New Book: The Living Tree: Studies in Modern Orthodoxy by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Rabbi
Shlomo Riskin’s new book, The Living Tree: Studies in Modern Orthodoxy, has just
appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present this selection from it.

Halakhic Pluralism in the Eyes of Rishonim and
Aharonim

In many of the off-hand remarks of the early
commentators, their advocacy of the principle of halakhic pluralism is plain to
see, regardless of whether these great authorities stemmed from Ashkenaz,
Sepharad, or Provence. They repeatedly express the pluralistic principle of
“these and those are the words of the Living God.”
Rashi, in his commentary
to Ketubot 57a, writes:
W hen two [sages] argue
over the statement of one [who was their master], and one sage says that this
is what the master said and the other says that this is what the master said,
one of them is lying. But when two Amora’im argue regarding a civil or ritual
halakhic issue, and each one maintains the logic of his position, there is no
falsehood. Each one is expressing his logic, the one master giving a reason for
permitting and the other master giving a reason for prohibiting, one master
compares issue to issue in such a fashion, and the other master compares it in
another fashion. It is necessary to say, “these and those are the words of the
Living God”; sometimes this logic pertains and sometimes that logic pertains,
because the logic changes even on the basis of a small change in the issues at
hand.
The Ritba (Rabbi Yom Tov ben Avraham Asevilli,
1250–1330) on Eruvin 13b comments as follows:
“These and those are the
words of the Living God.” The rabbis of France asked, How is it possible for
both views to be those of the Living God when one prohibits and the other
permits? And they answered: W hen Moses went on high to receive the Torah he was
shown forty-nineways to permit and forty-nine ways to prohibit every object. He
asked the Almighty concerning this, and He said, “Let these [matters about
which there are so many possibilities] be handed over to the sages of Israel in
every generation, and let the resolution be in accordance with their will.”
 Rabbi
Menaĥem Meiri (1248–1316), in his work Beit HaBehira, commented on Yevamot
14a:
That which the Torah
commanded lo titgodedu (“Do not slice yourselves up” – Deut.14:1), even
though its principal meaning is not to wound oneself as an expression of
mourning for one who has died, there is a nuance [within the word titgodedu
which may be interpreted to mean] not to turn the commandments into separate
divisions [agudot], and this is to prohibit several individuals from
performing ritual in one way while others per- form the ritual in a different
way, until it appears as though we are being led by two Torahs. But this
prohibition applies only when a city has only one court, and when even this
court is itself divided, with one component group deciding in accordance with
one view and another component group in accordance with another view. But
whenever there are two judicial courts, albeit in one city, and one court is
accustomed to deciding in accordance with this view and the other court is
accustomed to deciding in accordance with that view, this does not represent
separate divisions because it is impossible for everyone to always agree on one
opinion. This is certainly true regarding actions based upon custom, where
there is no objection if these act in such a way and those in another way.[1]
Even during the period of the later
commentators, the idea of halakhic pluralism finds expression. Admittedly,
works such as the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh of Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, which
records only one authoritative opinion – unlike the original Shulhan Arukh,
which includes the opposing views of Rabbi Karo and the Rema – seem to imply a
more monistic halakhic approach. A ringing defense of pluralism is to be found
in the words of Rabbi Chaim ben Rabbi Bezalel, brother of the Maharal, who
studied together with Rabbi Moshe Isserles (the Rema) in the mid- sixteenth
century in the yeshiva of Rabbi Shalom Shachna. He wrote Viku’ah Mayim Hayim
(usually included at the end of the Rema’s Torat Hatat), in which he
vigorously argues against any written halakhic codification reflecting only one
halakhic opinion:
Only after [the decisor]
has studied all of the legal disputes which have arisen regarding a specific
law can his word run quickly into the sea of wisdom…Moreover, the mind of an
individual is not always consistent and perhaps his mind is not disposed to
give the same halakhic ruling which he gave yesterday; there is not in this any
change or deficiency [which would lead us] to say that through him the Torah is
becoming like two Torahs, God forbid. The opposite is the case; this [manner of
halakhic investigation, exploring multiple opinions] is the path of Torah, and
“these and those are the words of the Living God.” (Elon, Mishpat HaIvri,
37)
A fascinating contrast is to be found in the
writings of two cotemporary religious leaders, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi
Yitzhak Hutner. The former, world-renowned halakhic decisor of our generation,
utilizes the expression “these and those are the words of the Living God,” but
nevertheless posits that one argument may ultimately be more correct than the
others:
And this is the matter
concerning all of the disputes of our earlier and later sages, when one forbade
and the other permitted: whenever the [law] was not resolved in accordance with
one [of them], any [rabbi] could rule in his locality in accordance with his
logic, even though the true law is only in accordance with one of them…Both are
the words of the Living God, but the real truth, revealed before heaven, is
only like one of them.
Nevertheless, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein insists that
with regard to reciting the blessings on learning Torah and fulfilling the
commandment to study Torah, no differentiation should be made between texts
containing majority opinions and texts containing minority opinions. All Torah
texts are worthy since “these and those are the words of the Living God” (Iggrot
Moshe, Orah Haim 4:9, 24).
Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner, on the other hand, accepts
the talmudic view that disputes arose as a result of insufficient study or
forgetfulness, a view which we initially equated with the monistic approach to
halakha. Nevertheless, he resoundingly affirms the positive role of disputes in
enlarging the scope of Torah and initiating novel ideas therein. He even reads
into this view of the origin of halakha a bold concept of halakhic pluralism:
Sometimes, the
nullification of Torah is its very confirmation, as it is written, “the tablets
which you have broken.” [God said to Moses], “May your strength increase
because you have bro- ken them; the act of breaking the tablets is an act of
confirming the Torah through its nullification.” Our sages have said, “Were the
tablets not broken, Torah would not have been forgotten in Israel” (Eruvin
54a); we find therefore that the breaking of the tablets contains an aspect of
forgetting of the Torah. We learn from this an awesome and novel idea: it is
possible for Torah to be increased through its having been forgotten, and it is
possible to be blessed with increased strength because of the Torah having been
forgotten!
Go out and see what our
sages have taught: three hundred laws were forgotten during the mourning period
for Moses, and Otniel ben Kenaz restored them with his logic and casuistry (Temura
16a). And even more than that: every dispute in halakha stems from the fact
that Torah was forgotten, and nevertheless our sages declared, “Even though
these purify and those defile, these invalidate and those permit, these exempt
and those obligate, these and those are the words of the Living God.” Hence,
all different opinions and differing views contribute to the growth of Torah
and its majesty, which…is emphasized to a greater extent by the Oral Law which
is revealed in disputes rather than by agreement, because “these and those are
the words of the Living God” includes the principle that even the rejected view
in halakha remains Torah knowledge as long as it was expressed as part of the
give-and-take of the Oral Law…and if there will be a vote afterwards and the
decision is in accordance with the rejected view, from then on halakha will be
different in truth.
The “battles” within
Torah are not simply one of many possible ways of (acquiring) Torah, but rather
the positive creation of new Torah values which cannot be found in the words of
Torah… And the two sides which clash in halakha become partners in the creation
of a new Torah value whose name is “the battle of Torah.” (Pahad Yitzhak,
Hanukka pp. 36–37)
Despite all this, pluralism is obviously not
open-ended. Starting with the biblical story of the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil which opens the Book of Genesis and serves as an introduction to
the entire Torah, it is clear that God demands that the definition of what is
good and what is evil must emanate from an objective source beyond the
subjective individual. Indeed, even though the fruit was “good to eat, a
temptation to the eyes, and a desirable way to gain wisdom,” the Almighty
nevertheless decided that it was evil to partake of it. And from the talmudic
period until the Emancipation, the partners to the “these and those are the
words of the Living God” disputes each accepted upon themselves an external and
objective halakha. Submission to a higher autonomous system was the axiom of
halakhic dispute. Hence, a non- Orthodox system cannot claim halakhic
legitimacy under the rubric of “these and those are the words of the Living
God.” While we may certainly learn from serious Jews of any or no religious
persuasion, both tradition and logic dictate that halakhic legitimacy can only
be accorded to those who accept upon themselves the axioms upon which the
halakhic system is based.
Although a non-halakhic theological system
cannot claim for itself a voting voice in a forum of halakhic discourse, I
believe it is crucial that the tent of Orthodoxy be as broad, open, and
inviting as possible. Even a halakhic position which the Orthodox majority
rejects, but which, nevertheless, has a legitimate halakhic basis to rely upon,
should be given due consideration.
Within the world of halakhic Judaism, the most
striking affirma-tion of the benefits of a pluralistic approach is to be found
in the words of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook, in Olat Re’iya,
volume 1, p. 336:
The multiplicity of
views which arise as a result of the differences of personalities and
educational backgrounds is specifically the fact which most enriches and
broadens wisdom. Ultimately, all issues will be properly understood, and it
will be recognized that it would have been impossible for the Building of Peace
[the Third Temple] to have been erected had it not been for all those
influences which appeared to have been in conflict.
According to Rabbi Kook, it is the sum total of
many different ideas and ideologies which will ultimately lead to a shared
vision that expresses true peace; the authentic symphony is the product of many
different musical instruments melding together in majestic harmony.

[1] It is interesting to
note that according to Rabbi Ben-Zion Uziel, the first Sephardic chief rabbi of
the State of Israel, in his Piskey Uziel (page 26, siman 10), Rashi
would permit two different courts – for example, Sephardic and Ashkenazic – in
one city, since he explains the prohibition of making divisions “lest it appear
that we are acting in accordance with two Torahs” (Rashi on Yevamot 13b)
and different communal customs do not suggest two Torahs. Maimonides, on the
other hand, would prohibit this since he maintains that the prohibition of
making divisions, “that there not be two courts in one city, this one in accord
with this custom and that one in accord with that custom, for this matter
causes great dissension” (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Avoda Zara, chapter 12,
law 14). Rabbi Avraham Yitzĥak HaKohen Kook, in Ezrat Kohen, siman 103,
par. 17, rules that the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities in one city are
separate, and the prohibition of making halakhic divisions does not apply to
them. Rabbi Kook cites the Shakh to Yoreh De’ah 242, who limits the
prohibition, “Do not slice yourselves up” to dissension within the same court
in one city.


Marc B. Shapiro – Forgery and the Halakhic Process

Forgery and the Halakhic Process
by Marc B. Shapiro


What is the role of academic learning in the determination of halakhah? In particular, I am referring to knowledge which is not available to the posek and which would affect his halakhic decision. This is, of course, a wide-ranging issue of which I will only discuss one aspect here, that relating to forgery. However, since the issue of the Mosaic text and R. Moshe Feinstein is relevant here, and I mentioned both of them in my last posting, let me make a few brief preliminary comments on this.


In The Limits of Orthodox Theology I quoted the following comment of R. Bezalel Naor, who was quoting his teacher, the Gaon R. Shlomo Fisher of Jerusalem: “The truth, known to Torah scholars, is that Maimonides’ formulation of the tenets of Jewish belief is far from universally accepted.” For those who don’t know, R. Fisher is one of the gedolim of our time, and you can see many of his shiurim on yeshiva.org.il. Many of these shiurim focus on Talmud (and he has published the great rabbinic work, Beit Yishai), but R. Fisher is also the only one of our gedolim who is an expert in Jewish philosophy. This explains why his Derashot Beit Yishai are very different than other collections of derashot. Professor Zev Harvey told me that from R. Fisher’s edition of Crescas’ Or ha-Shem, it is clear that he used Wolfson’s Hebrew text found in Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle.[1]

Someone I know currently attends R. Fisher’s weekly shiur on Avnei Miluim, the last half-hour of which is devoted to issues of hashkafah. Interestingly enough, he reported to me that a few weeks ago R. Fisher declared that he believes the Rambam abandoned his system of 13 Principles, the proof being that they are never mentioned as a unit in the Mishneh Torah.[2] In my book, I noted that R. Shlomo Goren held the same view. R. Goren also makes another interesting point, that while in the Commentary on the Mishnah Maimonides requires one to actually believe in certain principles, in the Mishneh Torah he only requires you not to deny any principles. One who has never heard of a principle obviously does not believe in it, which makes him a heretic according to the Commentary on the Mishnah. But according to the Mishneh Torah, since this person does not actually deny the principle, he is not regarded as a heretic.


Getting back to R. Moshe, as is well known, he ruled that the Commentary of R. Yehudah he-Hasid was a forgery, as he could not imagine that a rishon would acknowledge that there were some post-Mosaic passages in the Torah.[3] Only after my book appeared did Rabbi Naor tell me that the comment I quoted above in the name of R. Fisher was stated precisely with reference to R. Moshe’s positon on this issue. After R. Moshe banned R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s Commentary, R. Fisher commented that R. Moshe assumes that R. Yehudah he-Hasid has to accept the Rambam’s Principles, but in truth there were many disagreements with the Rambam, and R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s position on Mosaic authorship is one of them.

Along these lines, I read a recent shiur by R. Moshe Zuriel, a well-known baal machashavah in which he affirmed that all must accept the Thirteen Principles. I wrote to him asking what he would say about those who accepted the views of sages who disagreed with the Rambam, and I specifically referred to Ibn Ezra’s (exoteric) position that the last twelve verses were written by Joshua, which is a rejection of Maimonides’ insistence in the Eighth Principle that the entire Torah is Mosaic. He replied (emphasis added):

ודאי אני מודה שהסומך על ראב”ע (או אברבנאל וכיו”ב) ביחס לפסוקים הנוספים, איננו
נחשב לכופר, והוא נחשב ישראל . . . וכן כל דבר שיש מחלוקת ראשונים
In fact, in addition to the sources I cited in my book, Ralbag also says something interesting in this regard. Joshua 24:6 states:
ויכתב יהושע את הדברים האלה בספר תורת א-להים
Regarding this verse, the Talmud records a view that the reference is to the last eight verses of the Torah. But Ralbag explains it as referring to different verses:

ויכרת יהושע ברית לעם: על זה להיותם עובדים את ה’ ולהשאיר זכר לזה המעשה למען יבושו ישראל אם יסורו מאחרי ה’ כתב יהושע את הדברים האלה בספר תורת הא-להים

Another relevant source, which I also recently found, is R. Solomon David Sassoon, who wrote as follows (Natan Hokhmah li-Shelomo, p. 106; emphasis in original):

הדגש הוא על מה שאומר כי משה אמר זה מפי עצמו, אבל אם יאמר פסוקים אלה נביא אחר כתב אותם מפי הגבורה ומודה שקטע זה הוא מן השמים ומפי הגבורה, אדם שאומר כך אינו נקרא אפיקורוס, מה שהגדיר אותו כאפיקורוס אינו זה שאמר שלא משה כתב את הקטע אלא בזה שהוא אומר שדבר שזה מדעתו ומפי עצמו אמרו ושאין זה מן השמים

According to R. Sassoon, one who believes that parts of the Torah were written by a post-Mosaic prophet is not a heretic. (In another post I might speak more about the great R. Sassoon and his unique family.)

One of the strange passages in R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s Commentary is his assertion that the Hallel ha-Gadol (Psalm 136) was originally part of the Pentateuch and was later removed by David and placed in the Book of Psalms. In my book I note that this idea is also found in both R. Avigdor Katz (a rishon) and R. Menahem Zioni. I wrote: “Apparently, there was some tradition regarding this verse, the source and nature of which is unknown.” After my book appeared, R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer published his Hadar Yaakov, vol. 1. On page 39, he notes that in two works of R. Eleazer ben Judah of Worms (the Rokeah), he mentions that Hallel ha-Gadol was recited by the Israelites at the Red Sea, a notion that is not found in extant rabbinic literature. (In Pesahim 117a it states that they recited the regular Hallel.) In R. Eleazar’s Siddur, p. 214, he cites Seder Olam as the source for this tradition. The editors refer the reader to Seder Olam Rabbah, yet nothing relevant appears there. Either R. Eleazar had a different version or he was referring to another book with this title. What is important for our purposes is that this tradition ties in with what is quoted by R. Yehudah he-Hasid and R. Avigdor Katz, even though the Rokeah doesn’t mention anything about this section being removed by David. Hopefully, more research into the writings of Ashkenazic rishonim will further illuminate matters.

Let me now speak of another issue, not of falsely ascribing forgery where there is none, but accepting as authentic that which is actually a forgery. The classic example is, of course, Besamim Rosh. There is no doubt that the volume is a forgery. There are those who have believed that at least some of the responsa are authentic, but it is more likely that the non-controversial material is a smokescreen for the controversial responsa. I plan to write an article about Besamim Rosh so I will not now reveal an internal proof, arrived at by use of a computer, that the book is a forgery. In an earlier article, I called attention to the fact that the Besamim Rosh assumes that a suicide has no share in the world to come, which is a popular 18th century conception, but not found among Ashkenazic or Sephardic rishonim.[4]

There is a talmid hakham, Rabbi Reuven Amar, who republished the Besamim Rosh and argues in his introduction that Saul Berlin was one of the gedolim. For all of his talmudic learning, Amar is very ignorant in this matter. He knows nothing about the history of Berlin and his haskalah ties. If he did, he would not have wanted to defend him. Yet Amar did know that many halakhic authorities quoted the Besamim Rosh, and he therefore wanted to turn it into a kosher book.

The problem Amar was faced with is what concerns me. What is one supposed to do with pesakim that rely on the Besamim Rosh? Fortunately, there can’t be many. In fact, offhand, I don’t know of any responsum in which a decision is based entirely, or even heavily, on Besamim Rosh, so that if you took this work away the decision would fall.

However, this is not the case with another forgery, as here the forgery is cited by all halakhic authorities of the last 140 years. I am referring to the Sefer ha-Eshkol, attributed to Rabbi Abraham ben Isaac. It was published by Rabbi Zvi Benjamin Auerbach (1808-1878), one of the leading German rabbis of his time. He was also the most prominent member of the famous Auerbach rabbinic family, which together with the Bamberger and Carlebach families (the ABCs, as they were known) were the most prominent rabbinic families in Germany.

According to Auerbach, his Sefer ha-Eshkol came from a Spanish manuscript. The work quickly became popular among scholars and was adorned with Auerbach’s commentary Nahal Eshkol, which is a mine of rabbinic knowledge. It came as quite a shock when in 1909, many years after Auerbach had died, the great scholar R. Shalom Albeck accused him of having invented the story of the Spanish manuscript in order to enable him to forge the work. This accusation aroused a great storm and four of the leading Orthodox scholars – David Zvi Hoffmann, Abraham Berliner, Jacob Schor, and Hanokh Ehrentreau – rushed to defend Auerbach, publishing the booklet Tzidkat ha-Tzadik (Berlin, 1910).

It is obvious that Auerbach’s defenders never gave Albeck’s charge any serious consideration. In their eyes, the fact that Auerbach was universally regarded as a tzadik, as well as one of the gedolim of Germany, rendered the accusation invalid from the start. There was no way they could impartially consider the evidence. In their mind they knew that for a pious Jew, some things are just impossible. Albeck responded to Tzidkat ha-Tzadik with the booklet Kofer ha-Eshkol (Warsaw, 1911), which explains how Albeck knew that the work is a forgery. In discussing the dispute between the four scholars on one side, and Albeck on the other, R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin[5] showed which side he was on.


אחד מול ארבעה – וההרגשה היא, שהנצחון לצדו של האחד

As far as I know, every academic scholar who has examined the evidence has concluded that Albeck is correct, and Auerbach’s Sefer ha-Eshkol is a forgery. This is so despite the defense of Auerbach by Issachar Dov (Bernard) Bergman in his essay in the Joshua Finkel Festschrift (New York, 1974;[6] it also appears in Sefer ha-Eshkol, vol. 4 [Jerusalem, 1986]).[7]

Needless to say, the supposed Spanish manuscript has never been found. In the words of Prof. Haym Soloveitchik, “Auerbach’s Eshkol appears as a clear forgery, incorporating arguments found in sixteenth, seventeenth, and even eightennth-century writings. . . . [The work] should not be used for historical purposes.[8] For this reason, I criticized Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar for citing Auerbach’s Eshkol in their Giyur u-Zehut Yehudit.[9] R. Bezalel Naor writes:
I was told the following anecdote by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein. Licthenstein’s father-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Baer Soloveitchik (of Boston) expressed to Rabbi [Hayyim] Heller his amazement that the same obscure opinion of Mordecai in Niddah was to be found in the Eshkol, to which his mentor Hayyim Heller responded: “That is all?! You can find in Auerbach’s Eshkol a peckel Peri Megadims.” (Yiddish, a pack of Peri Megadim). . . . Prof. S.Z. Leiman informs me he found other irregularities in Auerbach’s historical works.”[10]
The late Prof. Israel M. Ta-Shma assumed that Auerbach’s Eshkol is a fourteenth-century forgery that he innocently published.[11] In discussing the issue, Ta-Shma makes the following incredible statement:

לדעתי עשה זאת משה די ליאון, וכך שמעתי גם מפי חברי פרופ’ י. זוסמן

De Leon is commonly said to have died in 1305, so unless the forgery was done at the very end of his life, we would be dealing with a 13th century forgery. In his Ha-Nigleh she-ba-Nistar, p. 144 n. 203, Ta Shma indeed writes

ויש רגליים לדבר כי זיופו, במגמה לקרבו לספר הזהר ותכניו, נעשה כבר במאה הי”ג

Yet Ta-Shma’s assumption doesn’t take into account that Auerbach’s Eshkol almost certainly contains material from later centuries. Furthermore, Ta-Shma ignored the well-founded assumption Auerbach forged other documents. According to Moshe Samet, some of Auerbach’s forgeries were actually designed to further a Neo-Orthodox agenda.[12] (It is well known that people who forge rarely do so once. Rather, seeing that they got away with it, they continue in this path, getting some sort of perverse pleasure from fooling the world.)

In Mordechai Breuer’s Modernity Within Tradition, p. 202, in discussing Orthodox scholarship and how it was often not rated highly by others because of its binding preconceptions, he writes:

One such example was the attempt of some scholars, especially R. Kirchheim in Frankfurt and Schalom Albeck in Poland, to expose the chief scholarly work of the late Rabbi B.H. Auerbach of Halberstadt (Ha-Eshkol, with commentary and notes, Nahal Eshkol, Halberstadt, 1861), as a plagiarism and a forgery. In spite of certain discrepancies in Auerbach’s work, this attempt failed after his defenders could prove that the attacks had not been free of prejudice.

In Between The Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 77 n. 8, I responded to this as follows:

Breuer seems to be mistaken in pointing to the dispute over the authenticity of B. H. Auerbach’s edition of the Eshkol as an example of this phenomenon [i.e., Orthodox scholarship being looked down on]. To begin with, the main assault on Auerbach was led by Shalom Albeck (1858-1920), himself an Orthodox Jew. Secondly, this dispute had nothing to do with dogma interfering with scholarship, but was simply a question of whether Auerbach had forged the text. Finally, it is not so clear that Albeck’s attempt failed, as Breuer would have it. On the contrary, the authenticity of Auerbach’s edition is still highly questionable.
When I wrote this paragraph I didn’t want to appear disrespectful to Prof. Breuer, which is why I used soft language. In truth, as far as scholars of medieval halakhic literature are concerned, Albeck was entirely successful. As I note above, the attack of Albeck on Auerbach had nothing to do with the sort of “Orthodox scholarship” Breuer was referrring to, and which was subject to criticism by non-Orthodox scholars. Albeck wasn’t attacking Auerbach because of his supposed Orthodox close-mindedness.

Yet the point Breuer makes actually has relevance to another aspect of this dispute, and here I refer to the defense of Auerbach by the four scholars. Here we do find dogma of a sort, since they make it clear in their defense that the whole accusation is ipso facto invalid, and they even cite the Rambam, Commentary to Avot 1:6, that if you see a tzaddik do something that looks like a sin, you must assume that there is a reasonable explanation, even if it is very far-fetched.

Albeck’s response to this is that the Rambam is referring to a tzaddik who commits a sin between him and God, but not someone who


מתעה את לבות גדולי ישראל מורי ההלכה ודורשי החכמה, ודאי מצוה וחובה על כל איש המכיר בו, להוציא את בלעו מפיו, למען יהיה לאות לבני מרי, ולא יוסיפו לחלל ש”ש ולזייף את התורה

The issue mentioned by Albeck, that of the poskim being misled by a forgery, is what I would now like to raise. What is one to do if one sees that a posek has decided a halakhah based on the forged Eshkol? Is this person obligated to reject the pesak, or can he rely on the authority of the posek, even though the posek himself was misled. This obviously has implications for the use of the Zohar in pesak as well, as the poskim regard it as a tannaitic work. Yet I think everyone outside of the haredi community who has studied the issue assumes that it is a medieval work.

Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg raised a similar concern with regard to the Shulhan Arukh. There are certain halakhot which are based on false readings. He wondered if in a case like this we have to establish a new halakhah, or since we have accepted the Shulhan Arukh’s ruling we don’t change the halakhah but rather find a different justification for it.

Some might also see some connection with another position of R. Weinberg. As I noted in my book. R. Tam’s states that sex with a Gentile does not cause a woman to become forbidden to her husband. R. Weinberg had ethical problems with the reason R. Tam gives, and I don’t think it goes too far to say that he thought that, from our modern perspective, R. Tam’s justification is to be regarded as immoral.[13] Yet I also note that in seeking to find a heter for a woman who committed adultery with a non-Jew to return to her husband he is prepared to make use of R. Tam’s position.[14] I don’t think this raises any problems, since at the end of the day, R. Tam’s position is part of the halakhic tradition. If it can be used to to reach a lenient decision, then it serves a purpose, even if the contemporary posek doesn’t agree with the underlying assumptions of R. Tam’s pesak (Parallel to this is the widely accepted view that there is nothing wrong with using information derived from Nazi experiments on humans if it can help people. Obviously, everyone agrees that the experiments should never have been carried out, but once they were, the information can be used) As I said, I don’t see this as problematic, but I mention it since some might see it as an inconsistency in R. Weinberg.

An example which is more directly relevant is the following. In June of this year Prof. David Berger gave a presentation at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah on Jewish views of Christianity (as well as how to relate to Chabad). In his discussion of Christianity he explained the concept of shittuf, first mentioned by the Tosafists, and how in its original meaning it did not mean that non-Jews are permitted to believe in one God divided into different parts. Those who want the details on this can see Katz’ discussion in Exclusiveness and Tolerance. Katz was the first academic scholar to point to what he regarded as the common misinterpretation of the Tosafot. In addition, a number of poskim have concluded similarly, most notably the son of the Noda bi-Yehudah, whose responsum was published in his father’s work.

In my response to Berger I asked the following question (addressing myself to him):

You are certain that the common understanding of Tosafot is mistaken. Yet this understanding became the standard for poskim in Western Europe. It is also shared by the Rama. Do you feel that there is anything wrong with someone who agrees with you as to the historical truth nevertheless relying on those poskim who misinterpreted the Tosafot? In other words, do the decisions of the poskim based on Tosafot have independent validity even if their interpretation of Tosafot is incorrect?[15a]
Prof. Berger replied that he did not regard as illegitimate to rely on a pesak even if from the standpoint of historical scholarship, the pesak is incorrect. In the case we were discussing, one could legitimately rely on heterim which are based on the notion that according to Tosafot Gentiles are not obligated in shittuf, even though from a historical, i.e., factual perspective, Tosafot never said this. Historical truth and halakhic pesak thus occupy different realms.

While I understand Berger’s point, I think some reading this might be very uncomfortable with such a notion, namely, that one can have a historical truth and a halakhic truth, with the two being at odds with each other; or to put it another way, that a halakhic truth can be based on a historical error and yet still have validity. This brings us dangerously close to the old Latin Averroist notion of “double truth.” [15b]


Returning to Auerbach’s Eshkol, I am aware of only one posek who has refused to grant it any validity, and I daresay that the overwhelming majority of poskim are not even aware that it has been subject to controversy. The posek I am referring to is Rabbi Yitzhak Ratsaby. For those who don’t know, R. Ratsaby is one of the leading – if not the leadiing – Yemenite posek in Israel. He is an incredible scholar whose many works are particularly valuable as he records a variety of Yemenite practices and quotes from relatively unknown Yemenite writings, including from manuscript. He comes from the Kabbalah-friendly Yemenites, as uses the appellation of אחר in referring to R. Joseph Kafih. [16] Reflecting the typical haredi outlook, when he needs to refer to R. Kook, he writes “הרא”ק.” Doing so denies R. Kook the rabbinic titles given other great rabbis, and also spares haredi eyes from even seeing the name “Kook” in print.[17] Most haredi readers won’t even recognize who he is referring to. This is particularly unfortunate as it was R. Kook who stood together with many of the great Yemenite rabbis in opposing R. Yihye Kafih’s anti-Kabbalah stand. In Emunat ha-Shem, the volume published against R. Yihye Kafih, R. Kook’s two letters appear at the beginning. R. Kook is referred to as

רבנו הכהן הגדול נר ישראל וקדושו גדול הדור ונזרו מרן

R. Ratsaby is an example of how Ashkenazic haredi extremism and close-mindedness has also influenced those who do not come from this tradition.

Despite this flaw, there are many very interesting things in his works. Because my last post dealt with issues of dogma, let me refer to what R. Ratsaby states in Olat Yitzhak vol. 2 no. 259. He refers to the list of 24 heretics with no share in the world to come, enumerated by Rambam in Hilkhot Teshuvah, ch. 3. Among those are people who say there is no God, or there is more than one god – in other words, classic heretics. But according to R. Ratsaby, even though these people are heretics with no share in the world to come, that doesn’t mean that they can’t fulfill someone else’s religious obligation. As R. Ratsaby puts it

אפילו אותן עשרים וארבעה והנוספים עליהם שברור ומוסכם שאין להן חלק לעוה”ב, לא שמענו שאינן מוציאין אחרים ידי חובתן בברכות וכיוצא בזה, דסוף סוף הוא מחוייב בדבר וכל המחוייב מוציא יד”ח

R. Ratsaby is not referring to allowing such a person to daven for the amud, for which someone must be a proper Jew. Rather, he is speaking of the halakhah per se, i.e., if a heretic can be motzi someone else. I think the instinctive response of people would be that, of course, someone who is a heretic cannot be motzi someone else, and R. Moshe Feinstein states so explicitly. R. Ratsaby removes the issue from one of belief, and instead focuses on the obligation.which all Jews share.

In this same teshuvah, R. Ratsaby also points out something else quite interesting. Following the list of the twenty four who have no share in the world to come, Rambam gives a list of another group who, if they persist in certain evil actions (e.g., embarrassing someone in public, shaming scholars, etc.) also have no share in the world to come. He quotes R. Avraham ben ha-Rambam (hiddushim at the beginning of Ma’aseh Rakah) who cites his father as explaining that the way this works is that someone who is accustomed to do such bad things things will, almost of necessity, not be inclined to do what needs to be done to achieve immortality. In fact, it is much more likely that he will be led to those sins that really do deprive you of the world to come. But one should not take what Rambam writes literally, namely, that these sins by themselves cause one to lose his share in the world to come.


Returning to the Eshkol, many years ago I was studying R. Ratsaby’s Olat Yitzhak, vol. 1, and on page 410 I came across the following:

לענ”ד אין לחוש לדברים מחודשים שבספר זה שהוא בחשש גדול של זיוף, ואין להכחיש מה שהלב מרגיש

I found this quite amazing, since I knew of no other posek that recognized what modern scholars had determined. I was curious if he came to this on his own or had read Albeck’s pamphlet. He replied to me on 13 Iyar 5750


חשד הזיוף אצלי הוא מתוך העיון בדברים החדשים שם בקרב הראשונים ולקוחים מדברי אחרים (מה שראיתי דר”כ [=דרך כלל] היה לקוח מהבית יוסף) וגם הסגנון, שחנני השי”ת להכיר כזאת בטביעות-עין והלואי שאני טועה, אבל רחוק בעיניי מלצרפו עכ”פ לענין הלכה. ספר כופר האשכול לא בא לידי


I wrote back to him asking why, if he regards Auerbach as a forger, does he cite the Nahal Eshkol. He replied

נחל אשכול שאני מביא על אף החשד שלי נגד ספר האשכול גופו משום שאין לפסול גוף הדברים אם הם ניתנים להאמר מצד עצמם, רק לא לסמוך על ספר האשכול כמשקל בהכרעה בהלכה

R. Ovadiah Yosef offers the same justification in his haskamah to Amar’s 1983 edition of Besamim Rosh

חרף הביקורת שנמתחה על הספר “בשמים ראש”, במילי מעלייתא דאית ביה דרשינן

The last words come from Sanhedrin 100b, where R. Joseph says about the book of Ben Sira, “we may expound the good things it contains.” It would seem that using this logic, there can be no objection to studying the talmudic commentaries and halakhic writings of non-Orthodox rabbis, since one might find there a good argument or explanation of the sources. After all, Saul Berlin, the forger of Besamim Rosh, was a subversive, trying to destroy traditional Judaism from within. This makes him much worse than the typical Reform rabbi who has nothing to do with the Orthodox.


The summer is fast coming to an end, and with it, my free time to write things like this. But I have a number of other examples of forgery which I might post here, if people are interested (I am saving my examples of censorship for the book which I am hard at work on). Many people have told me that they like my “derekh agavs,” so I threw a lot of them in here, and I apologize to those who don’t like the many tangents.


Appendix


Since I don’t know when I will have a chance to write a new introduction to my book, and it is once again in the news with Rabbi Leff’s review, let me quote the following passages from R. Kook’s Shemonah Kevatzim 1:30-31 (I hope that R. Kook is still an acceptable authority for Jewish Action). Two important things stand out. First, while not condoning orthopraxy, R. Kook states that one who is observant, despite the fact that he denies ikkarim, is to be regarded as an erring Jew, not as a heretic. R. Kook’s position is a complete rejection of the idea that people who are shomrei Torah u-mitzvot can be read out of the fold and be regarded as heretics because of their incorrect beliefs. The second important point is that he rejects the Rambam’s entire theological conception of Principles of Faith and alligns himself with the Ra’avad, showing once again that the Rambam’s position has not attained unanimity.

אף על פי שהטעות בדברים האלהיים הוא דבר מזיק עד מאוד, מכל מקום אין עיקר ההיזק הנמשך מהמושגים המשובשים יוצא אל הפועל, עד כדי להמית את בעליו מיתת נשמה, רק כשהוא מתגלם במעשים, או לפחות כשהוא יורד לתוך דעות ורגשות כאלה שסופן מוכרח להתגלות במעשים. אבל כל זמן שהדבר עומד בצורתו המופשטת, אין כאן עקירה עקרית
ובזה הננו קרובים לסברת הראב”ד, שהשיג על הרמב”ם במה שקרא למי שמאמין ההגשמה באלהות מין. ונוכל להסכים, שכל זמן שאותו המגשם לא יעשה לו פסל ותמונה, הרי לא גמר את מחשבתו, ונשארה היא עדיין בחוג הרוח שלא תוכל להיות נכללת בשם עקירה ויציאה מן הדת

In a wide-ranging article which deals among other things with R. Kook’s view of heresy, the important scholar R Yoel Bin Nun[19] explains why R. Kook rejected the Rambam’s approach to heresy. R. Bin Nun also states that if you take what the Rambam says seriously, the Rambam himself, if he were alive today and saw how Aristotelian science has been overthrown, would not regard people who disagreed with his principles as heretics. In R. Bin Nun’s words (emphasis added):[19]

שיטת הרמב”ם ברורה: יסוד שתלוי באמונה, ואין בו הוכחה שכלית, וכל החכמים מתווכים עליו, אי אפשר להגדיר את מי שאינו מאמין בו כ”כופר” או כ”מין”. עצם העובדה שהדבר נתון בוויכוח שכלי בין החכמים מאפשר ומחייב לבנות על עולם האמונה, אך אינו מאפשר לשפוט ולדון את הכופרים. רק ודאות שכלית מוחלטת מאפשרת לדון אדם כמזיד בשאלות של אמונה וידיעה

In other words, according to R. Bin Nun there is no justification today for calling people heretics because they reject one (or more) of the Thirteen Principles.[20] (when he refers to hakhamim disputing matters, he is not referring to Torah scholars, but the general scientific-intellectual world). Whether R. Bin Nun is correct in his analysis of Rambam is not my purpose at present; I only wish to show that this outstanding rabbinic figure has a very tolerant view, one which rejects the Thriteen Principles as determining who is a heretic.

Notes:
A future post will deal with other issues of this controversy, and at that time S. Z. Havlin’s article on the issue in Yeshurun vol. 13 will be discussed.

[1] Professor Isadore Twersky once mentioned in class that although this book’s title should have mentioned Maimonides, in 1929 Harvard University Press would not publish a book with such a title. In this regard, he also called attention to the title of Sarah Heller Wilensky’s doctoral dissertation, “The Teaching of Issac Arama in the Framework of Philonic Philosophy.” This, too, is a false title, and the subject of the dissertation is seen more clearly by the title of the Hebrew book: R. Yitzhak Arama u-Mishnato. As Twersky explained, Harvard’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations did not want a dissertation on a Spanish Jewish thinker unless it was given a more universal theme, hence the “Philonic Philosophy,” an allusion to Wolfson’s theory of philosophy, but this was put in just for show. Incidentally, Fisher’s edition of Or ha-Shem is responsible for my taking credit as being the only student ever to have made Prof. Twersky laugh in class. It was the 1990-1991 year and we were studying Crescas in his seminar. Twersky would often ask me to read, during the course of which he would often correct my pronounciation. When Fisher’s edition of Crescas appeared I immediately bought it and brought it to class. When Twersky called upon me to read, I replied that this time he wa not going to be able to correct my pronounciation. He asked, “why not?” to which I replied, holding up my new book, that I just purchased a new edition of Or ha-Shem, and it is “menikid.” This was too much for even the eternally staid Twersky, and he too was brought to a chuckle. (From inyana de-yoma, someone asked me if Noah Feldman studied with Prof. Twersky. He was not in any of Twersky’s seminars that year. He was, however, in Prof. Septimus’ seminar as well as that of Prof. Leiman, who was at Harvard in fall 1989 as a visiting scholar. In those years, long before he became famous [now, notorious] I would often tell people that one of my fellow students, an undergraduate taking graduate classes, was perhaps the most brilliant person I knew – a much better head than mine – and I have known many intellectual heavyweights. Yet I have read some people, who certainly don’t know him, describing Feldman as an expert in Shas and poskim. This is laughable. He has a great mind, and can grasp a Tosafot quicker than almost anyone, but he never spent any serious time in limudei kodesh after high school. I think my father best summed matters up after reading his article. He said: “Feldman may be very smart, but he isn’t very wise.”).

[2] R. Fisher has also expressed his support for the position of those rishonim – in opposition to the Rambam and R. Chaim Soloveitchik – who believe that one who, through no fault of his own, holds a heretical view is not to be regarded as a heretic.

[3] R. Moshe also detected a forgery in that R. Yehudah he-Hasid asks why homosexuality is forbidden, and then explains that the prohibition is to ensure that men procreate. According to R. Moshe, even asking such a question, and offering such a weak explanation, is a sign that the passage was not written by R. Yehudah he-Hasid but by a gay-friendly subversive. Yet as R. Chaim Rapoport points out, R. Yehudah he-Hasid is also quoted saying the same thing in the medieval Moshav Zekeinim al ha-Torah. Furthermore, the explanation he offers is also found in Ramban, Sefer ha-Hinnukh and Radbaz. See Rapoport, Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View (London, 2004), pp. 155-156.

[4] See my “Suicide and the World to Come,” AJS Review 18.2 (1993): 257 n. 54. Perhaps Prof. Shlomo Zalman Havlin will also use a computer to prove the forgery, much like he used a computer to show that R. Joseph Hayyim also wrote the book Torah li-Shma (link).

[5] Soferim u-Sefarim (Tel Aviv, 1959), p. 107.

[6] See also D. Simonsen, “Ueber die Vorlage des Sefer ha-Eshkol,” in Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Related Subjects in Memory of Abraham Solomon Freidus (New York, 1929), pp. 290-291.

[7] Israel M. Ta-Shma writes, concerning this defense (falsely attributing it to the editors of Sefer ha-Eshkol, vol. 4, rather than Bergman):

אולם לא מפיהם אנו חיים, ואילו זקוק היה הרב אויערבך להגנתם זו היה לוקה בכפלים

See Rabbi Zerahyah ha-Levi Ba’al ha-Meor u-Venei Hugo (Jerusalem, 1992), p. 40 n. 27.

[8] Haym Soloveitchik, “Review of Olam ke-Minhago Noheg, by Yishaq (Eric) Zimmer,” AJS Review 23.2 (1998): 227-228.

[9] See my “Review of Circles of Jewish Identity: A Study in Halakhic Literature by Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar,” AJS Review 27.1 (2003): 120-122.

[10] Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (Spring Valley, 1999), p. 209.

[11] Rabbi Zerahyah ha-Levi Ba’al ha-Meor u-Venei Hugo, pp. 40-41.

[12] He-Hadash Asur min ha-Torah (Jersualem, 2005), pp. 69-70, 152 n. 255.

[13] Regarding judging positions of rishonim as immoral, R. Shlomo Aviner writes (Am ve-Arzto (Jerusalem, 2002), vol. 2 pp. 436-437):

וברור שבהלכה פנים לכאן ולכאן. לכן כיוון שנתיבים אלה הם נתיבים מוסריים יותר, עלינו להכריע על פיהם. לפעמים ההלכה מוכרעת, בגלל שעת הדחק, ולפעמים ההלכה מוכרעת כי כך המנהג. אם כן, בימינו ‘המנהג’ הוא להיות מוסרי . . . שאלה: האם ראשונים אחרים, שלא סוברים כרש”י הם מוסריים פחות? תשובה: כולם מוסריים בתכלית המוסריות, אך יש גם מושגים מוסריים המשתנים על פי המציאות. אב הסוטר לבנו הקטן, אינו דומה לאב הסוטר לבנו בן השמונה עשרה. האם סטירת לחי לבנו היא מעשה מוסרי או לא מוסרי? תלוי בנסיבות. לא כל הכרעות הפוסקים הן הכרעות נצחיות. לכן מזכירים במשנה גם דעת יחיד כדי לסמוך עליה בעתיד (עדויות א, ה). במצבנו כיום ישנם שיקולים מוסריים שמצטרפים להכרעותינו ההלכתיות דוד המלך היה מודד אנשים בחבל, ובוודאי הוא ראה כורח מוסרי לנהוג כן. מרן הרב קוק מסביר, שלא היתה אז דרך אחרת להרתיע את הרשעים (איגרות א, ק). יתכן שבנסיבות שלנו, דוד לא היה נוהג כן

[14] Kitvei R. Weinberg, vol. 1, p. 58.

[15a] One should not assume that this is a verbatim transcription of my remarks, as they were not written out at the time.

[15b] Prof. Berger recently noted to Menachem Butler the following point: “At the same time, those realms [i.e., history and halakhah] are not so distinct that someone weighing the question of which position to adopt must, or even should, ignore his judgment about historical truth. Thus, I personally do not regard the pesak that Christianity is not avodah zarah for Gentiles as one I should adopt, even though it has desirable consequences. I do, however, grant legitimacy to an opinion affirmed by major authorities and do not quarrel with those who rely on it.”

[16] Olat Yitzhak, vol. 2, p. 51.

[17] See ibid., p. 440.

[18] See his biography at http://www.ykd.co.il/hebrew/hebrew.htm.

[19] “’Kahal Shogeg’ Hiloniyim ve-Hiloniyut be-Halakhah,” Akdamut 10 (2000), p. 263.

[20] For those who don’t have access to the article, I should note that when he refers to hakhamim disputing matters, he is not referring to Torah scholars, but the general scientific-intellectual world.



Tu Bishvat and The Symmetry Between Aesthetics and Eros

Tu Bishvat and The Symmetry Between Aesthetics and Eros
Based on a homily by R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz (1872-1937)[1] in Sha’ar Yessakhar, volume 2, p. 481-482 Translation[2] and Commentary by Shaul Magid

Professor Shaul Magid is the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies at Indiana University. This text was originally prepared for a text-study at a Tu Bishvat Seder at Temple Emunah in Lexington, MA on January 27, 2002. Sincere thanks goes out to Gloria Greenfield for her organizing the seder and for co-producing a beautiful Tu Bishvat Haggadah of which this was a part. Special thanks to the editors (and readers) of the Seforim blog for their gracious consideration of this essay. Professor Magid’s most recent book is Hasidism Incarnate Hasidism: Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford University Press, 2015), and his previous post at the Seforim blog is entitled: “‘Uman, Uman Rosh ha-Shana’: R. Nahman’s Grave as ErezYisrael”.

TEXT: In his collected sermons Bnei Yesakhar, Rabbi Zvi Elimelekh of Dinov (d. 1829)[3] mentions a rabbinic tradition that one should pray for a beautiful etrog on Tu Bishvat. Examining this custom, he invokes another rabbinic dictum stating that “the way of man (ish) is to pursue a woman (isha).” The word ish (man) shares the same numerical value as the word Shevat (311). Woman in this passage corresponds to the etrog because the etrog is the only one of the Four Species (lulav, aravah, hadasim, etrog) taken on Sukkot that carries the feminine gender in Hebrew. The mystical tradition also holds that the etrog represents the sephirah Malkhut (the feminine recipient of the other three Species). We can now re-read R. Zvi Elimelekh’s insight into the first rabbinic citation in light of the second. “It is the way of man” that is, the
essence of the month of Shevat, “to pursue a woman” i.e., a beautiful etrog.[4]
It is also the custom on Tu Bishvat to eat various types of fruit accompanied by the appropriate blessing “Borei Pri Ha-Etz” (Who blessed the fruit of the tree).[5] The Bnei Yesakhar interprets this custom in the following manner. Tu Bishvat falls exactly forty days before the creation of the world (according to the opinion of Rabbi Yehoshua that the world was created in Nisan and not in Tishrei). When God decided (“when the ThoughtWill went up in His Mind”) to create the world, this creative process began forty days before the actual creation.[6] The letters of the word “will” (razon) (RZN) are also the letters of the word “conduit” (zinor) (ZNR) as the Kabbalists noted. This means that the (idea of creation) descended through the Primordial Divine body (from the Mind, the sephirah Da’at- the source of the Will) through the spinal column (zinor) until it reached Yesod (the organ of creation). The blessing “Borei Pri Ha-Etz” occurs in Yesod (as it celebrates the fulfillment and telos of the fruit).[7] We have another tradition from the zaddikim that Tu Bishvat is a time for pro-creation in that it is a cosmic time when the willful act of creation begins in the Divine Mind.
COMMENTARY: Both of these short readings are focused on the attempt to integrate aesthetics and Eros as the two fundamental parts of the holiday of Tu Bishvat. Before pursuing a more detailed analysis of how this synthesis works, it should also be noted that the entire mystical, cosmic and psychic narrative that constitutes Hasidic discourse is rooted here in acute sensitivity to the changing natural environment. The mystics (including the Sabbateans, who were most probably the originators of the ritual of the Tu Bishvat Seder so common in popular Judaism in the late 20th century)[8] were very attuned to the changing hues of their environment and viewed this natural shift as responding to and reflecting the ever-changing cosmic world.
In our texts Tu Bishvat represents the Origin before the Beginning. That is, it marks the moment in the cyclical cosmic calendar when the Divine Will is conceived, initiating a process in the highest realm of the Godhead (the Divine Mind), which emanates and subsequently culminates in creation. The emulation of this process through human copulation and its cyclical manifestation in Tu Bishvat requires a closer look at the relationship between the aesthetic and the erotic in the Jewish mystical imagination. Our first text teaches that the innate human “will” toward Eros is a reflection of the aesthetic appreciation of nature by juxtaposing the prayer for an etrog on Tu Bishvat with the innate human need for conjugal union. “The way of man is to pursue a woman,” offers an opinion on the nature of human sexuality, however problematic such an assertion may be.[9]
The etrog stands out in the biblical and rabbinic tradition as one of the only religious objects (hefez shel mitzvah) where the aesthetic value of the object is the basis of its religious status (i.e., its kashrut). The etrog as a religious; object requires our aesthetic sense and appreciation because the viability of an etrog for ritual use demands that it is beautiful to its owner. This is the notion of hidur as a requisite category for the etrog. This is derived from the biblical description of the etrog as Pri Etz Hadar.[10] This Hasidic text suggests a correlation between the Eros of human sexuality and the aesthetic sensitivity required to use an etrog. Tu Bishvat is the time of year when the fragrance of spring, the colors of new life and the lengthening of days arouse both our artistic and romantic natures. As mentioned above, the mystics viewed the environmental transformation and its effect on human beings as having its roots in the cosmic realm. The expression of this correlation is accomplished by invoking the aesthetic appreciation of mitzvah (etrog) with the erotic realm sense necessary for creation/creativity.
The second text extends the central idea of beauty as creativity/creative-ness by viewing Tu Bishvat through the lens of the rabbinic disagreement on the date of creation. This is based on two oft-quoted rabbinic dicta. The first is the debate between R. Eliezer and R. Joshua as to whether the world was created in Nisan or Tishrei. The second is the statement that the human embryo is only ensouled 40 days after conception. R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira suggests that these two rabbinic dicta can aid in explaining the concealed nature of this apparently minor festival that, while mentioned in the Mishna (Tractate Rosh Ha-Shana 1:1),[11] has never resulted in any significant ritual activity until the 16m century.[12]
The initial forty-day period of gestation in the embryo before ensoulment is mystically rendered as simultaneously reflecting the process of emanation from Divine Will (Pure Thought) to Action (Creation) and from erotic human desire for love (Eros) to its fulfillment in conjugal union (pro-creation). His description of the descent from the Mind (Da’at) to the sexual organ (Yesod) reflects a common medieval medical belief that the male semen is rooted in the base of the brain (in Kabbala, the sephirah Da’at) and descends via the spinal column until it reaches the male sexual organ.[13] The will to create/procreate and the initial projection of that will toward action is rooted in the emotive faculty of the intellect, which reaches fulfillment in the consummation of the creative/conjugal act.[14] As mentioned in the text, both in the cosmic realm and the process of ensoulment in the human embryo, this process takes forty days.
Tu Bishvat falls forty days before the 25th of Adar, the first day of creation according to position that Nisan as the month of creation. This is because the first of Nisan, like the first of Tishrei, is the day of the creation of humankind, the telos, of the entire process of creation. This is the moment where the creative process begins_ in the Mind/Will of God, in the ethereal realm of Pure Thought. Thus, our author utilizes the kabbalistic wordplay Will (razon) and conduit (zinor) (each containing the same letters RZN), suggesting that Tu Bishvat represents the purely emotive impulse to create, the product of Eros, initiating a movement toward union that will conclude forty days later in the renewed act of creation, carrying with it all the implications of redemption.[15]
This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. The mystics, always looking to weave the cyc1e of the Jewish year into a seamless tapestry of erotic desire and consummation (both cosmic and human), correlate the 15th of the month of Shevat with the 15th of the month of Av, a neglected festival mentioned once in the Mishna. The similitude of these two minor festivals does not rest solely on the fact that both fall on the full moon. Rather, their correlation rests on their juxtaposition to the months of Nisan and Tishrei, the two months seen as the moment of “beginning” in rabbinic tradition. If we look to the other talmudic stance on the date of creation (Tishrei), we find that precisely forty days before the 25th of Elul (the first day of creation if Rosh Ha-Shana is the creation of Adam and Eve) is Tu B’Av (the 15th of the month of Av) which is mentioned in the last mishna in Tractate Ta’anit 4:8.
Said Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, There, were no festive days in Israel like the 15th of Av (Tu B’Av) and Yom Ha-Kippurim. On those days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out dressed in (identical) white garments, borrowed so as not to embarrass (the poor among them). All of the garments first underwent ritual immersion. The daughters of Israel would go out in circles in the vineyard. What would they say? “Young man – Do not be seduced by beauty, be drawn to lineage…
The Hasidic masters pick up the same line of reasoning we suggested about Tu Bishvat regarding Tu B’Av.[16] That is, Tu B’Av is the moment where the pure Thought of God (God’s initial act of volition) to create the world comes into being. Such a moment yields arousal of aesthetic beauty (“the maidens in the vineyard”) followed by the arousal of male Eros (“as the young men gaze upon them”). Tu Bishvat, according to our Hasidic text constitutes a similar arousal of emotion(s). However, on Tu Bishvat, marking the blossoming natural environment, initiates this willing for new life and the fulfillment of human desire played out in the relationship between Shevat (male) and the etrog (female). On this reading we are directed on Tu Bishvat to simultaneously submit to the natural changing of the seasons and respond to the cosmic moment of conception. The blessing “Borei Pri Ha-Etz” is not merely limited to the consumption of fruit but also points to the celebration of aesthetics and Eros, both of which are required in order to consummate human intimacy and creativity, divine Creation, and the final redemption that is conceived before creation and unfolds in the cyclical nature of the natural world.
NOTES:
[1] R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz, popularly known as the Minhat Elazar after the title of his book of halakhic responsa published in Munkacz and Pressberg 1903-1938, was a leader of Hungarian Hasidism in interbellum Hungary. Although most widely known for his adamant protest against Zionism, modernity and Agudat lsrael, he was a widely accepted halakhic authority, community leader, and Hasidic author. For the most detailed study of his thinking, see Alan Nadler, “The War on Modernity of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz,” Modern Judaism 14:3 (October 1994): 234-264. Cf. Samuel Ha­Kohen Weingarten, “Ha-Admor mi’Munkacz Rabbi Hayyim Elazar Shapira ‘Baal Techusha Bikoret’,” in Shana be-Shana (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 440-449, and Aviezer Ravitzky, Ha-Ketz Ha-Megueh Ha-Medinat Ha-Yehudim (Tel Aviv, 1993), pp. 60-74.
[2] I have attempted to remain fairly close to the original text in my translation although I have taken considerable liberty to elaborate at certain points. The parentheses are my insertions which do not appear in the text. Any Hasidic text eludes translation precisely because it often originate in an oral format and little attempt is made to transform it into a coherent literary. R. Shapira is particularly difficult to translate in that his discourse is highly referential, mentioning a word or phrase to imply an entire complex idea.
[3] R. Zvi Elimelekh of Dinov was the great-great grandfather of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira. He was a leader of Galician Hasidism in the early 19m century. We have four major collections of his sermons and teachings: Bnei Yessakhar (New York, 1946), Igra D’Kala (Munkacz, 1942), Igra D’Pirka (Lemberg, 1910) and Derekh Pekudekha (Lemberg, 1914). The uncritical but informative hagiography Ha-Rebbe Zvi Elimelekh mi-Dinov (Bnei Brak, 1972), by Nathan Orenter gives us a wealth of infonnation about his life. R. Hayyim Elazar often begins his discourses in Sha’ar Yesakhar with a citation from his great-great grandfather’s Bnei Yesakhar.
[4] See an abbreviated version of this in R. Yeheil Michel Geller, Darkhei Hayyim v’Shalom (the customs and practices of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira) (Jerusalem, 1960) p. 310. Darkhei Hayyim v’ Shalom also mentions the custom of eating a cooked etrog that was set aside after the
previous Sukkot. It is noted that R. Hayyim Elazar was stringent that the etrog should not be cooked before nightfall on the 15th of Shevat.
[5] This is likely taken from R. Avraham Avlei of Kalish, Magen Avraham to Shulhan Arukh ‘Orakh Hayyim # 131, citing Tikkun Yessakhar. While both Magen Avraham and R. Judah Askenazi’s Be’er Hetiv ad loc. mention that the custom of eating fruit only applies to Askenazi Jews, the anonymous Pri Etz Hadar (adopted from the Sabbatean Hemdat Yomim), p. I adds, “Sephardim also follow such a custom.” No reference is given for this addition.
[6] This forty day period is based on a rabbinic opinion, not universally accepted in rabbinic or post-rabbinic literature, that the ensoulment of a human embryo only occurs forty days after conception of the child.
[7] It is also the case that the word pri is also a term denoting part of the circumcision ritual called priah, or the peeling
away of the sides of the penis to reveal the crown. Thus the blessing of pri ha-etz could also be rendered to mean to disclosure of male Eros (“the way of man is to pursue woman).
[8] The most reliable and perhaps oldest text which elaborates on the ritual of the Tu Bishvat Seder is the anonymous Hemdat Yomim which is said to have probably been written either by Nathan of Gaza, Shabbatai Zevi’s closest disciple and leader of the movement after his death, or a member of his circle. It was probably first published in lzmir or Kushta although the publication date is not known.. The extant edition was published in Zolkiew two or three times between 1745-1762. Cf. Yizhak Isaac ben Ya’akov Ozar Ha-Seforim (Vilna, 1880), p. 193, # 678. A practical guide to the Tu Bishvat Seder, the anonymous Pri Etz Hadar (Jerusalem, 1968), includes various readings from the Zohar which accompany the eating of various types of fruit, all of which are interpreted according to the Lurianic tradition. This pamphlet largely adopts the mystical explanations of the festival given in Hemdat Yomim.
[9] The Kabbalists were not concerned with the biological or political nature of such dicta. They viewed such statements as teaching them something about the human condition in general which yielded a deeper understanding of the cosmic environment in which they lived.
[10] The rabbis, who offer various possibilities as to what it means, recognize the ambiguity of the word hadar. Beauty is one such rendering.
[11] The position of Tu Bishvat (the 15th of Shevat) as the “New Year for the Trees” is the position of Beit Hillel against Beit Shammai who argues for the first of Shevat. According to the structure of the Mishna alone, Beit Hillel’s position is problematic. The mishna delineates four “New Years”, each one beginning on the first day of a particular month. Only Beit Hillel suggests that regarding the New Year for the Trees, the 15th day as opposed to the first is appropriate. The Talmud explains that the disagreement is based upon meteorological estimations.
The disagreement rests on determining when most of the rain has fallen for that season. This would indicate at what time fruits would start to blossom and dictate when the appropriate tithes should be taken. Of course, this agricultural debate is completely irrelevant to our Hasidic author who takes the accepted rabbinic position (the 15th) and builds an entire cosmic edifice upon it.
[12] This may very well be due to the fact that its significance, at least in the talmudic understanding of the Mishna, only relates to Temple tithes and thus is legally inoperative. Again, the mystics are never willing to limit the significance of any event to its legalistic and ritualistic construct. It is therefore not surprising that Tu Bishvat is re-formulated and re-signified by the mystical tradition.
[13] R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira is most likely deriving this from The Zohar. See Zohar 1.15a, 2.2a and The Gershom Scholem’s Annotated Zohar (Jerusalem, 1992) p. 1512, cited and discussed in E.R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines (Princeton, 1989), p. 389 and n. 236. For this theory in medieval medicine see D. Jacqert and C. Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1980), p. 53ff.
[14] In light of this the mystical tradition suggests that the arousal of Eros in the human mind results in “forgetting” or loss of memory. In one Hasidic text, such a position was used to justify why Er and Onan, the sons of the biblical Judah, refused to consummate their relations with Tamar. Although the Torah is quite adamant about their wrongdoing, this text utilizes the above theory that they did not want to leave their perpetual state of devekut (communion with God) and thus refused to allow their mind to be re­ directed toward Eros. See R. Mordecai Joseph of lzbica, Mei Ha-Shiloah, vol. I, p. 15b,16a.
[15] This connection between renewed creation and redemption justifies the centrality of Tu Bishvat in the Sabbatean teaching as a celebration of the initial moment of the final unfolding of the messianic drama.
[16] Tu B’Av and Tu Bishvat are cited together in Shulhan Arukh ‘Orakh Hayyim # 131:6 regarding the custom to refrain from reciting supplication prayers (takhanun) on those days. Outside of the custom of Askenazi Jews to increase the consumption of fruit, there appears to be no other recognition of Tu Bishvat in the classical legal tradition outside of deleting takhanun.


Was Professor Saul Lieberman “Orthodox” or “Conservative”? [1]

Was Professor Saul Lieberman “Orthodox” or “Conservative”? [1]
by David Golinkin
Saul Lieberman (1898–1983) is universally regarded by Talmud scholars as the foremost talmudist of his generation, and some regard him as one of the foremost talmudists of all times.
Immanuel Low wrote to him in Hebrew in 1938: “In the depth of your articles there are many sparks of the spirit of the Gaon of Vilna.” E. S. Rosenthal wrote in Hebrew in 1963: “… until we can almost say about him: there was no king like him before him, according to his custom and his method.” Jacob Neusner, who later attacked Lieberman after Lieberman had panned Neusner’s Yerushalmi translation, wrote to Lieberman on December 10, 1981: “I am enjoying Hayerushalmi Kifshuto so much, that I wanted to tell you so…. It reminds me of why I have long ago concluded you are the greatest exegete of rabbinic texts of the twentieth century and among the true greats among the ones I have studied and used—of all times.” Yitzhak Rafael wrote in Hebrew in 1983: “I am not authorized nor do I dare assert that Professor Rabbi Saul Lieberman z”l was the greatest Talmud scholar in recent generations, but it seems that no one would attempt to dispute this assertion.” David Weiss Halivni wrote in 1986: “Professor Lieberman was not only a yahid b’doro, unique in his generation, but a yahid b’dorotav, unique in all generations.” Elijah Schochet wrote in 1988: “Rabbeinu Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna, was born on the first day of Pesah, 1720. Rabbeinu Shaul, our own Gaon, was laid to rest on the eve of Pesah, 1983. Between them, there was no other like Saul Lieberman.”[2]
Finally, in 2002, Israel Ta-Shema recounted an amazing story that took place in 1981, in which he asked Professor Lieberman a riddle about the Yerushalmi. Ta-Shema had heard the riddle from Rabbi Shlomo Goren in 1961 and since then had been unable to find the answer. Professor Lieberman spent about three minutes in silence, during which he opened one volume of the Yerushalmi and closed it. Finally he returned to the bookshelf, pulled out Yerushalmi Sotah 2:1, and showed Ta-Shema the correct answer. Lieberman later explained to Ta-Shema that “in my youth, I would have answered immediately that the answer is not in the Yerushalmi at all. But now that I am old, I do not rely on my memory, which is already weakened; and therefore I decided to flip through all the pages of the Yerushalmi in my mind, in order to make certain that it is not found in any place. And when I arrived at chapter 2 of Sotah, I found the place and showed you.” Ta-Shema concluded the story: “I had the merit over the course of the years to be a frequent visitor to the houses of quite a few of the greatest talmidei hakhamim [scholars] of the generation and among the beki’im [those who possess encyclopedic knowledge] in their generation … but [bekiut] of such magnitude I have never seen, not before and not after, and the memory of that Shabbat has not departed from me until today.”[3]
In addition to his amazing memory and breadth of knowledge, Lieberman was one of the most prolific Talmud scholars of all times. He published 225 books and articles, for a total of approximately 11,500 pages—devoted, for the most part, to the explication of rabbinic texts.[4] Finally, he published books and articles related to almost every area of Jewish studies, including Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, Bavli, ancient piyyut, Hellenism, Greek, Latin, and medieval rabbinic literature.[5] Therefore, it is not surprising that over eighty books and articles have been devoted to Lieberman and his œuvre between 1948 and 2008.[6] Indeed, three entire books have been published about Lieberman since 2002.[7]
This essay will respond to the most recent monograph, Marc Shapiro’s Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox.[8] Professor Shapiro has shown in his writings that he is adept at archival research.[9] This monograph is no exception; it quotes and/or publishes at least twenty-five letters related to Lieberman. Indeed, it should be entitled “What the Orthodox Thought of Saul Lieberman,” since it quotes the opinions of Rabbis Yaakov Halevi Herzog, Yitzhak Nissim, Shlomo Goren, Isser Yehuda Unterman, Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, Meir Ben-Zion Hai Uziel, Ḥayim Ozer Grodzinsky, Isaiah Karelitz, Pinchas Hirshprung, Meshulam Rathe, Mordechai Gifter, Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, Yehudah Leib Maimon, Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, David Zvi Hillman, Yaakov Kamenetski, Aaron Kotler, Menahem Mendel Kasher, Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Menahem Mendel Shneerson, Ze’ev Wolf Leiter, Samuel Belkin, Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, and She’ar Yashuv Cohen. We are in debt to Marc Shapiro for this very useful anthology based on archival sources.
However, it would appear that Shapiro has missed the mark regarding three critical points: (1) the character of the Jewish Theological Seminary from 1940 and following, (2) Lieberman’s motives for accepting a position at JTS and remaining there, and (3) whether Lieberman consider himself “Orthodox” or “Conservative.” This essay will address these three critical issues in Lieberman’s biography.
The Character of the Jewish Theological Seminary from 1940 and Following

Shapiro’s basic assumption is that Lieberman was “Orthodox” and JTS was “Conservative.” Thus, he writes: “It can be imagined what a shock it was for the Orthodox when in 1940 the internationally renowned Jerusalem illui Saul Lieberman accepted an invitation to join the Seminary faculty.”[10] This assumption about JTS, which repeats itself throughout the monograph, is basically incorrect, for the following nine reasons:
1.   During most of the years that Lieberman taught at JTS (1940–1983), almost all of the Talmud faculty at JTS were “Orthodox” or strictly observant Jews, including Rabbis Alexander Marx, Louis Ginzberg, Louis Finkelstein, Moses Hyamson, Abraham Sofer, Moshe Zucker, H. Z. Dimitrovsky, A. S. Rosenthal, Yehezkel Kutscher, Mordechai Margaliot, Jose Faur, David Weiss Halivni, Dov Zlotnick, Israel Francus, and Shamma Friedman.
2.   During the 1940s and 1950s, most of the students at JTS were observant Jews; a large percentage of them came from Orthodox homes and/or were graduates of Yeshiva College. This point is stressed by Schochet and Spiro in their recent biography of Lieberman, and more importantly, it is stressed by Shapiro himself: Between 1946 and 1957, 60% of JTS rabbinical students came from Orthodox homes and 30% were graduates of Yeshiva College.[11] Similarly, both Rabbi Isaac Klein and my father, Rabbi Noah Golinkin z”l, began their studies at Yeshiva University in the 1930s and then transferred to JTS. Rabbi Klein said that he did so in order to learn the critical methodologies of Professor Louis Ginzberg. Indeed, he received s’mikhah yoreh yoreh yadin yadin from Ginzberg. He certainly was not looking for a more lax halakhic approach.[12]
3.   From 1940 to the late 1950s, the division between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism was not at all clear. Indeed, this was pointed out by Shapiro himself as well as by other scholars, such as Jonathan Sarna.[13]
4.   Beginning in the 1950s, the mehitzah become the main dividing line between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism,[14] but the Seminary synagogue maintained separate seating for men and women from the days of Solomon Schechter until Professor Lieberman passed away in 1983.[15]
5.   During all of the years that Lieberman taught at JTS, the Seminary synagogue did not use any of the siddurim produced by the Rabbinical Assembly and edited by Rabbis Silverman, Hadas, or Harlow. It used, instead, a rather obscure Orthodox prayer book edited by Rabbi A. Th. Philips. Indeed, I was informed by someone who prayed in the Seminary synagogue with Professor Lieberman for nine years that at one point, two of the students told Professor Lieberman that the Philips siddurim were falling apart. They, of course, wanted to replace Philips with a more modern siddur. Professor Lieberman said that he would take care of the problem. He then proceeded to purchase two boxes of brand new Philips siddurim! [16]
6.   From 1940 until 1959, Higher Criticism of the Bible was not taught at JTS.[17] This opposition began way back in the days of Sabato Morais, who headed JTS from 1887 until 1897.[18] Solomon Schechter, who served as president of JTS from 1902 until 1915, called Higher Criticism “Higher Anti-Semitism.”[19] Cyrus Adler, who was president of JTS from 1915 until 1940, was also opposed to Biblical Criticism; in his day, Bible was taught at JTS with medieval Bible commentators.[20] Finally, Louis Finkelstein, who headed JTS from 1940 until 1972, was also opposed to Higher Criticism.[21] In 1944, he asked Lieberman to “gently” tell H. L. Ginsberg to write his article on biblical history in a proposed volume entitled Judaism and the Jews “from an extremely conservative point of view,” so as to “avoid various pitfalls of higher criticism.”[22]
7.   Furthermore, in the 1940s when Lieberman started teaching at JTS, the rabbinical students dressed just like rabbinical students at Yeshiva University.[23]
8.   More importantly, Louis Finkelstein, who together with Louis Ginzberg invited Lieberman to teach at JTS in 1940, saw JTS—as had Solomon Schechter and Cyrus Adler before him[24] —as an institution for k’lal yisrael, the collective Jewish people, and not just of the Conservative Movement. Finkelstein stated in 1941: “If someone calls us traditional, orthodox or conservative, it is he who makes a division in Judaism, not us … I think that the members of the faculty generally prefer the term ‘traditional Judaism’….”[25] After quoting this passage, Schochet and Spiro add: “Finkelstein preferred viewing JTS as an umbrella institution for all traditional Jews, which he hoped would attract to it Orthodox Jews, rather than one reflecting a specific denominational ideology. Finkelstein made no secret of the fact that he hoped that Orthodoxy would eventually find a home at the Seminary. He would therefore counsel his associates, ‘Let’s not be too Conservative; let’s not prevent [Orthodox Jews] from coming.’”[26]
Indeed, Shapiro himself stresses[27] that when Haim Zalman Dimitrovsky came to study with Lieberman at JTS in 1951, he did not even know that JTS had a connection with the Conservative Movement!
9.   Finally, Shapiro himself[28] quotes a letter written by Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg in 1948, when he was informed by someone supposedly “in the know” that Finkelstein was interested in him joining the faculty, alongside Ginzberg and Lieberman. Weinberg wrote to his friend Samuel Atlas (in Hebrew): “How could it be possible that they are asking me, when they have two great teachers like L. Ginzberg and Sh. Lieberman?” Weinberg did not say that he could not teach at JTS because it was Conservative or heretical; he simply said that they did not need him, because they already had Ginzberg and Lieberman.
Thus, from 1940 when Lieberman began to teach at JTS, until 1959—and, to a large extent, until 1972, when Louis Finkelstein retired—it was difficult to call JTS a Conservative institution. The faculty and students were mostly Orthodox or traditional; the lines between the movements were not clearly drawn; the Seminary synagogue maintained separate seating and used an Orthodox prayerbook; Higher Criticism was not taught; and the students at JTS even dressed like the students at YU. Louis Finkelstein viewed JTS as an institution for k’lal yisrael and even Rabbi Weinberg had no ideological objections to teaching at JTS.
Thus, there is no basis for Shapiro’s surprise that an “Orthodox” Jew like Lieberman accepted a position teaching at a “Conservative” institution.
Lieberman’s Motives for Leaving Israel, Accepting a Position at JTS, and Remaining There Until the End of His Life

Shapiro says[29] that Lieberman’s main motives were economic security, which he did not have in Jerusalem, and a desire to draw the students at JTS nearer to Torah and Judaism. These points are undoubtedly true, but I believe that there are at least six reasons why Lieberman left Israel, came to JTS, and stayed there for forty-three years:
1.   Saul Lieberman could not earn a living in Jerusalem. This is what Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, Lieberman’s father-in-law, told Rabbi Aaron Pechenik and others,[30] and this was the reason that Lieberman later gave Pechenik for remaining there.[31] Indeed, while in Israel (1927–1940), Lieberman worked as a clerk at the Tel-Aviv Chamber of Commerce, as a teacher in Herzlia, as a part-time lecturer at the Mizrahi Teachers Institute.[32] as a secretary at Yeshivat Shaar Hashamayim, as a Talmud teacher at Hebrew University (from 1932–1937, a position from which he was fired and only received severance pay a year later),[33] and as Dean of the Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research.[34]
2.   Shapiro also says that Lieberman wanted to draw the students at JTS closer to Torah and Judaism,[35] as indicated by his brother Meir, by Pnina Herzog, and in a letter to Gershom Scholem from 1941. Furthermore, Lieberman himself said this in a Hebrew letter to Hapardes in 1945, which Shapiro published in 2003. There he says: “Young Jewish men are innocent (t’mimim) and there is nothing that will influence them more than the light of Torah planted by a teacher who believes in the holiness of the Torah.”36] 
3.   At Hebrew University, Lieberman’s Talmud course in the 1930s shrank from six to two students, he was fired, and Hebrew University refused to award him a Ph.D. for Talmuda Shel Kisrin or Tosefet Rishonim.[37] The Harry Fischel Institute, which Lieberman headed for five years, was not an academic institution. Indeed, Lieberman himself spelled out in 1937 the requirements for Talmud scholarship; the students at Harry Fischel did not possess many of those qualifications.[38] In other words, at Hebrew University he had scholars to talk to but no job, while at Harry Fischel he had a job but no one to talk to. Thus, in 1940, JTS was the only serious academic center of Jewish studies in the world, as Lieberman himself wrote to Louis Ginzberg in Hebrew on April 30, 1940: “And I also hope that I could bring benefit to your Bet Midrash, which is now the only scientific institution [i.e., of Jewish studies] in our world.”[39]
4.   In 1940, and for most of the years that Lieberman taught there, JTS had the best Jewish library in the world, with a large collection of manuscripts and Genizah fragments.[40] Schochet and Spiro relate that Seminary librarian, Nahum Sarna, advised Menahem Schmelzer, his successor, to open the Rare Book Room at any time so that Lieberman could consult the thirteenth-century manuscript of the Mishneh Torah, which was placed on a table there especially for his use.[41] 
5.   Lieberman had a very warm relationship with Louis Ginzberg of JTS.[42] They met in 1929 when Ginzberg served as visiting lecturer at Hebrew University and Ginzberg asked Lieberman to prepare for publication Ginzberg’s lecture, “The Significance of Halakhah for Jewish History.” They then corresponded from 1930 to 1940. Louis Finkelstein explicitly praised Ginzberg for his indefatigable efforts to persuade Lieberman to come to JTS. This special relationship is evident from a Hebrew letter from Lieberman to Ginzberg from 1940.[43]
6.   Finally, Lieberman had an incredibly close relationship with Louis Finkelstein, who gave Lieberman whatever he needed and treated him like a king. Their relationship has been dealt with at length by Schochet and Spiro.[44] A few examples will suffice: Rabbi Bernard Mandelbaum, long-time Vice President of JTS, said: “Finkelstein gave Lieberman whatever he needed.”[45] Lieberman said as much in his Hebrew introduction to Hilkhot Hayerushalmi in 1947: “And last but not least is my friend, Rabbi E. A. Finkelstein, the President of our Bet Midrash, who provides me with special conditions for Talmud Torah and work with all possible convenience.”[46]
But their relationship went way beyond one of providing scholarly needs. Finkelstein viewed Lieberman as the most important Talmud scholar in the world and he told him so, both privately and publicly, on a regular basis. He referred to Lieberman’s arrival in the United States as “a historic one in the development of American Judaism … Even if the Seminary across the years had done nothing else than lay the foundation for such a work [=Tosefta Kifshutah on Zera’im], the institution would have justified itself.”[47] Finkelstein further stated that “Professor Lieberman does not exist for the Seminary; the Seminary exists for Professor Lieberman.” Faculty member Professor Judah Goldin once said, “Finkelstein believed in God and worshipped Lieberman.”[48] 
On December 1, 1959, Finkelstein informed Lieberman that he would become Rector of JTS, with all the powers and no administrative responsibilities: “It seems obvious to me that with your increasing preoccupation with the Tosefta Kifshutah (which …will turn out to be probably the most significant single accomplishment of the Seminary) …”[49] In a letter to Edward B. Lawson, American Ambassador to Israel, in 1955, Finkelstein introduced Lieberman as “Professor of Talmud in the Seminary and one of the most learned men in the world.”[50] Finally, when Finkelstein got Lieberman involved in the agunah dilemma in 1953, he introduced the Lieberman ketubah at the Rabbinical Assembly Convention in hyperbolic terms and compared it to the accomplishments of the tannaim.[51]
Thus, it appears that Lieberman came to JTS and stayed there for six reasons: because he could not earn a living in Jerusalem; in order to draw the students closer to Torah and Judaism; because JTS was the only scientific institution of Jewish studies in the world; because JTS had the best Jewish studies library in the world, to which he had open access at all times; because of his warm relationship with Louis Ginzberg between 1929 and 1953; and because of his unique relationship with Louis Finkelstein from the 1930s until 1983.
Did Lieberman Consider Himself “Orthodox” or “Conservative”?

Shapiro claims that Lieberman “regarded himself as an Orthodox Jew”[52] and he faults me[53] for categorizing Lieberman as a Conservative rabbi,[54] but he himself writes: 
In 1959, Lieberman became rector of the Seminary, and one of his responsibilities was “guarding the general religious policy of the institution.” Thus, there is certainly justice in the assertion that whatever his personal religious commitments, Lieberman had become part and parcel of the Conservative Movement and was assisting it at the time that the Orthodox were attempting to expose what they regarded as the Conservatives’ distortion of halakhah.[55]
Shapiro’s confusion is well-justified; I myself have debated whether Lieberman considered himself Orthodox or Conservative.[56]
On the one hand, he taught at the only Conservative rabbinical seminary from 1940 until 1983, and he served as its rector from 1959 until 1983. When he proposed his takkanah regarding the ketubah to the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly in 1953, he attacked “the Orthodox rabbis”:
I saw that some of you were accused of being frightened by the Orthodox rabbis. I want to tell you that I am not frightened by them at all. I want, therefore, to give you a point of information. In truth, they were frightened, and I want you to know why they were frightened. They weren’t afraid that the Bet Din would issue some takkanot. No, not at all. They were afraid that the Bet Din will issue takkanot in accordance with the law.
As a matter of fact, one of the very important members of the Orthodox rabbis said so in many words: If this Bet Din of the Rabbinical Assembly will issue atakkanah, that will be takkanato kalkalato. It will be a great misfortune because they will get authority and that is the reason why they oppose this. Many of them think that [if] that Bet Din will begin to move in this line, the movement can become strong and it will affect them.[57] 
When, during the negotiations about a Joint Bet Din, the Orthodox insisted that the RA sanction rabbis who perform a wedding even without aget, “Lieberman’s spontaneous response was that the Conservative Jews do not like inquisitions …”[58] He also wrote a letter that enabled Rabbi Theodore Friedman, a leading Conservative rabbi, to receive permission to perform weddings in Jerusalem, and another letter to Chief Rabbi Unterman in 1964, which defended the gittin performed by Rabbi Israel Silverman and other Conservative rabbis.[59]
On the other hand, Schochet and Spiro cite an undated interview in the Jerusalem Post in which “Lieberman explicitly stated that he himself was not a Conservative Jew; however, he praised Conservative Jews for their sincerity and their success in appealing to young people.”[60] Furthermore, in 1974, the Israeli daily Maariv published an article claiming that Golda Meir had asked Lieberman to influence the Conservative Movement to accept a compromise on the “Who Is a Jew” issue. Lieberman was described there as “one of the leaders of the Conservative Movement and as the Vice-President of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.” Lieberman wrote an indignant letter to the editor in Hebrew in which he denied the whole story and in which he said:
I am not one of the heads of the Conservative Movement and I am not, nor have I ever been, the Vice President of the [Jewish] Theological Seminary. I teach Torah to the Jewish people and I don’t understand much about politics.[61]
Finally, when a group of Seminary professors, graduates, and students held a “Conference on Halakhic Process” in 1979 in order to urge JTS not to ordain women, Lieberman wrote a letter to the Conference praising them for deciding to discuss “how to guard the last spark of the halakhah, that it should not be extinguished.”[62]
There are three possible ways to interpret this contradictory data. The first approach is followed by Hillel Goldberg, who, in a nasty review of Schochet and Spiro’s biography, would have us believe that Lieberman was Orthodox and taught and stayed at JTS simply because it was a cushy job which allowed him to do his research.[63] This approach contradicts everything we know about Lieberman’s piety and integrity, and barely merits a response. The second approach is put forth by Marc Shapiro, who maintains throughout his monograph that Lieberman was “Orthodox.” When he defended Conservative rabbis during the attempts to set up a joint Bet Din, “Lieberman was only reflecting on the mindset of the Conservative rabbinate, not describing his own feelings.”[64]
There is, however, a third way to interpret the data. I agree with Shapiro that Lieberman did not consider himself “Conservative.” However, neither did he consider himself “Orthodox.” An “Orthodox” Jew would not have spoken about Orthodox rabbis in the third person and in such a critical tone as Lieberman used in the 1950s. Furthermore, neither Shapiro nor Schochet and Spiro adduce even one text in which Lieberman himself calls himself “Orthodox.” Shapiro[65] simply refers to Schochet and Spiro.[66] but the latter offer no such proof. They quote Rabbi Berel Wein, who said that Lieberman “was personally an observant Jew.” They quote Rabbi Emanuel Rackman who said that Lieberman was “a Jew whose Orthodoxy was beyond question.” They themselves say: “These citations from prominent Orthodox rabbis reflect the common perception that Saul Lieberman was indeed ‘Orthodox’ in his religious practices” (emphasis added). They then cite numerous instances of “his firm adherence to halakhic practice and accepted custom.” They later quote someone who said that Lieberman “stressed that he wanted to be known as ‘Orthodox’ (note 266), but Lieberman himself never wrote such a thing.”
Furthermore, Shapiro mistranslates a key passage in Lieberman’s important Hebrew letter to Hapardes from 1945, which Shapiro himself published in 2003. Shapiro writes:
In his letter, Lieberman states that at the Seminary he is permitted to teach what he wishes. He also mentions that if another two or three Orthodox teachers joined the faculty (italics added), they could turn it into a wonderful place.[67]
However, that is not what Lieberman wrote. He wrote:
זהו מוסד חשוב שלו היו נכנסים לשם עוד שנים שלשה מורים משלומי אמוני ישראל היו מהפכים אותו לבית ספר למופת
This is an important institution. If two or three teachers “who seek the welfare of the faithful in Israel” [cf. II Samuel 20:19] would enter it, they would turn it into an exemplary school.[68]
Similarly, in his 1964 letter to Rabbi Unterman defending the gittin of Rabbi Israel Silverman.[69] he states that “Rabbi Silverman, when he was my student, observed Torah and mitzvot as is fitting.”
היה שומר תורה ומצוות כראוי וכיאות
He goes on to say
that it is essential to arrange matters related to gittin in America, and if there is good will on all sides, it is possible to arrive at a mutual agreement. Otherwise, I am afraid that chaos will take over this profession too and we will come to a similar situation to giving a hekhsher to a treif kitchen in an Israeli boat. And behold this hekhsher was not given by the Conservatives (who rejected the offer with disgust), but by an irresponsible group which calls itself Orthodox, and this group also performs gittin!
The picture that emerges from Lieberman’s letter to Hapardes in 1945, from his attempt to set up a joint Bet Din in 1953, and from his letter about gittin in 1964, is that Lieberman meant exactly what he said in his letter to Maariv in 1974: “I teach Torah to the Jewish people and I don’t care much about politics—that is: I am neither ‘Orthodox’ nor ‘Conservative.’ There are “Conservative” rabbis who are halakhic and there are ‘Orthodox’ rabbis who are not. I care that the teachers at JTS should be sh’lomei emunei yisrael and that the students and graduates should beshomrei torah u-mitzvot ka-rauy v’khayaut.” Lieberman did not care about labels but rather about substance, and in this he was a true disciple of Rabbi Judah the Prince who said: Al tistakkeil ba-kankan, ella b’mah she-yeish bo—do not look at the vessel, but rather at its substance.[70] 
Notes

[1] This article is based on a lecture given in Hebrew in Jerusalem on Professor Lieberman’s 30th Yahrzeit, 9 Nisan 5773 (2013). It originally appeared in Conservative Judaism 65 (Summer 2014), pp. 13-29, published here with the permission of The Rabbinical Assembly.
[2] The first quotation is from Elijah J. Schochet and Solomon Spiro, Saul Lieberman: The Man and His Work (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2005), p. 303 (and cf. pp. 53, 139). The other quotations are from David Golinkin, “The Influence of Seminary Professors on Halakhah in the Conservative Movement, 1902–1968,” in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary, vol. 2 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1997), p. 473, n. 36. For Lieberman’s attack on Neusner’s translation of the Yerushalmi, see Journal of the American Oriental Society 104:2 (April–June 1984), pp. 315–319. For Neusner’s counterattacks against Lieberman, see History and Theory 27:3 (1988), pp. 241–260 = Jacob Neusner, Wrong Ways and Right Ways in the Study of Formative Judaism (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 3–27; and idem, Why There Never Was a Talmud of Caesarea: Saul Lieberman’s Mistakes (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994).
[3] Ta-Shema in Meir Lubetski, ed., Saul Lieberman (1898–1983): Talmudic Scholar and Classicist (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), pp. 88-90 = Israel Ta-Shema, Knesset Mehkarim, vol. 4 (Jerusalem: 2010), pp. 337–339 (Hebrew). See Shamma Friedman in Lubetski, pp. 91–95, for an explanation of the riddle.
[4] A. S. Rosenthal wrote in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 31 (1963), Hebrew section, p. 1, that Lieberman wrote 10,000 pages. A careful count of Tuvia Preschel’s 1993 bibliography of Lieberman in Shamma Friedman, ed., Sefer Hazikaron L’rabbi Shaul Lieberman (New York and Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993), pp. 1–28, adds up to approximately 11,500 pages.
[5] See Preschel’s bibliography (above, n. 4) as well as the essays in the Lubetski volume.
[6] See Golinkin, pp. 472–473, n. 35, for a listing of thirty items and Elinor Grinet, “A Bibliography About Saul Lieberman: The Man and His Work,” in Lubetski, pp. 91–96, for seventy-seven items (some of them overlap). More recent works include: Aviad Hacohen, Madda’ei Ha-yahadut 42 (5763–64), pp. 289–301; a letter from Lieberman to the editor of Hapardes from 1945, published by Marc Shapiro in Kitvei Ha-Gaon Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, vol. 2 (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2003), pp. 449–450; review of new edition of Hayerushalmi Kif-shuto edited by Menahem Katz (New York and Jerusalem, 2008), by Yehoshua Schwartz in Makor Rishon Hatzofeh,April 11, 2008, pp. 10, 13; Naomi G. Cohen, “In Memoriam: Chana Safrai (1946–2008), Friend and Colleague,” in Nashim 15 (Spring 5768/2008), pp. 198, 201. For reactions to Schochet and Spiro’s book, see: Hillel Goldberg, Tradition 40:3 (Fall 2007), pp. 69–75; Aaron Rakefet, Tradition 40:4 (Winter 2007), pp. 68–74; and Bernard Septimus and David Horwitz, Tradition 41:1 (Spring 2008), pp. 114–115.
[7] The books are Lubetski (n. 3 above), Schochet and Spiro (n. 1 above), and Shapiro (n. 8 below).
[8] Marc B. Shapiro, Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2006).
[9] See, for example, his book Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884–1966 (London and Portland: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1999); Kitvei Ha-gaon Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, 2 vols (Scranton: University of Scranton Press 1998 and 2003); and “Scholars and Friends: Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and Professor Samuel Atlas,” in The Torah Umadda Journal 7 (1997), pp. 105–121.
[10] Shapiro, p. 16.
[11] Schochet and Spiro, p. 22, and Shapiro, p. 16. Both base themselves on Jeffrey S. Gurock, “Yeshiva Students at the Jewish Theological Seminary,” in Wertheimer (n. 2 above), vol. 1, p. 473.
[12] Regarding Rabbi Isaac Klein, see what I wrote in my introduction to his Responsa and Halakhic Studies, second revised and expanded edition (Jerusalem: Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2005), p. xii.
[13] Shapiro, pp. 14–15; Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History (New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 237ff. Shapiro, pp.14–15.
[14] See my book The Status of Women in Jewish Law: Responsa (Jerusalem: Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2012), pp. 14–15, and n. 27; p. 31, n.3; pp. 308–340.
[15] See JTS Semi-Centennial Volume (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1939), p. 59; Jonathan Sarna, “The Debate Over Mixed Seating in the American Synagogue,” in Jack Wertheimer, ed. The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 379–380; David Golinkin, ed., The Responsa of Prof. Louis Ginzberg (New York and Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1996), pp. 85–100; Wertheimer, vol. 1, p. 395, Harvey E. Goldberg, “Becoming History: Perspectives on the Seminary Faculty at Mid-Century”, Schochet and Spiro, p. 22.
[16] Personal communication from Dr. Baruch Schwartz, April 13, 2008. The siddur was entitled Daily Prayers with a Revised English Translation (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1914), and reprints.
[17] David Ellenson and Lee Bycel, “A Seminary of Sacred Learning: The JTS Rabbinical Curriculum in Historical Perspective,” Wertheimer, vol. 2, p. 559.
[18] Ibid., pp. 536, 656.
[19] Solomon Schechter, Seminary Addresses and Other Papers (New York: The Burning Bush Press, 1959), pp. 35–39 and cf. pp. 1–7.
[20] David Ellenson and Lee Bycel, “A Seminary of Sacred Learning: The JTS Rabbinical Curriculum in Historical Perspective,” Wertheimer, vol. 2, p. 546.
[21] JTS Semi-Centennial Volume, p. 25.
[22] Schochet and Spiro, p. 29.
[23] Compare the pictures in Jeffrey Gurock, The Men and Women of Yeshiva (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), after p. 120; to the pictures in Baila R. Shargel, “The Texture of Seminary Life During the Finkelstein Era,” Wertheimer, vol. 1, pp. 527, 535.
[24] Regarding Schechter, see Mel Scult, “Schechter’s Seminary,” in Wertheimer, vol. 1, pp. 58–59; Michael Panitz in Robert Fierstien and Jonathan Waxman, eds., Solomon Schechter in America: A Centennial Tribute (New York: The Joint Convention Committee, 2002), p. 14; and Solomon Schechter, Seminary Addresses and Other Papers, pp. 48–49. Regarding Adler, see Schochet and Spiro, p. 17, which is based on Mel Scult (in Wertheimer, vol. 1), pp. 85–88.
[25] Schochet and Spiro, pp. 21–22.
[26] Ibid., p. 22. Regarding Finkelstein’s desire for JTS to serve all denominations, see Michael B. Greenbaum, “The Finkelstein Era,” in Wertheimer, vol. 1, pp. 163ff.; Jack Wertheimer, “JTS and the Conservative Movement,” in Wertheimer, vol. 2, pp. 419–420; and Michael B. Greenbaum, Louis Finkelstein and the Conservative Movement: Conflict and Growth (Binghamton: Global Publications, 2001), pp. 48, 60–67. Ibid., p.22.
[27] Shapiro, p. 48.
[28] Ibid., p. 9, n. 30.
[29] Shapiro, pp. 17–18.
[30] Ibid., p. 17.
[31] Ibid.
[32] See Saul Lieberman, Mehkarim B’torat Eretz Yisrael, ed. David Rosenthal (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991), pp. 601–602, for a beautiful vignette from that period of time.
[33] Schochet and Spiro, pp. 8–10.
[34] Ibid., pp. 10–11.
[35] Shapiro, p. 18.
[36] Shapiro, Kitvei Ha-gaon Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, vol. 2 (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2003), p. 449.
[37] Schochet and Spiro, pp. 9–10.
[38] Ibid., pp. 10–11; and cf. Lieberman’s English introduction to Harry Fischel Institute Publications, Section III, Rishonim, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Harry Fischel Institute Press, 1937), pp. vi-viii, where he spells out the qualities necessary to do scientific talmudic research. My thanks to Professor Shamma Friedman, who called my attention to this passage a number of years ago. Cf. Preschel (n. 4 above), who lists this article in item 36 even though the Hebrew and English introductions to that volume are totally different. Ibid., pp.10–11.
[39] Shapiro, Hebrew side, p. 17, also quoted in the English side, n. 64.
[40] Regarding the Seminary library, see Alexander Marx in The JTS Semi-Centennial Volume, pp. 87–120; Menahem Schmelzer, ed., Alexander Marx, Bibliographical Studies and Notes, (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary and Ktav, 1977); Herman Dicker, Of Learning and Libraries: The Seminary Library at One Hundred (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1988); and Menahem Schmelzer, “Building a Great Judaica Library—At What Price?” in Wertheimer, vol. 1, pp. 678–715.
[41] Schochet and Spiro, p. 16.
[42] Ibid., pp. 9, 18–20.
[43] Shapiro, Hebrew section, pp. 17–18.
[44] Schochet and Spiro, pp. 23–39.
[45] Ibid., p. 16.
[46] Saul Lieberman, Hilkhot Hayerushalmi L’harambam (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1947), p. 3
[47] Schochet and Spiro, p. 24.
[48] Both quotations are from Schochet and Spiro, p. 26.
[49] Ibid., p. 37.
[50] Ibid., p. 40.
[51] David Golinkin, ed., Proceedings of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative Movement 1927–1970 (New York and Jerusalem: The Rabbinical Assembly and the Institute of Applied Halakhah [of the Schechter Institute], 1997), vol. 2, pp. 825–829.
[52] Shapiro, p. 26.
[53] Ibid., p.20, n. 72
[54] Golinkin, Proceedings, vol. 1, p. v.
[55] Ibid., p. 24.
[56] Golinkin, “Influence,” pp. 451–452. Golinkin, “Influence,”pp.451–452.
[57] Shapiro, pp. 26–27 = Proceedings of the Rabbinical Assembly 17 (1953), pp. 75–76 = Golinkin, Proceedings, vol. 2, pp. 810–811.
[58] Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, unpublished letter to Sheldon Engelmayer, May 14, 1987. I received a copy from Professor Jack Wertheimer and I gave a copy to Marc Shapiro, who quotes from the letter in his monograph, p. 20.
[59] Golinkin, “Influence,” p. 452, n. 55. Shapiro published the second letter on the Hebrew side of his book, pp. 33–34.
[60] Schochet and Spiro, p. 99, end of n. 163.
[61] I quoted this letter in Golinkin, “Influence,” p. 452. Shapiro published the entire letter in Shapiro, Hebrew side, pp. 35–36 and discusses it on the English side, p. 20, n. 72.
[62] Shapiro, Hebrew side, p. 40.
[63] See above, n. 5.
[64] Shapiro, p. 20, n. 72.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Schochet and Spiro, pp. 66 ff., 99 n. 163.
[67] Shapiro, p. 22.
[68] Shapiro, Kitvei Ha-gaon Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, vol. 2 (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2003), pp. 449.
[69] Shapiro, Hebrew section, pp. 33-34
[70] Pirkei Avot 4:20.


The Lost Library by Dan Rabinowitz and the “Burial of Souls” by Yehuda Leib Katznelson: Different Expressions of the Same Sentiment

The Lost Library by Dan Rabinowitz and the “Burial of Souls” by Yehuda Leib Katznelson: Different Expressions of the Same Sentiment

By Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

Having just completed Dan Rabinowitz’s superb book, The Lost Library, about the Strashun Library in Vilna, I am reminded of a remarkable, little-known short story written by a man who lived during the creation of the famous Strashun Library. He, like Rabinowitz, laments the loss of a famous Jewish library, though the literary nature of the lament differs. Rabinowitz has written a magnificent, captivating, thoroughly researched, historical lament. Our author has chosen the short story to metaphorically express his grief over the “loss” of one of world’s greatest Jewish libraries.

Yehuda Leib Katznelson (1846-1917),[1] a physician, poet, writer, and publicist of Hebrew Literature penned a short story in Hebrew entitled “The Burial of Souls.”[2] A summary of the story follows:

Stylistically based on Megillat Esther,[3] it tells the story of a man, Abul Said Ibn Alsalami, who possessed immense material wealth, and had everything one could wish for, save for one exception. As a child he neglected to study or read and his knowledge was sorely lacking. He realized that nothing could compensate for the lost opportunity and that he would never attain intellectual heights. His response to this fact comprises the substance of the story.

Essential to what follows is the notion that that every person is endowed with a soul while on this earth, a soul that departs and ascends to the heavens after death. However, those who amass much knowledge, and with the intent to share their knowledge and benefit others, commit their learning to paper in the form of a book, are granted an additional soul. This soul remains on earth even after the death of the author, and is embedded in the book he has written. This soul remains dormant until someone learns from this book. At that time the soul is reanimated and elevates the heavenly soul as well. In addition a new soul is replicated to dwell within the body of the book’s reader. While those with only a heavenly soul cannot advance their status after death, those with the additional soul can continue to accrue good deeds in perpetuity. For those who cannot author books, another option is available to obtain an additional soul. They can support houses of learning for those who cannot afford to study or hospitals for the poor and needy. The institutions can be called by the donor’s name and an additional soul will inhabit the walls of the building, surfacing when the children are learning or when the sick are being treated. Regretfully, Abul Said was either unaware or dismissive of the alternate track to obtaining a second soul, and had another more sinister plan.

Abul Said summoned his servant, Abdul Safran,[4] who served as his literary advisor and mouthpiece, and inquired if there was a list of all Hebrew books that have ever been written. The servant responded that indeed a man by the name of Azulai had compiled just such a list. The man instructed his servant to obtain a copy of every book on the list and to spare no expense. The servant scrupulously followed Said’s command sending messengers far and wide in search of every book on the list. The inhabitants of the land were all abuzz. What could Abul Said possibly want with all these books? He is no man of letters. Surely he desires to add a soul and build a massive public library for all to learn and study freely. Alas, Abul Said had other plans.

Meanwhile books arrived at the palace from all over the world. As there was insufficient place for the treasures, all the furniture of the palace was removed, and special shelves were built from floor to ceiling to line all the available walls. Each book was bound in special hand-crafted leather and labeled with gold leaf. Upon completion of the library, it was opened to the public for three days. The totality of the literature of the nation of Israel since its inception, all under one roof.

Abu Safran had succeeded in his mission and presented this remarkable library to Abul Said, though the former could not have been prepared for his master’s next request. “If we burn the entire library will this not curtail all Jewish knowledge?” Aghast at such a suggestion, Safran quickly thought to divert his master from such a plan. He succeeded in dissuading Said from his initial request and suggested the burial of the books instead. Abul Said was amenable to the suggestion, but stipulated that the burial should not be in a Jewish cemetery, but rather in cemetery far from the Jewish community where no one would have access. The servant reluctantly carried out the wishes of his master and the site was marked with a sign that read, “Here lies buried the spirit of Israel.”

And so it was, the entire library was unceremoniously buried in a non-Jewish cemetery. On the night after the books were interred, Abul Said was unable to sleep. He was ultimately drawn into the vast hall which just the day before had housed the library. Suddenly an apparition appeared before him. Where the books had once stood were now full size paintings of their authors, cloaked in shrouds. One painting slowly began to approach Abul Said, getting larger and larger as it drew nearer and nearer. “Do you recognize me!?” shouted the man in the painting. Abul Said was silent. “I am Chaim Yosef David Azulai! It is my book that you used as a guide to gather the books that you ultimately buried.” Azulai proceeded to vilify Abul Said for burying all the additional souls of the authors, thus depriving them all of the benefits when their books are learned on earth. The story concludes with Azulai relating Abul Said’s punishment and the latter’s entreaty to repent. While Azulai considered Said’s actions irrevocable, he nonetheless offered him the opportunity to make partial amends by supporting all future publications and restoring the library to its former glory for all to use.

I read this short story some years ago and found it compelling, though only recently did I come to the realization that Katznelson[5] had not conceived of this fictional tale de novo, but rather was likely expressing his lament about a factual historical event through the vehicle of this story.

Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai (1724-1806) had indeed composed a monumental bibliographical work entitled Shem HaGedolim, which listed all extant Hebrew books until his time. In the course of his research for this project, he amassed one the world’s rarest and most comprehensive collections of Hebrew books and manuscripts up to his time. This is doubtless the work to which the servant Abu Safran refers in our story. When Azulai died, the collection was sold in its entirety by Azulai’s son to the Italian businessman Baruch Almanzi.[6] Almanzi’s son Joseph was a passionate bibliophile and poet and meticulously maintained and enhanced the collection, adding much valuable material. The great Judaica scholars of that time, including Zunz, Steinschneider and Luzzato, were welcomed into the Almanzi’s home to avail themselves of the treasures of this collection in pursuit of their research. In fact, Luzzato compiled a catalogue of the collection. When Joseph Almanzi died, however, there were apparently no heirs interested in maintaining the collection, and it was put up for auction. The name of the protagonist in our story, Alsalami, is perhaps derivative or reminiscent of Almanzi. The British Library purchased the manuscripts of the collection,[7] while the books were sold to an Amsterdam bookseller, ultimately finding their way to Temple Emmanuel in New York City, which subsequently donated the collection to Columbia University in 1893. Katznelson laments the “burial” of these precious books in a “non-Jewish cemetery,”[8] essentially precluding access to this library for the Jewish population who could benefit most from its use.[9]

I exhume this essay to both supplement and complement Rabinowitz’s lament of the loss of a great Jewish library. A number of elements of Katznelson’s story are reminiscent of the Strashun Library story – bookshelves from floor to ceiling covering every wall; open to the public with visitors from across the land; representative of the totality of rabbinic literature. Both the Azulia and Strashun collections began as the library of one scholar/bibliophile and were subsequently expanded and opened for broader access. Fortunately, however, the Strashun library books themselves remain accessible at a Jewish institution, though as Rabinowitz emphasizes, they are bereft of their unity as a distinct library and reflection of a remarkable period of intellectual Jewish history.

Perhaps the fate of the Hebrew book parallels the fate of the Jewish people, condemned to wander with only temporary respite. While the digitizing of large swaths of rabbinic literature, both print and manuscript, including parts of the Strashun Library, might partially mitigate our pain, there is no gainsaying the loss of the unity of the historically priceless Strashun collection. Let us hope that we will one day merit a permanent physical residence for the totality of Jewish/rabbinic literature,[10] but meanwhile, let us follow the instruction of Rabbi Azulai in our story and continue publishing books and supporting institutions for public access of Jewish knowledge. Rabinowitz’s remarkable contribution represents a historical continuation and expression of our longing to preserve the heritage of the books of our people, the people of the book.

[1] For a brief biography, see H. A. Savitz, “Judah Loeb Katznelson (1847-1916): Physician to the Soul of His People,” in his Profiles of Erudite Jewish Physicians and Scholars (Spertus College Press: Chicago, 1973), 56-61; On the literary contribution of Katznelson, see M. Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature 4 (Bloch Publishing: New York, 1947), 154-156. For his contribution, as well the contribution of others, to Biblical and Talmudic Medicine, see ibid., 702ff.

[2] For the full text of the story, see https://benyehuda.org/yogli/008.html. Katznelson introduces the story as a tale told to him as a child by his grandfather about events that transpired eighty years earlier. It is unclear to me whether this is factual or simply a literary device.

[3] The story is littered with literary and content allusions to the Megillah, which are literally lost in translation. My objective here is not to provide a full translation, nor to highlight these allusions, but rather to provide a summary of the story as it relates to our essay.

[4] Safran means librarian in Hebrew.

[5] Or perhaps his grandfather.

[6] The date of Rabbi Azulai’s death, and subsequent sale of his library, coincides with the time of the event mentioned in the story’s introduction, eighty years previous.

[7] See W. Wright, “The Almanzi Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts in the British Library,” The Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record 9(1866), 354-365.

[8] The “burial” analogy was invoked regarding the loss of another important Hebraica collection in an article in Der Orient in 1846 cited by Ismar Schorsch, “Catalogues and Critical Scholarship: The Fate of Jewish Collections in 19th-Century Germany,” Tablet (December 28, 2015): “It is now nearly 20 years that a similar treasure, assembled for the same purpose, was shipped out of Germany to a remote corner of the scholarly world, where buried and inaccessible it is of no value to scholarship. … Let us not commit such a travesty a second time. May the new interest in Jewish scholarship that since then has been aroused contribute to fostering an appreciation for this vital task. It is a matter of honor for Germany, and especially for its Jews, that this collection remain here.”

[9] Katznelson’s story could have equally been written about other Jewish libraries, including the exceptional library of Moses Friedland, which Rabinowitz writes was sold in 1892 to the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, where it lay “buried” and inaccessible to the Jewish readers. See D. Rabinowitz, The Lost Library (Brandeis University Press: 2019), 52-53. The library of Rabbi David Oppenheim was likewise “buried” in 1829 when purchased by the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford.

[10] The National Jewish Library in Israel is continually bringing this dream closer to fruition. Another great Jewish library, the Valmadonna Trust Library of the late Jack Lunzer a”h, has been integrated into its collection, though a small portion of the collection was sold at auction.



What Did the Willows Ever Do to Deserve Such a Beating? An Original Explanation for a Perplexing Custom

What Did the
Willows Ever Do to Deserve Such a Beating?
An Original
Explanation for a Perplexing Custom

By Steven Weiner 

Steven had the privilege and good fortune of
learning from Rav Aharon Lichtenstein ztz”l and Rav Yaakov Meidan
Shlit”a at Yeshivat Har Etzion (1982-83) and prior to that from Rav
Yisroel Mendel Kaplan ztz”l and other Rabbeim at the Talmudical Yeshiva of
Philadelphia.  He is currently working on a series of essays on the theme
of Shivat Tzion and its contemporary resonance.

Introduction
The
seventh day of Sukkot – the day we now call הושענא רבה – has no special significance in the Torah.  The day has no distinctive name; no mitzvot
or rules distinguish it from the rest of Sukkot; its sacrifices follow
precisely the same pattern as the previous six days; and, unlike the seventh day
of Pesach, the seventh day of Sukkot is not even a מקרא קדש.  In other words, the seventh day of Sukkot
appears in the Torah as indistinguishable from the other days of המועד חול.
Nevertheless,
the Talmud describes several unique practices that were performed on הושענא רבה.  One such practice is the custom we still
observe today known as חיבוט ערבות (chibut aravot),
beating our ערבות against the ground. 
What is the meaning of this strange ritual, and does it have any meaningful
relationship with הושענא רבה?
In
this article, we suggest an original answer grounded in a deep connection
between the curious practice of beating ערבות and the teachings
of the final נביאים who were active during the early days of
the Second Temple, also known as the period of שיבת ציון.
A
most mysterious מנהג
נביאים
According
to the Mishna (Sukka 4:5), on each day
of Sukkot the people brought tall ערבות branches to the מקדש and stood them on the
ground surrounding the מזבח,
thereby adorning the מזבח with an overhanging
canopy of leaves.  The Gemara (Sukka
44a-44b) concludes that this practice is rooted in a הלכה למשה מסיני
(an
oral tradition received at Sinai).  However,
while the Mishna describes only a ritual performed inside the מקדש, the Gemara adds that a custom involving ערבות also
developed later outside of the מקדש – but only on one day of Sukkot, הושענא רבה.[1]  The Gemara describes this custom using the
verb חיבוט –
understood by Rashi as waving the ערבות,
and by Rambam as beating them e.g. against the floor.  The familiar custom nowadays is to take a
bundle of ערבות on הושענא רבה and strike it
sharply, several times, against the floor or a chair.
What is the
source and meaning of חיבוט ערבות outside the מקדש?  The Gemara (Sukka 44b) calls this practice a מנהג נביאים (“custom of the
prophets”).  Rashi and other traditional
commentators understand this as meaning that the custom was instituted by the trio
of prophetsחגי
זכרי’ ומלאכי , who prophesied during the early Second Temple period and were
members of אנשי כנסת הגדולה.  However, barely one page earlier (44a), the Gemara indicates חיבוט ערבות is a זכר למקדש!  Indeed, Rambam and numerous other subsequent authorities
who discuss the practice of חיבוט
ערבות echo the Gemara on both counts, dubbing
the practice a זכר למקדש
as
well as a מנהג נביאים.  But performing a זכר למקדש
is
an act of דרישת
ציון, a response to Yirmiyahu’s cry that poor
Zion lies destroyed and abandoned with none seeking her.[2]  How could a זכר למקדש in
the spirit of דרישת ציון possibly make sense in the earliest days
of the Second Temple, centuries before its destruction[3]? 
Furthermore, why
does the Gemara ascribe this custom specifically to the prophets?  The intriguing term מנהג נביאים is not used elsewhere
in the Talmud.  While many familiar practices
are known as enactments of אנשי
כנסת הגדולה (the Rabbinic authority during שיבת ציון, whose
members included חגי זכריה ומלאכי as well as other leading scholars of that period), they are not
labeled as מנהג נביאים.  What significance is to be found in the
Talmud’s attribution of חיבוט ערבות specifically to the prophets of the early Second
Temple?
In addition, the
peculiar way we perform this custom – beating ערבות against the ground[4] –
also cries out for explanation.  What does
beating branches symbolize?  Moreover, if
the custom is intended to remind us of the ערבות ceremony inside the מקדש, shouldn’t we instead encircle and adorn
the שלחן with
our ערבות, just as the מזבח was
encircled and adorned with ערבות in the מקדש?  After all, we commemorate the practice of הקפות in
the מקדש (Mishna Sukka 4:5) by marching around the שלחן in very similar
fashion.  Why then do we commemorate a
ceremony of adorning the מזבח by beating our ערבות against the ground?
A well-known Kabbalistic explanation
views חיבוט ערבות as a rite of atonement, and interprets הושענא רבה as
a day of final judgment and forgiveness. 
Beating the branches symbolizes, and mystically brings about, a
sweetening of the Divine attribute of justice.[5] While a mystical interpretation is certainly possible,
the Talmud never mentions judgment or atonement regarding חיבוט ערבות or הושענא רבה.  For
those of us who might prefer a less esoteric alternative, I wish to propose an
explanation for חיבוט ערבות that is
grounded in Biblical sources, and which also helps to resolve the puzzle of exactly
how and why a זכר למקדש
was
initiated as a מנהג נביאים in the early
days of שיבת
ציון.  I am not sure that
difficulty is tackled by the Kabbalistic approach.
Others have suggested that חיבוט ערבות represents
a prayer for rain, the sound of beating ערבות evoking the sounds
and sights of a rainstorm.[6]  This seems plausible, as the Talmud and
Midrash indicate that arba minim and
other practices of Sukkot are in part connected to our prayers for rain, which
begin at this time of year.  However, once
again this explanation fails to shed light on why the custom was initiated specifically
by the prophets of שיבת ציון, or how we can possibly reconcile the seemingly
self-contradictory, dual status of מנהג
נביאים and זכר למקדש.
Affirming a powerful prophecy by acting
it out
I believe the
key to unlocking the significance of חיבוט ערבות may be found by
examining the visions proclaimed by the prophets of שיבת ציון.
The Second
Temple was built in a climate of intensely mixed emotions.  The austere structure of שיבת ציון paled against the splendid, opulent בית ראשון
constructed
by Solomon.  Celebrating their first
Sukkot shortly after rebuilding the מזבח,
the people of Ezra’s time offered the obligatory holiday offerings בְּמִסְפָּר
כְּמִשְׁפַּט דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ – “by number, according to the obligation of each day.”  In contrast, Solomon offered such bountiful
sacrifices for the inauguration of בית ראשון that the capacity of the מזבח was
overwhelmed and more space had to be specially consecrated![7]  Moreover,
בית ראשון
was
graced with a visible appearance of God’s presence, ‘ה כְּבוֹד, with clouds filling the Temple upon its
dedication, just as occurred in the original משכן.[8]  No comparable revelation is reported for בית שני.  Accordingly, elders who remembered the
magnificent First Temple wept loudly over the Second Temple’s modest foundations,
and the inaugural ceremony was accompanied by a heart-rending mixture of tears
and rejoicing (Ezra 3:12-13).  To make matters even worse, Persia soon
suspended further rebuilding of the Temple
in response to slander against the Jews by their envious, non-Jewish
neighbors (see Ezra 4).
Against this painful
backdrop, the prophet חגי received a stirring vision on the 21st day of Tishrei – i.e.
on הושענא רבה,
the same date when Solomon had concluded his spectacular חֲנֻכַּת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ for the
First Temple centuries earlier:
חגי פרק ב
(א)
בַּשְּׁבִיעִי בְּעֶשְׂרִים וְאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ הָיָה דְּבַר־יְקֹוָק
בְּיַד־חַגַּי הַנָּבִיא לֵאמֹר:
In a powerful message
of hope and encouragement, God first acknowledged that the Jewish people were demoralized
by the humble stature of בית שני
(“it is nothing in your eyes”) in comparison to the glorious Temple and kingdom
of Solomon:
(ג)
מִי בָכֶם הַנִּשְׁאָר אֲשֶׁר רָאָה אֶת־הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה בִּכְבוֹדוֹ הָרִאשׁוֹן,
וּמָה אַתֶּם רֹאִים אֹתוֹ עַתָּה? הֲלוֹא כָמֹהוּ כְּאַיִן בְּעֵינֵיכֶם:
Nevertheless, God
urged the people and their leaders to strengthen themselves and take action (continue
rebuilding), mindful that He is with them.  God declared that in but a moment He could
shake (מַרְעִישׁ)
the heavens and the earth, overturn (וְהִרְעַשְׁתִּי) powerful empires and deliver their wealth
to Israel, and “fill this house with כָּבוֹד.”[9]  The כָּבוֹד of
the new Temple could then exceed even the כָּבוֹד of
the First Temple, in both material wealth and Divine presence:
(ד) וְעַתָּה חֲזַק זְרֻבָּבֶל נְאֻם־יְקֹוָק, וַחֲזַק יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
בֶּן־יְהוֹצָדָק הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל, וַחֲזַק כָּל־עַם הָאָרֶץ נְאֻם־יְקֹוָק,
וַעֲשׂוּ – כִּי־אֲנִי אִתְּכֶם, נְאֻם יְקֹוָק צְבָקוֹת:
(ה) אֶת־הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר־כָּרַתִּי אִתְּכֶם בְּצֵאתְכֶם
מִמִּצְרַיִם וְרוּחִי עֹמֶדֶת בְּתוֹכְכֶם אַל־תִּירָאוּ:
(ו) כִּי
כֹה אָמַר יְקֹוָק צְבָקוֹת:
עוֹד אַחַת מְעַט הִיא, וַאֲנִי מַרְעִישׁ
אֶת־הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת־הָאָרֶץ וְאֶת־הַיָּם וְאֶת־הֶחָרָבָה:
(ז) וְהִרְעַשְׁתִּי אֶת־כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם וּבָאוּ חֶמְדַּת
כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם וּמִלֵּאתִי אֶת־הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה כָּבוֹד אָמַר יְקֹוָק
צְבָקוֹת:
(ט) גָּדוֹל
יִהְיֶה כְּבוֹד הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה הָאַחֲרוֹן מִן־הָרִאשׁוֹן אָמַר יְקֹוָק
צְבָקוֹת וּבַמָּקוֹם
הַזֶּה אֶתֵּן שָׁלוֹם נְאֻם יְקֹוָק צְבָקוֹת:
I suggest our מנהג נביאים of
beating ערבות has its roots in this prophecy.  When חגי received these powerful words, cutting
to the heart of the difficult challenges that he and his generation faced, he responded
by acting out his own prophecy –
וְהִרְעַשְׁתִּי /אֲנִי מַרְעִישׁ, “God
will shake the heavens and the earth” – by striking the earth sharply with a
bundle of ערבות.[10]
 Using ערבות poignantly evoked the
similar branches that were used on that same day by the people within the מקדש to
encircle and celebrate their modest, fragile מזבח.
Prophets
in the Bible often acted out the imagery of their prophecies, as a way of affirming
and reinforcing their visions.  Ramban notes
this phenomenon in his commentary to the Torah (Breisheet 12:6).  One famous example
is even highly reminiscent of חיבוט
ערבות: Elisha instructed the King of Israel to bang arrows on the ground,
in order to affirm Elisha’s prophecy that Israel would smite and defeat its enemy
(Melachim II 13:16-17).  It is easy to picture חגי
following
in Elisha’s path and striking the ground with ערבות in place of
arrows, as an affirmation of his own prophecy ofוְהִרְעַשְׁתִּי /מַרְעִישׁ and
as a prayer to God that it be completely and speedily fulfilled.[11]
Thus,
חיבוט ערבות was from its very
inception both מנהג נביאים
and זכר למקדש – a זכר למקדש ראשון!!  Our puzzle is solved!  חגי and his colleagues performed חיבוט ערבות in the purest spirit of דרישת ציון.  Their ritual expressed a heartfelt plea for
the redemptive upheaval (רעש) that they envisioned, so that the full glory of בית ראשון could be
restored and exceeded.  At the same time,
the custom also served as a reminder of God’s command to חגי that we
strengthen ourselves and act courageously in fulfillment of God’s mandate to
continue rebuilding.
Although
בית שני was eventually completed, the longed-for glory of Solomon’s
era remained elusive. Judea was a vassal state for most of the Second Temple
period.  God’s presence (שכינה) was not manifest in בית שני, at least in
comparison with בית ראשון.[12]
 Therefore, it makes sense that חגי
and
his colleagues, and eventually all Jews, would annually repeat the custom of חיבוט ערבות outside
the מקדש on
הושענא רבה, affirming the
yearned-for prophecy on its anniversary.  To this day, in the prayer we recite just
before חיבוט ערבות – known as (“”קול מבשר) אומץ ישעך – we plead for complete and imminent
redemption by evoking “sounds” of deliverance including the earth-shaking upheaval
around Jerusalem foretold by זכרי’ , close colleague of חגי.  Like the original
prophecy of חגי, and much
like אני מאמין,
our custom of beating ערבות expresses both a prayer to God for redemption as well as
an uplifting pledge of faith and determination.
Our
novel interpretation also explains why the custom of חיבוט ערבות outside the מקדש is unique
to הושענא רבה.  The Gemara (Sukka 44a) explains why חיבוט
ערבות is performed on only one day of
Sukkot, as opposed to all seven days, but never explains the choice of which
day.[13]
 According to our explanation, the prophecy
of חגי
is
naturally reenacted and reaffirmed on its anniversary.  Intriguingly, Taz[14] suggests
חיבוט ערבות is
performed on הושענא רבה because of its unique holiness: יותר קדושה ביום זה.  Our proposal offers one way of interpreting
that special holiness.  הושענא רבה, the anniversary of בבית ראשון
חנכת המזבח
and
of נבואת חגי, is a day
of yearning for full redemption and the imminence of God’s presence – precisely
the theme expressed by חיבוט ערבות.
Counterpoint: who dares scorn the day of
small beginnings?
While
beating ערבות outside of the מקדש expressed a deep longing for more
completion redemption, adorning the מזבח with a beautiful canopy of ערבות sounded a complementary
note inside the מקדש.  I believe this latter
practice acquired particular poignancy during the Second Temple period,
precisely because nagging feelings of disappointment over the limited “glory”
of that redemption were so palpable from the very start.  As cited above from Ezra 3, tears threatened
to drown out the shouts of joy heralding the inauguration of the Second
Temple.  Likewise, חגי
in
his הושענא רבה prophecy hears God say: “Who among you remembers the
glory of the First Temple, and what do you think of this house now?  It is nothing in your eyes!”
In
the prophecy of חגי, God’s primary response to these feelings of disappointment is
a promise that the future can be brighter if the people will only be strong and
act with courage and faith.  However, in 4:10
זכרי’, we hear
a somewhat different response: כִּי מִי בַז לְיוֹם קְטַנּוֹת?  – Who scorns
the day of small things?  I sense a sharp
tone of rebuke in the word “scorn”: Who dares to scorn the גאולה of שיבת ציון simply because it appears “small” and
modest compared to Solomon’s empire?  Shouldn’t
the people be grateful for even the smallest beginnings of גאולה?  Perhaps
חגי
2:3
contains a hint of the same rebuke: is the nascent בית שני really nothing
in your eyes?
I
suggest that for the Jews of the Second Temple[15],
adorning the מזבח with ערבות
became a deeply meaningful way of expressing gratitude and appreciation for the
redemption they enjoyed, imperfect as it was. 
The ceremony became a way of saying: we will never scorn you, oh מזבח, you are precious to
us!  In fact, the Mishna (Sukka 4:5) records that when the
ceremonies in the מקדש were completed on הושענא רבה, the people shouted: יופי לך מזבח, יופי לך מזבח
(“beauty is yours, מזבח”).  The reason for this charming salute to the
altar is not discussed in the Talmud, and several commentaries have commented
on it.[16]  Personally, I cannot help but hear an unmistakable
echo of the “cheers of ‘Beauty! Beauty!’” foretold in 4:7 זכרי’:
מִי־אַתָּה הַר־הַגָּדוֹל לִפְנֵי זְרֻבָּבֶל לְמִישֹׁר וְהוֹצִיא
אֶת־הָאֶבֶן הָרֹאשָׁה תְּשֻׁאוֹת חֵן חֵן לָהּ:
Whatever great mountain
[obstacle] lies before Zerubavel –will be flattened!  He will present the cornerstone amid cheers of
“beauty, beauty!”
This vision of זכרי’
is adjacent
to his rebuke against those who scorn the day of small things.  The prophet’s message is that when the cornerstone
of the new Temple is placed, the proper response is joyous applause of “beauty,
beauty!”  Do not dare to be so ungrateful
as to scorn the modest beginnings of our new מקדש, thunders זכרי’!  I suggest that for the
people of בית שני,
the ערבות ceremony around the מזבח was an opportunity
to align themselves with those who gratefully cheered the cornerstone, and to
distance themselves from any thoughts of scorn.
Our
novel interpretation of the ערבות ceremony in the מקדש is further supported by the Gemara’s
citation (Sukka 45a) of Tehilim
118:27 – אִסְרוּ־חַג
בַּעֲבֹתִים עַד־קַרְנוֹת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ – as a source for encircling the מזבח with a canopy of ערבות. 
In
this section of Tehilim, familiar to us from Hallel, just a few verses earlier (118:22)
we read:
אֶבֶן מָאֲסוּ הַבּוֹנִים
הָיְתָה לְרֹאשׁ פִּנָּה
The
lowly stone once scorned by many is now the celebrated cornerstone!  This echoes the message and “stone” imagery
of זכרי’ that we
read above.  As Tehilim 118 continues, we
rejoice in this remarkable gift from God (23-24), we bless those who come
paying respects to the מקדש (26), and we gratefully salute the מזבח by encircling it
with leafy boughs (27).  The Gemara’s
citation of this excerpt from Tehilim as a source for adorning the מזבח makes perfect sense.
A Message for Our Own Era
We
have suggested a new interpretation for the mysterious custom of חיבוט ערבות, attributed by the
Gemara to the prophets of שיבת ציון.  We suggest the custom
arose from confrontation with the incomplete redemption of the Second Temple era.  The seemingly bizarre ritual of shaking
branches and striking the ground expressed profound longing for (and faith in) a
more perfect גאולה,
by vividly acting out the vision of חגי that one day God will bring a fully redemptive
“upheaval” when His presence returns to “shake” the earth and overthrow all
oppressors.  This same theme is
emphasized even today on הושענא
רבה in our prayers accompanying חיבוט ערבות.
At
the same time, we have also suggested that the related practice of adorning the
מזבח with
a beautiful canopy of boughs and shouting יופי לך מזבח expressed a complementary
sense of gratitude.  Even as the people
of בית שני pined
for complete redemption, they acknowledged the partial, beautiful redemption
which they had merited to receive, and did not dare scorn it.
How
fortunate are we in contemporary times, two thousand years after the Second
Temple’s destruction, that while still yearning for שלמה
גאולה, we can once again also express gratitude
for an imperfect but precious redemption already granted us.  Indeed today’s Jerusalem and Israel are
beautiful gifts – יופי לך
– as well as a work-in-progress.  As we
continue to beat our branches against the earth crying out for the קול מבשר heralding our ultimate redemption, and committing ourselves to the national
project of rebuilding (materially and spiritually), we dare not forget to appreciate
the remarkable gifts God has already bestowed upon us.
[1] It is evident
from the Gemara’s complicated discussion on Sukka 43b-44a, and is universally
accepted by all subsequent authorities, that חיבוט ערבות outside the מקדש is
performed only on הושענא רבה.
[2] Sukka 41a, ditto Rosh Hashana 30a, citing Yirmiyahu
30:17.
[3] One might attempt
to answer that חיבוט ערבות was originally a מנהג נביאים, but after המקדש חורבן it became instead, or in addition, a זכר למקדש.  See Tosafot Yom Tov
(Sukka 4:5), the only source I have seen so far who addresses this apparent
contradiction between מנהג
נביאים and
זכר למקדש.  But this answer seems
problematic.  Following Gemara Sukkah
44b, all of the major poskim rule that we recite no blessing on חיבוט ערבות precisely because it is a mere custom,
a מנהג נביאים.  But
if the practice was converted after the חורבן into a זכר למקדש, then why shouldn’t it warrant a blessing, just like holding arba minim after the first day of Sukkot
זכר למקדש?  Evidently then, even
the זכר למקדש
aspect
of חיבוט ערבות itself only has
the authority of a מנהג נביאים, which leaves our question unanswered.
[4] This question
is strongest according to Rambam and others who understand חיבוט as
banging against a surface, as is our common practice nowadays.  According to Rashi, who interprets חיבוט as
a synonym for waving or shaking, the ritual would not stand out as so unusual per se.
[5] Zohar parshat Tzav (end of 31b); see also
Ramban on Bamidbar 14:9.
[6] E.g. Rabbi Dr. Louis
Jacobs, in The Jewish Religion: A Companion, reprinted  here.
[7] Compare Ezra 3:4 versus Melachim I 8:63-64 and Divrei
HaYamim II 7:5, 7.
[8] Melachim I 8:10-11, Divrei HaYamim II 7:1-3, Exodus
40:34-35.
[9] Compare Melachim I 8:11 and Divrei HaYamim II 7:1-2 (כִּי־מָלֵא כְבוֹד־יְקֹוָק אֶת־בֵּית יְקֹוָק).
[10] The same verb רעש
–
upheaval, literally shaking the earth – also appears prominently in the visions
of final redemption recorded by זכרי’
(contemporary of חגי) and יחזקאל (slightly earlier, during the Babylonian exile), traditionally
read as haftarot during Sukkot.
[11] There is also
Midrashic precedent for the notion that shaking the branches of ארבע מינים symbolizes
the overthrow of our enemies and the redemption of Israel.  See ספר הרוקח,
in the attached source sheets.
[12] Yoma 21b. 
See also Yoma 9b: because the Jews of that era did not return to
Israel en mass “like a wall”, and instead mustered only a relatively weak
return, God’s presence likewise returned only to a limited extent.
[13] Admittedly, the
choice of הושענא רבה might be
arbitrary: might as well pick the last day, if we must pick one.  Compare Sukka 43a, explaining why ערבה was
taken in the מקדש
on הושענא רבה even on Shabbat.  Essentially, the Gemara explains that הושענא רבה was selected by Chazal for this purpose not necessarily due to its inherent special
character, but perhaps simply because it happens to be “the last day.”  Beit Yosef and Bach (O.C. 664) both suggest explaining
the assignment of חיבוט ערבות to הושענא רבה in a similar manner.  However, it is more satisfying to find an underlying
connection between the day and its practices, if we can.
[14] Taz O.C. 664
note 2; cited by Mishna Berura in note 11. 
Taz also connects the special holiness of הושענא רבה to the performance of seven הקפות in
the מקדש; we hope and intend בעזרת
ה’ to
explore the meaning of הקפות in a separate, companion essay.
[15] The precise
origin of adorning the מזבח with a tall canopy
of ערבות is unclear.  I am not aware of any indication that it was an
essential part of the original הלכה למשה מסיני of
holding extra ערבות in the מקדש.  However, for our
purposes, it doesn’t really matter if the practice originated during the Second
Temple era, or if it was initiated earlier and simply took on additional
meaning later.
[16] See Aruch
Le-Ner (Sukka 45a); Tiferet Yisrael in הלכתא גבירתא
on Mishna Sukka chapter 4.