A year in Berlin: The Beginning of Hebrew Printing in Berlin in c. 1699

A Year in Berlin:
The Beginning of Hebrew Printing in Berlin in c. 1699
by Marvin J. Heller

The publishing of Hebrew books in Berlin is a relatively late phenomenon. The article provides a background to early Hebrew printing and then discusses the first Hebrew press in Berlin. It addresses Jewish history in Berlin, explaining why Hebrew printing began there at the end of the seventeenth century, almost two hundred and fifty years after it began elsewhere. Several unique works, rather than the usual communal prayer books and bibles, are described in some detail in the article.

Hebrew printing has a rich and lengthy history. The first Hebrew books were printed close to the mid-fifteenth century, in 1469 and 1472, approximately a decade and a half after Johann Gutenberg printed the first Bible in c. 1455 in Mainz, Germany. Those first Hebrew books, printed in Rome by Obadiah, Menasheh, and Benjamin of Rome, and several who followed, are undated. Their name appears in the colophon of R. Moses ben Nahman’s (Nahmanides, Ramban, 1194–1270) Torah commentary[1] The first dated Hebrew book was Abraham ben Garton ben Isaac’s edition of Rashi’s Torah commentary (Reggio di Calabria, 1475, completed 10 Adar, 5235 = Friday, February 17, 1475). It was followed soon after by Jacob ben Asher’s Arba’ah Turim, printed in Piove di Sacco, Padua province on 28 Tammuz, 5235 (July 3, 1475).[2]

A conservative listing of Hebrew books that can be said with certainty to have been printed prior to 1500 are, according to A. K. Offenberg, 139 titles, which he writes “may yet be too high.”I[3] In an index Offenberg records close to twenty locations in which Hebrew incunabula were printed, in Italy, Spain, and a 1493 Constantinople edition of the Arba’ah Turim.[4] Among the more notable locations in which Hebrew printing occurred in the incunabular period are Mantua, Bologna, Ferrara in Italy, and Guadalajara in Spain.

In contrast to the small number of incunabular imprints, approximately 2,700 titles were printed in the following century, that is, from 1500-1599. To be more precise, 2,672 Hebrew titles (or books with Hebrew letters) were printed, according to Yeshayahu Vinograd, in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century the number of Hebrew books published increased to 3,526 entries.[5] The primary centers of Hebrew printing in those centuries were, respectively, Venice and Amsterdam. Parenthetically, the latter’s imprints were sufficiently popular that publishers in other locations frequently wrote with a small font “printed with” and in a large font “Amsterdam,” and again in a small font “letters.” Below, again in a small font, the actual place of printing.[6]

That Hebrew printing began so much later in Berlin than in other centers of printing might seem unlikely, given the subsequent importance of that city’s Jewish community and press. However, it is not surprising in light of the early history of Berlin Jewry, which was difficult, indeed stormy. Expelled in the middle-ages, during the Black Death, Jews were allowed to return in 1354, but not permitted a synagogue. There is no further mention of Jews until the sixteenth century. Subsequently, Jews were expelled and readmitted several times. Gotthard Deutsch and A. Freimann write that “The real history of the Jewish community of Berlin does not begin until the year 1671.” At that time, Jews expelled from Vienna were admitted to Berlin. On Jan. 3, 1676, a decree was issued which stated “die Juden in Berlin in ihren Freyheiten und Privilegien nicht zu turbiren, noch zu kränken, sondern sie vielmehr dabey gebürend zu schützen” (not to disturb or worry the Jews of Berlin in their grants and privileges, but to protect them properly).”[7]

Hebrew printing in Berlin began soon after, that is, in the last decade of the seventeenth century. According to the Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Hebrew printing in Berlin, “which commenced later than in other German cities,” began when Daniel Ernst Jablonski published a Hebrew Bible in 1699.[8] Yeshayahu Vinograd, in the Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book, records eleven works printed from 1690 through 1699, eight in the latter date. He begins with a 1690 quarto format (4⁰) Bible attributed to a Knebell, who Moritz Steinschneider describes in his entry for the 1699 Bible as “Opera et impensis Jo. Henri Knebel . . .” (the works and expenses of Jo. Henri Knebel),” the printer given as Jablonski.

The 1690 Bible entry is followed by two 1698 octavo editions (8⁰: 90 pp., no pagination given for the second edition) of Psalms both in the Bodleian library and then the 1699 imprints.[9] Steinschneider dates the first Psalms as “3–9 Tischri 458 (18-24, Sept. 1697), the second as [ca. 1697-9]. These are followed by an edition of Bereishit (Genesis).[10] Also printed at this time was a siddur (prayer book) and another edition of Psalms. All of these works, as well as the following titles, were printed at the Jablonski press.

Daniel Ernst Jablonski’s (1660-1741) involvement with Hebrew printing is surprising given his background and career. He was the son of Peter Figulus, a minister of Unity of the Brethren (Unitas fratrum) and grandson of Johann Amos Comenius, the last bishop of the Unity. Jablonski served as a preacher at Magdeburg in 1683, and from 1686 to 1691 as head of the Brethren College at Polish Leszno (Lissa), a position filled by his grandfather. In 1691, Jablonski was appointed court preacher at Königsberg by the elector of Brandenburg. In 1693, he was transferred to Berlin as court preacher, and in 1699 he was consecrated a bishop of the Unity of the Brethren, where he worked to bring about a union between the followers of Luther and Calvin. In 1700, Jablonski became a member of the Academy of Sciences (Brandenburgische Societät der Wissenschaften), serving between 1710 and 1731 as director of Philology and Oriental Studies and, from 1733 and 1741, as president of the Academy.[11] He was also the author of several books on Christian theology and philosophy.

In Berlin, Jablonski established a Hebrew printing press. Vinograd very conservatively crediting him with having printed as many as twenty titles. However, a significant multiple of that number of titles were printed in Berlin at that time with no printer’s name assigned to them in the Thesaurus, or, in some instances, attributed to an editor at the press.[12] Concerning Jablonski’s heading a Jewish press in Berlin, it may not seem as improbable as it appears. Jews could not initially obtain licenses to own a printing-press, so that of necessity, the owner had to be a non-Jew, although the managers and workers were usually Jewish. Jablonski employed a number of Jewish workers at his press. The most important was Judah Loeb ben David Neumark (d. 4 Nissan = April 9, 1723) from Hanau, author of Shoresh Yehudah (Frankfort on the Main, 1692), the manager of and an editor at the Jablonski printing-house.[13]

Another of Jablonski’s achievements relates to the printing of the Talmud. He was instrumental in securing approval for Michael Gottschalk, the Frankfurt an der Oder printer, and Johann Christoph Beckman, professor of theology at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder, to publish the Frankfurt an der Oder Talmud (1697-99). Jablonski’s opinion was requested by Friedreich III, Elector of Brandenburg, after Gottschalk and Beckman sought permission to print the Talmud. Jablonski’s measured response was, overall, positive; he found the Talmud to be, with reservations, a work of value, and recommended that Friedreich approve the request to republish that work. Jablonski subsequently printed the first Frankfurt on the Oder/Berlin Talmud together with Gottschalk (1715-22).

We turn now to the more distinct books published at the Jablonski press, that are non-biblical nor prayer books, although the press issued both. Our first title is Azmot Yosef, novellae on tractate Kiddushin by R. Joseph ben Isaac ibn Ezra (c. 1560–1620), attributed in bibliographies to Neimark, as it is his name that appears on the title-page. Perchance, he managed the press and Jablonski was the proforma owner.

Azmot Yosef – Azmot Yosef was published in folio format (2⁰: 125 ff.) in the year “[Show me a sign of] Your favorאות לטובה ( 459 = 1699) that my enemies may see and be frustrated because you. O Lord, have given me aid and comfort (Psalms 86:17). R. Joseph ben Isaac ibn Ezra (c. 1560–1620) was a scion of the renowned Ibn Ezra family of Spain. Publication of Azmot Yosef is attributed by Vinograd to L. Neimark. Joseph ben Isaac Ibn Ezra was a student of 1R. Samuel de Medina (Maharashdam, 1506-89) and of R. Aaron ben Solomon ben Hasson (16th Cent.). Ibn Ezra subsequently headed the yeshivah of Don David ben Yahya, where he had several eminent students, among them R. Shabbetai Jonah. He later left Salonika for Constantinople, and afterwards served as rabbi in Larissa and Sofia.[14]

The first paragraph of the title-page, a reprint of the first edition, states that it is an explanation of the rules by which the Torah is explicated, and that it is:

a commentary in iyyun and pilpul (deliberation and casuistry) of tractate Kiddushin, from the beginning until the end, on the Talmud, Rashi, Tosafot, Rif, Rambam, Rosh, his son the Ba’al ha-Turim, and others on the laws of kiddushin (betrothal). After the iyyun and pilpul I conclude with the halakhah . . . .

Also, for the benefit of the students [I explain] the rules of [kal ve-homer] (a fortiori inference), dayyo (sufficiency), and other rules: I also delve deeply into the passages of parah ve-rahel in Kol ha-basar and at the end of Kaitzad ha-regel.

The second paragraph, somewhat lengthy, informs that Azmot Yosef was printed previously in Salonica in 1601, further expounds it virtues, and informs that it is being printed for the second time in the praiseworthy city of Berlin and extols Friedreich III.

Azmot Yosef

Courtesy of the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad Ohel Yosef Yitzhak

In addition to the peshat (clear meaning of the text) on Kiddushin, Azmot Yosef also addresses Talmudic methodology. Ibn Ezra was also the author of Rosh Yosef, novellae on the Tur, Ḥoshen Mishpat, of which the part on taxes and associated communal issues was published as Massa Melekh (Salonica (1601). Some of his responsa were published in the responsa of R. Shabbetai Jonah, R. Solomon ha-Kohen, and R. Samuel Hayyun.

Azmot Yosef is an important work on Kiddushin and has been reprinted several times. Initially printed in Salonika (1601), as noted above, at the press of Abraham and Joseph BathSheba, this is the second edition; four additional printings of Azmot Yosef are recorded in the Bet Eked Sepharim, the most recent a Warsaw edition (1883).[15]

Gefen Yehidit – Our next work, Gefen Yehidit is a multi-part work, primarily on ethics, by R. Ze’ev Wolf ben Judah Leib of Rosienie. It was published in a small sextodecimo format (16⁰: 59 ff.)

Gefen Yehidit

Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

The title page of Gefen Yehidit has a brief text that states that it is:

A book, small in size but of great quality. It speaks of matters of ethics and reverence in a clear language . . . The author should have merit. He is one of the maskilim (a person of understanding) and in this small book he demonstrates his expertise and sharpness. . .

Included is Sefer Luah ha-Hayyim which speaks of remedies in order that a person should be healthy and strong in order to serve his God continuously.

The title page is dated “a sign for good אות לטובה (459 = 1669)” (Psalms 86:17). Next is the introduction (1b-2a) of R. Judah Leib Hanau,[16] who brought the book to press. In his introduction, Ze’ev Wolf begins with a quote from Midrash Ruth in which Rav Ashi says that this Megillah is not primarily wisdom nor Torah, but to learn from it gemillut hasadim (acts of kindness), so too the work that he is writing. He informs that he has had a difficult life, and frequently quotes from the Zohar.

The text, in a single column in rabbinic letters, is comprised of Gefen Yehidit, a work of mussar (ethics); an accounting (39a-40b), beginning with and based on the memorial prayer El Malei Rahamim, of what befell the Jews of Podhajce (Podgaitsy), Ukraine in 1677 during a Tartar incursion and massacre of the Jews; followed by a dirge (40b-41a); Zemer le-Purim (42a-46b), verse for that festival in both Hebrew and Yiddish, translated word for word into the latter language because that is the language of Ashkenazim; and concluding with Luah ha-Hayyim (47a-59b), a popular medical work.

Gefen Yehidit has been reprinted several times, beginning with a Hanau (1717) edition.

Luah ha-Hayyim – Although included in Gefen Yehidit Luah ha-Hayyim is an independent work. In contrast to the other additional parts of the former title, Luah ha-Hayyim has its own title-page. Written by R. Hayyim ben Benjamin Ze’ev Bochner,[17] (for our ealier discussion regarding Bochner on the SEfohere), a prolific writer, whose works include Orḥot Ḥayyim, a commentary on R. Isaac Tyrnau’s Minhagim (1669, Prague), Mayim Ḥayyim, homilies and comments on Bible and Talmud, and Toẓeot Ḥayyim on grammar. This edition of Luah ha-Hayyim is based on earlier edition printed by Johann Christoph Wagenseil (Altdorf, 1687), also part of a larger work.

Luah ha-Hayyim

Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

The title-page states that it is:

Luah ha-Hayyim

“It will be a cure for your body [a tonic for your bones] (Psalms 3:8) etc.” “They are life to him who finds them; healing for his whole body (Psalms 4:22):

Abbreviated rules of conduct for a person in the matter of healing to maintain a healthy body and it is a primary principle in the service of the Lord. In order to benefit the public, we have printed anew R. Hayyim ben Benjamin Ze’ev Bochner of Cracow’s work. It received in the past approbations from leading medical authorities for all these words are true and correct to those who are knowledgeable and meritable.

This is followed by approbations of two doctors from Lublin. An example of the text (51a-52b) is:

a clear white wine , sweet and aromatic, is healthy and caring. If one drinks a measure of wine, it is a balm for the body, for it increases bodily heat and strengthens as a lion. It gladdens the heart and hones the mind. It also helps in the digestion of food. The measure of a reviis as the amount to drink is logical.[18] More than this measure one should cease and desist. However, if one is accustomed to become inebriated from it and drinks more then enough than the head is ill and the heart is pained. One whose nature is warm and thirsts to drink should mix a little water every time. Honey that is clear and of average sweetness and strength is somewhat comparable to the nature of wine in all respects. . . .

A popular work the Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book records twelve editions of Luah ha-Hayyim, but again these are generally not independent publications.[19]

Keter Torah – Keter Kehunah – our final publication, is a Kabbalistic work on Psalms and liturgy by R. Joseph ben Moses (Ashkenazi), darshan of Przemyslany (17th cent.) Printed in quarto format (4⁰: 91, 62-66, [1]; 76 ff.) Keter Torah and Keter Kehunah are, respectively, the second and third parts of Keter Yosef, the first part of which was printed in 1700.[20] Joseph ben Moses, who was a darshan (preacher), served as rabbi and dayyan in Przemyslany.

Each part was printed separately and has its own title page, albeit with the same frame but somewhat varying text. The pillared frame has cherubim at the top and at the bottom of the frame an eagle with a shield, and holding a sword in one talon and a scepter in the other. In its beak is a banner with the date of the respective volume.[21]

The title page of Keter Torah states that it is the second part of Keter Yosef,

A holy workbook, old replete with new, a desirable commentary, where is its like? On Psalms by the author of Zafenat Pa’ne’ah and Haluka de-Rabbanan. He is the great darshan, grandson of the gaon R. Abraham Ashkenazi, descended from Rashi, son-in-law of R. Abraham av bet din in Luntshits, and a branch and descendant of R. Saul Wahl.

It is dated “Now Israel loved Joseph אהב את יוסף וישראל (459 = 1699)” (Genesis 37:3). Keter Torah has an introduction from the author followed by the text, comprised of Psalms in the middle of the page in square vocalized letters with Joseph’s expansive commentary, Keter Yosef, on the sides in rabbinic letters. The text is divided by the days of the week and has the heading Keter Yosef. The title page of Keter Kehunah states that it is part three of Keter Yosef and that

It is the threefold part that “is not quickly broken” (cf. Ecclesiastes 4:12). In it are found at intervals some sharp novellae on Tosafot and gemara. I have entitled it Keter Torah on the order of the avodah (divine service) for the entire year. It is by the great darshan . . .

Keter Kehunah
Courtesy of Hebrewbooks.org

Keter Kehunah is dated “This is the Torah of the burnt offering זאת תורת העולה (459 = 1699)” (Leviticus 6:2). Here, too, the text is comprised of the liturgy of the daily ma’amadot (division of prayers) in the center of the page in square vocalized letters, the commentary Keter Yosef on the sides in rabbinic letters, and the heading Keter Yosef. After the daily ma’amadot are bakashot for the day and bakashot in the manner of Kabbalah. The daily ma’amadot are followed by kabbalistic prayers for special occasions such as selihot for Mondays and Thursdays, fast days, Rosh Hodesh, Shabbat with special Torah readings, Shabbat Teshuvah, Hanukkah, Purim, brit milah, kinnot for Tishah be-Av, and for dreams. There is also a prayer for someone incarcerated from R. Leone (Judah Aryeh) Modena.

This is the sole edition of any of the parts of Keter Yosef. Joseph was also the author of a commentary included in Haggadah Haluka de-Rabbanan (Amsterdam, 1695), a commentary on the Passover Haggadah; Ketonet Passim (Lublin, 1691), discourses on festivals and the Haggadah; and Zafenat Pa’ne’ah he-Hadash (Frankfurt am Oder, 1693-94, above) on diverse subjects.

In conclusion, we have described individual publications that are not part of the customary frequently printed works comprising traditional and necessary parts of Jewish literature, that is, biblical and liturgical books, although, as noted above, such works were also published by the Jablonski press. The subject matter of these other varied books addressed here encompasses Talmudic novellae, ethics, medical recommendations, and a Kabbalistic work.

What is particularly noteworthy is, given the late start of Hebrew publishing in Berlin, that it rapidly became a center of Hebrew printing. The Thesaurus records 457 titles issued by the Berlin press in the following century (1700-1799), a remarkable growth for a new press that had hardly published any books in the previous century and for a community that was initially young and relatively small compared to other Jewish communities. Despite the small number of works published in that early period, at the end of the seventeenth century, the books published not only addressed communal needs, but also included a variety of valuable works expressing the varied intellectual needs and interests of the community. It quickly grew from a small but press that had from its beginning began by serving its community with needed and valuable varied works to a press of significance.

[1] Concerning those first Hebrew imprints see Moses Marx, “On the Date of the Appearance of the First Hebrew Book,” in Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York, 1950), pp. 481-501.
[2] The above dates are Julian dates. The dates in the Gregorian calendar, adopted in Rome in 1582 in place of the Julian calendar are, for Rashi’s Torah commentary, February 26, 1475. The Gregorian date for the Arba’ah Turim would be July 12, 1475.
[3] A. K. Offenberg, Hebrew Incunabula in Private Collections (Nieuwkoop, 1990), p. xxiii-xxv, 186-94. It should be noted that other authorities cite a higher number of titles for the incunabular period. A significantly lower number is given by Richard Gottheil and Joseph Jacobs in “Incunabula” Jewish Encyclopedia vol. 6 (New York, 1901-06), p. 575 who write that 101 works printed in Hebrew letters can be identified as certainly printed before 1500. In contrast, according to Herrmann M.Z. Meyer / Angel Sáenz-Badillo, write there are “175 (207) editions printed with Hebrew letters ascertained by copies preserved in public collections.” “Incunabula” (Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 9 (Jerusalem, 2007),vol. 9 pp. 757-58.
[4] The dating of the 1493 Constantinople edition of the Arba’ah Turim has been questioned, many bibliographers consider the correct date to be 1503. Offenberg in a convincing article, substantiates the correct date as 1493 (Offenberg, “The First printed Book Produced at Constantinople (Jacob ben Asher’s Arba’ah Turim, December 13, 1493),” in A Choice of Corals: Facets of Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Printing, pp. 102-32.
[5] Yeshayahu Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Part I Indexes. Books and Authors, Bibles, Prayers and Talmud, Subjects and Printers, Chronology and Languages, Honorees and Institutes. Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book (Jerusalem, 1993-95), pp. xxiv-xxvi [Hebrew].
[6] Mozes Heiman Gans describes this practice, writing “so highly-prized were books ‘printed in Amsterdam’ or ‘be-Amsterdam’ that cunning rivals invented the phrase ‘nidfas ke-Amsterdam’, i.e. in the manner of Amsterdam, hoping to deceive the readers by relying on the similarity of the Hebrew k and b.” Mozes Heiman Gans, Memorbook. History of Dutch Jewry from the Renaissance to 1940 with 1100 illustrations and text (Baarn, Netherlands, 1977), p. 140: Also see Marvin J. Heller, “Who can discern his errors? Misdates, Errors, Deceptions, and other Variations in and about Hebrew Books, Intentional and Otherwise: Revisited,” http://seforim.blogspot.com/, Sunday, July 03, 2016, reprinted in Essays on the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden/Boston, 2021), pp. 507-36.
[7] Gotthard Deutsch, A. Freimann, “Berlin,” Jewish Encyclopedia vol. 3. pp. 69-71.
[8] Jüdisches Museum Berlin: https://www.jmberlin.de/en/collection-hebrew-printing-in-berlin.
[9] Moritz Steinschneider, Catalogus Liborium Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (CB, Berlin, 1852-60), col. 112 no. 702; Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Part II, p. 111.
[10] Steinschneider, nos. 694, 1050, 1028.
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ernst_Jablonski.
[12] Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Part I, p. 451.
[13] Ch. B. Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography of the following Cities in Central Europe: Altona, Augsberg, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt M., Frankfurt O., Fürth, Hamberg, Hanau, Heddernheim, Homberg, Ichenhausen, Neuwied, Wandsbeck, and Wilhermsdorf. Offenbach, Prague, Sulzbach, Thannhausen from its beginning in the year 1513 (Antwerp, 1935), pp. 87-88 [Hebrew].
[14] See Ya’akov Shemuel Speigel’s introduction to Ibn Ezra’s responsa for additional biographical information. She’elot u-Teshuvot Rebi Yosef ibn Ezra, ed. Ya’akov Shemuel Speigel (Jerusalem, 1989), 5-30. Speigel specifically discusses Azmot Yosef, its editions and its reception. Id. 21-24.
[15] Ch. B. Friedberg, Bet Eked Sepharim, (Israel, n. d), ayin 1064 [Hebrew]. Eli Genauer updated the Bet Eked entry, which records books from 1474-1950, informing that later editions of Azmot Yosef were published in Jerusalem by Levin-Epstein in 1951, 1958, 1962, 1969, and 1976. There was also a Warsaw 1912 and a New York edition form the 1950’s as well as a Jerusalem 1988 edition, all attesting to the popularity of Azmot Yosef. Genauer quoted a yeshiva student’s joke concerning Azmot Yosef “how do you know that Jews were learning Maseches Kiddushin when they left Mizrayim [Egypt]? Because it says they took the Atzmos Yosef [bones of Joseph’ with them” (Exodus 13:19) and is also included in Kovets Mifarshim ‘al Meskhet Kiddusin, published in 2000 and 2019.
[16] He is the father of the famed grammarian Shlomo Zalmen Hanau. On some of his title pages, he indicates that his father was a sha”tz (cantor).
[17] For our discussion regarding Bochner and his works, see our post on the Seforim Blog, “Hayyim Ben Benjamin Ze’ev Bochner: Kabbalist, Talmudist, and Grammarian.”
[18] A reviis equals 1-½ eggs (see Mishna Berura 271:68) https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/what-is-the-volume-of-a-reviis/.
[19] Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Part I, p. 67
[20] Regarding the possible Sabbatian elements in this work, see Shnayer Leiman, Sefarim Ha-Hashudim be-Sha’abatot, in Sefer ha-Zikhron le-Reb Moshe Lipschitz, Rafael Rosenbaum, ed., (New York, 1996), p. 887.
[21] Concerning the eagle motif see Marvin J. Heller, “The Eagle Motif on 16^th and 17^th Century Hebrew Books,” Printing History, NS 17 (Syracuse, 2015), pp. 16-40, reprinted in Essays, pp. 5-29.

[1]: א״ל הקב״ה … יודע אני כוונתו של אהרן היאך היתה לטובה On a Short Wedding Wish to the Lichtensteins from the Pen of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

[1]: א״ל הקב״ה … יודע אני כוונתו של אהרן היאך היתה לטובה

On a Short Wedding
Wish to the Lichtensteins from the Pen of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

By Shaul Seidler-Feller

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, zts”l, the late, lamented, “irreplaceable”[2] gedol ha-dor of the Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist communities,[3] has been characterized by those who knew him as a larger-than-life – indeed, angelic[4] – leader whose complete command of every facet of Torah learning was matched only by his sterling character and superlative (almost Hafets Hayyim-like) piety.[5] One of the things that struck me most, however, in listening to and reading several of the eulogies delivered or published after his passing was precisely how genuinely human this prince among men was in his personal and family life. Mrs. Esti Rosenberg, one of Rav Lichtenstein’s daughters and the head of the Stella K. Abraham Beit Midrash for Women – Migdal Oz, used the biblical metaphor of “a ladder set up on the earth, whose head reached unto heaven” (Gen. 28:12)[6] to capture how her father managed to radiate both a rarefied aura of sanctity and, crucially, a true humanity that extended to such mundane matters as doing most of the laundry in the house,[7] getting the kids ready in the mornings,[8] helping them with their homework in the evenings,[9] coming to learn with them after seder twice a week,[10] making sure to eat dinner with them almost every night,[11] washing the dishes after Shabbat had ended so that his kids would not fight over whose responsibility it was,[12] attending their performances in the Ezra youth group or at school,[13] teaching them how to ride a bike,[14] playing Scrabble and chess with them,[15] taking an interest in their friends,[16] buying them gifts and clothing during his visits to the States,[17] etc. – all of them activities that might be undertaken by normal devoted fathers but that I think we usually, rightly or wrongly, do not associate with people of Rav Lichtenstein’s intellectual caliber and spiritual stature. Indeed, in the words of Rabbi Avishai David, a student of Rav Aharon’s, “Rav Lichtenstein was a normal gadol ba-Torah, a very normal gadol ba-Torah.”[18]

And, of course, the same level of devotion was manifest in his relationship with his wife, Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein (nee Soloveitchik). Rav Aharon’s children reflected at the levayah on the mutual respect and unwavering support each partner showed the other,[19] while his students described some of the (ever-modest) manifestations of their affection for one another.[20] Dr. Lichtenstein herself summed it up best in a video produced in honor of her husband’s eightieth birthday when she said, “He invested both intellectually and emotionally in our children.[21] And he invested in our marriage as well – he was not only a family man but also a husband.”[22]

It is in this context, then, that I wish to digress for a moment and travel back in time to the Lichtensteins’ wedding, the point at which this whole story started, by way of a unique text discovered by Menachem Butler in a volume on the shelves of Yeshiva University’s Mendel Gottesman Library of Hebraica/Judaica. The year is 1959, and Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg (1884–1966), famed prewar rector of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin and author of the Seridei esh compendium of responsa, halakhic novellae, and topical essays, is living out the last stage of his life in Montreux, Switzerland. Meanwhile, across the ocean in the United States, Rav Lichtenstein has just received semikhah from Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, having completed his doctorate in English literature at Harvard two years prior,[23] and is engaged to be married to Tovah Soloveitchik, daughter of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Rav Aharon’s rav muvhak.[24] The couple originally planned to wed Tuesday night, 22 Kislev 5720 (December 22, 1959), in the Dorothy Quincy Suite of the John Hancock Building in Boston, the bride’s hometown (see Fig. 1).[25]

Fig. 1

In anticipation of the joyous occasion, to which he apparently could not arrive in person, Rav Weinberg sent an inscribed volume of Yad sha’ul,[26] a collection of essays compiled in memory of his beloved talmid muvhak (and the person primarily responsible for bringing him to Montreux in the first place),[27] Rabbi Saul Weingort (ca. 1914–1946),[28] who had passed away following a tragic train accident while on his way to deliver a shi‘ur at the yeshivah in Montreux.[29] Through some serendipitous twist of fate, it is this copy of the sefer which made its way into the open stacks of the Gottesman Library. The dedicatory text (see Fig. 2) and my translation thereof follow:

Fig. 2

מזכרת ידידות

ושי לחתונה

של הרה״ג ד״ר אהרן ליכטנשטיין

עב״ג

מרת טובה סולוביציק ילאי״ט

בתו

של גאון הדור ותפארתו

ידידי הגאון הגדול מאוה״ג

מהרי״ד הלוי סולוביציג [!][30] שליט״א

שתתקיים במז״ט ובשעה מוצלחת

בכ״ב לחודש כסליו שנת תש״כ

ויה״ר שהזוג היקר יתברך

ממעון הברכות בחיים ארוכים

טובים ומאושרים ומוצלחים בכל

דרכי חייהם, והבית אשר יוקם

,יהי׳ לשם ולתפארת בישראל

ולמקור עונג ושמחת עולמים

.להוריהם הדגולים

יחיאל יעקב וויינברג

מונתרה, ח׳ בכסליו, תש״כ

A gift and token of friendship presented on the occasion of the marriage of the ga’on, Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein, to his soul mate, Ms. Tovah Soloveitchik[31] – may their years be long and good – the daughter of this generation’s pride and splendor, my friend, the great ga’on and Luminary of the Diaspora, our teacher, Rabbi Joseph B. ha-Levi Soloveitchik – may his years be long and good, amen – which is set to take place, under a lucky star and at an auspicious hour, on 22 Kislev [5]720. May it be His will that this precious couple be blessed from the Abode of Blessing with long, good, and joyous lives and with success in all of their endeavors. And may the home that they build be of fame and of glory in Israel [see I Chron. 22:5] and a source of eternal delight and happiness for their distinguished parents.
Jehiel Jacob Weinberg
Montreux, 8 Kislev [5]720 [December 9, 1959]

I think this text is historically significant for at least two reasons. First, while I am unaware of any subsequent contact between the Lichtensteins and Rav Weinberg following the wedding,[32][32] this message certainly attests to a longstanding relationship of mutual regard
between Rabbis Weinberg and Soloveitchik, two leading rashei yeshivah whose formative years were spent in both the Lithuanian yeshivah world and the German academy. We know from other sources that they first met while the Rav was a student at the University of Berlin in the 1920s; according to testimony cited by Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, the Rav audited classes at Rav Weinberg’s Seminary during the 1926–1927 academic year.[33] Their encounters extended well beyond the classroom, however,[34] and even though Rav Weinberg was generally not enamored of the Brisker derekh ha-limmud espoused by Rav Soloveitchik and his forebears,[35] these two intellectual powerhouses maintained a deep appreciation for one another throughout their lives[36] – as can certainly be seen in Rav Weinberg’s above inscription.

The second issue that I wish to discuss here relates to the date of the wedding itself. As of 8 Kislev 5720, Rav Weinberg, quite justifiably, thought that it would take place two weeks hence. However, that very evening, December 9 – the same night the Rav delivered the aforementioned (n. 35) hesped for his uncle, Rabbi Isaac Ze’ev Soloveitchik (1886–1959) – Rav Soloveitchik “informed his family that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer, and would be returning to Boston the next day for surgery. His daughter Tovah and her fiancé R. Aharon Lichtenstein postponed their wedding (which had been set to take place in the coming days) until a few weeks later, so that the Rav could participate.”[37] Thus, the wedding was not actually held until Tuesday night, 27 Tevet 5720 (January 26, 1960) (see Figs. 3 and 4),[38] something Rav Weinberg could not have predicted at the time he penned his wishes to the young couple.

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

III

In any case, returning to the present after our brief historical sojourn, it seems to me that, aside from all he taught us about avodat Hashem, lomdes, morality, and how to live as deeply committed Jews in the modern world, Rav Lichtenstein also modeled what it means to be a “totally devoted” family man.[39] As Rabbi Menachem Genack, who began his undergraduate studies at Yeshiva College when Rav Lichtenstein was already a rosh kolel in RIETS, remarked, “Rav Aharon’s gadlus batorah is well-known, but less celebrated is his gadlus as a father and as a son, his commitment and dedication to his family. Rav Aharon was always learning, but nevertheless managed to spend time with all of his children.”[40] Indeed, anyone who sees the pictures of Rav Aharon and his family featured in the aforementioned video will immediately understand what Rabbi Mayer Lichtenstein meant when he said that his father fulfilled the talmudic principle of ner hanukkah ve-ner beito, ner beito adif (Shabbat 23b).[41] With this background, it should not surprise us that, when asked, “What are you most proud of having accomplished during these years of service?” Rav Lichtenstein answered:

Looking back over
the past 50 years, what I am proudest of is what some would regard as being a
non-professional task. I’m proudest of having built, together with my wife, the
wonderful family that we have. It is a personal accomplishment, a social
accomplishment, and a contribution – through what they are giving and will
give, each in his or her own way – in service of the Ribbono shel Olam in the future.[42]

I think the lesson for us, his students, is clear. May we be zokheh to rise to the challenge of carrying forth all aspects of Rav Lichtenstein’s multifaceted legacy for many years to come.

*
I wish at the outset to express my appreciation to yedidi, Reb Menachem Butler, ne‘im me’assefei yisra’el, for furnishing me with the opportunity, as well as many of the bibliographical sources (including the primary text itself!) required, to compose this essay. Additional thanks go to his fellow editors at the Seforim Blog for their consideration of this piece and, generally, for their great service to the public in maintaining such an active and high-quality platform for the serious discussion of topics of Jewish interest. Finally, I am indebted to my friends Eliyahu Krakowski, Daniel Tabak, and Shlomo Zuckier for their editorial corrections and comments to earlier drafts of this piece which, taken together, improved it considerably.

[1]

[1] See Shemot
rabbah (Vilna ed.) to Parashat
tetsavveh 37:2.

[2]

[2] Dr. David Berger quoted Rabbi Yosef Blau
as describing Rav Lichtenstein in this way and went on to characterize him in
similar terms here
(listen at about 1:04:40). Rabbi Ezra Schwartz said in effect the same thing here,
and in some ways went even further (listen at about 58:00).

[3]

[3] For evidence of how strongly his loss
has already been felt in the Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionist communities, one
need only peruse the ever-expanding number of articles and tributes that have
been cataloged on the Yeshivat Har Etzion websites here and here.

[4]

[4] One set of verses to which maspidim kept returning when describing
Rav Lichtenstein was those that appear in Malachi 2:5-7, together with the
rabbinic interpretation thereof: “If a given rabbi can be compared to an angel
of the Lord of Hosts, let them ask him to teach them Torah, and vice versa” (Hagigah 15b, Mo‘ed katan 17a). See the hespedim
of Rabbis Mayer Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 7:50), Mordechai Schnaidman here
(listen at about 23:00), and my friend Mordy Weisel here
(listen at about 5:05). Similarly, others have described him as angelic without
specific recourse to the verses in Malachi; see the hespedim of Rabbis Mosheh Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 9:25) and Avishai David here
(listen at about 1:03:25).

[5]

[5] So according to Rabbi Mordechai
Schnaidman here
(listen at about 16:00); see also Yosef Zvi Rimon, “Keitsad magdirim gedol dor?”
JobKatif (May 4, 2015). Similarly,
Rabbi Ari Kahn compared Rav Lichtenstein to Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810–1883) here
(listen at about 9:00 and 48:55), and Mrs. Esti Rosenberg said that the stories
people tell about her father remind her of those told about Rabbi Aryeh Levin
(1885–1969); see her interview with Yair Sheleg: “Yaledah ahat mul 700 otobusim,” Shabbat: musaf le-torah, hagut, sifrut
ve-omanut 927 (May 15, 2015).

[6]

[6] See her hesped here
(listen at about 0:35 and 2:25).

[7]

[7] See the hesped of Mrs. Tanya Mittleman, Rav Lichtenstein’s youngest, here
(listen at about 10:15).

[8]

[8] See the hesped of Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot here
(listen at about 46:55).

[9]

[9] See the hesped of my friend David Pruwer here
(watch at about 18:50).

[10]

[10] See the hespedim of Rabbis Mosheh Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 4:50), Mayer Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 12:35), and Assaf Bednarsh here
(listen at about 14:05), as well as the video produced in honor of Rav
Lichtenstein’s eightieth birthday here (watch at about
9:25 and 11:35) and that of a public conversation between Rabbi Benny Lau and
Rav Aharon and Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein on the topic of “Education and Family in
the Modern World” held in Ra’anana on May 13, 2012 here (watch at about
27:45 and 28:55). See also the recently-released essay “On Raising Children,” The Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash
(May 2015), based on a sihah
delivered by Rav Lichtenstein in July 2007.

[11]

[11] See the video produced in honor of Rav
Lichtenstein’s eightieth birthday here (watch at about
11:25), as well as the hesped of Mrs.
Tanya Mittleman here
(listen at about 19:05) and Mrs. Esti Rosenberg’s interview with Yair Sheleg, “Yaledah ahat mul 700 otobusim.”

[12]

[12] See the hesped of Mrs. Tanya Mittleman here
(listen at about 11:00). Similarly, Rabbi Julius Berman relates in his hesped here
that when Rav Aharon would stay at his house during visits to the States, he
would always wash his own dishes when he had finished eating (listen at about
20:30).

[13]

[13] See the hespedim of Mrs. Esti Rosenberg here
(listen at about 3:05) and Mrs. Tanya Mittleman here
(listen at about 19:20), as well as the video produced in honor of Rav
Lichtenstein’s eightieth birthday here (watch at about
11:15).

[14]

[14] See the hesped of Rabbi Shay Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 23:00). See also the hesped
of David Pruwer here
(watch at about 18:45), as well as Rav Lichtenstein’s “On Raising Children.”

[15]

[15] On Scrabble, see the hesped of Rabbi Shay Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 4:40). On chess, see the video produced in honor of Rav
Lichtenstein’s eightieth birthday here (watch at about
12:20).

[16]

[16] See the hesped of Mrs. Tanya Mittleman here
(listen at about 19:10).

[17]

[17] Ibid. (listen at about 10:30).

[18]

[18] See his hesped here
(listen at about 16:50).

[19]

[19] See the hespedim of Rabbi Mayer Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 16:15 and 17:30), Mrs. Esti Rosenberg here
(listen at about 13:35 and 15:25), and Mrs. Tanya Mittleman here
(listen at about 21:30); see also that of my friend Noach Lerman here
(listen at about 37:35).

[20]

[20] Rabbi Assaf Bednarsh recounted here
that when Rav Lichtenstein would call his wife on the phone, he would address
her as “darling,” rather than “rebetsin” (listen at about 14:35). (Dr.
Lichtenstein herself reminisced here about how her
husband would sometimes jokingly address her as “Mrs. L.,” and she, in turn,
would call him “Reb Aharon” [watch at about 1:10]). Noach Lerman talked here
about how Rav Aharon would open the car door for his wife when they drove
somewhere (listen at about 34:25). Similarly, see the video here for a picture of
husband and wife going rafting together (watch at about 12:22) and, of course,
the dedication Rav Lichtenstein inscribed at the front of his two-volume Leaves of Faith (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav
Pub. House, 2003–2004): “To Tovah: With Appreciation and Admiration.”

For Rav Lichtenstein’s analysis of the Torah’s attitude
toward the institutions of marriage and family and how they square with more
modern conceptions, see his “Ha-mishpahah ba-halakhah,” in Mishpehot beit yisra’el: ha-mishpahah bi-tefisat ha-yahadut
(Jerusalem: Misrad ha-Hinnukh ve-ha-Tarbut – Ha-Mahlakah le-Tarbut Toranit,
1976), 13-30, esp. pp. 21-30; “Of Marriage: Relationship
and Relations,” Tradition 39:2
(Summer 2005): 7-35, esp. pp. 10-13 (reprinted here
in Rivkah Blau, Gender Relationships in
Marriage and Out [New York: Michael Scharf Publication Trust of the Yeshiva
University Press; Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Pub. House, 2007], 1-34, and in Aharon
Lichtenstein, Varieties of Jewish
Experience [Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Pub. House, 2011], 1-37); and “On Raising Children.”

[21]

[21] In the course of the aforementioned (n.
10) public conversation on the topic of “Education and Family in the Modern
World” here, Dr. Lichtenstein
recalled that at the berit milah of
the couple’s firstborn son Mosheh, her father, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
(1903–1993), sensing that Rav Lichtenstein harbored grand aspirations to save
the world, spoke about the importance of the father’s role in raising his
children and not leaving the job solely to his wife (watch at about 26:00). See
Rav Aharon’s parallel account in “On Raising Children,” as
well as his comment there that “I feel very strongly about the need for
personal attention in child-raising, and have tried to put it into practice.”

[22]

[22] Watch here at about 12:15.
Incidentally, during a different part of that same public event in Ra’anana,
available here, Rav
Lichtenstein commented on the role of children in strengthening the emotional
bond between partners (watch at about 35:15; see also 53:55).

[23]

[23] Shlomo Zuckier and Shalom Carmy, “An Introductory
Biographical Sketch of R. Aharon Lichtenstein,” Tradition 47:4 (2015): 6-16, at p. 7. His dissertation would
eventually appear as Aharon Lichtenstein, Henry
More: The Rational Theology of a Cambridge Platonist (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1962).

[24]

[24] According to my friend Jonathan Ziring, in
an e-mail communication dated May 28, 2015, the Lichtensteins first met, by
chance, at the home of Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik (1917–2001), the Rav’s brother
and another major influence on Rav Lichtenstein. The Rav would later encourage
Rav Aharon to court his daughter, and the rest, as they say, is history.

[25]

[25] Image courtesy of Naftali Balanson’s Facebook page, as brought
to my attention by Rabbi Jeffrey Saks.

[26]

[26] Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and Pinchas Biberfeld (eds.), Yad
sha’ul: sefer zikkaron a[l] sh[em] ha-rav d”r sha’ul weingort zts”l (Tel Aviv: The
Widow of Saul Weingort, 1953).

[27]

[27] See Rav Weinberg’s memorial essay,
“Le-zikhro,” printed at the beginning of Yad
sha’ul, pp. 3-19, at p. 13.

[28]

[28] The date of Rabbi Weingort’s birth seems
somewhat controversial. Rav Weinberg himself, in “Le-zikhro,” 4,
estimates that his student was born in either 5673 or 5674 (1913 or 1914),
whereas the frontmatter
of the Yad sha’ul volume gives the
precise date 12 Kislev 5675 (November 30, 1914); Marc B. Shapiro, Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of
Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884–1966 (London; Portland, OR: Littman
Library of Jewish Civilization, 1999), 161, claims he was born in 1915; and the website of the Yad Shaoul
kolel in Kokhav Ya’akov, opened in
2011 and dedicated in Rabbi Weingort’s memory, concurs with Shapiro.

[29]

[29] See Weinberg, “Le-zikhro,” 15.

[30]

[30] Most readers are probably familiar with
the more common Hebrew spelling of “Soloveitchik” with a final kof. Rav Weinberg, however, generally
preferred ending the name in a gimel
(except, strangely, in the case of the Rav’s daughter Tovah).

[31]

[31] Dr. Lichtenstein would go on to complete
her doctoral studies in social work at Bar-Ilan University following the
family’s arrival in Israel in 1971, writing her dissertation on “Genealogical
Bewilderment and Search Behavior: A Study of Adult Adoptees Who Search for
their Birth Parents” (1992). She is therefore referred to here without her
doctoral title.

[32]

[32] It should be noted that Rav Lichtenstein
served as coeditor of the rabbinic periodical Hadorom during the mid-1960s and, as such, may have been involved
in editing some of Rav Weinberg’s last publications to appear during his
lifetime. (For a partial bibliography of Rav Weinberg’s oeuvre, see Michael
Brocke and Julius Carlebach, Biographisches
Handbuch der Rabbiner: Teil 2: Rabbiner im Deutschen Reich, 1871–1945, vol.
2 [Munich: K. G. Saur, 2009], 639-640 [no. 2657]. For a fuller inventory, see Shapiro,
Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, 239-246.) Discovery and analysis of any
potential remaining correspondence between the two during this period remain
scholarly desiderata.

[33]

[33] See Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B.
Soloveitchik, ed. Joseph Epstein, vol. 1 (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Pub. House,
1999), 27 with n. 13. Similarly, see Shalom Carmy, “R. Yehiel Weinberg’s Lecture on Academic Jewish
Scholarship,” Tradition
24:4 (Summer 1989): 15-23, at p. 16.

[34]

[34] See Werner Silberstein, My Way from Berlin to Jerusalem, trans.
Batya Rabin (Jerusalem: Special Family Edition Published in Honor of the Author’s 95th
Birthday, 1994), 26-27, as quoted in Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: The Early Years,” Tradition 30:4 (Summer 1996): 193-209,
at p. 197; idem, The Rav, 28; and idem, From
Washington Avenue to Washington Street (Jerusalem; Lynbrook, NY: Gefen; New
York: OU Press, 2011), 108 (available here).

[35]

[35] See his letter to Rabbi Jacob Arieli of
Jerusalem composed sometime after 2 Nisan 5711 (April 8, 1951), as reproduced
in Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, Seridei esh:
she’elot u-teshuvot hiddushim u-bei’urim be-dinei orah hayyim ve-yoreh de‘ah, vol. 2 (Jerusalem:
Mossad Harav Kook, 2003), 355-357 (sec. 144), at pp. 356-357; his letters to Dr. Gabriel Hayyim Cohn,
dated 27
Tevet 5725 (January 1, 1965) and 19 Kislev 5726 (December 13, 1965), as
reproduced in Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, Kitvei
ha-ga’on rabbi yehiʼel yaʻakov weinberg, zts”l, ed. Marc B. Shapiro, vol. 2
(Scranton, PA: Marc B. Shapiro, 2003), 219 n. 4 (esp. the latter one); and the
beginning of the selection from his eulogy for Rabbi Weingort printed in Yad sha’ul, 16. For a partial translation of the Rav’s famous hesped “Mah dodekh mi-dod,” which
originally appeared in Hebrew in Hadoar
43:39 (September 27, 1963): 752-759 and is referred to by Rav Weinberg in the
last letter cited above, see Jeffrey Saks, “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Brisker Method,” Tradition 33:2 (Winter 1999): 50-60.

For further discussion of these and similar sources, see
Judith Bleich, “Between East and West: Modernity and
Traditionalism in the Writings of Rabbi Yehi’el Ya’akov Weinberg,” in Moshe Z. Sokol
(ed.), Engaging Modernity: Rabbinic
Leaders and the Challenge of the Twentieth Century (Northvale, NJ;
Jerusalem: Jason Aronson Inc., 1997), 169-273, at p. 239; Marc B. Shapiro, “The Brisker Method Reconsidered,” Tradition 31:3 (Spring 1997): 78-102, at
p. 86, with n. 25; idem, Between the
Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, 194-195, with nn. 95-98; and Nathan
Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol: A Study of
Episodes in the Lives of Great Torah Personalities, vol. 1, 1st
ed. (Jerusalem: Hamesorah, 2002), 432-433. See also Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits’
assessment of his teacher’s derekh
ha-limmud in “Rabbi Yechiel Yakob Weinberg zatsa”l: My Teacher and Master,” Tradition 8:2 (Summer 1966): 5-14, at
pp. 5-10. For Rav Lichtenstein’s own reflections on the types of criticisms of
the Brisker derekh expressed by Rav
Weinberg, see his “Torat Hesed and Torat Emet: Methodological Reflections,”
in idem, Leaves of Faith, 1:61-87,
esp. at pp. 78-83, as well as an earlier version of this essay cited in
Shapiro, “The Brisker Method Reconsidered,” 93-94. (I am indebted
to Eliyahu Krakowski for bringing the Kamenetsky and Lichtenstein references to
my attention.) See also Aharon Lichtenstein, “The Conceptual Approach to Torah
Learning: The Method and Its Prospects,” in idem, Leaves of Faith, 1:19-60, esp. at pp. 43-44, 48-50.

As an aside, and as far as I can tell, allusions to a
“Rabbi Moses Soloveitchik” in Rav Weinberg’s published works, excluding those made
in the above letters, generally refer not to the Rav’s father (1879–1941) but
to his Swiss first cousin (1915–1995), son of Rabbi Israel Gerson Soloveitchik
(1875–1941), son of Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik (1853–1918).

[36]

[36] Indeed, Rav Weinberg would consistently
refer to the Rav in writing by his honorific rabbinic handle, “Ha-g[a’on]
r[abbi] y[osef] d[ov],” or a variant thereof (as in our case); see his Seridei esh, 2:196-201 (sec. 78),
at p. 198 (dated 29 Adar 5716 [March 12, 1956]), and idem, Kitvei ha-ga’on rabbi yehiʼel yaʻakov weinberg, zts”l, 219 n. 4. According to Shapiro, Between the Yeshiva World and Modern
Orthodoxy, 163, Rav Weinberg also contacted the Rav after the War to seek
his assistance during his long recovery.

For the Rav’s part, the postwar written
record with which I am familiar is a bit more reticent, although Rabbi Howard
Jachter reports the following in the context of a discussion of the prohibition
of kol ishah and Rav Weinberg’s
now-famous lenient ruling on the question:

Interestingly, I
asked Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik in July 1985 whether he agrees with this
ruling of Rav Weinberg. The Rav replied, “I agree with everything that he
wrote, except for his permission to stun animals before Shechita” (see volume
one of Teshuvot Seridei Eish). Rav Soloveitchik related his great appreciation
of Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg. Rav Shalom Carmy later told me that Rav
Soloveitchik and Rav Weinberg had been close friends during the years that Rav
Soloveitchik studied in Berlin.

See Howard Jachter, “The Parameters of Kol Isha,” Kol Torah 11:17 (February 2, 2002).

For more on the shehitah controversy referred to here, see H. J. Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust in Rabbinic
Literature (New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1977), 183-189; Bleich,
“Between East and West,” 260-261, 271-272;
and Shapiro, Between the Yeshiva World
and Modern Orthodoxy, 117-129, 192. For Rav Soloveitchik’s own involvement
in questions relating to the humane slaughter of animals, see Joseph B.
Soloveitchik, Community, Covenant and
Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications, ed. Nathaniel Helfgot
(Jersey City, NJ: Toras HoRav Foundation, 2005), 61-67.

[37]

[37] Jeffrey Saks, “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and the Israeli Chief
Rabbinate: Biographical Notes (1959–60),” BDD 17 (September 2006): 45-67, at p.
53.

[38]

[38] Fig. 3 is courtesy of Naftali Balanson’s
Facebook page, as
brought to my attention by Rabbi Jeffrey Saks. Fig. 4 derives from the video
produced in honor of Rav Lichtenstein’s eightieth birthday here (watch at about
1:03). (I am indebted to Rabbis Dov Karoll, Jeffrey Saks, and Reuven Ziegler
for confirming some of the details of the Lichtenstein wedding for me.)

[39]

[39] See the interview with Rabbi Dov Karoll
on Voice of Israel here
(listen at about 2:55). See also the hesped
of Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein here
(listen at about 5:15). Similarly, at a sheloshim
event held at the Hechal Shlomo Jewish Heritage Center in Jerusalem on May 18,
Mrs. Esti
Rosenberg, in speaking of her father’s self-identification with the Levites as
the prime exemplars of ovedei Hashem par excellence, commented that just as the
Levites were netunim netunim to Aaron
and his sons in Parashat be-midbar (Num.
3:9) (which also happened to be Rav Lichtenstein’s bar mitzvah parashah), so was Rav Aharon completely
dedicated to his family. See the video here (watch at about 11:40). And for a
visual representation of just how central avodat
Hashem was to Rav Lichtenstein’s core identity, see the photograph of his matsevah posted to Yeshivat Har Etzion’s
Facebook page.

[40]

[40] From a forthcoming article to be published
in Jewish Action.

[41]

[41] See his hesped here
(listen at about 10:30).

[42]

[42] See Rav Lichtenstein’s interview with
Yaffi Spodek: “Reflecting
on 50 Years of Torah Leadership,” the
YUNews blog (October 11, 2011). Similarly, see this video produced in honor
of Rav Lichtenstein receiving the Israel Prize in 2014 (watch at about 10:20),
as well as the hespedim of Mrs. Esti
Rosenberg here
(listen
at about 8:45) and Rabbi Baruch Gigi here (listen at about 16:30) and the
former’s interview with Yair Sheleg, “Yaledah ahat mul 700 otobusim.” Finally, see Rav Lichtenstein’s sihah “On Raising Children,” where
he states unequivocally: “There are very few people about whom it can […]
genuinely be said that there is something objectively more important in their
life than raising children.”

Marc Shapiro: What Do Adon Olam and ס”ט Mean?

What Do Adon Olam and ס”ט Mean ? [1]

By Marc B. Shapiro ס”ט

1. People often refer to me as a Modern Orthodox intellectual. There are actually quite a number of us out there. If you hear someone using words like “ontological,” “existential,” “mimetic,” and now, “tergiversation”[2] you can assume he in in our club. Also, another telltale sign is that when we give divrei Torah you will hear us refer to Philo, the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha (if we are confident that we can pronounce the word properly[3]), Shadal, or Cassutto.[4] Of course, we are careful to only say Midrash, and never Medrish, as the latter pronunciation is a sure sign of a Philistine.

It is no secret that Modern Orthodox intellectuals like to look down on Artscroll, and to let others know about this. So we must find places where Artscroll makes mistakes. It is not enough to point to the vastly different historical conceptions between us and Artscroll; we need to find places where Artscroll simply got it wrong (for one such example see here). This will show that even if they are conquering the world, they shouldn’t think that they are so brilliant. I am not speaking about the Artscroll Talmud (which we use when no one is looking) or the Artscroll “History” series, which is not popular with the Modern Orthodox.[5] I am referring to the Artscroll siddur and chumash which have taken over the Orthodox world. (The Modern Orthodox intellectuals must have been so busy these last twenty years producing articles read by each other that it never occurred to them to produce their own siddur and chumash.)[6]

But finding these errors is easier said than done. I am not referring to run-of the-mill errors, but the sort that will impress people at your Shabbat table. That way you can show them that you are a Modern Orthodox intellectual, and not afraid to stand up to Artscroll, this generation’s anti-Messiah. Artscroll is the Goliath, and if it can be felled, then Feldheim, Targum and certainly the minor leaguers at Aish Ha-Torah will be that much easier to take down. If the obscurantists are not yet shaking in their feet, once they see our ever-forthcoming translation of the Arukh ha-Shulhan, which will bring back the 1950’s and the “mimetic tradition”, this will put them in their place.

As I state, it is not so easy to find the perfect mistake. One could point out that in the Artscroll siddur, p. 320, it refers to a “responsa” of Maimonides, when the word they should have used is “responsum.” But this clearly won’t do the trick. After all, no one assumes that Artscroll is an expert in English; it is because Artscroll is expert in Jewish things that it has become so popular. For a while I thought that I could impress those ever-impressionable Shabbat guests by pointing out that contrary to what the Artscroll siddur, p. 870, states, R. Eleazar Kalir was not a tanna. But again, this is not something that most people care about. Besides, someone always ended up pointing out that no less than Tosafot claims that he was a tanna, and my protestations about what Shir proved were always met with blank stares, for what does a Prague song have to do with anything?

And what about when I showed people that in the chumashim printed until 1999, Lord Jakobovits, who died in that year, is referred to as Emeritus Chief Rabbi of the British Empire (see one of the first pages of the chumash where it lists the important people involved with Artscroll). On the title page of Hertz’s chumash he is referred to as “Late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire,” and the Jakobovits reference might be trying to parallel this. All my protestations that Jakobovits was never Chief Rabbi of an Empire (which had ceased to exist before he came into office) but of a Commonwealth have never found anyone showing much interest. (The technical title is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. The title is more grandiose than the office. At most, there are 300,000 Jews in the United Kingdom (as, at present, no one in Australia, Canada, Zambia, etc. looks to the British Chief Rabbi for religious guidance). Subtract the unaffiliated, Reform and Masorti from this, and then subtract the Haredim and the Sephardim and this will give you the number of Jews represented by the Chief Rabbi.)

There was actually a very big error I used to point out, and this was found in the Artscroll Shabbat Zemiros (it has since been corrected). At the beginning of the Shalosh Seudos section Artscroll wrote:

The three meals of the Sabbath symbolize the three Patriarchs, the three divisions of Scripture: Torah, Prophets and Hagiographa, and the three feasts through which Esther brought about Haman’s downfall. Many matters of awesome spiritual significance are dependent on the Third Meal as the Zohar discusses frequently (Aruch HaShulchan 291).

This is a very strange passage, since what does Esther have to do with the Three Sabbath meals? Furthermore, since when did Esther organize three feasts? Everyone who attends synagogue on Purim knows that there were only two feasts. This is what the Arukh ha-Shulhan states:

ויהא זהיר מאד לקיים סעודה שלישית ואמרו חז”ל דכל המקיים סעודה ג’ ניצל משלש פורעניות . . . ואם אפשר שאינן ממש מן התורה מ”מ ודאי מתקנת משה רבינו הם שכן קיבל מסיני והם מרמזים נגד ג’ אבות, נגד תורה נביאים וכתובים, ובשעה שניתן להם המן ניתן להם על ג’ סעודות

What happened was that whoever wrote the commentary to the Zemiros understood the word המן (the manna) to mean Haman, and that he was given into the Jews’ hands because of three feasts![7]

Artscroll did what everyone should do when an error is brought to their attention, namely, correct it in a future edition.. (In another post I plan on noting a couple of corrections to my own writings.) In fact, this is a good lesson to all of us, because if Artscroll, whose writers are big talmidei hakhamim, could make such a simple mistake, then all of us should realize that we too can make simple errors.

The important thing is that they corrected the error. If only the same could be said about Mossad ha-Rav Kook. There has already been discussion on this blog about some problems with the Chavel edition of Ramban. In fact, although both the Commentary on the Torah and Kitvei Ramban have been reprinted about twenty times, many obvious errors have still not been corrected. I was planning on giving one example, but I wasn’t sure which one to use. About five minutes before writing this I received a call from the owner of www.publishyoursefer.com, which will soon be reprinting Kitvei R. Weinberg. He informed me that there are many students at the Ner Israel yeshiva who follow the Seforim Blog, pleasant news indeed. In their honor, since unlike myself, they spend most of their day involved in the intricacies of the Talmud and its commentators, my example will be from the introduction of Ramban to his Dina de-Garmei, a work which only a real talmid hakham would try to tackle. The text is found in Kitvei Ramban, vol. 1, p. 417. Ramban writes

אבל יש אשר קולמוס הראשונים סתמן

ועתה נעלם טעמן מעיני תלמידי הזמן

וחכמי הצרפתים אספו רובן אל עמן

הם המורים, הם המלמדים, הם המגלים לנו נטמן

Chavel explains the third line to mean

חכמי הצרפתים אספו רובן של הטעמים הללו לתוך ספריהם להיות לעינים של תלמידי הזמן

Yet this is incorrect. What the Ramban means is that most of the French sages have left this world and gone on to their eternal reward.

Getting back to Artscroll, I was pleased when I found the perfect example of an Arscroll error, and this in a prayer that we all know well, Adon Olam. What do these words mean? To answer this, most people will open their Arscroll siddur.[8] Artscroll translates, “Master of the Universe”. This, or similar translations (e.g., Lord of the Universe, Master of the World) seem to be standard. Yet for a while I was convinced that the proper translation was “Eternal Lord.” After looking at the song as a whole, and seeing how it speaks of God’s eternity, it appeared clear to me that this is what the first two words mean.

I was happy to find that both Birnbaum and De Sola Pool (both of which are now almost impossible to find in any synagogue) understood the first two words this way as well. So happy was I with my idea that I made sure to tell lots of people about it, all of whom were very impressed, since here was a bona fide correction to Artscroll. I was in London a couple of months ago and was davening with the new siddur published by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Lo and behold, I found that he too translated the words as did Artscroll. After davening the rabbi of the shul asked me if I liked the new siddur and I told him yes. I also used the opportunity to point out that even this wonderful siddur mistakenly translates the first words of Adon Olam. It seemed that he too was impressed. I certainly thought that for the rest of my life I would be able to pull this out of my back pocket whenever I needed to show that even Artscroll, the veritable Urim ve-Tumim, can make a mistake.

But alas, all good things come to an end. The very next morning after speaking to the London rabbi, I went to a hashkamah minyan and the siddur I chose to use was Ha-Siddur ha-Meduyak. This siddur is produced by the Kise Rahamim Yeshiva in Bnei Brak. This is a Tunisian yeshiva under the leadership of R. Meir Mazuz, who is known by the acronym נאמן ס”ט. In addition to the siddur, they have also produced a variety of other books with the title “Meduyak.” This is because every line has been carefully examined by R. Mazuz, who does not hesitate to make corrections, even if the version he is correcting has been in use for many hundreds of years.[10] This has been very controversial and R. Dovid Yitzchaki, in various articles, has harshly polemicized against R. Mazuz. As we have come to expect, Yated Ne’eman quoted the condemnation issued by maranan verabonon gedolei Yisroel, in which these books were described as terrible breaches in Judaism. The implication to be drawn from the attack is that R. Mazuz and his students are dangerous reformers.[11]

R. Mazuz did not rest, and the 2005 edition of the siddur (which I purchased from mysefer.com) contains letters of support for R. Mazuz from R. Ovadiah Yosef, R. Shlomo Amar, R. Shmuel Wosner, and R. Shimon Alouf of the Brooklyn Syrian community. There is also a letter from “Ha-Gaon he-Hasid” R. Dov Kook, the son-in-law of R. Yitzhak Zilberstein, who is himself the son-in-law of R. Eliashiv. This is significant since R. Elyashiv was at the forefront of the condemnation. As the Yated article states:

Woe to a generation in which every man does as he sees fit. And the matter should be publicized to prevent others from being drawn in by their ways,” write maranan verabonon gedolei Yisroel headed by Maran HaRav Yosef Sholom Eliashiv shlita, in a letter opposing the publication of “precise” (“meduyak”) editions of Chumoshim and Tehillim as well as new siddurim and machzorim that contain grave breaches and changes from the accepted tradition handed down to us.

Yet R. Dov Kook writes to R. Mazuz about how much he benefited from using the Siddur Ha-Meduyak!

R. Mazuz is a very interesting personality. To begin with, he had a close connection to Habad for many decades, having taught in a Habad school in Tunis in the 1960’s. Yet when he saw the Messianic fever and other problems in Habad, he publicly condemned what was going on and wrote a long letter detailing his objections.[12] In addition, he was very vocal in support of the Gaza settlers.[13] He is also the only one of our gedolim who is an expert in arcane areas such as grammar,[14] Masorah, and medieval Hebrew poetry.

In fact, since he is an expert in this latter field, I knew that I could ask him a question about which most other gedolim would probably have no clue what I was talking about. One doesn’t need to have read Steve Greenberg’s book, or have listened to some of the gay advocates speaking around the time of the recent Jerusalem parade, to know that man-boy love is a theme in a number of medieval Hebrew poems.[15] I raised this issue with R. Mazuz, and was pretty sure that he would answer the way he did:

חס וחלילה להאמין שחכמי ספרד כתבו שירים מענין משכב זכור. וראה בסוף ס’ תחכמוני שהביא עשרה שירים לקלל ולארר נבל אחד שכתב “לו שר בנו עמרם פני דודי” וכו’. צבי חן הוא כינוי לעלם יפה ואין בו כל דופי. חוקרי זמננו מהרהורי לבם ותעתועי רוחם כותבים מה שכותבים

(The reference to the Tahkemoni can be found in the Warsaw, 1899 edition, ed. Kaminka, pp. 430ff.)

R. Mazuz is also the final halakhic authority for the Tunisian community. With the death of R. Shalom Messas, chief rabbi of Jerusalem, I think that after R. Ovadiah, R. Mordechai Eliyahu and R. Shlomo Amar, R. Mazuz is the most important of the Sephardic rabbis in Israel. He is also very close to R. Ovadiah, who has had a long attachment to Kise Rahamim. The yeshiva is unique in that it focuses on the old Tunisian approach to the study of Talmud (the Tunisian iyyun), and from very young the students are taught to master the art of Hebrew writing [16] and to acquire wide-ranging knowledge of Tanach. We are clearly dealing with an unusual man and an unusal yeshiva. Returning again to the Chavel edition of the Ramban, I should mention that R. Mazuz is pretty harsh in his evaluation of it, and he lists a number of errors.[17]

When I first starting looking into the Thirteen Principles, I wondered how, in the Eighth Principle, Maimonides could insist on complete Mosaic authorship, and assert that denial of this equals heresy. After all, there is a view mentioned in the Talmud, and quoted by Rashi on chumash, that the last eight verses were written by Joshua. And yet, people were saying that since kelal Yisrael accepted the Ikkarim, this view must now be regarded as kefirah. I asked R. Mazuz about this and he replied:

ולענין שמנה פסוקים אחרונים ודאי האומר שכתבן יהושע אינו נחשב אפיקורוס ח”ו

I was also curious to know what he would say about study of the Ralbag’s Milhamot ha-Shem, which differs with Maimonides’ principles when it comes to creation ex nihilo and God’s knowledge of particulars.[18] He wrote to me as follows:

ודברי רלב”ג במלחמות ה’ ידועים. וזו היתה צרת הפילוסופיא היונית שלכדה ברשתה רבים וכן שלמים (כמו שלכד יצה”ר דע”ז בזמנו את מנשה בן חזקיה וחבירו ואפ”ה למדים מהם הלכה למעשה ע’ סנהדרין דף קב ע”ב). בס’ מלחמות ה’ אסור ללמוד רק מי שמילא כריסו ש”ס ופוסקים וצריך לעיין בו משהו לפי שעה. וכבר כינוהו הרב אברבנאל והיעב”ץ “מלחמותיו עם ה'” (ח”ו). אבל בפירושו על התנ”ך מותר ללמוד ויש בהם דברים נפלאים וחכמה עמוקה, אם כי לפעמים נטה מדרך היושר. וה’ הטוב יכפר בעדו

Throughout R. Mazuz’s writings, one finds interesting comments about the great medieval Jewish philosophers. Let me offer one such example.

In Guide 2:32 Maimonides speaks about the nature of prophecy and the prophet. One of the qualifications for a prophet is that he be intellectually advanced. Maimonides writes:

But with regard to one of the ignorant among the common people, this is not possible according to us – I mean, that He should turn one of them into a prophet – except as it is possible that He should turn an ass or a frog into a prophet.

Both Efodi and Shem Tov understand the last words as an allusion to Balaam’s ass and the fish that swallowed Jonah (and to whom God spoke), and understand both stories to have happened in dreams. Maimonides is, of course, explicit about the Balaam episode, and Efodi and Shem Tov see no difference between this and the Jonah story. Interestingly, Efodi says this elsewhere as well, but as Lawrence Kaplan has pointed out it was censored from the 19th century edition of the Guide that remains the standard edition (full details will be found in my forthcoming book). But the reason why that passage was censored was not because of the Jonah reference. After all, no less a figure than the Vilna Gaon saw the Jonah story as an allegory. The problem with the censored passage, and the reason it had to be taken out, was because there Efodi writes that according to the Rambam the Akedah also only happened in a dream.

According to R. Mazuz, Efodi and Shem Tov misunderstood Maimonides here, and if he was alluding to what they claim, he would have written fish, not frog. The key to understanding Maimonides are his words earlier in the chapter:

It is not possible that an ignoramus should turn into a prophet; nor can a man not be a prophet on a certain evening and be a prophet on the following morning, as though he had made some find.

In R. Mazuz’s opinion, this is a clear allusion to Muhammad, who according to Muslims was an illiterate man to whom Gabriel appeared and commanded “Read” (or “Proclaim”), and he was thus turned into a prophet. R. Mazuz concludes, “It is this sort of ‘prophet’ that Maimonides refers to as an ass or frog.”[19]

What does any of this have to do with Adon Olam? When I was using the siddur I began to study R. Mazuz’s notes (pp. 660ff.) to R. Yehudah ha-Levi’s piyyut Mi Kamokha, which Sephardim recite on Shabbat Zakhor. (For those who are Haim Sabato fans, this piyyut makes an appearance in ch. 10 of his recent book, Ke-Afapei Shahar) The first stanza of the alphabetical piyyut begins with the word אדון. On this word, R. Mazuz explains why the first letter has a kametz under it, and he contrasts that with אדון עולם אשר מלך, in which the aleph has a hataf patah since it is a construct, and means אדון של עולם.

When I saw this I was quite surprised, and upset, because here was R. Mazuz, whose knowledge of the ins and outs of the Hebrew language is perhaps unmatched except by a few specialists who spend their lives on this (while R. Mazuz’s forays into Hayyuj, Ibn Janach, and Radak’s Shorashim are as rakahot ve-tabahot to the study of Talmud and halakhah). Yet here he was explaining Adon Olam as Master of the World. I wrote to him asking why he assumed this is what it meant, especially as the piyyut as a whole seems to be speaking of Eternal Lord, the one who was here before the world and who will be here when the world ceases.

Although Adon Olam is a post-biblical prayer, as a side point I also noted that as far as I knew, the word עולם in Tanakh never means “world” (for which תבל is used) but always means ancient, eternal, eternity, or something along those lines. In fact, I was actually certain of this, and I had first heard this point twenty years ago when I was spent my junior year at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew Studies. I was fortunate to be able to study Biblical Hebrew, one-on-one, for an entire year with Professor Jeremy Hughes, author of Secrets of the Times: Myth and History in Biblical Chronology. Hughes was a strange combination of hippie and Bible scholar, and I learnt a great deal from him. I still remember my surprise at being told, when I used the word חזר in one of my exercises, that this is not a biblical Hebrew word, and I must use שב. He also pointed out the error in Weingreen’s Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew, p. 110, which gives “world” as one of the translations of עולם. I wasn’t sure that he was correct, but a glance at the BDB confirmed his point.

A few weeks ago I received a letter from R. Mazuz, and well, let’s just say that I won’t be trying to impress people any more by pointing out that Artscroll has mistranslated Adon Olam. To begin with, R. Mazuz insists that Adon Olam is identical with Ribbono shel Olam. As for my point about “olam” never meaning “world” in the Bible, he writes:

זו דעת החוקרים האחרונים שעולם בתנ”ך פירושו נצח, אבל חז”ל לא הבינו כן

As proof for this he refers to Berakhot 54a

כל חותמי ברכות שבמקדש היו אומרים: עד העולם. משקלקלו הצדוקין ואמרו אין עולם אלא אחד התקינו שיהו אומרים מן העולם ועד העולם

At the conclusion of the benedictions said in the Temple they used at first to say simply, “forever.” When the Sadducees perverted their ways and asserted that there was only one world, it was ordained that the response should be “from world to world” [i.e., two worlds].

He also called attention to a passage in Sanhedrin 58b where the verse in Ps. 89:3, עולם חסד יבנה, is understood not as “forever is mercy built,” but as “the world shall be built up by grace.”

As I said, I am forced to conclude that in this case Artscroll gets a pass. What then is a Modern Orthodox intellectual to do? Anyone want to hear about Kalir?

Since everything with me seems to come back to the Thirteen Principles let me make one more point about Adon Olam. This time, I refer to the appearance of these words in Yigdal, and here there is no question that the words mean “Master of the Universe”. The passage reads

הנו אדון עולם לכל נוצר יורה גדולתו ומלכותו

Artscroll translates: “Behold! He is Master of the universe to every creature, He demonstrates His greatness and His sovereignty.” The translation is correct, but the problem is that this has nothing to do with the Fifth Principle. The Principle says that one cannot worship any other being but God (or use these beings as intermediaries to reach God). Because of this Birnbaum has the following in his siddur:

הנו אדון עולם וכל נוצר יורה גדולתו ומלכותו

By changing one letter, the stanza now agrees with the Principle. The problem here is that Birmbaum’s emendation, while it makes sense, is not actually a “version”. That is, there is no manuscript that reads as such. It is a speculative emendation. Abraham Berliner,[20] on the other hand, cites an actual variant text:

הנו אדון עולם וכל יוצר יודה גדולתו ומלכותו

The word יוצר is presumably a mistake for נוצר, although יודה makes sense. In fact, the Siddur ha-Meduyak offers וכל נוצר יודה as an alternate version for those who prefer that Yigdal actually correspond to the Principles.

2. Since I mentioned the Gaon נאמן ס”ט now is as good a time as ever to explain what the acronym ס”ט means. I am sure that even after what I write people will continue to err, but at least the yehidei segulah who make up the Seforim blog readership will know the truth, and will be ready offer a correction next time they hear someone refer to a ספרדי טהור.

Contrary to widespread belief ס”ט does not mean ספרדי טהור!! To be sure, you can find people today, even Sephardim, who will assert that this is what it means. But historically, it never meant this, and today, among the talmidei hakhamim who use it, this is not what it means.

How, you might be thinking, do I know this? The easiest answer is that the Hakham Zvi and R. Yaakov Emden both use the abbreviation, and neither of them were Sephardi. What it does show, however, is that the Hakham Zvi, who studied in Sephardic yeshivot and served as hakham to the Sephardic community in Sarajevo, adopted an abbreviation common in the Sephardic world. Those who study Sephardic works know that this is hardly the only example of an abbreviation which is not found in Ashkenazic works.

Furthermore, we have to ask what could the very expression ספרדי טהור mean? Presumably, it would refer to those who are not descended from Marranos. Yet we find that the abbreviation was used in an era before there was religious persecution in Spain. For example, R. David Abudarham, in the introduction to his work, attaches ס”ט to his name. Also, in Teshuvot R. Yehudah ben ha-Rosh, no. 75, two people sign with the abbreviation. What possible sense could ספרדי טהור have in early fourteenth century Spain, before the religious persecutions, not to mention in a place where everyone was Sephardic and there was no need to differentiate oneself from the uncultured Ashkenazim?

So what does ס”ט mean? Some have suggested that it stands for סין טין which is the Aramaic for רפש וטיט (Isaiah 57:20) and means mire and dirt. This would be like many other rabbinic expressions that show the author’s humility. H. J. Zimmels has correctly noted that “this explanation is not convincing as one would expect SvT = Sin ve-Tin (mire and dirt).[21] I would also add that while authors often use similar expressions – e.g., עפר ואפר – when referring to themselves, who ever heard of referring a great rabbi in such a way? It would be the height of disrespect, and yet we do find people writing to sages and attaching ס”ט to their names, showing that they didn’t have this explanation in mind.

Zimmels notes that Zunz already pointed out that the abbreviation stands for סופו טוב, which means, “may his end be good.”[22] It is also possible that the Aramaic סיפיה טב was intended.[23] This is parallel to the Ashkenazic שליט”א, the difference being that, unlike with ס”ט, no one adds שליט”א to his own name. R. Mazuz sums up the matter as follows (Or Torah [Tamuz 5733], no. 110):

ומכלל האמור תבין, שמה שכותבים כמה מאחינו האשכנזים (כגון בספר שם הגדולים וואלדען) על רבנים ספרדים ס”ט לאחר פטירתם, ויש אפילו הכותבים רב פלוני ס”ט זצ”ל, הכל טעות, ויסודו בפירוש המשובש הנ”ל ספרדי טהור, כאילו ישנה התנשאות הגזע לספרדים על אחיהם האשכנזים. ולפי הבאור הנכון “סיפי טב”, נמצא הכותב ס”ט זצ”ל ככותב שליט”א זצ”ל בנשימה אחת. ופשוט שגם “אשכנזי טהור” יכול לחתום ס”ט בלי שום פקפוק, כמו שחתמו הגאונים חכם צבי והיעב”ץ הנ”ל. ותשקוט הארש

(The last words are a play on the expression ותשקוט הארץ that appears a number of times in Tanakh. Its meaning here is that all speech or utterance will cease, i.e., there is no need for any more discussion or argument about the issue.[24])

If there are still any who have doubts, let me also quote the words of the great R. Shalom Messas, late Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and unquestioned leader of the Moroccan community until his death a few years ago. In 2007 the fourth volume of his Shemesh u-Magen appeared. On p. 193 he writes:

הדבר פשוט וגם ברור אצלינו שהכוונה היא סיפיה טב, ר”ל שאחריתו יהיה טוב, ומעולם לא נתכוונו על ספרדי טהור כלל . . . ורק פירוש זה יצא מהמקנטרים שרוצים לעשות פירוד בין הספרדים לאשכנזים, ובאמת כל ישראל קדושים וטהורים הם בני אברהם יצחק ויעקב, אין ביניהם כמלא נימא

Now if only Yated Ne’eman and the haredi school systems in Israel would take these last words to heart![25]

Appendix 1

In my post responding to Rabbi Leff I elaborated on the fact that according to the Rambam the mezuzah does not provide any physical protection. Most Jews throughout history have disagreed with Maimonides, and a good example of this can be seen in the song my children learned in nursery school. The lyrics are as follows, and in the song each line is repeated twice.

I have a mezuzah

On my door

Now I will tell you

What it’s for

To protect us

Day and night

Kiss it when you enter

It’s on your right

This summer my three year-old came home from camp with the same song, but with different lyrics.

I have a mezuzah

On my door

Now I will tell you

What it’s for

To kiss it

That’s our aim

For on it is written

Hashem’s name

While the original manuscript of the song appears to be lost, I have no doubt that the first version is the original. The words in the second version are clumsy, and don’t fit the song very well. I therefore assume that the second version contains theologically-based textual emendations of the sort Geiger describes in his Urschrift. A critical edition of Jewish children’s songs remains a scholarly desideratum.

Appendix 2

When I asked R. Mazuz about his abbreviation ,נאמ”ן ס”ט he told me that in the book Rosh Mashbir by R. Berdugo one can find a number of examples of rabbis using such abbreviations. I haven’t yet looked through the book, but I did glance at the introduction by R. Yosef Messas. Messas was Chief Rabbi of Haifa, pride of the Moroccan rabbinate, and a great defender of R. Kook, yet unfortunately fate has destined him to be only remembered as the posek who permitted marrried women to go with uncovered hair and who permitted the use of electric hanukkah menoras. He ends his introduction to Rosh Mashbir with following words

עבד אל דוק וחוג אשש יוסף משאש ס”ט

This is a very unusual expression. I recalled that I had seen his cousin R. Shalom Messas also use it. In fact, I did a search on the various databases and other than these two, no one else signs his name this way, so it obviously was a family tradition..But what does it mean? In the search I turned up a comment by Shalom Albeck, in his edition of the Eshkol (the authentic Eshkol), p. 11 n. 9, who notes a piyyut by R. Yitzhak Ibn Ghiyat that begins

ברוך אשר אשש דוק וחוג בעשרה מאמרות

This piyyut was recited on Yom Kippur morning in North Africa, and we now know that the author was actually R. Joseph Ibn Avitur. But the question still remains, what do these words mean? Fortunately, R. Simeon ben Zemah Duran (the Tashbetz) wrote a commentary on this piyyut, and it has been published in a wonderful edition by Raphael Kohen (Jerusalem, 2002). Citing the relevant biblical texts upon which the words are based, Tashbetz explains the line as follow: “Blessed be he who established heaven and earth with ten utterances.”[26]

Thus, the Messas expression means “Servant of God, who established heaven and earth.”

Incidentally, Kohen, the editor of the Tashbetz’s commentary, is also the editor of R. Solomon ben Samuel’s Pithei Olam (Jerusalem, 2004). Kohen adds his own lengthy essay to this volume and it is of bibliographical interest in that it is probably the most vicious and insane attack of other scholars in the last hundred years (much worse than anything R. Shemariah Menasheh Adler wrote). When Kohen hates you, he says so openly. Thanks to him, we can even add two new acronyms to the Hebrew language. He adds the following after the names of all the distinguished scholars he despises (and it’s the final two acronyms that appear to be original to him).

שר”י ישו”ז תו”ע אל”ב

This means:

שם רשעים ירקב ימח שמו וזכרו תימקנה ותשחקנה עצמותיו אסור לעסוק בקבורתו

Notes:

[1] I had intended my next post to be part 2 of my discussion of Auerbach’s Eshkol. However, I still need a couple of books to complete it, so instead I decided to post this.

[2] For example see here.

[3] A number of years ago I attended a session at the American Academy of Religion annual conference. I am not ashamed to admit that I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I understood the words, but the sentences didn’t make any sense to me. It was a different language. Yet there was a woman sitting near me who kept making comments and referring to gnosis, but the problem was that she kept pronouncing the “g”. I didn’t hold that against her. You can certainly know what you are talking about and mispronounce a word, since if you have never heard it spoken, how are you supposed to know? And there are certainly many examples of people who pronounce a word perfectly, but don’t know what it means. I struggled with myself as to whether I should put a note in front of her, pointing out that the “g” is silent.. I decided not to, figuring that since she didn’t know she was mispronouncing it, she was not embarrassed, and over time she would learn. This is different than the case of the speaker some years ago who kept referring, in his talk on Hasidism, to the Zaddik, pronouncing the “z” as a “z”, not a “tz”.

[4] I was at an event where one such intellectual even referred to the Tao!

[5] The one quality history book – and it is a really fine piece of work – published by Artscroll is Eliyahu Klugman’s biography of Hirsch. But unfortunately, even he couldn’t be totally honest. Thus, we find the following on page 66: “Reb Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the first great Torah educator in America . . .” Is it possible that Klugman has never heard of Rabbi Bernard Revel and Yeshivas R. Yitzchak Elchanan? Regarding Mendlowitz, and the great respect he gets from the haredim, I have always assumed that they are unaware of his great love for the teachings of R. Kook. Listen to Menachem Mendlowitz, “The Complexity of Greatness: My Grandfather, Rav Shrage Feivel Mendlowitz” at Torah In Motion here.

R. Shraga also planned to open, together with R. Hutner, the American Hebrew Theological University. This is discussed in Helmreich’s World of the Yeshiva. This institution would have been just like Lander College. For a relevant source which, as far as I know, has gone unnoticed, see Otzrot Yerushalayim (5741), no. 601. Here we find that Mendlowitz wanted the Mir Yeshiva in New York to institute secular studies. (The author of this report, R. Moshe Yehudah Blau, was the world’s greatest editor of rishonim from manuscript, long before this became fashionable.)

[6] It is easy to see why the Artscroll siddur replaced the Birnbaum. It is simply better, i.e., much more complete (although I wonder who gave them the crazy idea to put the English in italics). But I am not sure what makes the Artscroll chumash “better” than Hertz. It is different, to be sure, but I think that a typical Modern Orthodox congregation would still be well-served by Hertz, if not exclusively, certainly in addition to Artscroll. I don’t understand why all the Hertz chumashim were carted away, never to be seen again. The RCA chose to make the Artscroll siddur its siddur (adding in the prayers for the government, the State of Israel, and the IDF). The fact that the first RCA siddur, edited by De Sola Pool and published in 1960, never achieved lasting popularity, and Artscroll was willing to put aside its anti-Zionist ideology when presented with the possibility of selling hundreds of thousands of siddurim, no doubt influenced the RCA to go with a tried and true product. (I understand Arscroll leaving out the prayer for Israel, but how did the haredi community come to the view that the prayer for the government is not “frum”.and thus is neither recited nor included in the siddur?). The RCA’s reluctance to actually produce a new siddur on their own was probably influenced by the controversy that ensued when their first siddur was released. This siddur was banned by Agudas ha-Rabbanim. One of the reasons was that the Song of Songs appeared with a literal translation, and this no doubt helps explain Artscroll’s method of translation of this text. For details on the ban, see see Ha-Pardes, Feb. 1961.

Let me also note that in his 1987 introduction to the RCA Artscroll siddur, RCA president Rabbi Milton Polin wrote about the original De Sola Pool RCA Siddur, that it “has been reprinted many times since its original publication and continues in use in most large Orthodox congregations.” I don’t believe the last part of this sentence is correct. In fact, even if there were some large congregations that used the original RCA siddur as the “official” shul siddur, Birnbaum certainly outnumbered De Sola Pool 10-1 in this respect.

[7] See R. Menashe Klein, Shanu Hakhamim bi-Leshon ha-Mishnah (Brooklyn, 1994), p. 108.

[8] No one has yet written about the great influence of Artscroll in influencing prayer in the English-speaking world. Let me offer an example that everyone can observe during the coming holidays. When I was growing up, during Hallel everyone sung Hodu, Yomar Na, etc. together with the chazan. That was the minhag although I don’t know if it was a minhag of long standing. The Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 422:3 says that with regard to how these verses are recited – and he assumes that they will be done responsively – כל מקום כפי מנהגו. The fact that the Mishneh Berurah points out that they are supposed to be recited responsively was ignored, much like on Rosh Hashanah there are piyyutim which the machzor says should be recited responsively but are sung together, or like Yigdal or Anim Zemirot which are sometimes recited together rather than responsively. Yet today this practice of singing Hodu, etc. together with the chazan has almost completely disappeared from the American scene, and if you do try to sing along, you will often be the only one doing so and will probably get dirty looks. In the last twenty years, what has happened is that the chazan recites the verse, and the congregation is quiet and responds Hodu and then reads the next verse. Sometimes the congregation sings the Hodu response and sometimes not, but they never sing the other verses. How did the practice change? It was a direct result of the Artscroll siddur which tells people that only the chazan recites the verse and the congregation responds.

Minhagim have a funny way of starting. In my shul, for some reason, the chazan does not recite Mussaf from the middle bimah, but from the front of the shul. I am told that this is a Hungarian practice. No one I have asked seems to know how this started, and the synagogue is less than 10 years old. Currently, I am watching a minhag develop before my eyes. A couple of years ago I noticed that people were reading the Haftorah from the side of the bimah. If I’m not mistaken this is a hasidic practice. In any event, when this first started it was only one or two people who did so, Now, virtually everyone who comes up does so, no doubt thinking that this is the halakhah and they don’t want to do something incorrect. In another year, it might even be possible to declare that the minhag of the shul is to read from the side. There are many more examples of this I can give. Let me conclude with a story of one shul that refused to be run over by Artscroll. The year was 2001 and on Shabbat morning I was davening at the Rydniker Shtiebl on the Upper West Side which was across the street from my apartment. The late Rabbi Orenstein, who had studied in Kamenitz before the war, was the rav. It was one of those Shabboses where there is some confusion as to which Haftorah is read. Rabbi Orenstein told the reader what he should do, and someone called out that Artscroll says that we should read a different haftorah. Dr. David Diamond stood up, banged his hand on the bimah, and very sternly declared: “In this shul we have a rav, and we follow what he tells us to do. Artscroll is not the rav and Artscroll does not tell us which Haftorah to read!” With that he sat down, and never again did anyone dare ask a “kasha” on the Rav from Artscroll.

[9] R. Mazuz told me that the acronym stands for נאם מאיר נסים. He also informed me that he was following in the path of Moroccan sages who signed with acronyms, such as

המרבי”ץ (מרדכי בן יוסף [בירדוגו]), יעב”ץ (יעקב בן צור), משבי”ר – משה בירדוגו

[10] Unfortunately, the newest editions of the siddur do not include his lengthy essay in which he justifies his emendations.

[11] See here.

[12] See the volume Ve-Al Titosh Torat Imekha (n.p., n.d).

[13] See here.

[14] He has a number of notes in the new edition of R. Elijah Bahur’s Tishbi. Dan Rabinowitz wrote about this edition here. After seeing what R. Mazuz wrote about the proper way to pronounce the Kaddish (see Or Torah (5750), pp. 747, 875), I abandoned my practice of Yitgadel and returned to the the time-honored Yitgadal. See Dan Rabinowitz’ review of the evidence, here.

[15] Unless I missed something, I didn’t see any of the gay advocates mention that R. Hayyim Vital recorded the accusation of a dybbuk that when drunk, R. Israel Najara would engage in homosexual behavior. This passage was censored in a recent publication, as noted by Dan Rabinowitz. See here.

[16] Recently, one of the students, R. Ovadiah Hen, published the book Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Mikhtav which attempts to bring this to the Torah world. One interesting thing he notes is that one should not write עיין ברמב”ם. Instead, one should write

עיין להרמב”ם

[17] See his introduction to R. Hayyim Amsellem, Minhat Hayyim, (Sharsheret, 1986), vol. 2. Chavel’s error cited above was first noted by R. Mazuz here.

[18] Regarding Ralbag, this comment is addressed to the few guys I was speaking to in Teaneck a few weeks ago (whose names I can’t recall and who are probably reading this). I mentioned that in my next posting I would give another example of Ralbag differing with the Thirteen Principles that I only recently found. I was referring to prophets equalling Moses during the Messianic era. However, I misspoke. Ralbag’s oppositon to Maimonides, in that he thinks the Messiah will be a superior prophet to Moses, is mentioned in my book. What I meant to say was not Ralbag, but Radak. In his commentary to Joel 3:1, in speaking of the great spirit of prophecy that will come upon people in Messianic days, Radak writes of the possibility that among these people (including women!) there may be some who will equal Moses.

והבנים והבנות יתנבאו בנערותם כמו שמואל הנביא והנבואה תהיה להם במראה החלום כמו שאמר חלומות חזיונות, וכן היתה נבואת רוב הנביאים, כמו שאמר אם יהיה נביאכם ה’ במראה אליו אתודע בחלום אדבר בו, וכן יהיו בהם מעלות זה למעלה מזה כמו שהיו בנביאים שעברו עד שאולי יהיה בהם כמשה רבינו ע”ה

[19] Kovetz Ma’amarim (Bnei Brak, 2003), p. 270. This example is not noted by Yehuda Shamir, “Allusions to Muhammad in Maimonides’ Theory of Prophecy in His Guide of the Perplexed,” JQR 64 (1975), pp. 212-224.

[20] Ketavim Nivharim (Jerusalem, 1969), vol. 1, p. 20.

[21] Ashkenazim and Sephardim (London, 1976), additional note to p. 286.

[22] Ibid., p. 287.

[23] For those who want more information on this topic, R. Shlomo Yitzchaki has written the most detailed study to date. See “Be-Inyan Roshei Tevot S”T,” Or ha-Ma’arav (Adar-Nisan, 5750), pp. 39-56.

[24] In a few weeks, in shaharit of Yom Kippur, we will recite the piyyut אדר יקר, the first line of which reads: אחוה בארש מלולי

[25] Lest people think that when it comes to Sephardi-Ashkenazi relations it is only the latter who have behaved in an improper manner, let me quote some interesting historical tidbits from Zimmels, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, p. 62:

In the year 1766 the Sephardi congrgation in London passed a law forbidding a Sephardi to marry an Ashkenazith and stipulated that the wife or widow could not obtain any relief from the ‘Zedakah’ (charity). Moreover, in the year 1772 a Sephardi asked the permission of the ‘Maamad’ to marry a “Tudesca’ but was refused, and in the Sephardi Synagogues in Amsterdam and London the Ashkenazim were prevented by wooden barriers from proceeding beyond the place permitted to them.

However, I have not yet found any sources in which Sephardim claim that Ashkenazim smell (Yated’s latest outrage, this time said about the Yemenites). It appears to me that the greatest social achievement of the religious Zionist movement in Israel has been the complete breakdown of the Ashkenazi-Sephardic divide.

[26] See also R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, Diwan, ed. Egers (Berlin 1886), p. 109: דוק וחוג התרועעו ממזרח ומים

Dovid Bashevkin – Perpetual Prophecy: An Intellectual Tribute to Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin on his 110th Yahrzeit

Perpetual Prophecy:

An Intellectual Tribute to Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin on his 110th Yahrzeit

by Dovid Bashevkin

Reb Zadok ha-Kohen Rabinowitz of Lublin (hereafter: “Reb Zadok”) was born in 1823 into a noted rabbinic family. From a young age, we are told, he displayed signs of astonishing genius.[1] While many of these stories are questionable, it is evident that by the time he celebrated his bar mitzvah he was extremely thoroughly familiar with the standard rabbinic corpus and could navigate it easily.[2] By the time he turned twenty he had already written several works on Talmudic law and showed his interest in matters historical. From studying his earlier works it becomes abundantly clear that even prior to his later Hasidic transformation he was quite an original thinker. Though many of his works are in the form of traditional rabbinic writing, there is much that is truly striking, both in terms of the topics which he broached, which included historiography, chronology,[3] and astronomy, and the manner in which they were discussed. From an early age he was quite fond of amalgamating the normally distinct worlds of legal Talmudic discussion and aggadah.

During the mid-twentieth-century, Reb Zadok’s thought was first taught in America by R. Shraga Feivel Mendowitz, who gave classes on his works during his tenure as administrator and Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivas Torah V’Daas.[4] The works of Reb Zadok also deeply influenced the works of R. Eliyahu Dessler,[5] R. Gedaliah Shor,[6] and R. Yitzchak Hutner.[7] These roshei yeshiva brought Reb Zadok’s works to American yeshivot. Often unknown to those studying the works of these aforementioned rabbis, some of who rarely, if at all, cite Reb Zadok by name, the thought and influence of Reb Zadok is manifest in their work. It is fair to say that the resurgence of the study of what has become known as “mahshava” in contemporary yeshivot truly owes a great deal of credit to the works of Reb Zadok.

The academic study of Reb Zadok is surely in debt to Prof. Yaakov Elman, who brought the thought of Reb Zadok to the English speaking academic world in a series of articles published over the past twenty-five years.[8] His analysis of many of the central themes simultaneously charted new grounds in Hasidic scholarship and remain the standard from which subsequent scholarship on Reb Zadok is measured.[9]

Recently, Reb Zadok has begun to receive much deserved attention from the academic community. Historians, theologians, and sociologists have begun to explore the works of “The Kohen,” as he is often referred to colloquially, for his timeless and penetrating approach to Jewish thought. On the occasion of Reb Zadok’s 110th yahrzeit, a brief history of Reb Zadok’s thought, as expounded in the last few generations and a never-before-published original essay (“The World as a Book: Religious Polemic, Hasidei Ashkenaz, and the Thought of Reb Zadok”), is presented for the readers of the Seforim blog.

The turning point in Reb Zadok’s life was his divorce from his first wife. At the age of twenty-one, after getting married in his mid-teens, he decided to seek a divorce. The reasons for his insistence on a divorce are not clear, though it seems that Reb Zadok was led to believe that his wife had not maintained the level of piety that was required for him, as a Rav and Kohen. His wife, however, refused to accept a bill of divorce, forcing Reb Zadok to travel as an itinerant scholar throughout Europe in order to obtain a heter meah rabbanan.[10] Of the many rabbinic personalities he met during the trip, it was R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica who would completely transform Reb Zadok’s life.[11]

After his encounter with the Rebbe of Izbica, Reb Zadok decided to begin living as a Hasid. Though such a transition, as pointed out by Alan Brill, was certainly not as dramatic as it would have been several generations earlier, when the Hasidic-Mitnaggedic feud was in its fullest thrust, the cultural change was still quite significant. Reb Zadok spent nearly a decade at the court of R. Leiner after which he left to remarry and settle near Lublin. His second marriage, sadly, did not produce any children. For the remainder of his life, Reb Zadok remained immersed in study and contemplation from which he produced volumes of writings, none of which were published in his lifetime. He spent thirty-four years, from 1854 until 1888, in seclusion. It was only during the final thirteen years of his life, following the death of his dear friend R. Leible Eiger (who had succeeded R. Leiner after his death in 1854), that Reb Zadok functioned as a traditional Hasidic Rebbe.[12] On the ninth of Elul (Monday, 3 September 1900), in the seventy-seventh year of his life, Reb Zadok passed away.

Reb Zadok incorporated his own life struggles and frustrations into his own work. Over the course of his life there were two struggles that loomed large: his divorce and subsequent wandering through Europe, and his childlessness. Regarding the former, it is difficult to find even an allusion to the emotional toll which this difficulty took on Reb Zadok’s life. However with regard to the latter, it is quite clear that his childlessness was a major theme in his works. The title of Reb Zadok’s sermon collection, Pri Tzadik, is an allusion to his own perception of his children (referred to Rabbinic literature as pri [“fruits] of an individual) being the Torah teachings imparted to his students.[13] Additionally, Reb Zadok dedicated an entire work, entitled Poked Akarim (“The Visiting of the Barren”), first printed in 1922, for this theme to be made apparent.

The only source of directly autobiographical information from Reb Zadok is his fascinating work, Divrei Halomot (“The Message of Dreams”), first printed in 1903, of his own documentation of his dreams. The dreams, which are dated starting in 1845 and end in 1883, are mostly theological or Talmudic in nature, but many autobiographical insights can be gleaned from them as well.[14] Particularly, as been noted by several scholars, the third dream recorded, dated 1843, has provided particularly rich insight into Reb Zadok’s self-perception:

“I dreamt a dream [when I was present in Izbica] in which certain ideas were reveled to me from the roots of my soul. And among the ideas which were told to me is that the generation of Messiah will consist of those souls of the Generation of the Wilderness… whom are in turn comprised of the souls of the Flood… and they (the Generations of the Flood) corrupted their ways and sinned in what is known in rabbinic works as the sin of youth[15]… and the rectification of this is in the Generation of the Wilderness for which is was called ‘the kindness of youth.’ As it is written “I have remembered for you the kindness of my youth.” (Jeremiah 2:2).”[16]

Undoubtedly, this text, described by Reb Zadok himself as “the roots of my soul,” is the most authoritative presentation of Reb Zadok’s self-image in his extant writings. While its interpretation is ambiguous, the thrust of the dream is the powerful religious energy which is present even in sins and the potential to channel such energy into positive direction, ultimately resulting in the redemption. Why this relates to “the root” Reb Zadok’s soul is less clear. What emerges from this dream is THE central role the Hasidic idea of “descent in order to elevate” played in Reb Zadok’s life, where in his methodology, as articulated by Yaakov Elman, “the great Lurianic drama of cosmic catastrophe and slow rebuilding takes on a decided epistemologic cast.” This “cosmic drama,” which Reb Zadok brilliantly presents through his mastery of halakha, aggada, and the unfolding of Jewish History, was just as evident in the story of his life.

While the following appendix is, of course, not an exhaustive presentation of Reb Zadok’s thought, the following brief essay should serve as a call for scholars from across academic disciplines to carefully re-consider Reb Zadok’s contribution to modern intellectual thought.

Appendix:

The World as a Book:

Religious Polemic, Hasidei Ashkenaz, and the Thought of Reb Zadok

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this is our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything

-William Shakespeare (As You Like It, Act II, 1.14-17)

Mainstream Orthodox Jewish religious thought views the Bible as the exclusive representation of God’s will. Certainly, experiential reality may serve as testimony to His will or may inspire others to follow His will, however the arbiter of what His will precisely is, is restricted to the domain of the Bible. This view is clearly reflected in the oft-cited formulation of the Zohar that “God looked into the Torah and created the world.”[17] The all encompassing will of God is clearly represented in the statement by the Torah, while “the world” is merely an expression of its truth. The world is not given any independent status as a prophet of sorts for the word of God.

Yet, a second model exists. Reb Zadok cites that he has heard from his master, “That God created a book, and that is the world, and the commentary (on the book), and that is that Torah. For the Torah is akin to a commentary of God’s possessions.”[18] This analogy clearly places a greater focus on the world as a repository for Godly revelation. While the Torah clearly functions as a means of deciphering for the revelatory code of the world, it still remains to be seen within this analogy if the world can relate the will of God without the expository aid of the Torah. Moreover, does this analogy leave room for the possibility that the World may contain truths that do not even exist within the Torah? In order to understand the broader implications of this analogy, this essay will explore its origins and counterparts predating Reb Zadok and its specific influence on his general theology.

The notion that the word of God is revealed in two books, the Bible and the “Book of Nature,” dates back to beginning of the Common Era.[19] Throughout the centuries this idea was developed by many thinkers, each of whom expanded and evolved the scope and nature of the implications of this concept. While discussing its relationship to the Hasidei Ashkenaz, which will be discussed later, Haym Soloveitchik has argued that the analogy of the world as a book played an essential role in medieval thought:

“This implicit doctrine of dual revelation bears a familial resemblance to the common idea of the ‘book of creatures,’ which, in one form or another, shaped the entire medieval perception of the outside world and, as it also underlay most of its art, found expression in every frontal, portal, and stained-glass window of the cathedrals of the time. The doctrine taught that God has declared Himself in two manifestations: in the Holy Scriptures and in the Book of Nature. The world of sense is what it appears to be – a structure of physical objects – but it is at the same time a mirror and mystical typology of the attributes of the Creator Himself.”[20]

Following the humanistic revolution and the Renaissance the notion of the “Book of Nature” lost its prominence in Christian theology. The advances of science and humanistic thinking forced Christians to focus on other ideas to further their own theological agenda.[21]

Overall it seems there are two primary themes that can be culled from the vast array of presentations this analogy has taken in Christian thought relate to its objective and its substance. Firstly, in regards to its objective, the analogy served an important polemical role in the Church’s battles with the Cathar heresy which maintained that a “radical dualism of evil matter and divine spirit” existed in the world. Cathar dogma was founded upon the notion that two Gods existed, one evil who was the creator of matter, and one good, who controlled the world of spirituality.[22]

This approach is innovative for two reasons. By definition, proposing that God has revealed Himself outside the explicit prophetic revelation of Scriptures is novel to a normally prophetically based religion. Yet Christian theologians were uniquely innovative in that they actively pursued God’s implicit revelation in nature in its most basic sense, namely, flora and fauna. While other theologians were content with the first innovation, it was a markedly Christian exercise to search for Gods message in the pedals of roses and the contours of a nut.[23]

Eventually, with the advent of the scientific revolution, the Church and its sacrosanct “Book of Nature” faced tremendous controversy. The Galileo affair managed to shift the astronomical view of our universe and consequently redefine the essence of the Book of nature.

In response to a letter from his student Castelli, who informed him of the concerns of the Grand Duchess Christina regarding the relationship between religious dogma and Copernican theory, Galileo wrote her a short essay entitled “Letter to the Grand Duchess.” It was in these letters, to his student Castelli in 1613 (“Letter to Castelli”) and to the Grand Duchess in 1615, that Galileo began to release the shackles restricting the Book of Nature to the Domain of the Book of Scriptures. Later, in 1623 Galileo finally made it abundantly clear in which domain the Book of Nature resided.[24] He wrote:

“Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth.”[25]

The sacred Book of Nature, which had for so long served as theological tool of the Church was now beginning to lose its authority. Galileo was careful not to deny the authority of the Book of Scriptures; it was with the interpretive framework of the Book of Nature that he took issue. Criticizing the Church’s claim as the exclusive authority in the Book of Nature’s interpretation, he felt the church had overstepped its boundaries in so narrowly defining the scope of legitimate interpretation. In his opinion the Church believed that, “Theology is the queen of all the sciences and hence must not in any way lower herself to accommodate the principles of other less dignified disciplines subordinated to her; rather, there others must submit to her as to a supreme empress and change and revise their conclusions in accordance with theological rules and decrees.”[26] Galileo did not seek to delegitimize the Church’s claim to truth in the Book of Scriptures; he just wanted that the Book of Nature be approached and understood on its own terms as a concurrent source of truth, rather than a truth subordinate to the truth of the Church.

Scholars have pointed out that it was not Galileo’s intention to engage in religious polemic, and he was, in fact, quite hesitant to respond to the Duchess, due to his concern that his innovative ideas would shake her faith. Most notably, Galileo never published the letter, a testament to his honest intentions to simply allay the Duchess’s theological concerns. However the letter did eventually circulate locally and found its way into the Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome, eventually setting the stage for Galileo’s trial of 1633 and the placement of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus on the banned Index of the Church.[27]

Ultimately Galileo’s presentation of the parallel truths of the Book of Nature and the Book of Scriptures did not help mitigate the attacks of his persecutors. As described by Biagioli, “The book of nature, therefore, was a Trojan horse: it seemed to pay homage to the theologians and their regime of truth, but it would have restricted their authority if they allowed it through their gates.” The Church did not allow itself to be fooled.

Emerging from this entire affair is a new chapter in the evolution of the interpretive framework of the Book or Nature. No longer was nature a hermeneutical resource for theological pontification, now it had a life and a message of its own, independent from theological dogma.

As the “Book of the Nature” received serious attention in the world of Christian theology, it also managed to infiltrate the medieval world Hasidei Ashkenaz. In a pioneering study, Haym Soloveitchik presented the primary text of the Hasidei Ashkenaz as Sefer Hasidim and explained that “underlying much of Sefer Hasidim, is the idea that the will of God, the rezon ha-Bore has not been cabined or confined within the overt dictates of the Torah, written or oral.”[28] The author of Sefer Hasidim seemed convinced that a vast body of unexpressed commandments exists outside of the explicit ruling of the Torah. Soloveitchik suggested that such an assumption is derived from “the vast disparity between Biblical and Rabbinic norms, and the testimony of God’s actions (both His wrath and His favor) in the Bible and in daily experience, [which] stand witness to the operation in history of standards of judgment other than those articulated in the Torah.”[29] Indeed, the introduction to Sefer Hasidim makes this goal quite clear:

“[This book] is written for those who fear God and are mindful of His name. There is a hasid whose heart desires, out of love for his Creator, to do His will, but he is unaware of all these things-which thing to avoid and how to execute profoundly the wish of the Creator. For this reason the Sefer Hasidim was written so that all who fear God and those returning to their Creator with an undivided heart may read it and know and understand what is incumbent upon them to do and what they must avoid.”[30]

Perhaps this statement may not at first glance seem relevant to the previous discussion, but it underlying assumption is extremely important to the general notion of the Book of Nature. Heretofore in Jewish theology it was generally assumed that all of God’s commandments were explicit either in the Written Law or the Oral Law which was simultaneously handed to Moses on Sinai. Generations following the canonization of the Talmud viewed it is the final authority on Jewish law not only in terms of deciding existing law but also in determining which laws even existed. Those within the Hasidei Ashkenaz were revolutionary in the sense that they suggested that the Law as revealed through the existing Torah was incomplete and an independent set of directives could be derived implicitly that had not been previously expounded in the Bible or Talmud.

To be sure, as Soloveitchik is quick to point out, the notion of a separate implicit revelation played significantly different roles in Hasidic thought and Christian theology. The differences, as presented by Soloveitchik, were as follows:

“The Hasidic doctrine dealt with Divine imperatives, the Christian one with Divine attributes; the former asserted deductions of new truths, the latter symbolic reflections of known ones. They share, however, one common assumption: outside the binding, canonized corpus, a ‘larger scripture,’ as it were, exists which can yield up religious truths upon proper inspection.”

Regardless of Soloveitchik’s distinction, the innovation of the Hasidei Ashkenaz serves as a powerful precedent in Jewish theology for extra-Biblical revelation. Reb Zadok employs the analogy of “The Book” in several different places and contexts.

As previously mentioned, in Reb Zadok’s first work after becoming joining the Hasidic ranks of Izbica, he presents the following:

“Every day there are innovations in Torah, for God recreated every day his works of the world, and the works of the world (maaseh bereishit) is through the Torah as cited in the beginning of Bereishit Rabbah,[31] and logically the recreation of the world as well is though the Torah. And it is for this reason that after the blessing [of the Shema] ‘Yotzer ha-Meorot,’ which relates to the recognition of the recreation of the world every day, [the Rabbis] established a second blessing which functions as a blessing on the Torah as explained in [TB] Berahot 11b (i.e. ‘Ahava Rabba’). One requests (to God) to know the innovations of the Torah which are through the recreation of the world. And as I have heard, that God created a book, and that is the world (olam),[32] and the commentary (on the book), and that is that Torah. For the Torah is akin to a commentary of God’s possessions.”[33]

As is typical of much of Reb Zadok’s writings in Tzidkat ha-Tzadik, he is quite brief and does not go onto lengthy expositions as found in his later writings. In this passage it is seems clear that he is following traditional Jewish thought in ascribing precedence to the book of God (i.e. the Torah) over the book of Nature. His citation of the classical passage in Midrash Rabbah, aside from lending traditional pedigree to his thought,[34] clearly articulated the traditional Jewish view that the world is an outgrowth of the Torah and not vice versa. After establishing this traditional premise, Reb Zadok proceeded to present an atypical understanding of the relationship between the Torah and the world, namely, that the World is a book while the Torah is mere commentary. Certainly it seems fair to presume that a commentary is ancillary to the book to which it is attached; therefore this relationship must be more carefully examined and defined in the context of broader Jewish thought and the full scope of Reb Zadok’s writings.

In his work Mahshavot Harutz, Reb Zadok returns to and elaborates upon the usages of the book analogy.[35] In this essay, he proposed that the essence of all existence in this world is comprised of the letters of the Torah. Similar to his previously cited comments, he once again invokes the oft-quoted passage in Bereishit Rabbah that the Torah is the blueprint of the world. However in this passage he elaborates much further upon the concept of the world as a book and its relationship to the Torah.

Reb Zadok began the essay by citing the Talmudic passage that on Rosh Hashanah “three books are opened”: The book of the righteous, the book of the wicked, and the book of the ambivalent. Each of these books, in Reb Zadok’s thematic archetype, corresponds to a different expression of spiritual existence. The book of the righteous corresponds to the objective truth contained in the Written Torah, which in effect corresponds to the world of writing. The book of the ambivalent corresponds to the Oral Law thus representing the world of speech. While the Book of the wicked, corresponding to the implicit essence of spirituality, which is the only vestige of spiritual connectivity which remains for the wicked, this, says Reb Zadok, is the world of thought. Such a presentation is counterintuitive, for it posits that the highest expression of truth is found in the Book of the Wicked. Yet, it is precisely the transcendental nature of this concealed element of Godliness which demands that it be referred to as “The Book of the Wicked;” for the only remaining grasp which the wicked have into the world of spirituality exists within this book.

Though Reb Zadok expands his tripartite correspondence, what is crucial for our discussion is his explanation as to why the Talmud ascribes the description of “writing” to all three books, even the book of thought. He writes:

“And the language of writing is relevant in all (three books). For all of them are called books…and also on the book of thought its writing is the physical world which is a remnant of the letters of thought which are faintly recognizable through their (i.e. the wicked) actions. And so I have received that this entire world is a book which God created. And it appears to me that as a child I saw such a formulation in the work Me’or Einayim[36] which cited the formulation in a gentile work of pedagogy. Seemingly, it was found there a slight parallel of this idea that all of the creations of the world are the forms of the letters which God inscribed in his book, the worlds. The Torah is the commentary on that book and adorns the world with truth for within the Torah the letters of thought are explicitly manifest, as opposed to in the World which only presents vestige and a remnant. And through the Torah we are able to understand the hints of the remnants and recognize that within the worldly actions contain the thoughts of God. Nevertheless, one must bear in mind, that all worldly actions and creations of the world are a Book unto themselves on which the letters of God’s thoughts are inscribed through great concealment. There is no creation which is not marked for a specific purpose in the mind of God.”[37]

In this remarkable passage, Reb Zadok presents more clearly his understanding of the relationship between the Book of Nature and the Book of Scriptures. Reb Zadok believed that the experiential world functioned as a means of revelation, though the cryptic revelatory language of the world is chiefly deciphered though the explanation of the Torah. Yet all of the experiences of the world are infused with spiritual and theological significance through which God’s glory can be revealed. It is clear from the passage that “The Book of Nature” in Reb Zadok’s thought it not restricted to mere flora and fauna, but encompasses more broadly the entire experiential world. Whether such experiential revelation can ever occur without the aegis of the Torah still remains to be seen.

Another point worthy of note in this passage is Reb Zadok’s willingness to cite a Gentile work which obscurely alludes to his idea. In fact, citing the controversial work Me’or Einayim, is in itself quite noteworthy bearing in mind the scathing criticism the work endured in previous generations. Certainly such citations should be seen in light of Reb Zadok’s general open mindedness to scholarly inquiry, particularly historical studies,[38] and his nuanced attitude toward gentile wisdom, all of which have been previously noted by scholars.[39] Ironically, this controversial citation may very well be justified based on the import of the very idea he is citing it for, namely, that all of creation, even gentiles, are passages in the God’s grand book: The World.

Reb Zadok’s view of the “Book of Nature” contrasts strongly to the Christian conception. Whereas Christians took a markedly literal approach to the theological messages of nature, in Reb Zadok’s works such messages are restricted to experiential sentiments and personal directives. Reb Zadok’s avoidance of homiletical deductions from nature’s structure sidesteps the potentially officious theological implications of the Book of Nature which arose for the Church during the time of Galileo.

Reb Zadok’s conception of the revelatory consequences of the “Book of Nature” appears in his novel understanding of the “bat kol” (trans: heavenly voice). Departing from the more traditional description of the bat kol,[40] which understood the phenomena quite literally, Reb Zadok proposed a new approach (which seems to be theologically rooted in his aforementioned conception of “The Book of Nature”):

“And our Rabbis have revealed to us stories which discuss the bat kol, which is defined as listening to the voices of everyday people who are discussing daily matters and do have other intentions. Rather one listener is able to be informed, through their words, what is required of him… Namely, God articulates the will of his voice through regular people. Even though they have their own intentions when they speak and the directives do not seem to emanate from God with intention and clarity, rather His will relates to us implicitly…For example when God wishes good it is manifest personally in each of his creations according to their conception of good. The Jewish people relate according to their conception of good, gentiles relate each according to their own conception…and so it is with all creations according to their own conception. And therefore it is nearly impossible to define what is the implicit will that God intends to impart since it is manifest through different being, each with their own conceptions and notions of that message.”[41]

Undoubtedly, Reb Zadok maintains that there are vital messages contained in the Book of Nature. However, the implicit revelatory message through which the Book of Nature operates often obfuscates our ability to properly decipher its contents. The Torah contains God’s explicit spoken word, while Nature, or more precisely experiential life, only relates implicitly God unarticulated will. Yet all of Nature remains, as Reb Zadok often quotes from his Hasidic predecessor R. Simha Bunim of Przysucha, “a means of acquiring God.”[42]

Indeed, Reb Zadok allowed for the actual interpretation of Natures message, yet only by those properly initiated to the methods of interpreting bat kol, as demonstrated in a widely-told story:

“As is well known in the name of Zusia of blessed memory that he was once walking along the road and it chanced upon him that a Gentile wagon driver, who was transporting hay, fell over. The man requested help, to which he responded, ‘I cannot.’ The Gentile said to him, “You can, but you just do not want to.” Regarding this Rebbe Zusia said to himself that it must be an allusion to the fallen hey (referring to the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet) represented in God’s name. It has fallen and it is in my power to pick it up, I just don’t want to. And so it is with all occurrences that chance upon a person, for all worldly events are really spiritual allusions.”[43]

Reb Zadok believed that the everyday experiences of life are in truth lessons which provide spiritual guidance. Often these experiences can compel one to reexamine or develop a novel approach to Torah scholarship. As Reb Zadok relates in several places, the Talmud classic presentation of a legal opinion, “A’leiba d’man d’amar,” derives from the leiv, the experiential heart, of each scholar.[44] Yet unlike to the Christian conception, which allowed viewed the Book of Scriptures and the Book of Nature as competing voices, Reb Zadok only considers the Book of the World on matters which have not yet been clearly articulated in the Torah. Though the prophetic gates of the Book of Scriptures have closed, God continues to speak.

Dovid Bashevkin studied for several years at Yeshivat Shaalavim and at Ner Israel Rabbinical College, and is completing his rabbinic ordination at RIETS (Yeshiva University), and holds an MA in Jewish philosophy the Bernard Revel Graduate School (Yeshiva University), where he focused on Polish Hasidut and the writings of Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin and studied with Prof. Yaakov Elman. The article was written on the occasion of the sixth yahrzeit, on 2 Ellul, of his grandmother, Zlata Golda bas Gershon Binyamin ha-Levi a”h. The author would like to offer a tremendous thanks to his mentor, Prof. Yaakov Elman, who continuously offers selflessly of his time, energy, and much saged advice to an ever inquiring and searching student, and under whose guidance this essay was privileged to have been written. Special thanks, as well, is extended to a very dear and longtime-friend, the ever patient and indefatigable Menachem Butler, for his assistance in many of the nuances of this essay, and to the editors (and readers) of the Seforim blog for their gracious consideration of this essay. Of course, any errors contained in this essay are the responsibility of the author, and he can be reached here (dovidbash@yahoo.com).

[1] For some astounding tales of genius and piety from Reb Zadok’s youth, of which include recitation of a blessing on his mother’s milk and the ability to count how many leaves were on a tree, see Abraham Isaac Rabinovitch, Malachei Elyon (Jerusalem: Otzar HaSippurim, 1966), 19 (Hebrew). For more general information on Reb Zadok’s life, though mostly hagiographic, see ibid. 18-32; see also Shlomo Zalman Sheragaʼi and Avraham Bick, be-Heikhal Izbica-Lublin (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1977; Hebrew) which includes some fascinating, though almost certainly apocryphal, tales about Reb Zadok’s initial meeting with R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner. Also see the more recent work, Sefer ha-Kohen (Bnei Brak: Mekhon Shem Olam, 2004), 11-24 (Hebrew).

[2] The sermon delivered at his bar mitzvah has been subsequently published in Collected Writings of Reb Zadok of Lublin, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mekor ha-Seforim, 2001), Meishev Tzedek, 69-78 (Hebrew), and bears the mark of a mature and erudite scholar. Additionally see Reb Zadok, Or Zaruah, 53, which contains some remarks he wrote at the age of thirteen.

[3] See Reb Zadok, Kuntres Zikeron la-Rishonim printed in Sinai 21 (Nisan, 1947) and Kuntres Shemot ba-Aretz which discuss, respectively, the history and chronology of the prophets and the post-Talmudic sages. Reb Zadok himself dates Zikeron la-Rishonim as being written in 5597 (1837), thus placing this astounding work under the pen of a thirteen year old!

[4] This was reported to me by several students who attended these classes. See, as well, Aharon Suraski, Sheluha de-Rahmana (New York: Feldheim 1992), 126. I am especially grateful to Prof. Shnayer Z. Leiman for his assistance in locating this source.

[5] For example see Mikhtav me-Eliyahu, vol. 3 (Bnei Brak: Committee for the Publication of the Writings of E.L. Dessler, 1964), 277-278 (Hebrew).

[6] For example see Or Gedalyahu: Sihot u’Mamarim ‘al Mo’adim (Brooklyn, 1981), esp. the talks on Hanukkah.

[7] R. Hutner’s relationship with Reb Zadok’s work is particularly mysterious. Nowhere in Pahad Yitzhak does R. Hutner mention Reb Zadok explicitly by name, though those familiar with Reb Zadok’s work can sense his influence throughout. The only explicit reference to Reb Zadok can be found in an introductory letter to the publication of work Alfasi Zuta, later republished in his collected letters #80, where R. Hutner cites a passage from Reb Zadok’s Sefer Zichronot, one of his lesser studied works, explaining the permissibility to learn the works of the students of the R. Yisrael Sarug, despite the ban imposed by R. Hayyim Vital on learning Kabbalah of the Arizal from any sources other than his own. R. Hutner’s citation of this obscure passage in R. Zadok’s works definitely betrays his intimate familiarity with his works. Why Reb Zadok is never cited by name in Pahad Yitzhak is a matter which must be considered and see Steven S. Schwarzschild, “An Introduction to the Thought of R. Isaac Hutner,” Modern Judaism 5:3 (October 1985): 235-277, who discussed some of the influences of Reb Zadok’s Rebbe, R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica on the thought of R. Hutner, and noted (in 264n27) that “R. Hutner occasionally cites R. Zadok, in a heavily chassidic, messianic context: cf. e.g. ‘This Week’s Biblical Lesson’ (Yiddish), Algemeiner Journal, Dec. 23, 1977, p. 5, col. 5,” and see also Yaakov Elman, “R. Zadok Hakohen on the History of Halakah,” Tradition 21:4 (Fall 1985): 20-22 (“Addendum”). Surprisingly, the recent exhaustive and important work by Shlomo Kasirer, “Repentance in the Thought of R. Isaac Hutner,” (PhD dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, 2009; Hebrew) does not consider the influence of Reb Zadok on R. Hutner.

[8] Shai Hadari should certainly be given due credit for his Hebrew works on Reb Zadok, the first academic presentation of R. Zadok’s works, in Shai Hadari, “Roshei Hodashim be-Mishnei R. Zadok ha-Kohen,” Sinai 56:1-2 (1965): 84-99 (Hebrew); idem, “Purim be-Mishnato shel R. Zadok ha-Kohen mi-Lublin,” Sinai 46:6 (1960): 333-369 (Hebrew); idem, “Shir Shel Yom,” Sinai 53:1-6 (1963): 75-91 (Hebrew). In addition, an excellent biographical portrait can be found in Alan Brill, Thinking God: The Mysticism of Rabbi Zadok of Lublin (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 2002), 15-51, though (to date) the most comprehensive analysis of Reb Zadok’s overall works and thought remains Amira Liwer, “Oral Torah in the Writings of Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin,” (PhD dissertation, Hebrew University, 2006; Hebrew), and see, as well, her earlier work in Amira Liwer, “Paradoxical Themes in the Writings of Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin,” (MA thesis, Touro College, 1992; Hebrew). Those interested in comparative theology would certainly enjoy Chaim Hirsch, Ahavat Tzedek (Jerusalem, 2002; Hebrew), which compares the thought of Reb Zadok to that of R. Kook. In a similar vein, see Bezalel Naor, “Zedonot Na’aseh ki-Zekhuyot be-Mishnato shel ha-Rav Kook,” Sinai 97 (1983): 78-87 (Hebrew); and see also idem, “Hashpat Nefesh ha-Hayyim al Reb Zadok ha-Kohein mi-Lublin,” Sinai 104 (1989): 186-188 (Hebrew). Much can be learned from the overlap and nuanced differences of these innovative thinkers. For a comprehensive bibliography of Reb Zadok’s works, and secondary works discussing Reb Zadok’s life and scholarship, see Gershon Kitsis, ed., Me’at Latzadik (Jerusalem: Beis Publications, 2000; Hebrew), and Alan Brill, Thinking God, 378-390 (Appendix I).

[9] See Yaakov Elman, “R. Zadok Hakohen on the History of Halakah,” Tradition 21:4 (Fall 1985): 1-26; idem, “Reb Zadok Hakohen of Lublin on Prophecy in the Halakhic Process,” Jewish Law Association Studies 1 (1985): 1-16; idem, “The History of Gentile Wisdom According to R. Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin,” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 3:1 (1993): 153-187; idem, “Progressive Derash and Retrospective Peshat: Nonhalakhic Considerations in Talmud Torah,” in Shalom Carmy, ed., Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996), 227-87; and idem, “The Rebirth of Omnisignificant Biblical Exegesis in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Jewish Studies Internet Journal 2 (2003): 199-249.

[10] A heter meah rabbanan is a document signed by one hundred rabbis which allows one to take a second wife in the event that the current wife refuses to willingly accept a divorce. The specific Halakhic details of this document, while fascinating, are beyond the scope of this paper. For more on the issues surrounding this document see “Herem de-Rabbeinu Gershom,” Encyclopedia Talmudit, vol. 17, cols. 378-454, esp. 447-452 (Hebrew).

[11] See Alan Brill, Thinking God, 24, for an impressive list of some of the personalities encountered during his travels. Notably, Reb Zadok is mentioned in R. Joseph Shaul Nathenson’s Shoel u-Meshiv 6th ed., no. 54.

R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner, originally a student of R. Simcha Bunim of Prysucha, and afterwards of R. Menachem Mendal of Kotzk, famously departed Koztk in 1840 to establish his own Hasidic court. For more details on the life of R. Leiner and the reasons for his schism with R. Menachem Mendel, see Morris M. Fairstein, All is in the Hands of Heaven: The Teaching of Rabbi Mordechai Joseph Liener of Izbica (New York, 1989), and, more recently, in idem, “Kotsk-Izbica Dispute: Theological or Personal?” Kabbalah 17 (2008): 75-79. A more detailed discussion of Izbica’s radical philosophy of determinism and sin can be found in Aviezer Cohen, “Self-Consciousness in Mei haa-Shiloah As the Nexus Between God and Man” (PhD dissertation, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2006; Hebrew), and Aviezer Cohen, “Capability as a Criterion for Observance and Non-Observance of the Mitzvot: Religious Existentialism in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig and Rabbi Mordechai Leiner of Izbica,” in Haviva Pedaya and Ephraim Meir, eds., Judaism, Topics, Fragments, Faces, Identities: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Rivka (Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2007), 525-575 (Hebrew). See also the important work by Shaul Magid, Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica/Radzin Hasidism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), and Don Seeman, “Martyrdom, Emotion and the Work of Ritual in R. Mordecai Joseph Leiner’s Mei ha-Shiloah,” AJS Review 27:2 (November 2003): 253-280.

[12] R. Leible Eiger was the grandson of the pre-eminent Rav, R. Akiva Eiger and the son of R. Shlomo Eiger, a major rabbinic figure in his own right. Similar to Reb Zadok, he also left his Lithuanian upbringing for the world of Hasidut. Initially he began as a student of R. Menachem Mendel Morgenstern, the Rebbe of Kotzk, however he left in 1840 with the court of R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner to Izbica. Reb Zadok’s and R. Leible’s similar life trajectories made them natural friends and they remained as such their entire lives. For more on the life of R. Leible, see the three volume work Yehudah leKasho (Tel Aviv, 1999) and for a letter from Reb Zadok to R. Leible, responding to the former’s legal query regarding the laws of circumcision, see Collected Writings of Reb Zadok of Lublin, vol. 5 (Jerusalem: Mekor ha-Seforim, 2001), Levushei Tzedakah, 34-35 (Hebrew). R. Leible’s works, Torat Emet and Imrei Emet, have not received any attention in the academic community and a complete study on the intellectual oeuvre remains a scholarly desideratum.

[13] See Elchanan Dov’s biographical sketch appended to Reb Zadok, Otzar ha-Melekh (Bnei Brak: Yahadut, 1968), 3, who cited Midrash Tanhuma, Noah 3, which reads: “When a person leaves the world without children he is pained and tearful. God says to him: Why are you crying? Because you did not grow any fruits in this world? There is a fruit more beautiful than children…the Torah of which it is written, ‘The fruits of the Righteous is the Tree of Life.’”

[14] See the important study by Martin Ritter, “Scholarship as a Priestly Craft: Harry A. Wolfson on Tradition in a Secular Age,” in Klaus Herrmann, Margarete Schlüter, and Giuseppe Veltri, eds., Jewish Studies Between the Disciplines: Papers in honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), 435-455, who has noted that “only by a careful reconstruction of the scholar’s complete writings is [the reader] able to discover the speculative underlying dimension that is often inter-woven with dry and long-winded interpretations. For later generations it thus remains a complex challenge to reconstruct the ideas of those polymaths from their vast publications, correspondence, and papers” (436). The same methodological inquiry, suggested Ritter, could be extended to Henry Corbin, Étienne Gilson, Erwin R. Goodenough, Gershom Scholem, and Leo Strauss, and one would not be incorrect to also include Reb Zadok, and R. Nahman of Bratslav, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, among others.

[15] This is a rabbinic euphemism for the sin of wasting seed, about which see Shilo Pachter, “Shmirat ha-Berit: The History of the Prohibition of Wasting Seed,” (PhD dissertation, Bar Ilan University, 2006), esp. 247-255, for a discussion of Reb Zadok. Recently, Reb Zadok’s theology has been used to formulate an appropriate response to the growing issue of sexual impropriety within the Modern Orthodox community, as discussed in Jennie Rosenfeld, “Talmudic Re-Readings: Toward a Modern Orthodox Sexual Ethic,” (PhD dissertation, City University of New York, 2008), esp. 73-123 (“Nineteenth Century Polish Hasidism’s Radical Ethics: R. Mordekhai Yosef Leiner of Izbica and R. Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin”), and though her interpretations and applications are often questionable, the discussion is nonetheless fascinating. For an additional perspective, listen to the lecture by R. Mayer Twersky and Dr. David Pelcovitz, “Maintaining Kedusha in an Overexposed Society,” YUTorah.org, delivered on 8 February 2009, available here (http://tinyurl.com/274omzd).

[16] See Alan Brill, Thinking God, 27.

[17] Zohar, vol. 2, 161a.

[18] This comment is prefaced with “sha’mati” (trans: I have heard) indicating, as all of his comments which such prefaces, that he heard this from his Rebbe, R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica. For more on the phrase “I have heard” in the writings of Reb Zadok and its relationship to the similar “I have received” found in his works, see Amira Liwer, “Oral Torah in the Writings of Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin,” (PhD dissertation, Hebrew University, 2006), 426-428 (Hebrew). Yaakov Elman, “The Rebirth of Omnisignificant Biblical Exegesis in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Jewish Studies Internet Journal 2 (2003), 224n62, cites the comments of Mei ha-Shiloah on TB Nedarim (22b) as a source for Reb Zadok’s words. However, Liwer points out, 373n26, that the aforementioned source in Mei ha-Shiloah does not present the analogy of the world as a book, but rather relates that the Torah incorporates all of the knowledge of the world. Liwer does, however, cite two sources in Mei ha-Shiloah which refer to the Jewish people as a book, which, as will be discussed later, seems to be the essential point and source of Reb Zadok’s comments.

[19] For a detailed history of this concept see E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W.R. Trask (New York: Harper & Row, 1953), 304, who cites an early Babylonian reference to stars as “the writing of the sky.” See also Ilse N. Bulhof, The Language of Science: A Study of the Relationship between Literature and Science in the Perspective of a Hermeneutical Ontology. With a Case Study of Darwin’s The Origin of Species (Leiden: Brill, 1992), passim, and C.J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 204.

[20] Haym Soloveitchik, “Three Themes in the Sefer Hasidim,” AJS Review 1 (1976): 315-16.

[21] For a more detailed discussion of the interaction of science and nature in Christian theology, see David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, eds., God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

[22] See Per Binde, “Nature in Roman Catholic Tradition,” Anthropological Quarterly 74:1 (January 2001): 15-27. In regards to its substance, the analogy has a markedly literalist tone to its message. Nature was not simply a product of God’s handiwork, but His spiritual message can be deciphered from within Nature to inspire man. Émile Mâle cites a gross example of literalism from Adam of Victor who, while contemplating a nut, remarked, “What is a nut if not the image of Jesus? The green and fleshy sheath is His flesh, His humanity. The wood of the shell is the wood of the Cross on which that flesh suffered. But the kernel of the nut from which men gain nourishment is His hidden divinity.” See Émile Mâle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (New York, 1953), 30, citing Adam of St. Victor, Sequentia. Patrol, cxcvi, col. 1433. Mâle also noted other literalist interpretations of the spiritual message within nature such as Peter of Mora musing on the roses of a pedal and Hugh of St. Victor thoughts of the dove.

[23] This is not to say that such ruminations do not appear in Jewish theology. Certainly, reflections on the significance of the structure of nature are only to be found scattered in Jewish thought (see for example TB Eiruvin 100b). However the centrality and seriousness of this discipline is entirely absent and on whole the practice altogether disappeared following the redaction of the Talmud.

[24] See Mario Biagioli, “Stress in the Book of Nature: the Supplemental Logic of Galileo’s Realism,” MLN 118:3 (April 2003): 557-585, for a detailed analysis of evolution of the Book of Nature in Galileo’s thought.

[25] Galileo, “The Assayer (1623),” in Stillman Drake, trans., Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (New York: Doubleday, 1957), 238.

[26] Galileo, “Letter to the Grand Duchess (1615),” in Maurice Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 99.

[27] For more details on the affair, see Maurice Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

[28] Haym Soloveitchik, “Three Themes in Sefer Hasidim,” 313.

[29] Ibid., 314.

[30] “Introduction,” in Judah Wistinetzki, ed., Sefer Hasidim (Berlin: M’kize Nirdamim, 1891), trans. Soloveitchik, in ibid., 312. For a related article on the background of Sefer Hasidim, see Ivan G. Marcus, “The Recensions and Structure of Sefer Hasidim,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 45 (1978): 131-153; and on the early 152 sections of Sefer Hasidim (dubbed “Sefer Hasidim I”), see Haym Soloveitchik, “Piety, Pietism and German Pietism: ‘Sefer Hasidim I’ and the Influence of Hasidei Ashkenaz,” Jewish Quarterly Review 92:3-4 (January-April 2002): 455-493. See, as well, the recent symposium about Sefer Hasidim that appeared in Jewish Quarterly Review 96:1 (Winter 2006).

[31] Most likely this is referring to the first passage in the introduction to Bereishit Rabbah which, based on Proverbs 8:30, refers to Torah as an instrument of a craftsman used in order to fashion the world.

[32] Our translation of the word “olam” as “the world” is important as it clearly varies from the Christian concept of “The Book of Nature.”

[33] Tzidkat ha-Tzadik 216.

[34] Reb Zadok truly made an art out of finding traditional textual support for otherwise innovative ideas. His expertise in this area was twofold. Firstly the very act of finding sources for ideas which were genuinely innovative and oftentimes radical. Secondly his command of such a wide ranch of sources allowed him to ‘create’ fascinating connections between texts which were seemingly unrelated. Oftentimes he would find support for Kabbalistic idea in Halakhic texts. For a more detailed discussion regarding Reb Zadok’s methods of interpretation, see Amira Liwer, “Oral Torah in the Writings of Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin,” (PhD dissertation, Hebrew University, 2006), especially 379-382 (Hebrew).

[35] Mahshavot Harutz #11.

[36] Written by Azariah de’ Rossi (1513-1578). For more on the thought of Azariah de Rossi and the work Me’or Einayim, see Lester A. Segal, Historical Consciousness and Religious Tradition in Azariah de’ Rossi’s Me’or ‘Einayim (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988), Giuseppe Veltri, “The Humanist Sense of History and the Jewish Idea of Tradition: Azaria de’ Rossi’s Critique of Philo Alexandrinus,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 2:4 (1995): 372-393, the very important scholarly contribution in Azariah de Rossi, The Light of the Eyes, trans. Joanna Weinberg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), as well as Giuseppe Veltri, “Conceptions of History: Azariah de’ Rossi,” in Renaissance Philosophy in Jewish Garb: Foundations and Challenges in Jewish Thought on the Eve of Modernity (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009), 73-96.

[37] Mahshavot Harutz ibid.

[38] See the work of Reb Zadok, “Kuntres Zikeron la-Rishonim,” published many years later in Sinai 21 (Nisan, 1947) and Kutres Shemot ba-Aretz which discuss, respectively, the history and chronology of the prophets and the post-Talmudic sages. For further discussion regarding Reb Zadok’s iconoclastic approach to historical study and scholarly analysis see Gershon Kitsis, ed., Me’at Latzadik (Jerusalem: Beis Publications, 2000), 255-268 (Hebrew).

[39] For a detailed analysis of Reb Zadok’s innovative approach towards Gentile wisdom, see Yaakov Elman, “The History of Gentile Wisdom According to R. Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin,” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 3:1 (1993): 153-187.

[40] About “bat kol,” see Encyclopedia Talmudit, vol. 5, cols. 1-4 (Hebrew). See also Aspaklarya, vol. 4 (Jeruslaem: Hotzat Aspaklarya, 1998), 381-385 (Hebrew).

[41] Dover Tzedek #111.

[42] Reb Zadok cites this statement of R. Simcha Bunim, which is a Hasidic reinterpretation of Psalms 104:24, in several places. For some examples see Tzidkat ha-Tzadik #232, Mahshavot Harutz, ibid. Reb Zadok was deeply influenced by the thought of Przysucha and in many ways his thought is built upon the foundation built by Przysucha. Though Reb Zadok personally never studied under R. Simcha Bunim, his Hasidic master, R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica, was initially a student of R. Simcha Bunim. Thought much has been written about the influence of Izbica on Reb Zadok’s thought, sadly, the effects of Przysucha have been generally neglected by the scholarly community. For more on the life of R. Simcha Bunim of Przysucha, see the very important work by Michael Rosen, The Quest for Authenticity: The Thought of Reb Simhah Bunim (Jerusalem: Urim Publication, 2008), and see the earlier article by Alan Brill, “Grandeur and Humility in the Writings of R. Simha Bunim of Przysucha,” in Yaakov Elman and Jeffrey S. Gurock, eds., Hazon Nahum: Studies in Jewish Law, Thought, and History Presented to Dr. Norman Lamm on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1997), 419-448.

[43] Pri Tzadik Nassoh #13. See also Pri Zadik Balak #2. This approach, that the experiential life of man serves as a repository for God’s messages, can also be found in other Jewish thinkers, most notably R. Nahman of Bratslav (in, for example, Likkutei Moharan 54:2). For more on the intriguing relationship between Reb Zadok and R. Nachman’s writings, see my unpublished essay “Between Bratslav and Lublin,” written as a graduate seminar paper for Prof. Jonathan Dauber at the Bernard Revel Graduate School (Yeshiva University).

[44] See Likkutei Amarim #7, Divrei Halomot #23, and Pri Tzadik, Naso #5.

Yehuda Azoulay’s Maran: The Life and Scholarship of Hacham Ovadia Yosef

Yehuda Azoulay’s Maran: The Life and Scholarship of Hacham Ovadia Yosef has just appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present this excerpt.

Chapter 17: Back to Jerusalem

In 1958, Hacham Ovadia was invited to serve as a judge on the Jerusalem bet din, beside Rabbi Waldenberg and Rabbi Qafih.[1] His gratitude for being able to move back to Jerusalem is displayed in his third volume of Yabia Omer, published in 1960, and his joy and satisfaction at serving on this prestigious bet din with first-class scholars is evident in a number of places where he mentioned this job.

Rabbi Waldenberg,[2] author of the Tzitz Eliezer responsa, was the head of the bet din and he became Hacham Ovadia’s study partner at this time. Despite their disagreements on many issues of practical halachah,[3] the two enjoyed each other’s company very much. Rabbi Waldenberg was very pleased with the addition of Hacham Ovadia to the bet din; he referred to Yabia Omer in the warmest of terms.[4] Hacham Ovadia as well mentioned Rabbi Waldenberg endearingly throughout his works. He learned much in this forum regarding working on a bet din.[5]

In Petah Tikvah, though Rabbi Katz accorded him great respect and placed him in charge of writing the Sephardic divorces, Hacham Ovadia was frustrated that the court did not see the significance of following Rabbi Yosef Karo for the Sephardic population. Finding himself – the one Sephardic judge – always the minority in the court of three, he could not always convince the two Ashkenazic judges of the importance of his approach.[6] In Jerusalem, he usually served beside the Yemenite Rabbi Qafih, finally creating a majority of Sephardic-Eastern scholars in the courtroom. Rabbi Waldenberg understood early on that, so long as the litigants were Sephardic, the pair could not be swayed by his Ashkenazic leanings and traditions.

In 1964, the issue of ethnic name spellings came up again. This time, however, Hacham Ovadia did not have to resign in protest.

Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky[7] had been the Av Bet Din of London until his retirement in 1951, when he moved to Bayit Vegan. His bet din in London, who followed his instructions and was still in touch with him for guidance, wrote a divorce with Ashkenazic spelling of the husband’s name “George” for a Sephardic couple; the wife lived in Jerusalem and Hacham Ovadia was on the bet din that reviewed it. The couple themselves preferred the Ashkenazic spelling, but Hacham Ovadia refused to deliver the bill of divorce to the woman, and wrote to the London bet din asking for it to be rewritten. The bet din, however, had followed Rabbi Abramsky’s guidelines in writing the names, so they called Rabbi Abramsky with the story.

Rabbi Abramsky called Rabbi Waldenberg for a meeting and the two agreed that they thought the Ashkenazic spelling correct, but Rabbi Waldenberg was familiar with the tenacity of the two Sephardim on his bet din, and since they were the majority, he explained to Rabbi Abramsky that there was no way they could get the divorce approved without changing the spelling. Eventually, Rabbi Abramsky recognized that he had no recourse but to ask the London bet din to rewrite it.

Maran concluded, “Rabbi Abramsky is indeed a brilliant man, but when it comes to Torah we do not let the honor of any man color our rulings. Our Torah is a Torah of truth.”[8]

Hacham Ovadia’s confidence in and loyalty to his own approach in halachic matters shows up throughout his work on this bet din. Just as he felt it a holy mission to teach halachah without giving precedence to the Ben Ish Hai or the Arizal, he would not change his mind for the honor of teachers, mentors, or peers once he was convinced of his position. In 1962, for example, his bet din had ruled that a husband should not have to pay child support for his stepdaughter in a certain case. The appeals court, which had the final say, overturned the ruling, and sent back the file requesting that their court determine the amount of child support. Hacham Ovadia refused to deal with the procedure, because he continued to maintain that the man should not have to pay. The other members of the court backed him up. He refused to listen to the appeals court against his better judgment, even though it consisted of Rabbi Yaakov Ades – his former teacher, Rabbi Elyashiv – the Torah giant whom Hacham Ovadia held in high esteem, and Rabbi Zolty – a friend and colleague whom he respected as well.[9]

Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim was the Sephardic chief rabbi at that time, following Rabbi Benzion Meir Hai Uziel’s passing in 1953. Sometime during those first few years, Hacham Nissim made it clear to Hacham Ovadia that “I know you will take over for me.” In 1960, as Rabbi Nissim was completing a five-year term, the Sephardic Community Council, headed by the committee’s heads, Elyashar and Sitton, nominated Hacham Ovadia as a candidate for the position.[10] Rabbi Tzvi Pesah Frank pushed him unremittingly to submit his candidacy. At the end of 1962, the rabbis of the Sephardic Council declared Hacham Ovadia the chief rabbi, but in the end, even after postponing the elections twice, Hacham Ovadia did not submit his candidacy, but lingered a few years longer in the world of writing and teaching, his labor of love.

Kol Sinai Magazine[11]

While Hacham Ovadia’s status was steadily rising among the Sephardic sector of Jerusalem through the few hundred who attended his lectures, his true greatness was only known by those who could read Yabia Omer, which was written for a somewhat more scholarly audience.

In 1962, the Sephardic Community Council asked Hacham Ovadia to write a column in its monthly magazine, Kol Sinai. The magazine published biographies and articles that related to Sephardic Jewry. Hacham Ovadia undertook the task, and stood by it monthly for seven years. This magazine, read by many in and out of Israel, is what positioned Hacham Ovadia as the authority and number one address for any Jew, in any area of halachah.

The writing style he adopted in Kol Sinai is nothing like that of Yabia Omer. His magazine articles were very focused and, though he brought support for all his rulings and noted all his sources, he did not go into detail. He generally followed Rabbi Yosef Karo, and noted this whenever the prevalent custom followed the Ben Ish Hai or others. There is no smattering of ethics or stories; these are encyclopedia-like entries by topic: laws of Shabbat, holidays, prayers, etc. He wrote them in language that the layman could understand and relegated any technical discussion or sources to footnotes.

The Hazon Ovadia series on the laws of the festivals, published forty years later, was based on these magazine articles.[12]

Friday Night Classes

Hacham Ovadia delivered a very popular class on Friday nights in Yeshivat Porat Yosef. His brother Naim was the manager of a synagogue, and one week in 1965, he asked his famous elder brother to come speak there. Although Naim knew it probably wasn’t feasible, as Hacham Ovadia had a commitment to Porat Yosef at that time, he nonetheless made his request, and was quite surprised when Hacham Ovadia agreed. That Friday night, he first gave the class in Naim’s synagogue and led the evening prayers there, and afterward left for Porat Yosef to deliver his regular lecture, somewhat later than usual.

While they waited for Hacham Ovadia, Rabbi Binyamin Jorgi informed the students that Hacham Ovadia would arrive late and he gave a mini class in the meantime. Hacham Ovadia arrived about half an hour later and delivered the class as usual.

Toward the end of the lecture, the third floor of the yeshivah suddenly collapsed. Chunks of concrete, iron beams, and planks of wood fell to the street on all sides of the building. The ground floor, however, was unaffected, and everyone within the building remained safe. Had Hacham Ovadia began the class at the usual time, hundreds of students would have been milling around the building at the time of the collapse, and there could have been fatal injuries.

Exiting the building by way of a shattered window and mattresses laid over the debris, the students accompanied Maran all the way home with song and dance. The building was closed off until it was safely renovated.

When Hacham Ovadia spoke to his brother on Sunday, he asked him, “You’ve been managing the synagogue for four years and you never asked me to speak. What made you do so this week, when you knew I wouldn’t be able to come without rearranging my regular class?”

When Naim had no material answer, Hacham Ovadia continued pensively, “And I wonder what made me agree. G-d performs miracles through those who have merit and both of us were fortunate to protect the participants at the Friday night class. This was a truly joyous event.”

Naim suggested that they share the story with a reporter, but Hacham Ovadia insisted there was no need.[13]

Rabbinical High Court

The Rabbinical High Court is the appellate court for Israel’s municipal rabbinical courts. One of the chief rabbis serves as its Av Bet Din. The bet din was established during the years of the British Mandate.

When Hacham Ovadia began his term there, the bet din met in Hechal Shelomo on King George Street. In 1967, it moved to the Old City. Today it shares the Frumin House on King George with the Jerusalem bet din and is headed by Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.

The Rabbinical High Court appointed new judges in 1965. Hacham Ovadia was already a favored candidate, and he joined at age forty-four. Hacham Salman Hugi-Aboudi,[14] Rabbi Eliezer Goldschmidt,[15] and Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli[16] were appointed on the same occasion.

Already on the bet din were Rabbi Elyashiv,[17] fifty-five at the time, and Rabbi Zolty,[18] who was the same age as Hacham Ovadia.[19]

Hacham Ovadia found a close friend in Rabbi Elyashiv, and said he was like a brother to him.[20] He enjoyed tackling the country’s most complex halachic issues together with Rabbi Elyashiv for he valued the latter’s extraordinary proficiency and clarity of understanding. This friendship between the two leading poskim of the generation continued after Hacham Ovadia became the chief rabbi and Rabbi Elyashiv resigned from his position.

He remained on this bet din, becoming its Av Bet Din with his election to chief rabbi in 1973. As with all his bet din jobs, many of those rulings were printed in Yabia Omer.[21] In 1984, he led the bet din, joined by Rabbi Waldenberg, Rabbi Yitzhak Kolitz,[22] and Rabbi Qafih who was promoted in 1970.[23]

The Sephardic Torah Student[24]

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Porat Yosef was the only major Sephardic yeshivah in Israel. Many Sephardic students went to the Ponevezh yeshivah in Bnei Brak, and when Porat Yosef’s building was destroyed by the Arab Legion during the War of Independence, prominent Jerusalem Sephardic families turned to Ashkenazic yeshivot, especially Kol Torah, run by Rabbi Shelomo Zalman Auerbach. In this way, many hundreds of Sephardic and Yemenite youth internalized the ideas and mentality, and adopted the unique language and dress of their teachers and peers in Lithuanian-style yeshivot.

Students of a yeshivah are in most cases expected to follow the practices of the school; thus Sephardic boys learned to pray with an Ashkenazic accent, at least for those paragraphs recited aloud, wear the garb of a Lithuanian Torah student, and generally conduct themselves according to the norms accepted within those halls. This was a very difficult as well as formative experience for many of these boys.

Hacham Ovadia dealt with the halachic issues that cropped up from this situation,[25] always with the goal of fortifying a distinct Sephardic identity, without alienating the boys from their yeshivot.

Sephardic students of the Ashkenazic Hevron yeshivah asked[26] whether it would be acceptable for them to shave until the first of Av, in accordance with Sephardic custom, or if they were obliged to follow the prevalent custom in the yeshivah and stop shaving from the beginning of the Three Weeks.

Hacham Ovadia answered that since Jews worldwide are aware that Sephardim follow the Shulhan Aruch, and since every group of Jews knows that varying customs are all holy, there is no concern that one will violate the prohibition of splitting the community[27] – a prohibition which does not apply in situations where each group is following its own custom. Everyone must follow his family customs, even within the same synagogue. Nevertheless, he recommended that the boys refrain from shaving, out of respect for and sensitivity to their environment.

Another question[28] deals with the Sephardic custom of wearing tzitzit tucked in, among their Ashkenazic friends who wear them out. According to Kabbalah, tzitzit are tucked inside the pants, to conform with the mandate to “walk modestly with your G-d.”[29] Hacham Ovadia encouraged Sephardic boys to follow this practice and Rabbi Ezra Attiya maintained that “a Sephardic boy who wears his tzitzit out may be guilty of disparaging previous generations.”[30]

Ultimately, however, Hacham Ovadia concluded that the obstacles to developing as a Sephardic yeshivah student in the genuine sense within the Lithuanian yeshivot were insurmountable, as the Ashkenazic yeshivot were fundamentally different from Sephardic ones as far as their underlying visions and goals. This will be discussed more fully in the coming chapters.

Hacham Ovadia, then, wished to reverse the trend of Sephardic boys studying in Ashkenazic yeshivot. He hoped that attracting them back to their own yeshivot would help preserve a unique Sephardic religious identity. Sociologically, he wished to present an alternate image of the ideal Torah lifestyle. Yet perhaps more importantly was the alternative he offered in actual study. He sought to reestablish a distinct Sephardic learning style, which in certain respects is markedly different from that of the Lithuanian Torah world.

Despite the religious intensity of Porat Yosef, the larger Sephardic community in Israel was losing its independent character of cultural codes and halachic customs. The 1940s in Jerusalem saw the Sephardic community join the underground resistance movements, which meant integrating into the Ashkenazic hegemony and cultural assimilation (often characterized by adopting an irreligious lifestyle).[31] Hand in hand with the experience of cultural assimilation, Jerusalem’s Sephardic Jews suffered from a shortage of Torah leadership of any stature. Outside Porat Yosef and its rabbis, few scholars carried the banner of Sephardic tradition, either in Torah study or halachah. Those years witnessed prolific Ashkenazic halachic literature, while Sephardic Jews published next to nothing. Seventy-five percent of rabbinical judges were Ashkenazic. The number of Sephardim who took the test for the judicial rabbinate was negligible and these usually hailed from Lithuanian-style yeshivot and had adopted an Ashkenazic tradition of study and halachic ruling.[32] Meanwhile, most litigants of these bate din were Sephardic.[33]

Sephardic Torah Judaism was in crisis.

Hacham Ovadia jumped in headlong to change all that. In 1965, he approached the heads of the Sephardic committee and established the Study Hall for Rabbis and Rabbinical Judges which would train young men to lead communities and serve as judges carrying the tradition of Sephardic Judaism. The committee provided him with a building that they owned in Talbieh, as well as scholarships. It opened in 1966 with fifteen students. The course provided three years of study, culminating in a test on sections Even Ha’ezer and Hoshen Mishpat, toward the judicial examinations administered by the rabbinate. After the Six Day War, the school moved to the Old City, to synagogue Tiferet Yerushalayim. Hacham Ovadia stood at its head and gave halachah classes three times a week. He tested the young men weekly and supervised their well-being.[34]

There was a yeshivah high school on the premises as well, run at the time by Rabbi Yehuda Amital. Hacham Ovadia maintained a loose connection with the high school, delivering lectures to the students periodically. Upon the graduation of the first class of the yeshivah, Hacham Ovadia pronounced this project “the crown of the Sephardic Committee in Jerusalem, which took the responsibility upon themselves of establishing a generation of rabbis and judges who shall restore the crown to its former glory.”[35]

Hacham Ovadia worked to shape the Sephardic yeshivah world into a vehicle that would continue restoring the crown to its former glory. Later joined by his sons, he established a few elite Sephardic educational institutions that adopted his learning style and halachic methodology. In 1973, when he was elected chief rabbi, he promptly set up a bet midrash for judges called “Hazon Ovadia,” and financed stipends for the married students. The kollel’s alumni serve as judges and rabbis both in Israel and abroad. In 1986, Hacham Ovadia established another kollel, Yehaveh Da’at, with his son, Rabbi David, at its helm. It is considered the premier Sephardic kollel the world over. Hacham Ovadia delivered regular lectures there and kept in close touch with its students. In 1993, Hacham Ovadia opened a yeshivah for higher learning, headed by his son, Rabbi Yitzhak, where hundreds of students were trained in his father’s methods. In 1996, the kollel Ma’or Yisrael opened. At its head stands Rabbi Moshe, Hacham Ovadia’s youngest son. Through these institutions, Maran molded the next generation of Sephardic Torah scholars.

Rabbi Zevin, quoted in the preface to Yabia Omer volume I, cheered the “redeemer” of Sephardic Jewry who will raise it from its humbled state. The editor of Kol Sinai[36] said the same: “This hero has given form to the period of history in which he lived – the period that restored the crown of Torah and glory to Sephardic Jewry – and is the artisan who molded a new spiritual period that shall be known, in the religious annals of our nation, as the period of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.”

The day Rabbi Attiya disengaged the young man from his father’s shop and brought him back to the yeshivah, Hacham Ovadia was adopted by another world. His spiritual father was the rosh yeshivah, his closest relatives were the boys beside him on the bench, and the library, his playground. It was from the yeshivah that he embarked, protected by his spiritual father, to give his first classes. It was the rosh yeshivah who sat beside him on his first job on the rabbinical court, his intervention which brought him to Cairo, and to him Hacham Ovadia returned at the end of his mission there. His repeated attempts, almost unknown to the public, to establish a body of higher learning for Eastern spiritual leadership, point to the horizon on which his eyes were set: a generation of rabbis and judges proudly bearing the tradition of Sephardic Jews in the holy land of Israel.

[1] Pronounced Kapah; 1917-2000; born in Sana’a, Yemen, he immigrated to Israel in 1943, and worked as a judge on the Jerusalem bet din and then the Rabbinical High Court. He was the rabbi of the Yemenite community and is best known for his translations and commentaries of the Rambam’s works and the translations of other Sephardic literature of that time period.

[2] 1915-2006; Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg was known as “the Tzitz Eliezer” after his encyclopedic halachic treatise which was one of the great achievements of halachic scholarship of the twentieth century. He was a leading rabbi and Av Bet Din of Jerusalem, and then a judge on the Rabbinical High Court, and was the rabbi of the Sha’are Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. He won the Israel Prize for rabbinical studies in 1976. He also wrote Hilchot Medinah, three volumes dealing with halachot regarding the State of Israel.

[3] See, for example, the discussion in chapter 7 regarding whether women should make a blessing when performing time-bound mitzvot such as lulav.

[4] Yabia Omer vol. IV, O.H. 31

[5] Yabia Omer vol. III, introduction; Hazon Ovadia – Eulogies, p. 474

[6] Ovadia Yosef, Biography

[7] 1886-1976; born in present-day Belarus, Rabbi Abramsky studied at premier Lithuanian yeshivot, particularly Brisk, and became a practicing rabbi by the age of seventeen. Following the Russian Revolution, he was at the forefront of opposition to the Communist government’s attempts to repress the Jewish religion and culture. As a result, the Russian government refused Abramsky permission to leave and take up the rabbinate of Petah Tikvah in Palestine in both 1926 and 1928. In 1928, he started a Hebrew magazine, but the Soviet authorities closed it after the first two issues. In 1929, he was arrested and sentenced to five years of hard labor in Siberia. Upon his release in 1931, he moved to London where he was the Av Bet Din until he retired and made aliyah. In Israel, he served as rosh yeshivah of Slabodka. He received the Israel Prize in 1956 for his twenty-four volume Hazon Yehezkel on the Tosefta.

[8] Yabia Omer vol. X, E.H. 34; also retold in Ma’adane Hamelech (Transcriptions of Maran’s Lectures) vol. II, pp. 370-371.

[9] Yabia Omer vol. IX, E.H. 27

[10] Although until then chief rabbis usually served until their passing, the rabbinical establishment was calling for shortening the term and holding elections.

[11] MiMaran ad Maran, pp. 86-87

[12] See introduction to Hazon Ovadia – High Holidays, Sukkot, Hanukah, Tu BeShevat, Purim, and Holidays, where he wrote that the material in those volumes are based on his articles in Kol Sinai forty years earlier.

[13] Sha’ah Tovah interview with Naim

[14] He served until his retirement in 1970.

[15] 1909-1992; born in Lithuania, he aided his teacher Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Sher in founding the Slabodka yeshivah.

[16] 1909-1995; he was born in Belarus, studied under Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky in Lithuania, and when he moved to Israel became a prominent religious Zionist rabbi and posek.

[17] He served on this court from 1956 until his resignation in 1973.

[18] Also elected in 1956

[19] Hazon Ovadia – Eulogies, p. 476

[20] Mishpacha, July 2012

[21] For example, a ruling written in 1980, when he was joined by Rabbi Zolty and Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, is recorded in Yabia Omer vol. VII, H.M. 4.

[22] Yabia Omer vol. VII, E.H. 23; Rabbi Yitzhak Kolitz, 1922-2003, was a Lithuanian Av Bet Din of Tel Aviv, then joined the high court in the late seventies, and became rabbi of Jerusalem in 1983.

[23] Yabia Omer vol. X, E.H. 31

[24] Largely translated and adapted from MiMaran ad Maran, pp. 91-92 and 199-200

[25] E.g., see reply to students in Lakewood, in chapter 44.

[26] Yehaveh Da’at vol. IV, p. 190; see also Hazon Ovadia – Fast Days, p. 159.

[27] See Yevamot 13b based on Devarim 14:1 for the prohibition against forming separate groups among Israel (“lo titgodedu”).

[28] Yabia Omer vol. IX, O.H. 108:18 states that while tzitzit should be worn under the clothing, individuals in Ashkenazic yeshivot, or those new to Judaism, can wear them out.

[29] Yehave Da’at vol. II, p. 5

[30] Ohr LeZion vol. II, p. 27, note 2 by Rabbi Benzion Abba-Shaul

[31] See N. Horowitz, pp. 30-60.

[32] See report by A. Doron, Kol Sinai, 1965, p. 401.

[33] This is the case in many vicinities, as secular Ashkenazim bring their cases to the secular courts system, while the Ashkenazic haredi community is more likely use the rabbinical courts of the Edah Haharedit. Sephardic litigants across the religious spectrum more often bring their complaints to the State-regulated bet din system.

[34] Details found in Bama’aracha, Tishre 1968, p. 1.

[35] MiMaran ad Maran, pp. 91-92

[36] Shevat 1971, page 340

Tobacco and the Hasidim and a Comment on Artscroll

Pursuing the Quest: Selected Writings of Louis Jacobs has just appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present the following excerpts from the book. (The Note on Artscroll is part of a longer article.)

Tobacco and the Hasidim and a Comment on Artscroll

Louis Jacobs

References in literature to the use of tobacco by hasidic Jews are numerous [1]. Although there is little direct evidence to indicate how widespread it was, the references suggest it was fairly extensive. Let us examine some of these. In his autobiography Solomon Maimon (d. 1800) describes a youthful visit to the court of Dov Ber of Mezhirech, the founder of the hasidic movement. Maimon remarks:

‘Some simple men of this sect, who saunter about
idly the entire day, pipe in mouth, when asked what they were thinking about,
replied, “We are thinking about God”.’ [2]

There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of Maimon’s report, which is substantiated by other early sources. For example, Shivhei Habesht, [3] the legendary biography of the Baal Shem Tov, refers to the famous lulke [4] which the founder of the hasidic movement used to smoke. While recent scholarship [5] tends to treat this work with less scepticism than did earlier scholars, even if all references to the Baal Shem Tov smoking tobacco [6] are fabrications, it is true that hasidim were known to smoke, for their early opponents, the mitnagedim, repeatedly castigated them for wasting time on smoking, which the hasidim believed prepared them for prayer.

One characteristic example in an anti-hasidic polemic is the statement in Zemir aritzim veharvot terurim (published in Alexnitz near Brody in 1772). This work criticizes the hasidim for delaying their prayers in the morning so that they can ‘place incense in their nostrils’. [7] In a letter written from Vilna in 1772, the mitnagedim say of hasidim: ‘They wait many hours before reciting their prayers . . . and they spend all their days in the smoke which proceeds from their mouth.’ [8] In all these early sources smoking as an aid to prayer does not have any special hasidic significance: it is only a means to contemplation. This is probably also true for the hasidic tradition, [9] which holds: ‘When the Baal Shem Tov wished to proceed to the upper worlds he would inhale tobacco and at each puff he would proceed from world to world.’ [10]

There do not seem to be any references to tobacco in the classical hasidic works of doctrine, the hasidic Torah. Their absence from these sources may be because aids to contemplation (such as tobacco) were considered irrelevant to the ideal itself, although contemplation was clearly important in hasidic thought. Rabbi Phinehas of Koretz (Korzec) (1725-91), an associate of the Baal Shem Tov, reportedly observed:

With regard to imbibing tobacco, anything the body requires for it to be healthy is the same for all men. Therefore, since not everyone imbibes tobacco, it follows that it is not a permanent feature in
creation, but only has healing powers for some. It has no healing power, and can do harm, to the majority of men, since it dries up the [bodily] fluid. [11]

Similarly, another reliable source records that Jacob Isaac Horowitz, the Seer of Lublin (1745-1825), used to take snuff during his prayers as an aid to concentration [12] It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that various mystical and specifically hasidic ideas were imputed to smoking tobacco. While the mitnagedim state that hasidim ‘place incense in their nostrils’, the reference to this is no more than an extrapolation on the verse ‘They shall put incense before Thee’ (Deut. 33: 10). It is not itself conclusive evidence that early hasidim associated smoking with offering incense in the Temple. [13] In Sperling’s Ta’amei haminhagim (a very late work), [14] however, we find that the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov believe that ‘the weed known as tobacco is considered by the zaddikim to be like incense’. Moreover, following from the mystical idea of ‘raising the sparks’ that had fallen to the realms of the demonic powers [15] smoking was thought to be necessary to elevate the very subtle sparks that reside in tobacco. Unlike the sparks in food, which can be elevated when someone who is in a spirit of holiness eats the food [16] tobacco sparks cannot rise that way. Those subtle sparks can only be rescued for the holy by smoking or taking snuff.

A passage from the Talmud (Keritot 6a) states that a minute quantity of ‘smoke-raiser’ (a herb that causes smoke from the incense to rise) was added to the incense in the Temple. This passage is interpreted to mean that smoking tobacco raises the very small holy sparks which cannot be raised any other way. Sperling also refers to the healing properties of tobacco, which he calls segulah, a quasi-magical method. [17] If a woman finds it difficult to give birth, she should be given a pinch of snuff and this will help ease the birth. Nevertheless, Sperling was unable to discover a single reference to tobacco in classical hasidic works.

Rabbi Abraham Judah Schwartz (1827-83), a prominent non-hasidic Hungarian rabbi, was eventually won over to Hasidism. In the biography written by Dov Beer Spitzer (Schwartz’s grandson), [18] we read:

My grandfather, of blessed memory, used to smoke tobacco (including cigars) to the extent that, occasionally, when he was engrossed in his studies and also when he taught his pupils in the beit midrash, it was as if he stood in the midst of a cloud so that it was impossible to come near to him. His son Naphtali Hakohen, of blessed memory, repeated in his name that the zaddikim intend great tikunim [19] and have the following in mind. [20] The pipe is made of clay, which is a mineral. The wood stem represents the plant. The bone mouthpiece comes from an animal. The smoker is a speaking creature [medaber, a human being, and fourth among the categories of mineral, plant, animal, and human] and he elevates all the stages beneath him (mineral, plant, and animal) to the stage of the speaking creature. For the zaddikim never carry out any empty act, Heaven forbid, but have their hearts concentrated on Heaven.

It is also reported that Rabbi Henikh of Olesko (1800-84), son-in-law of Rabbi Shalom Roke’ah of Belz (1779-1855), would take his snuff-box in his hand and inhale the snuff on Friday nights when he recited ‘Kegavna’, the kabbalistic prayer. [21] He would sing certain tones as he inhaled, and if any people were present who were ill or possessed by a dybbuk, a wandering soul which enters the body of a human being as a refuge from the demons which pursue it, they would begin to dance and move while the rabbi inhaled the snuff [22]. Those close to him realized that it was an especially propitious time. Further, Rabbi Eliezer Zevi of Komarno (d. 1898) was reported to have said that the letters of the word tabak have the same numerical value (112) as those of the word yabok, which stands for yihud, berakhah, kedushah (‘unification’, ‘blessing`, and ‘holiness’) and also ya’anenu beyom korenu (‘He will answer us on the day we call’). [23] Thus, he believed that tobacco helped the zaddik to achieve union, bestow blessings on his followers, and raise himself to greater heights of holiness, as well as predispose God to answer his prayers.

Although the hasidic master Rabbi Solomon Shapira (1832-93) is reported to have smoked only at the close of Simhat Torah, on Purim, and on Shushan Purim, [24] on those occasions he would smoke heavily.
In his later years he was also reported to have smoked at the festive meal to celebrate the completion of a talmudic tractate and during Hanukah. At the celebratory meal following a circumcision he was also known to have smoked. Besides the reports of smoking on religious holy days, when Shapira was under severe stress he would smoke cigars in moderation to calm him and keep him from having a nervous breakdown. On the other hand, he was known to have smoked heavily when he travelled: on those occasions he never took a book with him to read and would seldom speak. As he smoked he appeared to be lost in contemplation.

A hasid who knew that Shapira had smoked heavily in his youth once asked him why he gave up the habit when he grew older. The hasid added that since Rabbi Hayim Halberstam of Sanz (1793-1876) used to smoke very heavily, he wondered why Shapira did not follow his example. [25] Shapira replied that Halberstam was reputed to have been ‘one of the serafim’ (Isaiah 6: 6); he was a seraf (fiery angel) and none could match him. But the real reason for giving up smoking, Shapira said, was that it wasted time; it
was better to achieve union through study of the Torah and follow its precepts, engaging in practices essential for bodily strength rather than in luxuries like smoking, which one can live without.

There is a tendency among hasidic masters and hasidim generally to minimize the importance of smoking. In Rahamei ha’av, [26] a short work that first appeared in Lvov in 1868, the author, Jacob Klein (d. 1890), states that young men should not smoke cigars because such a practice is only vanity. [27] Klein also refers to the suggestion ‘in the holy books of the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov’ that tobacco is like incense, even
though that motif cannot be found in the classical hasidic works. He adds that although Rabbi Shalom Roke’ah of Belz used to smoke as a young man, he gave it up when he noticed that a colleague in the beit midrash spent a great deal of time cleaning his pipe, while he (Shalom) could study an entire page of Talmud in the time his colleague took to clean his pipe. Klein also reports that the hasidic master Rabbi Moses ben Zvi Teitelbaum of Ujhely (1759-1841) never smoked.

Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin (1797-1850) was known to have been a heavy smoker. [28] When Rabbi Moses ben Israel Polier of Kobrin visited the rebbe of Ruzhin on the eve of the Sabbath, he found him with a pipe in his hand in a smoke-filled room. Noticing his guest’s surprise, the rebbe of Ruzhin told the following story. A pious Jew lost his way just as the Sabbath was about to begin. Seeing a house in front of him, he went inside. To his alarm he saw there a notorious bandit sitting at a table upon which there rested a frightening blunderbuss. The man thought: if I try to run away, the bandit will shoot me in the back, but if I stay here he will probably kill me. The only way out seemed to be to seize the gun and fire at the bandit. If I succeed in killing him, he thought, well and good. But, even if I miss, the room will be filled with smoke and I will be able to escape in the confusion. Then the rebbe of Ruzhin laid his pipe aside and said: now it is the Sabbath. Thus, for the rebbe of Ruzhin the pipe was a smoke-screen against the blandishments of the yetzer hara (the evil inclination). Smoking is a diversion, a risky indulgence through which the zaddik can gain the upper hand over his enemy, the yetzer hara.

The early hasidim undoubtedly used tobacco as an aid to concentration; their smoking was only unusual in the amount of time they allotted for it. Although tobacco was brought to Europe from the New World, where it had been used as part of the American Indian religious ceremonies, [29] the hasidim (and Western smokers in general) did not use it in this sense. Rather, the early hasidim smoked tobacco as an aid to concentration. It was only much later that the incense motif and the idea of raising holy sparks were
introduced. Zaddikim such as Hayim Halberstam of Sanz and Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin were heavy smokers, while others such as Rabbi Shalom Roke’ah of Belz and Rabbi Moses ben Zvi Teitelbaum either gave up smoking or had never smoked at all.Today, despite the acknowledged health dangers of smoking, there is no evidence that the hasidim have given up the habit, and it is too early to say if they will (a speculation equally valid for those who are not hasidim). In any event, smoking tobacco was always peripheral for the hasidim; in the hasidic literature it had no special significance.

A Note on Artscroll’s Commentary to Psalms ch. 137

On verse 1: “By the rivers of Babylon”, the Artscroll refers to the Midrash Pesikta Rabbati (28) where R. Johanan says that the Jewish people, accustomed to the pure water of their homeland, were now forced to drink the insanitary waters of the Euphrates from which many of them died. Here again the Artscroll fails to see the historical background to R. Johanan’s saying. To anyone with an historical sense it is obvious that R. Johanan, a Palestinian, was reading homiletically into the Biblical text the superiority, even in matters of health, of the Holy Land over Babylonia, the land of the rival Babylonian Rabbis. There are numerous instances of the Rabbis applying the Biblical texts to conditions of their own day. R. Johanan’s comment tells the historian nothing about what the Psalmist meant by “the rivers of Babylon” but everything about R. Johanan’s views, in the third century CE, regarding the desirability for Jews not to leave the Holy Land to reside in the apparently more salubrious Babylonia. It is not so, declares R. Johanan, the Holy Land is superior not only with regard to the study of the Torah but also with regard to its health-giving properties. R. Johanan’s comment has its place in a study of third-century Jewry. It has no place at all in a commentary to the Bible.

Notes1. On the halakhic problems connected with
smoking, see I. Z. Kahana, ‘Hatabak besifrut hahalakhah’, in his Mehkarim
besifrut hahalakhah (Jerusalem, 1973). The earliest discussion of these
questions is found in the works of the Turkish rabbi Hayim Benveniste
(1603-73), and Mordecai Halevy (d. 1684), who was dayan and a halakhic
authority in Cairo for more than forty years. They discuss the issue as part of
their treatment of the Turkish narghile, or hookah, in which the smoke
passes through water, hence the expression (later used for smoking a pipe and
taking snuff) ‘drinking titon’ (the Turkish (and Polish) name for
tobacco).

2. See Gershon David Hundert (ed.), Essential
Papers an Hasidism: Origins to the Present (New York, 1991), which contains
an Eng. trans. of Maimon’s account, pp. 11-24. The reference to the pipe-smoker
is on p. 17.

3. On this discussion, see the less than
adequate Eng. trans. of the Shivhei Habesht in In Praise of the Baal
Shem, trans. Dan Ben-Amos and Jerome R. Mintz (Bloomington, Ind., l970).

4. Ibid. where the Persian word is
transliterated incorrectly as lolkeh. On p. xxvi, puzzled by the
reference to ‘one lulke’ in the story related on p. 105 (no. 80), Mintz
interprets lulke to mean ‘a hand-rolled cigarette’. The lulke is really
a pipe with a long stem-a churchwarden’s pipe-and ‘one lulke’ simply
stands for a single pipeful or a single turn at the pipe. See ibid., index,
s.v. lolkeh for a list of all references to the pipe of the Besht and
others.

5. Murray J. Rosman, ‘Miedzyboz and Rabbi Israel
Baal Shem Tov’, in Hundert (ed.), Essential Papers on Hasidism.

6. Yaffa Eliach, ‘The Russian Dissenting Sects
and their Influence on Israel Baal Shem, Founder of Hasidism’, Proceedings
of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 36 (1968), 57-88, suggests
that the Baal Shem Tov’s lulke was a kind of tube filled with a far less
innocent substance than tobacco (pp. 80-1). There is no foundation for implying
that the Baal Shem Tov took drugs.

7. Mordecai Wilensky, Hasidim umitnagedim
(Jerusalem, 1970), i. 54. In the first letter quoted in Joseph Perl’s Megaleh
temirin (Vienna, 1819), 3a, an imaginary hasid tells how he handed the
zaddik his lulke but did not have the merit to light it for him.

8. Wilensky, Hasidim umitnagedim, i.
36-9. Cf. Wilensky’s index, s.v. ishun bemikteret, and his note on
hasidim and smoking on p. 39 n. 20.

9. Simeon Ze’ev of Meyenchov, ‘Doresh Tov’,
in Sefarim hakedoshim mikol talmidei habesht hakadosh, i (Brooklyn,
1980), no. 17, p. 111.

10. On the ascent of the Baal Shem Tov’s soul,
see the letter at the end of Jacob Joseph of Polonoye, Ben porat yosef
(Korzec, 1871). There is a translation of this in Louis Jacobs, Jewish
Mystical Testimonies (New York, 1977), 148-55. There is, however, no
mention that the ascent was achieved through smoking a pipe. On the ascent of
soul, see Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany, NY,
1995), 104-5.

11. M. Spiegel (ed.), Tosefta lemidrash
pinhas (Lvov, 1896), no. 167, p. 16a.

12. Samuel of Shinov (Sieniawa) (ed.), Ramatayim
tsofim (Jerusalem, 1970), 51a n. 13.

13. That Jews have not used incense in the
synagogue is probably intended to distinguish worship in the synagogue from
worship in the Temple. Nevertheless, the later hasidic identification of
smoking with incense suggests that some hasidim did see smoking as similar to
the incense of the Temple. I knew a hasidic rabbi who would regularly smoke a
Turkish cigarette before reciting the afternoon prayer, in which in hasidic
practice the biblical and talmudic passages about incense are recited.

14. Abraham Isaac Sperling (ed.), Ta’amei
haminhagim umekorei hadinim (Jerusalem, n.d.), 102. Cf. Aaron Wertheim, Halakhot
vehalikhot behasidut (Jerusalem, 1960), 224-5. Wertheim, like Sperling, can
produce only very few references to smoking among hasidim.

15. On the Lurianic doctrine of the sacred
sparks, see I. Tishby, Torat hara vehakelipah bekabalat ha’ari
(Jerusalem, 1965).

16. Louis Jacobs, ‘Eating as an Act of Worship
in Hasidic Thought’, in Siegfried Stein and Raphael Loewe (eds.), Studies in
Jewish Religious and Intellectual History Presented to Alexander Altmann
(Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1979).

17. Sperling (ed.), Ta’amei haminhagim,
581.

18. Eliezer Ehrenreich (ed.), Toledot kol
aryeh (2nd edn. Brooklyn, 1976), no. 36, pp. 27-8.
19. As in kabbalistic thought generally, the
doctrine of tikun, that human activities have a cosmic effect and can
‘put right’ the flaws on high, looms large in Hasidism.

20. This is probably the meaning of the
expression po’el bedimyono.

21. Zvi Moskovitch, Otzar hasipurim, xiv
(Jerusalem, 1955), no. 6, pp. 70-1.

22.
See Gershon Winkler, Dybbuk (New York, 1981), on the dybbuk and
exorcism.

23. Moskovitch, Otzar hasipurim.

24.
Ibid. p. 32, nos. 8 and 9.

25. On Hayim Halberstam as a heavy smoker, see
Yosef David Weisbert, Rabenu hakadosh mizantz (Jerusalem, 1976), 197,
211, and Yosef David Weisbert, Otzar hahayim (Jerusalem, 1978), 20. In
Isaac Landau’s account in Zikaron tov (Piotrkow, 1882), 16-17, no. 17,
Isaac of Neskhiv was another hasidic rebbe who smoked in his youth but gave it
up later. This account contains a puzzling statement that when Isaac did smoke in
his youth he was advised not to use Turkish tobacco by Levi Isaac of Berdichev,
possibly because of the association with the Turkish pretender Shabbatai Zvi.
26. (Jerusalem, 1977), no. 11, pp. 8b-9a, under ga’avah.

27. Although the book was first published
anonymously, it later became known that the author was Klein, a Hungarian rabbi
with hasidic leanings, though not himself a follower of any particular zaddik.
The passage is also quoted by Moskovitch, Otzar hasipurim, no. 7, p. 31.

28. Reuben ben Zvi David (ed.), Keneset
yisra’el (Warsaw, 1905), 16.

29. See Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of
Religion (New York, 1987), s.v. ‘smoking’, vol. xiii, pp. 365-70, and
‘tobacco’, vol. xiv, pp. 544-6.