכה אף שבודאי לא כוונו לזהמשוםשרוח הקודש נזרקה על לשונם“. וכנראה כן ס”ל גם מרן החת”ס זי”ע — עיין בליקוטי שו”ת (סי’ ק”א סוף בד”ה אמנם) דהביא ביאור בדברי הרמב”ם אף דכתב שם ד”הרמב”ם בעצמו לא תי’ כן לחכמי לוניל” (וע”ע בשו”ת חת”ס חלק ז’ סי’ כ”א). וכעי”ז כתב הפנ”י (כתובות ל”ה ע”ב בד”ה ואי)[64].

ופה תהא שביתת קולמסי. ואסיים מעין הפתיחה, דברי ר’ צדוק הם כמים קרים על נפש עיפה, ופתח תקוה אף ל”מי שיקלקל הרבה כיון שבא מזרע יעקב יעשה תשובה ויוכל לזכות וכו’ כמו שזכה שלמה המלך ע”ה על ידי אשה רעה. שבסיבתה נתעורר לתקן הכל על ידי תשובה. וזה שנאמר וה’ ברך את אברהם בכל. בכל המדריגות כאמור” (פרי צדיק בראשית פרשת חיי שרה), אכי”ר.

[1] Aside for the content, a feature that is certainly unique to our generation is that the sefer was made immediately available at Hebrew Books. In an essay at the Seforim Blog (discussed below), the author describes his admirable goals in publishing the sefer. Undoubtedly these goals are enhanced by making it available to as wide an audience as possible. On the other hand, my experience is that people respect seforim given away less than those they paid for (see also Bava Kamma 85a).

[2]Popular examples of the genre I discuss below are Rav Yosef Cohen’s thorough “Sefer Ha-Teshuva” (M’Chon Harav Frank, Yerushalayim, 5766) and “Yad Kohen” by R’ Dovid Yehudah Hakohen Duetsch (Yerushalayim, 5771), both based on Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuva. Popular seforim on Rabbeinu Yonah include Rabbi Aharon David Goldberg’s Meshivas Nefesh, and Matnas Chelko based on the discourses of the Lakewood Mashgiach, Rav Matisyahu Salomon, Shlit”a.

[3] This includes the just published “Sefer Hagus Teshuva,” (Lakewood 5775) by Rav Aryeh Malkiel Kotler, Shlit”a, Rosh Yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood (dedicated in memory of his mother Rebbetzin Rishel Kotler Z”L).

[4] Of course, these works quote extensively from other classic works on Teshuva (such as “Bais Elokim” by R’ Moshe ben Yosef di Trani) and a wide range of sources from the books of Mussar. My point is that they frequently are written as commentaries to the works of Rambam and Rabbeinu Yonah (as the examples I cite above in note 2 and 3), and/or rely heavily on their words.

[5]Free will is a major theme in Rambam’s writings, not so in that of Rabbeinu Yonah (who nevertheless views it as a fundamentally important concept, see Sha’arey Teshuva 3:17 along with the comments in Sefer Matnas Chelko).

[6] Levels 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the 20 levels listed by Rabbeinu Yonah.

[7] See below note 39.

[8] I once asked R’ Matisyahu Salomon how one is too avoid this pitfall when learning books of Mussar. Without directly answering the question, he pointed out that a Jew is frequently required to experience competing emotions, without one overtaking the other. He referenced Yirmiyahu’s writing of the book of Eicha, which, like all prophecy, required a joyful spirit, as well as the fact that despite Rabbeinu Yonah’s seemingly harsh demands, he still refers to the “sweetness of Mussar” (Sha’arey Teshuva 2:13).

This idea that times of Teshuva demand joy and fear at the same time is discussed extensively in the context of the nature of the day of Rosh Hashana. See Rav Eliezer Menachem Man Shach, Michtavim Uma’amarim (volume 2, page 147), Rav Moshe Shapiro, Sefer Afikey Mayim on Yomim Noraim (chapter 30, page 182),the just published “Sefer Hagus Teshuva,” (see note 3) chapter 37, page 258, and the comments of Rabi Eliezer Eisenberg (pointed out to me by his son Rabbi Mordechai Eisenberg) here.

[9] Rambam, Hilchos Teshuva 1:1 and 2:2.

[10] Ibid 2:3.

[11] His self-deprecating also manifest itself in a Tweet where he called his work his “mediocre-opus.”

[12] Another important source that allows for “comfort” is R’ Yisroel Salanter – see his important (re)definition of “complete Teshuva” in Ohr Yisroel (# 6 – 8). I hope to further discuss his thought on a different occasion.

[13] He further discusses these themes in an important essay at the Hirhurim Blog.

[14] In chapter three it almost seems that R’ Bashevkin is afraid to elaborate on the full import of the seemingly radical Izbica statements, immediately muting their controversial nature by offering “solutions,” lest his book be used as a source for those “disloyal “to the type of avodas Hashem . . . they hoped to engender.” One also gets this sense from the amount of warnings and caveat’s given throughout the sefer (see page 11, 17, 19). I almost got the feeling that it had the flaw that he “doth protest too much.”

[15] עיין בשו”ת מנחת יצחק (ח”ח סי’ ב’) דלכתוב הביטוי “חידוש נועז” על גברא רבא היא ביטוי שלא בכבוד מאד. אבל הכא כנראה לכו”ע חידושי האיזביצ’א הם בגדר “חידוש נועז” דהא ע”פ מושכל ראשון נראה דסותר הבחירה ד”עיקר גדול הוא והוא עמוד התורה והמצוה” שבלעדו “מה מקום לכל התורה” (רמב”ם הל’ תשובה פרק ה’). וגם תלמידי האיזביצ’א יודעים היטב “כי בכמה מקומות יקשו הדברים לאזנים וכו'” (הקדמת נכד הרב הקדוש מאיזביצע לס’ מי השילוח).

[16] עיין מי השילוח פרשת וירא עה”פ ותכחש שרה (י”ח:ט”ו), צדקת הצדיק אות רנ”ז.

[17] עיין מי השילוח סוף פרשת בלק (נדפס בפרשת פנחס) עה”פ וירא פנחס(כ”ה:ז), ובפרשת כי תצא עה”פ וראית בשביה (כ”א:י”א),

[18] “דהידיעה במקום אחר והבחירה במקום אחר” — עיין ליקוטי מאמרים לר’ צדוק הכהן (עמוד קע”א) בשם האר”י, הובא בס’ ברגז דחם תזכר (עמוד מ’).

[19] ובישראל קדושים אות י’ — “שפעמים דאי אפשר לנצחו וכו’.”

[20] עיין בס’ ויואל משה, מאמר שלש שבועות, אות קפ”ב (הובא בס’ “הגאון” עמוד1232), ובס’ בגן החכמה (עמוד148).

[21] ספר “בגן החכמה” להרב שלום ארוש שליט”א (עמוד 146 – 147. הראוני לזה אחי הר’ מאיר שלמה עמוש”ט.).

[22] עיין רש”י בראשית פרק ל”ז פסוק י”ד, גמ’ סוטה י”א ע”א, בב”ר (פרשה פ”ד אות י”ג(.

[23] ענין “מעשה אבות סימן לבנים” נמצא הרבה ברמב”ן עה”ת, אף שלא מצאתי בדבריו לשון זה ממש. עיין בפירושו לבראשית י”ב:ו’, י”ב:י’, כ”ו:כ’, וריש פרשת וישלח. ועיין פרי צדיק ריש פרשת ויגש “כי כל מעשה אבות סימן לבנים כמו שכתב הרמב”ן (בראשית י”ב: ו’). וגם בפרשה זו מרמז המדרש תנחומא שכל ענין התגלות יוסף לאחיו הוא מעין התגלות הישועה לעתיד.”

[24] עיין דברי הרמב”ם במו”נ (חלק שני פרק מ”ח) “מבואר הוא מאד שכל דבר מחודש א”א לו מבלתי סבה קרובה חדשה אותו, ולסבה ההיא סבה, וכן עד שיגיע זה לסבה הראשונה לכל דבר, ר”ל רצון ה’ ובחירתו וכו’.” עוד שם “דע כי הסבות הקרובות כלם אשר מהם יתחדש מה שיתחדש אין הפרש בין היות הסבות ההם עצמיות טבעיות, או בבחירה, או במקרה, וכו’ והמקרה וכו’ הוא ממותר הענין הטבעי וכו’ ורובו משותף בין הטבע והרצון ובחירה וכו'” עיין שם כל דבריו הנעימים (ועיין חוה”ל שער הבטחון הפרק השלישי).

[25] ומעשי החטא מביא לבסוף להיפך ממטרת החוטא, דיושב בשמים ישחק ה’ ילעג למו ובת קול אומר “ונראה מה יהיו חלמתיו” (עיין בראשית פרק ל”ז פסוק כ’ וברש”י שם), ועצת ה’ היא תקום (עיין רמב”ן בראשית ל”ז:ט”ו-י”ז).

[26] אבל באמת, אף לרשע מגיע קצת שכר כשמעשיו מביא טובה לעולם (אף שזה הי’ היפך כוונתו). ומפני זה מבני בניו של המן למדו ולימדו תורה בבני ברק ומנו רב שמואל בר שילת (עיין גיטין נ”ז:, סנהדרין צ”ו:, ובעין יעקב בסנהדרין שם), וחייב איניש לבסומי עד וכו’ — עיין או”ח סי’ תרצ”ה ובישועות יעקב שם, חכמה ומוסר להסבא מקלם (ח”ב עמוד שמ”ה), קדושת לוי ב”כללות הניסים” ובקדושות לפורים קדושה רביעית, ובקונטרס מים חיים על אגדת החורבן (לייקוואוד, תש”ע).

[27] כלשון האור יחזקאל. ועיין ברמב”ן (בראשית ט”ו:י”ד), ובראב”ד הלכות תשובה (פ”ו ה”ה).

[28] וזהו עומק כוונת הפסוק’ “אלקים חשבה לטובה” (בראשית פרק נ’ פסוק כ’).ועיין בכ”ז באריכות בס’ ים החכמה תשס”ח, עמוד תקצ”ו – תר”ז.

[29] ועיין עוד בגמ’ יומא י”ט: – כ’. וברש”י שם יומא כ. “לפתח חטאת רובץ – יצר הרע מחטיאו בעל כרחו” (ועיין מהרש”א שם), וקידושין ל: ו ופ”א. – :.

[30] כלשונו “ואי אפשר לו בשום ענין לשבור את לבבו הרע להתחרט בלב שלם על פשעיו” וכשמתודה “איו לבבו שלם עמו” “ותוקף לבבו הרע בל עמו כלל לשום חרטה.” ועיין בספר יד כהן על הל’ תשובה (פ”א ה”א אות ד’) דהביא דברי היד קטנה וכתב דמיירי “שמתחרט הוא על מה שעבר עד עתה.” וזה אינו, כדמפורש להדיא בדבריו (וכנראה טעה בזה גם ב”ספר המפתח” שבסןף רמב”ם הוצאת שבתי פרנקל).

[31] וכלשונו “כי כבר לבב אבן לו ואין דרך להטותה בשום פנים.”

[32] ועיין בשו”ת משיב דבר ח”ב סי’ מ”ד, הובא לקמן בס” ברגז רחם תזכר עמוד פ”ג – פ”ד, דמבואר בדבריו דיש מציאות שללא מצי לכייף ליצרו .

[33] וזהו אף דבהענין הראשון נראה דס”ל כעין תורת האיזביצ’א, “שהכל נעשה ע”י השי”ת” (עיין ליקוטי הלכות דברים היוצאים מן החי ד’ אות מ”א – מ”ב), וזהו כמש”כ דשני ענינים נפרדים יש.

[34] ובברגז רחם תזכר הדגיש וחזר והדגיש נקודה זו — “אין זה לימוד זכות על עבירות עצמן” (עמוד י”א), “חובה גמורה היא לנהוג ביראת חטא” (עמוד י”ז), “שחלילה וחלילה להורות היתר אפילו על דבר שיש בו קצת נדנוד איסור” (עמוד י”ט).

[35] See Alan Nadler, Hasidim on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica/Radzin Hasidim (review)” Jewish Quarterly Review Volume 96, Number 2, Spring 2006, pp 276 – 282. See there on page 281 “Magid is still unable to point to single example of actual antinomian behavior by a single Hasid since the inception of the Izbica dynasty in 1839.” See also, here and Marc B. Shapiro, Changing The Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History (Portland, Oregon, 2015), 90.

[36] http://www.torahmusings.com/2015/08/open-orthodox-symposium-iv/

[37] עיין רמב”ם פ”ב מהל’ מגילה הל’ י”ז.

[38] עיין ליקוטי מוהר”ן תורה רפ”ב.

[39] ד”אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל” (ליקוטי מוהר”ן תנינא תורה ע”ח), “ואין לך מחלה כמו היאוש” (רבינו מאורנו ר’ ישראל מסאלאנט זצללה”ה באור ישראל סי’ ז’.).

[40] See also here at notes 4 – 11.

[41] הגירסא שהביא הריטב”א הוא ברמב”ם הלכות אישות פרק י’ הלכה ג’. אבל בהלכות ברכות פרק ב’ הל’ י”א כתב כגירסא שלנו. אבל בקצת דפוסים ליתא הברכות שם כלל, עיין רמב”ם מהדורת שבתי פרנקל ובשינוי נוסחאות שם.

[42] ובזה א”ש הקשר בין שבת לתשובה (עיין בזה בברגז רחם תזכר סי’ י”א), וכל המשמר שבת כהלכתו וכו’ מוחלים לו, עיין גמ’ שבת קי”ח: ובס’ מאור ישראל (להגרע”י זצ”ל) שם.

[43] והברכה להם הוי דכל ימיהם, אף בזמן שלא יהיו נקיים וטהורים כיום החופה, אפ”ה יתנהג עמהם במדת הרחמים. וזה גם לימוד להחתן וכלה שאף לאחר ה”גן עדן” של יום החופה, השבע ברכות ושנה ראשונה, כל ימי חייהם יתנהג זה לזה כרעים אהובים, וכמו שמיד לאחר החטא (להרבה ראשונים, ודלא כרש”י, עיין בשערי אהרן) קרא האדם שם אשתו חוה כי הוא היתה אם כל חי, לחיים ניתנה ולא לצער (עיין כתובות דף ס”א.).

See here.

[44] ויפה הביא בזה (בעמוד מ”ח) מש”כ הפחד יצחק באגרותיו (סי’ קכ”ח) עה”פ “שבע יפול צדיק” (משלי כ”ד:ט”ז) “ד”החכמים יודעים היטב שהכונה היא שמהות הקימה של הצדיק הוא דרך ‘שבע נפילות’ שלו.” ובאמת הדברים מפורשים בחז”ל (ילקוט שמעוני, תהלים רמז תרכ”ח) “אמר דוד כל מה שנתת לנו טובים ונעימים וכו’ וכה”א אל תשמחי אויבתי לי כי נפלתי קמתי אלולא שנפלתי לא קמתי כי אשב בחשך ה’ אור לי אלולא שישבתי בחשך לא היה אור לי.”

[45] ובזה מיושב קושיית השל”ה שם דלימא רק ‘אין צדיק בארץ אשר לא יחטא’. [אבל באמת, יש מקום להעיר על כל היסוד (דיש בני אדם שבאמת אין חוטאים כלל ) מלשון שלמה המלך (מלכים א’ פרק ח’ פסוק מ”ו, דברי הימים ב’ פרק ו’ פסוק ל”ו) “כי אין אדם אשר לא יחטא.” אבל עיין מצודת דוד שם שכתוב “ר”ל אם אין בהם אדם אשר לא יחטא בכדי להגן הוא על כולם ואז בודאי תאנף בם.” ולדבריו לכאורה אתי שפיר[.

[46] ובספרו מתנת חלקו על שע”ת איתא יסוד זה אבל קצת באופן אחר וז”ל שם “הלשון ‘בארץ’ בפסוק שהוא לכאורה מיותר — אלא ר”ל שהוא ‘בארץ’ היינו שיש צדיקים שהם פורשים לגמרי וכו’ אבל אם צדיק רוצה להיות אם אנשים ולהתנהג טוב אתם, א”א שלא יחטא” עכ”ל.

[47] ועיין בדרש משה פרשת נח (ו’:ט’) שלדבריו גם נח נחשב לצדיק “שעשה טוב” (ודלא כהמשך חכמה), אבל בעצם היסוד כתב כדברי המשך חכמה, החת”ס, והספורנו. אבל יש לציין שבספר “הגאון” (עמוד 234) הביא המעשה המפורסם עם הגר”א והמגיד מדובנא, ומשמע דהגר”א חולק על כל היסוד. אבל אני שמעתי המעשה שבכה הגר”א והסכים לדברי המגיד.

[48] ומפני זה אין רישומן ניכר בהמשך הדורות, ולא מצינו שמתפללין בזכותו בעת צרה, ואינם מאלו שלמדין מהם הנהגת חיים לדורות וכו’. ועיין בתוס’ בכורות (נ”ח. בד”ה חוץ) דכנראה לשיטת ר”ת היה חכם א’ ששמו קרח שהי’ גדול אף מר”ע וחביריו ואפ”ה לא שמענו ממנו מאומה!

[49] דלכאורה פשוט דגם אלו שמתו בעטיו של נחש למדו ועסקו בטובת הכלל, דהא מצינו דעמרם גדול הדור היה ומעשיו השפיעו על הכלל (עיין סוטה י”ב ע”א, וע”ע במדרש שיר השירים פרק ה’ בד”ה באתי לגני), ובברכות נח. “זה ישי אבי דוד שיצא באוכלוסא ונכנס באוכלוסא ודרש באוכלוסא,” ועיין סוכה דף נב ע”ב. אבל אעפ”כ לא מצינו באלו שמתו בעטיו של נחש שהפקירו נפשם (כלשון המשך חכמה) במידה שעשו אלו שזכו להשפעתם לדורי דורות. (ובנוגע מה שישי נחשב כבלי חטא, עיין בזה בויק”ר פרשת תזריע י”ד:ה, הרמ”ע מפאנו מטמר חקור דין 0ח”ג פרק י’), ובס’ מאור ישראל (להגרע”י זצ”ל) לפסחים (קי”ט.)

[50] וכשהצעתי הדברים לפני אאמו”ר הרב זעליג פסח הלוי ארץ זצ”ל הראה לי את דברי הרד”ק בירמיהו (ריש פרק ה’) “שוטטו בחוצות ירושלים וראו נא ודעו ובקשו ברחובותיה אם תמצאו איש אם יש עושה משפט מבקש אמונה ואסלח לה” והעיר הרד”ק דהרי היה בירושלים חסידים ועבדי ה’ וכמו שאמר דוד (תהילים ע”ט) “נתנו נבלת עבדיך מאכל לעוף השמים בשר חסדיך לחיתו ארץ,” ותירץ הרד”ק בשם אביו דבוודאי הי’ צדיקים בירושלים אבל היו נחבאים בביתם מפני הרשעים ולא היו יכולים להראות ברחובות ובחוצות לעשות משפט ולבקש אמונה. ונמצא מדבריו דאף דהיו שם צדיקים כ”ז שלא היו יכולים להתראות ברחובות ולהשפיע על אחרים, נחשב כאילו אין צדיקים שבזכותם יסלח ה’ (ועיין באבן עזרא בראשית י”ח:כ”ו).

[51] וכמו שהביא ר’ צדוק מתשובות הרשב”א בשני מקומות (וב”ברגז רחם תזכר” יש ט”ס, דהתשובה השני’ הוא בסי’ רמ“ב, לא בסי’ רצ“ב). והמהרשד”ם (אבה”ע סי’ י’) ודעימיה דס”ל דמשומד דינו כעכו”ם סוברים דהלכה כר”י שס”ל דרק בזמן שנוהגין מנהג בנים קרוין בנים (גם בזה יש ט”ס שם, דכתב שם דהם סוברים דר’ מאיר ור’ יהודה הלכה כר”מ, וצ”ל כר”י).

[52] אבל סי’ כ”ט הוא בענין אחר, והמ”מ בברגז רחם תזכר עמוד ע”ז הוא לא בדיוק. ועיין גם בדברי המשנ”ה בחלק ג ‘סי’ כ”ט ובחלק ז’ סי’ כ’.

[53] ועיין מש”כ להשיב על דבריו בשו”ת מנחת אשר ח”א סי’ ס”ד.

[54] עיין בני יששכר (חדש תשרי, מאמר ח’ “קדושת היום סוף אות ב’), ובמחזור “מסורת הרב” עמוד 600 .

[55] עיין חיי אדם (הלכות שבת ומועדים כלל קמ”ד).

[56] ובעמוד ל”ב הביא דיש מקשים על שיטת רש”י דלמד דין דאע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא מהגמ’ בסנהדרין לגבי עכן, שהסוגיא נראית כדברי אגדה, ולשיטת האג”מ א”ש. ובענין הקשר בין אגדה להלכה הביא בעמוד מ”ה מהמהרש”א והרגאי”ה זצ”ל דצריכים להאחד זו עם זו. ועיין מש”כ הגרש”י זוין זצ”ל באישים ושיטות בענין גישה המיוחדת שהי’ להרב קוק בענין זה, לעומת שיטת רוב גדולי ישראל דס”ל דשתי עולמות יש כאן ולא קרב זה אל זה. ויש לציין שבספרי ר’ צדוק כן מצינו הלכה ואגדה משולבים יחד.

[57] אבל לכאורה יש להעיר מלשון הגמ’ “אע”פ שחטא” ולא “אע”פ שחטאו” וכן “ישראל הוא” ולא “ישראל הם.”

[58] ושיטת המהרשד”ם (אבה”ע סי’ י'(, שנו”נ האחרונים בדבריו ,ושהערה”ש (עיין הערה הבא) כתב עליו ד”אין יסוד לדבריו” והאג”מ כתב שהוא “דבר זר ומשונה” ו”טעות שפלטה קולמוסו,” הוי דאה”נ המקור שאנו לומדים שישראל כשר אע”פי שחטא הוא מעכן, אבל עכן עצמו לא מצאנו לו עון אחר רק שמעל בחרם אמנם בשאר המצות כשר היה, ומש”כ בגמ” שר’ אלעא ס”ל שעבר עכן על ה’ חומשי תורה סברת יחיד היא, א”כ אין למדין מזה למי שמחלל שבת בפרהסיא ועובד ע”ז שכל העובר על אחד מהם כעובר על כל התורה כלה והוה ליה גוי גמור אין שם ישראל עליו. והנה, מלבד מה שהשיבו האחרונים על דבריו (ועיין בתקנת השבין לר’ צדוק הכהן, סי’ ט”ו אות פ”ג דהעיר על דבריו וכתב “ומה שכתב וכו’ הוא זר בעיני”), לא זכיתי להבין דבריו הק’ כלל, דהא אף אם ר’ אבא בר זבדא (שהוא בעל המימרא דישראל הוא) לא ס”ל כר’ אילעא, עדיין מפורש בגמ’ שם שר’ אבא בר זבדא ס”ל דעכן בעל נערה המאורסה, וא”כ צ”ע מש”כ המהרשד”ם דלא מצינו לו עון אחר.

[59] עיין בערה”ש (אבה”ע סי’ מד סעיף י”א) “יש מי שאומר דזה שאמרנו דאפילו זרעו שהוליד משנשתמד כשנולדו מישראלית או מכיוצא בו דדינם כישראל ואם קידש קדושיו קדושין זהו רק בלאונסו וכו’ אבל בלרצונו אין על זרעו שם ישראל [באה”ט סק”ח בשם בן חביב ורשד”ם] ואין עיקר לדברים הללו דבמה בטל מהם שם ישראל וכו’ ויש מי שאומר עוד דבמשומד עצמו כשקידש אשה אין קדושיו תופסין רק מדרבנן [שם סקי”ז בשם הרי”ם] ואין לזה שום טעם אם קידש בפני עדים כשירים למה לא יתפסו קדושיו מן התורה כשידעה שהוא משומד וכו’ [וראיתי ברשד”ם ס”י ואין יסוד לדבריו וכו’.” ועיין בדברי יציב שם (אות ב’:ט’) דתמה עליו, “איך אפשר לומר על כל גדולי הפוסקים האלו שדבריהם בלא טעם ח”ו.” אבל למעשה האג”מ והערה”ש ס”ל דלא שייך המציאות לישראל שיעשה בדין נכרי.

[60] ובהרבה מקומות אמרו כן בשם רש”י (עיין שו”ת רש”י סי’ קע”ה). ובזה שפיר העיר האג”מ בתשובה הנ”ל דלפי”ז כנראה יש סתירה בין מש”כ בפירושו לסנהדרין (דמשמע דמש”כ הגמ’ “דישראל הוא” מיירי בכלל ישראל ולא בנוגע להיחיד) למש”כ בתשובה ואומרים הראשונים בשמו, וצ”ע.

[61] אבל יש לציין לדברי מהר”ץ חיות ריש נזיר “וכבר ידענו דפירוש על נזיר אינו מרש”י רק איזה תלמוד יחסו לשמו ואינו ממנו.”

[62] ובעמוד פ”ג הביא שיטת הס”ח (הובא בב”ש וח”מ ריש אה”ע סעיף כ”ג) שאם מתיירא אדם שיצרו מתגבר עליו ליכשל באיסור חמור של א”א או נדה מוטב לו שיוציא ז”ל, והרי ראינו שיש מצבים ששייך עבירה לשמה. ובעצם הדין דס”ח אם זה הוי ראי’ דמש”כ בזהר דעון הוז”ל חמור מכל העבירות שבתורה (וכמו שהביא המחבר בסעיף א’) הוא לאו דוקא (וכמש”כ הב”ש ס”ק א’), לכאורה מסברא הפשט הפשוט בס”ח הוא כמ”ש בשו”ת בית שערים (מכתבי יד סי’ נ’) “דאם בועל אשה אסורה לו עובר ג”כ משום השחתת זרע.” וצל”ע מה שכנראה לא נקטו כן הרבה מהאחרונים. עוד יש להעיר דלכאורה יש ראי’ מפורשת לדברי הס”ח מגמ’ סוטה ל”ו:, ומעולם היתה תמוה לי למה לא הביא האחרונים מגמ’ זו, עד שמצאתי את אשר אהבה נפשי בדברי הכהן הגדול מאחיו ב”ישראל קדושים” (אות י’ בד”ה וכל פגמי), וברוך שכוונתי לדעתו הגדולה.

[דברי ר’ צדוק בזה הובא לתשומת לבי ע”י

Marc B. Shapiro, Changing The Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History (Portland, Oregon, 2015), 198 note 35.]

[63] ואף דבזה אני הולך רכיל מגלה סוד, אבל זה הוי הוראה ושוברו בצידו, דבאמת שלא במקומו הראוי אינו מותר, וישרים דרכי ה’ וכו’. ועיין בשו”ת חת”ס ח”א או”ח סי’ קנ”ד.

[64] עיין בזה בקובץ באור ישראל גליון מ”ט עמוד רמ”ו אות ט’, ובמש”כ באור ישראל (גליון נ”ה עמוד רמ”ט – רנ”א) ובמה שהשיב הרב חיים רפופורט על דברי (עמוד רנ”א – רנ”ג).

See also, Marc B. Shapiro, Studies in Maimonides and His Interpreters (Scranton and London, 2008), 73 – 74.

Easing the Donkey’s Burden: Nitkatnu Hadorot or Nitgadlu?

Easing the Donkey’s Burden: Nitkatnu Hadorot or Nitgadlu?

By Rabbi Simcha Feuerman

“If the earlier generations were like angels, we are like humans. But if they were like humans, then we are like donkeys.”
(Talmud Shabbat 112b)

One of the basic and fundamental tenets of our tradition is respect and deference for the previous generations. Although there are notable exceptions, generally, rabbinic authorities do not override or disagree with the rulings of authorities from a previous class, such as Amoraim disagreeing with Tanaim, Gaonim with Amoraim, Rishonim with Acharonim and so on. While this may be due largely to conceding that their knowledge of, and access to Torah Sheb’al Peh is more accurate[1], there is also an aspect of deference and respect for those who are considered to be of higher moral and spiritual character. [2]

This principle has a subtle but pervasive impact on the chinuch we give our children; it is not uncommon for rebbes and rabbanim to speak of “Nitkatnu Hadoros – The generations have become diminished” as a reason to explain how we are unable to fulfill a particular spiritual, moral or halachic ideal. For example, while it is virtually unheard of to fast for more than 25 hours today, there were minhagim to fast for two days consecutively – on the 9th of Av and the 10th of Av[3], as well as those who were able to make vows of abstention for penitence.[4] Apparently, we consider ourselves too morally and physically weak to live up to this standard. Likewise, based on the accounts of many individuals from the previous generations, it was not uncommon for persons to spend the entire Yom Kippur night standing and reciting Psalms, and THEN praying the full day. This seems beyond reach for most of us today. When contemplating this, most people wearily sigh, “Oy, the doiros get more shvach (weak).” These are but two examples of many instances where the deterioration of subsequent generations is an accepted fact of life in our tradition and our culture.

Is this principle absolutely true in all areas? Is each successive generation truly less spiritual and less moral than the previous ones? Are we riding a one-way train down to the depths of oblivion waiting to be rescued by the arrival of Messiah? This resonates with the midrashic tradition about our ancestors in Egypt, who would have descended past all forty-nine levels of impurity had they not been rescued.[5] While such a belief seems to be well-supported by everything we have studied so far, there is a basic illogic to this position. What is the spiritual purpose in the divine plan for sustaining us, if indeed each generation is less worthy? Why not just throw in the metaphysical towel and bring Mashiach now, while we are still partially ahead of the game?

The answer must be, as was undoubtedly true in regard to our ancestors who were slaves in Egypt, that despite our continuous moral deterioration, our experiences must be preparing us and priming us for an ultimate experience of higher spirituality and achievement. Presumably, the experience as slaves in Egypt somehow was a necessary preparation for acceptance and fulfillment of the Torah. Indeed, many commandments in the Torah, ranging from Shabbat to the laws of usury, are supplemented with a reminder that we are obligated to follow them “Because I am your G-d who took you out of Egypt.”[6] Furthermore, in regard to the capacity of empathy and caring for the plight of the downtrodden, the Torah reminds us “And you know the soul of the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”[7] If the experience of slavery in Egypt helped elevate and prime our ancestors for the accepting of the Torah, it may likewise be a fair assumption that while each generation may be undergoing spiritual and moral deterioration, there also is some new quality that is being
developed. Perhaps this quality is not fully expressed and lays dormant until the time of redemption, or perhaps its quality is available and accessible to all of us right now.

In this essay, I will suggest one specific area where each generation improves its ability and depth to comprehend and fulfill the Torah, as well as the practical implications for the chinuch of our children. According to fascinating research and statistics regarding I.Q. scores, the ability to perform abstract reasoning increases significantly with every generation. This has a distinct impact on the ability to understand the more esoteric parts of the Torah, such as the reasons for the mitzvot, ways of understanding reward and punishment, as well as the mystical aspects of religious activities. The Talmud tells us that “Three things expand a person’s consciousness: A pleasant home, a pleasant wife and beautiful utensils”[8], and it is quite possible that the relative wealth and security of modern life allows for each generation to improve its capacity to understand abstractions, because our surroundings are more pleasant and engender sensitivity and perception. As we shall see, the Sages of the Talmud did not believe the average not-so-learned Jew to be capable of grasping and comprehending many of the deeper aspects of the Torah. There are numerous examples of this, and we shall study a few of them found in the Talmud and Medieval authorities.

The Truth about the Scrolls

The Talmud tells us that one of the early rabbinic decrees was a form of impurity applying to holy scrolls. While it seems rather strange to declare holy scrolls to be impure, the rabbis had good reason to do so. According to the Talmud, the common folk developed an ill-advised habit of storing food consecrated as Terumah in the same areas where they stored the holy scrolls. The people reasoned, “The Terumah is holy and the scrolls are holy so why not store them together?” The problem with this practice is that the rodents would come to eat the Terumah and inevitably also chew on the scrolls. Therefore, the rabbis brilliantly declared that the scrolls are always impure, greatly discouraging people from storing them near the Terumah, which was required to be ritually pure.[9]

This clever bit of social engineering begs one basic question: If the people were compliant and agreeable to following rabbinic rules and injunctions, why did the rabbis have to complicate matters by decreeing that the scrolls were impure, and of all things, have the audacity to suggest that holy scrolls are impure? Would it not have been simpler to merely forbid storing holy scrolls alongside Terumah? This suggests that actually the rabbis could not easily or completely secure compliance via this route and therefore could not directly forbid the co-placement of Terumah and scrolls. Instead, they needed to tap into an apparent cultural taboo and respect for the laws of Terumah purity as a way to mobilize the people to comply and refrain from storing scrolls next to the Terumah. In other words, to simply tell people that rodents will chew on the scrolls and therefore it is forbidden to store Terumah next to them would not have been as effective as creating a new form of impurity. By creating a rabbinic decree of impurity, the rabbis were able to tap into a deeply ingrained respect for the laws of purity and fear of violating them. This was apparently the most effective deterrent.

Another possible instance where the Sages used the taboo of impurity to shape behavior is in regard to the rabbinic mitzvah of washing hands before eating bread. The stated reason for this law seems highly convoluted and begs for a deeper explanation. The reason supplied is that since, when the Temple is rebuilt and the Cohanim will eat Terumah they will need to wash their hands before eating, the rabbis wanted to accustom everyone to wash.[10] This reason is a quite a stretch, because the original ruling itself that required the Cohanim to wash was only based on another rabbinic declaration that hands are automatically considered ritually unclean. So, in effect you have a rabbinic injunction to safeguard a rabbinic injunction, in effect a double safeguard, which is usually not the modus operandi of the sages.[11] Furthermore, let us study the original reason for declaring unwashed hands as impure in regard to Terumah bread. The Talmud tells us it is because one’s hands absentmindedly touch many objects.[12] The rabbis therefore enacted a strange form of impurity declaring only the hands and no other part of the body impure, and then allowing a special ritual of water poured from a vessel to act as a mikvah for the purpose of removing the impurity. This is in itself quite remarkable, because indeed had a person’s hand absentmindedly touched an impure
object such as dead rodent as the stated reason fears, the entire person’s body would be rendered impure and he would need to immerse himself in the mikvah. Washing his hands from a vessel would accomplish nothing. So, what problem if anything, did the rabbis
solve?

In fact, Rashi (Ad loc.) finds this explanation so implausible that he suggests another explanation, admittedly overriding what his rabbis taught. Rashi proposes that the requirement to wash before eating Terumah was enacted in order to ensure that the person eats clean hands out of respect for the holy food. If so, it is not implausible that the rabbis ultimately extended this requirement to all bread in order to encourage sanitary eating habits.[13] In any case, it is clear that according to Rashi, the rabbis once again used the taboo of impurity to shape social behavior, at least to show deference for Terumah by eating with clean hands, and possibly to eat with general cleanliness.

This deeply ingrained fear and respect for the laws of ritual impurity and regard for the sanctity of Terumah bread cannot be underestimated. So much so, that according to some interpretations of the Mishna Nedarim, even a thug and a murderer will still be “pious” and careful to make sure he does not defile Terumah. The Mishna states that if one is accosted by bandits, he may make a false oath declaring his produce as Terumah, so bandits and/or self-appointed tax collectors will leave him alone. Incredibly, this implies that a bandit, who has no qualms robbing and murdering, will not want to transgress the boundary of defiling Terumah. This brings new meaning to the concept of honor among thieves![14]

These were not the only instances where the rabbis tapped into the taboo against impurity as a way to shape society. The Sages were quite concerned about Jewish children being exposed to inappropriate sexual contact during playtime with their gentile neighbors. They therefore decreed that gentile children be considered to have the impurity of a zav (a certain disease that was considered to cause a high degree of impurity, see Leviticus ch. 15) so that the Jewish children would not play with the gentile children. This decree was enacted to protect them from being subjected to improper contact.[15] One would think it would have been more effective to just educate and warn parents about the dangers of inappropriate sexual contact and/or abuse, as we attempt to do nowadays. Apparently, the rabbis who enacted this decree felt the standards of tznius would be violated if they stated their concerns directly, and/or their warnings would go unheeded because the average parent considered such acts unthinkable. They therefore resorted to the fear of impurity as a way to influence parental behavior and protect the children, taking care of safety concerns without violating tznius or overwhelming people with information beyond their ability to emotionally process.”

We see from the above examples that the rabbis had no qualms about withholding information and influencing people via their taboos, so long as it was for a worthy cause. Apparently, at least in regard to the examples of the scrolls and molestation prevention, the rabbis did not have enough faith in the average person’s ability to grasp or handle the entire truth. One wonders if this is an approach that would work well nowadays. It does not seem likely. As members of a democratic and open society, people expect and demand transparency from their leaders. While these may or may not be Torah values, they are expectations that are accepted as our rights. Furthermore, as we shall see later in this essay, the research shows that in modern times the average person is indeed more capable of understanding and grasping nuances than in previous generations. [16]

As If They Are Children

In his introduction to Perek Chelek, Maimonides tells us that the pleasures of the soul are as inconceivable to us as color is to person who
is blind from birth. The ultimate reason for doing mitzvot should not be about reward or punishment, rather one’s focus should be on wanting to become attached to G-d by performing his will. In the World to Come, the soul will experience great ecstasy to whatever degree it can attain attachment to G-d, and the greatest possible punishment is that of karet, which is the soul’s disconnection from G-d.[17] Maimonides tells us, despite the value and importance of this lofty concept, the Torah exhorts people in terms of reward and punishment as a concession to the limits of human understanding and motivation. Few people would be motivated by the abstract notion of connection or disconnection to G-d. Instead, for most people, the expectation of concrete reward and punishment is necessary to propel people in the direction of spiritual growth. In time, as the person ascends to greater heights, he may be become capable of fulfilling the commandments completely lishmah, as is prescribed by Antignos Ish Socho in Pirke Avot.[18] Maimonides explains that this is no different than a parent or teacher who motivates a young child to study by offering him sweets, and then as he gets older, offers even more significant prizes. Only when the child is a full adult will he realize the value of what he is studying, and will he no longer require material rewards and prizes.

But, again one must wonder, is it true that people today would be insufficiently motivated by a vision of spiritual ecstasy and attachment to G-d? The thousands of Jews and non-Jews who flock to gurus, ashrams, so-called “Kabbalah” Centers and other similar places seem to indicate this is not quite true. In fact, perhaps to the modern man, the idea of heavenly reward and punishment may seem juvenile and much less of a motivator than the notion of performing good and moral deeds for their own sake. Furthermore, although in the intimacy of my counseling practice as a psychotherapist, I indeed have encountered a fair share of clients who express nihilistic sentiments and profess atheism or agnosticism, I also have been deeply moved by persons of high moral character who profess a firm conviction that there is no G-d, nor any afterlife whatsoever. I have seen such persons withstand remarkable moral tests. Are they deluding themselves and actually, deep down, fear a final accounting in the Afterlife, or are they truly capable of being moral for its own sake?[19] Has modern Man expanded his capacity for spirituality, and if so, in what way?

Midrash and Aggadot

Midrash have been explained and interpreted throughout the ages in accordance with various Jewish exegetical and philosophical approaches. Medieval commentaries throughout the ages have instructed us to understand midrashic stories as allegorical in nature, hinting at lofty concepts such as mystical and kabbalistic teachings which the rabbis were reluctant to state explicitly.[20]

In his introduction to his commentary on the Mishna, Maimonides states that the aggadot were taught to a general audience, which included children and those who were not scholars. He therefore explains:

“One cannot teach the general public except by means of parable and riddle so as to include…the youth, in order that when their intellect reach a more complete level, they will understand the meaning of the parables.”

The proper and meaningful study of midrash is in general a vastly unexplored area of learning for most Jews, even those who spend many hours a day studying Torah in depth. Unfortunately, aggadot are often relegated to the status of Jewish tales told to entertain children without enough thought being given to their deep meanings.

Are children today truly incapable of understanding the deeper meanings of these midrashim? Personally, I recall studying a midrash with a nine year-old boy which stated that the Torah was primordially written with “Black fire on top of white fire.”[21] When I asked him what he thought it meant, he told me “The black is the Yetzer Hara, and the white is the Yetzer Hatov. The Torah needs both in order to be complete.”

Admittedly, this was a particularly precocious young man who had a track record of ingenious insights. Nevertheless, it is worth considering that children today are quite capable of seeing deeper meanings in aggadot when challenged to do so. All we need to do is keep an open mind and ask them what they think. Here is one example of how this can be done with a famous midrash taught to all children.

The Sun and the Moon

“In the beginning of the creation of the world, G-d made the Sun and the Moon to be the same size and equally bright. After they were created, the Moon approached G-d and said to him, “It does not make sense that two rulers should wear the same crown.” G-d answered, “Okay, then you be the one who is shrunken to a smaller size and the Sun shall rule!” The Moon then replied, “Because I said one smart thing you punish me so severely?” G-d answered the Moon, “I’ll tell you what. Go, and you shall rule over day and night.” The Moon then replied, “What purpose is there in my ruling over the day, when there is plenty of light and no one needs my light?” G-d replied, “Go, and through you the Jewish people will measure the days and the years, and thereby establish the dates of the holy days. After some additional give and take, G-d saw that the Moon still was not satisfied, and in response he made following
request of the Jewish people: “On every Rosh Chodesh bring a sacrifice on my behalf in order that I obtain forgiveness for having reduced the light of the Moon.””[22]

If encouraged to do so, even young students will have no problem finding the obvious lessons in the story, such as how the Moon’s greed and grandiosity did not pay in the end. But what about the other ideas in the story? What can the students make of this give and take between the Moon and G-d? Not only does the Moon gain concessions, in the end, G-d even asks the Jewish people to seek forgiveness on his behalf!

The Maharsha (Ad loc.) interprets this dialogue to be about the Jewish people. In order for them to achieve their spiritual goals they must undergo great suffering in this world. Ultimately, they will reap the reward in the world to come. Nevertheless, the fact that the Jewish people must suffer so much in exile is, so to speak, painful to G-d, and he therefore tries to console the Jewish people. First, by giving them the Jewish Festivals, but ultimately by reminding them that just as the Moon waxes and wanes through its cycles, so too the Jewish people will have moments in history when they are powerful and others when they are weak.

Given some chance to discuss this, children can easily be led to see these deeper meanings. It also gives the teacher an opportunity to discuss the ways in which the Torah presents G-d with human emotions. Though G-d is not subject to emotional whims, he chooses to reveal himself in such a manner so humans can relate to him.[23] Within that light, from this story we see a willingness by G-d to enter into a dialogue with the sinner, to make accommodations, adjustments, and surprisingly, even to regret the harshness of the punishment he enacted. From this story, any chutzpadik and misbehaving child could surely draw comfort.

Surely, with the right kind of instruction, this kind of analysis and understanding is well within the range of even many first graders. We have a great opportunity to combine intellectual analysis with an emotional component to inspire internalization and practice of Torah values. Yet previous generations seem to have preferred keeping this treasure trove of information in the form of a child’s tale. It seems to me that our generation of children have an increased capacity for deeper reasoning and understanding and should be encouraged to look at these stories in a more symbolic light. My experience talking to children today shows me that they are capable of great depth, analysis and interpretation. Let us see why this might be true, and what has changed in recent history.

The I.Q.’s Keep Rising

One striking area where each successive generation is superior to the next is in regard to I.Q. Test scores.

“In 1981, New Zealand-based psychologist James Flynn…Comparing raw I.Q. scores over nearly a century… saw that they kept going up: every few years, the new batch of I.Q. test takers seemed to be smarter than the old batch. Twelve-year-olds in the 1980s performed better than twelve-year-olds in the 1970s, who performed better than twelve-year-olds in the 1960s, and so on. This trend wasn’t limited to a certain region or culture, and the differences were not trivial. On average, I.Q. test takers improved over their predecessors by three points every ten years – a staggering difference of eighteen points over two generations.

The differences were so extreme, they were hard to wrap one’s head around. Using a late-twentieth-century average score of 100, the comparative score for the year 1900 was calculated to be about 60 – leading to the truly absurd conclusion, acknowledged Flynn, ‘that a majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded.’ The so-called Flynn effect raised eyebrows throughout the world of cognitive research. Obviously, the human race had not evolved into a markedly smarter species in less than one hundred years. Something else was going on.

For Flynn, the pivotal clue came in his discovery that the increases were not uniform across all areas but were concentrated in certain subtests. Contemporary kids did not do any better than their ancestors when it came to general knowledge or mathematics. But in the area of abstract reasoning, reported Flynn, there were ‘huge and embarrassing’ improvements. The further back in time he looked, the less test takers seemed comfortable with hypotheticals and intuitive problem solving. Why? Because a century ago, in a less complicated world, there was very little familiarity with what we now consider basic abstract concepts. ‘[The intelligence of] our ancestors in 1900 was anchored in everyday reality,’ explains Flynn. ‘We differ from them in that we can use abstractions and logic and the hypothetical … Since 1950, we have become more ingenious in going beyond previously learned rules to solve problems on the spot.’

Examples of abstract notions that simply didn’t exist in the minds of our nineteenth-century ancestors include…the concepts of control groups (1875) and random samples (1877). A century ago, the scientific method itself was foreign to most Americans. The general public had simply not yet been conditioned to think abstractly.

The catalyst for the dramatic I.Q. improvements, in other words, was not some mysterious genetic mutation or magical nutritional supplement but what Flynn described as ‘the [cultural] transition from pre-scientific to post- scientific operational thinking.’ Over the course of the twentieth century, basic principles of science slowly filtered into public consciousness, transforming the world we live in. That transition, says Flynn, ‘represents nothing less than a liberation of the human mind.’

The scientific world-view, with its vocabulary, taxonomies, and detachment of logic and the hypothetical from concrete referents, has begun to permeate the minds of post-industrial people. This has paved the way for mass education on the university level and the emergence of an intellectual cadre without whom our present civilization would be inconceivable.

Perhaps the most striking of Flynn’s observations is this: 98 percent of IQ test takers today score better than the average test taker in 1900. The implications of this realization are extraordinary. It means that in just one century, improvements in our social discourse and our schools have dramatically raised the measurable intelligence of almost everyone.”[24]

Chinuch Implications

According to these findings, our generation has the highest capacity for abstract reasoning and analysis than ever before. Young children today who spend a great deal of time on computers, are even more used to hypothetical thought, layers of representation of symbolism, nuances and multiple perspectives than almost every computer game employs. In fact, the actual use of a computer itself engenders recognition of symbolic content because the entire graphical interface is representation of acts rather than actual physical acts. Opening “windows”, switching from one program to another, multi-tasking, becoming exposed to world events as they unfold in real time via newsfeeds, and playing role playing games can all lead to expanded consciousness and awareness. True, these same technologies can also lead children to be highly distractibility and crave constant stimulation, but let us focus on this generation’s gifts and strengths instead of bemoaning their shortcomings.

This is not the first time in Jewish history where a successor generation was superior in one aspect over a previous generation. The Talmud records a remark of Rav Papa to Abaye, who ponders why miracles happened to the earlier generations and not nowadays. Rav Papa states that it cannot be due to lack of Torah knowledge, as he declares their knowledge to be superior.[25]

I am not an educator by profession, so the definitive implications of these findings for the chinuch of our children require more extensive thought and discussion. However, some areas that we might consider are :

Increased focus on symbolic meaning, philosophy and the deeper aspects of the Torah. Our children are indeed capable of understanding the Torah on a very deep level and we should not make the mistake of selling them short. It is possible to engage them in actively interpreting and delving into a study of reasons for the mitzvot. Maimonides encourages people to do, regardless of whether the mitzvah is a chok (law without an obvious reason) or a mishpat (law based on apparent logic.) Maimonides states, “Though all the laws of the Torah are decrees [and not subject to debate]…it is fitting to contemplate them and, to whatever extent possible, try to find reasons for them.”[26] One should pause to ask why Maimonides considers it important to find reasons for the laws of the Torah if they must be followed regardless of whether they seem logical or not? Presumably the answer is that when one makes an effort to understand the laws, it helps guide a person to think in consonance with the morals and ethics of the Torah, thereby increasing the development of character. With proper guidance and encouragement, our children can excel in this area.

Likewise, in regard to the study of aggadot, we could help the children reach for the deep lessons and interpretations of these allegories, to strengthen their belief and respect for the insights found in our tradition.

Every now and then, someone bemoans the fact that in prior generations, the yeshivot covered far more ground and mastered hundreds of blatt, instead of merely focusing on a few blatt per year, studied in great depth. While this criticism is valid and important, perhaps we also should embrace this situation in recognition that the yeshivot might be indulging in a great deal of analysis for one simple reason – the students are good at it. As a generation, more individuals are capable of this deeper learning than ever before. Thus, the desire to do so is understandable, and may need to be given more recognition. True, the knowledge of basics needs to be encouraged as well, but this can be tempered with a special appreciation that more and more young people have a thirst to study and analyze in greater depth and the drive should not be excessively stunted. As the Talmud says, “A person should always study in the direction that his heart desires.”[27]

It is well and good to teach our children humility and historical perspective but care might be taken not to overdo and engender an attitude of pessimism and defeatism. They certainly should understand the brilliance, dedication and awesome spiritual and moral character possessed by sages of previous generations. Nevertheless, no one wants to be on a losing team, so if we want children to stay loyal to Jewish tradition and practices, they ought to feel like winners. We can also convey a message of confidence and belief in their ability as Jews and spiritual beings to make new and important contributions, as opposed to being mere paving bricks, biding time on the road to the Messiah. Showing them their unique strengths and intellectual abilities is one way to do that.

Concluding Thoughts

As they mature in life, our children will be exposed to science and philosophy in various degrees. Some may learn complex ideas as a result of the professions they choose such as medicine, psychology, sociology or other science-based courses of study, or may just read about these ideas on their own due to the readily available and popular works. Today, your average person can go to a book store and purchase titles such as Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time, which makes physics and astronomy understandable to the common man. Do we want to run the risk of our children having a grade-school understanding of the Torah, and then as they grow up and learn about the world, find secular ideas to be more sophisticated and exciting? While indeed, in some respects, our generation is at a spiritual and moral low point, embarrassingly insignificant compared to the giants of years past, we do not have to wallow in self-pity. Rather, we have an opportunity to modify our curriculum and include deeper and more profound aspects of the Torah, allowing our children to become stimulated as they capitalize on their ever increasing capacity to comprehend what previous generation considered secret, esoteric and beyond the reach of but a few.

Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R is psychotherapist in private practice specializing in high conflict couples and families. He serves as Director of Operations for OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services, and as President of Nefesh International. Simchafeuerman@gmail.com

[1] Menachem Kellner in Maimonides on the Decline of
the Generations (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996) suggests that according to
Maimonides the previous generations of rabbis have superiority on the basis of
their access to a less distorted masorah,
but not due to an inherent supernatural superiority.

[2] See Eruvin 53a which suggests that the deterioration
in Torah knowledge of successive generations as due to many factors including
lack of spiritual breadth and lack of studiousness.

[3] Ba’er Heytev, Shulchan Aruch, O.H. 558:3

[4] Shulchan Aruch, O.H. 563:4

[5] Zohar Chadash, on Parashas Yitro, by the first verse of the Aseret
Hadibrot, 20:1.

[6] Leviticus 25:35-38

[7] See Exodus 23:9 and Leviticus 19:33

[8] Berachot 57b, see also Maimonides, Shemoneh Perakim,
ch. 5, where he elaborates on this concept.

[9] Shabbat 14a

[10] Chulin 106a

[11] Beitzah 3a, see Mesoras Hashas ad loc. for further
references

[12] Shabbat 14a

[13] See Mishna Berurah 158:1 which offers both reasons,
that of habituation in ritual purity for Terumah,
and also physical cleanliness as an aspect or representation of spiritual
purity.

[14] Nedarim 3:4, see Bartenura ad loc.

[15] Shabbat 17b

[16] See R. Eliezer Lippmann’ Neusatz’ Mei Menuhot,
published in 1884. Here is a quote from
Dr. Marc Shapiro’s discussion on the Seforim Blog (here)

“On p. 16a, after citing Maimonides’ words that the majority err in
understanding aggadot literally, Neusatz comments that this was the situation
in earlier times, which were less religiously sophisticated than later
generations. The proof that the earlier generations were religiously naïve is
that belief in divine corporeality was widespread then. According to Neusatz,
people who were so mistaken about God that they imagined him as a corporeal
being would obviously not be able to understand Aggadah in a non-literal
fashion. He contrasts that with the generation he lived in, which was able to
properly understand Aggadah.

אמנם בדורנו זה נזדככו יותר הרעיונות ונלטשו הלבבות והמושגים האלהיים
הנשגבים האלה מצטיירים בלבות המאמינים בטוהר יותר ורוב זוהר, ונתמעטו אנשי הכת
הזאת, ותה”ל רובם יודעים שחז”ל כתבו אגדותיהם ע”ד משל ומליצה וחדות
וכפי הצורך אשר היה להם לפי ענין הדורות אשר היה לפניהם, פנימיותם הם ענינים
אמתיים נשגבים עומדים ברומו של עולם.”

[17] Also see Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Hilchot Teshuvha
chapters. 8 and 10 where he elaborates on this theme

[18] Avot 1:3

[19] It is important to point out that though this is
superficially similar to Maimonides’ position, and certainly relatively
admirable, being moral for its own sake with no belief in the ultimate goal of
connection to G-d is problematic.
According to Maimonides, doing a mitzvah
lishmah – for its own sake, does not
mean without connection to G-d. It just
means without a need or desire for reward as a motivator. In fact, in Hilchot Melachim (8:11),
Maimonides definitively states that a Gentile who fulfills the seven Noachide
Laws out of logic and morality alone without doing them with the intent to
fulfill the Creator’s mitzvot, will
not merit reward in the World to Come among the righteous gentiles. This is even more striking because there is
no apparent source for this ruling, which suggests that Maimonides considered
this principle obvious and self-evident, perhaps stemming from his
philosophical beliefs about the nature of the soul and how immortality is
attained through a process of elevating the intellect and character, which
would be impossible without correct beliefs.
It would seem, according to Maimonides, that morality without acceptance
of the yoke of Heaven is simply not considered moral.

[20] See for example Rabbi Moses Chaim Luzzato’s
introduction to Aggadah, found in the beginning of most editions of the Ein
Yaakov, and Maimonides’ commentary on Mishna Sanhedrin, introduction to chapter
10, “the third group”, p. 137, Kapach Edition, and Ibn Ezra’s
introduction to his commentary on Chumash.

[21] Midrash Tanchuma Bereishis 1

[22] Chulin 60b

[23] See Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Yesodei Hatorah
1:9.

[24]
Shenk, David,
The Genius in All of Us, Doubleday Copyright 2010, pp. 35-37.

[25] Berachot 20a

[26] Mishne Torah, Hilchot Temurah 4:13

[27] Avoda Zara 19a