A Response to Yaakov Rosenes

A Response
to Yaakov Rosenes

by Menachem Lazar

Menachem Lazar is a postdoctoral researcher at the
University of Pennsylvania, studying applied mathematics and materials science.
He has previously served as editor of Beit Yitzchak, an annual Talmud
publication of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

In a recent essay at the Seforim blog,
Yaakov Rosenes provides a fascinating window into some unfortunate trends in
the world of Jewish publishing. In particular, Rosenes highlights how
technology has impacted not only how seforim are printed today, but also what seforim
are printed — today, every Tom, Dick, and Harry can print a sefer, and
increasingly many of them choose to do so. While much of what he writes
comes as no surprise to those who have even casually followed the printed
literature in recent years, the concrete numbers and anecdotes he provides are
certainly illuminating.

On one of his points I
would like to suggest a “correction”. In comparing the secular
and Torani worlds, Yaakov Rosenes focuses more on popular printing than on a
more relevant one: academic. Like talmidei chachamim, scholars of various
fields attempt to promote their work, and to convince others of its importance;
to appropriate his words, “to open up a dialogue with a readership”.
Likewise, “we have to concentrate more to understand what we
read” appears similarly true of much academic scholarship as it is of
Torah, much moreso than, say, of the Wall Street Journal or Time magazine.
It might pay then to contrast that world of publication with that in the
Torah world.

I believe that two major
factors — both largely lacking in the world of Torah publishing — enable the
academic world to succeed in promoting quality of publication far beyond what
we can say for Torah printing. First, there is a wide-spread appreciation
for the distinction between “old” and “new” material.
Responsible journals typically aim to print new results and ideas.
Old material is by no means unimportant, but no research journal will
print a routine review of Lagrange multipliers or differential curves, in the
way that many Torah journals might print your chavrusa’s summary of hilchose
chol hamo’ed or of the sugya of kinyan meshicha. Of course there is a
wide range in quality in what is printed in both worlds, but the goal, at
least, of high-quality journals in the academic world is to mostly print new
ideas. This can hardly be said for Torah journals, and by extension Torah
books. Open a typical Torah journal and merely peruse the table of
contents: b’inyan ptur tamun b’esh, b’din get meuseh, etc. Very general titles,
which often indicate articles that can be summarized: “Moshe learned this
sugya and here are some of his ha’arose”. There is a reason why we
can find 90% of the same material in 90% of the printed literature. Of
course, most readers do not have time or interest to read through hundreds of
pages to find the genuinely original pieces, and so the diamonds get lost in
the rough. And there’s lots of rough.

This, of course, is
related to a second difference between the academic and Torah world — quality
control through peer review. Aside from weak journals, that oftentimes
solicit and even guarantee publication (sometimes for a fee!), academic
journals typically enlist the aid of a network of people in the field to
referee submissions before they are accepted for publication. Other
researchers, from graduate students and postdocs to Fields medalists and Nobel
laureates, will read a submission and advise the editors of the journals
regarding its suitability for publication: Is it well written? Does it
appear to be well-researched? Does it make a valuable contribution to the
field? Is it readable to a non-specialist? At the same time, the
referees also provide important feedback to the authors: “The paper’s
central point might be stated more clearly”, “The paper does not
explain the meaning of term x”, “The paper would benefit from
additional discussion of an additional related point”. The effect of
this review process is thus two-fold. First, low-quality articles —
those that are poorly written or otherwise bring little to the table — are
filtered out before the printing stage. Indeed, the acceptance rate at
PRL, a representative first-tier journal from the physics community, is under
35% [1]; in contrast, during my years of editing and printing the Beit
Yitzchok, the rate was closer to 98%. Second, the articles that are
printed are often made substantially stronger. The net result is that
readers are not burdened with the significant challenge of extensive searches
through piles of low-quality work, and instead are treated to work befitting of
their time. It is unfortunate that at this point, no similar
infrastructure exists in the world of Torah publishing. True, there are
good Torah journals with talented editors, but as far as I can tell, the
editors of a given journal are typically a tiny group of people doing the job
of what can only effectively be done by one much larger.

Some people will respond
that indeed our most serious talmidei chachamim are too busy with other
responsibilities to contribute to such a task. To those people I will ask
the following. Consider a typical academic employed by a typical research
institution. Aside from their own research, teaching, administrative and
myriads of other responsibilities, he or she also makes time to referee several
articles a year. Why do they do that? I don’t believe that the
answer is prestige or academic promotion, as refereeing occurs by and large
anonymously, and is generally of little value to academic advancement. Instead,
I believe that academics feel a responsibility to their field to ensure that it
is being done “right”, and that random idiots aren’t getting up there
and passing off their bunk as quality scholarship. In a word, they feel a
responsibility to preserve the “integrity of the mesorah”. It
seems to me that talmidei chachamim do not, generally speaking, practice this
same level of shmira when it comes to Torah. Instead, there is a polite
gentility that goes around, under the guise of which any person’s Torah is ok
— anyone can give a shiur, any person can write a Torah article, any person
can write a sefer. It is the same politeness that leads to haskamose that
read: “I haven’t read this sefer, but I see that this person is a very
qualified talmid chacham, and chazaka ein chaver motzi mtachas yado davar
sh’eino metukan, and yehi ratzon that he should continue to be marbitz
Torah.” This passive approval is a polite way of avoiding serious
engagement with the Torah of others. It is certainly not an effective
shmira even if it temporarily avoids some hurt feelings.

Publishing a quality
journal — the kind that people are genuinely excited to receive and read — is
an admirable and feasible task, and one that would be a very worthwhile
contribution to the world of lomdei and ohavei Torah. But I believe that
this cannot happen in the current intellectual climate, one that does not seem
to appreciate the distinction between old and new, and in which tacit wholesale
approval of scholarship is interpreted as genuine respect. When the
climate changes, the publication of high-quality journals — and books — can
become a warmly welcomed reality.

[1] https://journals.aps.org/prl/authors/editorial-policies-practices.

A Letter from R. Nathan Kamenetsky

A Letter from R. Nathan Kamenetsky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, ruler of the universe, for having not made me Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein[1]: Traditional Orthodoxy at a Crossroads

By Mrs. Elizabeth Blottstein-Blatt

I am gravely concerned about the future of Jewish Leadership and the survival of traditional Orthodoxy as we know it.

I know it in my bones that the whole community is drifting to the right. Moreover, this rightward drift can hardly be said to produce Jewish leaders of vision and consequence. The rabbis returning from the yeshivas, whether in my native England, or from Eretz Yisrael, or even from those iconic colonies like the Five Towns and Pikesville, seem a rather wobbly basket of eggs.

In my youth, I would ask my grandmother any question about kashrus in the kitchen. She would always answer correctly, though what she knew of the Shulchan Aruch can be summed up by her devotion to using a spotless white tablecloth every Friday night. Yet the same question posed to a kollel chap requires conferral with a maggid shiur who confers with the mashgiach who parlays with the Rosh Yeshiva who makes a call to Israel.[2] Clearly, the spreading of wisdom has lead to epidemic levels of confusion in certain circles.[3] The mesorah is being pummeled from within! I myself am terrified by these yoetzot women, but at least they do not have to go gadding to some indecisive rabbi every time they find a dairy spoon in a meat drawer.

If memory serves the author, there was a time when isolated rabbis could make difficult decisions, but today we have technology. We are drunk with telephones, facsimiles, electronic mail, and so forth, which we use religiously to contact the six or seven gedolim who are permitted to answer questions. Thus everyone else is relieved of any responsibility of having to look up something in the Shulchan Aruch, and is free to tarry long hours studying Tractate Zevachim, eating cholent three nights a week, and waiting for the Mashiach. Glory be the Gan Eden that we live in!

***

In any event, I was recently forwarded a fascinating web article from Cross-Currents, a website whose contributors carry loose and firm associations with the Aguda, Ohr Samayach, the Haredi College for Women and other right-thinking organisations. The article is by a dynamic Los Angeles rabbi, a gevaldeke human being, considering our generation – rachmana liztlan. Astonishingly, this rabbi exhibits extraordinary respect for those with whom he disagrees. Especially the Far Left, which he claims has no “gedolim or stellar halachists,” nor do its members have much “competence with text that comes with many years of serious […] learning.” Correspondingly, these Far Left rabbis must resort to “wide-scale counterfeiting of Torah” to make up for their ignorance. If this is true, I would hardly bother speaking to such people, much less chiding them respectfully. It must be this rabbi’s enduring commitment to tolerance that endows him with such patience and openness to others. Let the Children of Israel learn from his example!

Now to the point, the fine article begins as a sweeping account of the aggressive advances of Far Left- Wing Modern-Orthodox rabbis. From his description, I could hear the clap of cannon blasts and the approaching artillery shells being fired. I could not help but shiver imagining that Gateshead and Ner Yisrael and the Mir were under siege by the International Rabbinic Fellowship, which is really just another name for Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, which are really Rabbi Avi Weiss and his multitudinous fifty graduates and fifty current rabbinic students! The tens of thousands who attend Gateshead and Chofetz Chaim and Ner Yaakov and Yeshiva University are trembling, for these shock troops have “quietly slipped into pulpits around the country” and are representatives of a Judaism that is so “different” that “it can no longer be called Orthodox as the rest of us know it.”

Yet what specific provocation provoked this good minister of the Mosaic faith to finally sound the battle cry and forewarn the “heimishe” community that “partnership minyanim” and “woman’s Tefillah groups” may soon destroy the ehrliche shtieblach of Hancock Park and Monsey? Apparently, there is another “dynamic Los Angeles rabbi, a wonderful human” that has broken all bounds of normative halachah by publicizing that he can no longer recite the morning benediction of shelo asani isha— Blessed art Thou…for having not made me a woman—because it is inherently offensive to women.[4]

How this provocateur extraordinaire—this “wonderful human”—can be described so glowingly when it is later reported “that he mocks […] the previous gadol hador, Rav Moshe Feinstein zt’l” is yet another indication of the good minister’s boundless respect for those with whom he stridently disagrees.

Returning to the matter at hand, it is abundantly self-evident that one cannot overreact to such provocations, and here I quote the good minister again, “hundreds of thousands of our Modern Orthodox brethren” stand “in danger of embracing a treif ideology.” Yet, if so grave is the matter, so black the threat, I must humbly chide the good minister for restraining his rage…for not doing more and speaking louder!

I was particularly astonished that his article contained an almost mythic absence of halachic sources and citations. What good is all the learning of right-thinking rabbis, who are so much more learned than their left-winging brothers (and occasional sisters, as if it needs be said) if they don’t use their vast erudition as an axe to fell these saboteurs of traditional yiddishkeit! For the briefest of moments, there was a reference to R. Samson Raphael Hirsch zt’l and his battle with the 19th century reformers. But this was the equivalent of pulling the pin and pocketing the grenade. Rav Hirsch himself decided to strike Kol Nidre from the Yom Kipper liturgy, as the prayer “was susceptible to misunderstanding” as one scholar put it.[5] Clearly, the saboteurs might make a comparison.

Then there was a shocking reference to the Rambam, with the good minister’s implicit p’sak that those who attempt to change our holy liturgy, may it remain immaculate and pure until the end of days, are not in any way violating the Thirteen Principles of Faith! To quote briefly: “Rambam writes that we have no right to be dismissive of any Jew who accepts the Thirteen Principles of Faith. ‘When a person believes in these principles…he is included in the nation of Israel.’” Such magnanimous tolerance! ….At least those on the Far-Far Left who reject the 13 Principles are not included among body of Israel, may God have compassion upon their souls. (See endnotes.)[6]

Yet mere mention of Maimonides is the intellectual equivalent of a company of airmen parachuting without a chute. Everyone knows that Rambam acted unorthodoxly upon occasion. Did the good minister forget that Rambam omitted the ancient blessing said by a groom over virgin blood from his magnum opus?[7] The arch rationalist clearly thought the benediction was regressive in the extreme. Fortune prick me, but this could be used as a precedent by the Far Left who claim that shelo asani ishah evokes visages of grunting cavemen![8]

In a similar vein, the Rambam offered liturgical latitude to Ovadiah the Convert, as the devout proselyte felt that repeating certain benedictions verbatim would be dishonest![9] And dare we forget how Rambam arose, as if on a whim, and eliminated the silent amidah from the great synagogues of Egypt? Our provocateur extraordinaire eliminated one blessing—half-mumbled in the small hours of the morning while most are mostly asleep—how can we call this ‘dangerous’ when others (following the Rambam) continue to neuter the mussaf service on the Sabbath and Holidays!?[10] The good minister must do better in his combat with the adversarial Far Left!!!

***

Some right-hearted rabbis (not the good minister, but a fellow swimmer or two in Cross-Currents) have erred in the past by making humiliating concessions to liberal sentiment. One duly noted that “interpreted properly,” the blessing of shelo asani ishah yields a meaning that is “loving and sympathetic.”[11] How this is achieved is not stated precisely, though the recipe seems to require a dash of positive attitude and a pinch of fuzzy creativity. My throbbing heart prays earnestly that the heimeshe community may yet evade the seductive embrace of the lovely-jubbly mumbo-jumbo (so endemic on the sing-along Left); but I fear the gates of the faithful are falling!

Still, there are a host of sages who defend the integrity and original intent of the sacred benediction said by men: “Blessed art Thou… for having not made me a woman;” as well as the women’s benediction: “Blessed art Thou…for having made me according to thy will.” A glorious example is Rabbi Jacob ben Asher who well understood the second-class status of the second sex. He suggests that the woman’s prayer is a form of ‘acquiescence to the Almighty’s decree for the evil (of her status)’[12]: ונהגו הנשים לברךשעשאני כרצונו ואפשר שנוהגים כן שהוא כמי שמצדיק עליו הדין על הרעה.

Lest bleeding hearts try to reinterpret Rabbi ben Asher’s words as being “loving and sympathetic,” we ought to cite Rabbi ben Asher’s comment on the Genesis 1.27, where he offers this fascinating novellae: “The mathematical equivalent of the word ‘male’ is ‘blessing,’ while the mathematical equivalent of the word ‘(and) female’ is ‘curse.’” (Hebrew: זכר בגימטריא ברכה. ונקבה בגימטריא קללה )o[13]

Clearly, tradition deems that women have a diminished stature vis-à-vis men.[14] On account of this, the right-thinking rabbis, who represent the sacred platitudes of our great tradition, ought to declare this sentiment without apology or apologetics. But where are these fearless leaders? Do they need permission from three Gedolim—or at very least a conference call with the executive board of the RCA or Agudas Yisrael—before they can fight on behalf of truth?

To be a tad forward, I myself would be happy to oblige, however, women (for their own good) are hardly encouraged to learn such things as gemora and poskim… let alone engage in debates about Da’as Torah! But perhaps I should sigh with relief. For I shall never be criticized for writing a 3600-word polemic without citing a few dozen ma’arei mekomos (scholarly citations), much less a Rashi or two from Bereishis or Tractate Berachot! Fate, thankfully, has absolved me of such responsibility. To which I might add, without meaning any insult: ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, ruler of the universe, for having not made me Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein.’

[1] I refer the reader to Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein’s article, “Modern-Orthodoxy at a Crossroads” of 27 September, 2011 (link).
Additionally, the title refers the reader to Rabbi Dov Fischer’s article, “Who Hast Not Made me a Liberal Rabbi” of 8 August, 2011 (link).
[2]Cf. Soloveitchik, Haym. Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy. Tradition Volume 28:4 (Summer 1994)
[3] It is hardly surprising that the blessing thanking God that ‘one is not an ignoramus’ was, despite its Talmudic prescription, eventually omitted from the liturgy. (Cf. Menachot 43b; Tosefta Berachot 6:18) Though it has been conjectured that the inverse blessing, thanking the Lord for ‘having not been made a scholar,’ was much more prevalent among the masses (amei haaretz), the assertion has yet to find evidentiary support suitable to archeologists. (For the complete tale, see Borges, J.L. in manuscript: La Búsqueda de Geniza Otros El Cairo (The Search for Cairo’s Other Geniza) from Ficciones II. 1957. Located in the Archives of the Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina – Buenos Aires. An incomplete edition was once in the custody of the Valmadonna Trust. However, it was exchanged for several damaged Tractates of the “Bomberg Talmud.” The former is rumoured to be held in the basement of a Franciscan monastery in northern France…Basse-Normandie or thereabouts.
[4] Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky (here).
[5] See entrée for Hirsch, Samson Raphael. Encyclopedia Judaica.
[6] See Shapiro, Marc, “The Limits of Orthodox Theology” for a rather long list of Jewish authorities who are sadly no longer among the fold… I would assume the good minister considers Reform and Conservative Jews who reject the Thirteen Principles to be excluded from the nation. Pity.
[7] Chelkat MeChukak. Even HaEzer 63.2 [7]
[8] I must point out that I differ here with the minister’s rather foolish defence of those who claim that man may have descended from apes (link). Obviously, this is wrong, though there may be some truth to the claim that some part of ‘humanity’ descended from demons. (See Guide of the Perplexed I.7, cf. II.30; Eruvin 18b; Bereishit Rabbah 20:28;24:6)
[9] Iggrot ha-Rambam ed. Y. Shilat (333-334)
[10] The Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue is rumoured to practice this neutered Amida, yet I have been unwilling to visit that I.R.F. cabal to attest to the practice. *In order not give ammunition to the adversary, or cite an individual who might be inappropriately hoisted as a Gadol of the Far Left, I have refrained from mentioning the work of Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber in the body of my article. See his book: “On Changes in Jewish Liturgy: Options and Limitations.”
[11] R. Dr. Emanuel Feldman. Tradition 29:4 pages 69-74(Summer 1995)
[12] Tur OH 46.4; Similarly, R. David Abudarhim understood the woman’s blessing as a form of tzidduk hadin. See Sperber (above) ch. 4.
[13] Baal HaTurim Gen. 1.27. Oddly, the math for v’nikevah (163) is two less than klalah (165), which lends itself to a number of insights that I have yet to fully explore.
[14] See Beit Yosef’s elucidation of Rashi’s view. On Tur OH 46.4; For further reading, see R. Eliezer Berkovits’ “Jewish Women in Time and Torah.” Chapters 1-2. Ktav, 1990.

A Final Word to Chaim Rapoport

A final word to Chaim Rapoport’s continuing need to comment on our book
by: Menachem Friedman & Samuel Heilman

While we hoped our last posting would be our last word on this subject, since the Seforim
Blog has posted Rapoport’s rejoinder simultaneously (a courtesy never offered to us), we
want to add a brief postscript, which we have been assured by the blog moderators will
be the last posting on our book.

We are happy Rapoport checked the Paris directory and found the listing of the Engineer
Schneerson. Why he failed to note this listing (which as Rapoport at last reports was
noted in our book) when he attacked us over our error on the envelope, he will have to
explain to his readers. But in his long riff on the listing Rapoport misses the point we
made, and which was lost in the laughter over our use of the envelope as the graphic
proof. What was MMS interested in announcing about himself?

Rapoport seems to think we thought that MMS used the directory in which he
listed himself not as “Rabbin” but “Ing. Elec and Mecan” was a “venue for joy and
thanksgiving.” Not at all. We say it was a sign of pride at his accomplishments (p.121),
a way of publicly identifying himself – not as a rabbi but as what he saw himself:
engineer. It was MMS who chose to put his listing in as this; not the Paris telephone
service. He wanted the public to know. As for revealing his dreams, we have already
covered that in our book (p. 119). It was in his letter to his father that he made that
abundantly clear. We urge readers to look at the letter and judge for themselves if after
years of study for this degree in 3 countries, when he wrote to his father and said in his
own words that engineering was his “dream” he meant it as a fantasy. In any case, we
did not say it was his “ultimate goal in life,” as Rapoport puts it. Apparently, the
Hasidim know best what that was; we are not nearly as categorical.

As for what ‫ חלום‬means, we’ll simply say that we believe Rapoport’s twist on this
word is actually a dream in the sense of fantasy. His explanation puts nothing to rest,
much as he might wish it to be the case.

Rapoport’s dance around MMS’s pursuit of the engineering degree is to assure us that he
wanted this only for parnassa, the classic haredi explanation for any secular studies by
those they deem religious. He adds to this that this was driven by the realization that he
could not be a rabbi in the Stalinist USSR or that he could thereby observe the Sabbath
better there. But MMS had no intentions of returning to the Stalinist regime from France
and affirmed this in his affidavit to the French when he sought French citizenship, (see
pp. 122-3 in our book). All of Rapoport’s tortured efforts to write off the long pursuit of
an engineering degree by MMS as nothing other than a quest for a side job are simply not
credible, as our book demonstrates time and again.

Rashag, he tells us was also involved in “commerce and the like.” Rashag was Rayatz’s
right-hand man, completely taken up with that task; something MMS was not. The
revision of the Gourary history continues.

We are accused of “not letting the man speak for himself.” The writings and speeches of
Menachem Mendel Schneerson are all over the internet, in countless books and distributed by Lubavitchers wherever they can. Our job is not to let the Rebbe speak for
himself. The Lubavitchers do that, and sometimes they also speak for him. No one could
accuse us of hiding his words. If anything, our book has made many more people
interested in reading his words. Our book is a framework against which those words may
now be looked at from a new perspective.

Rapoport once again tries to teach us about academic standards. We’ll simply say that on
that we shall by judged not by a Lubavitcher hasid with an axe to grind and venom to
spew but by our peers.

The discussion of the ‘local’ synagogue nearer to MMS’s residence is a new wrinkle in
Rapoport’s argument. Readers will recall he told us how much the man liked to walk and
assured us it was no problem for him to walk to the synagogues in the Pletzel. Now
suddenly he talks about this large nearby synagogue (which he wonders that we did not
mention nor did he, why?) but conveniently fails to mention that MMS was not seen
there, nor did he take any active role as teacher in this synagogue. Where is the evidence
he went there?

As for distances, as one will discover the distance from 7 Robert Lindet to the synagogue
on 10 Rue Dieu where Zalman Schneerson his cousin prayed (see our p. 140) is 8.5km or
5.3 miles one way and to Rue de Rosiers is according to Google Maps a walk of between
1 hour 18 minutes (3.8 miles via rue de Vaugirard, as we said) and 1 hour and 27 minutes
(4.25 miles via rue du Bac) one way. Apparently, in Rapaport’s thinking MMS had
kefitzat derech. We hope this puts this matter to rest, unless in Rapoport’s geography the
world shrinks when his Rebbe walks upon it.

With regard to the testimony of Mr. Shochetman’s recollection about his father’s visits,
we shall simply say that we did not find this recollection persuasive when we came upon
it in the JEM recordings. This is the same man who claimed in Yemei Melech that MMS
was a student who studied engineering at Sorbonne, something that has been shown to be
false in our book. Suffice it to say even if we accept its veracity, a report of one person
studying Torah with him in Paris does not make the case for MMS being one who was an
active teacher of Torah in his Paris years. Where is the rest of the evidence of the after-
school Toarh classes he set up for children besides this testimony? Where are the
children and their parents? The “100 witnesses” to borrow Rapaport’s expression; where
are they? And the argument that MMS spent those years as Rapaport asserts, “primarily
engaged” in his own learning of Torah simply does not persuade us. He did not have to
go to Paris for that; he could have stayed at the Rebbe’s court.

As for the letters from Levi Yitzchak to his son, we shall simply repeat our reading of
them and readers of our book can judge for themselves. Obviously, Rapoport reads them
with his special esoteric understanding. In his readings ‫ חלום‬is not dream, words take on
new meanings. Rapoport does this as well when we asked for a straight declarative
sentence in which MMS states unequivocally that he is neither immortal nor the Messiah.
Instead Rapoport refers to “the Rebbe’s vernacular” which does not use language as
others do, words he will “be happy to explain” to us. Reading Rapoport one is reminded of Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful
tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different
things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6)

In his typical approach of half truth or falsification, Rapaport claims we did not mention
that Levi Yitzchak added a blessing that his son have a son but that we took this from
him. Apparently he missed p. 128 of our text where we write exactly that.

On the beard, we have said all we need to say. But we’ll just add that in his long
quotation on Rayatz’s talk at the sheva brachot about beards, Rapoport leaves out the
following words: “Then he denounced those who trimmed their beards or who shaved
them off altogether. All of this he said while his new university bound son-in-law with a
beard that for all intents and purposes looked as if it were trimmed sat there, and his two
younger daughters (one of whom was the bride), who everyone in the room likely knew
shared an outlook of modernity, were in a room nearby.” We maintain that with all he
could have talked about, Rayatz chose this not because, as Rapaport ludicrously asserts, a
few “elder Chasidim in town had been trimming their beards….”

Rapoport wants us to list accolades Rayatz gave to MMS. That is a task for him and his
hagiographers. We note the relevant communications where MMS refused to accompany
Rayatz on his missions, where he collected books for him, where he actually did things
for his father-in-law. In Rapoport’s mind, our book should, as we said in our original
response, have been a book of praises. For that, he will have to go to Chabad.

Nowhere did we write that “mamesh” was an “innovation.” We do say that when MMS
used it after the honors from President Reagan, he added the phrase “with all its
interpretations.” (p. 215). Readers would do well to see what we wrote and at the
context rather than depending on Rapoport’s twist.

We are happy that Rapoport at last acknowledges the view held by some Hasidim,
including Lubavitchers we spoke to and observed, that the “graves of the righteous” are
accepted as not being defiling of a Cohen. He of course sidesteps the issue of the lack of
curtains around the graves opposite the ohel entrance with the word that it is “awkward.”
Indeed.

Once again in his quotation of our book, Rapoport makes use of ellipses to twist the truth.
In noting why we had to be careful with Lubavitcher sources, we wrote (and he fails to
quote these words) “To believers it cannot be that the man who stands between them and
God could have had a life like any other. Even that which seems prosaic is understood as
appearing so only to the uninitiated, and therefore things can never be what they seem.
For believers, beneath the surface reality there is to be found a deeper truth. Only one
who has the key can thus unlock the whole truth, and that key is possessed only by those who are truly Hasidim,” (p. 65) Yes we did use Lubavitcher sources, but not all and not
always if we could find more reliable ones elsewhere.

The assertion that the late Barry Gourary, z’l hated his uncle “with a passion” is yet
another of the libels Rapoport perpetrates against a man who cannot defend himself
against such calumnies. The very accusation he later makes against us! Shame on you.
Where is there any evidence to support such a hateful accusation, one that has been
refuted by Zalman Alpert and others, who actually knew and spoke to him.

Our book is our final word on how we explain matters; references to earlier interviews by
one or another of us in the papers are not relevant. In the course of the book and
discussions between us the narrative evolved. By this we should be judged. Not by a
reporter’s characterization nor by a blogger’s or a hasid’s.

We “intimate” nothing. That is a word Rapoport uses to characterize our work. We are
very careful in our language. When we know something, we say it and when we do not,
we leave matters as open questions. We say Moussia and Mendel “may have” attended a
theatre (we know she did even after he became Rebbe). We never say they chose that
over attending synagogues as Rapoport accused us of saying or intimating. And yes, they
may have attended the theatre – chances are they did. Horrors.

On the matter of the purloined copy of the uncorrected galleys, Rapoport, who apparently
is in charge of the portfolio on “ethics” for Lubavitch see here:
(http://tomerpersico.com/2010/07/18/the_rebbe_book_review/) now adds yet another lie
– time for teshuva, Rabbi, teshuva. The Seforim blog was never sent a copy of the
uncorrected galleys that you claim to have received from them. We cannot vouch for
when and from whom Rabbi Rapoport received his purloined copy, but it adds insult to
injury for him to continue to claim it was all above-board. That the Seforim blog will
allow itself to be a tool of his lying and post this claim of course adds to our dismay.

Finally, Rapoport once again claims that our book constitutes an effort “to malign the
name of a great man after his death.” We believe our book does quite the opposite and
shows how this great man was a complex, fascinating and extraordinary man. We have
devoted years of our lives to this task. We believe the truth is as one person close to
Chabad who wrote us after reading the book said – and we shall quote him and if he
chooses to reveal his identity, he may and if not that is his right (having seen how people
like Rapoport attack and twist the words those with whom they disagree) and maybe a
good idea. This reader wrote:

“While I am sure that there are many within the movement who are
dissatisfied with your treatment of the Rebbe as a human being effected [sic] by
his time and human emotion, I believe that the perspective brought by you both
has done a great service to those who wish to better understand the phenomenon
of Chabad generally and the Rebbe in particular. Rather than diminish the Rebe
[sic] and his accomplishments, you have magnified both by placing them in
context. The “Great Oz” has not been shown to be a mere mortal, but rather, a
mere mortal has been shown to be the “Great Oz” (L’Havdil).”

We think this reader of ours got it right, and we hope this will be the last word on the
subject here, as we have been promised by the Seforim Blog that it would be.

More on The Rebbe

You might have noticed, and might have even been actively following the very-current and lively-debate about the recent volume by Samuel Heilman & Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010) at the Seforim blog, which began with a review essay (“The Afterlife of Scholarship: A Critical Exploration of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman’s Presentation of the Rebbe’s Life”) by frequent contributor to the Seforim blog, Chaim Rapoport, available here, which elicited a response by Samuel Heilman & Menachem Friedman, followed by a rejoinder by Chaim Rapoport, both available here. The exchange continued and following a back-and-forth in the comments section, here, and Samuel Heilman’s & Menachem Friedman’s response here (PDF) at the Seforim blog, followed by a twelve-page response (written in a mere twenty hours) by Chaim Rapoport, available here (PDF).

Response and Rejoinder to Chaim Rapoport’s The Afterlife of Scholarship

In response to the recent review by Chaim Rapoport, “The Afterlife of Scholarship: A Critical Exploration of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman’s Presentation of the Rebbe’s Life,” the Seforim blog (14 June 2010), available here, of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), available here, the editors of the Seforim blog are proud to present a response by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman (submitted on Tuesday, 22 June 2010), available here (PDF) with a rejoinder by Chaim Rapoport (submitted on Tuesday, 29 June 2010), available here (PDF).