Elyakum Zunser was seized when he was away from his hometown. Many years later he wrote:

“Many private individuals engaged in this traffic, seizing young children and selling them to the Kahal “bosses.” Reminiscent of the sale of Joseph by his own brothers, these betrayals occurred daily. Lesser rabbis of small towns assented to such transactions, rationalizing that it was more “pious” to save the children of their own towns than to concern themselves with the fate of strangers.

“Though many important rabbis wept at these outrages, most dared not protest. They were afraid of the consequences if the Jewish community would defy the Tsar’s quota. The rabbis held their positions at the discretion of the Kahal leaders and feared the consequences of displeasing them. They were afraid to be denounced to government officials and exiled to Siberia.[10]”

[41] See here

Adderabbi wrote to inquire whether my father was his grandfather’s friend in Baltimore. The answer is yes. My parents were very fond of your grandparents, and it was a great loss to them when your grandfather passed away suddenly a number of years ago and again when your grandmother passed away not too long after that. My older brother is the one from State College, PA. And my question to you is whether Eugene is your father or your uncle.

About the fate of my unpublished introduction, I hope to revise it and submit it to a suitable Hebrew language journal for publication. I think we’ll just have to wait and see whether it ever gets posted on this blog.

I thank Yehudah Mirsky for his multiple contributions. After his first mention of Rav Amital, I immediately thought of the achingly beautiful tribute he wrote in memory of his Rebbi, R. Haim Yehudah Levi, a grandson of the Dor Revi’i. Rav Amital delivered a hesped at my father’s burial in Jerusalem just over three years ago and mentioned the closeness that he felt to the family of the Dor Revi’i and how important he believed it is to preserve the legacy of morality and justice and honesty that the Dor Rev’i represented. It is also a pleasure to renew, even if only via cyberspace, my acquaintance with Yehudah, with whom my wife and I enjoyably spent many a Friday evening in the splendid company of my illustrious cousins Menahem and Ruth Schmelzer, their family and friends.

Anonymous (02.16.08 – 6:47 pm) charged me with complicity in suppressing the truth about my great-grandfather. Well, obviously there were multiple values at stake and the outcome represented some sort of balancing of those not entirely congruent values. Did I clarify that for you? I also thank anonymous (2:17.08 – 12:31 am) for what I understood to be a sympathetic comment about the difficulty of the situation in which I found myself.

Thanbo asked about the new edition of Dor Revi’i published about five years ago. I had no role in that enterprise. I can’t really comment about its physical dimensions or about future editions.

Zalman Alpert is clearly more conversant with Haredi demographic trends than I, but I will just add another interesting tidbit, which is that although Hassidus was making inroads in Hungary before WWII, it was only after WWII that the great majority of Haredi Hungarian Jewry attached themselves to one or the other of the Hassidic dynasties. The Klausenburger Rebbe, for example, obviously had many thousands more Hasidim after the war than he ever did before the war. In my own family, my maternal aunt and uncle from fine upstanding Oberlanderish extraction became staunch Belzer Hasidim after the war. Hungarians I think did come to predominate after the war in a number of sects that, like Belz, were not mostly Hungarian before the war. While there may be something in Zalman Alpert’s conjecture that being from a separatist Hungarian background helped preserve the Dor Revi’i’s standing among the Haredim, I am not inclined to think that it mattered very much. His Zionism was of such an outspoken nature that he was reviled in his own time as a turncoat and a traitor to his roots and his upbringing. Indeed, the animosity toward him resulted from an existential feeling that his Zionism was not a mistake but a kind of treachery. By the way, there are at least two places in which he explicitly addresses the question of separation. First in a teshuvah (shut dor revi’i, 2:86, dated seder tetzaveh 5657) defending separation against the criticism of separation made by the rishon l’tzion, Rabbi Yakov Shaul Elisher (interestingly the only (?) other defense of separation against this criticism was by my great-great-grandfather, R. Amram Blum in shut beit she’arim). This teshuvah is largely a rhetorical recitation of the outrages perpetrated by the Neologs in trying to force the Orthodox to yield to their state-sanctioned domination, and a plea to Rabbi Elisher not to be duped by the misrepresentations made by the Neologs. Almost 25 years later, the Dor Revi’i revisited the question of separation in his essay on Zionism (my English translation is posted on http://www.dorrevii.org/). In the latter essay, he took a more analytical approach to the question of separation, arguing that separation was defensible only on the grounds that the hidden agenda of the Neologs was to promote assimilation. Since Zionism was aimed at maintaining the Jewish national identity, the precedent of separation was therefore irrelevant to the question whether cooperation by the Orthodox with irreligious Zionists was justified. He further accused the Haredim of his day of competing with the Neologs in unedifying displays of Hungarian patriotism (e.g., describing themselves as Magyars of the Mosaic faith), a withering condemnation that surely did not endear him to his Haredi antagonists. About Professor Moshe Carmilly-Weinberger, I didn’t forget him, but I wasn’t writing a comprehensive religious history of Klausenburg, so, with all due respect to him, I didn’t feel that he was particularly relevant to the story I was telling. But having warmed to the subject, I will note that in one of his writings (or perhaps a talk that someone once told me about) he described his boyhood experience of being taken by his father to see the Dor Revi’i and the lasting impression that the encounter made on his memory. I don’t have any statistics at my fingertips, but I would be really surprised if the Neolog community was much more than a tenth the size of the Orthodox community in Klausenburg.

Anonymous (2.17.08 – 12:01 pm) asks about the friendship between Rav Glasner and R. Shaul Brach. This relationship was certainly between my grandfather, R. Akiva (about whom more will be said below) and R. Brach. I have no specific information about their relationship except that R. Brach was one of a number of highly regarded Haredi rabbis from whom my grandfather obtained glowing haskamot for his first book, Dor Dorim. The choice of the title (as well as, if one reads carefully, the hashqafic discussion in the introduction) and the choice of rabbis to write haskamot show how delicate a balance my grandfather was trying to maintain between loyalty to his father and achieving a reconciliation with his father’s enemies.

To Yaakov R., without going into any details, I can assure you that the cast of characters involved in the story I told was international. I also did not mean, and am sorry if anyone thinks that I tried, to “bash” Haredim or to satirize them. If they appear in a less than favorable light, it is not because they are bad people, but because they face social pressures to conform that are very difficult to withstand.

Anonymous (2.19.08 – 7:13 am) wants to know if there is unpublished material of the Dor Revi’i. Yes, unfortunately there is a lot that has never been published, and, even more unfortunately, no one seems to know what has become of it. At the end of his introduction to Hulin, he mentions that he hoped to arrange and publish his hidushim on “rov sugyot ha-shas” as well as many hundreds of teshuvot and divrei aggada which he had in manuscript. He presumably took most of that with him to Palestine in 1923. I recall reading in some source, whose identity, to my great consternation, I can no longer recall, that his unpublished manuscripts were held by Mosad ha-Rav Kook. When I contacted someone in the mosad about those manuscripts, I was told that they had no knowledge of their existence and that in any case all extant manuscripts in Israel had been photographed and were held in the microfilm collection of the Jewish National Library. The only holdings of microfiche of works of my great-grandfather held by the JNL are of the 200 or so teshuvot that somehow came to light in the mid-1970s that were published in two volumes of shut dor revi’i.

To Zalman Alpert, since you mention the story about R. Koppel Reich, I will just note that Koppel Reich’s son married a daughter (possibly the oldest) of the Dor Revi’i. They died in the Holocaust and left no survivors. About my grandfather’s speech at the Knessiah Gedolah in 1937 at Marienbad, my father accompanied his father on that occasion (he was then 19). He told me that his father decided to join Agudah at that time, because at that meeting the Agudah dropped its opposition to the creation of Jewish state in Palestine. According to my father, that was the matir for his father to join Agudah, which contributed to his own fence-mending and furthered his (ultimately futile) desire to re-unite the Orthodox community in Klausenburg. As I pointed about above, to achieve that goal, my grandfather always sought to mend fences with his father’s enemies (though certain well known relatives of my dear and learned friend Mechy Frankel were utterly implacable), and he even made every effort to maintain cordial relations with Rabbi Halberstam. I have heard, though I have been unable to confirm, that at the wedding of one of his daughters he was mekhabeid Rabbi Halberstam with a brakhah at the hupa. At any rate, it was the change of position by Agudah that led my grandfather to join Agudah and make the speech from which you quoted. I was once told by my grandmother’s brother that in Mizrahi circles his speech was viewed as a betrayal and resulted in his not being offered a suitable rabbinical post in Israel after 1948 when he might have been receptive to such an offer. In the end, however, the resolution adopted in Marienbad in 1937 (which also precipitated the creation of Neturei Karta in outraged protest) reflecting the position of the majority in attendance at Marienbad was effectively negated by the determined opposition of Rabbis A. Kotler and E. Wasserman with the enthusiastic support of the Hungarian anti-Zionists. I would add as a postscript that b’sof yamav, my grandfather made totally clear his true convictions when in 1956 only a few months before his petirah (29 tishri 5717) he wrote a teshuvah ruling that one is obligated to say Hallel on Yom ha-Atzmaut. My translation of that teshuvah is available on the Dor Revi’i website (http://www.dorrevii.org/).

To Lawrence Kaplan, you are probably right to be surprised. While I knew that Rabbi Kook was not a hero to Haredim and his books were not recommended, I did not imagine that the mere mention of his name in connection with another person would suffice to pahsel the other person as well. I also thought that the fact that Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Elyashiv were his students and always remained devoted to him and his memory provided a certain amount of cover for him. Nor did I imagine that there was anyone who knew about the Dor Revi’i that did not also know that he was a Zionist. Live and learn.

I’m not sure why the esteemed and learned Dr. Frankel seems to have a problem with my dating of events in Klausenburg near the time of the Dor Revi’i’s departure. Those dates are well established in publicly available sources. He is correct to say that the Klausenburg secessionists were not the first Sephardic community to be formed in Hungary, but the existence of earlier Sephardic communities elsewhere in the vicinity does nothing to establish that the Klausenburg chapter predated 1921. Whatever it was that happened in 1873 (and Dr. Frankel provides no details or documentation to support his assertion about that date), it was evidently short lived. If Dr. Frankel believes otherwise, I would most respectfully invite him to provide any information that he might have about the leadership (rabbinical or otherwise) or the makeup of the community in the nearly five decades between 1873 and 1921. It is well-established that there was a Neolog breakaway in Klausenburg in the 1880s (one oft-cited reason for which was my great-grandfather’s affection for Hassidim and Hassidut). That breakaway, at least, did last until the Holocaust. And I thank my friend for his nostalgic (to me, at any rate) references to bygone times when we were neighbors in geographic as well as hashqafic space.

Comments by Steve Brizel and Michoel Halberstam suggest that my posting misled them into thinking that something that the Dor Revi’i wrote was suppressed. That is not, repeat not, the case. What I withhold, out of consideration for the feelings of those who would have been embarrassed, offended, or would have felt otherwise aggrieved, by seeing such a reference in the newly published volume of his works was my introduction about the life and character of the Dor Revi’i, which mentioned both his Zionism and his close friendship with Rabbi Kook. I would just like everyone to be clear on those facts.

David Glasner, an economist at the Federal Trade Commission, is a great-grandson of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner.

This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog.

Many readers of the Seforim blog may be interested, perhaps even pleased, to hear about the recent publication of a new volume containing a number of works of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner (1856-1924), chief rabbi (av beit din) of Klausenburg (1877-1923), one of the founding fathers of Mizrahi, author of Dor Revi’i on Hullin, Shevivei Eish on the Torah and on selected sugyot, as well as two volumes of posthumously published responsa (Shu”t Dor Revi’i is available online at HebrewBooks.org), and a new volume, entitled Ohr Bahir, which contains six previously published shorter works (kuntresim) that were published between about 1900 and 1915. In chronological order the six kuntresim are Haqor Davar published in 5661 (1900/01) which addresses the permissibility of conversion in cases of intermarriage; Ohr Bahir published in 5668 (1907/08) on the laws of mikva’ot and a defense of the kashrut of the Klausenburg mikveh against (likely politically inspired) aspersions on its kashrut; Yeshna li-Shehitah, on the laws of shehitah published in 5671 (1911); Halakhah l’Moshe published in 5672 (1911/12) on the laws of shehitah and bedikat ha-sakin; Matzah Shemurah on the requirement of shemirah for matzah and on the kashrut of machine matzah during Passover published in 5675 (1914/15); Hametz Noqsha on the sugya of hametz noqsha in Pesahim published together with Matzah Shemurah. In addition to these six previously published works, the volume also contains a previously unpublished responsum by the Dor Revi’i dating from about 1921 or 1922 as well as three short articles by my late father, Rabbi Juda Glasner, which were previously published in the rabbinical journal ha-Pardes.[1]

In a post at the Seforim blog entitled “From Ma’adanei Eretz to Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz” (link), Rabbi Chaim Rapoport of London discussed the recent publication of a new volume of writings about shemitah by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach entitled Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz, which includes substantial portions of Rabbi Auerbach’s classic Ma’adanei Eretz, a book written specifically to address halakhic questions associated with shemitah. Rabbi Rapoport posed the question why Ma’adanei Eretz, a classic work that has been out of print for over 30 years, was not itself republished in its entirety. Rabbi Rapoport posited two reasons for its not having been republished. First, in Ma’adanei Eretz, Rabbi Auerbach discussed at length the heter mechirah, which, while not his preferred option, Rabbi Auerbach did regard as halakhically valid and treated respectfully as a legitimate option. Second, Rabbi Auerbach discussed at length, and with the utmost veneration, the halakhic positions of his mentor, Rabbi A. I. Kook. Rabbi Rapoport speculated that Haredi opinion regards both the heter mechirah and Rabbi Kook as being beyond the pale of acceptability. To allow contemporary readers ready access to Rabbi Auerbach’s opinions could evidently have two dangerous outcomes. Questions might arise in some minds about the justification for casting the heter mechirah and Rabbi Kook into the outer darkness, and, perhaps even more disconcerting, in other minds doubts might arise about Rabbi Auerbach’s position as a (or the) pre-eminent late twentieth century Haredi halakhic authority.

Rabbi Rapoport noted that this Haredi attitude toward Rabbi Kook had apparently caused the latter to be excluded from the index of authorities on the Rambam in the Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah. In his Spring 2005 review of the Frankel Rambam in Jewish Action [PDF], Rabbi Rapoport commented on the exclusion of Rabbi Kook (along with such other luminaries as Rabbis Y.Y. Reines, I. Herzog, J. B. Soloveitchik and M. M Schneerson) from that index. He also pointed out with a certain hint of surprise that the filter against religious incorrectness that had apparently screened the above-mentioned authorities had not excluded the name of my illustrious ancestor from the index of notables despite my ancestor’s outspoken Zionism and other (from a Haredi perspective) problematical positions.

This somewhat rambling introduction is intended to set the stage for the following little drama in which I participated during the runup to the publication of the new volume of my great-grandfather’s writings. The idea for the volume began to take shape three or four years ago when my nephew decided that he would like to sponsor the publication of a volume of works by one of our many distinguished ancestors to mark the bar-mitzvah of his oldest son (which was celebrated b’sha’ah tovah u-mutzlahat a few weeks ago on Shabbat Shirah). I suggested to him the idea of republishing the five kuntresim of the Dor Revi’i, which had been out of print for nearly a century and are now almost unknown and unavailable. I took upon myself the task of re-typing the original into a Hebrew word-processor and to the best of my ability flagging problematic spellings, misprints, typos, etc., and providing as many references to citations as I could find on my own. We eventually retained a cousin in Israel to finish the editorial process (find remaining references for citations and add explanatory footnotes as needed) and to guide the project through its final stages. After the passing of my father, we decided to dedicate the volume to his memory as well as to the celebration of my great-nephew’s bar-mitzvah, and therefore included three short articles that my father had published. It was also agreed that I would write an introduction in which I would say something about the life and work of my great-grandfather and about my father.

By last August, when the editorial process was nearing completion, I had finished a draft of my introduction. In the introduction, I tried to give a brief account of the Dor Revi’i’s life and an appreciation of his (in my eyes heroic) character. To me it did not seem possible to portray his life or his character adequately without mentioning his dedication to Zionism and his large role in the founding of Mizrahi. I also thought that it was necessary to point out that he was very much alone among his colleagues in the Hungarian rabbinate in supporting Zionism and, as a result, was much abused and vilified. His response, however, was never in kind, only to work even harder to support and defend his positions with ever more powerful and more rigorous arguments. I also made mention of the high regard in which he was held by the gedolim of his time, e.g., by Rabbi Kook, to whom he became very closely attached after leaving Klausenburg in the spring of 1923 for Jerusalem where he spent the last 18 months of his life before his sudden passing during haqafot on the night of Shemini Atzeret in 1924. But I also pointed out that he was similarly esteemed by other gedolei ha-dor who were not known for their ardent Zionistic tendencies such as the Maharsham of Brezan (who wrote haskamot to Ohr Bahir and Matzah Sh’murah which are also included in this volume), R. Meir Simha of Dvinsk, R. Haim Ozer Grodzinski, and the Tchebiner Rav.

The draft of my introduction was shown to various members of my extended family. The Dor Revi’i had ten children, and the political and religious views of the descendants, as one might expect, cover a pretty wide spectrum of opinions. The feedback from the more Haredi sectors of the family was not positive.

The first objection that I received was from someone who considered it inappropriate to mention the Dor Revi’i’s close relationship with Rabbi Kook, inasmuch as it is no longer acceptable in Haredi circles to mention Rabbi Kook’s name. I was, to put it mildly, shocked when I heard this objection. I would not have been surprised by an objection to my mention of the Dor Revi’i’s Zionism, but I was not prepared for an objection to the mere mention of Rabbi Kook’s name. In view of the friendship between my great-grandfather and Rabbi Kook and the fact that Rabbi Kook had defended my great-grandfather against scurrilous attacks that had been made upon him,[2] I decided that I could not, on principle, delete Rabbi Kook’s name. But I also told my niece and nephew that if they wished, I would withdraw my introduction and they could substitute a more acceptable introduction by someone else in its place. Their response was that they did not want to publish the volume without my introduction and that I should continue to work on it.

Then the other shoe dropped. This time the objection came from a source with whom my niece and nephew have a much closer personal relationship than they have with the first complainant who had objected only to my mentioning Rabbi Kook’s name, but had not objected explicitly to my discussion of Zionism. The new complaint was that politics had no place in the introduction to a book (such as this) about halakhah, and that whatever my great-grandfather had meant by Zionism in his day, it was certainly much different then from what it is today. Moreover, it was asked, what purpose could possibly be served by revisiting all these old issues that no one really understands, or even cares about, today? I was taken aback by the criticisms to say the least, because it seemed to me that if my great-grandfather had devoted so much effort and suffered such heartache in working and writing and speaking on behalf of Zionism and had endured so much abuse as a consequence, then surely it would not be right to pretend that his mesirut nefesh for the sake of Zionism was null and void and unworthy of memory or mention. I then suggested a compromise in which I would delete the word “tzionut” and would substitute “shivat tzion” in its place. However, I said that I would not delete mention of his participation in the founding of Mizrahi and the 1904 conference in Pressburg. That proposal was shot down at once. I was told that in Haredi circles the very word “Mizrahi” is considered a form of nivul peh and that the social standing of my relatives in their communities would be at risk if it ever became known that they had an ancestor who had been a founder of such an organization. When I pointed out that it was a well-known fact that the Dor Revi’i was a Zionist, I was told that in their circles it was not well-known and they would do all they could to keep it from becoming well known.[3] At this point, I realized that my introduction would not be printed as it was, and rather than seek to rewrite it (there was not enough time for me to have done a decent job even if I had wanted to), I took out everything that I had written about my great-grandfather, but left intact the short account of my father’s life that I had written. To replace my introduction, my niece and nephew were able to secure at the last minute a contribution from Rabbi Avraham Yafe Schlesinger of Geneva and Jerusalem, who is also a great-grandson of the Dor Revi’i, a prolific author (several volumes of Shu”t Be’er Sarim) with, as far as I can tell, impeccable Haredi credentials, and who recently published a new edition of Shevivei Eish combined in one volume with a previously unpublished collection of drashot by the father of the Dor Revi’i, Rabbi Avraham Glasner (1825/26-1877) which he called Dor Dorshav.[4]

What is the deeper significance of this sad little tale? First, it solves the minor puzzle about which Rabbi Rapoport wondered in his Jewish Action review, namely, what made the Dor Revi’i an acceptable entry for the Frankel index of authorities when other luminaries of a similar ilk were not acceptable. The answer, I now understand, is that there is nothing that makes the Dor Revi’i more acceptable than the others beyond the (from my perspective) unfortunate fact that there are too few people around who know who the Dor Revi’i was and what his political and hashqafic beliefs were to make the appearance of his name objectionable to most contemporary Haredim.[5] It’s not a matter of the intrinsic acceptability of the authority, just a question of what one can get away with. If enough people recognize the name and associate it with taboo opinions, it has to go. If they don’t recognize it, or don’t know enough about it to mind, then gezunter heit. Second, it shows how extraordinarily powerful are the pressures to conform in Haredi society. Individuals and ideas that do not perfectly fit the accepted norms (and thereby suggest the possibility of different norms) of that society are literally taboo. To mention Rabbi Kook in the context of a halakhic discussion or as something other than an object of scorn is in wide sections of that community to cross a red line. For my Haredi relatives, it is truly a scary thought that their ancestor would be grouped together with one such as Rabbi Kook. I really am on very close and friendly terms with many of my Haredi relatives, including some who are and some who aren’t Dor Revi’i einiklakh, and I have great respect and admiration and very deep affection for them. But this episode has forced me to view their society from a new and, I regret to say, disturbing angle. In the course of my little encounter with Haredi sensibilities, I felt a whole range of emotions, but the one that remains after having (largely) gotten over it is compassion for people who actually have to live in fear lest the events of a life such as the one led by their very own ancestor, the Dor Revi’i, become known within the community in which they live.

Notes:
[1] For further information about my great-grandfather, the Dor Revi’i, see my “Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner, the Dor Revi’i,” Tradition 32.1 (Winter 1998): 40-56, which is available, along with other translations of his various works — including all the divrei torah on the parshiot and hagim from Shevivei Eish and translations of various writings of his son and successor as chief rabbi of Klausenburg, Rabbi Akiva Glasner — online at www.dorrevii.org. If you would like to purchase a copy of Ohr Bahir ($20 a copy plus $3 shipping and handling for single copies), please contact me by email (tovi0214@verizon.net, please put “Ohr Bahir” in the subject heading). If you are in Israel and would like to purchase a copy, please contact Rabbi Shaya Herzog 04-697-4802 or 052-764-6975 for further information. If you are a book seller and would like to order copies, please contact me directly.

[2] The attacks were made in a pamphlet (Mishpat Tzedeq) published by the newly formed Sephardic community in Klausenburg, which was the creation of a small group consisting of perhaps one hundred families (out of a total Jewish population in Klausenburg that exceeded 10,000) who decided that they could no longer remain subject to the authority of a Zionist rabbi. The term “Sephardic community” was a sort of legal fiction designed to gain the recognition of the secular authorities that would recognize only one Orthodox community within a given town or district. The only “Sephardic” aspect of the community was that they recited prayers in “nusah s’fard.” Largely made up of Sigheter Hasidim, the group chose as their spiritual leader Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the future Satmarer Rebbe, whose older brother, the Atzei Haim, was then the incumbent Rebbe in Sighet, original seat of the family dynasty. R. Joelish never took up residence in Klausenburg, and after heading the Klausenburg Sephardic community for about five years, he vacated the position in favor of his nephew Rabbi Y. Y. Halberstam, who eventually was to become famous as the Klausenburger Rebbe. While the brilliance and charisma of the latter were already evident during his years in Klausenburg, he led a community that was never more than one or two percent the size of the community headed by my grandfather, and who, in his own right, was one of the leading rabbinical figures in Europe in the interwar period. It was only after Holocaust destroyed organized Jewish life in Hungary, and after he had left Klausenburg, that the adjective “Klausenburger” became routinely attached to Rabbi Halberstam. For the three quarters of a century prior to the Holocaust the title “Klausenburger Rav” was held by a Glasner. That, as such things go, is a fairly straightforward historical fact, and is not meant as explicit or implicit derogation of Rabbi Halberstam. Unlike his uncle, whose hostility to the successor of the Dor Revi’i was unrelenting, Rabbi Halberstam did maintain a civil, even friendly, relationship with my grandfather during his nearly twenty years in Klausenburg. After publication of Mishpat Tzedeq, the Orthodox community of Klausenburg published a pamphlet (Yishuv Mishpat, now available online on the website of the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem) opposing the breakaway community and defending my great-grandfather against the attacks leveled against him. Rabbi Kook contributed an open letter (a hyperlink to the letter is available at www.dorrevii.org) to the rabbis who allowed their opinions permitting the breakaway of the Sephardic community from the Orthodox community in Klausenburg to be published in a pamphlet containing slanderous accusations against the Klausenburger Rav whom Rabbi Kook described as “gadol ha-dor b’torah b’hokhmah, bi-z’khut avot, u-v’midot terumiot.”

[3] I was also told by one relative that he had it on good authority that after the Dor Revi’i arrived in Palestine and saw with his own eyes the disasters perpetrated by the Zionists, the Dor Revi’i repented of his Zionism and was subsequently shunned by his former Zionist friends. A rumor to this effect actually seems to have circulated during the lifetime of the Dor Revi’i, and a former resident of Klausenburg, Shlomo Zimroni, who settled in Israel after the Holocaust and wrote a number of works about the religious history of Klausenburg, refers to this rumor in a short article about my great-grandfather in Shana b’Shanah, published by Heichal Shlomo (5640): 434-39. He quoted from a letter that the Dor Revi’i wrote to a former lay antagonist who, having heard the rumor, wrote to invite his return to Klausenburg and to propose reconciliation. The letter quoted by Zimroni (pp. 436-37) makes emphatically clear that the writer had not changed his mind. The suggestion that the Dor Revi’i changed his mind about Zionism and was then shunned by his former friends is further refuted by the following story which, my father told me he had heard from his father, Rabbi Akiva Glasner, when his father sat shiva for his mother (the wife of the Dor Revi’i) in the early 1930s (when my father was probably in his mid-teens). According to my father, my grandfather said that when Rabbi Yosef Hayyim Sonnenfeld, a student of the Ketav Sofer, the Dor Revi’i’s uncle and (briefly) teacher, paid a shiva call at the home of the Dor Revi’i in Jerusalem, he begged forgiveness from the Dor Revi’i’s rebbetzin for not having attended the funeral of her husband. He said that he had not meant any disrespect by not attending and indeed had had every intention to attend the funeral, but had been misled as to the time of the funeral by his aides who did not want him to show public respect to a Zionist. That apology and explanation would obviously not make any sense had the Dor Revi’i renounced his Zionist opinions and had he been shunned by his former Zionist friends. In that case, why would Rabbi Sonnenfeld’s handlers have wanted to prevent a show of public respect by Rabbi Sonnenfeld to the Dor Revi’i? Such inventions of “b’sof yamav” have become a characteristic of of Haredi oral traditions (urban legends) and historiography as Rabbi Rapoport noted in footnote 10 of his posting.

[4] Avraham Glasner was a talmid muvhaq of the Ketav Sofer. He married Raizel Ehrenfeld (daughter of Dovid Tzvi and Hindel Ehrenfeld), a niece of the Ketav Sofer and the oldest granddaughter of the Hatam Sofer. In his twenties, he was appointed chief rabbi of Gyonk, Hungary, and after eleven years in that position he became chief rabbi of Klausenburg. He served in that position for 14 years until his premature death at the age of 52. His only son, Moshe Shmuel, though only 21 years old, was appointed to succeed him on erev Hanukah in 1877. Moshe Shmuel was the oldest great-grandchild of the Hatam Sofer, which along with the implicit Zionistic allusion, was the reason that he chose “Dor Revi’i” as the title of his great work.

[5] It’s therefore somewhat comforting to know that the memory of the Dor Revi’i is being kept alive, if not exactly well, among the Satmarers. They have long memories and nurse their grievances with care and feeling. Thus in volume six of the official biography of the Rebbe, Reb Joelish, unpretentiously entitled Moshian shel Yisrael, there is a whole chapter that is largely devoted to my great-grandfather. The title of the chapter is “milhemet ha-shem neged amaleq.”

In our presence, the court signed below, our teacher, the aforementioned Mordecai, related all that is written above as testimony and then wrote all of this in his own handwriting and signed it with his very own signature. Therefore we have confirmed it and substantiated it as proper
Signed Israel BA”Sh [Ba’al Shem] of Tluste [this was the city the Baal Shem Tov lived prior to moving to Medzhybizh]
Signed Moshe Joseph Maggid Mesharim of Medzhybizh [3]

Champion in Yehuda and Israel! He who succeeds there at the small and the great. He provides balm and medicament to the persons without strength. He is great in Bavel and famous in Teveriah and has prevailed in all things. The great sage, the eminent rabbi, famous for his good name, our teacher Israel, may God protect and bless him. And all of his colleagues, all of them beloved rabbis, the great and eminent sage, our teacher Gershon, may God protect and bless him; and those who I don’t know [by name] I greet; may they all be granted the highest blessing.

In the Shu”t Mayim Hayyim from R. Hayyim Kohen Rapoport from Austria, printed there is a responsum from Medzhybizh regarding a lesion in the lung, from the Baal Shem Tov to the gaon R. Meir, the son of R. Jacob Emden, who was the chief rabbi in Constantine, and the response from the goan [R. Meir] to him [the Baal Shem Tov]. As is common knowledge, the Baal Shem Tov was not the Rabbi of Medzhybizh, even so the Baal Shem Tov is one of the signatories to the letter, singing it “Yisrael Baal Shem of Tluste” – “and the Maggid Mesharim of Medzhybizh.” [6] The response of R. Meir is a long one. R. Meir was not a hassid. It is important to note the honorifics R. Meir uses at the beginning of his response: “Champion in Yehuda and Israel! He who succeeds there at the small and the great. He provides balm and medicament to the persons without strength. He is great in Bavel and famous in Teveriah and has prevailed in all thins. The great sage, the eminent rabbi, famous for his good name, our teacher Israel, may God protect and bless him. And all of his colleagues, all of them beloved rabbis . . .” And would a goan [R. Meir] who is not a hassid uses such language on someone who is not a godal b’torah?

See the post here.

In a previous post at the Seforim blog, Prof. Elliott Horowitz of Bar Ilan University and co-editor of Jewish Quarterly Review, described Edmund Wilson’s unique Christmas card and some thoughts on the Talmud [see here].

This is his third contribution to the Seforim blog. We hope that you enjoy.

Although there have been some fine reviews of the collection of letters by Isaiah Berlin published in England under the title Flourishing: Letters 1928-1946 (Chatto and Windus, 2004), and in the United Sates (by Cambridge University Press) under the subtitle of the British edition,[1] not much attention has been given to the candid comments included therein about some of the twentieth century’s leading rabbis and Jewish scholars. Moreover, although one of the reviewers (Ilan Stavans in Forward) commented on the “overzealousness of its editor” Henry Hardy in annotating and contextualizing Berlin’s letters “to the point of dizziness,” this zealousness is less than excessive in his annotations of the letter written by Berlin, who had recently become the first Jew to be elected to a fellowship at Oxford’s All-Souls College, from Jerusalem to his parents in London on the first day of Rosh Ha-Shana, 1934 (pp. 96-98). Among the Jerusalemites he mentions having met since arriving a week earlier are “Dr. Scholem the Kabbalist,” “Baneth of the University,” and “Meir Berlin” – all of whom are dutifully identified by Hardy. The Volozhin-born Berlin, who settled in Jerusalem in 1926 and later changed his name to Bar-Ilan, is described by Isaiah (to whom he was not related) as a “clever cunning man with an unpleasant son in law, who teaches the Yerushalmi at the University.” Hardy informs the reader that the Yerushalmi is “the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud,” but he has not been as “overzealous” about identifying the “unpleasant son in law,” who, as most readers of the Seforim blog have already recognized, was Saul Lieberman, who completed his MA at the Hebrew University in 1931 and married the former Judith Berlin in the following year.

In April of 1943, while serving at the British Embassy in Washington, Isaiah dryly informed his parents that “there were some serious social complications about the Sedarim this year (428).” Among those who had invited him were Chaim Weizmann (sometimes referred to as “Charles” in Berlin’s letters), the latter’s “factotum, a certain Weisgal,” and “Meyer (sic) Berlin and his daughter Judith.” Hardy explains what “Sedarim” are, identifies “[Meyer Wolf] Weisgal,” and provides the information that Judith Berlin Lieberman was “married to talmudic scholar Saul Lieberman. (428-29)” Somehow, however, he fails to connect this son-in -law of Berlin’s, who by that time had become a professor at New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary, with the “unpleasant” man who during the previous decade had taught Yerushalmi at the Hebrew University. One of the factors complicating Isaiah’s decision as to where to spend the Sedarim of 1943 was that three of his potential hosts – Meir Berlin, Vera Weizmann, and Tamar de Sola Pool (wife of Rabbi David de Sola Pool and president of Hadassah) – were “reciprocally not on speaking terms,” and thus “to go to one is to insult the other two automatically.” He spent the first Seder with the Weizmann’s and the second, which was “fantastic,” with Meyer Weisgal. Consequently, as he explained to his parents, he found himself in the position of having to “grovel to Rabbi Meyer Berlin…and Mrs Tamar de Sola Pool, great Zionist powers with whom diplomatic relations must be preserved. (430-31).”

In a subsequent letter to the British diplomat Angus Malcolm, however, Berlin referred the Mizrachi leader less charitably as “Rabbi M. Berlin of Palestine and Riverside Drive, an enemy of Weizmann and a clerical maximalist (438).” Although Weizmann (who died in 1952) and Bar-Ilan (who died three years earlier) had their differences, both now have universities named after them – in only one of which, it may be added, is the Yerushalmi taught.

Note:
[1] See, for example, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, “The Book of Isaiah,” The New York Times (June 27, 2004): 11; Simon Schama, “Flourishing,” The New Republic (January 31, 2005): 23-30.

While the aim of a “Review Essay” is usually focused on broadening the perspective of a particular topic with the author making use of the most recent contributions from within the extant scholarly literature, “Discontinuities: The Case of Saul Lieberman” lacks any such focus.

Continue reading this post (“Rabbi Hillel Goldberg on Prof. Saul Lieberman”) at the Michtavim blog.

Among the more famous kinos that we recite on Tisha B’Av is Zion Halo Tishali. This kinah was written by one of the greatest paytanim, R. Yehudah Halevi author of the classic Kuzari. This piyut is about the author’s passion to walk on the holy soil of Eretz Yisrael. In the Artscroll commentary on the kinos, R. Avraham Chaim Feuer writes

an ancient manuscript states that R. Yehuda Halevi composed this kina while journeying towards Eretz Yisroel and recited it when he reached Damascus, facing the direction of Zion. Although many historians believe that R. Yehuda Halevi only got as far as Egypt, never even reaching Damascus, tradition has it that he finally reached Jerusalem (in 1145). There he fell to the ground in a state of ecstasy. . . . As he was embracing the dust near the temple mount, he was trampled and killed by an Arab horseman.

In this post I intend to discuss the above legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s death, did he actually reach Eretz Yisrael? When did he compose the piyut of Zion Haloeh Tishali? I will conclude with a discussion on R. Yehuda Halevi’s connection to R. Abraham Ibn Ezra. I do not, however, intend to discuss R. Yehuda Halevi’s classic work the Kuzari nor his life in general for more on those topics one can see the excellent study by Adam Shear, “The Later History of a Medieval Hebrew Book, Studies in the Reception of Judah Halevi’s Sefer HaKuzari” (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2003); soon to be printed in book form.

The next time that this legend appeared, after the mention in the Shalsheles Hakabbalah, is by R. David Conforte (1618-c.1678) in Koreh Hadoros (first printed in Venice, 1746), p. 13, followed by R. Yechiel Halprin (1660- died sometime between 1746-1749) in Seder Hadoros (first printed in Karlsruhe, 1769), p. 201, it is then repeated by R. Wolf Heindheim in his edition of the Kinos. By the 19th century, this legend became perhaps the most famous story about R. Yehudah Halevi as not much else was known about him.

R. Matisyahu Strashun, however, questions the legend. He explains that Jerusalem, in the times of R. Yehuda Halevi, was ruled by Christians and not by Arabs. R. Strashun allows that although it is possible R. Yehuda Halevi composed Zion Halo Tishali when he got to Jerusalem — not that we know that he did — but the part of the story with the Arab killing him is certainly not true. As a general matter, R. Strashun notes that it is well known that the Shalsheles Hakabbalah is not a reliable sefer at all (Mivchar Kitavim, pp. 215-216). R. Shmuel David (ShaDaL) Luzzatto in his collection of poems from R. Yehuda Halevi, Besulas Bas Yehuda (Prague, 1840), also questions the the legend due to the Christian and not Arab control during the time of R. Yehuda Halevi. Further, even if there were Arabs around they would not have done such a blatant act right at the city gate (pp. 25-26). So Shadal concludes that he died on his way from Egypt never even reaching Eretz Yisroel. Interestingly enough, David Kaufmann uses other evidence to prove that the poems of R. Yehudah Halevi have Jerusalem under Christian rule (Mechkarim Besafrus Haivrit Byemei Habenyim p. 194).

Israel Zinberg writes that most likely R. Yehuda Halevi returned home to Spain, after visiting Eretz Yisrael, based on the fact that R. Shlomo Parcon, a student of R. Yehuda Halevi who lived in Spain, quotes a statement from R. Yehuda Halevi “after R. Yehuda Halevi was in Egypt” (Machberes Hauruch p. 5). Specifically, R. Yehuda Halevi had told Parcon that he was doing teshuva and therefore no longer composing. Independently, we know that during while R. Yehuda Halevi was in Egypt he composed much, Zinberg therefore argues that this statement to Parcon must have taken place after R. Yehuda Halevi was in Egypt, thus R. Yehuda Halevi must have returned to Spain (Toldos Safrus Byisroel, vol. 1, p. 115). David Kaufman also uses R. Shlomo Parcon to adduce how R. Yehuda Halevi died. Kaufman points out that had R. Yehudah Halevi died in such a spectacular fashion as the legend has it, R. Shlomo Parcon was sure to note it. As R. Parcon makes no note of an extraordinary death, R. Yehuda Halevi must have died a natural death. (Mechkarim Besafrus Haivrit Byemei Habenyim, p. 195). In Amudei Avodah, Landshuth also questions the legend due to lack of evidence that R. Yehuda Halevi ever made it to Eretz Yisrael. (p. 70).

Earlier I mentioned that the Sefer Yuchsin writes that R. Yehuda Halevi was fifty years old when he came to Eretz Yisrael and he is buried with his first cousin, Abraham Ibn Ezra. Later he writes that he is buried with R. Yehuda Bar Elayh in Tzefas. In the Travels of R. Benjamin of Tudela, written around 1170 – thirty years after the R. Yehuda Halevi died – Benjamin records that he visited the grave of R. Yehuda Halevi in Teveriah (there are actually various readings of these words in the manuscripts, but Adler accepts this as the correct reading; p. 29). In the travels of R. Yitzchak Ben Alfurah, written around 1441, he writes that he visited the grave of the Ibn Ezra and R. Yehuda Halevi (Avraham Yari, Masos Eretz Yisrael, p. 110). Both of these provide strong evidence that R. Yehuda Halevi actually made it to Eretz Yisrael. Nevertheless, an anonymous traveler in 1473 (Masos Eretz Yisroel, p. 113) and R. Yosef Sofer in 1762 (Iggrot Eretz Yisroel, p. 301) write that they visited the grave of the Ibn Ezra but make no mention that R. Yehuda Halevi is buried there as well. In the travels of R. Moshe Yerushalmi from 1769, he writes that he visited the graves of the Ibn Ezra and R. Shlomo Ibn Gabriel (Masos Eretz Yisroel, p. 438). I would venture to say the author confused R. Shlomo Ibn Gabriel with R. Yehuda Halevi both being famous composers and are sometimes confused. Furthermore, we have no source that R. Shlomo Ibn Gabriel ever came to Eretz Yisrael (aside from a very late letter written in 1747 printed in Egrot Eretz Yisrael, p. 273). (See also David Kaufmann, p. 205 and Sinai, vol. 28, p. 290). In a manuscript from the author of the Koreh Hadoros (printed in Sinai vol. 28, p. 284) it seems that the R. Yehuda Halevi was buried in Jerusalem.

Over one hundred years ago the Cairo Genizah was accidentally discovered and due to this incredible find every areas of Jewish Literature and History have been greatly enriched. Before this discovery the history of R. Yehuda Halevi written by the early scholars of Jewish History was based on the poems of Halevi that were printed by Shadal and others. However, much has been discovered in Geniza Manuscripts in the past sixty odd years which adds an incredible amount of detailed information to what we knew about the end of R. Yehuda Halevi’s life including original autograph letters of Halevi. [One can view some of these online here, and here is an example of one of documents relating to R. Yehudah Halevi.] These discoveries were made by the great scholar of the Cairo Genizah, Shlomo D. Goitein. Starting in 1954, Goitein printed his discoveries with his explanations of the material, in various journals mostly in Tarbitz. Later on, in his classic A Mediterranean Society (volume V, pp. 448-468), he included an excellent chapter on R. Yehuda Halevi based on all the material which he had found over the years. Most of his interpretations of the material he discovered have been accepted by Professors C. Sherman and Ezra Fleischer. In A Mediterranean Society Goitein writes “a full publication of all the geniza letters referring to Judah Halevi would fill a book.” (p. 462). Although Goitein never got around to writing such a book, in 2001 Professors Moshe Gil and Ezra Fleischer did write such a book. The title of the book is Yehudah Halevei U’bnei Chugo this book is a six hundred and forty page study of all the material from the genizah discovered by Goitein. This book includes all the original documents with notes and an in-depth history of all that can be gleaned from these letters. It is simply incredible to read what Goitein and than Gil and Fleischer discover in these letters.

The relevant documents are from a Cairo business man named Abu Said Halfon who was a very close friend of R. Yehuda Halevi. What follows is a brief time line of R. Yehuda Halevi’s journey to Eretz Yisrael based on the research of these professors. In 1129, when R. Yehuda Halevi was fifty four years old he decided to make the journey to Eretz Yisrael. In the year 1130, R. Yehuda Halevi began his journey. He intended to travel through Egypt. We don’t know why he didn’t. But we do know that he ended up in North Africa. In North Africa, he became good friends with the Ibn Ezra. For some unknown reason, he ended up back in Spain. Not too much information is known about why this journey to Eretz Yisrael did not end up happening. Ten years later, in 1140, R. Yehuda Halevi began the journey again. He ended up in Alexandria on September 8. He had intended to leave from Egypt to Eretz Yisrael immediately, but was delayed. He ended up going to Cairo until Pesach. After that he returned to Alexandria. A few days before Shavuos of 1141, he boarded the boat, and on Shavuos, he set sail to Eretz Yisrael. In a letter written about 6 months later indicates that R. Yehuda Halevi was no longer alive. It seems that he was alive for 2 months in Eretz Yisrael. We don’t have any information about his stay in Eretz Yisrael. It would seem that either he got sick or died a natural death. There is no clear answer whether the legend is true or not. It’s rather sad that with all the manuscripts discovered in the Cairo geniza that enriched us with an in-depth, heavily detailed history of R. Yehuda Halevi’s last years until he left to Eretz Yisrael, does not tell us anything more. However, there was one letter written three months after the death of R. Yehuda Halevi that does indicate that perhaps the legend is true. The letter (the ellipsis appear in the original) says as follows:

On this topic in general see also: Adam Shear, The Later History of a Medieval Hebrew Book, Studies in the Reception of Judah Halevi’s Sefer Ha Kuzari, pp. 95, 513-514; C. Shirman, Toldos Hashirah Haivrit Besefard Hamuslamit, pp. 441-443. On the Ibn Ezra and Eretz Yisrael in general, see N. Ben Menachem, Sinai, vol. 10 p. 276 and onwards; see also N. Ben Menachem, Inyai Ibn Ezra, pp. 182-190.

More sources on R. Yehuda Halevi and Eretz Yisrael see: Adam Shear, supra, pp. 516-517; C. Shirman, Letoldos Hashirah Vehadramah Haivrit, vol. one, pp. 319-341; C. Shirman, Toldos Hashirah Haivrit Besefard Hamuslamit, pp. 466-480. Franz Kobler, A Treasury of Jewish Letters, vol. one, p. 155; Abraham Haberman, Toldos Hashirah Vhapiut, vol. one, p. 185;

On the reliability of Shalsheles Hakabbalah in general see: A David’s doctorate and E. Yassif in Sippur Ham Haevrei pp. 351-371)

Last week I picked up a new sefer titled Nekadesh es Shimcha. What caught my attention was that it included not only Nekadesh es Shimcha but also the work Meleches haKodesh from R. Eleazar Fleckeles (most well-known for his Teshuva m’Ahava). What follows is a short biography of R. Fleckes, a review of Meleches haKodesh, and a review of the new sefer – Nekadesh es Shimcha.

R. Eleazar Fleckeles was born in 1754 in Prague. He was a direct descendant of R. Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, author of the Keli Yakar, whom R. Fleckeles quotes many times throughout his writings. When R. Fleckeles was 14, he went to study with R. Ezekiel Landau and spent ten years studying there. R. Landau, as is evident from his haskamot to R. Fleckeles works, held R. Fleckeles in high regard. Additionally, many teshuvot in Noda b’Yehuda are penned to R. Fleckeles. In R. Fleckeles’s writings, he quotes many interesting statements from R. Landau [for one example see here]. When R. Fleckeles was twenty-four, he became the Rabbi of Kojetin, a town in Moravia. After four years, however, R. Fleckeles returned to Prague to sit on R. Landau’s Bet Din and serve as a head of a yeshiva.

R. Fleckeles authored many works, works covering halakha, derush, and a commentary on the Haggadah. R. Fleckeles was a skilled halakhist as is evident from his Teshuva m’Ahavah, but his fame also rests on his skills as a darshan. His derashot were published in a four volumes, Olat Chodesh. The fourth volume contains, R. Fleckeles series of derashot he gave against Shabbatai Tzvi and Jacob Frank (this section has a seperate title, Ahavat Dovid). One of themes which run throughout his derashot is an emphasis on learning Shas and Poskim and not Kabbalah. Recently, Professor Marc B. Shapiro printed an interesting correspondence between R. Fleckeles and Karl Fischer, a government censor, about Nittel Nacht, which first appeared as “Torah Study on Christmas Eve,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 8 (1999): 350-55, and then as “A Letter of R. Eleazar Fleckeles Concerning Torah Study on Christmas Eve,” Ohr Yisrael 30 (2002): 165-168. This was not the only correspondence between the two, as a well-known teshuva appears in Teshuva m’Ahavah in response to Fischer’s question about Jew’s taking oaths. Teshuvah m’Ahavah, vol. 1, no. 26.]. In 1826, R. Fleckeles died after serving for 43 years on the Prague Bet Din.

Amongst R. Fleckeles lesser known seforim is the Meleches ha’Kodesh. The book differentiates between the names of Hashem, which are kodesh and which are chol, using the Bavli, Yerushalmi, Midrash, three Targumim, and all the various m’farshim on the Chumash. The reason the differentiation is important is that every time a sofer writes a kodesh name of Hashem, he needs to makes sure it is l’Shem Kedushas HaShem. If the sofer does not do so, the Sefer Torah is invalid. Although there are many instances it is obvious when the name is kodesh, there are many times it is unclear. Over time, there have arguments amongst the various poskim what to do in the ambiguous situations. R. Fleckeles collected all the prior opinions and provides his own conclusion for these questionable Shems.

R. Fleckes begins each of his discussions by quoting an earlier work on the topic Meir Netiv by R. Yehuda Piza [this first appeared in the Chumash R. Piza published in Amsterdam in 1767, Ezras HaSofer – R. Piza will be the subject a forthcoming post at the Seforim blog.] R. Fleckeles then provides additional sources not considered or quoted by R. Piza and then R. Fleckeles comes to his conclusion. In the process, R. Fleckeles demonstrates a tremendous breadth of knowledge in the works of Chazal, the Rishonim, and Achronim. What is extremely interesting about both of these works are the sources used to reach their conclusions. They use, amongst others, the Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, and the Ralbag, these sources are not typically used to form a halachic conclusion. Even more noteworthy, are some of the sources R. Fleckeles uses, the Me’or Eynaim by R. Azariah di Rossi, as well as Mendelssohn’s Biur (pp. 4, 52, and 88). R. Fleckeles also quotes R. Shlomo Dubnow a few times (pp. 92, 115). What is particularly striking about the quotes from Mendelssohn, is that R. Fleckeles, like R. Landau [although R. Landau’s opinion is subject to some debate] was firmly against the Biur. (See Alexander Altman, Moses Mendelssohn, pp. 486-88; Moshe Samet, Chadash Assur Min haTorah, pp. 76-7; Meir Hildesheimer, “Moses Mendelssohn in Nineteenth Century Rabbinical Literature,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research (PAAJR) 55 (1988): 79-133, esp. p. 87 n. 23.)

The Meleches haKodesh is divided into two parts, the first, discussing the ambiguous verses, and the second, a through exposition of writing holy-names more generally. Throughout the book, while discussing the specific questions, he includes many of his own explanations of the pesukim. Additionally, he discusses many things of interest in halacha and aggadah not directly related to the main topic. Both of these factors make this an important work even for someone not involved in the topic of the usage of Hashem. [The second part is not reprinted in this new work.]

For instance, there is a discussion when did the author of Onkoles live. (pp. 4, 77). A discussion about the famous controversy of reciting Machnesei Rachamim. R. Fleckeles cites his teacher, R. Landau, that R. Landua when he said Neliah was careful not to pray to the angels. (p. 15). R. Fleckeles writes that tzadikim are greater than angels. (p. 42). Elsewhere he writes that even regular people are greater than angels. (pp. 104-5). At least twice he quotes Torah he thought of in his dreams. (pp. 14, 95). He records an interesting rule that wherever Chazal use “lamah” (למה) it is because they want to find out the reason for doing something that they do not know any reason for. This is in contrast to the usage of mipneh mah (מפני מה) which is used when there is a known reason but are not satisfied with that reason. (p. 110).

When it comes to the Zohar, R. Fleckeles uses interesting language. After quoting one statement from the Midrash of R. Shimon bar Yochi, he notes that there is a contradictory statement found in the Zohar, to which R. Fleckeles writes:

(pp. 5-6). Elsewhere he writes with regard to having special kavanot when saying the name of God “ומעולם לא עלה על הדעת קדושים הראשונים חכמים וסופרים לחשוב מחשבות וספירות כי בימיהם לא ידע מאומה, בלי מה מספירה.” (p. 133).

In general, throughout R. Fleckeles writings, there are interesting statements about Kabbalah and the Zohar especially, in the above mentioned Ahavat Dovid. In the introduction to that work he quotes a letter from R. Naftai Hertz Wessley which says

Aside from the content of the letter, it is noteworthy that R. Fleckeles quotes R. Wessley at all, as Wessley was one of the early leaders of the haskalah movement and close to Mendelssohn.

The book ends with eulogies and has a separate title, Kuntres Nefesh Dovid v’Nefesh Chayah. This section is comprised of eulogies R. Fleckeles said on his parents, and includes many wonderful explanations of derush on all kinds of topics.

All of this is included in the back of the new work, Nekadesh es Shimcha. This work also is on the topic of the names and status thereof, of God in the Torah. Its author, R. Yehuda Farakas, includes many haskmos including that of R. Elyashiv. The main purpose of this book is to update R. Fleckeles work with the many sources which were unavailable to R. Fleckeles. There are also discussions of pesukim R. Fleckeles did not discuss at all.

Again, R. Farkas uses many works which are not typically used in a halachic context, this includes recently published manuscripts. Amongst the more noteworthy are the Pirush R. Avrohom ben HaRambam, Radak, and Bechor Shor. The use of these runs counter to the well-known opinion of the Chazon Ish regarding newly published manuscripts. R. Farkas also uses many commentaries on the Targumim and Ibn Ezra not otherwise used by most. Throughout, he quotes the pesakim of R. Elyashiv.

In conclusion, this an impressive, encyclopedic work on the topic of God’s name. This is helpful in understanding the meaning of various pesukim in the Chumash. It is noteworthy that the controversial quotes remained, such as that of Mendelsshon. It is possible R. Farkas was unaware the Nesivos Shalom is the title of Mendelssohn’s Biur. The one criticism is R. Farkas’s decision not to republish the second part of Meleches haKodesh which would have made this a complete one-volume compendium on this topic.

Almost every Friday morning, I get a call from a fellow seforim addict asking me what’s new on the market. The past few weeks, he had been complaining to me that the market is dry, and nothing of note has been put out. Yesterday, he told me that finally one interesting thing came out the night before: a collection of the writings R. Yehiel Mihel Epstein (1829-1908), the author of the Arukh HaShulhan, called Kitvei Ha’Arukh HaShulhan. So off I ran to the seforim store to get this new piece. What follows is a review of this new sefer.

Kitvei Ha’Arukh HaShulhan is divided into multiple parts. The first part is a reprint of the “Or La’Yesharim” by R. Epstein. The Or La’Yesharim is a commentary on the classic work, Sefer HaYashar of Rabbeinu Tam. R. Epstein wrote this when he was very young, although it wasn’t published until 1869.

The Sefer HaYashar of the Rabbeinu Tam[1] (this is not to be confused with the mussar work with the same title which is incorrectly attributed to the Rabbeinu Tam – there is some debate exactly who the author is, with some claiming it is R. Zerachia HaLevi, author of the Ba’al HaMe’or, others attribute it to R. Zerachiah HaYevani, and finally others claim the author is Rabbeinu Yonah) which is today available in two parts – Hiddushim and She’elot u-Teshuvot. The Sefer HaYashar was first published (both parts together) in 1811 in Vienna, but this edition was full of errors. Later, in 1898, it was reissued – but only the She’elot u-Teshuvot section, by R. S. Rosenthal for Meketzei Nerdamim. He included both his own notes as well as notes from R. Ephraim Zalman Margolis in an effort to correct the seriously corrupted text. In 1959 R. S. Schlesinger republished the the Hiddushim section of this sefer in a more critical edition. Professor E. E. Auerbach writes that it is ironic that the Sefer HaYashar should have so many textual errors, when one of the purposes of the Sefer HaYashar was to provide a correct text of the Gemara. (Balei Hatosfot p. 94). In Kovetz Al Yad (volume 7), R. Yosef Kapach printed some more teshuvot of Rabbeinu Tam. Today, however, there are still still many pieces which rishonim quote from the Sefer HaYashar of Rabbeinu Tam which are not found in either section of the Sefer HaYashar that we have.

The Or La’Yesharim by R. Epstein is an extensive commentary covering the Nashim and Niddah masekhtot of the Hiddushim section of the Sefer HaYashar. The original edition was very rare and now, thanks to work R. Horowitz, the editor of the newly published Kitvei Ha’Arukh HaShulhan, it is now available to all. This part of the volume comprises 200 pages and is nicely printed and includes a thorough index.

Or La’Yesharim has many haskamot from: R. Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor; the author’s brother-in-law, R. Naftali Zevi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv); the author’s uncle R. Meir Berlin; R. Yehoshua Leib Diskin; and even from a Hasidic Rebbe, R. Aaron M’Chernobyl. It seems that there also was a haskama from the R. Menahem Mendel Schneerson, third rebbe of Lubavitch known as the Tzemach Tzedek, but it was lost.

The next part of the Kitvei Ha’Arukh HaShulhan is a collection of the Arukh HaShulhan’s She’elot u-Teshuvot on all areas of halakha. It’s known that the Arukh HaShulhan wrote a very large amount of She’elot u-Teshuvot to thousands of questions that he was asked from all over the world. But, he writes that he was too busy to keep copies of all of them and thus, unfortunately, we do not have too many copies of these letters. However, R. Horowitz collected the letters that we do have from various sources: publications of the time, people he corresponded with that printed his letters in their seforim and manuscripts. There are some interesting statements in the teshuvot such as “Chas vesholom to rely on the shekia of Rabbeinu Tam as the Gra and Shulhan Arukh Harav already come out not like him” (p. 7). Another interesting letter is where R. Epstein writes after trying to find a leniency, he writes “even though I always try to leniencies where needed here I could not” (p. 74).

Interestingly enough, this new edition included all letters of the Arukh HaShulhan based on the advice of R. Chaim Kanievsky, to produce a complete work and not to censor any of the letters. This includes the famous letter of the Arukh HaShulhan permitting one to use electricity on Yom Tov. But, as has already been pointed out by many people, this was based on a faulty understanding of the exact science of how electricity works (pg. 12-13). Another famous letter of his printed here is his allowing of Metzizah through an instrument (p. 50).

The next part of the sefer is a collection, but not all, of derashot (sermons) of R. Epstein. One only wonders why the editor chose to put in these and not all, (or perhaps none) as we already have all this in a recently released volume. These derashot are excellent continuing in the path familiar already through his commentary on the Haggadah called Leil Shimurium.

The volume continues with a collection of letters related to community work, various semikhot that he gave to Gedolim and haskamot that he gave to various works. These come from private collections, including those from Hebrew University and the Schocken Collection of Jerusalem.

One interesting letter that seems to have bypassed the radar of the editors is a letter where someone had asked him about something, and R. Epstein responded:

“unfortunately, we cannot ask my brother in law, the Netziv, because he’s ill, and we can’t ask R. Yitzchok Elchanan Spector because he’s surrounded by people (מוקף מסביב)” (p. 141).

He seems to be hinting to what is claimed by many – the R. Yitzchok Elchanan was greatly influenced by his secretary, R. Yaakov Lifshitz. For examples, see Yaakov Mark’s work: Bemechitzasam Shel Gedolei Hador (p. 102), where he reports such a confession from R. Yaakov Lifshitz himself. (See also Nathan Kamenetsky, Making of a Gadol, pp. 458-463). However, interestingly enough, there is a letter in regard to another issue, where R. Yitzchak Elchanan himself writes:

“I have been a Rav for tens of years authored thousands of teshuvos on every area of halakha to inquires from all over the world and in regard to many areas relating to the zibur and no one has ever questioned that I was not going according to my own mind and it’s a great chutzpah to say publicly that I have no da’at and people in my household use me!”

(Iggerot R’ Yitzchok Elchanan Spector, vol. 1 pp. 59-60 [2]). Another interesting letter included is against Zionism (pp. 139-140) and R. Epstein’s defense of the Mussar movement (pp. 132-136).

After each piece throughout the sefer R. Horowitz writes its exact source. I personally find this method much more user friendly than other similar works where they include this material in the back of the sefer which many times confuses the reader.

The volume ends off with a short biography of R. Epstein. The only point of criticism on the biography is that not enough credit is given to the sources. One of the sources is R. Meir Bar-Ilan, a nephew of the Arukh HaShulhan, who is only mentioned in one footnote, but should have been mentioned in many more.

In sum this is a beautifully presented volume of the writings of the R. Epstein and is well worth adding to one’s collection.

Notes:
[1] See generally, E.E. Aurbach, Ba’alei HaTosefot, 80-91; Y. Felix, “Sefer haYashar l’Rabbenu Ya’akov ben Meir,” Sinai, 39 (1956): 52-61, 106-15, 172-83, 224-39.
[2] It is possible that R. Yaakov Lifshitz actually authored this letter.

Another such person, who has had a similarly prolific posthumous literary output – although he did publish Torah novella in his own life time – is R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910-1995). After his death there has been a printing explosion of his writings covering all topics, including reprints of everything he has ever written! The only works of his not to be reprinted are two amazing works: the Meori Aish – a classic study on electricity and muktzah – and his Madeni Aretz on Shevi’it, as these two works have connections to one of the more controversial gedolim of the past century, R. Avraham Yitzchak Ha-Kohen Kook. As the Meori Aish has a haskamah from Rav Kook and the Madenei Aretz deals at great length with Rav Kook’s views on Shevi’it.

For this post, however, I would just like to limit my focus to one of these recent works on R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach — Halikhot Shlomo.

A few years ago R. Aron Auerbach and R. Y Terger started to print this work. It was printed by Feldheim for a rather low price. The first volume began with Hilkhot Tefilah and Berakhot. After that, they published a second volume discussing the Yom Tovim starting with Rosh Hashana until and including Purim. (Last year they released a limited edition of the Pesach section.) And this year, the third volume has just been published, completing the Yom Tovim, on Pesach and the rest of the year. The goal of this work is to collect everything spanning the gamut of R. Shlomo Zalman’s halakhic interests related to these topics of Tefilah, Berakhot and the Yom Tovim. These volumes are all well organized, culled from all the printed sources and from incidents recorded by his various students. Aside from these sources, they used many manuscripts and notes of R. Shlomo Zalman which have remained unpublished until this point. They try to reference exactly where everything came from; but, at times, this too becomes a bit confusing. The sefer has a nice layout the top part contains the statement of R. Shlomo Zalman, as well as his reasoning for the various pesakim. In the extensive footnotes, the editors demonstrate the breadth of where everything comes from. Sometimes they cite other sources on the topics under discussion. They also include many interesting stories, statements, and anecdotes of advice that R. Shlomo Zalman gave to different people. In addition to all this they include many interesting discussions of R. Shlomo Zalman on Aggadah. At the end of each volume, there is a collection of some lengthier pieces on relevant topics. Besides for all this they included a very thorough index assisting the interested reader in finding almost anything mentioned throughout in the sefer.

I would just like to quote a few interesting discussions from each volume for examples of what makes this work so special as there are literally thousands of gems scattered throughout this work.

While talking about having perfectly squared tefillin, R. Shlomo Zalman says that its good enough if, according to viewing it with your eyes and that you do not have to measure the tefillin with a ruler. He than goes on to say – at great length – that the Torah goes according to ones eyes for everything including examining for bugs and checking etrogim (Halikhot Shlomo 1:53, and the footnotes therein).

On the topic of chumrot he writes that one should not just be machmir because he feels like it. Instead, such a position should be reached from one’s own understanding of the topic and that, in this instance, it is in fact the correct position. He contrasts this with the tendency, which can be attributed to many chumrot, which is a result of only utilizing secondary sources and not focusing on the primary sources. He goes on to write that he was very bothered when he would see people walking on shabbat and their wives would be pushing the baby carriages because the man held for himself it was prohibited to use an eruv. He writes that when he was young he was machmir and did not rely on the eruv but, when he got married, he was mater neder (annulled his vow) to be able to help his wife (Halikhot Shlomo 1:55).

Elsewhere they record, that R. Shlomo Zalman once met a chattan walking to shul without a shomer so he accompanied him until he got a shomer. R. Shlomo Zalman explained his actions that already the motzei shabbat before one gets married he is already called a chattan in regard to this that he needs a shomer (Halikhot Shlomo 1:63 ¹). He writes that a matmid is not one who learns many hours in the day but rather it is someone who learns set times carefully keeping them everyday (Halikhot Shlomo 1:67 ²). He writes that a mourner can learn hilkhot aveilut in-depth during the week of shiva (Halikhot Shlomo 1:75 ³). Also included is an interesting and in-depth step-by-step teshuva process (Halikhot Shlomo 1:77 ⁴).

At the end of this volume, the editors printed a very interesting piece on the topic of saying ר’ פלוני בן ר’ פלוני – specifically the use of the Rabbi appellation – when calling someone up for an aliya at kriyat haTorah. R. Yosef Zechariah Stern writes that one should not say the title Reb because it is a problem of גבהות in front of God. R Shlomo Zalman, however, defends this custom at great length as we find everyone uses this title. He explains that the reason for its usage was because there are many different prayer customs that Chazal made to go against the tzedukim (צדוקים) to show that we have the Torah – both written and oral. So too, in the times of the Rishonim, there were people who denied the historicity of torah shebal peh, and these individuals were called Karaites; whereas the more-traditional sect of Jews were called Rabanim, and this is why when we call someone to the Torah we say “Reb” to show that he is not a karaite (Halikhot Shlomo 1:370-373; also included, in short, in the third volume, Halikhot Shlomo 3:33- 34).

Some interesting points from volume two include: The famous topic of the prayer Machniseh Rachamim and how can it be said as it appears that we are praying to the angels. R. Shlomo Zalman responds to this concern and explains that one can pray to an angel if it is his job to carry the prayers – that is his job! Further, this is why one can sing the song Shalom Aleichem on Friday night as we are only asking them to do their job. However, he said the nussach which appears in kiddush levanah “כשם שאני רוקד כנגדך וכו’ כל לא יוכל כל אויבי לנגוע בי לרעה” makes it appears as if we are praying to the moon and is a mistake! Instead, it should read כשם שאני רוקד כנגדה (Halikhot Shlomo 2:4). When asked which kavonot one should have during the blowing of the shofar he said just that the Torah simply says to blow shofar! (Halikhot Shlomo 2:24). Another interesting idea is that R. Shlomo Zalman did not bless people with sticking out his hands except on very infrequent occasions. He quoted R S Alphandrei that there is no source for giving ones hand in chazal but rather its chukat hagoyim! (Halikhot Shlomo 2:10). At the end of the sefer include, as well, is a very interesting selection as to why the holiday of Hoshanah Rabbah, as a day of judgment or not, is not mentioned in the Torah (Halikhot Shlomo 2:428-434).

The third volume of Halikhot Shlomo is the largest thus far, comprising over six hundred pages with many, many interesting and fascinating pieces.

Just to list a few: R. Shlomo Zalman writes that it’s very important to learn Masekhet Moed Koton and Hilkhot Aveilut as well, even though the Hatam Sofer (and others) said that one should not learn it (Halikhot Shlomo 3:439). On Tisha B’Av, R. Shlomo Zalman would read books about the Holocaust (Halikhot Shlomo 3:440). There is also an interesting discussion about the reason of the Mishneh Berurah as to why we eat dairy on Shavuot (Halikhot Shlomo 3:380-381). In regard to Pesach there is an amazing original piece as to why the bechorim (first born) fast on Erev Pesach. R. Shlomo Zalman writes that if it is solely due to the fact that the bechorim were saved from death, then all of the descendants of the bechorim should also fast – not just bechorim! (The answer is a bit more complex and includes several other components to this answer, as well.) To this, R. Shlomo Zalman says that the reason for the fast is not for the fact that they were saved but rather it was because the bechorim were supposed to do the avodah in the Beit Hamikdash, but that they lost it due to the sin of the Golden Calf. So on the fourteenth day of Nissan when they came to the Beit Hamikdash and they saw the kohanim and levi’im doing the beautiful avodah they felt very sad so they did not eat. So they decided to make a day to remember this as there was one time they were able to do this – when Hashem skipped over the houses and to atone for the Golden Calf which caused them to lose this great job (Halikhot Shlomo 3:179-180).

In sum, the Halikhot Shlomo is an excellent work and all in all, I feel that this is a beautiful work and well worth the money.

Sources:
[1] Upon hearing this aphorism, one cannot help but reflect on the passage in the Talmud: “R. Yohanan said in the name of R. Shimon bar Yochai: Any talmid hakham whose teachings are recited in this world, his lips move in the grave” (Yevamot 97a).
[2] Although the Hatam Sofer is the most popular target of posthumous publishing, in fact he did publish one work in his lifetime – although this is not well known. This is probably because his most famous work, his responsa volumes SHU”T Hatam Sofer, were published after he died. The Hatam Sofer died in 1839 and his teshuvot were not published until 1855. But, in the 1826 edition of the Hiddushei R”I Megash on Masekhet Shavout, there was appended a “Kuntres” which contains two Torah pieces and six teshuvot from the Hatam Sofer.
[3] For a discussion of the famous 1799 ruling of the Vilna beit din where they officially prohibited the ascribing any work to the R. Elijah, Gaon of Vilna which had not been personally sanctioned by that rabbinical body, see Gil S. Perl, “Emek ha-Neziv: A Window into the Intellectual Universe of Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin,” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2006), pp. 219, 226. Notwithstanding this prohibition, works ascribed to R. Elijah, Gaon of Vilna continued to appear for over two centuries. See also the introduction Yeshayahu Vinograd, Ozar Sifre ha-GRA (Jerusalem, 2003) for an extensive discussion surrounding the 1799 ruling of the Vilna beit din.