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

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

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

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

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

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

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

Brückmann. D.

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

Introduction to a Priestly Mystery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Suggested Historical Solution

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

Apprenticeship versus University Training

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

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

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

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

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

Priestly Physicians Throughout the Centuries- The Many Dr. Cohens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nature of Anatomical Teaching in the Pre-Modern Era

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

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

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

University of Bologna: Anatomical Theater (est. 1636)

University of Leiden: Anatomical Theater (est. 1594)

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

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

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

A Pure Solution

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

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

The Architectural Design of the Padua Anatomical Theater

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

An Alternate Solution for Kohanim

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

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

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

Kohanim in Medical School from the Eighteenth Century Onwards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: The Opening and Reclosing of the Priestly Portal

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

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

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

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

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

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

Appendix:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For a collection of posts on Purim see here.  These deal with topics as diverse as Jewish humor and parodies, a series on the the origins of hamantaschen (and here and here), banging at the mention of Haman’s name, piyutim for Purim, mishcholot manot, identifying the personalities of Megliat Ester in secular sources, how to approach the story of Ester with children by the late Elliot Horowitz, as well as a couple posts regarding his book on Jewish violence and Purim, and mixed dancing on Purim.

Two Books by R. Bezalel Naor, R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk, Michael Lerner, and More

by Marc B. Shapiro

1. R. Bezalel Naor is well known for his enormous contributions to what we can call “Rav Kook Studies”. His outstanding translations and analysis have cemented his reputation as one of the leading interpreters of Rav Kook, as well as the most prolific writer on Rav Kook in English. I personally owe a great debt to Naor, as can seen in my forthcoming book on Rav Kook (though I suspect he will reject some of my readings).

Yet many are unaware of Naor’s numerous writings that are not focused on Rav Kook and that go back decades. (Unfortunately, they are not all available on Otzar Hachochma.) In fact, my first exposure to Naor was as a graduate student when I came across his 1984 edition and commentary on Rabad’s hasagot to Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ha-Madda and Sefer Ahavah. As with all of Naor’s writings, he discusses a variety of matters that arise from the text he is commenting on. (In Naor’s Ma’amar al Yishmael, he published the letter sent to him by Prof. Isadore Twersky upon receiving Naor’s edition of Rabad’s hasagot.)

In this post, I would like to focus on two books from Naor that deal with Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. The first is Shod Melakhim,[1] published in 2018, and the second is Ya’akov mi-le-Var Moshe mi-le-Gav,[2] published in 2024. These and other books written by Naor can be purchased here.

Shod Melakhim contains studies of Naor on aspects of the Mishneh Torah, such as the mitzvah of knowing God, Maimonides and Sefer Yetzirah (including Naor’s suggestion that a halakhah in the Mishneh Torah was influenced by Sefer Yetzirah[3]), and analysis of R. Hayyim Soloveitchik’s commentary on various halakhot of the Mishneh Torah. He also brings into his discussions works by R. Abraham Abulafia, R. Isaac Arama, R. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Solomon Maimon (including a work still in manuscript), Rav Kook, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and so many others. The book also contains a piece by the late R. Joshua Hoffman, reworked by Naor, together with a short memorial to this scholar who unfortunately was taken too soon from us.

Shod Melakhim is so rich, and its learning so profound, that it would require a very lengthy review, if not an actual book, to satisfactorily treat all the important issues Naor raises. In the interests of space, let me offer a few points that came to mind as I went through the book.

Pp. 50ff. Naor cites examples where earlier authorities mention that Maimonides derives halakhot from the Torah,[4] and he notes the dispute about whether medieval Ashkenazic sages independently came up with derashot to derive halakhot. In a recent issue of Ha-Ma’yan, R. Yisrael Reisher published an interesting article in which he discusses when and why post-talmudic sages stopped using independent derashot to derive halakhot.[5] Let me give an example of what I originally thought was a derashah by R. David Abudarham. He lived in the fourteenth century, so it would be significant if someone this late was still independently coming up with derashot. Last summer I brought a group to Spain on my Torah in Motion tour, and one of the places we visited was Seville.[6] That gave me the opportunity to speak about Abudarham as he too was from Seville.

Abudarham, Seder Tefilot ha-Ta’aniyot, says that if the fast of the Tenth of Tevet falls out on Shabbat, that we fast. Now it is true that according to our calendar this can never happen, but if we were proclaiming the new moon with witnesses it could fall out on Shabbat, and Abudarham says that we would fast, something we do not do even with Tisha be-Av. In fact, there are times, like this year, when the Tenth of Tevet falls out on Friday. (With our calendar, Tisha be-Av cannot fall out on Friday.[7]) When we fast on Friday-Tenth of Tevet, the fast is only over at darkness on Friday night. In other words, the fast continues into Shabbat.

R. Meir Mazuz explains Abudarham’s position that we fast when the Tenth of Tevet falls out on Shabbat by saying that he derived it from a derashah.[8] Here is the passage from Abudarham:

ואפילו[9] היה חל בשבת לא היו יכולים לדחותו ליום אחר, מפני שנאמר בו (יחזקאל כד, ב) בעצם היום הזה, כמו ביום הכפורים

Regarding the Tenth of Tevet, Ezekiel 24:1-2 states: “And the word of the Lord came unto me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, saying: ‘Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this selfsame day; this selfsame (בעצם) day the king of Babylon hath invested Jerusalem.” When the Torah speaks of Yom Kippur in Lev. 23:28 it also uses the expression בעצם היום הזה. R. Mazuz thinks that Abudarham made his own derashah, that just as these words are used regarding Yom Kippur and we fast on Shabbat Yom Kippur, so too the same applies to the Tenth of Tevet. However, if you look at the new, heavily annotated, 2015 Kerem Re’em edition of Abudarham, vol. 2, p. 357, you find that there were others before Abudarham who had the same position. Thus, I think it is obvious that rather than coming up with his own derashah, from which the halakhah was derived, Abudarham is simply trying to offer an ex-post facto explanation for the practice of fasting on the Tenth of Tevet that falls on Shabbat. He presumably saw this as a long-standing tradition and was offering a possible explanation for why earlier generations, including perhaps the talmudic sages, adopted this viewpoint.

P. 73 n. 95. Naor points to two views of Nahmanides in his commentary on the Torah that Naor identifies as having their origin in Ibn Ezra. In the second example, dealing with how Jacob married two sisters and Amram married his aunt, Nahmanides does not mention Ibn Ezra, and in the first example, although he cites Ibn Ezra, one could equally well argue that the citation does not mean that this is his source, but rather an opinion he cites that agrees with him. In general, I would like Naor to elaborate on how one is to know in cases like this that we are dealing with real influence from one thinker on another. (See also pp. 97ff. where he identifies clearer evidence of geonic influence on Maimonides.)

P. 125 note, p. 129 note, Naor refers to R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk’s Torah commentary asמש”ך חכמה. Yet this is a mistake. The first word does not have a double apostrophe and is simply written asמשך, as seen on the title page of the first edition of the work. The title is derived from Job 28:18: “the price of wisdom”, and the letters of the word משך obviously allude to the name Meir Simhah. Incidentally, R. Meir Simhah is known both as the “Meshekh Hokhmah” and the “Or Sameah”. Other than R. Israel Meir ha-Kohen, who is known as the “Mishnah Berurah” and the “Hafetz Hayyim”, are there any others who are also known by two separate book titles?

Pp. 129ff. Naor probes how the king has the power to kill people even if there is no halakhic testimony or they have not been warned. He refers to Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Rotzeah u-Shmirat ha-Nefesh 2:4:

When a Jewish king desires to slay any of these murderers and the like – who are not liable for execution by the court – by virtue of his regal authority, in order to perfect society, he has the license. Similarly, if the court desires to execute them as a hora’at sha’ah, because this was required at the time, they have the license to do as they see fit.

We see from this that in order to improve society the king is not bound by normal halakhic restrictions when it comes to punishing evildoers. Naor also refers to Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 3:10, which has the same message:

A murderer against whom the evidence is not totally conclusive, or who was not warned before he slew his victim, or even one who was observed by only one witness, and similarly, an enemy who inadvertently killed one of his foes – the king is granted license to execute them and to improve society according to the needs of the time. He may execute many on one day, hang them, and leave them hanging for many days in order to cast fear into the hearts and destroy the power of the wicked of the earth.

Finally, Naor refers to Guide of the Perplexed 3:40, where Maimonides writes: “Even if a court does not execute him [the murderer], the ruler can, since he can execute on circumstantial evidence.”[10]

Following this, Naor cites R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk who compares the Law of the King with Noahide laws, as both of them have the same goal, namely, establishing a functioning society. As such, when it comes to judicial matters, the Law of the King is equal to that of the power given to non-Jewish courts. Since non-Jewish courts can kill a criminal based on a single witness, so too the king can do so.

Naor then expands on this and makes a fascinating suggestion, that the law of ben sorer u-moreh is an example of an emergency measure where the beit din functions by using the Noahide laws. As with Noahide law, the ben sorer u-moreh does not need to be warned about his action. Naor connects this to Yerushalmi Peah 1:1 that with non-Jews: מחשבה רעה הקב”ה מצרפה למעשה. This would explain why a ben sorer u-moreh is punished for something that will happen in the future, as punishment in the Noahide code can be decreed even for just having an intention.

Pp. 157ff. Naor deals with this passage of Maimonides in the Guide 3:45:

He [Abraham] specified due west as the direction to face in prayer, the Holy of Holies lying to the west. That is what the Sages mean by saying, “God’s Shekhinah is to the west” [Bava Batra 25a]. They explain in tractate Yoma that in prayer, we face the Holy of Holies, the direction that Father Abraham[11] set.

The problem is where in Yoma do we find that Abraham set the direction of prayer? This is an old problem and Naor offers a new solution which strikes me as far-fetched, and he himself refers to it as a חידוש נורא. He suggests that Maimonides is referring to Yoma 28b which in our text states: קיים אברהם אבינו אפילו עירובי תבשילין. Naor suggests that Maimonides’ text had עירוב תפילה (or maybe the abbreviation ע”ת) instead of עירובי תבשלין, and elaborates on how that could be understood to mean “west”. Even with all of Naor’s great learning, his solution is still not satisfying to me.

Let me now turn to Ya’akov mi-le-Var. The first part of it contains newly published comments on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah by the 17^th-18^th century Jerusalem sage, R. Jacob Molho. Naor adds his own explanations and elaborations to these comments. The second part of the book is Naor’s Torah insights on a range of matters with his typical originality and breadth.

Pp. 69ff., Naor discusses R. Nissim of Gerona’s famous idea of Torah law and Law of the King. R. Nissim acknowledges that other systems of law work more efficiently in society than certain aspects of Torah law (e.g., how difficult it is to convict criminals according to Torah law). R. Nissim does not see this as a problem as the king will legislate in these areas. For R. Nissim, this is not an ad hoc approach to make the system run smoothly, but this is part of the Torah system given at Sinai, that there is both Torah law and also the Law of the King that work in tandem. Naor suggests that R. Nissim might have been influenced by Nahmanides’ famous notion of a scoundrel with the permission of the Torah, which is how he interprets the verse Kedoshim Tihyu (Lev. 19:1). Just like there is an individual who can be a scoundrel and the general laws of the Torah do not protect against him, thus we need a special law of Kedoshim Tihyu, so too when the written laws of the Torah do not suffice, according to R. Nissim we need the Law of the King.

Naor goes even further and connects R. Nissim’s idea with R. Mordechai Joseph Leiner of Izhbitz[12] and other Polish hasidic figures who have a conception not of Torah law and Law of the King, but of the law of God and the will of God, which are not always in tandem. In this section, Naor shows his great learning in hasidic literature.

P. 141. Naor cites R. Jacob Emden in his note toNiddah22b that not everyone assumes that one needs to receive a gezerah shavah by tradition, meaning that one can create his own gezerah shavah. Naor notes that this is a שיטה יחידאה. Does the notion that one need to receive a gezerah shavah by tradition mean that it must go back to the beit din ha-gadol, as Naor quotes one source as saying? I think not, and to give one example, R. Gedaliah Nadel writes that it is enough for a gezerah shavah to have come to us by tradition, and if previous generations of great scholars, who understood the nuances of Hebrew, accepted a gezerah shavah, we can rely on them.[13] In terms of scholarly studies on the gezerah shavah, to the sources cited by Naor I would also add Michael Chernick, Midat “Gezerah Shaṿah”: Tzuroteha ba-Midrashim u-va-Talmudim (Lod, 1994) and Yitzhak Gilat, Perakim be-Hishtalshelut ha-Halakhah (Ramat Gan, 1992), pp. 365ff.

2. As I mentioned R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk earlier in this post, let me add a few more points relevant to him.

I find it of interest that in 1925 R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg stated that R. Meir Simhah was “truly the gadol ha-dor”.[14]

As to why the kiruv yeshiva was named Or Somayach,[15] Yonoson Rosenbloom writes:

The immediate impetus for the change in name was a powerful shmuess given in the beis midrash by Rabbi Shlomo Freifeld. Rabbi Freifeld quoted the hesped given for Rabbi Meir Simcha by the Rogachover Gaon, his contemporary Torah giant in Dvinsk. The Rogatchover said of Rav Meir Simcha that he learned with the intensity of one who felt flames raging all around and that only his learning could extinguish them.[16]

In 1919 there was a false report that R. Meir Simhah had been murdered in a pogrom. This event was covered by newspapers around the world.[17] Here is a poster that was hung up after the false information arrived in Eretz Yisrael. (The information that appears at the bottom indicating that this poster is from 1926 is incorrect. 1926 was the year of his actual death.)[18]

In response to the false report, there were a number of eulogies given. R. Yisrael Abba Citron, rav of Petah Tikvah, delivered a hesped which was later published.[19]

Are there any other examples of giving a hesped for a great rabbi who was not actually dead?

Speaking of the death of R. Meir Simhah, we are fortunate that he was not killed on another occasion. Yoel Hirsch called my attention to something that is not mentioned in all the discussions of R. Meir Simhah. As is well known, R. Meir Simhah only had one daughter, and she was mentally ill. According to R. Israel Dusowitz in Ha-Mesilah 1:5-6 (Sivan-Tamuz 5696), p. 6, R. Meir Simhah’s daughter tried to kill her father, stabbing him in the neck. Miraculously, he survived.

3. Earlier in this post I mentioned how Naor cites R. Meir Simhah’s notion that a king can execute certain people even though this would not be permitted under Torah law, since his power functions in accord with Noahide law which has a much wider range of possibility to punish than Torah law. R. Meir Simhah was referring to executing people based on lesser standards of evidence, not killing innocent people. Yet I would like to make a few comments about the latter point, as it is precisely with regard to the power of a king to kill innocent people that we see a change in how the generations have regarded certain moral issues.

Contemporary moral judgments are sometimes far removed from those of previous generations, even when dealing with great sages. For instance, R. Levi Ben Gershom recommends that if you are holding a prisoner who has been a constant enemy of the Jewish people, he should be executed.[20] R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes claims that a king has the right to kill the innocent children of someone who rebels, because of tikun olam,[21] and the Hatam Sofer, in a letter to Chajes, find this a reasonable position.[22] The purpose of this killing would be to put fear into others, who while they may be willing to risk their own lives in rebellion, would be deterred if their children were to be wiped out. This is certainly not what pretty much anyone today would regard as “Jewish values.” But I find it fascinating that in previous years, among some great Torah scholars, this was regarded as acceptable, even if only in a theoretical discussion. Naor, p. 136, provides additional sources for this matter, and I would add that R. Kook was also inclined to think that in extreme circumstances it would be permissible to execute innocent people such as children of an evil doer.[23] Let me stress again that all the discussions mentioned in this paragraph were theoretical, no different than so many other theoretical discussions found in rabbinic literature, and I wonder if they could have ever decided this way in a real-life case.

Regarding the power of the king, R. Jacob Kamenetsky has an unusual passage in his Emet le-Yaakov, 1 Kings 3:28. He says that in the story of Solomon and the two harlots, where Solomon said to cut the baby in half, if the real mother had not spoken up, they would have actually cut the baby in half, as the king has the authority to order this.[24]

ונראה לומר, דהנה מה היה קורה אם האמא האמיתית היתה מסכימה שיחתכו את הולד לשנים, בבחינת “תמות נפשי עם פלשתים”. הרי בפשטות מבינים ששלמה המלך היה חוזר בו מיד ואומר, “לא התכוונתי ברצינות שיהרגו את הילד”. אבל זה אינו, כי ביד המלך סמכות מסויימת על חיי נתיניו, כמו שיכול לשלוח אותם למלחמה אף על פי שנהרגים שם, אף כאן מאחר שציוה לחתוך, כאילו שיש כאן דין של ממון המוטל בספק חולקים, היו חותכים משום כבוד המלכות, שהרי אצל מלך אין חרטה

I don’t know why R. Kamenetsky finds the common understanding, that Solomon never really intended his words to be implemented in practice, to be mistaken. Certainly, killing an innocent child does not bring any honor to the king. Even if R. Kamenetsky is correct with regard to Solomon, speaking from our 21st-century perspective, the Jewish people, with their current moral sense, would never accept something like this, and I feel confident that a future Sanhedrin would never countenance it.

It must also be noted that Sforno, Netziv, and Meshekh Hokhmah, in their commentaries to Deut. 24:16 (“Children shall not be put to death for the fathers”), specifically reject the possibility that the king could kill the children of one who rebels, with Sforno noting how this was a typical Gentile practice that the Torah is legislating against.[25] In areas of controversy such as this, I think we should follow the guidance of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg who believed that if there is a dispute among halakhic authorities, the poskim must reject the view that will bring the Torah into disrepute in people’s eyes:[26]

ואגלה להדר”ג [הגרא”י אונטרמן] מה שבלבי: שמקום שיש מחלוקת הראשונים צריכים הרבנים להכריע נגד אותה הדעה, שהיא רחוקה מדעת הבריות וגורמת לזלזול וללעג נגד תוה”ק

R. Shlomo Aviner has the same approach. He notes that conceptions of morality change over time and not every decision of a posek is an eternal decision. Today, when we have different standards of morality than in previous years, if there is a dispute among the authorities, we should adopt the position that we regard as more moral.[27]

וברור שבהלכה פנים לכאן ולכאן. לכן כיוון שנתיבים אלה הם נתיבים מוסריים יותר, עלינו להכריע על פיהם. לפעמים ההלכה מוכרעת, בגלל שעת הדחק, ולפעמים ההלכה מוכרעת כי כך המנהג. אם כן, בימינו ‘המנהג’ הוא להיות מוסרי . . . יש גם מושגים מוסריים המשתנים על פי המציאות. אב הסוטר לבנו הקטן, אינו דומה לאב הסוטר לבנו בן השמונה עשרה. האם סטירת לחי לבנו היא מעשה מוסרי או לא מוסרי? תלוי בנסיבות. לא כל הכרעות הפוסקים הן הכרעות נצחיות . . . במצבנו כיום ישנם שיקולים מוסריים שמצטרפים להכרעותינו ההלכתיות

R. Yuval Sherlo acknowledges moral advancement and concludes: “Despite all the hypocrisy and cynicism there is moral progress in the area of human rights. True religious people believe that this is the will of God.”[28]

3. Michael Lerner recently passed away. I mention this because I recently found a letter from Lerner’s mother, Bea Lerner, who served as chairwoman of the New Jersey Democratic Party.[29] The letter is undated, but was obviously written in 1970 at the time that Lerner was on trial as part of the “Seattle Seven”, charged with having incited a riot. I found the letter in the Heschel archives[30] which I assume means that Mrs. Lerner had sent it to Heschel—who knew Michael Lerner from the Jewish Theological Seminary—and others as part of a request that they submit letters to the court testifying to Lerner’s non-violent nature. I had intended to send the letter to Lerner, but alas, this was not to be. I think the letter, which will be valuable to Lerner’s future biographer, is a wonderful example of parents’ unconditional love for their son, even if he chooses a path that they do not understand or agree with.

Since I just mentioned Heschel, and in honor of Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Leiter, Scranton native and new ambassador from Israel to the United States, let me also include this letter from Leiter’s grandfather, R. Moshe Leiter, to Heschel.[31]

R. Moshe Leiter authored a number of seforim, and in the letter above he is offering condolences about the passing of Heschel’s brother in London, R. Jacob Heshel. Interestingly enough, he is not entirely sure if people had informed Heschel of his brother’s passing, and we know that in the past people did withhold such news. R. Jacob Heshel was the rabbi of the Edgeware Adath Yisroel Congregation, and this is a picture of him with his family that I found here.

4. In my post here I presented some liberal views of euthanasia, views that for some reason are not part of the discourse in Orthodox circles. I forgot to include the following letter from R. Joseph Elijah Henkin which is found in the memorial volume Ner Shaul, p. 502.

See nos. 2, 3, 5, 8. While R. Henkin does not offer any firm rulings, you can see that he does not reject the liberal perspective and might even be inclined to it. No. 4 is also fascinating, for if we accept his suggestion it would mean that even if we assume that brain death is not halakhic death, it would still be permitted to remove a heart from a brain-dead person to save another’s life (as it appears reasonable to assume that a brain-dead person is a goses).

5. In my last post here I raised the question of whether Neturei Karta allies of Hamas can be counted in a minyan, whether their businesses should be boycotted, etc. Someone commented to me that however evil their actions, the Neturei Karta are still Jewish and Torah observant and thus they need to be treated as part of kelal Yisrael. This is a specious argument. Even a cursory familiarity with Jewish history shows that by means of the herem religiously observant people were removed from the community for all sorts of reasons. Because the herem was so successful, these removals only needed to be temporary as the excommunicated people inevitably felt compelled to ask the community leaders for forgiveness.

Yet I want to focus on the point that the Neturei Karta are still Jewish with the implication that since this is their birthright, it cannot be removed from them. (Despite what some people have claimed, from everything I have seen they are indeed halakhically observant and have not violated Shabbat by speaking on microphones, carrying signs where there is no eruv, etc.)

R. Moses Sofer, in his comment to Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim no. 39, has a fascinating idea that has been discussed by many.

ועיין בתוספות יום טוב משנה ד’ פרק ז’ דנדה דתמה על כותים אי גירי אמת הן איך עשאום כנכרים לטהר נדות ואהלות שלהם. ונראה לפענ”ד שיש כח בכלל ישראל להוציא המורדים מכלל האומה ויחזרו לגוים גמורים אף להקל . . . והם נמנו וגמרו להוציאם מברית ישראל לגמרי

According to the Hatam Sofer, “Kelal Yisrael”, which I assume is represented by the rabbinic leaders, has the ability to remove someone from the Jewish people and turn him into a complete non-Jew. This would mean that you can lend money to him on interest, if he marries a woman it does not take effect, and even if he is already married the woman would not need a get. So we can leave it to the gedolim if they wish to go this route with the Neturei Karta.

As mentioned, the Hatam Sofer’s novel position—R. Asher Weiss[32] terms it a חידוש עצום—is discussed by many. However, while everyone tries to understand the basis of the Hatam Sofer’s view and its implications, there is one exception, namely, R. Moshe Feinstein.[33] R. Feinstein comes at the matter from a completely different perspective. Finding the Hatam Sofer’s words incomprehensible, he writes:

וברור ופשוט שא”א דבר כזה בעולם . . . וברור שאין זה מדברי החת”ס

R. Feinstein denies that the Hatam Sofer could have written what is found in his commentary. In a number of previous posts I have discussed this tendency of R. Feinstein to reject the authenticity of texts that he sees as completely mistaken. At certain times I think R. Feinstein really means what he says, that the text is not authentic. Yet on other occasions, and the example of the Hatam Sofer’s commentary would be such a case, I agree with R. Betzalel Deblitsky[34] that when R. Feinstein said that the text is not authentic, he did not mean it literally. Rather, this was his way of respectfully registering his strong disagreement. R. Deblitsky compares this to the rabbinic expressionכי ניים ושכיב אמרה, “When he was sleepy and lying down [to rest] he said this halakhah.” Everyone knows that this is just a figure of speech, and it would make no sense for one to reply that on the contrary, when the rabbi issued the ruling he had just finished his coffee and was completely sharp. In fact, R. Samuel Ibn Tibbon even uses this expression about the man he idolized most, Maimonides.[35]

6. My forthcoming book on Rav Kook is now available for purchase on Amazon (although it won’t appear for another couple of months). Once the book reaches America, I will be doing an event at Mizrahi Book Store so stay tuned for that.

* * * * * * * * *

[1] The title is taken from Isaiah 60:16.
[2] For the meaning of this kabbalistic expression, see Yosef Kalner, Milon ha-Re’iyah, vol. 2, p. 199.
[3] See also p. 21 n. 22 where Naor mentions his discussion in this regard with Prof. Abraham Joshua Heschel.
[4] In Kol Torah, Av-Elul 5728, p. 20, R. Nahum Drazin mentions what he heard from R. Moshe Soloveitchik, how R. Hayyim explained a position of Maimonides as arising directly from the verses in the Torah. As this appears to be completely unknown, here is the page.

[5] “Al Perek ‘Ein Dorshin’”, Ha-Ma’yan, Nisan 5784, pp. 93-104. Regarding derashot to establish, or at least support, minhagim, see e.g., Tur, Orah Hayyim 493, regarding women not working after sunset during the period of the Omer:

ונהגו הנשים שלא לעשות מלאכה משתשקע החמה . . . וכתיב שבע שבתות תמימות תהיינה, מלשון שבות ולשון שמיטה שבע שבתות . . . מה שנת השמיטה אסור במלאכה אף זמן ספירת העומר דהיינו לאחר שקיעת החמה אסור במלאכה

R. Eliyahu Zini, Etz Erez, vol. 2, p. 224,  is troubled by this derashah:

ויש לשאול: ממתי רבותינו הראשונים דורשים פסוקי תורה להוציא מהן הלכות, יהיו אלה אפילו מנהגים בלבד

[6] For my 2025 summer Torah in Motion tours, see here.
[7] Mishnah, Ta’anit 4:7 deals with a case where Tisha be-Av falls out on Friday.
[8] Bayit Ne’eman, 16 Tevet 5777, p. 1.
[9] The word אפילו is supposed to be recited with the accent on the final syllable. But does anyone, even Sephardim, pronounce it this way?
[10] The English is taken from the brand-new translation of the Guide by Lenn E. Goodman and Phillip I. Lieberman. This work is a wonderful achievement. It should give Goodman and Lieberman great pride to know that, from this point on, anyone who studies Maimonides will have to turn to their translation, which by the way also contains valuable notes. As a companion volume to the translation of the Guide, Goodman has also just published A Guide to the Guide to the Perplexed.
[11] The translation is from the Goodman and Lieberman edition. Pines has “Abraham our Father” which I think people will be more comfortable with, as “Father Abraham” sounds Catholic.
[12] Again, I do not know why Naor records the name of R. Leiner’s book as מ”י השילוח. The title is מי השלוח without any apostrophes.
[13] Mi-Torato shel R. Gedalyah, p. 25. Regarding gezerah shavah, see the brand new book by Moshe Sokolow, Pursuing Peshat: Takakh, Parshanut, and Talmud Torah, pp. 85-86, where he calls attention to R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk, Meshekh Hokhmah, Num. 30:10, where he creates his own gezerah shavah. In justification of this step, R. Meir Simhah cites the Jerusalem Talmud, Pesahim 6:1: “A man may initiate his own gezerah shavah in order to sustain his study.” R. Yehudah Copperman, in his edition of the Meshekh Hokhmah, notes the originality of R. Meir Simhah in this example:

הפירוש המקובל לאמרה זו (וכך אמנם משתמע מסוגית הירושלמי) היא לפי בעל קרבן העדה: לקיים תלמודו שקיבל מרבו, דאין הפסד בדבר, שהרי בלאו הכי הדין כן, ואין גזירה שוה זו אלא לסמוך בעלמא (עכ”ל). לעומת זאת מושך רבינו את הכלל אף להלכה שלא קיבל מרבו אלא שחידש הוא בבית מדרשו! ועיין בהרחבה בפרקי מבוא פרק יד, כי זה חידוש גדול בבית מדרשו

[14] Kitvei ha-Gaon Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, vol. 2, p. 235.
[15] Regarding the word שמח, I transliterated Sameah, but the official name of the yeshiva is Ohr Somayach. So which pronunciation is correct? It turns out that both are correct, as some grammarians claim that before the furtive patah in שמח there is an aleph sound, and others think that there is a yod sound. The same thing would be with the word ריח, which can be pronounced either as רֵיאַח or רֵייַח, or the word פענח which can be pronounced פענֵאַח or פענֵיַח. See R. Benzion Cohen, Sefat Emet, pp. 59-60; R. Adir Amrutzi, Dikdukei Abiah, p. 19.
[16] Rosenbloom, Rav Noach Weinberg: Torah Revolutionary (Jerusalem, 2020), p. 72 n. 1.
[17] See details here.
[18] The poster is taken from here.
[19] See Zev Aryeh Rabiner, Maran Rabbenu Meir Simhah Kohen (Tel Aviv, 1967), pp. 232-233. For another published eulogy, by R. Ben Zion Cuenca, see Mekabtze’el 39 (2013), pp. 739ff.
[20] Commentary to 1 Kings, ch. 22, Toelet 34.
[21] Torat ha-Nevi’im, ch. 7.
[22] She’elot u-Teshuvot Hatam Sofer, Orah Hayyim no. 108 (end).
[23] See Da’at Kohen, no. 193.
[24] Regarding the Solomon story, a real-life version of this is reported to have occurred in the early twentieth century. A woman who was nursing the baby boy of the rabbi mistakenly slept on the boy, killing him. Fearful of what would happen, she gave her own son to the rabbi’s wife, and this boy was then raised as the child of the rabbi. The matter was only discovered years later. When the woman’s husband died, the dead husband appeared a number of times in the rabbi’s son’s dreams asking why he was not saying kaddish for him. Here is R. Eliezer Deutsch’s description of the case in Va-Yelaket Yosef, vol. 10:20 (1908), no. 194.

The story is also told in R. Zvi Hirsch Friedling, Hayyim ha-Nitzhiyim, p. 54, as an illustration of the importance of kaddish.
[25] See Encyclopedia Talmudit, vol. 33, s.v. לא יומתו אבות על בנים, col. 947; R. Shimon Krasner, “Ishiyuto u-Feulotav shel Shaul ha-Melekh,” Yeshurun 11 (2002), pp. 779-780.
[26] Kitvei ha-Gaon Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, vol. 1, p. 60.
[27] Am ve-Artzo, vol. 2, pp. 436-437.
[28] Reshut ha-Rabim, p. 102.
[29] See David Horowitz, Radical Son (New York, 1997), p. 175.
[30] Heschel Archives, Duke University, Box 8, Folder 1.
[31] Heschel Archives, Duke University, Box 17, Correspondence 1970-1971.
[32] See R. Asher Weiss’ weekly shiur, Toldot 5785, p. 11, called to my attention by Baruch from Monsey.
[33] Iggerot Moshe, vol. 9, p. 162 (Yoreh Deah 5:41)
[34] Beit Aharon ve-Yisrael 122 (Kislev-Tevet 5766), p. 170.
[35] See Carlos Frankel, Min ha-Rambam li-Shmuel Ibn Tibbon (Jerusalem, 2008), p. 300:

כי ניים ושכיב רבינו ז”ל אמר זה הדבר

• [1] There are many collections of material on this issue see for example Rabbi Pinchas Schwartz, Minchas Chadasah, pp. 38-44; Rabbi S. Deblitski, Kuntres Hamoyadim, pp. 37-40; Kovet Eitz Chaim (Bobov) 6 (2008) pp. 239-242; an excellent collection of material in Pardes Eliezer, pp. 227-316; Rabbi Freund, Moadyim Lisimcha 6, pp. 490-505 ; Rabbi Yitzchack Tessler, Pininei Minhag, pp. 292-319; Rabbi Oberlander, Kovetz Or Yisroel, 32:104-120 and later updated in his Minhag Avosenu Beyadneu. See also YehudahAvidah in his work on Yiddish foods, Yiddishe Macholim, pp. 43-44; M.Kosover,Yiddishe Macholim, p. 75, 77, 98.
• [2] Pauline Wengeroff, Memoirs of a Grandmother, 2010, p.150.
• [3]Reshumot 1, p. 340.
• [4] See Pirkei Zichronos, (2004) p. 359
• [5] I hope to return to many other aspects of the minhag in the near future.
• [6] Drasha Lepesach, ed. Simcha Emanuel (2006), p. 39, 110. See the important comment on this from my friend M. M. Honig in Pininei Minhag, p. 292.
• [7] Malmed Hatalmdim, p. 121b. I hope to return to this work in a future article; for now see my article in Yeshurun, 24 (2011), p. 457.
• [8] Even Bochen, p. 34. Mahratz Chiyos in his Kol Sifrei (p. 236) quotes this as an early source for eating milchigs. Both Matai Moshe (siman 692) and Mekor Chaim quote this work when talking about eating milchigs on Shavuos. On Rav Kalonymus ben Kalonymus much has been written already see: Y. Zinberg, Toldos Safrus Yisroel, vol. 1, pp. 411-427; Uberto Cassuto in the intro of the facsimile edition of Mesechtas Purim printed by A. Haberman in 1978; A. Haberman, Toldos Hapiyut Ve-hashira, vol. 2, pp. 142-149; A. Haberman IyunimBshira Ubpyuit, pg 162-179; C. Shirman, Toldos Ha-shira Haivirit Be-sefard, pp. 514-541.
• [9] Orchos Chaim, p. 78a, Kol Bo, siman 52. Most are not aware that this work was authored by the same person. There were actually those that thought the Kol Bo was authored by a woman; see my Bein Kesseh L’essur (2010) p. 143.
• [10] See Rav Avigdor Hatzorfoti, p. 478 See his Pirush Rav Avigdor Cohen Tzedek printed in the Toras Chaim edition of Megillas Rus, 2011, p. 53. On Rav Avigdor Hatzorfoti see Simcha Emanuel, Shivrei Luchos, pp. 173-181; E. Kanarfogel, Peering through the Lattices, pp. 107-109.
• [11] Minhaghim of Maharham, p. 30.
• [12] Leket Yosher, p. 103
• [13] Minhaghim p. 85
• [14] Sefer Minhaghim, Reb Isaac Tirina (2000) p. 67-68. To be more exact this minhag is in the section which is called Hagahos haminhagim. It is unclear exactly who the author is of that section but it assumed to have been written rather early on. On all of this, see S. Spitzer in his introduction to this edition pp. 17-18.
• [15] Meshivas Nefesh, p. 185. On the dating of this work see Rabbi Yakov Stahl, Deutsche 84, (2010) p. 6.
• [16] See Igros Moshe OC 1:160. On this topic see this excellent article by my friend Rabbi Yehudah Spitz here.
• [17] Seder Hayom Shavuos p.78
• [18] Siman 854
• [19] Shelah, Mesechtas Shavuos, p. 30a.
• [20] Zichron Yerushlayim, p. 153. In Reshumot 1, p. 350 we find that some made a special seudah because of this and finished Sefer Tehillim.
• [21] Shut Shem Mishomon, OC, 2:4, p.15.
• [22] R. Avraham Eliezer Hershkowitz, Otzar Kol Minhaghei Yeshrun (St. Louis, 1918),p. 201
• [23]Zemanim, (1951) p. 53 See also his Mili Demordechai, p. 125. For another connection between bikkurim and eating milchigs see Rabbi Shlomo Schick, Seder Minhaghim 1 (1880)pp. 83b-84a.
• [24] Zichron Besefer, p. 122. See Emes Leyakov (Shulchan Aruch) p. 215 where Rav Yaakov suggests this reason himself and adds some points.
• [25] Mishna Berurah 494:12. See also Rav Tzvi Farber, Sefer Moadyim, p. 26 (and see there for some other reasons). See also Rabbi Aron Misnik, Minchas Ahron, pp. 102-106; Pardes Eliezer, pp. 279-282.
• [26] The Chofetz Chaim did not have a problem quoting chassidic sources; he quotes the Shulchan Aruch Harav numerous times. On the Chofetz Chaim and chassidus see what I wrote in the article “Censorship in the Sefer Chofetz Chaim,” here.
• [27] Halichos Teiman, p. 31. See also Keser Shem Tov, 4 p. 16 who has a similar issue.
• [28] The status of the Yidden before Matan Torah and the mitzvos performed then has been discussed in numerous works I hope to return to this topic at a later date. See also Rabbi Oberlander (above, note 1) p. 632- 633.
• [29] Shut Mishnat Sachir, siman 136.
• [30] Much has been written on how one creates something based on the Sefer Yetzirah and if one can use what has been created through such a method for a mitzvah or the like. I hope to return to this topic at a future date.
• [31] A subject I hope to return to in the future.
• [32] Elef Kesav, 1, p. 64.
• [33] Kovet Eitz Chaim (Bobov) 6 (2008) p. 240
• [34] See Eitz Chaim Ibid. See Darchei Tesuvah, 89:19.
• [35] See Pirkei Zicronos, (2004) p. 359.
• [36] Darchei Tesuvah, 89:19.
• [37] See Darchei Tesuvah, 89:14; Dershot Mishnat Sachir, 2, pp. 347-348.
• [38] Shiurei Kness hagedolah, 494. See Shut Sich Yitzchack, 234. On this topic see this excellent article by my friend Rabbi Yehudah Spitz here.
• [39] I will deal with this Magen Avrhom at great length in the near future B”n.
• [40] See Tosas Chaim, 2008 p. 79. In the back of this edition there is a lengthy Peirush Ir Hachaim, pp. 245- 249 and for in-depth discussion of this topic see the Pardes Eliezer pp. 233- 238. I will deal with this at greater length in the near future B”n.
• [41] See Yosef Ometz, siman 137.
• [42] Toras Chaim, Chullin 83a. However it is worth pointing out that the Toras Chaim in Bava Metzia 86b, says that the reason for eating milchigs on Shavuos is to show the malachim that we are careful about basar b’cholov and that when we eat milk we are careful to do everything halacha says to do before we eat meat.
• [43] See Drasha of the Rokeach, p. 39
• [44] Leket Yosher, p. 103
• [45] This idea was suggested by my friend M.M. Honig. Rabbi Oberlander (above, note 1) also suggests this point. D. Sperber in his Minhagei Yisroel 3, p. 139 also connects the two.
• [46] See my article on this in Yerushacheinu, 5 (2011) pp. 337-360 especially pp. 344-347.
• [47] Shach, 245:8.
• [48] See my article in Yerushacheinu (ibid), p. 347 note 65.
• [49] Migdol Oz, p. 32.
• [50] Others have different shapes and reasons; see Rav Yehoshua Falk, Choshevi Machsvos p. 152. See also M. Gidman , Hatorah Vehachaim 3, 108; H. Pollack, Jewish Folkways in Germanic Lands (1648-1806), p. 102, 277
• [51] Minhagei Yisroel 3, p. 139.