Can Orthodoxy Decide Its Own History?

Rabbi Shmuel Lesher 

The Making of a Godol

In his 2004 review of Rabbi Nosson Kamenetsky’s controversy-sparking Making of a Godol,[1] Professor Mordechai Breuer notes a marked change happening within haredi culture, specifically book culture:

The contents of the traditional Haredi bookshelf have expanded and transformed beyond recognition in recent generations. Alongside … the rabbinic classics … the shelves are now filled with books of types our ancestors could not have imagined.[2]

Breuer is referring to the proliferation of a new form of biography, or hagiography, of gedolim, or “Torah scholars” sometimes referred to as “Shivhei Tzaddikim” (Praises of the Righteous).

To be sure, historically, the practice of telling stories of praise and piety about gedolim is not new. Records of this literature can be found as early as the 19th century.[3] However, the recent proliferation and high demand for these works within contemporary haredi society is a fairly recent phenomenon.

It is against this backdrop that, in his review, Breuer celebrates R. Kamenetsky’s publication of Making of a Godol. He correctly notes that this book is not just another routine addition to the existing genre of hagiography. Quite the contrary, employing the rigorous research of an academic, the book makes a serious effort to depict the lives of Lithuanian yeshiva personalities as they truly were, without embellishment or distortion. In stark contrast to those who advocate for the idealized and sanitized portrayal of gedolim as saintly individuals devoid of human flaws or weakness, R. Kamenetsky authored a book whose content was subject to a single test: the test of truth.[4]

It is for this very reason that others did not celebrate the publication of Making of a Godol. In fact, shortly after the book was published in 2002, it was subject to a ban and removed from bookstores.

Breuer has his own critiques of the book. In addition to a number of serious methodological issues he raises with the book from an academic historical perspective, Breuer takes issue with a number of passages from a religious perspective, some of which may have been the reasons why it was banned within parts of the haredi community:

It is unfortunate that the author did not refrain from delving into minutiae that lack historical significance, including the personal weaknesses of Torah scholars… Yet, the author makes no effort to reconcile this phenomenon with the ideal of shemirat halashon (guarding one’s speech) …. The extensive treatment of such topics, without any attempt to analyze or integrate them into a cohesive picture of the “Making of a Godol” borders on gossip for its own sake. It would have been better to omit such material altogether.[5]

Jewish History: Lashon Harah?

Although Breuer categorizes the inclusion of some trivial and negative descriptions of gedolim in R. Kamenetsky’s book as “bordering on gossip for its own sake,” someone who levels the claim of actual lashon harah (prohibited negative speech) against any and all accurate history-keeping is Rabbi Shimon Schwab.

R. Schwab correctly notes that history must be accurate:

History must be truthful, otherwise it does not deserve its name. A book of history must report the bad with the good, the ugly with the beautiful, the difficulties and the victories, the guilt and the virtue. Since it is supposed to be truthful, it cannot spare the righteous if he fails, and it cannot skip the virtues of the villain. For such is truth, all is told the way it happened.[6]

Clearly, there is little use for inaccurate history books. 

R. Schwab further notes that since the canonization of Tanakh, no works of Jewish history were composed by our Sages. It appears that when prophecy ceased, the recording of Jewish history stopped at the same time.[7]

This phenomenon was noted by historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. He writes that after the canonization of the Bible, it appears that Jewish historiography abruptly stopped:

After the close of the biblical canon the Jews virtually stopped writing history…. It is as though, abruptly, the impulse to historiography had ceased.[8]

This, Yerushalmi writes, is remarkable. Biblical Jewry and subsequent generations of Jews drew deep meaning from history. Their people’s history was deeply wedded to their sacred scripture. They came together weekly to read aloud from these passages in synagogues for thousands of years. Generation of scribes would copy and transmit these texts to the next generation with the utmost care and concern for their sacred task.[9]

Moreover, the Torah itself commands the Jewish people to remember “the days of old and to contemplate the years of every generation”:

זכר ימות עולם בינו שנות דור ודור שאל אביך ויגדך זקניך ויאמרו לך

Remember world history, study the generational epochs. Ask your father and he will relate to you, your elders and they will tell you (Devarim 32:7).

Therefore, R. Schwab asks: Why did our great Torah leaders not deem it necessary to register in detail all the events of their period just as the Torah and the prophets had done before them? 

R. Schwab’s answer will likely be shocking to all those who love history:

Only a prophet mandated by his Divine calling has the ability to report history as it really happened, unbiased and without prejudice….An historian has no right to take sides. He must report the stark truth and nothing but the truth…if an historian would report truthfully what he witnessed…He would violate the prohibition against spreading loshon harah which does not only apply to the living, but also to those who sleep in the dust and cannot defend themselves any more. What ethical purpose is served by preserving a realistic historic picture? Nothing but the satisfaction of curiosity. [10]

Using the imagery of Shem and Yefet who covered the nakedness of their father Noah when he became intoxicated, preserving their saintly memory of their father (Bereishit 9:23), R. Schwab argues for a more synthetic and sterilized version of Jewish history:

We should tell ourselves and our children the good memories of the good people, their unshakeable faith, their staunch defense of tradition, their life of truth, their impeccable honesty, their boundless charity and their great reverence for Torah and Torah sages. What is gained by pointing out their inadequacies and their contradictions? We want to be inspired by their example and learn from their experience. Rather than write the history of our forebears, every generation has to put a veil over the human failings of its elders and glorify all the rest which is great and beautiful. That means we have to do without a real history book….We do not need realism, we need inspiration from our forefathers in order to pass it on to posterity. 

Because a historian must record the facts, and the facts remain lashon harah and therefore forbidden, R. Schwab argues that Torah-true “historians” should engage in the genre of “story-telling” rather than truthful history focusing on telling the stories that will inspire, leaving out the truth if unflattering.

Is R. Schwab correct in asserting that the reading or writing of all accurate history is in violation of the formal prohibition(s) of lashon harah and therefore renders the field of Jewish history decidedly quite “un-Jewish”? Any serious student of history must respond to this question.[11]

It appears from the literature that the standard prohibition of lashon harah only applies to the living. The Gemara in Berakhot (19a) cites Rabbi Yitzhak who states, “Anyone who speaks negatively about the deceased is as if he speaks about a stone. Some say this is because the dead do not know, and some say that they know, but they do not care [about such speech].

Simply understood, R. Yitzhak’s statement means that just as there is no formal prohibition of lashon harah for slandering inanimate objects, there is no lashon harah when speaking negatively about the dead.[12]

Although the Raavya[13] and the Mordekhai[14] quote an ancient heirem (ban) against falsely libeling the deceased which is codified in Shulhan Arukh,[15] this would not constitute formal lashon harah.[16]

Interestingly, the father of the aforementioned R. Nosson Kamenetsky, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, writes that even this ban, which reaches beyond the scope of normative lashon harah, only forbids false libel. Whereas lashon harah is forbidden when speaking about living persons even when true,[17] one is permitted, according to the elder R. Kamenetsky, to tell negative stories about people from the past as long as they are true. R. Gil Student notes that when applied to history, this principle would provide a heter (allowance) for the accurate, albeit occasionally negative, recording of facts.[18]

On the other hand, R. Binyamin Yehoshua Zilber argues, contrary to the simple reading of the Gemara cited above, the dead do, in fact, know about and are affected by what is said about them. Therefore, he rules that one may not say anything bad about the dead, false or true.[19]

The Allowance of “Toelet”

Either approach one takes to lashon harah about the dead, the allowances to permitted lashon harah would seem to apply to the dead just as it applies to the living. Regarding history, two allowances outlined by the Hafetz Haim seem particularly relevant: one permitting the “sharing of public knowledge”[20] and another based on “toelet” — having a legitimate or constructive purpose.[21] If something is already public knowledge, its inclusion in history books is permitted under the category of “sharing public knowledge.” If it is not already known, I would argue that documenting it for posterity, when it serves a constructive purpose for the historical record, should also be allowed.

Returning to Making of a Godol, R. Kamenetsky was aware of the potential for Breuer’s critique of lashon harah. In defense of his choice to include some less than savory passages in his book apparently for the sake of the historical record, R. Kamenetsky appears to utilize the “toelet argument”:

It goes without saying that R. Mordekhai Schwab [brother of R. Shimon Schwab who supported the study of accurate Jewish history] did not approve of revealing faults in any man without constructive purpose; and neither do I.[22]

R. Kamenetsky makes another argument to support disclosing even unsavory information. He claims there is some form of halakhic statute of limitations on people’s embarrassment. Things that transpired over a century ago are no longer subject to the rules of lashon harah:

I did not give much consideration to concealing then-sensitive matters for the reason that when my father talked about these long-past episodes he specifically applied the verse גם שנאתם גם קנאתם כבר אבדה (Both their [the principals’] enmity and their envy are already bygone)[23]…. In fact, my father considered the passage of only 50 years – a יובל (which the Torah labels ” לעולם [forever]”) – to have enough of a cumulative effect to erase one world and bring a new society in its stead.[24]

This rationale goes well beyond the toelet allowance or limiting lashon harah to the living. If one accepts this contention, any information that is at least 50 years old can be written even if the individual would not want this information shared.

Whatever the assumed allowance is, in recent years, it appears that many, even within the haredi community, have taken a more open approach to the study of Jewish history. 

Although Making of a Godol was banned, this did not impede the public’s interest in historical scholarship. Over twenty years after the Making of a Godol ban, interest in the academic study of Jewish history has only grown. Today, there is a new wave of Jewish historians, writers, and podcast hosts who are engaged in rigorous study and writing of Jewish history. In their weekly column in Mishpacha magazine “For the Record,” Yehuda Geberer and Dovi Safier cite directly from historical documents and materials from Jewish history. Geberer hosts a popular podcast entitled “Jewish History Soundbites (here).”Nachi Weinstein of Lakewood, New Jersey, the host of the Seforim Chatter podcast (here), routinely interviews academic historians and professors well outside the typical sources found in the more insulated Yeshiva community.

Although there is still a strong presence of the typical biographical or hagiographical, any careful observer of the Jewish community can discern a largely different approach being taken to the study of Jewish history.

The Ethical Imperative of Accurate Historiography

I have shown that, although debated, there is a halakhic basis for the study of accurate and truthful Jewish history. However, is there a moral imperative to study Jewish history? It may be permitted halakhically, but is there inherent value in the recording of history?

According to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, we can derive from the Torah itself that there is an ethical value in preserving history. R. Hirsch notes that the Torah “does not hide from us the faults, errors, and weaknesses of our great men” and narrates events simply “because they took place”:

The Torah never hides from us the faults, errors, and weaknesses of our great men. Just by that it gives a stamp of veracity to what it relates . . . The Torah never presents our great men as being perfect, it deifies no man, says of none ‘here you have the ideal, in this man the divine became human’ . . . The Torah is no collection of examples of saints. It relates what occurred, not because it was exemplary, but because it did occur.[25]

In fact, recording the mistakes of our biblical heroes provides more credibility to the Torah.

R.Yehuda Leib Bloch, the Rosh Yeshiva of Telshe, Lithuania makes a similar point:

At the very moment it describes the greatness and holiness of the Patriarchs, [the Torah] does not remain silent about their shortcomings. It does not conceal their flaws, nor does it portray them as divine beings possessing every virtue without defects or shortcomings….Our Torah is a Torah of truth, a Torah of life. It teaches us that a person, by virtue of being human, cannot be divine.[26]

Aside from the lesson of our Patriarchs’ and Matriarchs’ humanity and the credibility gained by the Torah, the fact that the Torah records events simply “because they took place” is significant for R. Hirsch. The very notion that something occurred, in and of itself merits being recorded in the Torah because the Torah values the truth of history. Throughout many of his works, R. Hirsch emphasizes the importance of historical awareness and the necessity of the study of history.[27] One citation will suffice:

To obtain knowledge of Nature and History…is not only something permitted but something which is desirable to the fullest extent, for only a mind armed with such a wide panoramic view on all matters can draw the right conclusions of the Jewish position in the world, in the whole of its speciality.[28]

Censoring the “Inconvenient Truths” of History 

Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter has argued in a number of important essays that there is an ethical imperative to preserving historical truth about our past and “facing the truths of history.”[29]

In support of his position, which he notes has historically been the minority one, R. Schacter draws from R. Yaakov Emden,[30] R. Hirsch,[31] and the Hazon Ish.[32] Critical of hagiographic works that censor or remove “inconvenient truths” about gedolim, R. Schacter writes:

Is overlooking part of the truth, in fact, any less of a lie than actively distorting it? Do not both result in a less than true—let us call it what it really is, i. e., false—picture of the facts or figure being presented? W. E. B. Du Bois wrote: “One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over.”[33]

R. Schacter also responds to R. Schwab’s rationalization for omitting parts of history:

It is interesting that Rabbi Schwab does not deny that “important people” and “good people” have failings and inadequacies. Rather, he suggests that they are best overlooked and forgotten. However, even this…explains only the neglect and disregard of history; it does not justify the distorting of history. While it may explain why one should not write about the past, it does not justify distorting the past when one does write about it. Inventing the past is as foolish as foretelling the future, but more scandalous.[34]

Suffice it to say, although “facing the truths of history” may be difficult, even prohibitive according to some, according to R. Schacter and those of his school, it is imperative.

The Miracle of Jewish Survival 

There may be yet another reason to study Jewish history from a religious perspective. In an often-cited passage, R. Yaakov Emden writes that Jewish history very well may be the repository of the greatest miracle known to man:

Who is so blind as to not see the divine providence?… We the exiled nation, a dispersed sheep. After all the troubles and shifts for two thousand years. No nation in the world is as pursued as us….[Our enemies] have brought on us great sufferings but were never able to triumph over us…All these ancient, powerful nations have gone by, their strength has withered, their protection has eroded. But we who cling to G-d are all alive today…Can the hand of chance do all this? I swear by my soul that…these ideas are greater [miracles] in my eyes than all the great open miracles G-d has performed for our forefathers in Egypt, the Sinai Desert, and in the land of Israel. The longer the exile lasts, the more the miracle is confirmed…[35]

If, as R. Emden argues, the story of Jewish people’s survival is even more miraculous and contributes more to our faith than the Exodus, it would follow that the study of the Jewish people’s history and its survival would be a critical part of Jewish education and faith-building.

In fact, R. Emden’s theory of the significance of the Jewish story of survival and its place within history, was felt by Catholic historian Paul Johnson. In the prologue to his A History of the Jews, Johnson gives his fourth and final reason why he chose to write this book and to study the Jewish people:

The book gave me the chance to reconsider objectively…the most intractable of all human questions: what are we on earth for? Is history merely a series of events whose sum is meaningless?….No people has ever insisted more firmly than the Jews that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny. At a very early stage in their collective existence they believed they had detected a divine scheme for the human race, of which their own society was to be a pilot. They worked out their role in immense detail. They clung to it with heroic persistence in the face of savage suffering. Many of them believe it still….The Jews, therefore, stand right at the centre of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose.[36]

For Johnson, the Jews stand at the centre of the very question of history and of human existence itself. Believing and arguing, by their very existence, that mankind does matter, and that there is moral significance to the history of the human race. 

In sum, the value of the rigorous and accurate study of Jewish history has been the subject of debate. From the standpoint of halakhah, I have argued that even negative information that can provide a greater understanding of our history is permitted to be recorded if it serves a constructive purpose for the historical record. However, more fundamentally, I believe that the proper study of Jewish history is not only a moral imperative ensuring an accurate picture of the past, it provides us with a deep sense of memory and Jewish identity. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks notes that although Jews were the first people to write history, biblical Hebrew has no word for “history.” Instead it uses the root zakhor, meaning “memory.”[37] History and memory are not the same thing. History is about facts, memory is about identity. History is about something that happened to someone else. It is “his story.” Memory is my story, the past that made me who I am, of whose legacy I am the guardian for the sake of generations yet to come. While, as I have argued, the study of history is crucial, without memory, there is no identity, and without identity, we are “mere dust on the surface of infinity.”[38]

[1] R. Nosson Kameneksty, Making of a Godol: A Study of Episodes in the Lives of Great Torah Personalities (Mesorah, 2002).
[2] Mordechai Breuer, “Gidulo Shel Gadol (Making of a Godol)” Hamayan 44:2 Teves 5764, pp. 81-82. For more reviews of Making of a Godol see Zev Lev, “Al Gidulo shel Gadol,” Hamayan 50:1 (Tishrei 5770) , pp. 100-104; “Teguvah le-divrei Prof. Lev z”l al ha-sefer “Gidulo shel Gadol” Hamayan 50:7 (Tishrei 5770), pp. 77-104.
[3] See Immanuel Etkes, “On Shaping the Image of ‘the Gedolim’ in Ultra-Orthodox Lithuanian Hagiographic Literature,” in Benjamin Brown and Nissim Leon, eds., The Gedolim: Leaders Who Shaped the Israeli Haredi Jewry (Magnes, 2017), p. 26 (Hebrew). I was introduced to this and several other sources referenced in this article through R. Dovid Bashevkin. See his “Is Jewish History Lashon Harah,” Reading Jewish History in the Parsha (April 10, 2024) (available here).
[4] Breuer, “Gidulo Shel Gadol,” p. 81.
[5] Breuer, “Gidulo Shel Gadol,” pp. 83-84. For more on Making of a Godol and the ban on it see R. Nosson Kameneksty, “Anatomy of a Ban: the Story of the Ban on the Book Making of a Godol; R. Nosson Kamenetsky, “Making of a Ban: A Look At the Banning of Making of A Godol,” YUTorah.org (March 12, 2005) (available here); Marc B. Shapiro, “Of Books and Bans,” The Edah Journal 3:2 (2003) (available here) and his “On Re-Reading a Banned Book: Nathan Kamenetsky’s Making of a Godol,” Jewish Review of Books (Spring 2022); Dovid Lichtenstein, “Supermen or Super Men: Acknowledging the Faults and Mistakes of Gedolim,” Headlines 3: Halachic Debates of Current Events (Mekor, 2021), pp. 385-413 and his Halacha Headlines podcast on the topic.
[6] R. Shimon Schwab, Selected Writings, (1988), p. 233.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle and London, 1982), 15-16.
[9] Yerushalmi’s thesis has been the subject of much debate in academic circles. See perhaps most notably,  Robert Bonfil, “How Golden was the ‘Golden Age’ of Jewish Historiography?” History and Theory, Vol. 27, No. 4, Beiheft 27: Essays in Jewish Historiography (Dec., 1988), pp. 78-102. Also see Amos Funkenstein’s Perceptions of Jewish History (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993); David N. Myers and Amos Funkenstein, “Remembering “Zakhor”: A Super-Commentary [with Response], History and Memory, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall – Winter, 1992), pp. 129-148; David Berger, “Identity, Ideology and Faith: Some Personal Reflections on the Social, Cultural and Spiritual Value of the Academic Study of Judaism,” in Howard Kreisel (ed.), Study and Knowledge in Jewish Thought (Ben-Gurion University, 2006), pp. 15-16. Thanks to Dr. Marc Herman and Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin for these sources.
[10] R. Schwab, p. 234.
[11] For a discussion of the position of the Rambam on this question see R. Zev Eleff, “The Intersection of Halakhah and History,” Beit Yitzhak, Vol. 42 (5770), p. 425n4.
[12] It should be noted that R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv is cited as reading this Gemara differently and thereby prohibits lashon harah spoken of the dead the same as the living. See R. Benzion Kook (ed.), Shiurei Maran HaGrish Elyashiv, Berakhot 19a, with nn. 53-54.
[13] Yoma, no. 531.
[14] Yoma, no. 724.
[15] Orah Hayim 606:4.
[16] Mishnah Berurah 606:16.
[17] Emet Liyaakov al Hatorah, Vayeishev, p. 194.
[18] R. Gil Student, “Toward a Halakhic Philosophy of History,” Torah Musings (March 15, 2011).
[19] Shu”t Az Nidberu 14:68. For more see R. Daniel Feldman, False Facts and True Rumors: Lashon Hara in Contemporary Society, (2015), pp. 228-230 and R. Eleff, pp. 422-431.
[20] Hafetz Hayim 1:2:2.
[21] Ibid. 1:10:2.
[22] R. Nathan Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol, Vol. 1 (Improved Edition, 2004), p. xxv.
[23] Kohelet 9:6.
[24] R. Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol, pp. xxiii-xxiv.
[25] R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Pentateuch, Genesis 12:10-13.
[26] R. Yosef Yehuda Leib Bloch, Shiurei Daat, Vayikra Bishem Hashem, p. 157.
[27] See R. Hirsch, “On Hebrew Instruction As Part of General Education,” Judaism Eternal, Vol. 1 (Soncino, 1956), p. 199; The Nineteen Letters, Letter Eighteen (Feldheim, 1995), p. 273; Pentateuch, Devarim 4:32, 6:4, and 16:1. I am indebted to Professor Yehuda (Leo) Levi for many of these citations. See his “Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: Myth and Fact,” Tradition (Spring 1997), 31.3, p. 7 and 18.
[28] Pentateuch, Devarim 4:32.
[29] See his “Haskalah, Secular Studies and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892,” The Torah u-Madda Journal, vol. 2 (1990), pp. 76-133 (available here) and “Facing the Truths of History,” The Torah u-Madda Journal, vol. 8 (1998-1999), pp. 200-276 (available here).
[30] “Facing the Truths of History,” pp. 203-204.
[31] R. Jacob J. Schacter, “On the Morality of the Patriarchs: Must Biblical Heroes be Perfect?” in Zvi Grumet, ed., Jewish Education in Transition (2007), p. 5.
[32] Koveitz Iggerot Meiet Hahazon Ish, Vol. 2, no. 133.
[33] “Facing the Truths of History,” pp. 230-231.
[34] “Haskalah, Secular Studies,” pp. 111-112.
[35] Siddur Yavetz, Vol. 1, Introduction.
[36] Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (1988), p. 2.
[37] R. Jonathan Sacks, “A Nation of Storytellers,” (Ki Tavo), Lessons in Leadership (2015), p. 278.
[38] R. Sacks, Morality (2020), p. 15.

Slobodka

By Dr. Shlomo Tikochinski

Seforim Blog Editors: In 2016, Dr. Tikochinski published his work Lamdanut, Mussar, and Elitism (Mercaz Shazar, in Hebrew). Thanks to new translation tools, the process has become much easier. We will be posting a chapter of this work every week or two. As this is a work in progress, we appreciate your patience.

Introduction:

• What, in its deepest sense, is the Slabodka doctrine of Gadlut ha-Adam—the greatness and nobility of the human being?

• How did this idea take root in Lithuania and shape the spirit of an entire generation of yeshivot?

• What role did Slabodka play within the Mussar movement, and in what ways did its path diverge from that of Kelm, its stark and disciplined counterpart?

• And finally: does the legacy of Slabodka still echo in our own time, and if so—how?

The first part of this book sets out to explore these questions, tracing the origins of a daring educational vision and following the imprint it left on the world of Torah and beyond.

This work was originally submitted in Hebrew back in 2009.
In the years since, it found its way into print—also in Hebrew—under the title Lamdanut, Mussar and Elitism, published by the Shazar Center in 2016. Still, the present draft contains a great deal of material that never made it into the final book.

Over the years, many people have expressed interest in the world of the Lithuanian yeshivot and in the themes explored here. With the arrival of new translation technologies, I felt that the time had finally come to bring this research into English. I used these tools as a starting point, but every line has been reviewed with as much personal care and attention as I could give.

What you are holding now is the first part of the work—the chapter of the yeshiva’s life in Lithuania, before its move to Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel). The second part will follow in due course, shaped also by your observations, suggestions, and encouragement.

Since English is not my first language, I would be sincerely grateful for any corrections or comments you may wish to share. I will update the text continuously, and every thoughtful note will help make this translation clearer and more faithful.

Thank you for taking the time to read this early version. I hope you find the journey both meaningful and enriching.

Rabbiner Dr. Shlomo Tikochinski
Jüdische Gemeinde St. Gallen, Switzerland
41767107403+
shlomotiko@gmail.com

Preface to the English Edition, 2025

The roots of my family on my father’s side lie deep in the soil of Lithuanian Jewry and its yeshivot — a lineage of rabbis, heads of yeshivot, and figures shaped by the Mussar movement. My father, Rabbi Rafael Tikochinski, z”l, was himself an extraordinary masmid, who later became a teacher and a rosh yeshiva to hundreds of students. I grew up in this world, surrounded by its voices, its teachers, and its inner rhythms. After years of study in yeshivot and kollels—among them the Ponovezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, under the shadow of Rabbi Shach z”l —I gradually found myself drawn toward the humanities, especially Jewish Studies, with a particular interest in Jewish philosophy and Jewish history. And so, at the age of thirty-two, I arrived at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

After several years of general coursework and the gradual acquisition of methodological tools, I turned—at the advice of my teachers—to examine the world from which I had come: Lithuanian Jewry, the Lithuanian yeshivot, the Mussar movement, and the intellectual and sociological roots of today’s Lithuanian Haredi community.

I wrote my master’s thesis on the formation of the Lithuanian yeshiva method of Talmudic analysis, and my doctoral dissertation on the educational method of the yeshivot, rooted in the Mussar movement.

Over time I came to see the principles of Mussar education as both significant and influential—almost the only platform that still shapes the religious experience and conceptual world of students in Lithuanian yeshivot today, even if we have long drifted from the original intentions of the movement’s founders.

Kenesset Yisrael—the Slobodka Yeshiva founded by Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slobodka—was the pioneering Mussar yeshiva in Lithuania. And because it was the first to arrive in the Land of Israel in an organized way before the Holocaust, it preserved an unbroken line of “Lithuanianness” and, in my view, left a profound and lasting imprint on the renewed yeshiva world in Israel.

I grew up in the shadow of educators who were among the last living echoes of the Mussar movement. My great-uncle, Rabbi Moshe Tikochinski, the mashgiach of the Slobodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, and Rabbi Chaim Fridlender of the Ponovezh Yeshiva, shaped much of the atmosphere of my youth. I had the privilege of hearing Mussar talks — shmuessen — from figures whose voices once filled entire worlds: Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, Rabbi Yaakov Galinsky, Rabbi Moshe Shimon Waintrob, Rabbi David Avrahami, Rabbi Dan Segal, Rabbi Shimshon Pinkus, Rabbi Shalom Shvadron, and other Mashgichim and preachers, famous or lesser known, each with his unique cadence.

During my years in the Ponovezh Yeshiva, I listened to the aged Rabbi David Povarsky, who brought us, as if by direct transmission, the spirit of his old home in Kelm, Lithuania. From my teacher my father , I absorbed talks shaped by the teachings of his own master, Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, author of Mikhtav me-Eliyahu.

Like many other students in Lithuanian yeshivot in Israel, the foundations of my education and Torah outlook were formed out of ideas that flowed from the Mussar tradition — though at the time I had no name for them. Around the age of twenty, I too became a Mussarnik of the old school. For several years, I held fast to that way. I studied Mussar with strong emotion — “with the excitement of the soul, with a ready heart, with a pained voice, with burning lips,” as the early disciples of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter taught. I recited long, fervent prayers and joined a Mussar va’ad of earnest young men who were serious practitioners. Our meetings revolved around shared spiritual introspection and the taking on of kabbalot — personal spiritual commitments.

During those years, I also delivered Mussar talks to a small circle of attentive friends, until I became, almost without noticing, a kind of spiritual guide for students younger than myself.

Something of that deep, formative experience — and of the quiet inner currents that flowed through it — remained within me even years later, when my path turned toward academic study. Paradoxically, it was my very attachment to the Mussar world that eventually guided me into the field of Jewish Studies. When I first encountered Immanuel Etkes’s book on Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and the beginnings of the movement, I found myself unexpectedly moved. The scholarly gaze — its ability to look closely, to refine, to name, to offer perspective and historical setting to feelings and ideas I had known from such close range — opened a new window for me.

This brief autobiographical note may explain why the reader will find in the present work a structure slightly different from that found in other studies of the Mussar movement, and conclusions that lean in directions not always identical to theirs.

I wish to express my thanks to my teachers and mentors — from the yeshivot and from the academy — and to the many friends and colleagues who have accompanied me. My gratitude goes in particular to my teacher, Professor Immanuel Etkes, to Rabbi Professor Naftali Rothenberg, Professor Avi Ravitzki, and Professor Benjamin Brown, who has followed my research for many years with steady wisdom and generous counsel.

Introduction

On Mussar and the Development of the Mussar Movement within the Lithuanian Yeshiva World

The Hebrew term Mussar (מוּסָר) is commonly translated as “Moral” or “ethics,” reflecting its biblical usage (e.g., Prov. 1:2: “to receive wisdom and Mussar,” meaning instruction or reproof). The Mussar cultivated in nineteenth-century Lithuanian Jewry, however, represents a later and fundamentally different development. Conceived by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (1810–1883), it was primarily a rigorous system of self-education grounded in Torah learning, aimed at intensifying yirat shamayim (fear of Heaven) and refining one’s character traits. This system articulated a structured set of principles concerning human psychology and conduct, drawing on rabbinic aggadah, homiletic literature, and the classical Jewish ethical corpus. Accordingly, the overlap between Mussar and the English category “Mussar” is only partial. While the cultivation of positive traits, commitment to ethical values, aspiration toward good action, and continuous self-supervision form an important conceptual backdrop, the actual goal is specifically religious: the deepening of fear of Heaven within the Jewish framework of Torah and halakhah.

A further methodological observation is essential. The now-familiar designation “Mussar Movement” (Tenuʿat ha-Mussar) appears to have been consolidated only in the post-Holocaust period, chiefly through Israeli writers such as Rabbi Dov Katz, whose multi-volume Tenuʿat ha-Mussar (Jerusalem 1957) became authoritative and is cited throughout this study. For this reason, when referring to this modern term, I do not employ the diasporic milʿel vocalization. Likewise, in construct expressions such as sifrut Mussar (Mussar literature) or sifrei Mussar (Mussar texts), I retain the standard Hebrew usage, as these terms already designate an established genre within the Jewish textual tradition.

Lithuanian Mussar emerged in the 1840s against the backdrop of far-reaching processes of modernity within Eastern European Jewry. As with other contemporary spiritual movements, it constituted both a conscious and subconscious response to Jewish modernization as well as to modernity itself, which reshaped the structures of Jewish life. Some scholars view Mussar as a form of religious renaissance within the Mitnagdic (non-Hasidic) Orthodox world, developed in contrast to Hasidism, which had arisen several decades earlier. Just as Hasidism introduced its own spiritual revolution, the Mussar Movement placed new spiritual challenges on the Jewish agenda, emphasizing tikkun adam—the Mussar and religious transformation of the individual—rather than tikkun olam. Scholarly opinion is divided on whether Mussar should be understood chiefly as a reaction to modernity or as an internal religious renewal focused on individual divine service.

Mussar entered the Lithuanian yeshiva system only in the second and third generations after Rabbi Salanter. From that point onward it became a structured pedagogical method for thousands of students across the Pale of Settlement. By then, three major schools had crystallized—Kelm, Slobodka, and Novardok—each interpreting Salanter’s teachings in its own way and implementing its distinctive program of Mussar education and supervision.

The Lithuanian yeshivot functioned essentially as advanced academies of Talmudic study. They placed intellectual rigor at the center of their curriculum and cultivated competitiveness and excellence in analytic study of the Talmud and its commentaries. Yet as traditional communal structures eroded in the early twentieth century, the yeshivot gradually became institutions of religious socialization and guardians of tradition. This role was carried out by Mussar educators, each shaped by the ideas of his own school. Even students who did not fully engage in intensive Mussar practice could acquire a broad foundation in Lithuanian Jewish thought, which provided spiritual resources, interpretive methods, and modes of reflection on aggadic texts. Much of the intellectual production of the Lithuanian yeshivot from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century centered on developing a homiletical-philosophical discourse that drew ethical meaning from biblical narratives and rabbinic aggadah.

This heritage shaped the inner world of the Lithuanian yeshiva student and stood at the heart of his consciousness of distinctiveness—both from other Orthodox groups and, all the more so, from the largely secular Jewish majority. The interpretive study of aggadah through the lens of Mussar strengthened spiritual aspiration, reinforced a sense of belonging to an Orthodox avant-garde, and instilled confidence in the necessity and significance of the yeshiva way of life. This is no small matter: throughout the twentieth century, the influence of the yeshiva world steadily expanded and penetrated other streams of Orthodoxy. Mussar educators and thinkers became influential role models, shaping the worldview of thousands of Haredi youths who adopted their interpretive approach to Jewish ethical and aggadic traditions. The result is a distinctive school of Jewish thought unique to the students and graduates of the Lithuanian yeshivot—one they continued to develop even after leaving the yeshiva, and which they transmitted to the next generation.

Guiding Ideas and Foundational Assumptions

The Mussar movement, which was created in Lithuania in the 1840s, began to conquer the Lithuanian yeshivot at the end of the nineteenth century, and the yeshiva in Slobodka was one of the leaders of the process. In the Mussar controversy that stirred up the Jewish public in Russia in the 1890s, this yeshiva was in the eye of the storm. With the passage of the crisis, the Knesset Israel Yeshiva became one of the most famous and influential yeshivas in Lithuania. In both Lithuania and the Land of Israel, it was considered a prestigious and leading yeshiva. And in the eyes of many, even the heir to the famous Volozhin Yeshiva.

At the end of 1924, the yeshiva immigrated to Eretz Israel, first settled in Hebron and after the 1929 riots moved to Jerusalem. From the perspective of the Jewish Yishuv in the Land of Israel during the British Mandate, Slobodka was a new element that had hitherto been unknown in the Orthodox community. Torah learners identified with the old Yishuv, which was perceived as a symbol of decadence. The Mussar Lithuanian yeshiva represented the alternative, in the form of an opinionated Torah elite that was interested in maintaining proper relations with the new Yishuv, and around it developed a community with a Yeshiva identity that combined Torah with practical life.

The starting point for our discussion is the establishment of the yeshiva in 1882, and we will review its various stages and crises, at the turn of the centuries, during the First War, and in the Land of Israel. There will be two sections in the essay: The first will deal with the formative period in Lithuania and will discuss structural, ideological, and especially educational-social aspects of Rabbi Finkel’s yeshiva. The second division will deal with the immigration and absorption of the yeshiva in the Land of Israel, in its various branches, while examining its relations with the old and new settlements and its status as a unique entity. We will conclude the discussion with a snapshot of the Lithuanian Yeshiva institution in the State of Israel in the early 1950s, as a milestone that concludes the period of the yeshiva’s uniqueness. From then on, it merged into the Haredi yeshiva establishment in Israel, with expansion and change in the structure and educational challenges. Numerical growth, the absorption of immigrant students from Sephardic countries, the change of generations in leadership, and the confrontation with secular political sovereignty – these and more characterized the era that concludes the connection.

As noted above, in the first half of the twentieth century, the Lithuanian Yeshiva and the Mussar Movement were two entities that merged with each other, with the first being the type of institution, and the second being the method of education used in it. During this period, there were few yeshivot that did not introduce Mussar education, and at the same time, there were few bodies of the non-yeshiva Mussar movement.

The rise of the Mussar yeshivot to Israel is an important chapter in the history of yeshivot and Orthodoxy in general. In addition to the implications that this had on the way and methods of the yeshiva institution, in the Land of Israel the Lithuanian yeshiva became a central model that was also adopted by Hasidim, Sephardim, and national religious. Its educational heritage and the ethos that underlies it radiate to this day on the entire Orthodoxy, the fields of spirituality, education, and even the field of halakha. It seems that understanding the process of absorption and consolidation of this institution in the Land of Israel, It is the key to understanding the roots of the religious world in today’s Israel.

Why Slobodka? A few answers to this:

The focus of this yeshiva stems from observing the Israeli yeshiva world and its founders, and tracing its contemporary educational positions. The impression is that among the schools that made up the Lithuanian Mussar movement, the only one that remained active in the second half of the twentieth century was Slobodka, and its influence on the educational ethos of the post-Holocaust yeshiva world is considerable. Most of the leading figures in the yeshiva world after the Holocaust came out of this yeshiva, both in Israel and in the United States. There are two possible reasons for this: first, that it was a single case of the transfer of a yeshiva with its rabbis and students from Lithuania to the Land of Israel, and thus it was saved from destruction. Second, Slobodka’s education contained elements that ensured survival and integration in a changing world, namely Jewish society in Lithuania between the wars and the emerging society in the new settlement in the Land of Israel. My work will seek to examine these elements, and through them explain Slobodka’s decisive influence on the formation of the Israeli yeshiva world. I will try to show that, in contrast to other streams of ethics, Like Kelm and Novardok, Slobodka incorporated certain elements of modernity into the realms of thought and behavior.

The story of the relocation of the Lithuanian yeshiva and the Mussar movement to the Land of Israel is composed of groups and individuals who immigrated to Israel at different times and under different circumstances. A group of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s close disciples immigrated back in the 1890s and established the Jerusalem Beit Mussar and the Or Chadash Yeshiva in the Strois Courtyard (today in the Musrara neighborhood). This was the “first aliyah” of the Mussar movement, which belongs to the old type of traditional immigrants who sought a life of Torah and celibacy in the Holy Land. This small Mussar core dispersed even before the First World War, and its people merged into the institutions of the Old Yishuv.

After the First War and the Balfour Declaration, the wave of immigration of the Mussar yeshivot began, the Slobodka Yeshiva in 1924, the nucleus of the Lomza Yeshiva (Poland) in 1926, and in the early 1930s – the nuclei of the Novradok network. This was the “second aliyah” of the Mussar movement, which, in terms of consciousness and goals, was already part of the patterns that characterized the Fourth and Fifth Aliyah. The reference environment of this Haredi aliyah was the new Yishuv, and it chose to merge into the new colonies precisely. From here until the end of the 1940s, additional groups and a few members of the Mussar movement immigrated to Israel. Among them were Holocaust refugees, who, together with their predecessors, became the inheritors of Mussar education in the renewed yeshiva world in Israel. A comprehensive discussion of the question of the absorption of the Mussar movement in Israel requires reference to the personalities who were known as Mussar influencers in the country, the rabbis: Lupian, Dessler, Levinstein, Wolbe and others. However, these Mussar figures and their teachings, even if their influence in the long run was great, will not be included in the discussion. I want to remain within the boundaries of the Yeshiva Mussar establishment, while examining the history of an institution that immigrated to Israel in an organized manner, as an educational framework with defined goals for institutionalization, continuity and influence in the new Yishuv.

For this purpose, I asked for a Mussar yeshiva that was born in Lithuania, which chose to relocate and cope with a new space of action. Preference was given to the institution, which, even after its relocation, maintained as much continuity as possible, while embodying its original values in its new place, but in a different way. If we look at the Mussar movement and its yeshivot in the twentieth century, we have nothing but the Slobodkian yeshiva Knesset Yisrael that meets our demands.

3. The assumption underlying our work is that there is a constant tension between the study of Talmud, or more precisely, scholarship as a challenge and a symbol of status, and the study of ethics and the self-education that it entails. At the beginning of the path of ethics in the yeshivot, this tension led to open struggles, but it continued to exist in the background even after the resistance had subsided. A covert struggle over the birthright nourished the dynamic between students and their rabbis and between students and their yeshiva, when they studied there and even after they left it.

Against this background, Slobodka can be noted as a yeshiva that for most of its periods fostered scholarship and even managed to concentrate the best young forces in its environment. In the study of Mussar, Slobodka took an optimistic line, focused on the theoretical-philosophical aspect of it, and disapproved of the asceticism and melancholy that accompanied it. Its opponents claimed that she had “created a vacuum” in Mussar and dealt only with “education in the brain” and the like, because she saw Mussar as internalizing ideas and neutralizing its demanding sting. With the move to Eretz Yisrael, this approach became apparent to be an advantage. At that time, the optimistic-adaptive elements that were embedded in Slobodka’s philosophy and character were expressed, and out of a sense of solidarity with the Aliyah and settlement enterprise, she approached it from within in her own way. Fostering excellence and education for inclusion were the basic principles of Slobodka Eretz Israel, and most of its graduates were integrated into positions of education and rabbinate and other positions of influence. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s special interpretation of the Mussar teachings ensured its survival under the new conditions dictated by the Yishuv of the Land of Israel during the Mandate period and in the early days of the state.

It should be noted that this is in fact an existing institution, which, with the exception of the institutions of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem, is the oldest Lithuanian yeshiva in Israel and the world today. It can be said that since its establishment in 1882, the Knesset Israel Yeshiva has led an almost continuous elitist line. Rabbi Finkel was meticulous in choosing the students for his yeshiva, and with Mussar education at the top of his mind, he invested efforts and even succeeded in concentrating intellectual forces and renowned scholars in his yeshiva. It is a fact that despite the student Revolts and divisions, the exile in Ukraine during the First War, the move to Palestine, the 1929 riots, economic crises and internal control struggles, the yeshiva maintained its status and produced prominent leaders from the Orthodox world.

In contrast to Slobodka, the Novardok school is presented, which led a pessimistic line in the Mussar movement, and preached extreme actions of breaking the inclination. In Torah study, too, the theoretical aspect gave way to the study of halakha in practice and grammar in mitzvot. Novardok prioritized the activity of “acquitting the public” and opened many branches, first in Russia and then in Poland. In the late 1920s, she arrived in the Land of Israel and established branches in Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak. However, Novardok did not survive the move to Israel. Most of its students have abandoned, and some have even left the tradition. If in Lithuania the difference between Novardok and Slobodka was limited to the method of education, in the Mandatory Land of Israel it received additional meanings that had implications for the future of the Lithuanian yeshiva. Slobodka’s path turned out to be more suitable for the new environment, and elements of her Mussar thought found their way into the Haredi education system.

The accepted assumption is that the Yeshivot of the Mussar Movement succeeded in curbing the influence of the Enlightenment and Zionism, in addition to other yeshivot that did not belong to this movement. This assumption is true only for Lithuania between the wars, and it derives from the image that emerged of the Mussar Movement in literature and research, which was greatly influenced by the extreme and severe nature of the Mussar yeshivot, the aforementioned Nobardok. With regard to the Land of Israel, things are quite different. In this essay, I would like to present Slobodka as someone who survived and withstood the challenges presented by the new environment. Precisely because of the adoption of a modern way of thinking and thanks to a certain contact with education.

We will leave the rest of the Lithuanian yeshivot that had established a foothold in Israel – we will leave them out of the discussion, and we will refer to them only for the sake of comparison. It should be noted that after the yeshiva immigrated in 1924, the Slobodka Yeshiva in Lithuania was reorganized under the leadership of the rabbis: Sher, Zusmanovich and Grodzinsky. Rabbi Sher led his yeshiva in an independent way and different from that of his rabbi and father-in-law, Rabbi Finkel, as did the mashgiach Rabbi Grodzinsky. Before the outbreak of World War II, Rabbi Sher managed to escape. And in 1947 he established a yeshiva in Bnei Brak that bears the name ‘Slobodka’ to this day. From the beginning, this yeshiva was attended by young people born in Israel, mainly of Hasidic origin and even members of the old Yishuv. Based on close acquaintance with her and her supervisor, Rabbi Moshe Tikoczinsky, and from interviews with her alumni, it seems that this was not a continuation of Slobodka’s method in any sense, and that there is nothing between the two but the sharing of God’s name. Therefore, it will also remain outside of our discussion.

Research Questions

The focus of the essay will be the question of relocation: a method of education that was a clear product of time and place, was relocated to a new and different place, and tried to survive and even influence its new environment. Questions of continuity versus change are key questions in every field in the study of the history of the modern era. All the more so when it comes to an educational framework that has fundamentally changed its operating environment. The question is most intense when we are dealing with a religious institution that is imbued with a consciousness of continuity and even declares it. But he wants to function under changing conditions. From this question all the sub-questions relating to the two divisions of the composition will be derived: the period of Lithuania and the period of Eretz Yisrael, with the period of transition and adjustment between them. The yeshiva is required as an educational institution that manages a system of relations with its environment, while examining its goals, mechanisms of social supervision and social deviance, and discussing questions of authority and autonomy within the system.

We will first deal with the formative stage of Slobodka, in which her unique social structure was formed. An examination of the conceptual roots of this structure will contribute to an understanding of the process of copying and the changes that followed. The starting point is Rabbi Finkel’s educational philosophy, which became known as “the greatness of man”, we will examine its uniqueness in comparison to other streams of Mussar, its attitude and response to modernity, and its possible connections to contemporary ideals. No less important is Rabbi Finkel’s complex educational act. His status and influence in the yeshiva, the nature of his relations with his students, and the nature of the student community in Slobodka. We will dedicate a special discussion to Slobodkai ethics as an exegetical method of rabbinic legends, in the light of which ideas and patterns of outlook that are prevalent to this day in Haredi educational thought have been formulated. We will also discuss Rabbi Finkel’s attitude toward the Enlightenment and secular studies, Zionism, and the Land of Israel, especially in light of the fact that some of his close students became prominent leaders who combined Torah and ethics with Western education and culture. These include: the heads of the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin, Rabbi Avraham Eliyahu Kaplan and Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, and in America – Rabbis Yitzhak Hutner, Yaakov Kamenetsky, and Yaakov Ruderman. Through these personalities, Slobodka became a bridge between Mussar and modern orthodoxy in all its varieties.

The chapter on Aliyah to Eretz Israel presents us with central questions: What was the social and political background to Aliyah? What aspirations motivated the yeshiva’s leaders and students, and what was the significance of the move in the world of Lithuanian yeshivot? We will try to find the connection between Slobodka’s unique character and her being the first yeshiva to initiate organized aliyah. Why did Slobodka see the “new Yishuv” as a natural goal, and what were her expectations and the quality of her relations with the Yishuv before and after Aliyah?

The chapter on the establishment in Israel is the last in chronological order, but the first in importance for understanding the roots of the Israeli yeshiva world. How did the yeshiva adapt to the new environment, and what was the social and economic framework within which it functioned? In the field of Mussar education, the environment in the Land of Israel presented more difficult challenges than those that were the lot of Slobodka in Lithuania. We will find out how the new environment influenced the study and Mussar, the educational ethos of the yeshiva, and the policy of the management. We will examine the emotional and practical involvement of yeshiva students in the life of the Yishuv, its struggles, and even its ways and culture. This issue is of great importance for understanding the process of formulating a Yishuvite-Lithuanian identity in the Land of Israel, the fruits of which are evident to this day.

We will also examine the relationship between the yeshiva and the old Yishuv in Jerusalem, especially after the events of 1929 and the relocation of the yeshiva from Hebron to Jerusalem. These were the days of a fierce struggle between extremists and moderates in the Old Yishuv, which led to a split of powers between the “Haredi Community” and the “Agudat Yisrael.” At the center of the debate was the recognition of the National Committee and its leadership, and the “obligation to leave” the Knesset that was introduced in the Old Yishuv. The Aliyah Yeshiva took place between two decisive events in the struggle between the old and the new: the murder of De Haan, the powerful political figure of Agudat Yisrael Eretz Yisrael, took place right next to Slobodka’s immigration. and the establishment of the Hebrew University – immediately afterwards. Both extremists and moderates had political expectations of the Slobodka Yeshiva, but the official line of the yeshiva was to refrain from political identification and from involvement in struggles of any kind.

The organizations of the yeshiva’s graduates and their activities within the Yishuv will be presented as a final stage, which expressed the characteristics of Slobodka’s education and its ability to stand the test of time. The discussion will take place in light of the gaps that arose on this issue between the yeshiva’s students and its rabbis, which were expressed in its two branches of the Land of Israel: Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Another point: In Lithuania, Slobodka was a center of attraction for young people from the rabbinical elite, as well as from the wealthy economic strata from Western countries. In the Land of Israel, the yeshiva opened its ranks to all the young people of the Yishuv. And we will seek to examine the change in the yeshiva’s social and educational messages in light of this change. The concluding discussion will return to the key question: Slobodka’s response in idea and action to the challenges of modernity, and the question of her resilience to the crises and transitions she experienced in the twentieth century.

Methodology and State of Research

The study of the Lithuanian Yeshiva and the Mussar movement touches on the following areas of research: social history, history of ideas, history and philosophy of education. The state of the research that we will present here will teach us that there is still a lot of work to be done in the study of the Lithuanian yeshiva and the Mussar yeshivot in the twentieth century, and many important topics in this field have not yet been studied.

The history of Jewish society in Eastern Europe in the modern era has been dealt with in the study mainly with a focus on the main changes that this society has experienced, which is collectively known as the “crisis of modernity,” centered on the process of abandonment of tradition and observance. The transition to the modern era gave birth, among other things, to the interest in the history of the ‘Old World’, from a critical perspective that is also a product of modernity. The traditional society, which remained in the minority, was studied mainly from social and economic aspects, and less from ideological and spiritual aspects. In these fields, it was perceived as the abandoned starting point, as the old ‘obvious’ whose methods and beliefs are known and do not arouse research interest. In the last thirty years, research has also begun to deal with the inner spiritual world of traditional society in modern times, as a developing and creative environment. However, the research’s tendency toward the transformational, the new and the changing, still left the picture unbalanced. The main attention was given to the Chassidic movement, with its various aspects: historical, social, ideological, and theological, while the society that held on to the old and known as the Mitnagdic Society, with its yeshivot and its Mussar movement, has not yet been sufficiently enlightened and few are engaged in it. A handful of scholars of the spiritual world in the opposing society have so far produced a small but very important crop, the main points of which we will present here, and the details of which are included in the full bibliographic list.

The existing research in this area extends over three sequential fields:

The teachings of the Vilna Gaon and his disciple R. Chaim of Volozhin,

The study of the Lithuanian Mussar movement.

The study of the Lithuanian yeshiva.

The teachings of the Vilna Gaon and his disciple Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin were handled by Immanuel Etkes, Nahum Lam, Shaul Stampfer, Tamar Ross, and others. The characteristics of the opposing ideology were reviewed in Alan Nadler’s book The Faith of the Mithnagdim. The activities of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and the beginning of the Mussar movement were also investigated by Immanuel Etkes in his book R. Yisrael Salanter and the Beginnings of the Mussar Movement (Jerusalem 1982). Mordechai Pachter analyzed Rabbi Salanter’s teachings in the introduction to the edition of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s Writings (Jerusalem 1973). A few articles on the world of ethics were written by Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Gedaliah Alon, Hillel Goldberg, and David Fishman. The methods of study in the yeshivot were reviewed in Mordechai Breuer’s book Ohalei Torah (2004), and the literature of memoirs from the Lithuanian yeshivot was reviewed by Immanuel Etkes in the introduction to the collection “The Lithuanian Yeshivot – Chapters of Memories.” Shaul Stampfer’s book “The Lithuanian Yeshiva in the Making” (Jerusalem 2004) deals with the yeshivot of Volozhin, Slobodka and Telz, and focuses on their structural and organizational aspects in their early years. This book, as well as Ross and Brown’s studies on the Mussar movement, will be discussed in more detail below.

A comprehensive study has not yet been written on the history of the Mussar movement from a socio-historical perspective, its spread and scope of activity, its central figures, and their spheres of influence. The only monograph that exists in this field so far is Dov Katz’s series of books, The Mussar Movement, which, despite its fine and practical writing, is not an academic study, but rather an informative one. Nothing has yet been written about the Lithuanian yeshivot between the wars, most of which were “Mussar yeshivas” at the time. The method of study that was introduced in these yeshivot, the balance of power between scholarship and Mussar, influential figures in study and Mussar, and their method – all of these are still waiting for study. The history of the Mussar movement in the Land of Israel has not yet been touched by anyone, neither with the immigration of the Disciples of Kelm to the Old Yishuv, nor with the rise of the Mussar yeshivot in the twentieth century. In general, many important issues related to the Lithuanian yeshiva are still waiting to be addressed, especially the inner world of the yeshiva. From a variety of aspects: Academic, educational and social, central figures, streams and methods of study.

This essay tries to fill in the gaps a little. As noted, we will discuss the Slobodka Yeshiva from educational-social aspects, on the assumption that the influence and continuity of the Mussar yeshivot was first and foremost the result of a social reality and an implemented educational ideal, while the contribution of the Mussar literary work was only secondary, and in some places even minimal.

Tamar Ross wrote a theoretical-philosophical study on the teachings of some of the successors of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. In the introduction to her research, she declares that her research is the result of arbitrary selection and subjective evaluation in the choice of material. She admits that relying on the writings of the Mussar movement, while ignoring the historical aspect, is liable to lead to conclusions that sin against the original intention of their perpetrators.

On the other hand, the premise of my work is that the Mussar movement was first and foremost a living and breathing educational arena of action, and not just an ideological stream. Moreover, without an examination of the educational act and its areas of activity, our understanding of the theoretical realm would also be lacking. This is even more true with regard to the Slobodak doctrine of Mussar, which, as I would like to argue, was more of an educational environment than a conceptual one, and a discussion of its ideas cannot be conducted in isolation from its historical context. From this perspective, These studies are a complementary contrast to Ross’s research, whose focus on the theoretical and philosophical aspect of the Mussar movement, and according to the criteria she set for the study of the “problem of will,” placed Slobodka out of the picture, due to her lack of engagement with the psychological aspect.[1] On the other hand, I would like to devote attention to Slobodka, whose historical-social aspect is what made it an influential school of thought in the yeshiva world of the twentieth century.

Shaul Stampfer’s pioneering book[2] serves as an initial background for the Lithuanian yeshiva in general and the Slobodka Yeshiva in particular. Stampfer lists the differences between Volozhin in its time and[3] Slobodka between 1881 and 1905. He was already preceded by the people of Slobodka themselves, who noted their yeshiva as the successor of Volozhin, and at the same time were aware of the differences between the two.[4] Volozhyn, at least in the first half of the nineteenth century, functioned in a supportive traditional environment, where there was still widespread agreement on the importance of Torah study. In contrast, Slobodka in its time faced indifference to Torah study and tradition in general. At the end of the nineteenth century, young Jews were offered alternatives that appealed to them, such as membership in revolutionary movements, and opportunities to integrate into society through general studies and education. Against these, the Lithuanian yeshiva was redesigned. No longer just as a beit midrash for Torah study, but rather as a place that saw its role in responding to the renewed challenges, by shaping the student’s personality in the spirit of the Mussar movement.[5]

In addition to these differences, however, there have been changes in the status of the yeshiva within traditional society, about which the Slobodka Jews did not give their opinion. Here comes Stampfer and completes the picture: while Volozhin at the time expressed values that were familiar to her students from their communities of origin, Slobodka tried to instill in her students an ideology that was new to them and that she did not know from their parents’ home. Moreover, while Volozhin enjoyed the full support of the rabbinical establishment for most of her years, Slobodka did not receive a similar status. Its affiliation with the Mussar movement, which was controversial among the rabbis, placed its on the margins of the traditional stream.[6]mThese are important distinctions that relate to Slobodka as a pioneer and representative of the Mussar yeshivot, and it should be remembered that they are not unique to her. The lack of support from the rabbinical establishment in Lithuania is a common fact for all the institutions that were conducted in the spirit of Mussar, such as the Kollel Kaunas, the Kollel of Rabbi Yozel in Novogrodek and its environs, the Beit Talmud in Kelm, and more.

Stampfer’s interest is in Slobodka’s structural innovations as a pioneer of ethics yeshivot. In the comparative discussion with the Volozhin Yeshiva, he emphasizes the struggle for primacy between the study of Mussar and the study of the Talmud, a struggle that was one of the causes of the division of the yeshiva in 1897. However, Stampfer’s focus on the organizational level left room for many other aspects of the Slobodka Yeshiva: its innovations in the landscape of the Mussar movement itself, its ideological innovations that contributed to the world of Jewish thought, the educational practice it led, the goals it set for itself, and its comprehensive activity among the Lithuanian yeshivas. All these characteristics characterized the yeshiva from its inception, but mainly between the two world wars, a period that was not handled by Stampfer.

Moreover, Stampfer first put the subject of the Mussar yeshiva on the research table, explained the historical background to its establishment, and described the challenges of modernity that it sought to face. In this sense, Slobodka should indeed be seen as a prototype. However, this is not enough, because it too arose not only against the background of external challenges, but also and mainly against the background of developments that took place in the Mussar movement. Rabbi Finkel shaped his concept of Mussar from within and into the world of young learners. From his conversations with his students, both public and private, it is clear that he took yeshiva life for granted, and on this basis he demanded Mussar demands from them. In contrast to her ideological forefathers in the Mussar movement, Slobodka reformulated the goals of Mussar education, and in light of this, she laid a new agenda on both the table of the Mussar movement and the Lithuanian yeshiva as an institution. I would like to give expression to this argument in my work.

Benjamin Brown analyzed some of the writings of the Mussar figures, as Jewish thinkers in modern times. His relevant article deals with Rabbi Finkel’s educational philosophy,[7] focusing on its philosophical aspect. Brown suggests that it responded to the challenges of the European “zeitgeist” that placed man at the center, and did so by emphasizing his supernatural virtue and theological status. According to him, Rabbi Finkel chose to focus on a Mussar judgment of man, thus deviating from the framework of R. Yisrael Salanter, who was preceded in a psychological, educational description and a study of the powers of the soul. This deviation stemmed from an optimistic attitude toward man and his status. And under R. Yisrael Salanter, who placed man at the center as an object of discussion and occupation, Rabbi Finkel placed him as a value in himself.[8] These important insights clarify Rabbi Finkel’s conceptual method. However, the historical picture will only be completed by clarifying the educational goals that Rabbi Finkel had in mind when he conceived the doctrine of “human greatness,” and the practical challenges he faced in his arena of activity.

Brown placed Rabbi Finkel in the world of Jewish thought according to what he called the “radical aspect” of his ideas. Accordingly, he also weaved the historical picture, and made a distinction between Rabbi Finkel’s early and later students. According to him, in the early periods, these were students who were inclined to the ideas of the Enlightenment, and therefore were a good receptacle for his ideas, which were also drawn from the optimistic foundations of European thought before the world wars. This was not the case with his later disciples, who already saw the idea of ‘human greatness’ as rather stained, “for the horrors of the two world wars and the rise of totalitarian ideologies did not reinforce the lofty and positive image of man.”[9]

Well, in all the writings of the Slobodkas, there is no reference to wars in the context of the doctrine of human greatness. Rabbi Finkel’s best ideas came to us through his later students who experienced both wars, and it seems that on the contrary, they perceive them as relevant and appropriate even for the younger generation that grew up after the wars. The reason for this is simple: the students did not recognize the “radicalness” in his teachings at all, and not because they read it as a “harmonious” Haredi reading that blurs between different opinions in the Jewish tradition. Rather, it was because they had apparently descended to the end of his mind, and before them stood the complete picture of both the man and his actions. This whole picture is not as radical and innovative as Brown presented it. In the opinion of the students, the teachings and educational methods of their rabbi are worthy of a generation that witnessed man’s wickedness and made negative use of the superiority of the chosen creatures. A careful study of Rabbi Finkel’s teachings proves that he did not ignore what was happening in the world, and that he even had a great deal of pessimism about the modern, materialistic world, which is full of intrigue and conspiracies. He appreciated the progress of science, but he complained about the emptiness of human conscience. At the same time, in his opinion, in the end, a person has a positive element, the potential has not disappeared, and the “image of God” in him has not changed. Man is able to overcome and return to his solid source, and therefore the human responsibility for self-correction never expires.

The premise of this study is that the Lithuanian Mussar movement did not set before it a metaphysical conceptual clarification of Mussar, but rather a theory of personal guidance that is expressed in practical life. Therefore, any discussion of the matter, even if it relates to the field of the idea, cannot afford to be conducted in isolation from the real historical context and the educational field of action. From this approach, Slobodka and her field of activity should be seen as a natural development of the “world of action” of the Mussar movement, centered on the development of an equal “Mussar thought” for everyone, and the regulation of individual and social life in accordance with this doctrine.

To summarize the state of the study: There are two approaches in the study of the Yeshiva-based Mussar movement, for which Slobodka is the tipping point: on the one hand, an approach that focuses on the philosophical principles of the Mussar movement, and finds its purpose in the writers and schools that have produced a cohesive and graspable thought. From Slobodka, it ignores, or chooses only interesting radical sides. On the other hand, the approach focuses on the challenges faced by the creators of the Mussar yeshivot, and examines the structural innovations. This approach treats Slobodka only as a representative of the Mussar movement, sometimes coloring it with colors and even associating it with the images that clung to it. Against these two I would like to propose an intermediate approach, which sees the Mussar movement as an educational arena for the realization of spiritual challenges, and therefore examines each school of ethics on its own. According to this approach, Slobodka is distinguished from the other ethics yeshivot in the unique field of activity she created, in the combination of scholarship and Mussar, and the idea of practice in Mussar education. It was this format that succeeded in surviving the Revolts and crises, the immigration to the Land of Israel, and even influencing the entire Yeshiva establishment in the twentieth century.

The Sources

1. Slobodka Mussar thought yielded a large literary harvest: Rabbi Finkel’s talks were recorded by students, and were published in the books Ohr Hatzafon, edited by his senior students. An equally rich selection of Slobodka’s teachings can be found in the writings of selected students, who published articles and books of thought in the spirit of the school, and included personal memoirs and critical reviews of great value. The most prominent among them are: Rabbi Avraham Eliyahu Kaplan, Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, Rabbi Yechezkel Sarna, Rabbi Dov Katz, Rabbi Yisrael Zissel Dvoretz, Rabbi Yosef Ze’ev Lipovich and Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Lassin.

As with any internal material of a reviewed school, its use should be done with due caution, as it may sometimes give rise to methodological difficulties. In this case, since we are concerned with the Slobodkai education and its implementation among the students, we are required to write and think about them just as we are required of the thought of their teacher, Rabbi Finkel. In addition, Slobodka’s education encouraged independence of thought, sometimes to the point of criticizing it, and some of the aforementioned writers applied this privilege in practice in their personal lives and in their written work. The use of these writings will be made while familiarizing ourselves with the biography of the author, the two fields complement each other and present us with the image of a graduate of the Slobodka School.

2. Diaries and autobiographies written by students of the Slobodka Yeshiva and other yeshiva students, shedding light on important periods and events in the yeshiva world during this period, and on the Mussar movement and the problems it faced. These are valuable sources about the inner world and self-consciousness of yeshiva students. Within them, a distinction must be made between diaries written at or near the time of the event, and autobiographies written at a distance of time and space. Among the diaries, there are some that have not yet been published, and even those that have been published, for the most part, have been affected by them and important excerpts have been censored. In several cases I managed to obtain the manuscript of the diary, from which I learned other important things that would be reflected in the body of the work.

3. Most of the documentary material comes from private collections, which I reached through my connections in the Haredi world. Infiltrating such collections is a difficult task, due to a characteristic suspicion that stems from two reasons: first, the unsympathetic attitude toward academia in general, and second, the most significant collections are in the hands of family members who are in a state of ongoing conflict with each other. So far, important and vital material has come to my attention from both family and neutral sources, and all the sources have been brought with reference to their origin, whether explicitly or in acronyms for obvious reasons.

4. Interviews: I conducted with graduates of the Knesset Israel Yeshiva and other yeshivas, as well as interviews conducted by others and published in various media outlets. It should be remembered that some of the interviewees today are at very advanced ages and sometimes it is difficult to trust their memory. The most effective interviewee is the one who, on the one hand, was directly close to the system, and on the other hand, was not personally involved in a way that might cast doubt on the accuracy of the information in his mouth.

5. Biographical, ‘geographic’ and lexicon literature: The use of Haredi literature written for educational purposes requires careful use of historical information. However, when it contains information that is given in the first person, it can teach us a great deal about the self-consciousness of yeshiva students and members of the Mussar movement. Sometimes these sources actively participate in the research when they are part of the process we wish to present. An example of this is Rav Dov 20″Z, who certainly deserves to be considered a ‘historian’ of the Mussar movement. Despite the didactic tone, his series of books “The Mussar Movement” brings together most of the information about the movement and its prominent personality in one place. As a member of the movement, he is an unmediated source for everything related to the insider’s perspective, especially towards the Slobodka school in which he grew up. The observing reader will be able to discern the difference between his descriptions of his grandfather of Slobodka and his descriptions of other Mussar figures. The chapters dealing with the description of Slobodka’s method of education are imprinted with the imprint of Katz’s personal experience as a student, and besides being an authentic first-hand report, they teach us about the perspective that Slobodka’s students had toward their yeshiva.

6. Research material: The studies of the Lithuanian yeshiva and the Mussar movement reviewed above contribute a great deal of useful information. I will also use research from the field of educational thought and the history of education, sometimes for the purpose of possible comparison with a parallel educational school, and sometimes as background material for understanding the situation required for our discussion. The latter category includes the studies of Zvi Lam, Mordechai Nissan, Jonathan Cohen, Zvi Kurzweil, and Yona Ben-Sasson.

7. Background research: the documentary and research literature of the Fourth and Fifth Aliyah, studies on the Yishuv during the Mandate period. In order to understand the socio-political background of Orthodox society in this period, I used the research of Menachem Friedman, Israel Bartal, Moshe Lisak, Israel Kolat, and Gershon Bacon. The files of letters that were printed also contribute to this field by a hundred key figures in the Orthodox world during the period under discussion, headed by Rav Kook, Rabbi H.A. Grodzinsky, the Chazon Ish, and Rabbi Sarna.

[1]Ross does not deal with Slobodka at all, and Rabbi Finkel’s book “The Light of the North” does not even appear in her bibliography.
[2] Shaul Stampfer, The Lithuanian Yeshiva in the Making, Jerusalem 2005.
[3] Founded in 1802 by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, a student of the Gra, it was closed in 1892 by order of the authorities.
[4] See Weinberg, The Yeshivot in Russia, followed by Dov Katz in his book The Mussar Movement.
[5] Weinberg is there. (Shapira, ibid., pp. 221-222).
[6] Stampfer, The Lithuanian Yeshiva, p. 270.
[7] See Brown, The Greatness of Man.
[8] Brown, ibid., p. 251.
[9] Brown, ibid., p. 269.

The Anatomy of a Mystery: Kohanim, Dissection, and Medical Training Throughout History

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

In September of 2024, I accidentally opened the portal to a priestly mystery. While searching for references to the first Jewish students to attend the University of Gottingen Medical School, I came across an antisemitic work published in 1753 about the general dishonesty of Jews and Jewish oaths.[1] Therein were a few disparaging references to Jewish physicians,[2] one of whom was named Lehmann Isaac Kohen. A parenthetical footnote,³ likely precipitated by the student’s last name, caught my attention. The author references an entry in a German newspaper from 1750 regarding Jewish members of the tribes of Aaron and Levi, ritual defilement upon exposure to the dead, anatomical dissection, and the training and practice of medicine.

Further research revealed that the antecedent to this 1750 reference was a brief entry in an earlier issue of the same German newspaper, Braunschweigische Anzeigen, from 1748,[4] posing a query for the readership:

Can one prove from the Old Testament, as well as from the Talmud, or other Jewish scribes, that a Jew from the tribe of Levi or Aaron cannot or may not become a doctor? And whether God has expressly forbidden this in the Old Testament?

It would be eighteen months until a response to this query was published:[5]

In chapter 21, verses 1-11 of the second book of Moses, it is written: The LORD spoke to Moses saying: Tell the priests, Aaron’s sons, and say to them: A priest shall not defile himself by contact with the dead among his people. If, therefore, the Levites are not permitted to approach any dead person and defile themselves thereby, it follows that they are not allowed to observe dissections of corpses or participate in such procedures. And since they are thus prevented from studying anatomy, which is the very foundation of medicine, it also follows that they cannot properly learn medicine and become true medical practitioners.

Brückmann. D.

As to the precipitant for this query, I can only conjecture. Was it perhaps an encounter of the editor with a Kohen who informed him of this idiosyncratic Jewish law as he contemplated attending medical school? I suspect not, and there is no evidence of such. While the city of Braunschweig (AKA Brunswick) did not have a medical school, there were numerous medical schools in Germany where, by this period in history, hundreds of Jews were attending.[6] More likely, it was a hypothetical academic theological question, albeit with some confusion and conflation of the tribes of Kohen and Levi, untethered to any specific reality.

Introduction to a Priestly Mystery

You may wonder why I draw your attention to this passage, which hardly seems novel. Anyone remotely familiar with medical halakha, or Jewish law in general, is certainly aware of the basic laws of purity as they relate to a Kohen. Yet, what is most extraordinary about these few lines, buried in an obscure German eighteenth century local newspaper, is that as far as I was aware at the time, this was the only reference to the issue of Kohanim, anatomy, and medical training in the pre-Modern era. Prior to the discovery of this passage, I had not encountered a single discussion specifically addressing Kohanim training in medicine in either Jewish or non-Jewish sources prior to the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.

The issue of anatomical dissection in medical training is a staple of contemporary medical halakhic discourse.[7] The first halakhic references to general anatomical dissection are in the late eighteenth century, with the famous responsa of the Nodah biYehuda and Rabbi Yaakov Emden, yet they contain no discussion about Kohanim.[8] I have recently uncovered clear evidence that the Jewish community of Padua was dealing with the halakhic issue of cadaveric dissection already since the very time of Andreas Vesalius (16^th century), long before the days of the Noda biYehuda, but also no specific reference here to Kohanim.

The question of Kohanim, dissection and the practice of medicine has been amply discussed in modern rabbinic literature.[9] Male members of the priestly tribe (Kohen-singular, Kohanim- plural) are proscribed from exposure to ritual impurity, the human corpse being the archetypal example. The prohibited exposure entails not just direct contact, but even being under the same enclosure as a corpse (tumat ohel). As hands-on human anatomical dissection, involving direct and prolonged exposure to a corpse, is a sine qua non of current medical training, the anatomy lab serves as a potential impediment for a Kohen interested in becoming a physician.[10]

Due to these halakhic concerns, numerous rabbinic authorities prohibit outright a Kohen from entering the medical profession, though others offer halakhically acceptable options. Indeed, when the Albert Einstein College of Medicine was established by Yeshiva University, the issue of offering admission to Kohanim was raised.[11] In an article written on the occasion of the first graduating class of Einstein, Myron Kolatch addressed the complex interplay of religion and medicine at the institution:

Frequently cited as an example of how the medical school violates the Torah is its willingness to accept students of priestly descent, kohanim. Leviticus, 21: 1-4 states: “And the Lord said unto Moses: Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron and say unto them: There shall none defile himself for the dead among his people…

Clearly, the issue has never been settled beyond dispute, and Yeshiva’s policy that each kohen who wants to take up medicine must determine his own course, certainly does not indicate a blatant disregard for the Torah.

Some sixty years hence the halakhic landscape regarding Kohanim and medical school remains largely unchanged. There have been and continue to be Kohanim who attend medical school under halakhic guidance, with varied unique modifications.

Here I do not revisit the detailed halakhic analyses but address the historical contours of the discussions. According to Rabbi Bleich, one of the first halakhic authorities to raise the issue of Kohanim physicians and the prohibition of tumah was Rabbi Isaac Shmuel Reggio in 1854.[12] The context of the case was a Kohen physician who was tasked with confirming the death of a patient who was previously pronounced dead by another physician.13] This particular query was made in the historical context of a Western society that collectively questioned the ability of physicians to accurately diagnose death. As such, it was legislated in many European countries that after the initial preliminary diagnosis of death, a physician was legally required to confirm the diagnosis with serial exams over the next few days prior to burial. [14] In the aforementioned case, the physician chosen for this job happened to be a Kohen.[15]

In addition to this unique case, halakhic discussions regarding Kohanim and medicine have largely addressed two issues: 1) The propriety of a Kohen physician attending to a critically ill patient (gosses)[16] given the high probability of the patient’s demise and subsequent conveyance of impurity. 2) The permissibility of a Kohen physician, who in the course of his practice violates the prohibitions of tumah exposure, to participate in Kohen-specific religious ceremonies, such as bestowing the priestly blessing (nesiat kapayim). Even these discussions only begin in the halakhic literature of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, with nary a trace prior, and are limited to Kohanim who were practicing physicians. Contemporary halakhic discussions on the Kohen in medical training proceed with an analysis of primary sources and do not cite any responsa or any other references from the premodern era about a Kohen medical student.

If Jews have been training as physicians for millennia, with presumably many Dr. Cohens among them, how could it be that this halakhic topic seems to have escaped serious rabbinic or any historical treatment until so recently? How do we explain the conspicuous silence in the historical record?

As this source from the Braunschweigische Anzeigen seemed purely academic, is found in a non-Jewish secular periodical, and provided no additional references, it contributed little to our mystery. The portal to the priestly mystery had opened a crack, but no wider.

While this source was discovered serendipitously (i.e., hashgachah), surely a fresh dissection of the halakhic and historical literature today, given the expansive and easy access, would reveal many previously unknown sources addressing Kohanim, dissection, and medical training in the premodern era. Or perhaps not. After an extensive search, to date, I have identified exactly one single additional relevant source before the nineteenth century, albeit of significance.

This passage also derives from a non-Jewish source, the work of Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Grattenauer (1770-1838), a German lawyer and anti-Semitic publicist, though it records a Jewish exchange.

In 1817 Grattenauer published a work devoted entirely to the tribe of Aaron,[17] where in the context of ridiculing the archaic Jewish laws related to Kohanim, and lamenting the “obscurantism” of the Rabbis, we find the following passage:

The previous Chief Regional Rabbi Joseph Jonas Frånkel in Breslau, a generally recognized learned and scientifically educated man, had heard that the medical student HI, who also came from the tribe of Aaron, was preparing anatomy here[18] and was thereby contaminating himself according to the ritual law. He therefore summoned him and asked him whether he wanted to give up this anatomical activity, which was contrary to ritual law, or renounce his privilege as a Kohen to give the blessing. The student replied: I renounce this privilege. I would rather acquire a thorough knowledge of medicine and become a sufficient member of civil society. The Rabbi dismissed him… For 20 years, Mr HI has been one of the most skilled local doctors and he is still a Jew [despite the pronouncements of a fanatical Rabbanite].

Rabbi Joseph Jonas Frankel (1721-1793) served as the Silesian district rabbi. Assuming the veracity of the story, this remarkable exchange raises a number of questions: Was this a rare encounter, or did other rabbis engage in the same practice? Does this reflect Rabbi Frankel’s unique opinion, or the halakhic consensus of the time? Was there any room for leniency with respect to Kohanim training in medicine? HI was approached by Rabbi Frankel to address his halakhically concerning practice. Were there other Kohanim who proactively sought rabbinic consultation before applying to, or attending medical school? Was the response of HI typical of other Kohanim who encountered potential halakhic obstacles to medical training, or perhaps a reflection of the cultural milieu of his time.

All told, we have a grand total of two sources before the nineteenth century referring to Kohanim, dissection and medical training, both found in non-Jewish sources, and one of which is essentially irrelevant. I have yet to find any Jewish historical or halakhic sources. The priestly mystery thus still remains- How do we explain this historical “anatomical” anomaly? In this “priestly offering,” I suggest historical and halakhic reasons for this lacuna. I hope my offering will be accepted.

A Suggested Historical Solution

An understanding of the history of medical training, and in particular, of the training in human anatomy throughout the centuries, might assist us in providing an explanation for this glaring omission.

Apprenticeship versus University Training

Universities developed as educational institutions in Europe in the Middle Ages. With respect to medical training in general, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Jews were generally barred, with few exceptions, from admission to European universities, which were under Catholic auspices. Jewish physicians were therefore trained almost exclusively through apprenticeship. Postmortem dissection was not a part of apprenticeship training. As such, there would have been no specific halakhic problem for the Kohen medical trainee, and we would not expect to find any such reference in the literature.

Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, in his discussion of medical training for the Kohen, posits a similar, though variant, explanation of the training of the Kohen physician in the past.[19] Rav Moshe prohibited the medical training of Kohanim today, unexceptionably, is it involved required exposure to tumat met. One parenthetical line in his responsum sheds light on our discussion.

ולא יקילו ממה שמצינו מרבותינו הראשונים שהיו כהנים והיו רופאים שהם בכוחותיהם הגדולים למדו כל חכמת הרפואה במסירת כל דבר בעל פה אף בלא שום ראיה והסתכלות במתים ולא נגעו במת מעולם ולא היו באהל אחד עם מתים, אבל בזמננו שא”א זה לכן ודאי אסור

And do not think to be lenient based on the fact that we find among our rabbis of earlier generations those who were both Kohanim and physicians; their exceptional powers enabled them to learn the entirety of medical knowledge orally without the necessity of even gazing upon a human corpse (i.e., practical anatomy lab). They never touched a corpse nor were they ever under the same enclosure as one. Today, however, when it is impossible to train in medicine [without the direct exposure to a human cadaver] it is prohibited.

Rav Moshe preemptively addresses a possible refutation of his position. If it is prohibited for a Kohen to train in medicine, how is it possible that we have a record of Kohen physicians in the past? Rav Moshe suggests that these Kohanim possessed exceptional abilities which allowed them to study medicine without resorting to the dissection or observation of human cadavers (and its resultant tumah exposure). Medical history supports this general idea. Indeed, all Jewish physicians through the Middle Ages, whether Kohanim or not, studied medicine through apprenticeship, without the need to dissect or even be under the same enclosure as a human cadaver.[20]

Priestly Physicians Throughout the Centuries- The Many Dr. Cohens

Who were these Kohanim physicians that Rav Moshe references? Zimmels[21] and Jakobovits[22] identify numerous Kohanim physicians throughout history, starting from Talmudic[23] times. Some of these priestly physicians provided medical care for kings, doges and popes. In fact, we have ample historical evidence of numerous Kohanim who practiced medicine over the centuries. Nathan Koren in his expansive registry of Jewish physicians has over fifty entries with the names Cohen, Coen, Cohn, Katz, Kohen, Kohn, Kahn, or Sacerdote (priest) ranging from the 15^th to early 19^th centuries.[24]

How did these Kohanim navigate their medical training? A simple explanation is that the majority of Kohanim, along with other Jews who were barred from the universities, trained through apprenticeship, effectively bypassing any halakhic concerns for anatomical dissection. Though there are no available statistics, despite the increasing acceptance and attendance of Jewish students at universities beginning in the sixteenth century, apprenticeship likely remained the predominant mode of medical training for Jewish physicians until the mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries. As apprenticeship training involved no dissection, this would account for the absence of halakhic queries in the literature for this group.

Some Jews however elected to pursue a university education. Jews occasionally attended universities from the Middle Ages onwards, usually requiring special Papal or governmental permission.[25] While anatomy was clearly always part of medical education to varying degrees, and anatomical dissection was performed sporadically across the centuries, the introduction of systematic dissection of the human body as a required part of medical training fully developed only in the sixteenth century. Until this time, even if a Kohen wished to attend medical school, there would have been little halakhic concern.

The status quo would change in the sixteenth century under the guidance of Andreas Vesalius, a young Professor of Human Anatomy at the University of Padua. As divine providence would have it, the very university at which Vesalius established the field of anatomy was the first institution to officially allow, beginning even before the times of Vesalius, Jewish students to train in medicine. By the sixteenth century hundreds of Jews flocked there for this historically unprecedented opportunity.

Given the introduction of systematic anatomical dissection into the medical school curriculum in the 16^th century, how could a Kohen now navigate a university medical education? From this point in history, we would expect to see halakhic discussions about Kohanim attending medical school.

One might suggest that Kohanim, being knowledgeable in the potential halakhic pitfalls, simply refrained from becoming physicians once dissection became an unavoidable aspect of medical training. Indeed, Rabbi Jakobovits maintains that less Kohanim entered the field of medicine in the eighteenth century, a statement he buttresses with reference to articles about the matriculation records of some German universities (Frankfurt and Duisburg), and the low number of those with a priestly name as compared to the percentage of Kohanim in the general population: “Even today, the usual proportion of Jews bearing the name “Cohen” alone (others, too, may be of priestly descent) is at least 2-3%.” He adds that this lower percentage of Kohanim in medical school “can only be explained as reflecting the growing misgivings with which the choice of medical career by students of priestly descent was generally viewed.”[26]

While this may have been true in Germany in later centuries, the archives of the University of Padua reveal a different statistical reality. The archival record of Jewish graduates of the University of Padua from the early 16^th to the early 19^th centuries includes nineteen graduates with the last name of Coen or Sacerdote.[27]

Even if we concede that not all those named Coen, or derivatives thereof, were necessarily Kohanim, many certainly were. Below is the family crest of Samuele Coen as it appears in his Padua medical diploma from 1702.[28] Notice the image of the hand configuration used by the Kohen during the Priestly blessing.

In addition, there are eleven members of the Cantarini family, a family of Kohanim, who graduated as physicians from the University of Padua during this period. Below is the front page of the medical diploma of Grassin Cantarini (1703),[29] here again we find the Kohen’s symbol.

The percentage of Kohanim who attended Padua’s medical school, roughly thirty out of a total of some 350 for this period, is significantly higher than the average percentage of Kohanim in the general Jewish population.[30] How then do we explain the absence of discussion in the literature? It is certainly possible that these relatively few Kohanim, despite their high percentage of the total, simply did not inquire of rabbinic authorities. Alternatively, the few inquiries that did occur where not committed to writing, or did not survive the ravages of time.

More problematic is that some of the Kohen Padua graduates were outstanding Torah scholars and prolific authors, such as Isaac Hayyim Cantarini,[31] Tuviya HaRofe (AKA Tuviya haKohen),[32] and Abraham Sacerdote (AKA Avraham HaKohen).[33] Oe mnight have expected at least one of these scholars to address this issue somewhere in their writings. Yet, there is no mention in any of their extensive writings of any concern with their participation in the anatomy course. Indeed, while Tuviya fondly recalls his medical training in Padua in the introduction to his Ma’aseh Tuviya, there is no mention of any challenge with performing dissection as a Kohen. Cantarini, in his Pahad Yitzhak, devotes a section to a tragic case where a Jewish body was kidnapped by non-Jewish students for the dissection table. Again, no mention of any concern about Kohanim and dissection. In addition, we have an account of Cantarini bringing Abraham Levi, a visiting scholar to Padua, to see the anatomy theater to showcase the highlights of Padua.[34]

 

While we may not find the names of these three Kohen student scholars etched into the wooden planks of the structure, they all likely took their seats,[35] along with their other non-Kohen Jewish classmates, in the famous anatomical theater at the University of Padua, which was inaugurated in 1595 as the first permanent structure devoted to anatomical dissection, and is still standing to this day.

I suspect that the answer to the conspicuous omission lies elsewhere, based on the history of anatomical training in general, and at the University of Padua in particular.

The Nature of Anatomical Teaching in the Pre-Modern Era

A mention of anatomy lab today evokes an image of a small group of students huddled over a body with dissecting instruments in hand. We also often find reference to the anatomy students designating a name for their cadaver, as they dissect one body for the entire course. Unlike the anatomy labs of today, in pre-Modern times body preservation technologies were not available, and a corpse was only usable for a few days to weeks. The dissections or yesteryear were held in an “anatomical theater.”[36] The format of anatomy teaching involved the professor alone performing the dissection and teaching over the body while others merely observed. Students did not perform any hands-on dissection, partially because there was little time until the decomposition of the body, and thus had no direct contact with the corpse. This can be seen in the frontispiece of Vesalius’ classic work:

This is also reflected in the design of the anatomical theater in Padua, which was built shortly after the tenure of Vesalius, and can be visited today.

There is a central oval table surrounded by coliseum-like concentric rows of progressively elevated platforms. This basic architectural design was copied for other anatomical theaters across the world, such as those below:

University of Bologna: Anatomical Theater (est. 1636)

University of Leiden: Anatomical Theater (est. 1594)

This illustration is from 1610. Parenthetically, the Keeper of the Anatomical Theater of Leiden from 1617-1650 was Professor Otto Heurnius.[37] Heurnius was the promoter for the medical graduation of David de Haro,[38] the first Jewish medical graduate of the University of Leiden.

By the mid 1600’s Jews started attending the University of Leiden in higher numbers. We have numerous matriculation records of Jews with the name Cohen.[39]For example:

Samuel Cohen from Hamburg matriculated to the medical faculty (M) in September 1646.

A Pure Solution

As a medical student in the anatomical theater served only as an observer, and performed no actual dissection, there would have been no concern for impurity conveyed through direct contact with a corpse. The only potential concern for a Kohen in the anatomical theater would have been tumat ohel, whereby impurity is conveyed by being under the same enclosure as a cadaver. While there is general halakhic consensus that impurity conveyed by direct contact applies to the bodies of both Jews and non-Jews, there is a halakhic debate regarding whether a non-Jewish corpse conveys tumat ohel.[40] It is certainly possible that the Kohanim who attended the lectures in the anatomical theater of Padua (and in anatomical theaters at other universities at this time) relied on the permissive position that a non-Jewish corpse does not convey tumat ohel. This would have allowed them to attend dissections without violating any halakhic precepts.

However, there still remained at least a theoretical possibility that the cadaver would be Jewish, in which case the permissive option would no longer apply. For a unique historical reason, this concern was non-existent for the anatomical dissection course at the University of Padua. In fact, the university struggled to provide cadavers for the course and turned to each community represented on campus, including the Jewish community, to provide bodies for the dissection table. However, the Jewish community adamantly refused, citing religious concerns with postmortem dissection. While there was continuous tension about this issue, the Jewish community arranged an agreement to provide large sums of money annually to the university for the privilege of releasing the Jewish community of this obligation. This general agreement, with periodic reassessments and renegotiations, essentially remained in force for some two hundred years.[41] Thus, all the Coens and Cantarinis who attended the University of Padua did not have to worry about the possibility that the cadaver under the scalpel of Vesalius or Fallopius was Jewish.

The Architectural Design of the Padua Anatomical Theater

Moreover, a unique structural feature of the Padua anatomical theater may have further mitigated any potential halakhic concern for a Kohen wishing to study medicine at Padua. The original anatomical theater had a retractable roof[42]  which was opened during dissections to release or eliminate the foul odors of a progressively decaying cadaver. Thus, even tumat ohel may have been a non-issue as in the absence of a roof there would have been no halakhic enclosure to convey impurity. This would have virtually eliminated the halakhic obstacle for a Kohen medical student.

An Alternate Solution for Kohanim

What of a Kohen desirous of a university medical education who would not rely on a permissive ruling regarding tumat ohel and the non-Jewish cadaver? By the 17th century, medical schools struggled to acquire enough cadavers to meet the growing demand of anatomy students. The need to provide a nonperishable substitute led to the production of highly accurate anatomical wax models that were sculpted through direct observation of dissected cadavers. Such models had distinct advantages, as they neither decomposed nor emitted foul odors and were continuously available. They proved essential to the education of generations of medical students who would otherwise, due to the short supply of cadavers, not have access to the anatomical education gleaned from human dissection.[43]

Spectacular wax models were produced throughout Europe, especially in Italy and England, from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, some of which can be seen to this day in Museums in Florence (La Specola), Bologna and London.[44]

This seems to me to be an ideal solution for a Kohen who wished to train in medicine in the Early Modern period. The use of wax models, with no human cadavers involved at all, would pose no halakhic problem whatsoever. While I am unaware of any Kohen medical student who ever took advantage of this option, the modern iteration of this concept, as we discuss below, may entirely replace cadaver dissection.

Kohanim in Medical School from the Eighteenth Century Onwards

From the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century, apprenticeship became less accepted and university training was often required for licensure. As a result, Jewish admission to medical schools increased exponentially throughout Europe and the United States. In addition, the anatomy labs began to transition to hands-on dissection for all students. This was simultaneously accompanied by a major cultural movement in Germany, the main location of Jewish medical training at this time, known as the Haskala. This movement was associated with the decreasing religiosity of at least a percentage of the Jewish university students, not to mention the conversion of some to Christianity. A family name of Cohen on a matriculation record in this period, even if identified, is certainly no guarantee of a student knowledgeable or concerned with the issues of tumah.

How would a Kohen navigate medical training in this milieu? The student encountered by Rabbi Frankel in Breslau was training precisely in this context, at the end of eighteenth century. Was the student known by his initials “HI” training in a medical school where he was required to perform hands-on dissection, and this is perhaps why Rabbi Frankel ruled as he did; or perhaps the medical school still had an anatomical theater, as many still did, and Rabbi Frankel did not accept the permissive ruling that tumat ohel does not apply to a non-Jewish cadaver. Was “HI” influenced by the newly forming Haskala movement in Germany at that time, which led him to be less deferential to rabbinic authority?

Two additional examples of Kohanim and medical training from the nineteenth century are illustrative. We have at least one record of a “Cohen” in the early nineteenth century refusing to go to medical school because of the required anatomical dissection. A young Albert Cohen, originally from Paris, describes his initial encounter with anatomical dissection in Vienna in the early nineteenth century:[45]

I went to Vienna, where I pursued my studies at the grammar school and university from 1826-1834. Being now nineteen years old, it became necessary to decide what profession I would adopt. Hitherto all young people of my native place who devoted themselves to literature studied medicine; this was then the only profession open to me. To please my parents, I would have followed the same career, had I ever been able to prevail upon myself to dissect a corpse. Several times I entered the anatomical theatre, but each time I was seized with unconquerable disgust. I therefore requested my parents to allow me to follow my own taste. Henceforth I devoted myself to the study of Oriental languages.

I suspect the parental conversation about his career change may have been a bit more dramatic than reflected in this passage. Nonetheless, we learn that it was anatomy that turned this young Jewish Kohen student away from a career in medicine, though it does not appear to have been halakhically motivated.

Around the same time, Sigismund Cohen, a native of Lower Silesia, the area of modern-day Poland and the rabbinic domain of Rabbi Joseph Jonas Frankel a few decades earlier, attended the University of Viadrina (Frankfurt), graduating in 1846. The topic of his dissertation- Talmudic Medicine:

For a Jewish medical student to write a medical dissertation on a Jewish topic was quite uncommon, to say the least.[46] It is somewhat ironic that a thorough analysis of Biblical and Talmudic law might have led Cohen to the realization that there was a potential halakhic issue with his training and may have preempted the necessity for Cohen to write this dissertation in the first place. Nevertheless, as this dissertation is remarkable on many levels, I offer a few comments.

From a medical and medical historical perspective, Cohen acknowledges his professors by name, one of whom was Jan Evangelista Purkinje, who taught him human physiology. Purkinje, a Czech anatomist and physiologist, was one of the most famous scientists in Europe and his discoveries included the so-called Purkinje Cell in the cerebellum and the so-called Purkinje fibres in the electrical system of the heart, structures familiar to any medical student today.

This dissertation also has great significance in the field of Jewish medical history. While we do not know with certainty the nature of Cohen’s Jewish knowledge and religious observance, the dissertation includes a brief biography as an appendix. An excerpt about his early education is below:

While we find reference to the study of “Pentateuchi origine” and “grammatice Hebraica,” Talmudic study is not specifically mentioned, and there is clearly a strong educational focus on secular studies. The 28-page dissertation itself however contains a wealth of Talmudic references.

I also draw attention to three specific sources cited by Cohen, one from a century earlier, the others contemporary.

1) Benjamin Wolff Gintzburger, Medicina ex Talmudicis, inaugural Dissertation 1743

Benjamin Wolff Gintzburger was one of the first Jewish graduates of the University of Gottingen. It was my search for references to Gintzburger that precipitated this contribution.[47] His medical dissertation, referenced by Cohen, is one of the first works written on Biblical and Talmudic medicine.[48]

Apropos our discussion about dissection, Gintzburger is better known in the halakhic world as the questioner of a (now famous) teshuva to Rabbi Yaakov Emden about performing anatomical dissection on Shabbos.[49]

2) Abraham Hartog Israels, Tentamen hist.-med. Exhibens Collectanea Gynaecologica ex Talmude Babylonica (Grongen, 1845)

Israels graduated from the University of Groningen in 1845, just a year before Cohen, and the topic of his dissertation was obstetrics and gynecology in the Babylonian Talmud.

This dissertation gained notoriety for its fourth chapter, on Cesarean section, which suggests that the rabbis of the Mishnah were able to perform cesarean section with maternal survival, something not recorded in secular medical history until around 1500. This was based on an interpretation of a Mishna in Bechorot.[50]  Cohen discusses this chapter in his dissertation.

3) Eliakim Carmoly, Histoire des Médecins Juifs, Anciens et Modernes (1844)

Carmoly served as the major work of reference in Jewish medical history for this period. Selections were translated into English just one year after publication.[51] While the reliability of Carmoly’s work was called into question by critics,[52] it nonetheless contains a wealth of valuable information.

Returning to our student, regarding Cohen’s presumptive status as a Kohen training in medicine, he devotes a chapter of his treatise to anatomy and cites a passage in the Talmud where dissection was performed.[53] More relevant, in his bio, he includes mention and thanks to those who assisted him during his studies in the anatomical theater:

Anatomical dissection did not appear to be an impediment for this Cohen. However, there is one observation, admittedly a possible over-read or mistranslation, which may indicate specific accommodations for Sigismund in his dissection course.[54] In his lengthy list of professors, Cohen simply mentions the subject and the professor. In his mention of the anatomical theater, he adds, “in the anatomical theater there were guides for me….” Could this possibly be an allusion to specific accommodation provided to Sigismund? Perhaps his professors performed the dissection while he observed but did not touch the corpse directly.

Conclusion: The Opening and Reclosing of the Priestly Portal

Halakhic references to a Kohen attending medical school are noticeably absent from rabbinic literature before the nineteenth century. We have suggested plausible explanations for this anomaly. For much of history, Jewish physicians trained through apprenticeship where formal anatomical instruction was not required. As such, there would have been no halakhic issues for a Kohen, as noted by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. When Vesalius introduced the comprehensive anatomy course into the medical school curriculum, dissections were performed in anatomical theaters, where students never touched the cadavers. At least some Kohanim may have relied on the permissive ruling that non-Jewish cadavers do not convey tumat ohel. When hands-on dissection became the norm, as Rabbi Lord Jakobovits suggested, it is certainly possible that many religiously observant Kohanim elected to bypass medicine as a career choice, or were perhaps discouraged to do so by local rabbis like Rabbi Frankel. Of the Kohanim who opted for a medical career, some may have sought rabbinic approval, though no records exist. Others, whose priestly-sounding names appear in university matriculation records of the period, may have been less Jewishly educated or less religiously observant. Hence no halakhic questions would have been generated from this latter group.

The portal to rabbinic discussion on this topic only fully opened in the twentieth century. In the modern era we have a diverse halakhic landscape regarding the training of Kohanim in medicine, including discussion about the permissive ruling of tumat ohel, as well as creative solutions to potentially allow direct dissection. I leave these discussions to each Kohen student and his posek but leave you with a final thought.

Given current advances and changing perspectives in anatomical training, we may again soon see the portal close to the corpus of responsa related to the Kohen medical student. Some five hundred years after Vesalius introduced anatomical dissection into medical training, which was accompanied by the exhumation of bodies from their graves, we are now on the cusp of the (re)burial of human anatomy lab and its associated cadavers. With advances in imaging technology and simulation, coupled with the ethical re-evaluation of body procurement methods and preservation, the expansive year-long anatomy course with full body dissection is rapidly becoming a relic of medical history.[55] The classic dissection table is gradually being replaced with the likes of the digital Anatomage table:

If this is not sufficient, it is now possible to produce life-like anatomical models with the use of 3D printing.[56] Even dissection of the model may be possible.

These conceptual descendants and updated versions of the Florentine wax models may soon replace cadaveric dissection altogether.[57] The list of medical schools eliminating or significantly curtailing human anatomy lab courses is continually expanding.

While the impact of the diminution of human dissection on medical education remains to be determined, if phased out, it will certainly have a significant halakhic impact and it may return us to the days of the earlier generations mentioned by Rav Moshe Feinstein when students “learn the entirety of medical knowledge without the necessity of gazing upon a human corpse.” This would potentially open the door for Kohanim to attend medical school (at least for the pre-clinical years) with halakhic impunity.[58] We may notice a commensurate rise in the number of Dr. Cohens in hospital registries. The medical halakhic textbooks may no longer include a chapter on “The Kohen in Medical School,” and the halakhic discussions on this topic may again fall silent. If future scholars at some later stage of history ponder the priestly mystery of the intermittent silence of the historical record on Kohanim, dissection and medical training, I suspect their search engines will direct them to this article.

Appendix:

The Importance of the Study of Broadsides in Jewish (Medical) History – The Kohen Physician Today and the Diagnosis of Death

In June of 2024, I participated as a speaker in a conference entitled, “The Role of Broadsides in Jewish Ritualistic and Cultural Space,” organized by Professor Avriel Bar-Levav of the open University of Israel and held at the new National Library of Israel. It was the first conference of its kind, dedicated solely to the integration of Broadsides into the study of Jewish history. Taking a single printed page (the definition of a Broadside) out of Avriel’s playbook, I briefly share an example of the value of Broadsides for the study of Jewish medical history, as it relates to our topic.

As mentioned in the article above, one of the earliest halakhic sources relating to a Kohen and the practice of medicine addresses the case of a Kohen physician who was asked to confirm the death of a patient in order to facilitate burial. The question was asked in the nineteenth century, in the medical historical context of a generation concerned about the misdiagnosis of death and the resultant institution of a three-day delay in burial to medically confirm a patient’s demise.

While the prolonged delay in burial may be a relic of the past, the necessity to confirm death remains a part of modern medical practice. As such, similar halakhic cases of a Kohen physician involved in the confirmation of death occur to this very day. I share one example here which reflects yet another fascinating and complex chapter in Jewish medical history, evidenced by a broadside found in a miscellaneous collection of broadsides in the Library of Congress.

In 1976 Rabbi Moshe Lemberger was asked about the case of an observant Kohen physician who witnessed a cardiac arrest of a man on the street.[59] The person did not survive. While it is generally prohibited for a Kohen to come in contact with a corpse, if this physician were to officially declare death of the person on the scene, and attest to the absence of foul play, the deceased would be transferred directly to the funeral home for immediate burial.

As per the questioner, if the Kohen physician refused to intervene, the patient would be transferred to the hospital. Burial would certainly be delayed, and in addition, there would be a high likelihood of autopsy, with organs often removed from the deceased without consent. Rabbi Lemberger concluded that this would constitute a case of met mitzvah (a deceased person with no one to attend to their burial), and due to these extenuating circumstances, the Kohen could expose himself to impurity to prevent the delay of burial and likely desecration of the body.

This comment “and often organs are removed from the deceased without consent” reflects a reality in Israel at this time.[60] When Israel established its own hospitals and medical system in the early twentieth century, it struggled to navigate a halakhically acceptable path for the allowance of autopsies, an integral part of standard medical practice. While detailed guidelines for the performance of autopsies were established with rabbinic guidance, many members of the medical community rejected any restrictions on their practice. Despite the legislation, the medical establishment flagrantly disregarded the laws and were known in many cases to perform autopsies, including organ removal, without patient or family consent. This evolved into a notorious autopsy scandal in the young State of Israel, which shattered faith in the medical establishment, with reverberations felt to this day. This ultimately resulted in the reformation and greater enforcement of the law.

I recently discovered a lone broadside buried in a miscellaneous collection housed in the Library of Congress,[61] which though undated, was likely printed around the time of the above responsum.

This Broadside was clearly intended to be posted in a cemetery and is divided into two sections.

On the left side is an accusation that the deceased more likely than not underwent an autopsy upon their death, and that the remaining relative, the likely reader of the broadside, did nothing to prevent it.

Dear Brother,
You are now standing beside the grave of your relative who was dear to your heart and whose flame of life was suddenly extinguished.
We wish to ask you if you have considered the possibility that your loved one has undergone extensive dissection [autopsy] and while the body is here, who knows the location of the internal organs of the body. Perhaps they never merited to a proper burial (more than 50% of bodies are dissected in Jerusalem).
What did you do to prevent this from happening?
As you stand beside the grave, the deceased beseeches you to repent for this. How will you answer?
The answer:
Accept upon yourself to protect your loved ones in the future. With all your power and capability seek to prevent the forced dissection by pathologists done merely for personal advancement.
Do this for the honor of both the living and the dead.
Committee for the protection of the honor of man

On the right side of the broadside is a text to be recited by the remaining relative asking forgiveness from their deceased loved one for allowing them to undergo an autopsy.

This unique broadside contributes to the study of the history of autopsies in Israel, provides valuable information possibly not attainable elsewhere, and adds to the relatively few items of material culture in Jewish medical history.

 
What Orthodoxy Can Gain From Academic Biblical Studies: The Torah as Political Theory[1]

by: Joshua Berman

    In ways that were astonishingly new and counter-intuitive, in ways that served the purposes of no known interest group, the political philosophy of the Torah may be seen to rise like a phoenix out of the intellectual landscape of the ancient Near East. Throughout the ancient world the truth was self-evident: all men were not created equal.  It is in the five books of the Torah that we find the birthplace of egalitarian thought.  When seen against the backdrop of ancient norms, the social blueprint found in the Torah represents a series of quantum leaps in a sophisticated and interconnected matrix of theology, politics and economics. 
    To appreciate the claim that the Torah represents the dawn of egalitarian thought, let us set the claim in historical perspective.  It is only in the European revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries that the privileges of rank and nobility are rejected, and the entrenched caste, feudal, and slave systems delegitimated.  Greece and Rome had known their respective reformers, yet nowhere in the classical world is there evidence of a struggle to do away with class distinctions.[2] None of the ancient authors championed egalitarianism in their ideal systems. “From the hour of their birth,” wrote Aristotle, “some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.”[3] It was assumed that some would be rich and that many, many more would be poor. Not simply because that’s the way things were, but because that was the way things were actually supposed to be. For Aristotle, justice meant that equals be treated as equals and unequals as unequals.[4] The Greeks and Romans possessed an overwhelming belief in the harmony of various classes. The medieval mindset, too, believed that in an ordered society each socioeconomic class performed its tasks for the common good.[5] Political theorists from classical times through the Italian Renaissance, assumed that independence and freedom could not be achieved by those who did not already possess it.[6]  Social stratification was likewise the norm in the empires and lands of the ancient Near East. Not a culture in the region believed in the ideal of a society without entrenched class divisions that were founded on the control of economic, military, and political power.
    To be sure, the Torah manifestly speaks of multiple classes of individuals within the Israelite polity, an order which may not be termed egalitarian in the full sense of the word. The Torah speaks of those with entitlements and privileges, such as the king, priests and Levites.[7] But the control of economic and political resources enjoyed by these groups is greatly attenuated in contrast to the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East. Most significantly, the Torah rejects the divide between a class of tribute imposers, which controls economic, and political power and an even larger class of tribute bearers. In its place, the Torah articulates a new social, political, and religious order, the first to be founded upon egalitarian ideals and the notion of a society whose core is a single, uniformly empowered, homogeneous class.
* * *
    The revolution of political thought in the Torah begins with a revamping of theology: for people to think anew about politics, they would first have to think anew about theology. Our view of things political as distinct from things religious is a thoroughly modern notion: not a single culture in the ancient Near East has a word for “religion” as distinct from “state”.  The Tanakh reflects a world in which theological beliefs were intimately bound up with the politics of the times and the support of social hierarchy.
    To appreciate just how intimately politics and theology went hand in hand in the ancient world, imagine that we are archeologists digging up an ancient culture called “America.”  Deciphering its religious texts, we discover that the paramount god of the pantheon was “Commander in Chief,” who resided in a heavenly palace, or temple called “White House,” and would traverse the heavens in his vehicle, Chariot One.  We further discover that Commander in Chief had a consort known as “First Lady”—herself a goddess of apparently meager powers, yet assumed by some to possess a keen aesthetic sense. Our digging would further reveal that opposite “White House” in the heavens, was another temple, this one domed and populated by 535 lesser, regional deities, who routinely schemed and coalesced into partisan groupings, and who were known, on occasion, to have been able to depose Commander in Chief.
    Put differently, what we would discover is that the institutional order “down below” is parallel to the divine order “up above.”  This phenomenon, whereby the political structure of the heavens mirrored that of the earthly realm, was nearly ubiquitous in the ancient world, and it is easy to see why. Political regimes are, by definition, artificial, constructed, and therefore tenuous:  there is no real reason why one person should reign, and not another. A regime can receive immeasurable legitimation, however, if the masses underfoot believe that it is rooted in ultimate reality and unchanging truth; that the significance of the political order has cosmic and sacred basis.  The heavenly order mirrors the earthly order because ancient religion is a mask that covers over the human construction and exercise of power.[8]
    For example, we find that the chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon, Enlil, utterly resembles his earthly counterpart, the king.  Enlil, like the king, rules by delegating responsibilities to lesser dignitaries and functionaries. Like his earthly counterpart, he presides over a large assembly. He resides in a palace with his wives, children, and extended “house.”[9]  Generally speaking, the gods struggled to achieve a carefree existence and enjoyed large banquets in their honor. Like kings, gods needed a palace, or what we would call a temple, where they, too, could reside in splendor in separation from the masses, with subjects caring for their every physical need.
    If a god wanted something, say a temple repaired, or the borders expanded, he communicated through various agents with the king, and the king was his focus.[10] The gods never spoke to the masses, nor imparted instruction to them.  Ancient creation myths depict the masses serving a single purpose: to toil and offer tribute. Common humans were servants, at the lowest rung of the metaphysical hierarchy. The gods were interested in the masses to the extent that a baron or feudal lord would have interest in ensuring the well-being of the serfs that run the estate and supply its needs.[11] Servants, no doubt, play a vital role in sustaining monarchical order, but from an existential perspective, it is a decidedly diminished and undignified role.
    The Torah achieves a dual accomplishment as it reconfigures theology in a way that supports an egalitarian agenda: it articulates a portrait of the heavens that strips earthly hierarchies of power of their sacral legitimation.  Moreover, it provides a theological grounding for the existence of a homogeneous nation of equal citizens. 
    This is achieved through the Exodus and the revelation at Sinai – stories that would have made a distinct and unusual impression on the ancient mind. The ancients had no problem believing that the gods could split the seas, or descend in fire upon a mountaintop. Yet the Exodus and Sinai stories required an enormous stretch of the imagination, as they required listeners of subsequent generations to believe in political events that were without precedent and utterly improbable, even in mythic terms. Slaves had never been known to overthrow their masters.  Gods had never been known to speak to an entire people. In propagating the story of an enslaved people simply upping and outing, however, the Torah also pre-empted claims of election and immanent hierarchy within the Israelite nation.  The Exodus story effectively disallowed any Israelite to lay claim to elevated status. All Israelites emanate from the Exodus—a common, seminal, liberating, but most importantly equalizing event.
    Although the revelation at Sinai is usually conceived in religious terms, its political implications are no less dramatic, and constitute the bedrock of the egalitarian theology the Torah sought to adduce. Elsewhere, the gods communicated only to the kings, and had no interest in the masses. But at Sinai, God spoke only to the masses, without delineating any role whatever for kings, and their attendant hierarchies.[12]  Archeological findings allow us to grasp the way in which the Sinai narrative transforms the masses into kings. 
    Here’s how it works: As scholars noted more than fifty years ago, the pact, or covenant between God and Israel displays many common elements with what are known in biblical studies as ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties between a great king and a weaker one. In these treaties the more powerful king acts on behalf of a weaker, neighboring king: sensing an opportunity to foster a loyal ally, he may send food during a famine, or soldiers to break a siege.  In return, the lesser king demonstrates his appreciation to the powerful one by agreeing to a series of steps that express his gratitude and loyalty.  In these treaties the vassal king retains his autonomy and is treated like royalty when he visits the palace of the powerful king.  Having been saved from Egypt by God, the Israelites sign on at Sinai to a vassal treaty as sign of loyalty, becoming subordinate partners to the sovereign king, God.
    The theological breakthrough of the Hebrew Torah the transformation of the status and standing of the masses, of the common person, to a new height, and the elimination of nobles, royalty, and the like.  In the Torah, the common man received an upgrade from king’s servant to servant king.[13]
    The ennoblement of the common man is manifested in the very notion that the accounts of Exodus and Sinai should be promulgated among the people as their history. The point requires a note of context for us as moderns.  Although there are over one million inscriptions in our possession from the ancient Near East, there is nowhere evidence of a national narrative that a people tells itself about its collective, national life, of moments of achievement or of despair that is recorded for posterity.
    Stories abound in the ancient Near East—but they revolve around the exploits of individual gods, kings and nobles.[14]  The stories were written, oddly enough, for the gods themselves—as witnessed by the fact that these texts were often discovered in temple libraries, buried, or in other inaccessible locations. Myths were recited to remind the gods of their responsibilities. Texts that detail a king’s achievements on the battlefield were read as a report to a deity about the king’s activities on his or her behalf.  They were not composed for the masses.
    In an age and place such as our own, where literacy is nearly ubiquitous, access to texts of many kinds and the knowledge they bear is unfettered and, in theory, available to all. But in the ancient world physical access to written texts and the skills necessary to read them were everywhere highly restricted. The production and use of texts in the cultures of the ancient Near East as well as of ancient Greece were inextricably bound up with the formation of class distinctions: those who could read and write were members of a trained scribal class who worked in the service of the king.[15]  Writing originated in the ancient Near East as a component of bureaucratic activity. Systems of writing were essential for the administration of large states. The elite in these cultures had a vested interest in the status quo, and had an interest in preventing others from gaining control of an important means of communication. Far from being interested in its simplification, scribes often chose to proliferate signs and values. Both cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia and hieroglyphics in Egypt are systems of writing whose signs and symbols run into the hundreds. The texts produced in Mesopotamia were composed exclusively by scribes and exclusively for scribal use—administrative or cultic, or in the training of yet other scribes.
    The Cambridge anthropologist Jack Goody noted that a culture’s willingness to disseminate its religious literature inevitably reflects an emphasis on the individual within that culture.[16]   The comment sheds light on the Torah’s agenda to establish an ennobled egalitarian citizenry, as the Torah eagerly looks to share the divine word with the people of Israel. Moses reads the divine word to the people at Sinai (Exodus 24:1-8).  Periodically, the people are to gather at the temple and hear public readings of the Torah (Deuteronomy 31:10-13).  It is telling that the Tanakh never depicts priests or scribes as jealous or protective of their writing skills, as was common in neighboring cultures.[17]
* * *
    Turning from theology, we see that the Torah radically revamped regnant notions of political office and the exercise of power, with an egalitarian agenda. The Torah is the first work in history to adopt the rule of law. The great 20th century political philosopher, Friedrich Hayek, saw Athenian political philosophy as the birthplace of the notion of equality before the law,[18] but it is already present in the Torah, especially in Deuteronomy. Elsewhere in the ancient world, the kings composed and promulgated law, but were above it, not subject to it.  By contrast, all public institutions in the Torah—the judiciary, the priesthood, the monarchy, the institution of prophecy—are governed and regulated by law.[19] Moreover, the law is a public text whose dictates are meant to be widely known thus making abuse of power more obvious, and thus safeguarding the common citizenry.  
    Moreover, the most important body of authority in the polity envisioned by the Torah is, none other than the people themselves.  The Torah addresses the fraternal and egalitarian citizenry in the second person, “you”, and charges them with appointing a king and to appoint judges.  Put differently, the Torahh specifies no nominating body for appointing leaders or representatives. Rather, the collective “you”—the common citizenry—bears ultimate responsibility to choose a king and to appoint judges.   From the history of the United States we know how unthinkable it was only a few generations ago for many to contemplate the notion that persons of color or women should play a role in choosing who rules. For the royal monarchies of the ancient Near East, it was equally unfathomable that the masses—who elsewhere were serfs, servants— would hold any sway over those that ruled them.
   Thomas Hobbes recognized the fundamental principle that rule is legitimate only if the people choose to surrender some of their authority to a central figure. But the origins of the idea that a king would be appointed only if the people wanted one are in the Torah. Furthermore, if the people did elect to have a king, the Torah determined that he should be but a shadow of what a king was elsewhere.  Elsewhere kings played central roles in the cult.  In the Torah he plays none.[20]  Elsewhere, the kings aimed to build a strong army.  The Torah calls for him to have a limited treasury and to forego a cavalry, limitations that would leave him commanding only a small army. Moreover, were a royal chariot force to serve as the backbone of the nation’s defense, it would inevitably emerge as an elite military class.[21]  The great jurist of Athens, Solon, extended preferred status to the members of the cavalry over other citizens. But what confers status in the Torah is citizenship in the covenantal community, and this is shared by all. Elsewhere, the king would consolidate his power through a network of political marriages.[22]  The Torah forbids the king from taking a large number of wives.
    Finally, the Torah wrote a page in the history of constitutional thought, one that would not be written again until the American Founding. It pertains to a highly advanced notion of the separation of powers. Classical Greek political thought understood that in the absence of a strong monarch or a tyrant, factionalism threatened the stability of the polity. It was inevitable that the population would contain rich and poor, nobles and commoners. The stratification of the social order led classical theorists to balance power by allotting a share of the rule to each faction within society.
     Yet, the balance of power was not a balance of institutions of government, as we are accustomed to today. Rather, the balance was achieved by allowing each of the socioeconomic factions a functioning role within each seat of government. Thus, for the Roman jurist Polybius the legislative branch of government in the republic was to consist of two bodies: the senate for the nobles and the assembly for the commoners, with each institution permanently enshrined in law.[23]  
      The accepted wisdom that the effective division of power was predicated upon its distribution across preexisting societal seats of power was one that would hold sway throughout most of the history of political thought, from Roman theorists through early modern thinkers.  It is central even to the thinking of Montesquieu, the father of modern constitutional theory, who is credited with the separation of powers into three branches, executive, legislative and judiciary in his 1748 work, The Spirit of the Laws.
    Looking at the English model of his day, Montesquieu held that the legislative power should consist of a body of hereditary nobles and of a body of commoners.[24]   He saw hereditary nobility not as a necessary evil, nor even as an inevitable fact of life, but rather as a boon to effective government. With its inherent wealth and power, the nobility would serve as a moderating force within government against the abuses of the monarch.[25]   Moreover, the fact that the nobility’s strength was derived from its own resources would endow its members with a sense of independence. Together with developed education and time for reflection, this would enable the nobles to contribute to effective government in a way members of the lower classes could not.[26] Montesquieu could not conceive of a classless society, and a regime where the division of powers was purely institutional and instrumental, where the eligibility to hold office was independent of class.
     Here the Torah stands distinct. Elsewhere, political office legitimizes preexisting societal seats of power, and is awarded upon the basis of class and kinship. For the first time in history, the Torah articulates a division of at least some powers along lines of institution and instrument without regard to social standing.  Anyone, according to the law of the king in Deuteronomy, who is “among your brethren” is eligible to be appointed king. Moreover, the king is appointed by the collective “you,” mentioned before. How that selection occurs, apparently, is an issue that the Torah deliberately left open, implying that there is no selecting body that a priori has a greater divine imprimatur than any other.
    The same is true with regard to the judiciary in the book of Deuteronomy. Anyone may be appointed judge, and no less importantly, anyone, in theory, is eligible to participate in the process of appointing judges. The appointment of judges is mandated with the sole purpose of achieving the execution of justice, rather than the assignment of office to perpetuate the standing of a noble class. In this sense, Deuteronomy’s notion of offices that are entirely institutional and instrumental is an idea that would again appear only with the American Founding Fathers.
* * *
     The Torah understood that in order to create an egalitarian order, it would also need to rethink the economic structure of society, for without equity, there is no equality, and it sought to achieve this through radical legislation on several fronts.  The first concerned the allocation of land, the primary source of a livelihood.  Elsewhere, land was owned by the palace and by the temple.[27]  The Torah, in contrast, knows of no land holding for either king or cult.  Instead, nearly the entire land is given to the people themselves, in an association of free farmers and herdsmen, subsumed within a single social class.[28] The idea that wide tracks of available land should be divided among the commoners was without precedent.  Indeed, it is hard to think of another example of this until the American Homestead Act of 1863.  With the Great Plains open to mass settlement, nearly any person 21 years of age could acquire at virtually no cost a tract of 160 acres that would become his after five years of residence and farming. For 2 million new arrivals and other landless Americans, the Homestead Act was an opportunity to acquire assets and to bring equality of economic standing in line with equality before the law.[29]
    The revamping of economic norms is evident in the Torah’s approach to debt-relief.  Royal edicts of debt relief were common in the ancient world, and almost always declared during the first year of a new monarch’s reign, with clear political motivations.[30] The Greek historian Plutarch writes that when the Spartan ruler Agis sought to impose debt relief, the measure was considered by his detractors as nothing more than a Robin-Hood scheme: “By offering to the poor the property of the rich, and by distribution of land and remission of debts, he [bought] a large bodyguard for himself, not many citizens for Sparta.”[31] In contrast, debt-relief in the Torah is enacted every seven years, and is in no way dependent on the will of the king.  Debt relief, which had been a political tool of the ascending king, is now transformed to a legislated right of the common citizen.
    With the release mandated to be enacted every seven years, the inequities of free trade would be leveled out on a more regular basis than they would have been elsewhere in the ancient Near East. For a society predicated upon the principle of the rejection of hierarchy, there could be no more important legislation; equity is a vital component of equality. The release of debts every seven years serves as a hedge against the permanent development of an indigent underclass.[32]


      What is most remarkable about the Torah’s economic reforms is the manner in which the new economy is incorporated into a new measure of time.  Elsewhere in the ancient Near East the calendar was based upon readily perceptible astronomical rhythms: the counting of days stems from observing the rising and setting of the sun; of months, from observations of the waxing and waning of the moon; of years, from observing the seasons and position of the sun.  The ancient Near East, however, knows no calendar that incorporates the notion of a week.[37]  The week is the invention of the Torah, and is rooted in the Torah’s account of creation, in which God worked for six days, and rested on the seventh.
    The new unit of time is integral to the Torah’s egalitarian vision. The Sabbath principle regulates the schedule of the laws of social welfare, as a great equalizing force between haves and have-nots. The Sabbath day is a day of rest for all. In the seventh year—the “Sabbatical” year—the field lies fallow and is available for all to enjoy, and debt release, as we saw earlier is enacted in this year. Time itself is marshaled in the establishment of the egalitarian agenda.[38]
    It may be challenged that the institution of the priesthood undermines the central thesis of this essay.  But when seen in ancient Near Eastern perspective, it is clear that the Torah designed a priesthood that would be stripped of many of the powers that priests had in neighboring cultures.  We have already seen how this is true with regard to land-holding and literacy.  To this we may add that nowhere else in the ancient world do we find pejorative accounts concerning the high priests.  The Torah, however, tells us only one substantive story about Aaron – the sin of the golden calf (Exodus 32) – and one substantive story about his sons – the sins of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), both stories that are pejorative in the extreme.  Elsewhere in the ancient Near East, temples were strictly off limits to all but temple officiates.  Within the Torah, the common men and women of Israel play a more active role in the Temple, than is found anywhere else in the ancient world.  No other culture revealed the laws of the cult to the masses in the way that Leviticus does to the entire populace.  When seen in ancient perspective, the power and mystique of the priesthood is greatly vitiated, and the status of the common citizen greatly elevated.
Throughout the ancient world, the truth was self-evident: all men were not created equal.  The ancients saw the social world they had created, and, behold, it was good.  It was good, they deemed, because it was ordered around a rigid hierarchy, where everyone knew their station in life, each according to their class.  By contrast, the Torah articulates an integrated grand vision. For the first time a society was told that the gods were something other than their own selves writ large, in a vision that radically rethought God as it rethought man.  It introduced new understandings of the law, of political office, of military power, of taxation, of social welfare.  It conceived in radically new ways the importance of national narrative, of technologies of communication, and of a culture’s calibration of time.  Never, in the annals of human thought, has one document revolutionized so much political thought, with so little precedent to inspire it.








[7] There are many areas in which the blueprint laid forth by the Torah sees women as subordinate to men in areas such as the judiciary, the cult, the military, and in land ownership, to name just a few. Yet much of what follows about how the Torah empowered and ennobled the common Israelite is true of women as well as of men.   Moreover, there is evidence that the status of women in the Tanakh was higher than the standing ascribed to women in ancient Near Eastern literature. See Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Free Press, 1992); idem., Reading the Women of the Tanakh: A New Interpretation of Their Stories (New York: Schocken, 2002).
[8] Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967), 31-38;  Paul Ricouer, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 54. See also, S. N. Eisenstadt, “Introduction: The Axial Age Breakthroughs–Their Characteristics and Origins,” in The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, ed. S. N. Eisenstadt (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 2-4.  See discussion with regard to ancient Near Eastern religions in J. David Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 92.
[9] Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (Hew Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976), 4; Jean Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia (trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 51, 91, 220; Robert Karl Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 153.
[10] Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948) 258-59.
[11] S. A. Geller, “The God of the Covenant,” in One God or Many?: Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World, ed. Barbara Nevling Porter (Casco Bay Assyriological Institute, 2000), 309.
[12] All of this, of course, changes with the rise of the Davidic dynasty and the sacral legitimation given it.  My arguments here concentrate on the vision of society as set forth in the Torah, a vision that, it would seem, was not fully realized at any point in biblical history.
[13] The theological implications of the vassal treaty paradigm are explored in greater depth in my article, Joshua A. Berman, “God’s Alliance with Man,” Azure 25 (Summer 2006) 79-113.
[14] Edward L. Greenstein, “The God of Israel and the Gods of Canaan: How Different Were They?” World Congress of Jewish Studies 12 (1999): A:56*; John Van Seters, “The Historiography of the Ancient Near East,” Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. Jack M. Sasson, et al (4 vols.; Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995) 4:2433-44 (henceforth CANE).
[15] On the general topic, see David Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
[16]  Jack Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 2.
[17] See, for example, the Admonitions of Ipuwer, a mid-second millennium Egyptian composition in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, (3 vols.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976) 1:155.
[18] F. A. Hayek, The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (Cairo: National Bank of Egypt, 1955), 6-9.

[20] Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship,” 523. The separation of monarchy and cult, however, is distinctly deuteronomic. Many kings are seen offering sacrifices, most notably Solomon (1 Kgs 8:5), and indeed Solomon is the driving force in the construction of the First Temple (1 Kgs 6-8). No protest is registered against kings anywhere in the prophetic literature for performing cultic activities, a note registered only in 2 Chr 26:16-20, with reference to Uzziah.
[21] Shemaryahu Talmon,  “Kingship and the Ideology of the State,” in World History of the Jewish People, ed. Ben-Zion Netanyahu, 8 vols. (Tel Aviv: Massadah, 1963- ) 4:13-14; Mayes, (A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979], 272) notes that the agenda of attenuating royal prestige by limiting the number of horses accords with other biblical references which suggest that the possession of wealth and horses deny a person the capacity to trust in God (Isa 2:7-9; Mic 5:10ff).
[22] See Patricia Dutcher- Walls, “The Circumscription of the King in Deuteronomy 17:16-17 in its Ancient Social Context,” Journal of Biblical Literature 121:4 (2002) 609; Richard D. Nelson, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 224.
[23] Thomas L. Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 118-20.



[27] With regard to Egypt see David O’Connor, “The Social and Economic Organization of Ancient Egyptian Temples,” in CANE 1: 319-29. With regard to Mesopotamia, see Norman Yoffee, “The Economy of Ancient Western Asia,” CANE 3:1387-99.  It would appear that alongside royal estate holdings, some form of private ownership of land was extant in all period and all places in the ancient Near East, with the possible exception of Egypt, where it may be that all lands were considered to be the property of the king. See Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East, 125-28 and the extended bibliography in Chirichigno, Debt Slavery in Israel, 35, n. 1.
[28] Jeffrey A. Fager, Land Tenure and the Biblical Jubilee: Uncovering Hebrew Ethics through the Sociology of Knowledge (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 88.
[29] On the Homestead Act see Heather Cox Richardson, The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies During the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997).
[30] Moshe Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995), 77.
[31] Plutarch, Lives: Agis and Cleomenes 7:7, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913) vol. 10, p. 19. See similar sentiments in Roman times, in Cicero, Duties 2, 78-80. See discussion in Weinfeld, Social Justice, 11.
[32] Nelson, Deuteronomy, 192.
[33] Elsewhere, both in the Hebrew Tanakh and in almost all ancient Near Eastern sources, tithes are delivered to the temple or sanctuary. Cf. H. Jagersma, “The Tithes in the OT,” Oudtestamentische Studiën 21 (1981): 123. In Israel as well, the distinction between the royal and temple tithes is not always clear, since temples were ispo facto royal temples (Amos 7:13) and the kings controlled their treasuries (1 Kgs15:18; 2 Kgs 12:19; 18:15) and were responsible for their maintenance (2Kgs 12:7-17; 22:3-7; Ezek 45:17; 2 Chr 31:3-6). See Jacob Milgrom, Cult and Conscience: The Asham and the Priestly Doctrine of Repentance (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 57. For an overview of tithing in the Tanakh and its relationship to tithing in the ancient Near East, see Moshe Weinfeld, “Tithing in the Tanakh: Its Monarchic and Cultic Background,” Be’er Sheva 1 (1973) 122-31 (Heb.).
[34] This is decidedly not the case throughout the Tanakh, however. In 1 Sam 8:15-17 and 1 Kgs 4:7, the tithe is a tax collected through the legal claim of the kingdom as sacral monarchy, belonging to God and the king together. See Frank Crüsemann, The Torah: Theology and Social History of Old Testament Law, trans. Allan W. Mahnke (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 217.
[35] John F. Robertson, “The Social and Economic Organization of Ancient Mesopotamian Temples,” in CANE 1:444-46. Occasions mentioned elsewhere in the Tanakh, however, indicate that major cultic occasions could involve massive economic resources (cf. 1 Kgs 8:5).
[36] Crüsemann, The Torah, 217.
[37] Different systems were adduced for breaking down the month into smaller units in Mesopotamia. See William W. Hallo, “New Moons and Sabbaths: A Case Study in the Contrastive Approach,” Hebrew Union College Annual 48 (1977) 12-13.
[38] Hallo, “New Moons and Sabbaths,” 15; M. Tsevat, “The Basic Meaning of the Biblical Sabbath,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 84 (1972): 448; Benjamin Uffenheimer, “Myth and Reality in Ancient Israel,” in The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, ed. S. N. Eisenstadt (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 150-53.