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Review of Quntres

Review of Quntresby B. Jackson First, a quick note regarding Prof. Haym Soloveitchik's apparent position that anonymous critiques are inappropriate.  It appears that his position overlooks at least one example of just that.  As Dan Rabinowitz has pointed out in a prior post, R. Shmuel Aboab authored an ethical work which critiqued some of the perceived laxity of the day but did so anonymously.    Turning to the new online journal Quntres: An Online Journal for the History, Culture, and Art of the Jewish Book. This online only journal, which focuses on the history of the Jewish book has just published its inaugural issue. The editors explain that they view this journal as a "to continue the tradition of scholarship dedicated to the history of the Jewish book once represented in Europe in Hebräische Bibliographie and the Zeitschrift für hebräische Bibliographie, then transplanted to Israel in Kiryat Sefer, and now taking on a virtual form at the libraries of the Jewish Theological Seminary."  Although not noted, arguably there have been such journals in America already such as the Jewish Book Annual.  Additionally, in Israel, Ali Sefer, although on extended hiatus, has recently been restarted (soon to be reviewed). Be that as it may, any addition to the study of the Hebrew book is most welcome.    This issue contains four articles, three in English and one in Hebrew.  The first two articles are articles truly devoted to Hebrew bibliography.   Marvin J. Heller, a prolific writer in this field, already having authored his excellent studies on the printing of the Talmud as well as his Abridged Thesauruses of the Hebrew book, turns his keen eye to unraveling the bibliographical history of the Sefer ha-Kavanot.  Indeed, this issue is also dealt with by Yosef Avivi, in his recent bibliography of writings of the Arizal.  The second article, by Jordan S. Penkower is also of interest to Hebrew bibliographies as well as students of the Bible.  In particular, Penkower traces the history of Norzi's Introduction to his Minhat Shai.  As most are aware, Minhat Shai, is a fundamental work on textual variants of the Bible, and the introduction, not included in the first edition of Norzi's work – nor many other editions – is important as well.  Penkower has published other similar bibliographical and Bible related studies such as his articles on the verse divisions of the Bible, the chapter divisions of the Bible and his seminal article which is steeped in bibliographical finds on the pronunciation of the word "zekher."[1] The final English article, while not directly devoted to Hebrew bibliography is still of interest to the history of Hebrew bibliography as it is an appreciation of Moritz Steinschneider, one of the most important Hebrew bibliographers of all time. The final article, in Hebrew, is by Shmuel Glick and discusses some examples of censorship in the responsa literature.  Glick, of course, is the editor of the Kuntress ha-Teshuvot he-Hadash project (two volumes have already been completed [see reviews here and here], with the third and final volume set to appear this summer) and thus is perfectly placed to write such an article.  Indeed, Glick mentions the project in many footnotes for additional details. The start of the article is not all that promising as Glick trots out the well worn example of the responsa of the Rema regarding yayin nesach.  This is one of the most well known examples of censorship in responsa literature.  Many have discussed this example, but curiously Glick doesn't reference most of the scholarly literature on the topic.  For example, Asher Siev, in his edition of the She'elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rema discusses this as does Daniel Sperber in Minhagei Yisrael. [2]  Neither source is mentioned. Another omission is Glick's discussion of the responsa of R. David Tzvi Hoffmann.  Glick notes that in the Kest-Leibowitz edition a responsum regarding headcovering is removed.  It appears that Glick was unaware of Dan Rabinowitz's article (see here) where he notes this as well as other examples of censorship specific to headcovering.  One other example that Glick discusses should also be augmented. Glick mentions the responsum of R. Ezekiel Landau regarding a suspected case of adultery.  The responsum contains graphic details discussing the alleged act.  David Katz, "A Case Study in the Formation of a Super-Rabbi: The Early Years of Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, 1713-1754," (PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, 2004), 228-248, provides much in the way of background with regard to this case.  While it is possible that Glick didn't see this dissertation, the sources Katz provides should be added to the single source Glick provides.  One other addition regards the Hatam Sofer's responsum discussing metiziah be-peh. Glick correctly notes that this responsum was subject to much controversy whether it was authored by Hatam Sofer.  While Glick provides a few sources, he fails to mention that Jacob Katz has written an excellent article on the topic  –  see  Jacob Katz, "The Controversy Over the Mezizah," Halakhah in Straits: Obstacles to Orthodoxy at its Inception (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992), 150–183 (Hebrew), translated in idem, "The Controversy Over the Mezizah: The Unrestricted Execution of the Rite of Circumcision," in Divine Law in Human Hands: Case Studies in Halakhic Flexibility (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1998), 357-402 as well as the more recent article by Shlomo Sprecher, "Mezizah be-Peh: Therapeutic Touch or Hippocratic Vestige," Hakirah 3 (September 2006): 15-66.  Another example of responsa censorship that Glick provides bears mentioning because Glick's discussion supplements the discussion in Kuntress ha-Teshuvot.  Glick, in this article, mentions the removal of the responsum from R. Y. Greenwald to R. Sonnefeld regarding joining the Agudah from Greenwald's Zikrhon Yehuda.  In Kuntress ha-Teshuvot, Glick questions Miamon's story regarding how and why this responsum was removed.  Maimon claimed that as Greenwald argued against joining the Agudah, the Agudah purchased all the copies of Greenwald's responsa and removed and substituted a different responsum.  Unfortunately, the censors failed to change the index to reflect the alteration and in all copies, the index records a responsum discussing joining the Agudah and in some editions the responsum in question (no. 210) deals with that while in others it deals with the issue of eating on the eve of Yom Kippur.  Glick, however, questions this in Kuntress noting various problems with Maimon's story.  (See Kuntress ha-Teshuvot, vol. 1, no. 1310).  Now, Glick provides additional material that appears to indicate that Maimon was wrong.  In particular, Glick cites Schisa's article where Schisa provides a very different version of what happened. Namely, that the printers, in order to be able to sell this work at a convention that was an Agudah convention, on their own switched the responsum in question.  According to this version, the alteration was for profit not ideology.  Curiously, Glick makes no mention that the article considerably augments what appears in Kuntress ha-Teshuvot.        Of course, the balance of Glick's article is very interesting and provides some lesser known examples of censorship in responsa literature.  Two technical notes.  First, in Glick's article he refers to non-existent page numbers.  That is, he references pages in his article (see, e.g.,  pp. 43, 65 n.56, 69 n.66) that are internally incorrect.  Second, although this journal is published digitally, the format is somewhat poor.  In particular, the lines are justified but, rather than get all the words on a single line, a considerable amount of words are broken up and hyphenated.  This makes for difficult to reading both digitally and in hard copy.      

[1] See Jordan S. Penkower, "The Chapter Divisions of the 1525 Rabbinic Bible," Vetus Testamentum 48:3 (July 1998): 350-74; idem, "Verse Divisions in the Hebrew Bible," Vetus Testamentum 50:3 (July 2000): 379-93; idem, "Minhag and Mesorah: On the Recent Ashkenazi Custom of Double Vocalization of זכר עמלק (Deut. 25:19)," in R. Kasher, M. Sipor, Y. Sarfati, eds., Iyenei Mikrah u-Parshanut 4 (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1997), 71-128. [2] Teshuvot ha-Rama, Ziv. ed. no. 124, and pp. 66-67; D. Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael, (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1991), vol. 2, p. 56 n.26; D. Sperber, Netivot Pesikah (Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 2008), pp. 104-14; Y.S. Spiegel, Amudim be-Tolodot ha-Sefer ha-Ivri Ketivah ve-Hataka (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2007), p. 273 and the notes therein.




Two Editions of R. Chaim Berlin’s Responsa: An Egregious Example of Censorship

Two Editions of R. Chaim Berlin‘s Responsa: An Egregious Example of Censorship
by Eliezer Brodt

R. Chaim Berlin, Sefer Nishmat Hayyim, She’elot u-Teshuvot, R. Ya’akov Kosovsky-Shachor ed., Beni-Brak, 2002, 412 pp.

R. Chaim Berlin, Sefer Nishmat Hayyim, Mamorim u’Mechtavim, R. Ya’akov Kosovsky-Shachor ed., Beni-Brak, 2003, 424 pp.

R. Chaim Berlin, Otzar Reb Hayyim BerlinShu”t Nishmat Hayyim, Jerusalem, 2008, 4 vol., 446, 462, 449, 298 pp.

R. Chaim Berlin (1832-1912), the son of the R. Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (author of the Netziv), although well known until recently none of R. Chaim’s extensive torah has been published. To be sure, some of R. Chaim’s torah can be found scattered throughout the seforim of his time, but never in a book of its own. In 2002, R. Kosovsky-Shachor (“R. KS”) published a collection of R. Chaim’s responsa entitled Nishmat Hayyim. These responsa were collected from various manuscripts in many collections as well as correspondences which R. KS found in the Rabbinic literature from R. Chaim’s era. A year later R. KS printed a second volume of letters, derashot, articles and approbations of R. Chaim Berlin also entilted Nishmat Hayyim. In the back of the volume of responsa, R. KS includes a nice historical write up of R. Chaim Berlin’s life (corrections and additions to the biography appear in the back of the second volume).

A few months ago another collection of R. Chaim Berlin’s respona were published by Yeshivat ve-Hegaditah le-Vinkha entitled Otzar Reb Hayyim Berlin. This version was published in four massive volumes on all areas Shulchan Orach, Shas and more. In this post I will discuss a bit about the two versions, some of the interesting teshuovs found in them and many instances of censorship in the later edition. Regarding these examples of censorship, I can only assume that there are many more examples as I haven’t compared every line of the four volumes with the original. But, as will be apparent, the examples provided below are fairly egregious. Additionally, these works touch on the important topic of the reason behind the closing of Volozhin Yeshiva.

For purposes of this post, I will refer to the Nishmat Hayyim as the older edition and the Otzar Reb Hayyim Berlin as the new edition. The earlier edition contains about 200 responsa while the new version has well over 800 responsa. In the earlier edition they printed a volume of letters and haskamos which the new version did not do yet include but promises to print shortly. The newer version has an excellent index based on the order of shas and topics. Just a quick glance shows the tremendous wealth of topics discussed. They also included a list of all the people R. Chaim corresponded a veritable “who’s who” of the gedolim from that time period.

Some Highlights

Amongst the many interesting teshuvos there is one about riding on a train on Shabbas (1:171-172), creating something via the Sefer Yetzira on Shabbas (1:418), asking an agent to give a Get via a phonograph (4:39), throwing grass when one leaves the cemetery (2:359) and burning dead bodies as opposed to burial (2:353-355).

In the new edition there is a lengthy discussion (1:70-77) about answering Amen when one is in middle of davening. In the midst of this responsa (1:73) R. Berlin notes a very interesting thing :

נראה לענ”ד שאף במקום שמותר להפסיק בפשיטות ואין שם בית מיחוש כלל להחמיר כמו להפסיק מפסוקי דזמרה לקדושה, אין זה אלא רשות שמותר להפסיק אבל לא חיוב, וטעמא דידי, משום דקי”ל העוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה….

Another interesting statement found in a correspondence between him and R. Sholomo Hakohen where R. Shlomo writes (#67 in the old edition and # 191 in the new edition):

כן שמעתי מפי אביו הצדיק זצ”ל (הכוונה להנצי”ב) שאמר בשם חמיו זקנו הצדיק מו”ה חיים מוואלזין זצ”ל שיש לומר פירוש בלשון הרמב”ם והשו”ע אם הוא עולה ע”פ ההלכה אף שבודאי לא כוונו לזה משום שרוח הקודש נזרקה על לשונם, וכן מצאתי כעין זה ממש בס’ בית אלוקים להגאון המבי”ט זצ”ל בסוף פ’ ס”ד ע”ש”

While discussing the topic of gramophones, R. Chaim Berlin (#1 in old edition) writes that they had these already in the time of Chazal:

ובזה נראה לי לפרש לשון הש”ס בפ’ ראוהו ב”ד רה”ש כ”ח ב’ דמשני הש”ס על הא דתנן הי’ עובר אחורי בית הכנסת ושמע קול שופר או קול מגילה, אם כיון לבו יצא ואם לאו לא יצא מאי לאו אם כיון לבו לצאת, ושמע מינה מצות צריכות כונה, ומשני לא לשמוע, והא שמעי, סבור חמור בעלמא הוא, ופירש רבינו חננאל בש”ס החדשים דפוס ווילנא אם כיון לבו לשמוע ולהבחין אם הוא תקיעת בן אדם או צהלת סוס, ותמוה דהא ניחא בקול שופר שיש לטעות שהוא צהלת סוס, אבל בקול מגילה דלא שייך לטעות שהוא צהלת סוס, מאי איכא למימר, ותפשוט מינה דמצות צריכות כונה, וכבר תמהו בזה הטורי אבן במקומו, והפרי חדש או”ח (סי’ תר”צ סעי’ י”ג). ונראה דבימי הש”ס הי’ כלי זו של הגרמפון עשויה כצורת חמור והליצנים היו משתמשין בו, וזהו חמרא דאכפא דאמר ר’ אבהו בפ’ במה אשה שבת ס”ו ב’ ופירש”י חמור הנישא בכתפים והליצנים עושים אותו ובמקומנו נקרא ארדפיסא, ותרגם בש”ס החדשים דפוס ווילנא שזה קומנדינט או פארשטעלונג, וביותר היו עושין כן בפורים לבדח ולשמח את ההמון, והיה הדבר מצוי לשמוע מהחמור הזה גם קול מגילה, ומבואר דאם הוא קול החמור הזה, אינו יוצא ידי חובתו, כנלע”ד, וה’ יודע האמת

Another nice point is found while dealing with the issue of reciting the tefilah of Birkat Rosh Chodesh in light of the general prohibition against praying for one’s livelihood on Shabbos. R. Chaim Berlin writes (#23 old version):

ע”ד אשר שאל, היאך מצלינן בשבת שמברכין החודש על חיים של פרנסה, לפלא שלא שאל גם על נוסח מי שברך שאומרים בכל שבת אחר יקום פורקן, דמצלינן וישלח ברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיהם, וגם על נוסח בריך שמי’ שאומרי’ בהוצאת ס”ת דמצלינן יהא רעוא קדמך דתוריך לן חיין בטיבותא. אבל כבר כתבו האחרונים ליישב מנהג ישראל, שלא אסרו לתבוע צרכיו בשבת, אלא ביחיד העושה לעצמו תפלה מיוחדת על איזה מקרה, הנחוצה לו באותה שעה לפרנסה או לרפואה וכדומה, אבל נוסח תפלה הקבוע לכולם בשוה בנוסחא אחת, אין קפידא בזה, וגם זה נכלל בלשון הירושלמי טופס ברכות כך הוא

Another nice piece (# 52 old version) I found is in regard to the famous discussion for those who observe gebrucks how can they make kneidel on Chol Hamoed Pesach?

והנה, קרבו ימי המועד לבוא, אשר לא אאחוז עט בידי לכבודו משך שמונת ימים, ע”כ אמרתי להודיעו מה שעוררתי את בני עדתי בדרשת שבת הגדול העבר, ע”ד האנשים הנזהרים ממצה שרוי’ כל ימי הפסח לבד מיום האחרון, ויש גם נשים הנזהרות בזה. ואותן הנשים שנזהרות בזה ואין להם משרתת בבתיהם ואופות ומבשלות בעצמן, הנכון שיזהרו בשביעי של פסח מלהכין תבשילי מצה שרויה על יום המחרת, מאחר שאין התבשילין הללו ראויין להן ביו”ט, ואפי’ אם יקלעו להם אז אורחים ביו”ט שביעי של פסח, ג”כ לא יתנו להם מצה שרוי’, הרי לא מהני עירוב תבשילין בזה, כמש”כ הרמ”א בסי’ תקכ”ז סעי’ כ’ לענין מי שמתענה ביו”ט ועי’ מגן אברהם שם

It is also apparent from this teshuvah that R. Chaim did not even write Torah on Chol Hamoed.

Another very interesting Teshuvah (new edition 3:1-3) is where he deals with the Tzavas R. Yehudah Hachassid, as he was asked about marrying someone where it would be against one of the statements in the Tzavah. To which he replied:

.מכאן נלמוד לכל האזהרות שהזהיר רבינו החסיד ז”ל בעניני זיווגים, שאם אין בדבר זה שום מצוה, אלא שחפץ בה לשם ממון או לשם נוי, ודאי יש ליזהר בכל אזהרותיו, אבל מי שעושה מעשיו לשם שמים, ומכוין למצוה, עליו לא הזהיר החסיד כלל

Another interesting piece found (#24) is about a piece of the Netziv in the journal of Rav Kook, Iytur Seforim where the Netziv wrote that it is permissible to read newspapers on Shabbas. Regarding this point R. Chaim Berlin wrote:

ועל דבר לעיין בשבת בהרהורא בעלמא בלי קריאה בפה באגרות רשות ובמכתבי העתים לא הי’ כלל דעת מר אבא הגאון שליט”א, לקבוע מסמרים בהלכה זו ככל דבריו שבעטור סופרים, ולא בא אלא ליישב מנהג העולם שקוראים במכתבי העתים בשבת שסומכים בזה על משמעות תלמודא דידן עפ”י דעתם, שמפרשים דתלמודא דידן פליג בזה על תלמוד ירושלמי, אבל להלכה גם הוא יודה דקיי”ל כהירושלמי, וכה”ג מצינו בהרבה מקומות שכתבו הפוסקים ליישב מנהג העולם, שסומכים על דעה יחידית אף שלא כהלכה

The Netizv defends his opinion in the Shut Bikurei Shlomo (1:2). Interestingly enough there is testimony to the contrary from R. Baruch Halevei Epstein who writes how on Shabbas his uncle the Netziv used to read the Hebrew newspaper, Hamagid (Mekor Baruch 4:1794). R. Meir Bar-Ilan echoes R. Baruch Halevi’s testimony about his father the Netziv that he would read newspapers on Shabbas (Me-Volzhin LeYerushalim 1:138).

Much has been written about how the responsa literature can aid in reconstructing the history of the period, this sefer also shows us this. Just to cite one example in volume one (p. 88) of the newer version (which shockingly was not edited out) someone wrote to R. Chaim:

גלוי וידוע לכבודו עד כמה פשתה הנגע בארצינו וביתר שאת בארצות אוירפפה ושדה תיכלה כמעט בכל בנות ישראל שוע ודל אשר גם בעליהן ואבותיהן המה משלומי אמוני היהודים המחזקים בדתינו הקדוש והמה גם הנה אינן ח”ו מפורקי עול בדרך כלל, ובכל זאת עברו ושנו ונעשה להן כהתיר לילך בגליות שער ראשיהן אחת המרבה ואחת המטמעטת, עיר ועיר ומדינה ומדינה כמנהגה וכפי חוקות המאדע שלה. ולא ישמרו את נפשותיהן מזה לילך כן גם בבתי כנסיות ובבתי מדרשות ובמסיבות אנשים שרים סביב לשלחן בעת סעודות נשואין שבת ויום טוב

We see from this that the well known phenomena of woman not covering their hair in previous generations. The question which was posed to R. Chaim was what one should do about saying berokhot or Shema in front of such a woman. To which R. C. Berlin replied:

לענין קריאת שמע גופא יש מקילין בזמן הזה שכבר נהגו לגלות ראשן ודומה לשער שמחוץ לצמתן… ומעתה למעשה בזמן הזה, מי שאינו מחפש למצוא לו יתד על מה לסמוך, ומקלו יגיד לו, יוכל לסמוך על המקילין. ומי שהוא ירא חטא, ורוצה לצאת ידי שמים גם בסתר כבגלוי, ודאין אין לו לסמוך על המקילין

This is similar to the famous controversial pesak of the Aruch Hashulchan (O.C. 75:7):

עתה בואו ונצווח על פרצות דורינו בעוונותינו הרבים שזה שנים רבות שנפרצו בנות ישראל בעון זה והולכות בגילוי הראש וכל מה שצעקו על זה הוא לא לעזר ולא להועיל ועתה פשתה המספחת שהנשואות הולכות בשערותן כמו הבתולות אוי לנו שעלתה בימינו כך מיהו עכ”פ לדינא נראה שמותר לנו להתפלל ולברך נגד ראשיהן המגולות כיון שעתה רובן הולכות כך והוה כמקומות המגולים בגופה… וכיון שאצלינו גם הנשואות כן ממילא דליכא הרהור

Censorship in the New Edition

Of course this post would not be complete without mentioning some censorship in the new edition. Although I mentioned that the later edition has much more material than the first edition it seems a few teshuvos got “lost” in the later edition. [The family involved with the printing of this sefer is the same one mentioned by Dr. Gil S. Perl, in his Emek ha-Neziv, A Window into the Intellectual Universe of Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (PhD, Harvard, 2006), on pages 49-50, in light of Dr. Perl’s comments, it is of no surprise that they edited out these particular teshvot].

In the first edition (# 135, see volume 3:5 of the new edition) there is a discussion about shaking woman hands which has been a very controversial topic [See the recent Bina Ve-das p. 117]. Perhaps shockingly to many R. Chaim Berlin replied:

ואשר שאל על דבר נתינת ידו לרשעים או לנכרית, הנה ליתן יד לפושעים אין שום איסור בזה אם אין בזה הודאה וחיזוק להנהגותיהם בשרירות לבם. ולתת יד לאשה לשון הש”ס הוא ברכות ס”א א’ המרצה מעות לאשה מידו לידה כדי להסתכל בה, מבואר דאם אינו מכוין לשום דבר וכש”כ שאינו עושה כדי להסתכל בה כמו מעלתו שכל מעשיו לשם שמים אין איסור בזה לרצות מעות מידו לידה. ודאי אם יוכל להזהר בזה מה טוב, אבל אם אי אפשר לו להנצל מזה כגון אם הנכרית הקדימה והושיט לו את ידה ואין דעתו לשום הרהור ח”ו אין להחמיר בזה, ודרכיה דרכי נועם, ואהבת את ה’ אלקיך אמרו חכמים יומא פ”ו א’ שיהא שם שמים מתאהב על ידך, ולא יאמרו על יראי ה’ שהם משוגעים ואינם בעלי דרך ארץ

Two other pieces edited out from that same teshuvah in the new edition I am not sure as to why, are:

ועל דבר כסוי ראש האשה במטפחת אחת, אם אין שערה נראין אין בזה שום איסור, ועדיף טובא מפיאה נכרית, ואין צריך כלל שני כסויין, ואם אך אין השער נראה בחוץ די בכסוי אחד אף ברשות הרבים, ורשאי גם לקרות ק”ש כנגדה, ואין להחמיר עוד בזמן הזה

ולדבר עם אשה בשוק לא נאסר אלא לתלמיד חכם ולא למי שאינו מוחזק בתלמיד חכם, וכשם שתלמיד חכם המדבר עם אשה בשוק גורם בזה חלול השם כן מי שאינו מוחזק לתלמיד חכם הנזהר בזה שלא לדבר עם אשתו לעיני הבריות הוא מיחזי כיוהרא, ויש בזה גם כן חלול השם

Another very interesting statement which was edited out of the second edition is about Chasidim (# 7 in the old edition) where he writes:

ולהתפלל בבית הכנסת של החסידים אין שום חשש בזה, וגזירת רבינו הגר”א ז”ל לא הי’ אלא בזמנו שהקילו אז בכבוד תלמידי חכמים לומדי תורה, ולא כן בימינו שהחסידים חולקים כבוד לכל לומדי תורה והם יראי ה’ ושומרים תורה ומצוה. אך על דבר שינוי נוסחת התפלה, אסור לשנות בפרהסיא ממנהגיהם ומנוסחאותיהם ובנוסח הקדושה יאמר קדושת כתר בשביל שנאמרת בקול רם ויש בזה איסור לא תתגודדו, וגם שלא לעורר מחלוקת ח”ו, אבל בתפלה בלחש לא ישנה כבודו ממנהג אבותיו וממנהגו מעולם, ויתפלל שמונה עשרה בלחש כנוסח אשכנז

Another piece which was censored out although I am not sure what is so bad with it (#200 in the old edition) where he writes that there were additions to Mishnayos after Rabenu Hakadosh edited it:

שביארתי מאמרם ז”ל התמוה מאד בשלהי מס’ סוטה מ”ט ב’ על משנתינו משמת רבי בטלה ענוה ויראת חטא א”ל ר”י לתנא לא תיתני ענוה דאיכא אנא א”ל ר”נ לתנא לא תיתני יראת חטא דאיכא אנא. והתמיה מפורסמת איך אמוראים קדושים כאלה ישבחו עצמם בענוה ויראת חטא, והמלך החכם אמר יהללך זר ולא פיך. וביארתי בס”ד על פי מש”כ הרע”ב ז”ל על האי בבא משמת רבי בטלה ענוה שתלמידיו של רבי הוסיפו וכתבו זה במשנה, וכ”כ בתוס’ רע”ק בשם הרמב”ן בחי’ ע”ז ל”ז א’ שהוא תוספת שהוסיף בר קפרא או לוי במשנה, והמה היו תנאים אחרונים תלמידי רבי. ואמרתי שהוא הוא התנא שדברו עמו רב יוסף ורב נחמן, שרב יוסף א”ל לזה התנא שהוסיף במשנה משמת רבי בטלה ענוה א”ל לא תיתני ענוה שאתה מסתיר מדותיך הטובים ושונה במשנה משמת רבי בטלה ענוה ואנא ידענא שגם אתה ענוותן כרבי ועדיין לא בטלה ענוה משמת רבי, וכן א”ל רב נחמן לזה התנא שהוסיף במשנה משמת רבי בטלה יראת חטא א”ל לתנא לא תיתני יראת חטא שאתה מסתיר מדותיך הטובים ושונה במשנה משמת רבי בטלה יראת חטא ואנא ידענא שגם אתה ירא חטא כרבי, ועדיין לא בטלה יראת חטא משמת רבי, כן ביארתי זה המאמר לפי חומר הנושא

This censorship or editing goes the other way as well. In the first edition there is a piece (#120 old edition) about being a vegetarian but the whole question is not included for some odd reason but in the new version (#222) the whole question is printed out in full. R. Chaim Berlin was asked by R. Menashe Grossburg:

אם ראוי לישראל להיות מהחברה צער בעל החיים, ואם מותר לאכול בבית מרזח שלהם, שאין אוכלים אפילו חלב ובצים. לדעתי נראה לי בחפזי לפי מה שכתב הט”ז כמה פעמים דמה שמפורש התיר בתורה אין כח לשום אדם לאסור ובתורה מפורש התיר לאכול בשר מזמן נח. והם אומרים שכשם שאסור רציחה באדם גם כן אסור בבהמה אפילו בשחיטה, וזה נגד דעת תורתנו. ועוד ששמחת יום טוב מצות עשה גם בזמן הזה בבשר

To which R. Chaim Berlin answered:

נראה דעד כאן לא אמר הט”ז אלא דאין כח ביד חז”ל לגזור איסור לכל ישראל על דבר שפירשה התורה בפירוש להיתר, אבל מי שירצה לאסור על עצמו אכילת בשר, אין זה בכלל דברי הט”ז, והרי הוא ככל הנדרים שכתבה תורה בפירוש איש כי ידר נדר או השבע לאסר אסר על נפשו לא יחל דברו, אלא שחובה להתרחק מן הנדרים, והנודר כאלו בנה במה, ונקרא רשע כדתנן בפ”ק דנדרים ט’ א’ כנדרי רשעים, וביו”ד סי’ ר”ג

This teshuvah was a list of questions from R. Menashe Grossburg to R. Chaim Berlin which the old edition broke up and put it in the different places and never even included the name of R. Menashe Grossburg [at one time the editor makes it as if someone else asked the question (see p. 104)].

Some Final Points

When talking about the Malbim in a hesped (printed in volume two of R. KS Nishmat Chaim p. 14) R. Chaim Berlin said:

לחזק תורה שבעל פה כהגאון המלבי”ם ז”ל, ובענין זה לא הניח כמותו, ממלא מקומו, כי הניח כל החריפות והפלפולים שמילדותו והקדיש כל כחותיו להראות איך התורה שבעל פה מבוארת בבאר היטב בתורה שבכתב, אשר הענין הזה נחוץ ביותר בזמנינו

In another teshuvah we see how much he respected the Marsham as he (#19 old version) writes:

ואני אין רצוני להיות מדייני גזירות, אם לא שיבוא האיסור גם מרבנים זולתי כמו מהגאון ר’ שלום מרדכי הכהן מברעזאן וזולתו, אז יוכל לצרף להם גם את שמי ולא באופן אחר

His very close friend the Adres also felt the same way about the Marsham as the Adres even asked him to be his Rebbe in Halacha after R. Yitzchak Elchanan died (see Rabbosenu she-begoleh 1:13-125 and R. E. Katzman in his introduction to Chidushei Hagoan Hadres pp. 25-26).

I write that the Adres was very close to him based on two things. One, besides for the Netziv and other family members the most correspondences are with the Adres. Two, in his Tzevah he writes:

מקום קבורתי, קניתי בחיי, על יד קבר אהובי הרב ר’ אלי’ דוד ראבינאוויץ תאומים ז”ל

[On the friendship between Adres and R. Chaim Berlin see also the letter printed in the most recent volume of Shnos Dor Vedor (3:355-356).]

In a letter from the Adres (new edition 1:382) to R. Chaim Berlin the Adres describes to him when he first met the Netziv. The Netziv got up and made a Shecheaynu! [The Adres also records this incident in his now rare, autobiography Seder Eliyhu p. 85]. [On the friendship between Adres and Netziv besides for what Adres writes there in his autobiography (ibid) see the letter printed in the most recent volume of Shnos Dor Vedor (3:485-486).]

In a letter to a friend written when he first got to Yerushalim R. Chaim Berlin writes:

והנני מברך בכל יום בשמחה רבה שלא עשני עב”ד (אב”ד)

He also writes this statement in a short history of himself which he sent to R. Eisenstadt for his Doros Achronim (1:71-72). [This short history is included in the new edition of Nishmat Chaim p. 8 without providing their source.] [On this “Beracha” see R. S. Askenazi in his Alpha Beta Kadmita Deshmuel Zeria p. 469 where he shows five places where R. Yakov Emden said this.]

In the newer edition of R. Chaim Berlin they write that they did not include a biography of R. Chaim Berlin in light of R. Chaim’s opposition to such biographies or histories:

The Closing of Volozhin

But they did include one historical thing which they felt was very important to be printed, the statement of R. Chaim Berlin about the closing of the Volozhin Yeshiva (based on a copy of the manuscript) where he writes:

מה שהזהירני וצוה עלי מר אבא הגאון זצלל”ה הכ”מ קודם פטירתו. על דבר שמסר נפשו על ענין ישיבה דוואלוזי’ין, שלא להכניס לתוכה שום לימוד חול ולסיבה זו נסגרה הישיבה ומזה נחלה בחוליו אשר לא עמד ממנה. וצוה לי באזהרה שלא להסכים לענין זה בלא שום הוראת היתר בעולם. ואמר שהקב”ה רמז כל זה בתורה. שאמר להבדיל בין הקודש ובין החול היינו שכל עניני חול המתערבים בקודש בלי הבדל. לא די שאין עניני למודי חול מקבלים קדושה אלא אף זה שעניני למודי קדש מתקלקלים מהם. ע”כ לא ירע לך בני מה שהענין זה גרם לי לצאת מן העולם כי כדאי הוא הענין הגדול הזה למסור נפשו עליו. כל זה דיבר אלי ביום ג’ כ”ו מנחם אב תרנג בוורשא עכ”ל

This piece has been printed before in many places (at times even an exact picture of it see S. Roz in his Tzadik Yesod Olam pg 142 and from there R. Eliach in Hagoan pg 629; see also Yeshurun 7:675). The letter was called into question as to its authenticity see R. Ben Zion Yadler in his Betov Yerushlaim pg 388-389. [These sources escaped Professor Stampfer’s notice see his book Hayeshiva Halitais Behishavetah pg 224].

The topic of the closing of Volozhin has been the subject of much discussion especially the often quoted article of Jacob J. Schacter, “Haskalah, Secular Studies and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892,” Torah u-Madda Journal 2 (1990). See even more recently the interesting discussion by R. N. Kamenetsky in his Making of a Godol (1: 442-455). Although we have this statement of R. Chaim Berlin about the closing of the Yeshiva but based on historical facts it can not be true. While it was very true that the government and maskilim had been making terrible trouble for years about learn2ing secular studies in the Yeshiva and for the most part were unsuccessful. We do have clear documentation that Secular studies were taught in Volozhin on some scale a few years before its closing. ]See Hayeshiva Halitais Behishavetah p. 223.] The various theories discussed in these articles attribute the close of the Volozhin Yeshiva to the fight of R. Chaim Berlin taking over his father’s position as the Rosh Hayeshiva. R. M. Shapiro in R. Moshe Shmeul Vedoro (an eyewitness to the closing) also writes that one factor in the closing of the Yeshiva was the rebellion against R. Chaim Berlin (p.76) [This excellent book was not used by R. KS in his writing up about R. Chaim Berlin.] Most recently all this has been reexamined by two people especially based on new evidence – documents that have been discovered after the Iron Curtain fell.

What I find interesting is how two people can see the same documents and came to completely different conclusions. A few years back R. Frank printed a book on yeshivas Volozhin called Toldos Beis Haskem Bevolozhin. This book deals with the history of the Yeshiva from the beginning until the end including a brief history of all the Roshei Hayeshiva. Although the book is weak on quoting sources it has many important discussions about the topic of Volozhin. One of the real new important things printed here is government documents dealing with the closing of the Yeshiva (pp. 274-96). Although he edits out many parts due to respect for R. Chaim Berlin and R. Chaim Solovetick he prints parts and concludes that the maskilim and a few renegade bochrim influenced by the maskilim caused the government to close down the Yeshiva and it revolved learning secular studies in the Yeshiva. A few years later Professor Saul Stampfer reissued his excellent book Hayeshiva Halitais Behishavetah with many important additions and corrections amongst the additions were these same documents but unedited. The picture one gets from these documents (as he shows pp. 245-66) is something else entirely. Specifically, the cause for the government closing down the Yeshiva was not because of learning secular studies, instead the closure was because of the whole terrible and disgusting controversy about the succession of R. Chaim Berlin for his father the Netziv to be the Rosh haYeshiva of the Yeshiva. The bochurim got the government involved and they were very unhappy how the whole thing was dealt with so they shut down the Yeshiva.

One of the things the Bochrim did was interrupt the shiur of R. Chaim Berlin constantly bombarding him with many questions. According to some, they used many seforim borrowed from R. Chaim’s vast library to stump him. This terrible act was done a few times before in Volozhin. Once when R. Alexander Moshe Lapides visited the Yeshiva the bochrim did the same thing to prove a point (see Yeshivos Lita, Pirkei Zicronos pp. 75-77). [This account is not included in the otherwise excellent edition of R. Alexander Moshe Lapides writings called Torah Hagoan R. Alexander Moshe.] When R. Yitzhkach Elchanan Spektor visited the yeshiva at a different time they tried the same thing but were unsuccessful in stumping him (see Toldos Yitchack p. 61 see also Harishon Leshalshles Beis Brisk pp. 128-32).

As an aside in researching this topic I was (and still am) horrified about this whole controversy how the bochurim (even if it was not the majority of the Yeshiva) could do all the terrible things they did during the whole fight. Ultimately causing the close of the Yeshiva and the premature death of the Netziv!

In the Derech Etz Chaim, Y. Meltzer (pp. 51-52) prints a letter of someone (he edits out the name) (see also Nishamt Chaim old edition 2:122) who asked mechilah from R. Chaim Berlin for making him trouble when he was supposed to take over Volozhin and R. Chaim Berlin writes back:

אנכי עפר ואפר ואין אני כדאי לפני המקום יתברך שמו, כי יענש חס ושלום שום אדם בסיבתי. ובר מן דין, כבר באותם הימים שצערוני אמרתי בכל לילה כמר זוטרא מגילה כח א’ שרי ליה לכל דצערן לי ואין לו לחוש כלל לדרוש ממנו מחילה כי מצדי כבר מחלתי. אמנם מאי דשקליה למטרפסי ונענש מן השמים זה בשביל שני דברים: אחד בשביל חילול ה’ הגדול שגרם… ב. בשביל צערו של רבו המובהק, מר אבא הגאון מאור הגולה זצוקל”ה, שגרם לו אז כמובן… ובפרט שיכול להיות שמהצער הגדול הזה שגרם לו היה התחלה למחלתו האחרונה, שנפטר על ידה מן העולם

Another famous piece printed in Nishmat Chaim (volume two of the old edition pp. 380-83) is the dream he had after his very close friend R. Yitchack Blazaer died and R. Chaim Berlin gave a hesped although he requested that there be no hespedim. R. Chaim Berlin described the dream as follows:

נשמע אליו בזה שלא לספר בשבחו כלל, אולם על שלא נבכה על ההעדר לא צוה כלל… בא המונח אצלי בחלום ואמר לי יישר כח על שלא הגדתי שבח. ושאלתי ממנו מה נעשה בדינו בעולם ההוא, ואמר לי שדין של מעלה הוא חמור מאד שאי אפשר לשום אדם בעולם הזה לשער כלל, וביחוד מקפידים מאד על דבורים האסורים שנדברו שלא כהוגן

Another thing which R. Chaim Berlin was very famous for was his massive library which consisted of thousands of volumes. [See R. KS in Nishmat Chaim p. 376, vol 2 pp. 398, 352]. There are even some nice letters of his to his (and his fathers) friend E. Harkavy thanking him for some recent volumes from the Mikitze Nerdamim society with some comments on the seforim. This letter was printed in the first volume of Shnos Dor Vedor (p. 199) and than again in the second volume of the Nishmat Chaim of R. Kosovsky-Shachor. In the recent version of Nishmat Chaim (4: p. 45 part two) only part of the letter was printed. In the edited out piece R. C. Berlin wrote:

זה שנתים ימים, אשר הריצותי כסף שלומים, בעד שנת מקיצי הנרדמים חמשה רו”כ שלמה ליד בחיר החכמים, ידידנו הגאון ר”מ שטראשון ז”ל, ויענני במכתב, כי הריץ את הכסף לידדנו הרב הד”ר א’ ברלינר הי”ו בברלין

I am not sure why it’s a problem to acknowledge that R. Chaim Berlin liked R. Strashun but it’s not a problem in regard to R. Harkevey. As an aside we see R. Chaim Berlin wrote respectfully about A. Berliner contrary to the recent complaint voiced by someone in the recent Yerushenu (3:396).

This library also consisted of manuscripts one of which was the Seder Hadoros with the comments of the Radal. [There is a teshuvah (new edition 1:96) of his to the Radal someone who his father was also very close with] When R. Chaim Kahana was working on the Seder Hadoros R. Chaim Berlin gave him this sefer. R. Kahana included these notes which are very valuable to the topic in his Kochvei Or (available here ).

The bulk of this library passed on to R. Isser Zalman Meltzer. In Derech Etz Chaim, Y. Meltzer brings a few stories of how R. Isser Zalman Meltzer made use with it (pp. 451-52) and even had the editors of Otzar Haposkim use it (p. 328). Although Y. Meltzer writes that in the Tzevah of R. Berlin it said that if a Talmid Chaham moves into my apartment after my death he should get it (p. 50) but in the version of the Tzevah printed in Nishmat Chaim (vol. 2 pp. 403-05) it does not say any such thing. [See Nishmat Chaim volume one (old edition p. 376).]

R. KS brings a story (2:377) to show his incredible yedios which I find hard to believe. Someone asked R. Chaim Berlin where is the first time that the name Chaim is mentioned in our literature as its not found in Talmud, Medrash or the era of the Geonim. R. Chaim Berlin replied the first time the name is found is in Tosfos and than he started listing the rest of the people with that name. The reason I find it hard to believe this story is we do find this name in the era of the Geonim. As R. Sherirah Gaon and Ravad in Sefer haKabalah [Cohen ed. p. 41] bring that Rav Zemach Goan father was Chaim. A look at the index of Moshe Gil’s Bemalchut Yishmael Betekufos Hageonim (volume 4 p. 853) shows that the name Chaim was fairly common in the era of the Geonim [thanks to M.M. Honig for this source]. R. Chaim Palgai (Kol Hachaim 8:15) cites a Medrash in Bamedbar (14) that shows an Amorah had the name Chaim. But it seems to be a printing mistake as in our edition it says Chiyah [see also Kesser Shem Tov vol 1 pg 300].

I mentioned that R. KS collected the Haskomos of R. Chaim Berlin reaching over 140 but at least one is missing a haskamah to a reissue of Seder Hadoros that R. Yeruchem Leiner brother of the Radziner Rebbe started working on with many additions.

One weakness both editions have which E. Katzman in his introduction to Chidushei Hagoan Hadres (p. 42) already complains about, is that the older edition left out all the sources for the pieces. The second edition at times does quote the sources from where they found the pieces but more often than not they do not quote their sources.

In conclusion, to obtain the full version of R. Chaim Berlin’s responsa, both edition are necessary, and definitely worth owning.




Marc B. Shapiro – Responses to Comments and Elaborations of Previous Posts III

Responses to Comments and Elaborations of Previous Posts III
by Marc B. Shapiro

This post is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Chaim Flom, late rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Ohr David in Jerusalem. I first met Rabbi Flom thirty years ago when he became my teacher at the Hebrew Youth Academy of Essex County (now known as the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy; unfortunately, another one of my teachers from those years also passed away much too young, Rabbi Yaakov Appel). When he first started teaching he was known as Mr. Flom, because he hadn’t yet received semikhah (Actually, he had some sort of semikhah but he told me that he didn’t think it was adequate to be called “Rabbi” by the students.) He was only at the school a couple of years and then decided to move to Israel to open his yeshiva. I still remember his first parlor meeting which was held at my house. Rabbi Flom was a very special man. Just to give some idea of this, ten years after leaving the United States he was still in touch with many of the students and even attended our weddings. He would always call me when he came to the U.S. and was genuinely interested to hear about my family and what I was working on. He will be greatly missed.
1. In a previous post I showed a picture of the hashgachah given by the OU to toilet bowl cleaner. This led to much discussion, and as I indicated, at a future time I hope to say more about the kashrut industry from a historical perspective.[1] I have to thank Stanley Emerson who sent me the following picture.
It is toilet bowl cleaner in Israel that also has a hashgachah. Until Stanley called my attention to this, I was bothered that the kashrut standards in the U.S. had surpassed those of Israel. I am happy to see that this is not the case. (In fact, only in Israel can one buy a package of lettuce with no less than six (!) different hashgachot. See here)
But in all seriousness, I think we must all be happy at the high level of kashrut standards provided by the OU and the other organizations. This, of course, doesn’t mean that we have to be happy with what has been going on at Agriprocessors. I realize that this is a huge contract, but it was very disappointing to see that the first response of the OU to the numerous Agriprocessors scandals, beginning with the PETA video, has been to circle the wagons and put out the spin. Any changes from the OU only came after public outrage, and if the hashgachah is eventually removed from Agriprocessors, it will once again be due to this outrage. To be sure, we no longer can imagine cases of meat producers locking the mashgiach in the freezer,[2] but it does seem that the company was being given pretty free reign in areas where the hashgachah could have been using more of its influence. (Let’s not forget that Agriprocessors needs the OU more than the reverse.) At the very least, we need some competition in the glatt kosher meat business. Agriprocessors has a near monopoly and as we all know, competition is what forces businesses to operate at a higher standard.
In fact, the entire glatt kosher “standard” should be done away with and turned into an option for those who wish to be stringent. This has recently been tried in Los Angeles, with the support of local rabbis, but I don’t know how successful it has been. The only way this can happen on a large scale is if the OU once again starts certifying non-glatt. The masses have been so brainwashed in the last twenty years that they will not eat regular kosher unless it has an OU hashgachah. There is no good reason – there are reasons, but they aren’t good – why the OU does not certify non-glatt. As is the case with the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, the OU should certify both mehadrin (glatt) and non-mehadrin.
It might be that people in Teaneck and the Five Towns don’t feel the bad economic times. Yet there are many people who are having difficulty making ends meet. It is simply not fair to create a system where people are being forced to pay more money for meat than they should have to. The biggest problem Orthodoxy faces, and the factor that makes it an impossible lifestyle for many who would otherwise be drawn to it, is the enormous costs entailed. Anything we can do to lower this burden, even if it is only a couple of hundred dollars a year–obviously significantly more for communal institutions–should be done.
Returning to Agriprocessors, while the current issue focuses on the treatment of workers, the problem of a couple of years ago focused on the treatment of animals. Yet the two should not necessarily be seen as so far apart. According to R. Joseph Ibn Caspi (Mishneh Kesef [Pressburg, 1905], vol. 1, p. 36), the reason the Torah forbids inflicting pain on animals is “because we humans are very close to them and we both have one father”! This outlook is surprising enough (and very un-Maimonidean), but then he continues with the following incredible statement: “We and the vegetables, such as the cabbage and the horseradish, are brothers, with one father”! He ties this in with the command not to cut down a fruit tree (Deut. 20:19), which is followed by the words כי האדם עץ השדה. This is usually understood as a question: “for is the tree of the field man [that it should be besieged of thee?] Yet Caspi understands it as a statement, and adds the following, which together with what I have already quoted from him will make the Jewish eco-crowd very happy.
כי האדם עץ השדה (דברים כ’ י”ט), כלומר שהאדם הוא עץ השדה שהוא מין אחד מסוג הצמח כאמרו כל הבשר חציר (ישעיה מ’ ו’) ואמרו רז”ל בני אדם כעשבי השדה (עירובין נד ע”א)
Finally, in Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld’s op-ed on Agriprocessors in the New York Times (see here) he wrote as follows: “Yisroel Salanter, the great 19th-century rabbi, is famously believed to have refused to certify a matzo factory as kosher on the grounds that the workers were being treated unfairly.” Herzfeld was attacked by people who claimed that there is no historical source to justify this statement. While the story has been garbled a bit, the substance indeed has a source. I refer to Dov Katz, Tenuat ha-Mussar, vol. 1, p. 358. Here R. Yisrael Salanter is quoted as saying that when it comes to the production of matzah, one must not only be concerned with the halakhot of Pesah, but also with the halakhot of Hoshen Mishpat, i.e., that one must have concern for the well-being of the woman making the matzah.
אין כשרות המצות שלמה בהידוריהן שבהלכות פסח לבד, כי אם עם דקדוקיהן גם בדיני חשן משפט
2. In my previous post I wrote: “With regard to false ascription of critical views vis-à-vis the Torah’s authorship, I should also mention that Abarbanel, Commentary to Numbers 21:1, accuses both Ibn Ezra and Nahmanides of believing that the beginning verses of this chapter are post-Mosaic. Yet Abarbanel must have been citing from memory, since neither of them say this. In fact, Ibn Ezra specifically rejects the notion that the verses were written by Joshua.” I made a similar point in Limits of Orthodox Theology, p.106 n. 102.
I looked at Abarbanel again and would like to revise what I wrote. I don’t think it is correct to say that Abarbanel was citing from memory, since he quotes Nahmanides’ words. With regard to Ibn Ezra, I now assume that Abarbanel thinks Ibn Ezra is being coy. In other words, although Ibn Ezra cites a view held by “many” that Joshua wrote the beginning of Numbers 21, and then goes on to reject this view, Abarbanel doesn’t trust Ibn Ezra. He thinks that Ibn Ezra really accepts the “critical” view. I see absolutely no evidence for this. Ibn Ezra has ways to hint to us when he favors a critical view, and he never does so with this section. Furthermore, I am aware of no evidence that the “many” who hold the critical view are Karaites, as is alleged by Abarbanel.
What led Abarbanel to accuse Nahmanides of following Ibn Ezra in asserting that there are post-Mosaic verses in Numbers 21? As with Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel sees Nahmanides as hiding his critical view and only hinting to it. Numbers 21:3 reads: “And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities; and the name of the place was called Hormah.” Yet as Nahmanides notes, it is in Judges 1:17 that we see the destruction of the Canaanites and the naming of the city Hormah. How, then, can the city be called Hormah in Deuteronomy when it won’t be conquered and named for many years?
Nahmanides writes that the Torah here is relating “that Israel also laid their cities waste when they came into the land of Canaan, after the death of Joshua, in order to fulfill the vow which they had made, and they called the name of the cities Hormah.” In other words, the Torah is describing an event, including the naming of a place, which will only take place a number of years later. This event is described in the book of Judges. The verse in Numbers is written in the past tense, which would seem to render Nahmanides’ understanding problematic. Yet as Chavel points out in his notes to his English edition, this does not concern Nahmanides. “Since there is no difference in time for God, it is written in the past tense, for past, present, and future are all the same to Him.”
This is certainly true with regard to God, but what about the Children of Israel? How are they supposed to read a section of the Torah that speaks about an event as having happened in the past but which in reality has not yet even taken place? These are problems that the traditional commentators deal with, but Abarbanel sees Nahmanides as departing from tradition and offering a heretical interpretation. He is led to this assumption because Nahmanides uses the ambiguous words “Scripture continued” and “Scripture, however, completed the account.” Why didn’t Nahmanides say that Moses wrote this? It must be, according to Abarbanel, that Nahmanides is hinting that this was written down after Moses’ death. In Abarbanel’s words:
כי הרב כסתה כלימה פניו לכתוב שיהושע כתב זה. והניח הדבר בסתם שהכתוב השלימו אבל לא זכר מי היה הכותב כיון שלא היה משה עליו השלום והדעת הזה בכללו לקחהו הראב”ע מדברי הקראים שבפירושי התורה אשר להם נמנו וגמרו שלא כתב זה מזה והרמב”ן נטה אחרי הראב”ע והתימה משלימות תורתו וקדושתו שיצא מפיו שיש בתורה דבר שלא כתב משה. והם אם כן בכלל כי דבר ה’ בזה.
From here, let me return for the third time to what some would see as an aspect of biblical criticism in Radak. To recap, in his commentary to I Sam. 4:1 Radak writes:
על האבן העזר: כמו הארון הברי’ והכותב אמר זה כי כשהיתה זאת המלחמה אבן נגף היתה ולא אבן עזר ועדיין לא נקראה אבן העזר כי על המלחמה האחרת שעשה שמואל עם פלשתים בין המצפה ובין השן שקרא אותה שמואל אבן העזר שעזרם האל יתברך באותה מלחמה אבל מה שנכתב הנה אבן העזר דברי הסופר הם וכן וירדף עד דן.
Dr. H. Norman Strickman convinced me that Radak means that the words “and pursued as far as Dan” are a later insertion, since the city was only named Dan after it was conquered in the days of Joshua (Joshua 19:47). In a comment to the post, Benny wrote:
There is no reason to assume that Radak is not referring to Moses prophetically writing the word Dan. It just means that in the time that the story took place, the name was not Dan. . . . I think that it is definitely possible that Radak understood that Moshe is the one who wrote “Et HaGilad Ad Dan”.
Dr. Yitzchak Berger wrote to me as follows:
I think the commenter ‘Benny’ was right about Radak’s view of Gen. 14:14. At I Sam 4:1 he’s probably merely contrasting the author-narrator’s [i.e. “sofer’s”–MS] perspective with that of the players in the story, concerning the phrases in both Samuel and Genesis (in the case in Samuel there would be no reason for him to introduce a later editor).”
As is often the case in these sorts of disputes, I find myself being moved by the last argument I hear. As I noted in the earlier post, Radak elsewhere insists on complete Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Thus, it is certainly easier to read this text in a way that would not create a contradiction.
While on the subject of Mosaic authorship, let me also add the following. David Singer recently wrote an interesting article on Rabbi Emanuel Rackman.[3] With the recent passing of Rabbi Moses Mescheloff,[4] Rackman, born in 1910, might be the oldest living musmach of RIETS. If this is so, don’t expect this to be acknowledged in any way by the powers at YU.[5] The ideological winds have blown rightward in the last thirty years, and Rackman has moved leftward. He is thus no longer regarded as representative of RIETS or worthy of any acknowledgment.[6]

A similar thing happened at Hebrew Theological College in Skokie. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits (died 1992) was, in my opinion, the most significant and influential person ever to teach on its faculty. (Unfortunately, they didn’t let him teach Talmud, only philosophy.) Yet not only does HTC currently have no interest in recognizing him, in 2001, some eighteen years (!) after the appearance of Not in Heaven, a very negative review appeared in the Academic Journal of Hebrew Theological College.[7] To show how insignificant Berkovits is in Skokie, neither the author, Rabbi Chaim Twerski, nor any of the editors, realized that his last name is not spelled Berkowitz! Were he alive today, can anyone imagine that HTC would allow him to speak? (It would be interesting to create a list of people who founded or taught at institutions and today would be persona non grata there. A few come to mind, and for now let me just mention R. Zev Gold, the outstanding Mizrachi leader who was one of the founders, and first president, of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas. Gold, who was also a rabbi in Scranton, was one of the signers of Israel’s declaration of independence.[8])
Some people pointed out that in Twerski’s negative review, Berkovits is never even referred to as Rabbi, only as Dr. (A cynic might add that in his zeal to use the title “Dr.” instead of “Rabbi” for those he doesn’t approve of, Twerski even gives R. Judah Leib Maimon a doctorate, referring to him as Dr. Maimon.) In the following issue, Twerski apologizes for any disrespect, noting that while some people took offense at how he referred to Berkovits, others “who know [!] him well have told me that he always preferred to be addressed as ‘Dr. Berkovits.'” I think this is a fair response. After all, would anyone criticize an author for referring to “Dr. Lamm”? Yet I must also say that someone reading the article will not learn that Berkovits was a great talmudic scholar, and I don’t even know if Twerski recognizes this.
Returning to Singer, in his article he writes that Rackman accepted the Documentary Hypothesis. I discussed this issue with Rackman some years ago and this is definitely not what he told me. The most he would say was that he would not regard someone as a heretic if he accepted biblical criticism. Yet he personally was not a believer in the theory. In support of Singer’s assertion to the contrary, he quotes the following passage from Rackman: “The most definitive record of God’s encounters with man is contained in the Pentateuch. Much of it may have been written by people in different times, but at one point in history God not only made the people of Israel aware of his immediacy, but caused Moses to write the eternal evidence of the covenant between Him and His people.” He also quotes another statement by Rackman: “[T]he sanctity of the Pentateuch does not derive from God’s authorship of all of it, but rather from the fact that God’s is the final version. The final writing by Moses has the stamp of divinity – the kiss of immortality.”
Singer misunderstands Rackman. There is no Higher Criticism here, no Documentary Hypothesis. What Rackman is saying is that the stories in the Pentateuch might have been recorded by various people before Moses, but that these stories were later included in the Torah at God’s command, with Moses being the final author. In both of these passages Rackman is explicit that the Torah was written by Moses. Rackman’s position in these quotations is very traditional, asserting that all that appears in the Torah is Mosaic. With this conception it doesn’t matter if, for example, the stories of Noah or the Patriarchs had earlier written versions passed down among the Israelites, since what makes them holy and part of the Torah is God’s command to Moses that they be included in the Holy Book. This was done by Moses’ “final writing.” I can’t see anyone, even the most traditional, finding a problem in this.
While on the subject of Rackman, let me make a bibliographical point. R. Moshe Feinstein, Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh Deah IV, no. 50:2 refers to:
המאמרים של רב אחד שמחשבים אותו לרב ארטאדקאקסי שנדפסו בעיתון שבשפת אנגלית . . . והנה ראינו שכולם דברי כפירה בתורה שבעל פה המסורה לנו.
R. Moshe goes on to further attack the heresy of this unnamed rabbi, who is none other than Rackman. This can be seen by examining Ha-Pardes, May 1973, p. 7, where R. Moshe’s letter first appeared. It is not a private communication but is described as coming from Agudat ha-Rabbonim of the United States and Canada, and R. Moshe signs as president of the organization. Earlier in this issue (it is the lead article) and also in the April 1973 Ha-Pardes, R. Simhah Elberg published his own attack on Rackman, referring to him as ראביי ר. Elberg refers to Rackman’s articles which appeared regularly in the American Examiner, and which so agitated the haredim – and also many of the centrist Orthodox. This paper then joined with the Jewish Week, and became known as the Jewish Week and American Examiner. Rackman continued to publish in the paper until around 2001. (His article discussing my biography of Weinberg was one of the last ones he would write, and it is reprinted in the second edition of One Man’s Judaism [Jerusalem, 2000], pp. 402-404.)
3. Many people were interested in the claim, quoted in an earlier post, that rabbis turned over their own children to become soldiers if these children were no longer observant. If something like this ever happened it would have been very heartless, and there were, of course, many children of gedolim who became non-religious. While in some cases the child choosing a different path led to estrangement with his father, in others, father and son remained close, and I think today everyone realizes that this is the only proper approach to take.
R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg thought that it might be a good idea for a father to attend his son’s intermarriage, in order not to break ties completely. (Believe it or not, this statement was published in Yated Neeman.) Yet to see how different things were in years past, at least among some parts of our community, consider the following responsum by the important Hungarian posek, R. Jacob Tenenbaum.[9] The case concerned an Orthodox shochet whose son went to the בית האון (This means the non-Orthodox rabbinical seminary in Budapest, against which the Orthodox rabbis carried on a crusade.) The problem was that during his vacations the son came home to his parents’ house. Tenenbaum was asked if this meant that the shochet was disqualified and could no longer serve the community. The father pleaded that he loved his son, and Tenenbaum replied that התנצלות זה הוא הבל. Tenenbaum also rejected the father’s claim that if he doesn’t show love to his son, the latter will go even further “off the derech.”
Tenenbaum demanded that the father make a complete break with his son (that is, if the father wanted to be regarded as a Jew in good standing). The choice was clear: The father had to decide between loving his son and making a living (for if chose the former he would be blacklisted throughout the country):
ואם אביו יתן לו מקום בביתו או יתמכהו באיזה דבר בזה יגלה דעתו שגם בו נזרקה מינות [!] ובזה אין חילוק בין שו”ב לאיש אחר . . . אם יחזיק ידו או יתן לו מקום בביתו הנה ידו במעל הזה אשר בנו פנה עורף לדת ה’ ועל כן צא טמא יאמר לו, ושלא יוסיף עוד ראות פניו אם לא ישמע לדבריו לעזוב דרך רשע.
I know this sounds like a Hungarian extremist approach, but R. Kook had basically the same viewpoint. In Da’at Kohen no. 7, he too is asked about a shochet whose non-religious sons live at home. R. Kook replies that while technically the actions of the sons do not destroy the hezkat kashrut of the father, nevertheless, the matter is very distasteful (מכוער). Even if the father could not be blamed at all in this matter, nevertheless, it is a hillul ha-shem. Since the beit din has the power to legislate in matters beyond the strict law, “there is no migdar milta greater than this.” He explains the reason for his uncompromising viewpoint:
שלא ילמדו אחרים להפקירות עוד יותר, כשרואין שבניו של השו”ב הקבוע הם מחללים ש”ק, ע”כ לע”ד ברור הדבר, שכ”ז שבניו הם סמוכין על שולחנו, ואין פוסקין מחילול ש”ק, איננו ראוי להיות שו”ב קבוע, ומה גם בעדה חרדית.
If this is said about a shochet, how much more would it apply to a rav of a community. It is therefore easy to understand why non-religious children of some well-known rabbis are no longer welcome in their parents’ home. (Other well-known rabbis have a completely different outlook, and reject what they would categorize as the conditional-love approach of Rabbis Tenenbaum and Kook).
4. Since I have mentioned R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg a few times, I must call attention to something that was pointed out to me by Rabbi Chaim Miller. Miller might be known to some readers for his wonderful editions of the Chumash and Haggadah with a commentary based on writings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He has also published the first volume of a multi-volume work on the Thirteen Principles.[10]
I have often been asked if Weinberg gave semikhah to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. There is such a story yet I always found it suspicious that it was never mentioned in the Rebbe’s lifetime. Furthermore, Weinberg never mentions this in his letters. (He does mention that R. Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn loved him.) So when asked, I always replied that I didn’t believe the story to be correct, as there is no evidence. In fact, I thought that the story was created as a clever way of giving the Rebbe semikhah. There is no record of him receiving semikhah before he arrived in Germany or after he left, so it made sense to have him receive it during his time in Berlin. Once you assume that the semikhah is received in Berlin, who better than Weinberg to give it to the Rebbe? Yet I always assumed that that this was a legend and wondered if the Rebbe even had semikhah.
Rabbi Miller called my attention to the new book, Admorei Habad ve-Yahadut Germanyah, pp. 103ff., where R. Avraham Abba Weingort, who is completely trustworthy (and far removed from Habad), records the testimony of two other reliable people from Switzerland who knew Weinberg well. Although there is probably some exaggeration in the details of the story they tell, they report being told by Weinberg that he indeed gave semikhah to the Rebbe, and the circumstances of how this came about (including requiring that the Rebbe come to some of his shiurim at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary).[11] I can now better understand why the Rebbe’s contact information given to the University of Berlin was the address of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary.[12] From now on, whenever I am asked if the Rebbe received semikhah from Weinberg, I will reply yes.
5. In recent years a few volumes from the writings of R. Yehudah Amital have been translated into English, allowing many new people to be exposed to his thoughts. Here is a provocative passage from his newest volume, Commitment and Complexity: Jewish Wisdom in an Age of Upheaval, p. 48:
We live in an era in which educated religious circles like to emphasize the centrality of Halakha, and commitment to it, in Judaism. I can say that in my youth in pre-Holocaust Hungary, I didn’t hear people talking all the time about “Halakha.” People conducted themselves In the tradition of their forefathers, and where any halakhic problems arose, they consulted a rabbi. Reliance on Halakha and unconditional commitment to it mean, for many people, a stable anchor whose purpose is to maintain the purity of Judaism, even within the modern world. To my mind, this excessive emphasis of Halakha has exacted a high cost. The impression created is that there is nothing in Torah but that which exists in Halakha, and that in any confrontation with the new problems that arise in modern society, answers should be sought exclusively in books of Halakha. Many of the fundamental values of the Torah which are based on the general commandments of “You shall be holy” (Vayikra 19:2) and “You shall do what is upright and good in the eyes of God” (Devarim 6:18), which were not given formal, operative formulation, have not only lost some of their status, but they have also lost their validity in the eyes of a public that regards itself as committed to Halakha.
This reminds me of the quip attributed to Heschel that unfortunately Orthodox Jews are not in awe of God, but in awe of the Shulhan Arukh. In truth, Heschel’s point is good hasidic teaching, and R. Jacob Leiner of Izbica notes that one can even make idols out of mitzvot.[13] He points out that the Second Commandment states that one is prohibited from making an image of what is in the heavens. R. Jacob claims that what the Torah refers to as being in the heavens is none other than the Sabbath. The Torah is telling us that we must not turn it into an idol. In this regard, R. Jacob cites the Talmud: “One does not revere the Sabbath but Him who ordered the observance of the Sabbath.”[14]
I believe that the “halakho-centrism” that Amital criticizes has another pernicious influence, and that is the overpopulation of “halakhic” Jews who have been involved in all sorts of illegal activities. A major problem we have is that it is often the case that all sorts of halakhic justifications can be offered for these illegal activities. One whose only focus in on halakhah, without any interest in the broad ethical underpinnings of Judaism, and the Ramban’s conception of Kedoshim Tihyu, can entirely lose his bearings and turn into a “scoundrel with Torah license.” The Rav long ago commented that halakhah is the floor, not the ceiling. One starts with halakhah and moves up from there. Contrary to what so many feel today, halakhah, while required, is not all there is to being a Jew, and contrary to what so many Orthodox apologists claim, halakhah does not have “all the answers.” One of the most important themes in Weinberg’s writings is the fact that there are people in the Orthodox community who, while completely halakhic, are ethically challenged.
Since I already mentioned Rabbi Rakow, let me tell a story that illustrates this. I went to Gateshead to interview him about his relationship with Weinberg. When I got there I had a few hours until our meeting so I paid a visit to the local seforim store. I found a book I wanted and asked the owner how much it cost. He gave me a price, and then added that if I was a yeshiva student there was a discount. When I later met with Rakow I asked him if it would have been OK for me to ask one of the yeshiva students to buy the book at discount, and then I could pay him for it. He replied that there was certainly no halakhic problem involved. After all, the first student acquires the book through a kinyan and then I buy it from him. But he then added: “Yet it would not be ethical.”

Weinberg’s concerns in this area were not merely motivated by the distressing phenomenon of halakhically observant people who showed a lack of ethical sensitivity. His problem was much deeper in that he feared that this lack of sensitivity was tied into the halakhic system itself. In other words, he worried that halakhah, as generally practiced, sometimes led to a dulling of ethical sensitivity. Weinberg saw a way out of this for the enlightened souls, those who could walk the middle path between particularist and universal values. Yet in his darkest moments he despaired that the community as a whole could ever reach this point. This explains why he esteemed certain Reform and other non-Orthodox figures. Much like R. Kook saw the non-Orthodox as providing the necessary quality of physicality which was lacking among the Orthodox, Weinberg appreciated the refined nature of some of the non-Orthodox he knew and lamented that his own community was lacking in this area. It was precisely because of his own high standards that he had so little tolerance for ethical failures in the Orthodox community. Weinberg’s sentiments, which focused on inner-Orthodox behavior, were not motivated by fear of hillul ha-shem. It was simply an issue of Jews living the way they are supposed to. [15]

In his opposition to halakho-centrism, Amital finds a kindred spirit in R. Moses Samuel Glasner and cites the latter with regard to the following case. What should someone do if he has no food to eat, except non-kosher meat and human flesh. From a purely halakhic standpoint, eating non-kosher meat, which is a violation of a negative commandment, is worse than cannibalism. The latter is at most a violation of a positive commandment (Maimonides) or a rabbinic commandment according to others.[16] Yet Glasner sees it as obvious that one should not eat the human flesh, even though this is what the “pure” halakhah would require, for there are larger values at stake and the technical halakhah is not the be-all and end-all of Torah.[17]
Glasner writes as follows in his introduction to Dor Revi’i:
כל מה שנתקבל בעיני בני אדם הנאורים לתועבה, אפילו אינו מפורש בתורה לאיסור, העובר על זה גרע מן העובר על חוקי התורה . . . ועתה אמור נא, בחולה שיש בו סכנה ולפניו בשר בהמה נחורה או טרפה ובשר אדם, איזה בשר יאכל, הכי נאמר דיאכל בשר אדם שאין בו איסור תורה אע”פ שמחוק הנימוס שמקובל מכלל האנושי, כל האוכל או מאכיל בשר אדם מודח מלהיות נמנה בין האישים, ולא יאכל בשר שהתורה אסרו בלאו, היעלה על הדעת שאנו עם הנבחר עם חכם ונבון נעבור על חוק הנימוס כזה להינצל מאיסור תורה? אתמהה!
In other words, the Torah has an overarching ethos (Natural Law?) which is not expressed in any specific legal text, and this can sometimes trump explicit prohibitions.[18]
Glasner has another example of this: Someone is in bed naked and a fire breaks out. He can’t get to his clothes and has two choices: He can run outside naked or put on some women’s clothes. The pure halakhic perspective would, according to Glasner, require him to go outside naked, since there is no biblical violation in this. But Glasner rejects this out of hand:
ובעיני פשוט הדבר דלצאת ערום עברה יותר גדולה . . . כי היא עברה המוסכמת אצל כל בעלי דעה, והעובר עליה יצא מכלל אדם הנברא בצלם אלוקים.
While I don’t know if the Rav would agree with Glasner, he too acknowledged that ethical concerns are a part of halakhic determination, meaning that not everything is “pure” halakhah. “Since the halakhic gesture is not to be abstracted from the person engaged in it, I cannot see how it is possible to divorce halakhic cognition from axiological premises or from an ethical motif.” Yet he adds: “Of course, in speaking of an ethical moment implied in halakhic thinking, I am referring to the unique halakhic ethos which is another facet of the halakhic logos.”[19] I wonder, though, if the approach set out here stands in contradiction to how, in his famous essay, he portrays the Halakhic Man’s mode of thinking. Would Halakhic Man, whose values arise exclusively from the halakhic system, be able to write the following, which acknowledges a significant subjective element?
Before I begin the halakhic discussion of the subject matter I wish to make three relevant observations . . . I cannot lay claim to objectivity if the latter should signify the absence of axiological premises and a completely detached attitude. The halakhic inquiry, like any other cognitive theoretical performance, does not start out form the point of absolute zero as to sentimental attitudes and value judgments. There always exists in the mind of the researcher an ethico-axiological background against which the contours of the subject matter in question stand out more clearly. . . . Hence this investigation was also undertaken in a similar subjective mood. From the very outset I was prejudiced in favor of the project of the Rabbinical Council of America and I could not imagine any halakhic authority rendering a decision against it. My inquiry consisted only in translating a vague intuitive feeling into fixed terms of halakhic discursive thinking.[20]
How often have I seen Orthodox polemicists criticize this very approach?
Finally, with regard to the issue of cannibalism mentioned above, let me point to one more relevant source (I can’t resist). In a previous post I mentioned that since every topic in halakhah has been dealt with in such detail, scholars today have to find new areas to focus on. Because of this, large books constantly appear about all sorts of things that are found in the sources, but to which no one ever gave much thought in previous years. The example I gave was an entire book dealing with the halakhot of sex change operations. The halakhot of cannibalism is one of the last areas which hasn’t yet been given a book-length treatment. However, R. Yosef Aryeh Lorincz has recently published Pelaot Edotekha.[21] The author is a rosh kollel whose previous book won an award from the municipality of Bnei Brak (see here). He is also the son of Shlomo Lorincz, one of the elders of haredi politics. He raises the following question (before reading any further, make sure the digitalis is in easy reach): Is it permitted to eat the flesh and drink the blood of demons?! Let me quote some of what he says on the topic:
יש לעיין באותם השדים שיש להם דמות אדם ומתו מה דין בשרם ודמם האם אסורים באכילה, דפשוטו אינם אדם וגם אינם בהמה אלא בריה בפנ”ע ולא מצינו שאסרה תורה לבשר ודם דשדים, אולם להאמור לעיל דשד הוה מקצת אדם, א”כ הוה כעין חצי שעור ואסורים באכילה, עוד יש לעיין אם בשרו ודמו יש להם טומאה כמת עכו”ם, ואם אסורים בהנאה לשיטות דמת עכו”ם אסור בהנאה.
Whatever you may think about hashgachot on candles and toilet bowl cleaner, I am fairly certain that even if Lorincz can prove that demon’s flesh and blood is kosher, none of the kashrut organizations will be rushing to add their symbol to this product. But in all seriousness, I know that I am not the only one who thinks that it is very unfortunate that we have Torah scholars spending time on this sort of thing.
6. I have been asked to say something about the current conversion controversy. The halakhic problems will be sorted out by the poskim, but let me make a few comments about the historical issue. There have been a number of people who have stated that the lenient approach often associated with R. Uziel is a singular opinion, or that this view was original to him. That this is mistaken can be seen by anyone who examines Avi Sagi’s and Zvi Zohar’s book Giyur u-Zehut Yehudit. In fact, throughout most of Jewish history a lenient approach to conversion was the mainstream approach.
Now it is true that R. Herzog famously states that in earlier times one could be more lenient than today, because in a traditional society when someone converted he was immediately part of a community and was required to be observant.[22] Things are very different today when you can convert and move to a secular neighborhood in Tel Aviv. There is no communal pressure for you to be observant, and the convert can look around and see that the leaders of the Jewish people in Israel, Peres, Olmert and Livni, are not religious. In such a world, R. Herzog didn’t think we could rely on certain leniencies used in the past.

However, despite R. Herzog’s opinion, the lenient approach, which didn’t insist on a convert’s complete observance of mitvot remained popular in modern times. (Contrary to what has often been stated, the lenient approach, and this includes R. Uziel, always insisted on kabbalat mitzvot. The dispute concerns what “kabbalat mitzvot” means, and whether a formal acceptance, without inner conviction, is sufficient.) Until recent years the lenient approach was even a mainstream position, alongside the more stringent (and widespread) approach. Among the adherents of the lenient approach one must mention R. David Zvi Hoffmann, who was the final halakhic authority in Germany until his death in 1921. Almost every Orthodox rabbi in that country, and many in other parts of Western Europe, looked to him as their authority. Others who held this position include R. Unterman and R. Goren. In addition, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate batei din, which were full of haredi dayanim, until recently followed the lenient approach. Many non-Jews were converted in Israel by dayanim who knew perfectly well that these people were not going to live an Orthodox life. Some of them were even intent on marrying people who were living on secular kibbutzim.[23] No one ever challenged the validity of these conversions. The situation was similar in places outside of Israel. See R. Yitzhak Yaakov Weiss, Minhat Yitzhak, vol. 6, no. 107:
לצערנו הרב גם רבנים חרדיים ומומחים מגיירים כעין זה ומחשיבים אותה כבדיעבד.
Unlike what goes on today, in previous generations there were never any classes for future converts. In fact, according to R. Akiva Eger, these classes are improper, since one is not permitted to teach Torah to a non-Jew.[24] Now obviously, this is not the position we accept, but it does illustrate that in reality converts don’t need to know much about Judaism. R. Malkiel Zvi Tenenbaum writes similarly in dealing with a case from England where a man was with a non-Jewish woman and wanted to convert her. The man had stopped eating non-kosher and attended synagogue on Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, but he was obviously not a completely observant Jew. Tenenbaum notes that even though it is possible that the only reason the woman is converting is so that she can remain with her husband–apparently she thought that this was in doubt due to his new religiosity– nevertheless, one should not be too exacting with her, other than telling her a few weighty and light mitzvot. This approach should be adopted because ex post facto the conversion will be fine, “and by doing this, we will save the Jew from living with her in a forbidden manner . . . but it is best that she learn everything [relating to Judaism] after she converts, and in particular in this case when we have to hurry to save the husband from sin.”[25]
Even R. Moshe Feinstein’s opinion regarding conversion is not uniform, and you can see changes in his view in the direction of leniency. But leaving that aside, although R. Moshe requires real kabbalat mitzvot, he acknowledges that a rejection of complete halakhic observance might not really be a rejection, because the person might not think that a particular law is really required. For example, what about a case where a woman converted in order to marry a Sabbath violator and was herself now a Sabbath violator? This is the exact sort of conversion that would be thrown out today. The fact that after the conversion she never observed Shabbat would suffice to show that there was no kabbalat mitzvot. Yet R. Moshe disagrees. He says that it depends on the woman’s mindset. In this case, perhaps she never intended on violating the halakhah, but she didn’t believe that Shabbat is really a law! And why should she, when she sees that most Jews don’t keep it? In R. Moshe’s words, she thought that observing Shabbat was hiddur be-alma, that is, something nice, but not required. This means that she never rejected the halakhah of Shabbat, she just didn’t know about it, and people are not required to know every halakhah before they convert. Therefore, R. Moshe concludes that the conversion is valid.[26] In another responsum,[27] R. Moshe explains that even if one rejects a particular mitzvah of the Torah, ex post facto the conversion is still valid:
ולכן צריך לומר שכיון שאיכא עכ”פ קבלת מצות אף שלא בכולן הוא גר ונתחייב בכולן אף שלא קבלם דהוה מתנה ע”מ שכתוב בתורה.
Anyone who reads responsa literature of the last hundred years often comes across cases where a man was intermarried and wanted to convert his wife, or wanted to convert his future wife. Often he had a child with the non-Jewish woman and wanted the child to be converted. A few different issues are discussed in these responsa, in particular nitan al ha-shifhah, but one thing you find very little discussion of is kabbalat mitzvot. The rabbis often give permission to convert the children even though the parents are not religious, and they give permission to convert the non-Jewish spouse even though there is no expectation that the person is going to lead a religious life. This obviously shows us that these rabbis had a different conception of conversion than what is today declared to be the only acceptable approach. Rabbi Yehudah Herzl Henkin[28] has recently called attention to Rabbi Abraham Price’s comments in this regard.[29] Price was the leading rav in Toronto, and he defends the lenient approach (which was being carried out all over the world). Yet today, these conversions would be thrown out. Here is the page from Price’s sefer.
In the recently published responsa of R. Eliezer David Rabinowitz-Teomim (the Aderet), Ma’aneh Eliyahu, no. 65, he discusses converting a Gentile who was involved with a Jewish woman. He raises the issue of whether it is proper to convert the man if he will not be observant. Even though the woman will be spared the sin of intermarriage, the man who is converted will now be violating the prohbitions of Niddah and Shabbat. This means that he was in a better place before he converted, as he was not obligated in these laws. The Aderet never assumes that the conversion won’t be valid because the man will be non-observant. Indeed, his entire responsum is based on the fact that it will be valid, which leads him to wonder if conversions like this are a good idea.
אם הם מדור החדש, וקרוב הדבר שלא תשמור לטבול בזמנה, ויחללו שבת, ויכשלו באיסור נדה החמורה, רחמנא ליצלן, ועוד ועוד, באופן כזה חלילה, צריך ישוב והתבוננות אם לטובלו לדת ישראל.
(There are many other responsa where halakhists show great annoyance that people who convert often don’t live a religious life, but very few of these halakhists mention anything about the conversions not being valid.)
Here is another example that nicely illustrates what I am talking about. It has not been quoted in any of the numerous discussions of the issue and can be added to the lenient side. Yet as I indicated, there is nothing unusual in this case as the approach seen here was very popular. R. Shlomo Sadowsky was a rav in Rochester and in 1918 he published his sefer, Parparaot le-Hokhmah. On page 63 he discusses converting a non-Jewish woman who is married to a Jewish man. In this case, he turned to R. Gavriel Zev Margulies, one of the leading poskim in America. (Joshua Hoffman wrote a wonderful masters dissertation on him.) The decision is made to convert her, and there is no mention of authentic acceptance of mitzvot. The halakhic concern focuses on a different matter, and the two rabbis are guided by the desire to help the man get out of the sin of intermarriage. Here is the responsum.

A few pages prior to this, Sadowsky has a responsum from 1906, when he was a rav in Albany. Here he discusses converting the son of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. The mother had no interest in converting. Sadowsky agrees to convert the child who would, of course, be raised in an intermarried home without any Torah or mitzvot. He sent his responsum to the great R. Moses Danishefsky, the rav of Slobodka, and Danishefsky agreed with him. There is absolutely no discussion about the fact that the boy will be brought up without Torah observance. Both Sadowsky and Danishefsky assume that there is a benefit to being Jewish, even if one is being brought up in an intermarried home.[30] Here are the responsa from Rabbis Sadowsky and Danishefsky.

The technical issues are probably easier in this last case, as a child doesn’t need to have kabbalat mitzvot to be converted. Yet it is still significant that the issue of being raised in a non-religious home is not considered. There have been cases in Israel where the rabbinate refuses to convert children in situations like this, since the parents are not religious. The parents are thus forced to raise non-Jewish Hebrew speaking children, who of course will serve in the army and then marry Jewish Israelis.
For another example of converting women where there is no real expectation that they will be “observant” (by current standards), since their husbands were themselves not religious, see this responsum by R. Judah Leib Zirelson, from his Atzei ha-Levanon, no. 63.
I could cite a number of other sources, but it should be obvious by now that the lenient approach is hardly a daat yahid, identified only with R. Uziel. I believe that an examination of the responsa literature reveals that until recently this was a mainstream approach among both rabbis doing conversions and poskim who dealt with this issue. I am not saying that it was the dominant approach, only that it was widespread. As we all know, however, many converts of years past would not be accepted by batei din today. (Nothing I have mentioned so far should imply that R. Druckman’s beit din followed any of the sources mentioned so far. From what I have been able to determine, his beit din required a lengthy instruction period as well as attachment to an Orthodox family during this period, and also complete acceptance of mitzvot. For one relevant article, see R. David Bass in Tzohar 30, available here.)
There is another important source, a pre-modern responsum that is not mentioned by Sagi and Zohar and is directly relevant to the issue of revoking of conversions. It is cited by the Shas member of Kenesset (and author of seforim), R. Hayyim Amselem,[31] as part of his responsum against the revoking of any conversions. R. Simeon ben Tzemach Duran, Tashbetz, vol. 3, no. 47, writes as follows:
מי שלא נתגייר אלא שעה אחת וחזר לסורו לאלתר ועבד ע”ז וחלל שבתות בפרהסיא כמנהגו קודם שנתגייר ומין הוא ומן המורדים הוא, דלא קרינן ביה אחיך כמ”ש למעלה, ואפ”ה חשבינן ליה ישראל משומד וקידושין קידושין . . . וכן ראיתי בתשובה למורי חמי הרב רבנו יונה שכתב כן, וכן כתוב בספר העיטור ובספר אבן העזר, שמעשה הי’ בכותי שקידש ואצרכוה גיטא מר רב יהודה ומר רב שמואל רישי כו’, והדבר ידוע שגזרו עליהם להיות כעכו”ם גמורים כדאיתא בפרקא קמא דחולין.
In other words, in a case where a convert immediately after the conversion practices idolatry and violates Shabbat, the rishonim mentioned hold that the conversion is valid and the person has the status of a sinning Jew. Today, we would be told that such a conversion is completely invalid, as it is obvious that the convert never intended to accept Judaism. The proof of this is that immediately following the conversion he continued in his old ways. Yet these rishonim hold that the conversion is binding.
R. Shlomo Daichovsky, until recently a dayan on the Supreme Rabbinic Court, held this position. Eight years ago he expressed his opinion against R. Avraham Sherman and wrote as follows:[32]
נשותיהן של שלמה ושמשון עבדו עבודה זרה – כך מפורש בתנ”ך. גירותן היתה מפוקפקת מלכתחילה, כלשון הרמב”ם: ‘והדבר ידוע שלא חזרו אלו, אלא בשביל דבר’. בנוסף: ‘הוכיח סופן על תחילתן שהן עובדות עבודה זרה שלהן’. ועוד יותר: ‘לא על פי בית דין גיירום’. יש כאן שלושה חסרונות גדולים. אין לי ספק, כי אם היתה באה גירות כזאת לפני בית הדין ברחובות, היו פוסלים אותה, ללא כל בעיה. יתכן, וגם אני הייתי מצטרף לכך. אף על פי כן, רואה אותן הרמב”ם כישראליות לכל דבר. ומוסיף בהלכה י”ד: ‘אל יעלה על דעתך ששמשון המושיע את ישראל או שלמה מלך ישראל שנקרא ידיד ה’ נשאו נשים נכריות בגיותן’. כלומר, אסור להעלות על הדעת, אפשרות כזו. ובעצם, למה לא?
אין מנוס ממסקנה כי בדיעבד, אינו כלכתחילה. ולא ניתן לפסול גיור בדיעבד, לאחר שנעשתה.
R. Ovadiah Yosef believes that we can void a conversion, but only if there was (or should have been) a certainty before the conversion that the whole thing was a sham. But if there was no reason to think so, even if the convert did not become an observant Jew the conversion is valid. He writes (Masa Ovadiah, p. 438[33]):
“אם באמת היה הדבר גלוי וידוע מראש שאינם מקבלים עליהם עול תורה ומצוות, רק ע”ד האמור: ‘בפיו ובשפתיו כבדוני ולבו רחק ממני’, ואנן סהדי שלא נתכוונו מעולם לקיים המצוות בפועל, אז גם בדיעבד י”ל שאינם גרים. אבל אם לא היה כאן אומדנא דמוכח בשעת הגיור, אע”ג דלבסוף אתגלי בהתייהו, דינם כישראל מומר, שאע”פ שחטא ישראל הוא.
In the famous Seidman case, where R. Goren – based on R. David Zvi Hoffmann’s well-known responsum – converted a woman who was going to be living with a kohen after the conversion, R. Ovadiah agreed that the conversion was valid be-diavad. (See R. Shilo Rafael, “Giyur le-Lo Torah u-Mitzvot,” Torah she-Baal Peh 13 (1971), p. 131).
R. Yitzhak Yaakov Weiss was opposed to voiding conversions carried out by a valid beit din (Minhat Yitzhak, vol. 6, no. 107):
אם היה הגירות נעשה בפני בי”ד כשרים היינו מוכרחים לומר שהבי”ד בדקו היטב בשעת מעשה וראו שמקבלים בלב שלם, ע”כ אף שראינו שאח”כ אין מחזיקין במה שקבלו עליהם אמרינן דהדרו בהו ויש להם דין ישראל מומר
The rabbis at Kollel Eretz Hemdah were asked from Karlsruhe, Germany, about people who convert and continue to violate Shabbat and act no differently than before the conversion.[34] In other words, they fooled the Beit Din. Are they to be regarded as converts? The reply is that while le-hatkhilah one cannot convert people unless they accept to observe the Torah
אי-אפשר לבטל את הגירות של גרים שנתגיירו בבית-דין אורטודוקסי, אף על פי שלא היו כנים בבית-הדין ולא קיבלו על עצמם באמת לקיים את כל מצוות התורה, כל עוד שבאמת הם רוצים להיות יהודים, ורוצים להשתייך לעם ישראל.
As mentioned already, this is a matter that will have to be decided by the halakhic authorities. But I think that what I have written so far is sufficient to establish that there has been a great deal of distortion regarding this issue, often by well-meaning people. (In particular, I noticed that a number of writers, including talmidei hakhamim, have mistakenly claimed that the Bah is the only one to say that the Rambam didn’t require kabbalat mitzvot be-diavad.)
What is important to remember is that it is not just some modern Orthodox and religious Zionist rabbis who oppose the revoking of a conversion, but no less a figure than the Tashbetz. If today’s authorities disagree, that is their right, but it is simply wrong for haredi leaders to say that conversions have always required absolute commitment to mitzvah observance, and that lacking such commitment the conversions were always regarded as having no validity. As is often the case, there are different traditions. The adherents of the stricter approach are attempting to recreate the past, as if there has been only one approach. In fact, there is an even more radical view found in the rishonim. I refer to the Meiri’s position that be-diavad one can convert without a beit din. That is, following circumcision one can then accept the Torah and immerse all by oneself, and ex post facto it is a valid conversion.[35]
I understand that all the discussions about the revoking of conversions have been very difficult for converts. After all, they were taught that once they convert they are as good as any other Jew. They have begun to learn that matters are not so simple. What is one of these converts supposed to think when they see the heading of R. Menasheh Klein’s responsum, Mishneh Halakhot vol. 9, no. 237: גרים כשרים אין להם יחוס וראוי לזרע ישראל לרחק מהם ? 
He explains:
וודאי שיש מצוה לקרב ולאהוב את הגרים אבל אין זה מחייב להתחתן עמהם והרי משה רבינו קבל כמה גרים דכתיב וגם ערב רב עלה אתם ואפ”ה לא נתערבו בהם ולא התחתנו עמהם בני ישראל.
(By the way, the heading of the responsum following this is בענין נשים בעצם אם הם במדרגה אחת עם אנשים. Maybe on another occasion I will return to this, but I think everyone can predict what his conclusion is.)
This is a theme that is found in a number of his responsa.[36] In fact, it appears that if he had his way there would be a complete ban on conversions.[37] Since not every convert will be able to find another convert to marry, I guess he would advise having them marry the community’s losers, as no self-respecting Jew should marry a convert, at least not if you want your children to turn out right.[38] As to why the children of converts don’t turn out properly, Klein has his own theory.[39]
ודע דעלה בלבי מפני מה גרים לא יצליחו בניהם ע”פ רוב לפמ”ש דגר שנתגייר בידוע שנשמתו גם כן היתה מאותם שרצו לקבל התורה מסיני ולכן סופה שתתגייר, והנה כל זה נשמתו אבל נשמת זרעו שממשיך לא היו במעמד הר סיני ולכן אין זרעיו מצליחין . . . ומעתה מי פתי יסור הנה לישא אשה אשר יצאו ממנה בני סורר ומרה, ואם לפעמים ימצא שלא יצאו בדור הזה אולי עד עשרה דרי לא תבזה ארמאה ויחזרו ח”ו לסורם, ועכ”פ ע”פ רוב הכי הוא, והגע עצמך אם יאמרו לו שישא אשה חולנית שבעוד חמשה שנים תמות ורק על דרך נס יש אחת מיני אלף שתחיה או שע”פ רוב תלד בנים חולי גוף או רוח ודאי לא ישאנה . . . וכ”ש הכא שיצאו ממנו ח”ו דורות כאלו וכיוצא בה, מי הוא בעל אחריות שייעץ לאדם לישא אשה כזו.
He then quotes some negative things said about converts in the Zohar, and concludes as follows, in words that the Eternal Jewish Family[40] will never include in its literature and which are very hurtful:
ומעתה מי זה יכול ליעץ לאדם מישראל אשר נתחייבנו עליו ואהבת לרעך כמוך ואמרו ז”ל מה דסני לך לחברך לא תעבד והאיך נעבור על יעצנו רע ח”ו לזרע קודש משרשא קדישא וגזעא דקשוט להתערב ולתתגעל בגיורת המזוהמה בזוהמת הנחש . . . ולכן ודאי דכל מי שחש וחס על עצמו ועל זרעו יראה להדבק בטובים.
It is interesting that R. Moshe Sternbuch expresses the exact opposite approach to converts.[41] We can see the same sort of dispute between them with regard to baalei teshuvah, with Klein having a suspicious and at times negative view toward them, and Sternbuch having the opposite approach. But before one assumes that Klein’s outlook is just another example of the far-out positions he often takes, take a look at the following from R. Kook,[42] commenting on Berakhot 8a which states: “Some say it means: Do not marry a proselyte woman”:
כי ראוי לדאוג שיהיו תולדותיו זרע ברך ד’ בטבעם קשורים ג”כ בקשר טבעי עם ד’. אבל הגיורת, קשורה אינו כ”א בחירי ואיננו חזק כ”כ כהטבעי. ע”כ יש לחוש על קיומו, גם המדות הקדושות שהאומה הישראלית מעוטרות בהן חסרות הנה בהכרח, והמזג פועל על הבנים.
Finally, let me say something about RCA’s agreement with the Chief Rabbinate that all conversions already recognized by the RCA will be accepted in Israel. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that the Chief Rabbinate can deliver on this. That is because, as we have seen in the latest controversy, the dayanim are not bound by the Chief Rabbinate’s agreements. The Chief Rabbinate can accept a convert for its own purposes, but local dayanim have the autonomy to issue their own rulings, as we saw Rabbi Sherman do.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the agreement with the Chief Rabbinate will be upheld for a more fundamental reason: It violates the conscience and halakhic standards of the haredi world, which is currently taking over the religious court system. Let me explain what I mean. Many people who converted through RCA rabbis did not become completely observant. Some didn’t become observant at all. (I have already mentioned that this was the case with haredi rabbis as well.) If a dayan feels that such a conversion is invalid halakhically, the fact that the Chief Rabbinate made an agreement that all RCA conversions from previous years will be accepted is irrelevant. An agreement of this nature cannot override halakhah. So the dayan in question will be forced to reject this conversion no matter when it took place.
To show how difficult the situation can become, take a look at this article from Yated Neeman that appeared a few years ago.[43] I think we can get a good sense from it where we are heading with regard to conversion, and why the only solution is to have two separate court systems dealing with this matter. Yes, it is true that people converted by the Religious Zionist courts might not be accepted by the haredim, but so what? In the unlikely event that one of these converts or their children will want to marry a haredi, they can undergo a second haredi conversion. This is hardly a big deal, and certainly not reason enough for the Religious Zionists to entirely abandon their vision of halakhah, all in order to satisfy the haredi demands for a “single standard,” which by definition always means the haredi approach.
[1] In the meantime, see my article in the Forward. R. Menachem Genack responded here.
Contrary to Genack, the Modern Orthodox world would unquestionably still be eating non-glatt if it was available under (what they viewed as) reliable hashgachah. I also think everyone understood that my comments about the D symbol was not in criticism of identifying a product as dairy, but that the OU does not use the DE symbol (Incidentally, neither of these symbols existed when I was growing up. You knew if a product was dairy by looking at the ingredients, and one does not need to be concerned with the equipment unless you are specifically told – as you now are – that a product was made on dairy equipment. Even then, there are poskim who hold that you can ignore the DE and eat the product with meat, since despite what it says on the label, we don’t actually know that the parve food we are eating was produced within 24 hours of a dairy run.) Why do I think the D symbol instead of DE reflects a turn to the right?: I called the OU on three separate occasions and spoke to three different rabbis, and all of them explained that the reason DE is not used is because they have a fear that some small bits of milk might still be in the product. This is an incredible chumra, which incidentally has no real basis, as companies have to be very careful about not allowing milk into products which are non-dairy. (The threat of major lawsuits from people who are allergic to milk is a constant concern for the companies.) Furthermore, to claim that any such milk might exist in large enough quantities not to be batel is incredibly far-fetched. Despite raising these points in all three conversations, I was told that the organization chooses to be strict.
[2] R. Gedaliah Silverstone, who for many years was the leading rav in Washington, D.C. writes as follows (Tokhahat Hayyim, 1928, p. 14):
מעשה היה בעירי שטבח אחד הסגיר את הרב המשגיח בתיבת המקרה לערך חצי שעה ולא נתן לו לצאת, ואמרתי אז בדרוש על הטבח הזה שלכל הפחות היה לו פעם אחת בתיבת המקרה (שנקרא איז באקס) שלו חתיכה של בשר כשר.
For those who don’t read Hebrew: When the Mashgiach was locked in the freezer, Silverstone quipped that at least on one occasion there was a piece of kosher meat found there! See Yosef Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926 (Brooklyn, 2006), p. 765.
[3] “Emanuel Rackman: Gadfly of Modern Orthodoxy,” Modern Judaism 28 (May 2008), pp. 134-148.
[4] See here.
[5] When planning its ninetieth anniversary celebration in 1976, Yeshiva University was upset to find that Mordecai Kaplan was its oldest living graduate. This squelched any plans to make a big to-do in honor of the graduate. See Jeffrey S. Gurock and Jacob J. Schacter, A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community (New York, 1997), p. 1.
[6] No one has yet written an article focusing on the Rackman-Lamm contest for election to the presidency of YU, and the historical significance of Lamm’s victory. I hope that a capable YU student takes upon himself this task. To do it right, he must interview the people still alive who were on the committee and can testify as to what led them to go with the younger and less distinguished Lamm. Until now, all we have had are rumors and fairy tales. One example of this is the following passage from R. Herschel Schachter’s Mi-Peninei ha-Rav (p. 170).
לפני כעשרים וחמש שנים, לאחר שנפטר הר”ר שמואל בלקין, והיו צריכים לבחור נשיא חדש לישיבה אוניברסיטה, החליט רבנו שאחד מהמועמדים לא היה ראוי לאותה אצלטא בגלל דיעותיו הבלתי-מסורתיות. רבנו כינס את כל הרמי”ם ביחד, וערך וניסח מכתב לועד-הנאמנים של הישיבה שהוא מתנגד מאוד להתמנותו של פלוני, וחתם את שמו למטה, ומסר את המכתב לשאר הרמי”ם שאף הם יחתמו. אחד מהרמי”ם פתח ושאל לרבנו, ומה כל הרעש הזה, מה פשעו ומה חטאתו של אותו פלוני. ענה רבנו ואמר, שיהודי המדפיס במאמר בעתון שלפי דעתו שני חלקי ספר ישעיה נכתבו על ידי שני בני אדם נפרדים, אפיקורס הוא, ואי אפשר למנותו כנשיא של הישיבה. והמשיך הלה לטעון ואמר, דהלא אף באברבנאל גם כן מצינו לפעמים דברים זרים אשר הם נגד מסורות רז”ל חכמי התלמוד. וענה רבנו ואמר, שאף את האברבנאל לא היה רוצה לראות כנשיא ישיבה-אוניברסיטה. ובזה נסתיים הויכוח. כל הרמי”ם שהיו נוכחים בשעת מעשה חתמו על מכתבו של רבנו, המכתב נמסר לועד הנאמנים, ונתבטלה מועמדותו של הלה.
I have it on very good authority (from conversations with two people who were intimately involved in the election process) that the event described here never happened. There might, however, be a kernel of truth in the story, as is often the case with such tales, and perhaps one of the readers can illuminate the matter. As for Rackman and Deutero-Isaiah, since he is not a Bible scholar I am certain that he never expressed his opinion in the way described here (I also hope that the Rav never said what is attributed to him. R Joseph Karo, Kesef Mishneh, Berakhot 3:8 refers to Abarbanel as הנשר הגדול)
What Rackman does say is as follows (One Man’s Judaism, pp. 248-249):
The Talmud itself was not dogmatic, but contemporary Orthodoxy always feels impelled to embrace eveery Tradition as dogma. The Talmud suggests that perhaps David did not write all the Psalms. Is one a heretic because one suggests that perhaps other books were authored by more than one person or that several books attributed by the Tradition to one author were in fact written by several at different times? A volume recently published makes an excellent argument for the position that there was but one Isaiah, but must one be shocked when it is opined that there may have been two or three prophets bearing the same name? No Sage of the past ever included in the articles of faith a dogma about the authorship of the books of the Bible other than the Pentateuch. . . . How material is it that one really believes that Solomon wrote all three Scrolls attributed to him? Is the value of the writings itself affected? And if the only purpose is to discourage critical Biblical scholarship, then, alas, Orthodoxy is declaring bankruptcy: it is saying that only the ignorant can be pious – a reversal of the Talmudic dictum.
The book about Isaiah he refers to is Rachel Margalioth’s The Indivisible Isaiah: Evidence for the Single Authorship of the Prophetic Book, published in 1964 by Yeshiva University’s Sura Institute. (She was the wife of famed scholar Mordechai Margalioth.)
[7] No one has yet written an article focusing on the Rackman-Lamm contest for election to the presidency of YU, and the historical significance of Lamm’s victory. I hope that a capable YU student takes upon himself this task. To do it right, he must interview the people still alive who were on the committee and can testify as to what led them to go with the younger and less distinguished Lamm. Until now, all we have had are rumors and fairy tales. One example of this is the following passage from R. Herschel Schachter’s Mi-Peninei ha-Rav (p. 170).
לפני כעשרים וחמש שנים, לאחר שנפטר הר”ר שמואל בלקין, והיו צריכים לבחור נשיא חדש לישיבה אוניברסיטה, החליט רבנו שאחד מהמועמדים לא היה ראוי לאותה אצלטא בגלל דיעותיו הבלתי-מסורתיות. רבנו כינס את כל הרמי”ם ביחד, וערך וניסח מכתב לועד-הנאמנים של הישיבה שהוא מתנגד מאוד להתמנותו של פלוני, וחתם את שמו למטה, ומסר את המכתב לשאר הרמי”ם שאף הם יחתמו. אחד מהרמי”ם פתח ושאל לרבנו, ומה כל הרעש הזה, מה פשעו ומה חטאתו של אותו פלוני. ענה רבנו ואמר, שיהודי המדפיס במאמר בעתון שלפי דעתו שני חלקי ספר ישעיה נכתבו על ידי שני בני אדם נפרדים, אפיקורס הוא, ואי אפשר למנותו כנשיא של הישיבה. והמשיך הלה לטעון ואמר, דהלא אף באברבנאל גם כן מצינו לפעמים דברים זרים אשר הם נגד מסורות רז”ל חכמי התלמוד. וענה רבנו ואמר, שאף את האברבנאל לא היה רוצה לראות כנשיא ישיבה-אוניברסיטה. ובזה נסתיים הויכוח. כל הרמי”ם שהיו נוכחים בשעת מעשה חתמו על מכתבו של רבנו, המכתב נמסר לועד הנאמנים, ונתבטלה מועמדותו של הלה.
I have it on very good authority (from conversations with two people who were intimately involved in the election process) that the event described here never happened. There might, however, be a kernel of truth in the story, as is often the case with such tales, and perhaps one of the readers can illuminate the matter. As for Rackman and Deutero-Isaiah, since he is not a Bible scholar I am certain that he never expressed his opinion in the way described here (I also hope that the Rav never said what is attributed to him. R Joseph Karo, Kesef Mishneh, Berakhot 3:8 refers to Abarbanel as הנשר הגדול)
What Rackman does say is as follows (One Man’s Judaism, pp. 248-249):
The Talmud itself was not dogmatic, but contemporary Orthodoxy always feels impelled to embrace eveery Tradition as dogma. The Talmud suggests that perhaps David did not write all the Psalms. Is one a heretic because one suggests that perhaps other books were authored by more than one person or that several books attributed by the Tradition to one author were in fact written by several at different times? A volume recently published makes an excellent argument for the position that there was but one Isaiah, but must one be shocked when it is opined that there may have been two or three prophets bearing the same name? No Sage of the past ever included in the articles of faith a dogma about the authorship of the books of the Bible other than the Pentateuch. . . . How material is it that one really believes that Solomon wrote all three Scrolls attributed to him? Is the value of the writings itself affected? And if the only purpose is to discourage critical Biblical scholarship, then, alas, Orthodoxy is declaring bankruptcy: it is saying that only the ignorant can be pious – a reversal of the Talmudic dictum.
The book about Isaiah he refers to is Rachel Margalioth’s The Indivisible Isaiah: Evidence for the Single Authorship of the Prophetic Book, published in 1964 by Yeshiva University’s Sura Institute. (She was the wife of famed scholar Mordechai Margalioth.)
[8] Here is a bit of Jewish Scranton trivia. Many people know that Harry Wolfson and R. Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz lived there. But did anyone know that R. Herschel Shachter was born in Scranton?
[9] Naharei Afarsemon, mahadurah tinyana, no. 15.
[10] See here.
[11] R. Pini Dunner writes: “I asked him [R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner] if he remembered the Rebbe from his time in Berlin (1932-36). He smiled and said he remembered him well – he was the rather modern-dressed young man with the neatly trimmed beard who stood at the back of the shiur room and who would talk in learning after almost every shiur with Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg z”l.” See here.
[12] See Shaul Shimon Deutsch, Larger Than Life, vol. 2 (New York, 1997), p. 75.
[13] Beit Yaakov, vol. 2, p. 256.
[14] Yevamot 6b
[15] I think an important point, which I have not seen anyone make, is that the entire concept of hillul ha-shem has basically disappeared in the United States. This perhaps has had some impact on Orthodox misconduct. What I mean is that in years past people were held back from doing things because of a fear of how it would look to the non-Jewish world, i.e., it would lead to Jews and Judaism being degraded in their eyes. Today, very few Jews think like that. We live in a great country. If a Jew, or an Orthodox Jew, does something illegal, even if he is on the front page of the newspaper, the typical non-Jew does not take this as a reflection on Jews as a whole or on the religion – and we have had many examples to illustrate the empirical truth of this statement. People know that there are scoundrels in every religious group, and one should not judge another person or religion based on the actions of individuals. When we have reached this wonderful point, what room is there for hillul ha-shem as a motivating factor?
[16] See J. David Bleich, Contemporary Halakhic Problems, vol. 1 pp. 194-196.
[17] Ve-Ha’aretz Natan li-Venei Adam (Alon Shvut, 2005), pp. 38ff.
[18] In attempting to explain why there is no explicit prohibition against cannibalism in the Torah, R. Kook expresses a similar concept (Otzarot ha-Re’iyah [2002], vol. 2, p. 89):
לא הוצרכה תורה לכתוב עליו איסור מפורש, שאין האדם צריך אזהרה על מה שקנה לו כבר מושג טבעי בזה.
Weinberg speaks of cannibalism as being against “the will of the Torah,” even though not explicitly forbidden. See Seridei Esh, vol. 3, no. 127 (p. 342). See the discussion in Daniel Sinclair, “Musar u-Mishpat ha-Tiv’i be-Mishpat ha-Ivri: Akihlat Basar Adam ke-Mashal,” available here.
[19] Community, Covenant and Commitment, ed. N. Helfgot (Jersey City, 2005), p. 276.
[20] Ibid., pp. 24-25.
[21] (Bnei Akiva, 2008). The passage I refer to comes from vol. 2, pp. 125-126.
[22] See Pesakim u-Khetavim, Yoreh Deah nos.89, 92. R. Abraham Dov Ber Kahana Shapiro expressed the same sentiments. See Devar Avraham, vol. 3, no. 28.
[23] In referring to such a case, where after conversion the woman would live on a secular kibbutz where she would not be able to observe mitzvot, R. Yehudah Herzl Henkin writes (Bnei Vanim, vol. 2, p. 135):
אם היא סברה שסדורי החיים שבקבוץ לא איפשרו לה דהוי כעין אונס שעומד לבוא עליה לפי דעתה ואינו חסרון בקבלת המצוות אף על פי שלדינא אינו אונס שהרי לא נאנסה להשאיר בקבוץ.
[24] Teshuvot, vol. 1, no. 41.
[25] Divrei Malkiel, vol. 6, no. 19.
[26] Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh Deah I, no. 160. This notion, that even apparently obvious Jewish laws could be viewed by some people as not binding, has all sorts of ramifications and has often dealt with by poskim. One interesting example is Teshuvot Maharam Lublin, no. 15, where R. Meir of Lublin was asked about a man who was caught having sex with a Christian prostitute, and he was sentenced to death. He could escape this sentence by converting to Christianity. (The responsum, which was sent to the city of Apta, deals with a young man held prisoner by the “Ishmaelites” because he was found with an “Ishmaelite” prostitute. Obviously, R. Meir is speaking in code, as Muslims were not in large supply in Apta. I will speak more about this sort of code in a future post.) The local community wanted to know if they had an obligation to ransom him, as it could be that the imprisoned man had the status of a mumar le-teavon. R. Meir rejects this point and offers the following incredible justification:
ופרט בזמנינו זה בעו”ה שרבים נכשלים בעבירה זו שאין להחשיבה כמומר לתיאבון.
See also the famous responsum of R. Akiva Eger (Teshuvot, vol. 1, no. 96), who deals with otherwise otherwise religious Jews who shave with a razor. (While reading his words ask yourself if the community he describes sounds more like a haredi community or a Modern Orthodox one.):
י”ל דהשתחת בתער דנתפשט בעו”ה אצל הרבה לא חשב שזהו איסור כ”כ דלא משמע להו לאינשי דאסור, וכאשר באמת נזכר בג”ע שהשיב להמוכיח שהרבה אנשים חשובים עושים כן, וכיון דבאמת פשתה המספחת בזמנינו גם לאותן הנזהרים בשאר דברים נדמה להם דאינו איסור כ”כ.
R. Eliezer Papo, Pele Yoetz, s. v. hov, writes:
ע”פ מה דקיימא לן אומר מותר אנוס הוא ומאחר שדרך איש ישר בעיניו נמצא שהוא אומר מותר ואנוס הוא.
The last three sources mentioned are quoted by R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, Li-Netivot Yisrael, vol. 1 pp. 154-155.
[27] Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh Deah III, no. 106.
[28] See here.
[29] Mishnat Avraham, vol. 2, p. 274.
[30] R. Moshe Feinstein recognized the logic of this approach. See Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh Deah I, no. 158:
לא ברור הדבר במדינה זו שהוא זכות כיון שבעוה”ר קרוב שח”ו לא ישמור שבת וכדומה עוד איסורים. אך אפשר שמ”מ הוא זכות שאף רשעי ישראל עדיפי מעכו”ם.
Iggerot Moshe, Even ha-Ezer IV, no. 26:
וגם אף אם לא יתגדלו להיות שומרי תורה מסתבר שהוא זכות דרשעי ישראל שיש להם קדושת ישראל ומצותן שעושין הוא מצוה והעבירות הוא להם כשגגה הוא ג”כ זכות מלהיות נכרים.
R. David Horowitz, Imrei David, no. 172, also permits the conversion of the child, and holds out hope that the parents will do teshuvah (apparently even including the non-Jewish mother in this):
מה לנו להתחכם נגד מצות ד’ . . . מצינו כי אדם רע עשוי לעשות תשובה, וגם כאן נאמר כי עוד יבוא יום וישעה אדם אל עושהו ותפקחנה עיני עורים וידעו כי ערומים הם והרבה לחטוא.
[31] Or Torah, Tamuz 5768.
[32] See here.
[33] In Yabia Omer, vol. 10, Yoreh Deah no. 26, he decides that a particular conversion can be voided, and one of the reasons is subsequent non-observance. Yet this was not the main justification for his decision. In addition, this was a special case as it concerned an agunah.
[34] Be-Mar’eh ha-Bazak, vol. 3, p. 149
[35] Beit ha-Behirah, Shabbat 68a.
[36] See e.g., Mishneh Halakhot, vol. 10, no. 239:
ודאי דזרע אברהם יצחק ויעקב המיוחסים מתרחקים מן הגרים כפי האפשר הגם שמקרבים אותם מצד מצות ואהבתם את הגר אבל אין זה מצוה לנו להתחתן עמהם.
I certainly think he is going overboard when he writes (ibid., vol. 15, p. 151): ואין ממנים גר להיות שמש בביהכ”נ
[37] See ibid., vol. 16, p. 384: .ומשבח אני בזה מנהג הספרדים שאין מקבלין בקהלותיהם גרים He is referring to the Syrian ban on converts, which has its own racist elements, as in both the popular and even in some of the rabbinic mind of this community there is a stress on “pure Jewish blood.” This latter point is far removed from opposition to converts in order to prevent intermarriage, and leads to a shunning of all converts, even those converted as babies, as well as a shunning of children and even grandchildren of converts.
[38] ] See ibid., vol. 9, no. 239
[39] See ibid., vol. 10 no. 239.
[40] See here.
[41] Teshuvot ve-Hanhagot, Even ha-Ezer no. 728. See also ibid., vol. 2 no. 623, where he writes: עיקר היחוס הוא כששומרים מצוות.
[42] Ein Ayah, Berakhot 8a.
[43] Available here. The “so-called Orthodox rabbis” referred to in this article are Rabbis Gedaliah Dov Schwartz, Reuven Bulka and Shmuel Goldin. The RCA is described as an “organization of rabbis who call themselves Orthodox, but are known as modern.” The article also defames Rabbis Shear Yashuv Cohen and Shalom Messas. There are a number of falsehoods in the article, but let me just mention one: “The conversion was made for the purpose of marriage, and such types of converts are not to be accepted according to the halocho.” Yet the almost unanimous opinion of poskim, from all circles, is that when confronted with a possible intermarriage, one should convert the non-Jewish partner if all all feasible. The only dispute is how observant the convert must be in order to be accepted.



Marc B. Shapiro: A Tale of Two Lost Archives

A Tale of Two Lost Archives
by
Marc B. Shapiro
I have spent much of my professional life rummaging through collections of documents, mostly in well-kept archives, but sometimes also in hard-to-reach places in basements and attics. Fortunately, I have made some great discoveries in these places, but I will now tell you a story that doesn’t have a happy ending.
It begins around fifteen years ago, when I was researching the life of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg. With the strength that only someone in his twenties has, I traveled around the world, knocking on doors, and tracking down every letter I could find written by Weinberg.[1] During this time I was in touch with the widow of R Hillel Medalie. While not a student of Weinberg, Medalie became close to him after the war. During this time he was serving as rabbi of Leeds, a tenure which incidentally led to a terrible dispute with R. Solomon Fisch, another rabbi in Leeds.[2] The dispute was so bad that Fisch refused to serve with Medalie on the Leeds beit din, and R. Joseph Apfel was appointed a dayan in Fisch’s place. Apfel was a student of Weinberg, and more responsa in Seridei Esh are addressed to him than anyone else. At this time, he was serving as a hazan in Leeds, but after being appointed to the beit din his impressive learning was able to come to the fore.
In 1996 Apfel published Yad Yosef, which contains his collected writings. It also contains letters from numerous great Torah scholars including R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, R. Dov Berish Wiedenfeld, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Isaac Jacob Weiss and R. Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch. Among the most interesting teshuvot is one that is written by R. Pinhas Toledano, the Sephardic Av Beit Din of London. Apfel turned to him with the following problem: In Leeds there is a Jewish old age home and a non-Jew cooks for the residents on Shabbat. Is this permissible? Apfel had argued that the elderly residents are regarded as holeh she-ein bo sakanah, and it is permissible for a non-Jew to cook for a holeh she-ein bo sakanah. Others disagreed and Apfel turned to Toledano for his opinion.[3]
Toledano points out that while Apfel is correct that a non-Jew may cook for a holeh she-ein bo sakanah, (see Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 328:19), it is not at all clear that all old people have this status. Nowhere in the poskim do we find such a notion. So apparently, only for those elderly who suffer from diabetes, asthma or the like can the non-Jew cook. Yet Toledano concludes that the cooking is nevertheless permissible. Since the non-Jew is hired for the entire year, i.e., a contract worker, and can miss some days (vacation, etc.), there is room for leniency. While normally melakhah cannot be done in the house of a Jew because people will assume that the worker was hired to do the labor on Shabbat, in this case everyone knows that the cook is not hired on a daily basis. Toledano supports this contention by pointing out that in London everyone has milk delivered to the house on Shabbat and no one has raised any problems with this. I am too young to remember milk delivery, but I assume that this was the case in the U.S. as well, and the parallel is the daily delivery of newspapers. Toledano therefore concludes that it is permissible to have the non-Jew cook in the old age home. Yet he adds that even though halakhically this is OK, since it is very strange to permit such a thing in a Jewish old age home, the best thing to do is to cook the food on Friday and put it on a hot plate on Shabbat.
Returning to Medalie, from Leeds he went on to become the rabbi of the Antwerp community. After his death in 1977, a very nice memorial volume appeared honoring both him and his father, R. Shemariah Judah Leib Medalie.[4]
Here is a picture of R. Hillel.

Here is R. Shemariah.

Although he came from a Chabad background, I don’t know how strong Medalie’s connection was to the movement throughout his life. His father, R. Shemariah, was close to the Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzhak, and was a very important figure in Chabad spiritual activities in the Soviet Union.[5] He was also a major figure in the political activities that took place in Russian Orthodoxy after the fall of the Czar.[6] In 1933 he was appointed rabbi of the Moscow synagogue, which meant that he was regarded as the rav of the entire city, and also made him the most important rabbi in the Soviet Union.

Before he left the country, R Hillel Medalie studied in a secret yeshiva that was headed by R. Mordechai Feinstein, R. Moshe’s brother, who was the rav of Shklov. R. Moshe Zvi Neriyah was also a student here. The communists would later exile R. Mordechai to Siberia, where he died.[7] In the 1950’s Medalie wrote to Weinberg about his attempts to secure his father’s release from the Soviet Union. It had been years since he had communicated with his father and he did not know that in 1938 R. Shemariah was arrested, accused of counter-revolutionary activities, and shot.[8]

R. Shemariah was one of many great talmidei hakhamim who were stuck behind the Iron Curtain, and even if not killed by the regime, lived out their days in what can only be described as a living hell.[9] While it was bad for everyone in the Soviet Union, for those whose lives revolved around Torah it was even worse. In accordance with the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s wishes, the elder Medalie did not attempt to leave the Soviet Union. While other rebbes and great rabbis were fleeing the country, the Rebbe told his followers to stay, as it was their responsibility to bring Torah to the Jewish people, even in times and places of darkness. He told them that they should not only think about their own physical and spiritual well-being but that of the Jewish people as a whole.

The Rebbe only changed his position in 1930 “when Stalinist terror was unleashed against rabbis and religious functionaries. But by then the difficulties connected with leaving the USSR were formidable and large scale emigration was impossible.”[10] What this meant was that virtually all of the children and grandchildren of these hasidim ended up completely assimilating, and I think that in retrospect we can say that it was a terrible misjudgment. However, it must also be stated that when communism fell, there were still Habad families that had remained religious throughout all this time. The next time someone complains about how Habad is now dominating religious life in the former Soviet Union, he should remember this.

This reluctance towards leaving the galut, even to go to Israel, is tied in with the Habad ideology that stresses the need to keep Judaism alive throughout the world. While this is generally a very good thing, as all world travelers can attest, sometimes the way it is expressed can be maddening for a religious Zionist to read. For example, in 1955, a few years after he became Rebbe, R. Menahem Mendel Schneersohn said as follows to his followers (Sihah for 20 Av, 5715):

גם כאשר נמצאים בחוץ לארץ הרי זה המקום אשר יבחר ה’ אלקיך בו, וגם כאן יכולה להיות עבודת הקרבנות ברוחניות . . . וזוהי ההוראה שצריכים להפיק מפרשת היום – ש”בכל המקום אשר אזכיר את שמי” הרי זה ארץ ישראל

This downplaying of the Land of Israel was too much for R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, and he responded as follows (Le-Hilkhot Tzibur, p. 33):

התואר “המקום אשר יבחר ד’ א-להיך בו” נאמר בתורת ד’ מן השמים רק על קדושת ארץ ישראל וירושלים שאיננה ניתנת להעברה וחלופין ח”ו על שום מקום בעולם . . . עבודת הקודש של העסק בתורה, שקידתה, הגדלתה והאדרתה וחרדת קודש של קיום מצוותיה הקדושות באמונה שלימה, ולדבקה בד’ א-להים חיים ללכת בדרכיו, והחיוב על כל אדם מישראל לחזור כל ימיו בתשובה, לעולם לא תעקור, לא תמלא את המקום ולא תחליף את מצוות ד’ של עבודת הקרבנות, שמקומה רק בפנים ולא מבחוץ. “בכל מקום אשר אזכיר שמי, שם ארץ ישראל” – ארץ ישראל מוגדרת ומוגבלת ומסומנת לקדושתה וסגולתה ולהגדרות חיובי מצוותיה ממקורות תורה שבכתב ותורה שבע”פ מקורות חז”ל דברי רבותינו גדולי ישראל ראשונים ואחרונים. וזה לשון הגמרא ברכות דף נז. “העומד ערום בחלום, בבבל עומד בלא חטא, בארץ ישראל ערום בלא מצוות” ולשון קדשו של רש”י שם: “בבבל עומד בלא חטא, לפי שחו”ל אין לה זכיות, אלא עוון יש בישבתה וזה עומד ערום בלא אותם עוונות.” ע”כ

Returning to Medalie, he also had a very good secular education, having received an MA from the University of Manchester and a doctorate from Trinity College in Dublin. In fact, Moshe Sharett, who was Israel’s first foreign minister, wanted Medalie to serve as Israel’s ambassador to Great Britain. Medalie declined the request after discussing the matter with the Hazon Ish.[11] Knowing of his closeness to Weinberg, I was anxious to examine his papers to find any letters from him, as well as from other great rabbis. His widow told me that all of his papers had been deposited at Machon Ariel in Jerusalem. No one had gone through them; they had simply been thrown into boxes and taken away.

Around twelve years ago I went to Machon Ariel to try to find out something about the papers. No one could tell me anything and I almost despaired. Fortunately, with the help of a janitor I found two giant boxes in a storage room in the basement. This contained all the materials taken from Medalie’s home. There was no light in the storage room or even in the basement (something was wrong with the electricity that day). The only light I had was from the windows on the top of the basement walls. I took the boxes, one at a time, and emptied them on the floor. I then spent a number of hours going through all the papers, putting aside everything that came from Weinberg. The rest of the material, including letters, speeches, and pictures, was of great interest and documented many years in the rabbinate. But this would have to wait until another day. For now, my focus was on in finding the Weinberg material, and I was able to make copies of whatever I located. I used a number of the Weinberg letters in my book and also published some of them in Kitvei ha-Rav Weinberg, vols. 1 and 2.

I was leaving for the U.S. on the following day, so I made a note to myself to come back to Machon Ariel and carefully go through both large boxes. I knew that there was all sorts of fascinating material in these boxes and was very excited about a return trip. Shortly before I left, I looked at another large box (or maybe even two or three; I can no longer recall). This was full of Pinchas Peli’s papers. Peli, who was a distinguished person in his own right, played a major role in bringing knowledge of R. Soloveitchik’s thought to Israel, with the publication in 1975 of Al ha-Teshuvah. Here is his picture.

Peli had a nice relationship with the Rav and I had no doubt that there were letters from the him among the Peli papers, but this too have to await a return trip. I was certain that no one would beat me to this, as no one cared, or even know, about the dusty boxes in the basement storage room, which had dishes and glasses in front of them. (There was a small catering business in the basement.) I had seen it before – boxes placed in some far-removed place where they remain for years and years, out of sight and out of mind, much like the Cairo Geniza. There is no doubt that when the Medalie and Peli papers were donated, the survivors didn’t expect that they would be put in some far away place where no one could examine them. They thought that the papers would be catalogued and kept in some sort of archive. Since Machon Ariel had not done anything in this direction, I figured that on a future visit I would take out all of the important material and then speak to the people in charge, alerting them to whatever treasures I had found and asking that they be kept in some sort of archive.

Mrs. Medalie told me that when the papers were at her home, some Chabad people had already looked through them for material from the Rebbe. She asked me to keep an eye out for any letters from him. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything, and presumably the material had already been removed. There are some letters to Medalie in the Rebbe’s published correspondence. However, there are also many that do not appear there, but are found in R. Shalom Dov Ber Wolpo’s Shemen Sason le-Haverekha,[12] which has a lengthy chapter on Medalie and the Rebbe. I assume that the new letters published here are what that the Chabad people found at the Medalie home.

While I was working in the basement no one was watching me. No one even knew I was there. I could have walked off with anything. I considered the possibility that all this precious material would one day be lost, since Machon Ariel had no interest in it. (They probably accepted it in order to do the families a favor, but didn’t have the resources to do anything with the boxes). I rationalized to myself that since the material wasn’t being taken care of properly, something should be done. I thought that since I could watch over it and give the material a good “home,” that it would be OK for me to walk off with it. But I immediately squelched the thought, since stealing is always improper. Although there is a long list of people who have pilfered books and manuscripts, I didn’t want to join the list, even for the best possible reason.

In January 2007 I finally had the opportunity to return to Machon Ariel to pick up where I left off. I saw that the basement is now a nursery school. Everything that used to be there was removed a number of years ago. There was no one there to talk to about this at the time, but in June 2008 I returned and had the janitor take me around. The boxes were nowhere to be seen. None of the administrators had any idea what I was talking about. I was shown the library, which is undergoing renovations. It was a mess and there were a bunch of boxes that were set to be taken to genizah the following day. What a story it could have been if I had been able to save the Peli and Medalie boxes one day before they were to be lost? But unfortunately, the material was not there. I assume that when the new construction happened in the basement, the boxes were thrown out like so much other garbage. For an average person looking at a large box with old papers, it certainly would have looked like garbage. Yet how much precious material is now lost forever.

For all the great and important material found in archives around the world, much more has been lost. In fact, only a few years ago the son of one of Weinberg’s students contacted me about getting copies of the letters of Weinberg to his father, since they can’t find the originals. The father gave me copies many years ago and now they are lost. After he passed away and his house was cleaned, the letters were mistakenly thrown out. Such was probably the fate of many of the Weinberg letters that I was given copies of. It is the way of the world and there is little we can do about it, but it is frustrating nonetheless.

The visit to Machon Ariel was noteworthy in at least one respect. On the floor of the library, waiting to be sent to the genizah, was a large pile of issues of Panim el Panim. This was a weekly that appeared in the 1950’s and 1960’s, edited by Peli, which covered the entire range of Orthodox life, and included interviews with leading figures from all camps. Unfortunately, it is not available online. One of its outstanding features were the numerous pictures of gedolim, rabbis, scholars, and public figures, many of which are found nowhere else. I grabbed one issue (20 Elul 5724), in order to have something to read in the hotel, and in it one finds the following pictures of Abraham Berliner

and Jacob Barth,

which as far as I know do not appear anywhere else.

Here is a picture of R. Aaron Walkin of Pinsk, which I don’t recall ever having seen.

While on the theme of pictures of gedolim, let me note what appears in the recent volume focusing on the life of R. Bezalel Rakow, the Rav of Gateshead.[13] Rabbi Rakow thought very highly of such pictures and had them all over his house. He felt that today, when there are so many inappropriate pictures everywhere we look, it is important to have pictures of great rabbis to act as a counter. Here is a picture of Rabbi Rakow, from the beginning of the volume.

Getting back to Panim el Panim, one of the cover stories in the issue I took is about how R. Yehezkel Sarne visited Heichal Shlomo and the conflict this created, since by so doing R. Sarne was violating the Brisker Rav’s ban against the institution. Some believe that it was the Brisker Rav’s harsh stance that prevented his nephew, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, from accepting the offer to become Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel.

In general, the views of R. Sarne, and his Chevron Yeshiva, were more moderate than much of the haredi world (although he was known to be very anti-Habad). A glance at the names of those who attended the yeshiva shows that there are outstanding figures from all across the religious spectrum.[14] It is because of this that I was a little surprised when I read in a biography of R. Shakh[15] that R. Sarne once spoke very negatively to R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin about the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In fact, according to this source when R. Sarne was ill and R. Zevin visited him, R. Sarne told R. Zevin that his hasidut is heresy, his Rebbe is a heretic, and he is a heretic. When his health improved he went to R. Zevin’s house and apologized for treating him that way when the latter came to visit him. But now that he is at Zevin’s house, he wants to reaffirm that his hasidut is heresy, his rebbe is a heretic, and he is a heretic! The story as it appears is obviously a yeshiva fairy tale. But I asked R. Hayyim Sarne, R. Yehezkel’s son and current Rosh Yeshiva of Hevron (the Geula branch) if it is true that his father once spoke harshly to R. Zevin about Habad. He told me that it is true but that his father later apologized to R. Zevin, i.e., a real apology.

Since I mentioned R. Sarne and his inappropriate comments, let me tell another story that relates to the fact that he would sometimes say things that perhaps he shouldn’t have. Those who have read my book no doubt recall the funeral scene that I describe right at the beginning.[16] That, more than anything else, really shows the difficulty in placing Weinberg in any particular category. I actually feel that it was appropriate that he was buried in Har ha-Menuhot with all the other great rabbis, rather than the place chosen by the Mizrachi leaders (even if R. Herzog is also buried there). I say this for the following reason: R. Weinberg could not live in the haredi world. His views were too different from them. In fact, as my friend Shlomo Tikochinski has correctly pointed out, Weinberg is the only great sage respected in the haredi world whose views are so much at variance with it.

Yet while Weinberg wanted to live as a more modern type of rabbi, one who was a Zionist and academic scholar in addition to being a Torah sage, he wanted to be remembered as a gadol be-Yisrael. At the end of the day, he wanted his Torah works to be studied, and the only place for this was in the great yeshivot. So although he couldn’t live in their world, for posterity he would have wanted his legacy to be with them. However, I must also add the following: When Weinberg passed away all the great yeshivot were in the haredi orbit, so it would be natural that this is where he would want to be remembered. At that time, high level Torah study could hardly be found in the Mizrachi world. However, things are very different now, with the flowering of religious Zionist yeshivot of all sorts. If Weinberg were alive today, he would be able to feel fully comfortable in the religious Zionist world, since he would see the intensive Torah study and openness to secular learning of places like Maaleh Adumim, Har Etzion, and the like. Yet these yeshivot simply didn’t exist in his lifetime.

Not long after my book appeared, I was in a bookstore in New York City (does anyone remember Ideal Books?). I started talking to a certain fellow who happened to be a rav in Brooklyn and a son of one of the great Torah scholars of the previous generation. He told me that he is the only one alive who can testify as to what was said in the conversation between R. Yehezkel Sarne and the men who were in charge of the funeral, after R. Sarne and his students stopped the procession. (At the time, he was a student at the Chevron yeshiva.) Before he told me the story, he noted that one should remember that in his old age R. Sarne sometimes said things that were not appropriate. He gave one example of this: R. Sarne once went into the Brisk yeshiva and started screaming at the students that they should start learning mussar (Brisk being a place where they don’t do this). Only after telling me this story was he ready to inform me what was said at the funeral. According to him, after arguing with R. Sarne about where to bury Weinberg, Zorah Warhaftig, the Minister of Religions, was exasperated and declared: “But we have already dug the grave.” To this, R. Sarne replied (in Yiddish): “Put yourself in it!” The yeshiva students then took the coffin and proceeded to Har ha-Menuhot.

Returning to my conversation with R. Hayyim Sarne, which began with a discussion on Weinberg and moved into other areas, I was at his home for a good while and asked him many things. I even got into a disagreement with him on one issue. I am sure this surprised him, since roshei yeshiva are not used to young men challenging something they say. He insisted that it was better for people to be secularists than to identify with one of the non-Orthodox denominations. I responded that the opposite was the case, as the non-Orthodox groups at least add some Jewish content to people’s lives. They also help slow down assimilation. (Of course, all this is valuable in and of itself, but from a purely utilitarian standpoint it also makes the job of the kiruv organizations easier.) Yet he didn’t buy it and couldn’t even see my point, which I think is shared by virtually all thinking people in the Diaspora.

I used the conversation to ask him why the haredim have such a negative view of R. Kook’s philosophical writings, and his answer was very enlightening. To this day I have never seen it anywhere in print. He told me that one can turn pages and pages in R. Kook’s philosophical works without coming across a rabbinic text (ma’amar hazal). He insisted that a “kosher” work of Jewish thought must be constantly citing rabbinic texts. I had never thought of this point before, but I think it is quite significant. As all who study R. Kook know, he writes in such an original fashion that he becomes the primary text, and one can indeed turn many pages before seeing a ma’amar hazal.

In the new biography of the Brisker Rav (R. Velvel Soloveitchik), there is a very nice picture of R. Hayyim Sarne and his father in Switzerland, together with R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and R. Wolf Rosengarten of Zurich.[17] This has nothing at all to do with R. Velvel. It is included because the picture was taken in Switzerland and the biography discusses R. Velvel’s few trips there for health reasons. I assume that the author had this nice picture which he wanted to include, so he found some tenuous connection, even though, as I mentioned, it has nothing to do with R. Velvel.

While R. Velvel was in Switzerland, he was taken care of by Rosengarten, who appears prominently in the biography. R. Velvel also spent a lot of time with his nephew, R. Moshe Soloveitchik of Zurich. Both Rosengarten and Soloveitchik were also close to Weinberg. It has fascinated me that in all of the hundreds of letters that I have, Weinberg never mentions the Brisker Rav’s trips to Switzerland. He also had no interest in going to meet R. Velvel, even though the distance between them was no more than a few hours. I get the feeling that Weinberg felt that R. Velvel was in such a different world that it would be hard for them to even have a pleasant conversation. It might be that he was even intimidated by the Brisker Rav’s extremism. What makes this more interesting is that R. Moshe Sternbuch, who had become a great follower of the Brisker Rav, was also close to Weinberg. R. Bezalel Rakow taught at the Montreux yeshiva in the 1950’s, and he too had a very close relationship with Weinberg. As with so many other Torah scholars in Switzerland, Rakow too went to see the Brisker Rav.

I think we might get a sense of why Weinberg made no effort to meet R. Velvel from the following story:[18] When Rakow went to meet R. Velvel, the latter refused to see him after he heard that he taught at the yeshiva in Montreux. This yeshiva was founded in 1927 and drew students from all over Western Europe. While R. Elijah Botchko, the Rosh Yeshiva, was a member of Agudah and the yeshiva was viewed as part of this world (R. Aharon Leib Steinman even studied there during World War II), he didn’t tow the party line and was certainly more positive towards Zionism than the typical Agudist. Both he and his son and successor, R. Moshe Botchko, were also not opposed to the students getting a secular education. In the 1950’s there was even a plan to for the yeshiva to provide this. It is this issue in particular that is mentioned in explaining why the Brisker Rav refused to see Rakow:

דאפשר שגם הוא בין אלו שרצו להכניס בישיבה לימודי חול בין כותלי הישיבה

Only after Rakow was able to convince the Brisker Rav’s son that he had the proper hashkafot was he permitted to meet the Brisker Rav. He later recalled that the reason he was able to develop a good relationship with R. Velvel was because the latter valued his efforts in “fighting at the yeshiva so that they not incorporate secular studies.” I think it is likely that knowing how different his outlook was from that of R. Velvel, and that R. Velvel had no hesitation in speaking his mind, Weinberg decided to avoid what might turn into a difficult meeting. Whereas other gedolim from the yeshiva world wouldn’t dream of getting into an argument with Weinberg or telling him why his outlook was mistaken, the Brisker Rav, who always spoke his mind, would have had no such compunctions. As for the Montreux yeshiva, in 1985 it relocated to Israel and is now a hesder yeshiva.[19] This shows that even apart from the issue of secular studies, the yeshiva did not share the Brisker Rav’s approach.
[1] Since my book appeared I have also discovered many more letters, including a collection sent to one of the leaders of the yeshiva world (whose identity I am not at present able to divulge). In my Note on Sources, found after the preface, I mentioned that while such letters might cause me to reevaluate some of my conclusions, I was confident that the picture I presented would not be substantially altered. I was happy to see that nothing in these letters caused me to change any of my earlier thoughts.
[2] See Fisch’s Yeriot Shlomo (Jerusalem, 1983). Among Fisch’s contributions to Jewish scholarship are his editions of Midrash ha-Gadol on Numbers and Deuteronomy and his commentary to Ezekiel in the Soncino Books of the Bible.
[3] Incidentally, I think that the standard position is that bishul akum for a holeh she-ein bo sakanah is only permitted on Shabbat, but not during the week. See e.g., Kaf ha-Hayyim, Orah Hayyim 328:119. Halakhic experts, please correct me if I am mistaken.
[4] Shiloh, ed. R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin (Jerusalem, 1983).
[5] When the non-Hasidim and Chabad were finally able to agree on a joint political front in the Soviet Union, the plan was for a group of four non-hasidic and three hasidic rabbis to form a sort of Moetzet Gedolei ha-Torah, the members of which did not have to actually live in the Soviet Union. The four non-hasidim chosen were R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, R. Isser Zalman Meltzer, R. Isaac Jacob Rabinowitz, and R. Avraham Dov Baer Kahana Shapiro. The hasidic side was to be represented by R. Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn (the Lubavitcher Rebbe), R. Menahem Mendel Schneersohn (the son of the Bobruisker Rebbe, R. Shemariah Noah), and R. Shemariah Medalie. See Mordechai Altschuler, “Ha-Politikah shel ha-Mahaneh ha-Dati ve-ha-Haredi be-Rusyah bi-Shenat 1917,” Shvut 15 (1992), p. 22.
[6] I mean, of course, Russian Jewish Orthodoxy, but I think it is worth noting that in pictures of rabbis from Old Russia one sometimes has trouble telling them apart from the Russian Orthodox priests, as they both work black and had beards. In fact, I found one such example with an American Orthodox rabbi. See here.
[7] See Iggerot Moshe, vol. 8, introduction, p. 18.
[8] See Avraham Greenbaum, Rabbanei Berit ha-Moatzot bein Milhamot ha-Olam (Jerusalem, 1994), p. 36. Greenbaum also notes that in 1937 R. Hillel Medalie’s brother, R. Moshe, was exiled to Siberia where he was killed. Unfortunately, this helpful book is not available online. However, I would like to call readers’ attention to another book which is also quite valuable and is online: Peninah Meizlish’s Rabanim she-Nispu be-Shoah. This book contains an enormous list of rabbis who perished in the Holocaust. Available here.
Speaking of online resources, it amazes me that there are still people who buy the Bar Ilan Responsa CD. Apparently, they don’t know that one can access this through the Spertus College library for very little money.
[9] Another example is R. Levi Yitzhak Schneersohn, the father of R. Menahem Mendel, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe. R. Levi Yitzhak died in 1944 after having been exiled to Kazakhstan. See Avraham Greenbaum, “Rabbi Shlomo (Solomon) Schlifer and Jewish Religious Life in the Soviet Union 1943-1957,” Shvut 8 (1999),p. 126 n. 10. Another example is R. Shaul Yisraeli’s father, R. Binyamin, who was rav of Koidanovo, a town near Minsk (see R. Shaul’s introduction to his Amud ha-Yemini). He was exiled to Siberia where he died. R. Shaul writes that his grave site is unknown, and therefore he called his first book Amud ha-Yemini, למען יהא לעמוד זכרון על קברו אשר לא נודע. R. Shaul and two others escaped from the Soviet Union by illegally crossing the border into Poland, which would have meant the death penalty if they were caught (as no doubt many others were). This dangerous step was taken only after Moscow’s Chief Rabbi, R. Yaakov Klemes, performed the Goral ha-Gra. See here.
Before setting out for the border, R. Shaul spent time in R. Yehezkel Abramsky’s apartment in Moscow. See Aharon Sorasky, Melekh be-Yofyo (Jerusalem, 2004), vol. 1, p. 199. R. Shaul made his way to Jerusalem where he became one of the leading Torah scholars in Israel. Because of his religious Zionist outlook, he is another figure who is scrupulously ignored by the Frankel Rambam, even though he was an expert in the agricultural halakhot and should have been cited repeatedly in the Frankel index to Sefer Zeraim. See R. Yaakov Ariel’s introduction to R. Shaul’s Havot Binyamin. In Sorasky’s book, cited previously in this note, R. Shaul is not referred to as “Gaon” and his name is not affixed with זצ”ל. But we should be thankful that at least R. Kook and R. Herzog are given the proper titles (but not R. Soloveitchik!)
[10] David E. Fishman, “Preserving Tradition in the Land of Revolution: The Religious Leadership of Soviet Jewry, 1917-1930,” in Jack Wertheimer, ed., The Uses of Tradtion (New York, 1992), p. 106 n. 48. Fishman also notes that R. Yosef Yitzhak repeated the advice that his great-grandfather had given to one who wanted to go on aliyah in the 1850’s: “We should make this the Land of Israel. Create a Land of Israel here.” This remained the Habad approach and is one of the reasons why the movement never stressed aliyah.
[11] See Nitzan Kedar, “Ha-Medinai she-Nishkah,” Ha-Tzofeh, Nov. 18, 2007, available here.
[12] This book claims that Medalie was born in 1918. Yet this is incorrect. In 1938 Medalie came to England to start his university studies. The Jewish Chronicle of May 20, 1938, has an entire story on this, complete with a picture of the young man. According to the paper, he was twenty-four years old at the time and had received semikhah from R. Isaac Herzog and R. Isser Zalman Meltzer. In Shiloh, pp. 15-16, semikhot from R. Isser Zalman and R. Moses Avigdor Amiel are printed.
[13] Be-Tzel ha-Kodesh (Jerusalem, 2007), p. 131.
[14] See here.
A number of distinguished people are missing from this list, and the following come to mind: R. Eliezer Waldenberg, R. Yitzhak Abadi, R. Aryeh Ralbag, R. Zev Segal, Prof. Yaakov Sussmann, Prof. Reuven Kimelman, and Dr. David Lando.
[15] Moshe Horovitz, She-ha-Maftehot be-Yado (Jerusalem, 1989), p. 94.
[16] Here is a little quiz: What classic book by a woman historian also begins with a funeral scene? Hint: The book is devoted to an event that is often related to the Ninth of Av. I don’t mean the Spanish Expulsion, which contrary to popular belief–a belief popularized by Abarbanel–did not take place on this date. See Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews of Christian Spain (Philadelphia, 1978), vol. 2, p. 439.
[17] Shimon Yosef Meller, Ha-Rav mi-Brisk (Jerusalem, 2006), p. 368. I wrote to Meller asking his permission to post the picture, but I haven’t yet heard back from him.
[18] See Be-Tzel ha-Kodesh, p. 118.
[19] See here.



The Saga of Publishing the Works of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner

The Saga of Publishing the Works of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner:
The Issue of Inclusion of Zionism and Rav Kook
by David Glasner

David Glasner, an economist at the Federal Trade Commission, is a great-grandson of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner.

This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog.

Many readers of the Seforim blog may be interested, perhaps even pleased, to hear about the recent publication of a new volume containing a number of works of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner (1856-1924), chief rabbi (av beit din) of Klausenburg (1877-1923), one of the founding fathers of Mizrahi, author of Dor Revi’i on Hullin, Shevivei Eish on the Torah and on selected sugyot, as well as two volumes of posthumously published responsa (Shu”t Dor Revi’i is available online at HebrewBooks.org), and a new volume, entitled Ohr Bahir, which contains six previously published shorter works (kuntresim) that were published between about 1900 and 1915. In chronological order the six kuntresim are Haqor Davar published in 5661 (1900/01) which addresses the permissibility of conversion in cases of intermarriage; Ohr Bahir published in 5668 (1907/08) on the laws of mikva’ot and a defense of the kashrut of the Klausenburg mikveh against (likely politically inspired) aspersions on its kashrut; Yeshna li-Shehitah, on the laws of shehitah published in 5671 (1911); Halakhah l’Moshe published in 5672 (1911/12) on the laws of shehitah and bedikat ha-sakin; Matzah Shemurah on the requirement of shemirah for matzah and on the kashrut of machine matzah during Passover published in 5675 (1914/15); Hametz Noqsha on the sugya of hametz noqsha in Pesahim published together with Matzah Shemurah. In addition to these six previously published works, the volume also contains a previously unpublished responsum by the Dor Revi’i dating from about 1921 or 1922 as well as three short articles by my late father, Rabbi Juda Glasner, which were previously published in the rabbinical journal ha-Pardes.[1]

In a post at the Seforim blog entitled “From Ma’adanei Eretz to Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz” (link), Rabbi Chaim Rapoport of London discussed the recent publication of a new volume of writings about shemitah by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach entitled Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz, which includes substantial portions of Rabbi Auerbach’s classic Ma’adanei Eretz, a book written specifically to address halakhic questions associated with shemitah. Rabbi Rapoport posed the question why Ma’adanei Eretz, a classic work that has been out of print for over 30 years, was not itself republished in its entirety. Rabbi Rapoport posited two reasons for its not having been republished. First, in Ma’adanei Eretz, Rabbi Auerbach discussed at length the heter mechirah, which, while not his preferred option, Rabbi Auerbach did regard as halakhically valid and treated respectfully as a legitimate option. Second, Rabbi Auerbach discussed at length, and with the utmost veneration, the halakhic positions of his mentor, Rabbi A. I. Kook. Rabbi Rapoport speculated that Haredi opinion regards both the heter mechirah and Rabbi Kook as being beyond the pale of acceptability. To allow contemporary readers ready access to Rabbi Auerbach’s opinions could evidently have two dangerous outcomes. Questions might arise in some minds about the justification for casting the heter mechirah and Rabbi Kook into the outer darkness, and, perhaps even more disconcerting, in other minds doubts might arise about Rabbi Auerbach’s position as a (or the) pre-eminent late twentieth century Haredi halakhic authority.

Rabbi Rapoport noted that this Haredi attitude toward Rabbi Kook had apparently caused the latter to be excluded from the index of authorities on the Rambam in the Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah. In his Spring 2005 review of the Frankel Rambam in Jewish Action [PDF], Rabbi Rapoport commented on the exclusion of Rabbi Kook (along with such other luminaries as Rabbis Y.Y. Reines, I. Herzog, J. B. Soloveitchik and M. M Schneerson) from that index. He also pointed out with a certain hint of surprise that the filter against religious incorrectness that had apparently screened the above-mentioned authorities had not excluded the name of my illustrious ancestor from the index of notables despite my ancestor’s outspoken Zionism and other (from a Haredi perspective) problematical positions.

This somewhat rambling introduction is intended to set the stage for the following little drama in which I participated during the runup to the publication of the new volume of my great-grandfather’s writings. The idea for the volume began to take shape three or four years ago when my nephew decided that he would like to sponsor the publication of a volume of works by one of our many distinguished ancestors to mark the bar-mitzvah of his oldest son (which was celebrated b’sha’ah tovah u-mutzlahat a few weeks ago on Shabbat Shirah). I suggested to him the idea of republishing the five kuntresim of the Dor Revi’i, which had been out of print for nearly a century and are now almost unknown and unavailable. I took upon myself the task of re-typing the original into a Hebrew word-processor and to the best of my ability flagging problematic spellings, misprints, typos, etc., and providing as many references to citations as I could find on my own. We eventually retained a cousin in Israel to finish the editorial process (find remaining references for citations and add explanatory footnotes as needed) and to guide the project through its final stages. After the passing of my father, we decided to dedicate the volume to his memory as well as to the celebration of my great-nephew’s bar-mitzvah, and therefore included three short articles that my father had published. It was also agreed that I would write an introduction in which I would say something about the life and work of my great-grandfather and about my father.

By last August, when the editorial process was nearing completion, I had finished a draft of my introduction. In the introduction, I tried to give a brief account of the Dor Revi’i’s life and an appreciation of his (in my eyes heroic) character. To me it did not seem possible to portray his life or his character adequately without mentioning his dedication to Zionism and his large role in the founding of Mizrahi. I also thought that it was necessary to point out that he was very much alone among his colleagues in the Hungarian rabbinate in supporting Zionism and, as a result, was much abused and vilified. His response, however, was never in kind, only to work even harder to support and defend his positions with ever more powerful and more rigorous arguments. I also made mention of the high regard in which he was held by the gedolim of his time, e.g., by Rabbi Kook, to whom he became very closely attached after leaving Klausenburg in the spring of 1923 for Jerusalem where he spent the last 18 months of his life before his sudden passing during haqafot on the night of Shemini Atzeret in 1924. But I also pointed out that he was similarly esteemed by other gedolei ha-dor who were not known for their ardent Zionistic tendencies such as the Maharsham of Brezan (who wrote haskamot to Ohr Bahir and Matzah Sh’murah which are also included in this volume), R. Meir Simha of Dvinsk, R. Haim Ozer Grodzinski, and the Tchebiner Rav.

The draft of my introduction was shown to various members of my extended family. The Dor Revi’i had ten children, and the political and religious views of the descendants, as one might expect, cover a pretty wide spectrum of opinions. The feedback from the more Haredi sectors of the family was not positive.

The first objection that I received was from someone who considered it inappropriate to mention the Dor Revi’i’s close relationship with Rabbi Kook, inasmuch as it is no longer acceptable in Haredi circles to mention Rabbi Kook’s name. I was, to put it mildly, shocked when I heard this objection. I would not have been surprised by an objection to my mention of the Dor Revi’i’s Zionism, but I was not prepared for an objection to the mere mention of Rabbi Kook’s name. In view of the friendship between my great-grandfather and Rabbi Kook and the fact that Rabbi Kook had defended my great-grandfather against scurrilous attacks that had been made upon him,[2] I decided that I could not, on principle, delete Rabbi Kook’s name. But I also told my niece and nephew that if they wished, I would withdraw my introduction and they could substitute a more acceptable introduction by someone else in its place. Their response was that they did not want to publish the volume without my introduction and that I should continue to work on it.

Then the other shoe dropped. This time the objection came from a source with whom my niece and nephew have a much closer personal relationship than they have with the first complainant who had objected only to my mentioning Rabbi Kook’s name, but had not objected explicitly to my discussion of Zionism. The new complaint was that politics had no place in the introduction to a book (such as this) about halakhah, and that whatever my great-grandfather had meant by Zionism in his day, it was certainly much different then from what it is today. Moreover, it was asked, what purpose could possibly be served by revisiting all these old issues that no one really understands, or even cares about, today? I was taken aback by the criticisms to say the least, because it seemed to me that if my great-grandfather had devoted so much effort and suffered such heartache in working and writing and speaking on behalf of Zionism and had endured so much abuse as a consequence, then surely it would not be right to pretend that his mesirut nefesh for the sake of Zionism was null and void and unworthy of memory or mention. I then suggested a compromise in which I would delete the word “tzionut” and would substitute “shivat tzion” in its place. However, I said that I would not delete mention of his participation in the founding of Mizrahi and the 1904 conference in Pressburg. That proposal was shot down at once. I was told that in Haredi circles the very word “Mizrahi” is considered a form of nivul peh and that the social standing of my relatives in their communities would be at risk if it ever became known that they had an ancestor who had been a founder of such an organization. When I pointed out that it was a well-known fact that the Dor Revi’i was a Zionist, I was told that in their circles it was not well-known and they would do all they could to keep it from becoming well known.[3] At this point, I realized that my introduction would not be printed as it was, and rather than seek to rewrite it (there was not enough time for me to have done a decent job even if I had wanted to), I took out everything that I had written about my great-grandfather, but left intact the short account of my father’s life that I had written. To replace my introduction, my niece and nephew were able to secure at the last minute a contribution from Rabbi Avraham Yafe Schlesinger of Geneva and Jerusalem, who is also a great-grandson of the Dor Revi’i, a prolific author (several volumes of Shu”t Be’er Sarim) with, as far as I can tell, impeccable Haredi credentials, and who recently published a new edition of Shevivei Eish combined in one volume with a previously unpublished collection of drashot by the father of the Dor Revi’i, Rabbi Avraham Glasner (1825/26-1877) which he called Dor Dorshav.[4]

What is the deeper significance of this sad little tale? First, it solves the minor puzzle about which Rabbi Rapoport wondered in his Jewish Action review, namely, what made the Dor Revi’i an acceptable entry for the Frankel index of authorities when other luminaries of a similar ilk were not acceptable. The answer, I now understand, is that there is nothing that makes the Dor Revi’i more acceptable than the others beyond the (from my perspective) unfortunate fact that there are too few people around who know who the Dor Revi’i was and what his political and hashqafic beliefs were to make the appearance of his name objectionable to most contemporary Haredim.[5] It’s not a matter of the intrinsic acceptability of the authority, just a question of what one can get away with. If enough people recognize the name and associate it with taboo opinions, it has to go. If they don’t recognize it, or don’t know enough about it to mind, then gezunter heit. Second, it shows how extraordinarily powerful are the pressures to conform in Haredi society. Individuals and ideas that do not perfectly fit the accepted norms (and thereby suggest the possibility of different norms) of that society are literally taboo. To mention Rabbi Kook in the context of a halakhic discussion or as something other than an object of scorn is in wide sections of that community to cross a red line. For my Haredi relatives, it is truly a scary thought that their ancestor would be grouped together with one such as Rabbi Kook. I really am on very close and friendly terms with many of my Haredi relatives, including some who are and some who aren’t Dor Revi’i einiklakh, and I have great respect and admiration and very deep affection for them. But this episode has forced me to view their society from a new and, I regret to say, disturbing angle. In the course of my little encounter with Haredi sensibilities, I felt a whole range of emotions, but the one that remains after having (largely) gotten over it is compassion for people who actually have to live in fear lest the events of a life such as the one led by their very own ancestor, the Dor Revi’i, become known within the community in which they live.

Notes:
[1] For further information about my great-grandfather, the Dor Revi’i, see my “Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner, the Dor Revi’i,” Tradition 32.1 (Winter 1998): 40-56, which is available, along with other translations of his various works — including all the divrei torah on the parshiot and hagim from Shevivei Eish and translations of various writings of his son and successor as chief rabbi of Klausenburg, Rabbi Akiva Glasner — online at www.dorrevii.org. If you would like to purchase a copy of Ohr Bahir ($20 a copy plus $3 shipping and handling for single copies), please contact me by email (tovi0214@verizon.net, please put “Ohr Bahir” in the subject heading). If you are in Israel and would like to purchase a copy, please contact Rabbi Shaya Herzog 04-697-4802 or 052-764-6975 for further information. If you are a book seller and would like to order copies, please contact me directly.

[2] The attacks were made in a pamphlet (Mishpat Tzedeq) published by the newly formed Sephardic community in Klausenburg, which was the creation of a small group consisting of perhaps one hundred families (out of a total Jewish population in Klausenburg that exceeded 10,000) who decided that they could no longer remain subject to the authority of a Zionist rabbi. The term “Sephardic community” was a sort of legal fiction designed to gain the recognition of the secular authorities that would recognize only one Orthodox community within a given town or district. The only “Sephardic” aspect of the community was that they recited prayers in “nusah s’fard.” Largely made up of Sigheter Hasidim, the group chose as their spiritual leader Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the future Satmarer Rebbe, whose older brother, the Atzei Haim, was then the incumbent Rebbe in Sighet, original seat of the family dynasty. R. Joelish never took up residence in Klausenburg, and after heading the Klausenburg Sephardic community for about five years, he vacated the position in favor of his nephew Rabbi Y. Y. Halberstam, who eventually was to become famous as the Klausenburger Rebbe. While the brilliance and charisma of the latter were already evident during his years in Klausenburg, he led a community that was never more than one or two percent the size of the community headed by my grandfather, and who, in his own right, was one of the leading rabbinical figures in Europe in the interwar period. It was only after Holocaust destroyed organized Jewish life in Hungary, and after he had left Klausenburg, that the adjective “Klausenburger” became routinely attached to Rabbi Halberstam. For the three quarters of a century prior to the Holocaust the title “Klausenburger Rav” was held by a Glasner. That, as such things go, is a fairly straightforward historical fact, and is not meant as explicit or implicit derogation of Rabbi Halberstam. Unlike his uncle, whose hostility to the successor of the Dor Revi’i was unrelenting, Rabbi Halberstam did maintain a civil, even friendly, relationship with my grandfather during his nearly twenty years in Klausenburg. After publication of Mishpat Tzedeq, the Orthodox community of Klausenburg published a pamphlet (Yishuv Mishpat, now available online on the website of the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem) opposing the breakaway community and defending my great-grandfather against the attacks leveled against him. Rabbi Kook contributed an open letter (a hyperlink to the letter is available at www.dorrevii.org) to the rabbis who allowed their opinions permitting the breakaway of the Sephardic community from the Orthodox community in Klausenburg to be published in a pamphlet containing slanderous accusations against the Klausenburger Rav whom Rabbi Kook described as “gadol ha-dor b’torah b’hokhmah, bi-z’khut avot, u-v’midot terumiot.”

[3] I was also told by one relative that he had it on good authority that after the Dor Revi’i arrived in Palestine and saw with his own eyes the disasters perpetrated by the Zionists, the Dor Revi’i repented of his Zionism and was subsequently shunned by his former Zionist friends. A rumor to this effect actually seems to have circulated during the lifetime of the Dor Revi’i, and a former resident of Klausenburg, Shlomo Zimroni, who settled in Israel after the Holocaust and wrote a number of works about the religious history of Klausenburg, refers to this rumor in a short article about my great-grandfather in Shana b’Shanah, published by Heichal Shlomo (5640): 434-39. He quoted from a letter that the Dor Revi’i wrote to a former lay antagonist who, having heard the rumor, wrote to invite his return to Klausenburg and to propose reconciliation. The letter quoted by Zimroni (pp. 436-37) makes emphatically clear that the writer had not changed his mind. The suggestion that the Dor Revi’i changed his mind about Zionism and was then shunned by his former friends is further refuted by the following story which, my father told me he had heard from his father, Rabbi Akiva Glasner, when his father sat shiva for his mother (the wife of the Dor Revi’i) in the early 1930s (when my father was probably in his mid-teens). According to my father, my grandfather said that when Rabbi Yosef Hayyim Sonnenfeld, a student of the Ketav Sofer, the Dor Revi’i’s uncle and (briefly) teacher, paid a shiva call at the home of the Dor Revi’i in Jerusalem, he begged forgiveness from the Dor Revi’i’s rebbetzin for not having attended the funeral of her husband. He said that he had not meant any disrespect by not attending and indeed had had every intention to attend the funeral, but had been misled as to the time of the funeral by his aides who did not want him to show public respect to a Zionist. That apology and explanation would obviously not make any sense had the Dor Revi’i renounced his Zionist opinions and had he been shunned by his former Zionist friends. In that case, why would Rabbi Sonnenfeld’s handlers have wanted to prevent a show of public respect by Rabbi Sonnenfeld to the Dor Revi’i? Such inventions of “bsof yamav” have become a characteristic of of Haredi oral traditions (urban legends) and historiography as Rabbi Rapoport noted in footnote 10 of his posting.

[4] Avraham Glasner was a talmid muvhaq of the Ketav Sofer. He married Raizel Ehrenfeld (daughter of Dovid Tzvi and Hindel Ehrenfeld), a niece of the Ketav Sofer and the oldest granddaughter of the Hatam Sofer. In his twenties, he was appointed chief rabbi of Gyonk, Hungary, and after eleven years in that position he became chief rabbi of Klausenburg. He served in that position for 14 years until his premature death at the age of 52. His only son, Moshe Shmuel, though only 21 years old, was appointed to succeed him on erev Hanukah in 1877. Moshe Shmuel was the oldest great-grandchild of the Hatam Sofer, which along with the implicit Zionistic allusion, was the reason that he chose “Dor Revi’i” as the title of his great work.

[5] It’s therefore somewhat comforting to know that the memory of the Dor Revi’i is being kept alive, if not exactly well, among the Satmarers. They have long memories and nurse their grievances with care and feeling. Thus in volume six of the official biography of the Rebbe, Reb Joelish, unpretentiously entitled Moshian shel Yisrael, there is a whole chapter that is largely devoted to my great-grandfather. The title of the chapter is “milhemet ha-shem neged amaleq.”




Mayim Hayyim, the Baal Shem Tov, and R. Meir the son of R. Jacob Emden

Sources contemporary to the Baal Shem Tov that attest to his deeds, or that even discuss him at all, are sparse. Although some secular sources, including tax records and other documents, have recently been unearthed by academic researchers, there is a paucity of Jewish texts. Most of the “historical” record regarding the Baal Shem Tov comes from a collection of stories, Shivhei Ha-Besht.[1] That work, however, was collected much later and is less reliable than others when assessing the Baal Shem Tov. [2] One important text regarding the Baal Shem Tov, however, appears in the Teshuvot Mayim Hayyim.

Mayim Hayyim was published in Zhitomer by Shapira press. The Shapira press is well-known for publishing hassidic works, and the press was originally in Slavita. As a result of dubious circumstances, the press moved to Zhitomer and in 1857 the Mayim Hayyim was published.[2a] While the publication of that book took place long after the Baal Shem Tov’s death in 1760, Mayim Hayyim consists of responsa both from the time of the Baal Shem Tov and later. Mayim Hayyim mainly consists of the responsa of R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport (1772-1839), was published by R. Hayyim’s son, R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport. R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport included material from other relatives as well (i.e., aside from his father, R. Hayyim). One such responsum is from R. Meir, son of R. Jacob Emden, who we shall return to later.

This undated responsum begins with a technical question regarding a lesion found in the lungs of an animal after shechitah. The slaughterer could not remove the lesion and took it to the local rabbi in Medzhybizh, a Rabbi Falk, who appeared to be unsure of the status of the animal. Based upon the remainder of the responsum, however, R. Falk eventually permitted the animal. It appears that some disagreed with the decision of R. Falk and thus sent the question to R. Meir to see if the local rabbi got it right. In an effort to ensure that R. Meir would get the whole story, it was recorded and signed by R. Mordechai, the ne’eman (literally, the trustee; but in this context, probably the secretary); the following appears after the question:

In our presence, the court signed below, our teacher, the aforementioned Mordecai, related all that is written above as testimony and then wrote all of this in his own handwriting and signed it with his very own signature. Therefore we have confirmed it and substantiated it as proper
Signed Israel BA”Sh [Ba’al Shem] of Tluste [this was the city the Baal Shem Tov lived prior to moving to Medzhybizh]
Signed Moshe Joseph Maggid Mesharim of Medzhybizh [3]

Thus, one of the three signatories was R. Israel Baal Shem Tov. The questioners then continue to flesh out their question as to whether or not Rabbi Falk paskened correctly. As Moshe Rosman notes, this question places the Baal Shem Tov as an important figure within Medzhybizh. That is, the Baal Shem Tov involved himself in this controversy, a controversy that may have resulted in the dismissal of their local rabbi. Furthermore, this episode illustrates how the Baal Shem Tov was important enough to be one of the three persons picked to sign on this letter. As Rosman states: “this incident presents a dimension of the Besht not usually emphasized by the interpreters of the hagiographic stories about him in Shivhei Ha-Beshet. It makes it difficult to portray him – as has often been done – as an unalloyed populist figure, alienated from the rabbinic or political establishment” (118).

Aside from the above value of the letter, there is the additional importance of how R. Meir treated the Baal Shem Tov, thus providing a contemporary account on how others viewed the Baal Shem Tov. Although the letter was from three people, R. Mordechai, R. Moshe Joseph and the Baal Shem Tov, R. Meir in his response only addresses himself to the Baal Shem Tov. Moreover, the honorifics R. Meir uses demonstrates that he surely held the Baal Shem Tov in the highest regard. R. Meir addressed the Baal Shem Tov as:

Champion in Yehuda and Israel! He who succeeds there at the small and the great. He provides balm and medicament to the persons without strength. He is great in Bavel and famous in Teveriah and has prevailed in all things. The great sage, the eminent rabbi, famous for his good name, our teacher Israel, may God protect and bless him. And all of his colleagues, all of them beloved rabbis, the great and eminent sage, our teacher Gershon, may God protect and bless him; and those who I don’t know [by name] I greet; may they all be granted the highest blessing.

As is apparent from the titles provided, “champion in Yehuda and Israel” and with the use of the terms “the great sage, the eminent rabbi” that R. Meir held the Baal Shem Tov in very high regard. Additionally, from both the Baal Shem Tov’s own use of “Baal Shem” to describe himself and R. Meir’s mention that the Baal Shem Tov “provides balm and medicament to persons without strength,” the term “Baal Shem” as used here refers to a medicine man. That is, aside from whatever else the Baal Shem Tov was known for, he was known for being a healer – thus Baal Shem means healer. This understanding is confirmed by tax records that refer to the Baal Shem Tov as a “Doctor.” From all this is should be apparent that the Baal Shem Tov was respected by his peers and was known outside of Medzhybizh while he was there.[4]Teshuvot Mayim Hayyim
There is a question, however, regarding when the foregoing letter was written. Most place it sometime around 1744, but, at the latest, 1747. They do so based on the mention of “our teacher Gershon.” They understand that the Gershon referenced here is Avraham Gershon of Kutower, the Baal Shem Tov’s brother-in-law. As R. Gershon moved to Israel in 1747, and the letter mentions R. Gershon, it must have been while he was still in Medzhybizh.[5] Personally, I think that that conclusion assumes that R. Meir was intimately familiar with R. Gershon’s whereabouts. While there is no doubt that R. Meir heard of R. Gershon, it does not automatically follow that he was informed regarding when R. Gershon moved to Israel. It could very well be the letter was written after R. Gershon left for Israel and R. Meir then merely assumed that R. Gershon was still living in Medzhybizh – it is not as if there was an announcement in the Międzybórz Times or at OnlySimchas.com that R. Gershon had made Aliyah! Either way, this letter was written while the Baal Shem Tov was alive, and provides a virtually unimpeachable source for his participation in the community-at-large and about how others viewed him. I don’t think Rosman is exaggerating when he says that “[t]his responsum, then, would seem to be an excellent starting point for attempting to gauge the Besht’s position in his community and his relationship to the political and religious establishment” (119).

Aside from the above points that can be gleaned from this responsum, R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in an article that originally appeared in Sinai and has now been reprinted in the nice, new edition of his le-Ohr Halakhah uses this responsum for a different purpose. R. Zevin wants to disprove the notion that “the Hassidim and their Rebbes don’t care about studying the revealed Torah and thus they did not spend much time on studying talmud and poskim.” R. Zevin notes, as well, that this attitude towards Hassidim was prevalent right from the start of the Hassidic movement. That is, “even today, those who are not hassidim allege that the founder of the Hassidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov, was not a ben torah, heaven forbid.” R. Zevin totally rejects this notion as “false and incorrect.” As proof the Baal Shem Tov was indeed learned R. Zevin cites to the above responsum. R. Zevin explains:

In the Shu”t Mayim Hayyim from R. Hayyim Kohen Rapoport from Austria, printed there is a responsum from Medzhybizh regarding a lesion in the lung, from the Baal Shem Tov to the gaon R. Meir, the son of R. Jacob Emden, who was the chief rabbi in Constantine, and the response from the goan [R. Meir] to him [the Baal Shem Tov]. As is common knowledge, the Baal Shem Tov was not the Rabbi of Medzhybizh, even so the Baal Shem Tov is one of the signatories to the letter, singing it “Yisrael Baal Shem of Tluste” – “and the Maggid Mesharim of Medzhybizh.” [6] The response of R. Meir is a long one. R. Meir was not a hassid. It is important to note the honorifics R. Meir uses at the beginning of his response: “Champion in Yehuda and Israel! He who succeeds there at the small and the great. He provides balm and medicament to the persons without strength. He is great in Bavel and famous in Teveriah and has prevailed in all thins. The great sage, the eminent rabbi, famous for his good name, our teacher Israel, may God protect and bless him. And all of his colleagues, all of them beloved rabbis . . .” And would a goan [R. Meir] who is not a hassid uses such language on someone who is not a godal b’torah?

Therefore, R. Zevin, with this responsum, demonstrates that the notion that the Baal Shem Tov was not learned and not respected is utterly false.

Until now, we have been focusing on the Baal Shem Tov, but there is another important person in this responsum, the author – R. Meir (1717-1795)[7], the first born son of R. Jacob Emden.[8] R. Meir was the rabbi in Constantine in the Ukraine. R. Meir was highly respected in the area, as is demonstrated by this responsum. This is so, as you will recall, in that the purpose of the responsum was to settle a controversy in the town of Medzhybizh – a controversy between the local rabbi and some of the persons in the town. This was a serious controversy — indeed the petitioners describe it as “a fire burning in the community” — and, especially in light of R. Meir’s response, where he notes that the rabbi was wrong and if the rabbi refuses to admit that he is wrong, he is to be dealt with as a zakan maamrei as the rabbi, according to R. Meir, is denying a portion of the torah. This was no small matter. As the three persons picked R. Meir to adjudicate the matter, they must have respected him and thought that his answer, what ever it would be, would settle the issue.

Unfortunately, until now, we only had a tiny amount of written material from R. Meir, the bulk of which appears in Mayim Hayyim. Specifically, of the six extant responsa from R. Meir, four can be found in Mayim Hayyim. Now the reason they are included in Mayim Hayyim is because R. Meir is related to R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport.[9] What is shocking is that in his introduction to the Mayim Hayyim, R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport, publisher of the Mayim Hayyim, uses his relationship to R. Meir as the sole reason for publishing R. Meir’s responsa. That is, although the Mayim Hayyim was published by the Shapira hassidic publishing house in Zhitomer, and done so in the mid-19th century, R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport never mentions that he includes a responsum — the only one of its kind — from the Baal Shem Tov. Instead, the reason for the inclusion of the responsum is R. Meir.

As mentioned previously, today, Shmuel Dovid Friedman has attempted to fill the void of R. Meir’s works in publishing the first volume of R. Meir’s hiddushim. These hiddushim are on Mishnayot Seder Nashim and on the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah. The title of the book is taken from the above responsum. As R. Meir was referred to as “HaMeor HaGodol” thus the title of this new work is HaMeor HaGodol. See Meir Konstantine, HaMeor HaGodol, ed. R. Shmuel Dovid Friedman (Brooklyn, NY, 2007), [30], 352. [6]

While the publication of the Hiddushei Torah of R. Meir is indeed welcome, this particular work is plagued with numerous deficiencies. Firstand foremost is the problem with the manuscript itself. It does not appear that the Meor HaGodol was published from R. Meir’s actual manuscript. Instead, R. Meir’s manuscripts were copied over time by the Bick family and it is from these copies that the Meor HaGodol is comprised. Thus, there is no independent method of verifying that this material actually came from R. Meir. Aside from the manuscript, the introduction is rather bizarre. The introduction includes various stories about R. Meir, most of which focus on his relationship to hassidim. The bulk of the stories are then shown to be false, but only in the footnotes. So, the body of the text are the stories and then a careful reader will see that most of the stories likely never occurred. For instance, there is a story that R. Meir’s daughter — when R. Meir was sick and unbeknownst to him– sent a request to the Baal Shem Tov to ask him to heal R. Meir. The editors of Meor HaGodol, in note 49, then say it is hard to reconcile the story with the facts known about R. Meir. Or, another example is that the introduction includes a story that after R. Meir became a hassid — there is no evidence that he ever did so, but the story assumes so — his father, R. Jacob Emden, disowned R. Meir. Again, the editors, in note 59, state that “there are many difficulties with this story” and then proceed to enumerate them. Why a story for which there is no support would be included to begin with is left unexplained. Perhaps the reason is that the editors are unduly interested in demonstrating that R. Meir was a full hassid (indeed, the main chapter in the introduction is entitled “[R. Meir’s] Connection with the Baal Shem Tov”). It is particularly ironic that they present such shaky evidence in light of the fact the responsum in Mayim Hayyim from R. Meir is the only objective contemporaneous evidence of the Ba’al Shem from a Jewish source.

Moreover, the introduction seems to have missed and, in fact purposely left out, some material. Specifically, in note 3, the editors of HaMeor HaGodol note that R. Jacob Emden at some point added the name Yisrael. In the introduction they then attempt to understand what precipitated this change. They cite the following from R. Jacob Emden’s Hitavkut, (p. 112,a)

מבטן אמי קראני יעקב, אליו פי קראתי ורומם תחת לשוני, והוא יתברך שלחני בשמי קראני, וכעת הראני לקרוא שמי ישראל וכו’, ע”כ


“from birth I was called Yaakov, this is what I was called and my name elevated, and then God sent [a message] to me that I should be called in God’s name, and thus I will now be called Yisrael.”

Although we can see from that quote that R. Emden added his name, the introduction does not tell us exactly why. What is astounding is that the editors ought to know why R. Emden added his name. The reason is because the above quote from Sefer Hitavkut continues beyond the portion quoted and explains that the name Yisrael was added because it was a testament that R. Jacob Emden was correct in his battle with R. Jonathan Eybeschütz. Instead, the editors cut off the quote right before R. Emden explains precisely that. Therefore, I assume that the omission is because they would rather not bring up that R. Emden had a fight with R. Eybeschütz, or that R. Emden viewed himself as having been correct. It is worth noting that the Sefer Hitavkut is not the only place R. Emden offers his victory as the reason for the name change. Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, on page 754 (n.11) of his dissertation about Rabbi Jacob Emden (Harvard, 1988), refers to a passage in Mitpachat Sefarim (p. 118 in the Lemberg, 1871 ed. and p. 171 in the most recent 1995 ed. – provided below) where R. Emden says “that after he battled with IS”H [R. J. Eybeschütz] a name was added” — a play on the verse in Genesis 32:24, 28. So it is incorrect to assert, as the editors of HaMeor HaGodol do, that “why and when R. Emden’s name was changed is unclear.” Rabbi Schacter also notes that Emden’s earliest reference “to himself as ‘Yaakov Yisrael’ is in a responsum SY [She’elat Yaavetz] II:24) dated February 22, 1765. In another responsum dated just six days later (SY II:144), Emden was addressed as ‘Yaakov Yisrael.’ For other references to this name, see SY II:25, 71, 72, 73, 112, [and] 146” (p. 754, n.11 – special thanks to Rabbi Schacter for his discussions with Menachem Butler about this aspect about Rabbi Jacob Emden).

Thus, in the editors’ effort to highlight the connection of R. Meir to hassidim, they downplay any opposition R. Meir’s father, R. Jacob Emden, had to hassidism (see n.59). They apparently were unaware (?) that an additional important statement from R. Jacob Emden has recently been published. (see here )

One final note. It is particularly disappointing today to find a sefer that does not contain an index. With technology as it is today, publishers easily should be able to provide a decent index to a book; it is quite surprising, then, that Meor HaGodol, does not contain an index.

Notes
[1] There are other sources as well, including letters. Many of the letters are highly controversial as to their authenticity. See Moshe Rosman, Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba’al Shem Tov (University of California Press, 1996), 99-113, 119-126; Nahum Karlinsky, Historia SheKeneged (Jerusalem, 1998); and Immanuel Etkes, The Besht: Magician, Mystic and Leader (UPNE/Brandeis University Press, 2005), chapter six, “The Historicity of Shivhei Habesht,” 203-248, among many other sources.
[2] See Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, 143-155 and 162-8 (lending credence to some of the stories in Shivhei Ha-Besht based on governmental records), as well as his earlier article, “The History of a Historical Source: On the Editing of Shivhei Ha-Besht,” Zion 58 (1993): 175-214, and in his recently published monograph, Stories That Changed History: The Unique Career of Shivhei Ha-Besht (=The B.G. Rudolph Lectures in Judaic Studies, new series, 5) (Syracuse University Press, 2007), Rosman notes how through this text of some two hundred stories, one can “explore such themes as the Besht’s miraculous birth and childhood, his initiation into the mystical secrets, his revelations, his prayers, his dreams, his travels, his encounters with noblemen and priests, his contests with doctors, his attraction of various associates, and, most of all, the miracles, large and small, that he performs” (1). Rosman notes, as well, that over the past sixty years alone, “there have been five new Hebrew editions, some printed more than once; one Yiddish and two Hebrew reworkings; a German translation and critical edition, and an English translation printed four times. All this was in addition to various adaptations in fiction and in educational materials used by all types of Jewish schools, from Israeli secular to American Reform and Brooklyn Ultra-Orthodox” (24), and Rosman notes quite humorously how “Shivhei Ha-Besht has been analyzed as inspirational literature, political tract, holy writ, silly stories, historical source, and theological doctrine. It has entertained, inspired, embarrassed, inspired repentance, and formed the basis for doctoral dissertations. For nearly two hundred years it has been read with passion and diligence by people of many approaches and predilections. In search for the wellsprings of modern Jewish culture, it surely represents a unique source” (20).
[2a] For a discussion of the Shapira press see Ch. B. Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography in Poland (Tel Aviv, 1950), 104-09 (discussing the Slavita period) and 135 (discussing the Shapira press in Zhitomer). For what precipitated the move, see Saul Moiseyevich Ginsburg, The Drama of Slavuta, trans. by Ephraim H. Prombaum (Lanham, Maryland, 1991).
[3] I have essentially used Rosman’s translation of this responsum.
[4] See Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, at 168.
[5] Dinur, B’Mifaneh HaDorot, vol. 1, pp. 205-6, cited in Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, 119 n.29.
[6] This is actually incorrect. The Baal Shem Tov does not sign himself as the Maggid of Medzhybizh, rather the final signatory, R. Moshe Yosef signs himself as the Maggid.
[7] 1795 is the death date given in HaMeor HaGadol, (there are no page numbers provided in the introduction thus I will use the footnote numbers to attempt to give a rough citation) at n.60. The source given is “a letter from R. Mordechai Blechman z”l the chief rabbi of Constantine to R. Hayyim Bick the chief rabbi of Medzhybizh.” The editors of HaMeor HaGodol, however, fail to provide where this source is located, i.e. is it in their possession, is it in some library or perhaps somewhere else. Moreover, they do not provide the context of the letter – was R. Meir’s death date mentioned in passing or was that the focus of the letter. Nor do they mention how R. Blechman knows this date. Did he pull it off of R. Meir’s tombstone or was it simply a legend? This sort of lack of information plagues the entire introduction of the Meor HaGodol.
This same death date, however, is given by Abraham Bick, Rebi Yaakov Emden (Jerusalem, 1974), 17, 182. Bick doesn’t either provide a source for this date. See also id. at 17-8, citing to where R. Jacob Emden and others quote R. Meir. About Bick’s 1974 biography, Schacter writes in his dissertation, that this work “is uncritical, incomplete and simply sloppy. it is barely more useful than an earlier historical novel in yiddish about emden by the general author with the same title published in New York, 1946. In general, all of Bick’s work is shoddy and irresponsible and cannot be taken seriously.” See Jacob J. Schacter, “Rabbi Jacob Emden: Life and Works,” (PhD dissertation, Harvard, 1988), 17.
The editors of HaMeor HaGodol explain that most of the biographical information on R. Meir comes from Kitvei HaGeonim (Pietrokov, 1928), 127-30, n.3. Additionally, R. Meir is mentioned a few times in his father’s autobiography, Megilat Sefer, Kahana ed., (Warsaw, 1896), 104 and 110. R. Jacob Emden mentions that he was unable to attend R. Meir’s wedding in 1732 even as his wife attended, though as Schacter notes in his dissertation, R. Emden had “travel[ed] to Amsterdam during this period” (152, n. 126).
[8] R. Meir was related to R. Rapoport through the marriage of R. Meir’s daughter to R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport’s grandson, Dov Bear. See R. Jonathan Eybeschütz, Luchot Edut (Altona, 1755), 62a. Additionally, R. Meir was the brother-in-law of R. Shlomo Chelm, author of the Merkevet HaMishna. One of the responsum in Mayim Hayyim, no. 28, from R. Meir is to R. Shlomo.
[9] In fact, this is the only reason why the responsum that includes the mention of the Ba’al Shem Tov appears in Mayim Hayyim. As mentioned above, when the Mayim Hayyim was published, it was done so not by R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport, the author of the bulk of the teshuvot, but instead by his son R. Yaakov. R. Hayyim had died prior to publishing his own works. Thus, R. Yaakov decided to include not only his father’s responsa but those from other relatives, as well. Thus, the Mayim Hayyim contains two title pages. After the first title page, the approbations that R. Hayyim received for his responsa are included (one additional later approbation is included but the main are addressed to R. Hayyim). R. Yaakov then included a second title page after which two additional approbations are included. These approbations were collected by R. Yaakov and mention not only R. Hayyim’s responsa but the inclusion of other luminaries including R. Meir. The second title page is used a division between the two types of approbations, those directed at R. Hayyim and those at the book Mayim Hayyim. It is worthwhile noting that in the electronic editions they have removed the second title page. For instance, www.hebrewbooks.org only includes the first. This is but one example of the need to actually obtain a hard copy of a book and not solely rely on such databases. See Anthony Grafton, “Future Reading, Digitization and its Discontents,” The New Yorker (Nov. 5, 2007) and his New Yorker web-supplement, “Adventures in Wonderland,” for other limitations of digitization.