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

by Marc B. Shapiro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * * * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

כי ניים ושכיב רבינו ז”ל אמר זה הדבר

 Neturei Karta; ArtScroll, Arius, and Orangutans; Suicide and the Law of Rodef

Marc B. Shapiro

1. We have recently seen behavior by so-called religious Jews that is vile. I refer to the actions of Neturei Karta. Of course, we have all seen their antics in the past, but I think most of us looked at them as clowns and sick people that maybe we should feel sorry for. This is no longer the case. Now they are marching in support of the murderers of Jews, aligning themselves with the enemy, and attempting to destroy the State of Israel. They are doing this at the very time that Jews are being killed at war. It is true that in the past as well they openly aligned themselves with the PLO,[1] and R. Moshe Feinstein already in the late 1970s referred to Neturei Karta as reshaim.[2] But to be allied during wartime with Iran and Hamas is I think beyond what we have seen before.

Here you can see a video of a Neturei Karta delegation that went to Iran to pay respects after the death of President Raisi. Here a different delegation visits the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. to pay respects. Here they are in Qatar at the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh whose death they mourned in a public statement here. It is hard to imagine anything more obscene than this. What we have seen from Neturei Karta since October 7 goes way beyond making a hillul ha-shem.[3]

Until his death, the spiritual leader of this group was Rabbi Moshe Beck (1934-2021). Here you can see him showing his affection for the Iranian leader Ahmadenijad. In the ultimate obscenity, in his book Derekh ha-Hatzalah (Monsey, 2002), pp. 40ff., Beck actually explains why it is halakhically appropriate to congratulate terrorists on a “successful” operation, namely, when they murder Jews. Thus, it is entirely in line with Neturei Karta ideology for them to praise the October 7 “resistance.” Here is his outrageous conclusion (p. 44):

מותר לומר להפאלעסטינים יפה עשיתם שהרגתם, כיון שע“י דיבורים אלו יצמח הצלה להרבה מישראל המתנגדים לציונות

And what about the fact that even pious Jews will be hurt if Neturei Karta’s propaganda is successful and U.S. government aid to Israel is cut? Beck explains that this is not a problem, as the Zionists cannot be helped, even if the pious also would benefit (p. 41):

ועל אחת כמה וכמה לענין מורדים בה‘ וכופרים ומחטיאים כמו הציונים וכל כתותיהם, שבודאי נאסר הסיוע להם בכל אופן, אפילו שלא בענין העבירה, ואפילו יוצא תועלת מסיוע זה לצדיקים ועובדי ה‘

Over thirty years ago I was naive and thought that I might be able to have a productive correspondence with Beck. Here are three letters I received from him.

Regarding the third letter, I am not sure why he wrote that I “disguised” myself in my first two letters. I simply wrote to him with questions and never said or implied that I agreed with him in any way. In my second letter I actually strongly protested how he referred to Rav Kook. In his response to this letter he also answers my question how he could cite from R. Reuven Margaliyot’s commentary on Sefer Hasidim when R. Margaliyot was a religious Zionist whose book was published by Mossad ha-Rav Kook. (I never said that he was a maskil). In my third letter I attacked him for degrading great Torah scholars and I mentioned that R. Aharon Kotler supported the State of Israel. I never said he was a Zionist. My point was that once the State of Israel was declared, with the lives of millions of Jews depending on it, anti-Zionism in the sense of opposing the creation of a Jewish state was now no longer relevant. Once the State of Israel was created, anti-Zionism came to mean working to destroy the Jewish state, and thus putting millions of Jewish lives at risk. Satmar anti-Zionism is religiously based but remains entirely theoretical, even eschatological, and Satmar has always been absolutely opposed to allying with anti-Semites and terrorists and their supporters.)

See also here where a number of years ago I wrote the next few paragraphs (now updated slightly).

Readers should examine the following document, which is found in the Central Zionist Archives S25/4752

It is a copy of a letter sent to the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem from Aryeh Leib Weissfish. Weissfish was later to become famous as one of the leaders of the Neturei Karta, and strangely enough he was also a great fan of Nietzsche. You can read about his colorful career here, where it mentions how he illegally entered Jordan in 1951 to bring a message from the Neturei Karta that Jordan should invade Jerusalem and the Neturei Karta would be its ally in this. When he was deported to Israel he was put on trial and sentenced to six months in prison.

In view of the fact that during World War II there was a fear that Germany would invade the Land of Israel and that this would also lead to the Arabs persecuting Jews, Weissfish wrote to the local Muslim leaders to let them know that the Old Yishuv type of Jews that he is speaking about are not involved in politics and that they oppose the Zionists. They have always treated the Arabs with respect and he therefore requests that these Jews be protected. He also offers to provide the names of the families who should be given this special treatment. As you can see from Yitzhak Ben-Zvi’s handwritten note at the bottom of the letter, Ben-Zvi copied it from the original letter which he found in the Supreme Muslim Council’s archives.

R. Shlomo Brody has recently published a fabulous book, with a great title, which is unfortunately very timely: Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. While I am sure I will have more to say about this book at a future time, I would for now just wish to add that when it comes to Neturei Karta and those of a similar mindset, I was wondering about some halakhic and ethical issues that Brody does not discuss. (In general, he does not discuss the home front.) For example, can such people be counted to a minyan? Are you allowed to give charity to them, and if not, how about the children who will suffer through no fault of their own? Can the children of such a family be kicked out of a yeshiva? If these people have businesses, should we boycott them, again, causing the children to suffer for the sins of their fathers? Or should we just ignore these people entirely? These questions are not only relevant when it comes to Neturei Karta, for as we have seen since October 7 there are many other enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. Some of them who support Hamas are themselves Jewish. As far as I know, there has not yet appeared an analysis of how such traitors are to be regarded in Jewish law.

2. A couple of people sent me something that was going around the internet asking what I thought, so I figured I would elaborate on the blog. Rashi, Deut. 1:12, quotes the Sifrei, Devarim, no. 13, that אריוס asked Rabbi Yose a question. In the ArtScroll translation of Rashi by R. Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg there is the following note on this passage: “Nothing other than what is mentioned here is known about this person. His name appears nowhere else in Torah literature.”

This is not exactly correct. As Louis Finkelstein points out in his edition of the Sifrei (p. 22), Tosefta Bava Metzia 3:11, records a question Arius asked the Sages. This is what appears in the important Erfurt manuscript of the Tosefta used by Zuckermandel in his edition, but Arius’ name does not appear in the Tosefta published in the back of the Talmud.[4]

In the updated version of the ArtScroll Rashi translation, they explain who Arius was (R. Herczeg had nothing to do with this update): “A 4^th century C.E. Christian theologian whose views on religion clashed with standard church teachings; his followers are called Arians. (An analysis of his question to R’ Yose appears in Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 34, p. 15.)

I do not know why someone working at ArtScroll decided it was important to add this information. I also do not know why the person who added the information did not see the immediate problem. Arius, who at most was only in the Land of Israel for a short time, was a fourth-century theologian in the period of the amoraim. How then could he be asking questions of the tanna R. Yose or any of the other tannaitic sages? This alone should have been enough to show that the Arius mentioned by the Sifrei is not the Christian theologian Arius. When the ArtScroll Rashi is next reprinted, the updated note should be deleted as it is clearly in error, and the original note should be reinserted. I have to say that I find it of interest that the updated note has a reference to the Likutei Sihot of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a figure who does not appear often in ArtScroll publications. This reference should definitely remain.

Where did ArtScroll get the information in the new note? Perhaps from the entry on Arius in the Otzar Yisrael encyclopedia (vol. 2, pp. 192-193). The Otzar Yisrael entry states, without any evidence, that the R. Yose mentioned in the Sifrei is one of the amoraim named R. Yose, not the tanna. But there is no reason to assume this to be the case, and lots of reasons to assume it is not so. We are fortunate that the Otzar Yisrael entry has a bibliography and we are thus able to see where they got their information from: R. Elijah Benamozegh’s Em la-Mikra to Deut. 1:13, which goes on for many pages.

I have great respect for R. Benamozegh and have given a number of classes on him.[5] Yet as mentioned already, there is no reason to think that the R. Yose mentioned in the Sifrei is an amora as R. Benamozegh claims. We should assume that he is the second-century R. Yose ben Halafta for this is how the tanna R. Yose is mentioned in rabinic literature, namely, without his father’s name. I would also note that the Talmud records a number of R. Yose ben Halafta’s conversations with non-Jews. Therefore, his interaction with Arius makes perfect sense

As for Arius, Moshe David Herr believes that he must have been a convert to Judaism. Referring to his mention in Tosefta, Bava Metzia 3:11, Herr writes “This question, which manifests expert knowledge of the halakhah on the part of the inquirer, proves that he was a Jew.”[6]

Returning to R. Benamozegh, it needs to be mentioned that his commentary on the Torah suffers from the same problem as many others, in that as one who was up to date in modern historical scholarship and science, he tries to explain the Torah in the light of this knowledge. Yet mid-19^th century understandings in these areas has usually been rejected and thus cannot speak to 21^st century readers. On occasion, what he says will be found offensive by modern readers, such as his discussion of the curse of Canaan in his Em la-Mikra to Genesis 9:25. Here it is from R. Eliyahu Zini’s wonderful new edition.

Although it could be that R. Benamozegh himself held the liberal view of Tiedemann, the even-handed way he discusses the matter does not make for comfortable reading today.

R. Israel Lifshitz, the author of Tiferet Yisrael on the Mishnah, also liked to connect modern scientific discoveries with Torah and rabbinic texts. Unfortunately, not all of his information  was correct. Since R. Benamozegh mentions orangutans, let me tell you what R. Lifshitz has to say about them, which he must have read in some book or newspaper. In his commentary to Kil’ayim[7] 8:5, he states that in Africa orangutans are taught to chop trees and draw water, to wear human clothes and to sit at a table and eat with silverward. (In truth, orangatuns are not found in Africa but are native to parts of Asia.) And in case people were wondering, he also adds that despite the orangutan’s near-human characteristics, when it dies it is regarded like every other animal and does not create ritual impurity as do dead humans.[8]

Although, as mentioned, R. Lifshitz must have acquired his incorrect information about orangutans from some book or newspaper, I should note that the Talmud discusses how monkeys are capable of performing various tasks for humans and this might have influenced R. Lifshitz in assuming the same to be true of orangutans. The expression מעשה קוף is well known, and this page gives a number of talmudic references to actions of monkeys. However, the list is not complete and it omits Bava Kamma 101a which mentions a monkey dying wool with a particular dye. It also omits Yadayim 1:8 which refers to a monkey pouring water over a person’s hands. For those interested in the topic, R. Baruch Plotchek wrote an article on monkeys in the Bible and Talmud.[9] One of the interesting things he points out is that Kohelet Rabbah comments on Eccl. 6:11: כִּי יֵשׁ–דְּבָרִים הַרְבֵּה, מַרְבִּים הָבֶל, that included in the “vanity” is the raising of monkeys. This shows that when this Midrash was written, people, presumably including Jews, kept monkeys as pets. Also of interest is that Plotchek identifies what we can term proto-Darwinian ideas in some rabbinic statements. As far as I know, he was the first to make this point, which was later picked up by others trying to reconcile Torah and evolution.

3. In the last post I pointed to an interesting explanation of R. Chaim Heller that solved a textual problem. Here is another one he offered: Piskei Tosafot (at the back of the Vilna Shas), Shabbat, no. 130, states that in a city that has pigs, the buildings in it are exempt from the law of mezuzah: עיר שיש בה חזירים פטורה מן המזוזה

There is no talmudic source for this passage and on its face it is astounding, as why should the presence of pigs mean that Jews don’t need a mezuzah? If followed in practice, this text would mean that no city in the Christian world needs mezuzot. (In fact, from statements of Ashkenazic rishonim we know that in medieval Ashkenaz many people did not affix mezuzot, and perhaps this laxity arose from the view recorded in Piskei Tosafot.[10])

R. Heller suggested that there was a scribal error and that instead of עיר שיש בה חזירים the text should read דיר שיש בה חזירים, that is, a pigsty does not need a mezuzah.[11] I don’t think this emendation is found in any of R. Heller’s writings, but it is mentioned in his name by Dr. Tibor Juda, the late son-in-law of R. Pinchas Hirschprung,[12] in this video about R. Abraham Price, beginning at 36:38. R. Price was a student of R. Heller in Berlin before he came to Toronto. Not surprising, Abraham Rosenberg, whom I discussed in previous posts here and here, also mentions this emendation which he must have heard from R. Heller.[13]

This emendation is actually mentioned previously by R. Meir Soloveitchik in his Ha-Meir la-Aretz, p. 64a.[14] Here is the title page of the book.

R. Soloveitchik, after mentioning the emendation, offers his own alternative emendation:

ועוד נ“ל יותר טוב להגיה, עיר שאין בה חזירים כו‘, דטנופת הרבה מצוי בה והו“ל כמקום שהתינוקות מצוין בה

Before people start trying to figure out how this R. Soloveitchik is related to R. Chaim, let me note that there was at least one other Soloveitchik family in Europe, and this family was not levi’im like the more famous Soloveitchik family. R. Meir Soloveitchik came from the less distinguished Soloveitchiks.[15]

4. In my last post I dealt with euthanasia and suicide, and in response to that Ariel Fuss sent me something that I found truly astounding. If you had described it to me without me seeing it “inside”, I would have thought it was Purim Torah, or perhaps a halakhic paradox of the sort I have written about.[16] But no, we are talking about a real piece of rabbinic learning. Here is R. Mordechai Shlomo Carlebach, Havatzelet ha-Sharon, Vayikra (2), pp. 476-477.

R. Carlebach assumes that suicide falls under the prohibition of murder. While there are those who disagree (see Encyclopedia Talmudit, s. v. me’abed atzmo le-da’at), the majority opinion is that suicide is a form of murder, and this seems to be Maimonides’ opinion as well. R. Carlebach raises the issue of what to do if you see someone about to commit suicide. When someone is about to murder another, there is an obligation to kill the rodef. If suicide is a form of murder, R. Carlebach reasons that one who is going to kill himself is to be regarded as a rodef (of himself) and according to the halakhah you would be obligated to kill the man before he killed himself.

At first glance this seems crazy, since what sense does it make to kill a man because he is going to kill himself? But as R. Carlebach points out, by killing the man before he kills himself, you prevent him from violating the prohibition against murder, which will be a great benefit to him in the World to Come. R. Carlebach notes that when he presented this idea to R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, R. Auerbach liked what he said. Of course, it is impossible for us to know whether R. Auerbach really took the argument seriously or just smiled because it is such an interesting and counterintuitive approach.

When I shared this text with R. Moshe Maimon, and wondered whether R. Carlebach meant what he wrote seriously, he replied:

I think he means it seriously, though in a Talmudic sense, not in a practical sense. RSZA similarly approved it from a pilpulistic standpoint, knowing that R. Carlebach was in no way insinuating that this should dictate practical Halachah. To the halachic mind it is a form of mercy killing, since you are saving him from the sin of murder. Of course, practically, it could never be implemented since the modern sensibilities (at least from the Besamim Rosh and on!) dictate that one committing suicide be viewed as a victim rather than a perpetrator.

Speaking of the laws of rodef, there is another astounding passage in R. Shimon Sofer, Hitorerut Teshuvah, vol. 2, no. 157:2. R. Sofer states that if you see a cat chasing after a chicken to kill it, if the only way you can save the chicken is by killing the cat, then there is a mitzvah to kill the cat. He actually compares this to the law of rodef with a human. (At the end of the responsum he also mentions hashavat avedah and tza’ar baalei hayyim.)

See, however, R. Netanel Meoded of Hong Kong, Mizrah Shemesh, vol. 2, p. 287 n. 195, that R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach rejected the notion that there is a concept of rodef with regard to animals.

Regarding R. Sofer’s Hitorerut Teshuvah, the volumes are unusual as right at the top of each page it tell the reader not to rely on the halakhic conclusions in practice. I don’t know of any other responsa volume that does such a thing. In a future post I will cite sources that say that one does not need to pay attention when an author tells us not to rely on his rulings in practice.

5. Continuing with the new pictures of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, here is one of him and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[17] It is from R. Herzog’s visit to Montreux in the summer of 1950.

Here is R. Weinberg in conversation with R. Bezalel Rakow, at the time a rebbe in the Montreux yeshiva and later the rav of Gateshead.

Here is R. Weinberg with Robert and Francisca Goldschmidt at the wedding of their daughter Reine to Schmuel Höchster. The Goldschmidts owned a kosher pension in Montreux and their grandson is the famous R. Pinchas Goldschmidt.

Here is R. Weinberg with Mr. Yechezkel Rand and his wife. Rand was a leader of the Montreux Jewish community.

Here is R. Weinberg with his student R. Yaakov Fink. R. Fink was able to leave Germany and make his way to Argentina in 1939. He would later serve as chief rabbi of Brazil and later of Argentina before becoming av beit din in Haifa.

The story of his aliyah is of interest. Already in 1950 he discussed moving to Israel with the Hazon Ish. He was concerned about whether this was proper since he felt a responsibility to his community in Argentina. The Hazon Ish told him without hesitation that he should come to Israel. He thought that the education of R. Fink’s children, which was problematic in the Diaspora, came before all other concerns, and therefore he – and anyone else – who could come on aliyah should do so.

Interestingly, on returning home he first traveled to the United States where he also discussed the matter of his aliyah with R. Aharon Kotler. R. Kotler had the opposite approach, telling him that he must not abandon his community. Perhaps to let him know that he should not give up all hope of aliyah, R. Kotler added that when he himself goes to Israel, then R. Fink can also come.

Years later R. Fink decided to move to Israel, after being chosen as av beit din of Haifa. He had obviously decided not to follow R. Kotler’s opinion in this matter. Yet an amazing thing was to happen. R. Fink flew to Europe with his family and spent a few weeks in Montreux with R. Weinberg, whom he had not seen since before World War II. The pictures above and below are from that visit. He then went to Paris from where he was to fly to Israel. When he boarded the plane, and saw more religious travelers than usual, he inquired what the occasion was. It was then that he learned of the passing of R. Aharon Kotler and that his coffin was being brought to Israel on that very plane. So in the end it happened just as R. Kotler told him years before, that when he would go to Israel then R. Fink could also go![18]

Here is a picture of R. Weinberg with R. Fink on the left. On the right is R. Joseph Blumenfeld who held the position of av beit din in Tel Aviv. He also lived in the United States during the 1950s and while there he printed his edition and commentary of the medieval work Kaftor va-Ferah by R. Ishtori ha-Parhi.

Here is the title page as it appears on Otzar ha-Chochmah.

Notice how the original place and date is missing and ניו יורק תשי“ח has been added to the title page. That should raise everyone’s suspicions. If you look at the version on hebrewbooks.org you can see why the original place and date were removed.

On the title page R. Blumenfeld wrote שנה עשירית למדינת ישראל. This can still be read on the copy found on hebrewbooks.org, although someone crossed this out, not liking R. Blumenfeld’s Zionist sentiments. 

Here is another example of the title page that I copied many years ago in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

While in the United States, R. Blumenfeld obviously got to know Louis Finkelstein. When his work appeared he sent him a copy with a nice inscription and Finkelstein donated it to the library. The inscription might imply that Finkelstein assisted him financially in publishing the work.

Regarding R. Fink, although R. Weinberg thought very highly of him,[19] there was one time when R. Fink disappointed him. In 1952 when he was appointed chief rabbi in Brazil there was an article on this in Ha-Pardes.[20] Although the article is signed by someone else, R. Weinberg believed that the biographical information in it was provided by R. Fink. In describing R. Fink’s background it states:

תלמיד מובהק של הרב הגאון ה‘ אברהם שטיינברג מברודי, שאצלו למד בשעה שישב בעיר הבירה וינה, בשנות המלחמה הראשונה ואז שמש גם את הגאון העצום ר‘ יוסף אנגל וגדולי ישראל אחרים. משומעי שעוריו של הרב יחיאל וינברג, העילוי מסלובודקה בסמינר הרבנים בברלין

R. Weinberg wrote to R. Joseph Apfel, R. Fink’s classmate at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, with his annoyance at the above formulation. He assumed that R. Fink, having moved into more haredi circles, was embarrassed to acknowledge that he had been an actual registered student at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, and therefore wrote that he just attended R. Weinberg’s shiurim at the Seminary.[21] In an earlier post on the Seforim Blog here, Menachem Butler notes that when R. Yosef Zvi Dunner passed away, the obituary in Ha-Modia wrote:

At 19 he wanted to study in the yeshivos of Lithuania, but his father felt that due to the shortage of Rabbanim in Germany, it would be better for him to remain in the country and study in the beis medrash of Harav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, author of Seridei Eish. For four years, the young Rav Yosef Tzvi studied in this beis medrash, where he was awarded semichah at a young age after astounding those testing him with his penetrating understanding of all four sections of the Shulchan Aruch. He was granted the title yoreh, yadin.

Instead of writing that R. Dunner studied at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, Ha-Modia invented a new institution, the beis medrash of R. Weinberg.

This is a phenomenon we have sometimes seen with people who studied at Yeshiva University and/or RIETS but in later years did not want to acknowledge this. At most they would say that they heard shiurim from the Rav, without noting that they were actually registered students in YU or RIETS.

Returning to the pictures, here is a one of R. Weinberg’s father.

Here is his mother.

Here is R. Weinberg’s mother and other members of his family at his father’s grave in Ciechanowiec, Poland.

6. In the latest Hakirah (vol. 35, Summer 2024), R. Shmuel Lesher mentions Chaim Bloch’s Passover Haggadah forgery. Bloch claimed to have had a 1521 manuscript where instead of “Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you”, the mansucript had, “Pour out your love on the nations that know you”. This is such an obvious forgery, from a person whose forgeries have become legendary (see my post here, R. Jonathan Sacks included this forged text in his own Haggadah.

On p. 286 n. 12 Lesher states that assuming Bloch’s Haggadah passage is a forgery, the motivation for the forgery remains unclear. Let me first state that there is no reason for “assuming” it is a forgery, as there is no doubt whatsoever. As for the motivation, this too is clear. Bloch was very interested in apologetics and softening anti-Gentile passages that appear in the Talmud and later rabbinic literature. He even devoted an entire (very dishonest) book to this topic, Ve-Da Mah She-Tashiv (New York, 1962). In my post here I include a page from Bloch’s Heikhal le-Divrei Hazal u-Fitgameihem (New York, 1948), p. 9. Here Bloch invents an entire story about how before the war there was a collection of letters in Vienna dealing with the sections of the Talmud that were removed by non-Jewish censors. He tells us that R. Elazar Horowitz wrote a letter to R. Judah Aszod stating that R. Moses Sofer did not wish to print a Talmud with the censored sections. The reason R. Sofer supposedly gave was that it was divine providence that these passages were removed, and once they have been removed they should not be put back. Based on additional imaginary letters, Bloch tells us more fairy tales about other nineteenth-century rabbinic leaders who agreed that the censored passages should remain out, because of the antisemitism that could be generated by them.

Bloch’s forgery of the Gentile-friendly “Pour out your love” passage is no different than his other forgeries dealing with rabbinic texts that present a negative view of non-Jews and that were often cited in non-Jewish attacks on the Talmud and rabbinic literature.

* * * * * *

[1] See Menachem Keren-Kratz, “Satmar and Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism,” Modern Judaism 43 (Feb., 2023), pp. 66ff.
[2] Mesorat Moshe, vol. 2, p. 432.
[3] It could be that my language, implying that their current behavior is worse than a hillul ha-shem, is inappropriate, as in some respects hillul ha-shem is the worst imaginable sin. See Yoma 86a that unlike other sins, only death can atone for hillul ha-shem. The Hazon Ish pointed out that the three great sins for which one must martyr oneself rather than violate could indeed be pushed aside (i.e., violated) in order to prevent a hillul ha-shem. (Obviously, this type of decision is only something that the greatest rabbinic leaders could rule on.) See Shlomo Cohen, Pe’er ha-Dor, vol. 3, p. 185.

R. Samuel Mohilever writes:

חלול ה‘ היותר גדול המאריך גלותנו והמעכב גאולתנו ופדות נפשנו הוא אשר על ידי רוע מעשינו יחולל כבוד אומתנו בגוים לאמר: ראו מעשה העם הזה, אשר לפי דעתו הוא הנבחר מכל גויי הארצות להיות לעם סגולה עליון על כל, ומעשיו גרועים ואבדה חכמת חכמיו ודעתו שפלה וגם באמונתו ערב אמונות שוא וטפל ועוד הגדיל כי עשה את הטפל לעיקר

Mohilever, Berit ha-Ahavah ve-ha-Shalom, ed. Munitz (Jerusalem, 2023), p. 210.

Here is one way hillul ha-shem was dealt with in years past: R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Ma’agal Tov ha-Shalem, ed. Freimann (Jerusalem, 1934) p. 88, mentions how the leaders of the Jewish community in Modena, Italy cut off the beard of a rabbi who created a hillul ha-shem. See the explanation of the passage in R. Meir Mazuz, Mi-Gedolei Yisrael, vol 1, p. 218. As R. Mazuz notes, punishing someone by cutting off his hair is mentioned in Beit Yosef, Even ha-Ezer 16, s.v. כתוב and Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer 16:4. I do not know if this only means hair of the head or if it also includes the beard. Aaron Chorin, who would later become a leading advocate of religious reform, was also threatened with having his beard cut off. See R. Nosson Dovid Rabinowich, Safra ve-Sayfa (Jerusalem, 2013), pp. 139 n. 37, 171.

Hillul ha-shem is sometimes written as hillul ha-Shem or hillul Hashem. Yet this is a mistake. It is not Hashem (with a capital “H”, implying “God, or ha-Shem), but hashem, (or ha-shem). That is, it is not a desecration of God but of His name. Thus, one should not write ‘חילול ה but rather חילול השם. See Lev. 22:32: ולא תחללו את שם קדשי. Nissim Dana titled his 1989 translation of one of R. Abraham Maimonides’ works ספר המספיק לעובדי השם. Yet the last two words should be ‘לעובדי ה.

Regarding the use of “Hashem”, I found something very confusing in the ArtScroll Stone Chumash. In place of the Tetragrammaton, ArtScroll does not use the word “Lord” but “HASHEM”, as this is how people pronounce the Tetragrammaton. While ArtScroll is the first translation to adopt this approach, it does have a certain logic. However, this logic breaks down a few times on p. 319 when the ArtScroll commentary attempts to explain what occurs at the beginning of parashat Va-Era. For example, “Or Ha-Chaim comments that God’s essence is represented by the name HASHEM.” This makes no sense, as there is no name HASHEM. The commentary should have written that “God’s essence is represented by the four letter name of God.”

Here is what Maimonides says about one who separates himself from the community, and it certainly applies to Neturei Karta (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:11):

A person who separates himself from the community even though he has not transgressed any sins, but has separated himself from the congregation of Israel and does not fulfill mitzvot together with them, does not take part in their hardships or join in their [communal] fasts, but rather goes on his own individual path as if he is from another nation and not one of them [the Jewish people], does not have a portion in the world to come

[4] The version that appears in Midrash Tannaim, Devarim, ed. Hoffmann, p. 7, has the name as ארווס. However, as R. David Zvi Hoffmann points out, this is an error for אריוס. See ibid., pp. 250, 253. The version that appears in the medieval Bereshit Rabbati of R. Moses ha-Darshan, ed. Albeck, p. 201, has the name אריסטו. I think it is obvious that not recognizing the name Arius, someone changed it to Aristotle, without realizing that Aristotle (fourth century BCE) lived hundreds of years before R. Yose (second century CE). See also here.

Regarding Aristotle, while some traditional Jewish sources speak highly of his learning, others refer to him in all sorts of negative ways. R. Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, in his praise of R. Elijah Mizrahi, actually compares his intellect to that of Aristotle. I do not know of any other such passage in rabbinic literature in which a rabbi is praised by comparing him to Aristotle. See Delmedigo, Novelot ha-Hokhmah, p. 32b:

ששכל הרא“ם רם ונשא . . . כשכל ארסטו‘ט בדקות ועומק ויושר

See also R. Meir Mazuz’s comment on this passage, Mi-Gedolei Yisrael, vol. 1, p. 359 n. 27.

[5]  See here and here (the first of three parts).
[6] “The Historical Significance of the Dialogues between Jewish Sages and Roman Dignitaries,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22 (1971), p. 149.
[7] The word is pronounced kil’ayim and not kilayim, as there is a sheva under the ל. People sometimes mispronounce it as kilaim, as if there is a patah under the ל and a hirik under the א of כלאים. This reminds me of another common mistake. If you google you will find that many refer to the concept of “shomer pesaim (petaim).” Yet this is a mistake. The verse in Psalms 116:6 reads: שֹׁמֵר פְּתָאיִם. The second word is pronounced pesayim (petayim), as the א is silent. Another example where the א is silent and many people make a mistake is with the name דניאל. Even people who have this name often pronounce it in Hebrew as Doniel (or Doniellah for women). Yet the name is properly pronounced Doniyel: דָּנִיֵּאל. This is unlike the name אֲרִיאֵל where the tzere is under the א and the word is pronounced Ariel. Another common mistake is that people often refer to sidelocks at peyot, but it should be pe’ot, as there is no yud in the word.
[8] In 1876 R. Abraham Bick published Yesod Ohel Moed. I cannot tell you where the book appeared, as there are two title pages, one for Pressburg and one for Lemberg.

The language on the title page is very unusual in its detail of what the book contains. On p. 53b he rejects R. Lifshitz’s identification of the orangutan with a creature mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud, stating that he has seen an orangutan at the Hamburg zoo and it does not match the talmudic description. He then makes the following statement, affirming the truth of the Sages’ scientific statements even if modern man has trouble accepting them:

וקבלת חז“ל נאמנה מאוד ולא ראינו אינה ראי‘ ונודע שחוקרי הארץ לא יכלו לתור תיכונית אפריקא וגם במציאות בני אדם באמעריקא נוכח כפות רגלינו הכחישו כולם עד שנודע שידיעתם הבל וגם פה חז“ל ידעו הכל בסוד ה‘ ליראיו

[9] Ha-Mitzpeh, Oct. 25, 1912, pp. 4-5, Nov. 1, 1912, pp. 4-5, Nov. 15, 1912, p. 5, Nov. 22, 1912, p. 5.
[10] See R. Mordechai Menahem Honig’s learned note in Yerushatenu 1 (2007), p. 213 n. 43, which provides all the relevant information about the Piskei Tosafot passage and how this idea is also cited from the ירושלמי. See also Saul Lieberman, Ha-Yerushalmi ki-Feshuto, Introduction, pp. 26-27; Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael, vol. 8, pp. 97-98, n. 6.

Regarding laxity with mezuzot and the notion that a city with pigs is exempt, see R. Aaron ha-Kohen of Lunel, Orhot Hayyim, ed. Schlesinger (Berlin, 1902), vol. 2, p. 195:

השתא שאין העולם נזהרין משום האי טעמא דסמכינן אהא דאמרינן עיר שיש בה חזירים פטורה מן המזוזה. וכתב הר“י מקורבל שאין זה נמצא בשום מקום לא בתלמוד ולא בירושלמי

[11] R. Eliezer Waldenberg, Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 5, no. 18, suggests another emendation: שער instead of עיר. See also R. Ovadiah Yosef, Yabia Omer, vol. 3, Yoreh Deah, no. 16.
[12]  I treasure the conversations I had with Dr. Juda when I visited Toronto and he honored me by attending various talks I delivered. In one conversation he told me of the high esteem R. Hirschprung had for Rav Kook, and how R. Hirschprung noted that while R. Joseph Hayyim Sonnenfeld was certainly a great talmid chacham, in no way is he to be regarded as on the same level as R. Kook. Regarding R. Hirschprung, let me also record what I heard from R. Shlomo Goren in 1985, when he spoke at Beit Midrash le-Torah (BMT) in Jerusalem, that R. Hirschprung was the only one alive who knew the entire Talmud by heart.
[13] Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi, last page of the book (unnumbered; called to my attention by Moshe Dembitzer).
[14] Moshe Dembitzer informed me that R. Moses Shimon Sivitz, Ha-Mashbiah, vol. 3, p. 53b, also suggests this emendation. R. Baruch Epstein, Barukh She-Amar, p. 75, likewise suggests this.
[15] See here. There was another famous Soloveitchik, Max Soloveitchik from Kovno, who wrote perhaps the earliest Hebrew book on biblical criticism and was a government minister in Lithuania. See here. I don’t know which Soloveitchik family he was from.
[16] See here.
[17] The pictures in this post are found in Ganzach Kiddush ha-Shem in Bnei Brak. I thank R. Abraham Abba Weingort for his help with identifying some of the people in the pictures from Montreux.
[18] Fink, Tiferet Yaakov, pp. 49, 56 (first pagination).
[19] See for instance R. Weinberg’s letter in Fink, Tiferet Yaakov, p. 348.
[20] November 1952, pp. 28-29.
[21] See R. Weinberg’s letter in Ha-Ma’yan 32 (Tamuz 5752), pp. 16-17. For a picture of R. Fink’s Berlin Rabbinical Seminary semikhah, see Fink, Tiferet Yaakov, p. 339. The semikhah is signed by R. Weinberg, R. Samuel Gruenberg, and R. Alexander (Shimon Zvi) Altmann.

Franciscans and More; “Repulsive” Practices; Saul Lieberman, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

Marc B. Shapiro

1. Following up on what I wrote here and here about the term צעירים (Franciscans) and other expressions used with reference to Catholic religious orders, Brian Schwartz called my attention to a couple of relevant sources. In Milhemet Hovah (Constantinople, 1710), p. 14a, R. David Kimhi mentions a theological argument he had with one of the חכמי הצעירים. In Ginzei Nistarot (1868), vol. 2, p. 10, R. Jacob of Venice in his anti-Christian polemic mentions the צעירים and the דורשים (Dominicans). I also found a mention in the text of the Tortosa Disputation, ibid., p. 47. R. David Kimhi refers to the צעירים and the דורשים in his letter about the Maimonidean controversy found in Kovetz Teshuvot ha-Rambam ve-Igrotav, sec. 3 (Iggerot Kanaut), p. 4.[1]

There are no doubt many other such references in medieval texts and there is no need to elaborate any further. However, there is one other point worth noting. In the version of Nahmanides’ Disputation printed in Judah Eisenstein, Otzar Vikukhim, p. 89, it reads: וחכמי הצעירים והדורשים והחובלים. The last word, החובלים, is not found in the version published in Chavel’s edition. What does החובלים mean?

In his note Eisenstein tells us that החובלים are Cordeliers, which is how the Franciscans were called in France.[2] In fact, the Cordeliers were only one branch of the larger Franciscan order. The word cordelier refers to the rope that Franciscans wore around their waist.

חובלים, together with Cordeliers, appears in R. Avigdor Tzarfati’s Torah commentary:[3]

מכאן רמזה תורה אותן החובלים קירדליי”ש והייקופינ”ט ההולכים יחפים שעתידין להכעיס את ישראל

In this text we also have a new word, הייקופינ”ט. This is just an alternate spelling of the word יקופש. In Da’at Zekenim mi-Ba’alei ha-Tosafot, Deut. 32:21, it refers to החובלים ויקופש as people who bring trouble upon the Jews. So what does this word יקופש mean? In R. Aharon Yehoshua Pessin’s Midah ke-Neged Midah [4] he knows that החובלים refers to Franciscans and suggests that יקופש means “Capuchin.” However, the Capuchin order, which is a branch of the Franciscans, was only founded in the sixteenth century, so the Tosafists could not have mentioned it. יקופש actually refers to the Jacobins,[5] which is how the Dominicans were called in medieval France.

2. Readers might recall that in my post here I mentioned the late Dr. Shlomo Sprecher’s characterization of two segulot as “repulsive.”[6] I then cited another example of a segulah which I believe falls into this category (and see also my post here). However, the obvious point, which I mention here, is that what our generation regards as repulsive was not always regarded so in a different generation and culture.

Following the post in which I discussed Dr. Sprecher’s article, a few people sent me examples of things that were accepted in previous generations but today would be regarded as repulsive. Many of these examples are from general society and relate to standards of hygiene, food, etc., but a few came from Jewish texts as well. One reader sent me this interesting post by Tomer Persico that deals with the matter. He mentions, among other things, the following shocking remedy recorded in R. Hayyim Vital, Sefer ha-Peulot, p. 321, that appears to recommend a blatant halakhic violation. (It is doubly shocking when one remembers how seriously this sin is viewed in Lurianic Kabbalah, and this fact alone should perhaps lead us to reject the authenticity of the comment.)

לנכפה [לריפוי אדם הסובל ממחלת הנפילה], יקחו נער א’ [אחד] שמימיו לא ראה קרי ויוציאו ממנו שכבת זרע, ואותו הקרי ושכבת הזרע ימשחו בו שפתותיו של החולה ומעולם לא יחזור החולי ההוא

Jeremy Brown, in his recent National Jewish Book award winning volume, The Eleventh Plague: Jews and Pandemics from the Bible to COVID-19 (Oxford, 2023), p. 77, mentions another recommendation, this time to avoid bubonic plague. Among the ingredients to be consumed are “a little of the first urine” produced in the morning and “a small quantity of dried human feces, dissolved in wine or rose water, to be taken while fasting.”[7]

In the post here referred to above, I dealt with metzitzah ba-peh. Subsequently, I found that R. Leon Modena, in his response to the heretic Uriel da Costa, rejects the latter’s claim that metzitzah ba-peh is disgusting because the mouth speaks the word of God while the sexual organ is impure.[8] The medieval anti-Jewish polemicist, Raymond Martini, had earlier attacked metzitzah ba-peh as an “abominable act.”[9]

R. Moshe Mordechai Epstein has a perspective at odds with many other Lithuanian sages in seeing metzitzah as essential to the mitzvah of circumcision, not simply a medical procedure.[10] He also sees metzitzah ba-peh as crucial to the fulfilment of this mitzvah, again, in opposition to what was the standard approach in Lithuania (as opposed to among the Hasidim). As he puts it, if metzitzah ba-peh is not a basic part of the mitzvah, no one would have ever advocated such an action that, in any other circumstance, would be regarded as utterly repulsive.

אשאל שאלה מאלה האומרים כי מציצה היא רק משום סכנה, וע”כ די ברטית סמרטוטין, מאותם אשאל, נשער נא בנפשינו, אילו לא הי’ מצוה ולא הי’ נהוג אצלינו לעשות המציצה, ואחד הי’ רוצה לעשות המציצה בפה, בודאי היינו קוראים אחריו מלא כי אין לך מתועב יותר מזה ליקח אבר פצוע לתוך הפה. ומה גם אותו האבר. ולא עוד אלא למצוץ הדם, הלא הדבר גועל נפש ממש חלילה (אם אינה מצוה) . . . מי זה חסר לב יאמר כי הנהיגו דבר כזה בלי מצוה . . . בענין המציצה כאשר היא מצוה קדושה לתקן הנפש, אין בה גיעול ח”ו, קדושה וטהורה היא המצוה, אהובה וחביבה מרוממת רוחניות הנפש, אבל אילו לא הי’ מצוה רק הכשר כדי שלא יסתכן הולד מהדם, איך נוכל לומר שיהי’ נהוג בישראל ענין מתועב כזה, חלילה וחלילה. הלא האמת ברור לכל, כי המציצה היא מצוה קדושה בעצמה דוקא באופן הזה למצוץ דוקא בפה

3. In my last post here I spoke about Saul Lieberman, so let me add a few more points. In Tovia Preschel’s Ma’amrei Tuvyah, vol. 6, p. 231, he discusses Lieberman’s investigations into obscure words in rabbinic literature, and is reminded of how Sherlock Holmes can always find the answer:

כשאתה רואה אותו מצרף קו לקו ותג ותג להוכחה ברורה ומוריד מעל המלים את המסווה שמאחוריו מתחבאת משמעותן האמיתית – עולה בלבך המחשבה: הרי זה שרלוק הולמס, האמן-הבלש, של שפתנו

ואמנם נקראים כמה ממחקריו בענייני לשון כסיפורים של סר ארתור קונן דויל. דומה עליך שהנך רואה את שרלוק הולמס מרצה לידידו ועוזרו ואטסון כיצד סימנים ועקבות קטנים ובלתי-ברורים מוליכים אותו לפענוחו של תעלומות גדולות

ר’ שאול ליברמן – תורה למד בישיבות, חכמה קנה באוניברסיטאות – אך אמנות הבלשות מנין לו

Preschel then notes that in the little free time that Jabotinsky had, he liked to read detective stories. Preschel wonders, does Lieberman also do so? He adds that he was never brazen enough to ask Lieberman about this.

לפעמים אני הוגה בלבי: אולי גם ר’ שאול בין קוראי ספרות זו, עת הוא נח מעמלה של תורה, בשעה שאינה לא יום ולא לילה? אך עדיין לא העזתי לשאול אותו כל כך

Preschel’s insight is amazing. In Lieberman’s letter to Gershom Scholem, dated July 31, 1947,[11] Lieberman writes about how during the summer vacation, when he is away from New York and has free time, he reads detective stories![12]

ומכיוון שבכפר אני מתיר לעצמי לבטל קצת את הזמן הריני קורא לפעמים ספרות בלשית. וכשבא מאמרך לידי נמשכתי אחריו באותה מתיחות ממש כאילו אני קורא a detective story

Earlier in Ma’amrei Tuvyah, vol. 6, pp. 229-230, Preschel provides the answer to something I had thought about. If you look at a number of the title pages of Lieberman’s books you see that his name is in smaller print than that of his father.

Other than in Lieberman’s books, I don’t recall ever seeing this on a title page. Fortunately, Preschel asked Lieberman about this and Lieberman explained that this is “minhag Yisrael”. Lieberman showed Preschel what R. Hayyim Benveniste writes in Sheyarei Kenesset ha-Gedolah, Tur, Yoreh Deah 240:8, that when one signs his name together with that of his father, yesh nohagim that the father’s name is written above as a sign of respect. What this means is that the father’s name written with bigger letters so that it stretches above the son’s name.

Here is the page in R. Benveniste’s work where he also provides an example.

Preschel concludes:

“פותח שערים” אני. אצבעותי מישמשו בהרבה ספרים. שערים רבים ראיתי. צא ובדוק אם תמצא מחברים שנהגו מנהג רם ונשגב זה בשערי ספריהם. ואם תמצא – מעטים הם, נער יספרם

Since we have been speaking about Lieberman, here is a treat for all the Lieberman fans: A letter from Lieberman to Abraham Joshua Heschel in which we see a bit of Lieberman’s mischievous humor.[13]

And while mentioning Heschel, here is another letter to him from R. Pinchas Biberfeld.[14]  

From this letter we learn something that until now was completely unknown, namely, that Heschel attended lectures of R. Jakob Freimann at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary. In Edward Kaplan’s book on Heschel, Prophetic Witness, pp. 106, 256, he mentions that Heschel would frequently eat at Freimann’s house on Shabbat, and that Heschel contributed an article — his first academic publication — to the Freimann Festschrift.

R. Pinchas Biberfeld was the son of the legendary physician-rabbi Eduard Biberfeld, and he received semikhah from the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary. Here is a copy of his semikhah.[15]

The semikhah, dated Feb. 7, 1939, is signed by R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and R. Samuel Gruenberg. R. Weinberg was forced to leave Germany not long after this, and R. Gruenberg  and R. Biberfeld were fortunate to also get out and immigrate to Eretz Yisrael. While in Israel R. Biberfeld edited the Torah journal Ha-Ne’eman. You can read about him here on Wikipedia, and here is an interview he gave.

Biberfeld’s German name was Paul, and he was named after Paul von Hindenburg![16] People today often don’t realize how integrated into German society the German Orthodox were, and the naming of Paul Biberfeld is a great example of this.[17] In some ways, the German Orthodox were even more attached to their non-Jewish surroundings than today’s American Modern Orthodox, whose Americanness is usually expressed in a shared low culture with non-Jewish society (e.g., television, music, and sports), rather than in high culture and patriotism, both of which were part of the German Orthodox ethos.

R. Immanuel Jakobovits’s father was a well-known German rabbi, Julius Jakobovits, and yet he was comfortable naming his son after Immanuel Kant.[18] (R. Jakobovits’s Hebrew name was Yisrael.) In Michael Shashar, Lord Jakobovits in Conversation, pp. 10-11, Jakobovits explains (and it is obvious that he did not know the story of Paul Biberfeld’s name):

I may be the only rabbi in the world named after a non-Jew – Immanuel Kant, who was a native of Koenigsberg [where Jakobovits was born] and never left it.[19] The city was also known as “Kantstadt” [the city of Kant]. My father was one of Kant’s admirers, and when I was born he wanted to call me Israel, after one of his uncles, but at that time in Germany it was not acceptable to call a Jewish child Israel. Accordingly, he searched for a name beginning with I and ending with L, and so he gave me Kant’s name, Immanuel.

I don’t know why it was not acceptable in 1920s Germany for a Jewish child’s “secular” name to be Israel. 

Returning to Heschel, when he first came to the United States he was teaching at the Reform Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Here is a letter from Louis Ginzberg to Heschel that provides information that until now has not been known.[20]

From this letter, we see that Heschel was in discussions about a job at Dropsie College. Ginzberg urges him to accept this position if offered, and notes that the atmosphere at HUC was not in line with Heschel’s outlook. This never came to be, and Heschel accepted a position at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1946 where he spent the rest of his life.

I think readers will find the next two letters of interest, as we see that Heschel was in discussions to teach at Yeshiva College and its Bernard Revel Graduate School.[21]

There are two other documents from the Heschel Archives that I would like to call attention to as they are of great historical interest. Unfortunately, they were not available to me when I wrote Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy. First, I must note that a few months ago the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw published a wartime list of rabbis in the Warsaw Ghetto. You can see it here. The list is not complete. For one, it does not mention R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, whom as I discuss in Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy was very involved in the Warsaw ghetto rabbinate and also served as the head of a committee to assist rabbis and yeshiva students. Also not mentioned in the Hebrew document is R. Kalonymous Kalman Shapiro, the Piaseczno Rebbe.

In a letter dated May 25, 1941, R. Weinberg wrote to Heschel from the Warsaw Ghetto.[22] Here is the envelope that R. Weinberg used. I include both sides of the envelope. As you can see, Heschel was living at Henry Street on the Lower East Side. Also note R. Weinberg’s address on the reverse as well as the Nazi stamp.

Here is the letter in which R. Weinberg asks Heschel for assistance with the emigration of rabbis in the ghetto. Because of German censorship, R. Weinberg’s letter had to be written in German. (We have other letters from R. Weinberg sent from the Ghetto and they too are written in German.)

 

It is interesting to see how R. Weinberg’s letter divides the rabbis between the truly outstanding and the others who, while also praised, are placed on a lower level. (R. Kalonymous Kalman Shapiro does not appear on the list.) While in the end, none of the rabbis were permitted to emigrate, the letter is clearly making a distinction between the rabbis. It is saying that if only limited opportunities to emigrate are available, that the order should be the rabbis in list 1, followed by list 2, and then list 3 and 4. This is a clear case where the greater rabbis were going to be saved first.[23]

The letter we have just seen, which is not addressed to a particular individual, and also the letter below, were sent to a number of people, not specifically to Heschel. You can see this in the letter below by how Heschel’s name is inserted at the beginning. Yet I have never seen other copies, which is why we have to be grateful that Heschel saved everything.

In a letter dated June 15, 1941, R. Weinberg again wrote to Heschel from the Warsaw Ghetto. Here are both sides of the envelope, followed by the letter, and this time R. Weinberg spelled the street name “Henry” correctly.

 

In this letter, R. Weinberg speaks about American Jewish assistance in sending money and food, and helping with emigration from Warsaw. The letter is accompanied by two lists, lengthier than what we saw in the first letter, divided again into what may be the more important figures and the others. But I am not certain if this is the significance of the division here, as there are some differences in how the names are divided in the two letters. 

On the first list here you can see R. Kalonymus Kalman Shapiro at no. 20, with his address — that we know from other sources as well — 5 Dzielna. Other than R. Weinberg, did any of the rabbis on the two lists survive?

* * * * * * *

[1] This letter is difficult to read, as the sage he degrades for informing on Maimonides to the Church may be R. Jonah Gerondi.
[2] See also Ben Yehudah’s dictionary, s.v. חובל; Dov Yarden, “Hovel Nazir Franciscani,” Leshonenu 18 (1953), pp. 179-180.
[3] Perushim u-Fesakim le-Rabbenu Avigdor ha-Tzarfati (Jerusalem, 1996), p. 445.
[4] (Jerusalem, 2009), p. 157 n. 20.
[5] See Leopold Zunz, Zur Geschichte und Literature (Berlin, 1845), p. 181.
[6] One of these segulot is that barren women should swallow the foreskin of newly circumcised boys in order to help them conceive a male child. For more sources on this practice, see Zev Wolf Zicherman, Otzar Pelaot ha-Torah, vol. 4, pp. 486-487. R. Yehoshua Mamon, Emek Yehoshua, vol. 1, Yoreh Deah, nos. 31-32, argues that this practice is forbidden according to Torah law. Regarding mohalim being buried with the foreskins they cut off, as a form of protection after death, see R. Joseph Messas, Otzar ha-Mikhtavim, vol. 2, no 986. Regarding women consuming the placenta, see R. Mordechai Lebhar, Menuhat Mordechai, no. 38.
[7] Regarding eating portions of a corpse and ground-up skull of non-Jews, and why rabbis permitted this, see my post here. Repulsive language is also noteworthy. R. Uri Feivish Hamburger, Urim ve-Tumim (London, 1707), p. 8a, first word of line 3, is the only example I know where a certain inappropriate word appears in a sefer. According to this source, even in the early eighteenth century the word was regarded as taboo.

It could be that this word is no longer really regarded as repulsive, only a little unseemly. It even appears in the title of eminent philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt’s #1 New York Times bestselling book, published by Princeton University Press. See here.

While Jews are obligated to speak in a dignified manner, there is an exception when it comes to speaking about idolatry. See Megillah 25b, where among other things it states: “It is permitted for a Jew to say to a gentile: Take your idol and put it in your shin tav [i.e., shet, buttocks].” This is the Koren translation and Soncino and Artscroll translate similarly. Yet I was very surprised to find that in Shabbat 41a Soncino twice translates כנגד פניו של מטה as “near his buttocks”, when it is obvious that the proper translation is “over his genitals”.
[8] Magen ve-Tzinah, p. 6b. Let me take this opportunity to correct a common error. R. Leon Modena called himself Yehudah Aryeh mi-Modena. But in Italian he called himself Leon Modena (not Leon de Modena). Modena himself tells us this. See Hayyei Yehudah, ed. Daniel Carpi (Tel Aviv, 1985), p. 33:

אני חותם עצמי בנוצרי ‘ליאון מודינא דה ויניציאה‘, ולא דה מודינא‘, כי נשארה לנו העיר לכנוי ולא לארץ מולדתנו, וכן תמצא בחבורַי הנוצרים בדפוס

[9] See Lawrence Osborne, Poisoned Embrace: A Brief History of Sexual Pessimism (New York, 1993), p. 128. Regarding Martini, see Richard S. Harvey, “Raymundus Martini and the Pugio Fidei: A Survey of the Life and Works of a Medieval Controversialist” (unpublished masters dissertation, University College London), available here. Shimon Steinmetz pointed out to me that the famous non-Jewish Hebraist Johann Buxtorf (1564-1629), in his discussion of metzitzah, does not express any revulsion. He merely notes that this was not commanded by Moses. See here. It would be interesting to examine how other Christian scholars and Jewish apostates of previous centuries described metzitzah.
[10] She’elot u-Teshuvot Levush Mordechai, no. 30. The expression he uses in the passage, קוראים אחריו מלא, comes from Jer. 12:6.
[11] The letter was published by Aviad Hacohen, “Ha-Tanna mi-New York,” Madaei ha-Yahadut 42 (5763-5764), p. 298.
[12] After I wrote this, I learned that R. Yitchak Roness made the exact same point. See here.
[13] The original is found in the Heschel Archives, Duke University, Box 2, Folder 2.
[14] The original is found in the Heschel Archives, Duke University, Box 10, Folder 3.
[15] The original is found in the Leo Baeck Institute; see here.
[16] See Mordechai Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition (New York, 1992), p. 480 n. 124. Breuer also mentions that a hasidic synagogue in Leipzig was renamed the “Hindenburg Synagogue.”
[17] See Jacob H. Sinason, The Rebbe : The Story of Rabbi Esriel Glei-Hildesheimer (New York, 1996), p. 128:

[Dr. Eduard Biberfeld] looked at the war against the Czar’s Russian empire as a kind of holy war against the dark forces responsible for the systematic persecution of Jews. He named one of his sons after the victorious German general, just as the Jews in Hellenistic times had called their children after Alexander the great. (Even to the extent of adopting Alexander as the Shem Hakodesh.)

The last sentence means that people with the name Alexander would be called up to the Torah with this name, as they would not have a corresponding Hebrew name as was often the case with German Orthodox Jews who had both a “secular” name and also a Hebrew name.
[18] Regarding Kant, Dr. Isaac Breuer had a picture of him on his wall, together with R. Samson Raphael Hirsch. I asked Breuer’s son, Prof. Mordechai Breuer, if the Holocaust had any effect on how he viewed Kant, who was, after all, an important part of German culture. As I expected, his answer was “no,” and even after the Holocaust the picture of Kant was not taken down.

The pictures on one’s walls obviously reflect an outlook. Alexander Altmann writes as follows about his father, R. Adolf Altmann, Rabbi of Trier:

Significantly, five pictures adorned his study, those of the “Hatam Sofer”, S.R. Hirsch, Graetz, Herzl and Mendelssohn, representing the orthodox tradition, old and new, Jewish History, the Zionist dream, and the philosophical quest respectively. These images had been the formative influences of his youth, and they continued to guide him.

“Adolf Altmann (1879-1944), A Filial Memoir,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 26 (1981), p. 160.
[19] Although often repeated, this is actually incorrect. We know that Kant did leave Koenigsberg on a few occasions, including for his father’s funeral, but he never was more than 30 miles or so from his home. I mentioned this in one of my classes on R. Elijah Benamozegh, see here, while referring to the report the latter only left Livorno twice in his life.
[20] The original is found in the Heschel Archives, Duke University, Box 20, Folder 2.
[21] The originals are found in the Heschel Archives, Duke University, Box 22, Folder 2. These letters are referred to in Edward K. Kaplan, Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972 (New Haven, 2007), pp. 61, 65.
[22] The Weinberg letters in are found in the Heschel Archives, Duke University, Box 22, Folder 2.
[23] For another example where rabbis (and their families) were chosen to be saved before others, see Steven Lapidus, “Memoirs of a Refugee: The Travels and Travails of Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung,” Canadian Jewish Studies 27 (2019), pp. 73-74. Lapidus quotes from a letter from R. Oscar Fasman, at that time in Ottawa:

Here we are not dealing with only seventy individuals. These seventy embody a wealth of Jewish sacred learning, the like of which can no longer be duplicated, now that the European Yeshivoth are closed. In these people we have that intensive tradition of Torah which buoyed up the spirit of Israel. Thus, we are saving not merely people, but a holy culture which cannot be otherwise preserved. When the U.S. admitted Einstein, and not a million other very honest and good people who asked for admission, the principle was the same. It is certainly horrible to save only a few, but when one is faced with a problem of so ghastly a nature, he must find the courage to rescue what is more irreplaceable.

Abraham Rosenberg, R. Chaim Heller, R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach on Conversion, Abortion, Mercy Killings, and new pictures and videos of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

Marc B. Shapiro

1. In my post here I discussed the enigmatic plagiarizer Abraham Rosenberg. As we saw, in 1923 and 1924 Rosenberg published articles on the Jerusalem Talmud in the Orthodox journal Jeschurun, and he later published Al Devar Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi. In this last work, Rosenberg refers to R. Chaim Heller as his friend. I and so many others assumed that “Rosenberg” was a pseudonym, but Moshe Dembitzer, the expert on everything related to R. Heller, has pointed out to me that this appears not to be the case. Here is a letter Dembitzer found in the JDC archives from R. Heller to Cyrus Adler. As you can see, R. Heller mentions A. Rosenberg—the letter that is unclear must be an “A”—and one of his essays on the Jerusalem Talmud. He also mentions that Rosenberg “is considered only one of the ordinary students.”

Dembitzer also found another connection between R. Heller and Rosenberg. Here is a note from R. Charles B. Chavel’s edition of Hizkuni’s commentary on the Torah, p. 525.

Here is Rosenberg’s Al Devar Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi, p. 102, where he cites the same explanation that Chavel cited in the name of R. Heller (but Rosenberg takes credit for it himself).

Regarding the plagiarisms of Rosenberg, I must also thank Gershon Klapper who alerted me to other examples. He wrote to me:

Rosenberg’s first article (לחקר תלמוד הירושלמי) opens אין מן הצורך לשנות את הידוע כי תלמוד הבבלי שנחתם לא זזה ידם של חכמי ישראל ממנו, very similar to how R. Heller’s ע”ד מסורת הש”ס בירושלמי begins, אין מן הצורך לשנות את הידוע כי תלמוד הירושלמי הוא עדין כשדה שאין עובד בו. But the next part of his introduction to that article is taken, slightly rearranged, from Steinschneider’s ספרות ישראל vol. 2, p. 103 (it reappears at the beginning of ע”ד תקוני נוסחאות בירושלמי, which includes most of this article’s content), as is the line beginning פעולתם של הגאונים. He does paraphrase some other language from R. Heller in the introduction, but again it isn’t word-for-word.

His second article (פסוקי המקרא שבתלמוד) opens

כי חכמי התלמוד היו בקיאים בכל ספרי התנ”ך עד להפליא, – דבר זה ידוע לכל מי שלמד גמרא, ואפילו למי שהצליף בה סקירה שטחית. כמעט מכל דף ודף שבתלמוד נראה, כי פסוקי התנ”ך, ואפילו המקראות “האובדים והנדחים” שברשימות השמות בעזרא ובדברי הימים היו שגורים על פי התנאים והאמוראים בתכלית הדיוק. בעלי התוספות (ב”ב ד’ קי”ג בד”ה תרוייהו) לא חששו להחליט, שהאמוראים פעמים שלא היו בקיאים בפסוקים. אבל כבר הודו שם בעלי התוס’ עצמם שאין החלטה זו מוכרחת וכמו שכתב הרשב”ם שם. וגם הראיה שהביאו מדברי ר’ חייא בר אבא, שאינו יודע אם נאמר בי’ הדברות טוב או לא (ב”ק נה.) אינה מוכרחת שהרי ברור הדבר, כי דברי רחב”א, אינם אלא דברי בדיחותא, כדי לדחות את השואל.

Almost every word of this comes from an article of the same title by Yisrael Chaim Tawiow which appeared in HaShiloach 29 (July-Dec. 1913). The rest of the second article is taken from Baer Ratner, סדר עולם רבא pp. 103ff. and Samuel Rosenfeld, משפחת סופרים pp. 98, 100, 105, etc.

Klapper also called my attention to Rosenberg’s plagiarism of part of a paragraph in R. Heller’s article that appears in Le-David Zvi (David Zvi Hoffmann Jubilee Volume, Hebrew section). Compare p. 56 there with Rosenberg, Al Devar Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi, p. 11. As Klapper notes, it is quite ironic that Rosenberg leaves out the following sentence from R. Heller that occurs in the middle of the passage he plagiarizes:

ויש שיועיל לנו הציון לברוח מן העבירה ולעשות מצוה לאמר דבר בשם אומרו

While on the topic of R. Chaim Heller, first let me share this wonderful picture from R. Ahron Soloveichik’s wedding in which one can see the Rav, R. Heller and R. Yaakov Kamenetsky. As far as I know, this picture has never appeared online. I thank Yoel Hirsch for providing me with the picture.

From R. Kamenetsky’s recently published Emet le-Yaakov al Nakh, vol. 1, p. 185 n. 2, we learn that in 1937 R. Kamenetsky visited Boston to discuss with R. Soloveitchik opening a yeshiva together.

In 1924 R. Heller published his study of the Samaritan version of the Torah, Ha-Nusah ha-Shomroni shel ha-Torah (Berlin, 1924). In 1972 Makor, which published so many valuable reprints of old seforim, decided to also reprint R. Heller’s Ha-Nusah ha-Shomroni. The problem was that R. Heller had an heir, and she was the only one with the legal right to reprint his books. This led to the following letters sent by Miriam Heller’s attorney (the letters are found in the Israel State Archives, 14924/3, available here [before the recent cyber attack on the archives], pp. 35ff.). From these letters, we learn that there were other unauthorized reprints of R. Heller’s works.

One final point about R. Heller is the following: In 1912 he was appointed rav of the city of Lomza. Here is a report on his appointment from the newspaper Ha-Mitzpeh, March 29, 1912.

The writer is simply amazed that a Polish city, full of Hasidim, would hire as its rav a “Rabbi Dr.” Of course, R. Heller was a very unique “Rabbi Dr.”

2. Because I discussed conversion in the last post, I would like to call attention to R. Yoel Amital’s discovery of how R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s view on the matter has been presented.[1] The issue R. Amital focuses on is whether a conversion for someone who does not observe mitzvot takes effect. I am referring to one who tells the beit din at the time of conversion that he accepts the mitzvot, but we see later that this was not the case.

In his letter in R. Zvi Cohen’s Tevilat Kelim (1975), R. Auerbach is clear that ex post facto such a conversion is still valid.

The crucial words are:

בכגון דא נלענ”ד שכל המסייעים לגירות כזו, אף שבדיעבד הם גרים גמורים, אפי”ה המגיירים אותם עוברים בלאו של לפני עור וגו’

According to R. Auerbach, because be-diavad such converts are Jewish, to convert them is a violation of lifnei iver. As R. Auerbach explains, before conversion, these people could work on Shabbat and eat non-kosher, but now that they are Jewish they are forbidden to do so. By converting people who will be committing these and other sins, the beit din has violated the prohibition of lifnei iver.

As R. Amital shows, in subsequent printings of R. Cohen’s book, R. Auerbach’s letter is printed with a significant addition (here underlined):

בכגון דא נלענ”ד שכל המסייעים לגירות כזו, אף שהם טועים לחשוב שבדיעבד הם גרים גמורים, אפי”ה המגיירים אותם עוברים בלאו של לפני עור וגו’

And

בכגון דא נלענ”ד שכל המסייעים לגירות כזו, אף אם הם טועים לחשוב שבדיעבד הם גרים גמורים, אפי”ה המגיירים אותם עוברים בלאו של לפני עור וגו’

When this letter was printed in R. Auerbach’s Minhat Shlomo, vol. 1, no. 35:3, the wording was altered further:

בכגון דא נלענ”ד שכל המסייעים לגירות כזו, אף דהם טועים לחשוב שהם גרים גמורים, אפי”ה גם לשטתם המגיירים אותם עוברים בלאו של לפני עור וגו’

In Ha-Ma’yan 56 (Nisan 5776), p. 89, in response to R. Amital’s article, R. Aharon Goldberg, a grandson of R. Shlomo Zalman, published a picture of R. Auerbach’s original letter. The wording is identical to what appears in the first edition of R. Cohen’s book. So how to explain the later additions? R. Goldberg states that it is possible that the later changes were made with the consent of R. Auerbach. Although there is no evidence of this, I find it unlikely that R. Cohen would have altered R. Auerbach’s letter while R. Auerbach was still alive. A general rule of censorship and alteration of texts is that it is done after the author is no longer alive.

Leaving aside the updated version of the letter, there is still a problem that R. Amital confronts. According to R. Auerbach’s original letter, those who convert but do not become religious, their conversion is still valid. However, R. Auerbach also signed a public letter together with the Steipler, R. Shakh, and R. Elyashiv, which states that such a conversion has no validity. So which is it?

R. Mordechai Halpern has shown that R. Auerbach sometimes presented a “public” halakhah that was stricter than his true opinion, but which for some reason he did not wish to publicize.[2] R. Amital suggests that in this case we have a similar example where R. Auerbach publicly advocated a “strict” position regarding conversion that was not in line with his true opinion. (I put “strict” in quotes because while this position is strict in not regarding a conversion as valid, it is also “lenient” in that it tells someone who converted and did not intend to become religious that she can leave her husband without a get, does not need to fast on Yom Kippur, etc.)

R. Amital also claims, implausibly in my opinion, that the public letter R. Auerbach signed does not really stand in contradiction to the letter he sent to R. Cohen. How so? The public letter speaks of people who convert without accepting to observe mitzvot, while R. Auerbach in his letter to R. Cohen is referring to people who in front of the beit din do accept to observe mitzvot, but in their inner heart do not really have such an intention.

Contrary to R. Amital, this is clearly not what the public letter means. It is referring to people who converted in a beit din, but never intended to follow halakhah. It is simply impossible to read this public letter as referring to, in the words of R. Amital: גרים שלא קיבלו עליהם כלל בבית דין לקיים תורה ומצוות. There is no beit din in the world that does not require converts to accept Torah observance. The issue the letter was addressing is converts who, despite their verbal acceptance of mitzvot, do not follow through in practice. According to the letter, such a conversion is not valid. This is so obvious that one wonders how R. Amital could have ever offered his suggestion to explain the contradiction.

R. Halpern himself notes that he knows that R. Auerbach never backed away from his earlier position, as seen in his letter to R. Cohen, that someone who was converted by a proper beit din, but did not intend to observe mitzvot, ex post facto the conversion is still valid. Yet he states that R. Auerbach later concluded that this liberal approach should not be publicized.[3]

Even with the initial two “corrected” versions of R. Auerbach’s letter, R. Auerbach mentions that rabbis who convert people who have no intention of observing Torah violate the prohibition of putting a stumbling block before the blind. R. Auerbach states that until now the person converting violated Shabbat and ate non-kosher food and these were not sins. But now, after the conversion, he is violating the Torah. R. Auerbach concludes his letter as follows:

נמצא שכל המגיירים והמסייעים לכך הו”ל כגדול המחטיאו, ועוברים בלאו של ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול

The implication of this is that ex post facto the conversion is indeed valid, as otherwise there would be no sin committed by the convert and there would be no issue of putting a stumbling block before the blind. In the words of R. Yisrael Rozen:[4]

למדנו מדבריו שהגירות חלה, דאי לאו הכי אין כאן מכשול, שהרי נשאר בגיותו

In fact, we find many poskim who say that we should not convert people who do not intend on observing mitzvot, because then they will be punished for their sins. This shows that these poskim regard a conversion without intent to observe mitzvot as valid ex post facto. In a previous post here I cited a number of examples of this, and here is one more.

R. Raphael Shapiro, Torat Refael, vol. 3, no. 42, has a short responsum about whether to convert a woman who will not be observant. It was sent to R. Mordechai Klatchko of Volozhin, who would later come to the U.S. and serve as a rav in Boston.[5] R. Klatchko was clearly a fine talmid hakham, as can be seen from the two volumes of his Tekhelet Mordekhai. R. Klatchko wrote to R. Shapiro arguing that the woman should be converted even if she was not going to be observant so that her intended husband (or perhaps current husband) could fulfill the mitzvah of procreation (which he could not do if his children would not be halakhically Jewish). R. Shapiro disagrees and states that it is forbidden to convert her, as she will certainly not observe the niddah laws, and this will cause them both to violate a Torah prohibition.

What is important for our purposes is that both R. Klatchko and R. Shapiro assume that one who converts without intending to observe Jewish law is regarded as a valid convert. As long as the person goes through a halakhically proper conversion ceremony, that is what activates the conversion. It is hard for people today to understand how R. Shapiro never even raises the possibility that a conversion is invalid if the person converting intends to routinely violate fundamental Jewish laws by living an irreligious lifestyle. But as can be seen in so many different examples, a widespread view in prior generations—I don’t know if it was the majority view or not—was that as long as the conversion is carried out properly, what happens later, and what is in the convert’s heart at the time of the conversion ceremony, have no legal significance.[6]

Here is one further example of this approach, Be-Mar’eh ha-Bazak, vol. 4, no. 96.[7]

As you can see, the approach of Kollel Eretz Hemdah is that there is no possibility of voiding a conversion carried out by a proper beit din, even if the people converting had no intention of observing mitzvot. At the beginning of the volume, it states that the responsa were reviewed by R. Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg, R. Nachum Rabinovitch, and R. Yisrael Rozen, all significant figures in their own right.

Finally, it is also worth noting that no less a figure than R. Isaac Jacob Weiss refused to void a conversion even though the woman who converted never observed mitzvot. See Minhat Yitzhak, vol. 1, nos. 121-123.

I have a good deal more to say about conversion, but in the interest of space, let me just call attention to a couple of interesting things I recently saw. The first is that R. Moses Sofer states that non-Jews are rewarded in this world if they convert to Judaism.[8] I do not know of anyone else who says that there is a divinely ordained reward for one who converts.

The second interesting discussion about conversion I recently saw is R. Aviad Sar Shalom Basilea, Emunat Hakhamim, ch. 24 (pp. 264-265 in the Jerusalem, 2016 edition). Adopting the type of anachronistic explanation that some commentators have been fond of, R. Basilea assumes that Mahlon converted Ruth and married her with huppah and kiddushin. But this creates a problem, because if Ruth was Jewish, why did Naomi push her away? R. Basilea offers a possible answer: Naomi held like the Rif and the Rambam that since Ruth’s immersion in the mikveh was not before three men, it was invalid even be-diavad. However, Mahlon held like the other poskim that be-diavad, tevilah by oneself if valid.

והנה נעמי היתה סוברת כרי”ף והרמב”ם שאפילו בדיעבד אינה גיורת ולכן השתדלה להרחיקה, ומחלון היה סבור כאותם הפוסקים הסוברים כי גיורת גמורה היתה ולכן נשאה

Does anyone, even from the most traditional communities, still offer explanations along these lines? Here is what R. Shimon Shkop wrote in a different context, and you can see that he was not a fan of this type of explanation.[9]

ודבר זה מביא לידי גיחוך, כעין הפלפולים אם פרעה היה סובר שעבודא דאורייתא

Some time ago I was looking at Abba Appelbaum’s book Rabbi Azariah Figo (Drohobycz, 1907), and he offers the following examples of anachronistic explanations (p. 54):[10]

R. Gershon Ashkenazi (1618-1693), one of the greatest halakhists of his day, also wrote a work of homiletics, Tiferet ha-Gershuni. In his derashah for parashat Mas’ei (p. 236 in the 2009 edition) he portrays the daughters of Zelophehad as arguing from halakhic logic.

In his derashah for parashat Va-Yera (p. 48), in discussing the descendants of Ishmael, R. Ashkenazi suggests that they held that the law of ketubah is rabbinic.

אם כן בני ישמעאל היו סבורים כתובה מדרבנן

Appelbaum also calls attention to R. Meir Schiff’s elaboration at the end of his commentary to Bava Kamma (found in the Vilna Shas). He portrays the incident of Esau selling his firstborn status from a halakhic angle. As such, Jacob’s thoughts were no different than those of a later halakhic scholar:

ונסתפק יעקב באומרו כיום מחמת שני דברים, שגריעותא דבכורה מחמת דבר שלא בא לעולם ומחמת אונאה . . . ויעקב נתיירא או למד הפשט כרש”י ולזה אמר ויאמר השבע לי כמ”ש בח”מ סי ר”ט ס”ד בהגה”ה

Another example, not mentioned by Applebaum, is R. Samuel Edels (Maharsha) in his aggadic commentary to Sanhedrin 57b. R. Edels wonders why Pharoah commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill the newborn Hebrew children, as it would have made much more sense to have Egyptian midwives do this. He explains that the children were to be killed before birth and for non-Jews this would be regarded as murder, which Pharoah wanted to avoid.[11] He thus turned to Hebrew midwives as for them it is not murder to kill an unborn child.

Quite apart from the far-fetched nature of the explanation, as well as its assumption that even before the giving of the Torah the Israelites were bound by Jewish law, not Noahide law, I don’t think any reader of the biblical story would find it reasonable that Pharoah was concerned about anyone violating the commandment against murder. However, the passage is also of interest in seeing how Maharsha regarded the prohibition against abortion.[12] He even portrays Pharoah as thinking that there is no prohibition for Jews to abort a fetus, including right before birth.

דודאי פרעה לא שאל מהם להרוג הזכרים בידים דבן נח מוזהר על שפיכות דמים ולכך לא אמר כן למילדות המצריות שהוזהרו על שפיכות דמים אפילו בעוברים אבל למילדות העבריות אמר שהותר לכם להרוג עובר במעי אמו וראיתם על האבנים קודם שיצא לאויר העולם אם בן הוא וגו’ וכיון שאי אפשר בהם לפטור משפיכות דמים רק בתחילת יציאת הולד קודם שיצא ראשו או רובו הוצרך לתת להם סימנין כמו שכתוב בפרק קמא דסוטה [יא ע”ב]

There has been a good deal of discussion as to how to understand the Maharsha’s words שהותר לכם. Some assume that he meant that Pharoah was in error in thinking that there is no prohibition for Jews to abort a fetus.[13] It is also possible to explain that the prohibition against abortion for Jews is only rabbinic,[14] so at that period of time there was no prohibition. R. Yaakov Farbstein states flatly:[15]

ומבואר במהרש”א דאין איסור לישראל בהריגת העוברים

This notion, that the Maharsha is saying that there is no prohibition for Jews to abort a fetus, is not in line with the overwhelming majority view beginning with the rishonim. However, in one Tosafot, Niddah 44a-b, s.v. ihu, it does state that abortion is permitted for Jews, and it does not mention that there needs to be a good reason for this or provide a timeline after which abortion is not allowed.

וא”ת אם תמצי לומר דמותר להורגו בבטן . . . וי”ל דמכל מקום משום פקוח נפש מחללין עליו את השבת אף ע”ג דמותר להרגו

Pretty much every halakhist who deals with abortion struggles with this Tosafot, as they have found it very hard to accept that any rishon could permit abortion without restrictions. One approach offered is that Tosafot is saying that there is no Torah prohibition, but there would still be a rabbinic prohibition.[16]

R. Moshe Feinstein, in his classic responsum on abortion, claims that there is a mistake in Tosafot, and instead of the two appearances of דמותר it should instead say דפטור ההורגו in both places.[17] This is in line with the phenomenon I have discussed on a few occasions, where R. Moshe is prepared to deny the authenticity of problematic texts. R. Eliezer Waldenberg offered a strong rejoinder to R. Moshe.[18]

והנה עם כל הכבוד, לא אדוני, לא זו הדרך, וחיים אנו עפ”ד גאוני הדורות, והמה טרחו כל אחד ואחד לפי דרכו לבאר ולהעמיד כוונת דברי התוס’ בנדה וליישבם, ואף אחד מהם לא עלה על דעתו הדרך הקלה והפשוטה ביותר לומר שיש ט”ס בדברי התוס’ ובמקום מותר צריך להיות אסור [צ”ל פטור]

While no other authorities agree with R. Moshe that the Tosafot contains a mistaken text, many regard the language of Tosafot as not exact.[19]

Returning to R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, I know of another example where he did not want a view of his to be widely shared. R. Amit Kula discusses R. Avigdor Nebenzahl’s argument that according to a variety of sources one who is suffering greatly is allowed to commit suicide. He further adds that it would be permitted to kill another in this circumstance (active euthanasia), for if you are allowed to kill yourself for a good purpose, you can do it to another as well. R. Nebenzahl adds that some of what he says comes from R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. He also quotes R. Auerbach that one can take medicine to reduce pain even if it will shorten one’s life.[20]

This information, which appeared in the first edition of R. Nebenzahl’s Be-Yitzhak Yikare, is not found in subsequent editions. R. Kula tells us that in these editions R. Nebenzahl inserted a note that the section was removed at the instruction of an unnamed scholar, and R. Mordechai Halpern quotes R. Nebenzahl that this scholar was none other than R. Auerbach.[21]

I find this of interest because if there is one thing that everyone knows, it is that Judaism does not allow active euthanasia (mercy killing). As is usually the case, matters are more complicated as has recently been shown by R. Yitzchak Roness in an article in Ha-Ma’yan.[22] He notes that R. Moshe Sternbuch does not believe that there is any prohibition for non-Jews to engage in mercy killing, since it is carried out for a good purpose. R. Yitzhak Zilberstein also inclines towards this position, and R. Moshe Feinstein suggests this as well, writing:[23]

אפשר שבן נח אינו אסור ברציחה שהוא לטובת הנרצח ושאני בזה האיסור לישראל מהאיסור לבן נח

R. Moshe and others specifically have in mind a non-Jew engaging in mercy killing of a Jew. The proof brought is the famous story of the death of R. Hanina ben Teradyon (Avodah Zarah 18a) where R. Hanina permits the executioner to raise the flame and remove the wool from his heart, thus actively hastening his death. R. Shaul Yisraeli goes the furthest, and for someone suffering greatly, and near death, he thinks that active euthanasia is permitted even if performed by a Jew.

R. Roness then notes that there is a dispute if one suffering great pain is allowed to commit suicide. For the side that permits this, R. Zilberstein adds that if it is permitted for the suffering individual, it will also be permitted for another to assist (active euthanasia). R. Roness also cites R. Hershel Schachter who states that active euthanasia, with the agreement of the patient, is not to be regarded as murder. He even suggests that for one suffering greatly, active euthanasia should be permitted:[24]

ההורג את חברו ברשותו יש לומר דאין בו לאו דרציחה אלא רק לאו דאך את דמכם, דלא גרע הורג חברו ברשותו מההורג את עצמו . . . ולמנוע א”ע מלסבול ייסורים דינו כפקו”נ, וכמשמעות התוס’ הנ”ל. ואם באמת כ”ה גדר היתר זה, א”כ אף בחולה הסובל יסורים קשים ומתחנן לאחרים ליטול את נפשו, אם נאמר כנ”ל, דבכה”ג אין לומר דבטלה דעתו וכו’, ג”כ הי’ צ”ל מותר מטעם פקו”נ ועיין בזה

And finally, here is what R. Chaim Kanievsky responded when asked if a Jewish patient near death could allow a non-Jew to end his life. R. Chaim does not say this is murder. On the contrary, he is inclined to permit it.[25]

אם שוהה אדם בבית חולים דעכו”ם ויש לו יסורים רבים במחלתו האנושה, ורוצה הרופא לחסוך לו היסורים ולקרב מותו ושואל ממנו רשות, האם מותר לו להסכים לזאת. והשיב רבנו שליט”א “יתכן שיש ללמוד זה ממעשה דרחב”ת” . . . והיאך הסכים רחב”ת שהעכו”ם יקרב מותו, והשיב רבנו: “איפה שהחולה מרגיש שזה טובתו יתכן שמותר כמו שמותר להתפלל עליו שימות.”

My question is, how come the “liberal” views I have mentioned are not better known?

7. In my last post here I included the first-ever color pictures of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg. These went around the world very quickly, and as is the nature of the internet, where the pictures came from was soon forgotten. In fact, within 24 hours someone who does not read the Seforim Blog sent them to me as a great new discovery. When I told him that I am the one who published the pictures he was at first incredulous, stating that he just got them from his cousin.

Here are two more pictures of R. Weinberg that he sent to his family. They are from before World War II when he was still in Germany. In the picture where he is lying the ground, I do not know who the couple next to R. Weinberg is.[26]

And for an extra treat, here are the only known videos of R. Weinberg, and one of them is in color. I thank Noam Cohn for putting this together, at my request, from his family’s collection. The first part has R. Weinberg with R. Arthur Ephraim Weil, the rav of Basel, and R. Leo Adler who succeeded Weil as rav of Basel in 1956. The second video, in which you can see R. Weinberg in color together with R. Samuel Brom, the rav of Lucerne, is from winter 1958-1959 at the Silberhorn kosher hotel in Grindelwald. The hotel had just inaugurated its new mikveh, and it was important to the family who owned the hotel that R. Weinberg give his approval to the mikveh.[27] At 1:12 and 3:20 you can also see the famed educator and student of R. Weinberg, Dr. Gabriel H. Cohn. Here is a picture from the event and you can see R. Brom and Dr. Cohn standing next to R. Weinberg.

Regarding R. Adler, before coming to Basel he studied ten years at the Mir Yeshiva, including in Shanghai. After the war he was in New York where he taught Torah at Yeshiva University.[28]

8. In my last post here I had the following quiz questions.

Please identify the following and email me your answers:

1. There are two se’ifim in the Shulhan Arukh that only contain two words.

2. There is one siman in the Shulhan Arukh whose number is the gematria of the subject of the siman.

The answer to no. 1 is Yoreh Deah 65:6: נוהג בכוי, and Even ha-Ezer 126:42: מותרת בויו

The answer to no. 2 is Orah Hayyim no. 586. This is the laws of shofar, and the gematria of shofar is 586. This was noted by R. Jacob Emden and I mentioned this in my article “‘Truth’ and Authorial Intent in the Study of Torah,” available here.

A number of people provided the correct answers for no. 1 and no. 2, but no one got both of my intended answers. However, Moshe Schwartz got no. 2 right with a different answer than I was thinking of (meaning he answered both questions correctly). He noted that Yoreh Deah 107 speaks about cooking eggs, and the gematria of ביצה is 107.[29] Also, shortly before this post was completed, Sol Reich provided another example: Yoreh Deah 334 is about הלכות נידוי וחרם and the gematria of נידוי וחרם is 334.

9. Information about my summer tours with Torah in Motion to Central Europe and Spain is available here.

* * * * * * *

[1] “Ha-Im Giyuram shel Gerim she-Einam Shomrim Mizvot Hal Be-Diavad? Berur Da’at ha-Gaon Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ZTL,” Ha-Ma’yan 56 (Tishrei 5776), pp. 43-46.
[2] Halpern, Refuah, Metziut ve-Halakhah (Jerusalem, 2011), pp. 35ff.
[3] Amital, “Ha-Im Giyuram,” p. 45.
[4] Ve-Ohev Ger (Alon Shvut, 2010), p. 161 n. 1.
[5] See R. Hayyim Fischel Epstein, Teshuvah Shelemah, vol. 2, Even ha-Ezer, nos. 29-30, and R. Elijah Klatzkin, Hibbat ha-Kodesh, no. 11, where they respond to R. Klatchko’s question about a get written in Roxbury (a neighborhood in Boston), but the get only mentioned “Boston”. This is mentioned by Hayyim Karlinsky, Rabbi Hayyim Fischel Epstein (New York, 1963), pp. 26-27.

This R. Klatchko should not be confused with an earlier R. Mordechai Klatchko of Lida who also wrote a book titled Tekhelet Mordekhai. It is noteworthy that R. Klatchko of Lida wrote a lengthy haskamah for the Mishnah Berurah. Regarding R. Klatchko of Lida, see here.[6] For another example, see R. Dov Cohen, Va-Yelkhu Sheneihem Yahdav (Jerusalem, 2009), pp. 333-334. Here R. Cohen describes how, at the direction of R. Isser Yehudah Unterman, he converted a woman intent on marrying a completely irreligious Jew. This is the sort of conversion that today would not be allowed in Israel or in any of the batei din recognized by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. See also R. Avraham Shapiro, Kuntres Aharon in his edition of R. Isaac Jacob Rabinowitz, Zekher Yitzhak (Jerusalem, 1990), p. 396, who suggests that according to Maimonides, when it comes to conversion and acceptance of mitzvot,  כיון שקבל בפה אין דבריו שבלב דברים.

For a convert who is not observant, there is one halakhic consequence, at least according to many authorities: When they divorce the get should not say ben (or bat) Avraham avinu, but ploni ha-ger. See R. Shimon Yakobi, Bitul Giyur Ekev Hoser Kenut be-Kabbalat ha-Mitzvot (Jerusalem, 2009), pp. 103ff. (This is an official publication of the Israel rabbinical courts.) See also ibid., p. 105, for the shocking statistic that from 1996-2008, 97% of converts who divorced in the State of Israel were irreligious. There is no reason to doubt that the number of non-divorced converts who are irreligious is similar. If only 3% of converts in Israel are religious, then, as Yakobi rightly notes, it raises serious concerns about the conversion process.
[7] A similar responsum dealing with the same case appears in Be-Mar’eh ha-Bazak, vol 3, no. 89.
[8] Derashot Hatam Sofer, vol. 2, p. 301c. s.v. yeshalem.
[9] Hiddushei Rabbi Shimon ha-Kohen (Jerusalem, 2011), vol. 4, p. 324 (Kuntres Likutim, no. 5).
[10] I can’t say whether there is any plagiarism in this book, but another publication of Appelbaum was plagiarized from Abraham Berliner. See Nehemiah Leibowitz, “Al Devar ha-Takanah be-Venetzia,” Ha-Tzofeh le-Hokhmat Yisrael 13 (1929), p. 90.

Regarding anachronistic explanations, I think most would also include in this category R. Moses Sofer’s statement that Joseph wished to pray with a minyan rather than pray vatikin by himself. See Hatam Sofer al ha-Torah, vol. 1, p. 227.
[11] The same approach is independently suggested by R. Judah Rosanes, Parashat Derakhim, Derush 17, and R. Pinhas Horowitz, Panim Yafot, Ex. 1:15.

R. Ishmael holds that abortion is treated as murder for non-Jews (Sanhedrin57b) and Maimonides rules this way (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim9:4). This halakhah has often been cited as proof that the crime of abortion is stricter for non-Jews than Jews, and that public policy should be in line with this. Yet in Sanhedrin 57b the Tanna Kamma disagrees with R. Ishmael and does not regard abortion as murder. In fact, according to the Tanna Kamma, abortion would seem to be permissible for non-Jews. R. Jeremy Wieder has raised the question, which I would like someone to offer a serious reply to, that while Maimonides and other authorities accept R. Ishmael as the binding decision, who says that non-Jews have to accept this? Why can’t non-Jews “poskin” like the Tanna Kamma? See here at minute 35:30.

R. Shneur Zalman Fradkin,Torat Hesed, Even ha-Ezer, no. 42:5 (in the note), suggests that Tosafot,Niddah 44a, that I discuss in the text, adopts the Tanna Kamma’s position, not the view of R. Ishmael. See Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 14, p. 184. The implications of this with regard to non-Jews are obviously significant.

See also R. Jacob Emden, Em la-Binah (Jerusalem, 2020), p. 197:

בילדכן את העבריות: לא גזר על שפיכות דמים אלא על העוברים

R. Emden seems to be saying that abortion is not regarded as murder for non-Jews. Perhaps relevant to this, it is worth noting that R. Meir Mazuz states that one should encourage a non-Jewish woman pregnant by a Jewish man to have an abortion. SeeMakor Ne’eman, vol. 3, no. 1509. See also R. Hanan Aflalo,Asher Hanan, vol. 8, no. 74. R. Joseph Babad, Minhat Hinnukh, 296:7, states that abortion is not murder for non-Jews, and therefore there is no law of rodef when it comes to a non-Jew seeking to kill a fetus. (Since later in this post I mention suicide, it is worth noting that R. Babad also states that non-Jews are not prohibited from committing suicide. See Minhat Hinnukh 34:8.)

Regarding abortion for Jews, R. Hershel Schachter has an interesting shiur here. His approach is, I think, the most lenient among contemporary poskim, as he states that for the health of the mother abortion is permitted up until the end of pregnancy, which is long after the time that the fetus is viable.

R. Schachter’s approach might be identical with the very lenient perspective of R. Abraham Isaac Bloch. See R. Mordechai Gifter,Milei de-Iggerot, vol. 7, p. 341:

בגדר האיסור דהריגת עוברין בישראל, שמעתי מאדמו”ר הגאב”ד ור”מ דטלז ז”ל הי”ד, שהוא מגדר בל תשחית, אשר לפי”ז כל שהוא לצורך רפואה או פגם משפחה, אין בזה גדר האיסור דהשחתה

[12] I would have thought that the Maharsha’s words could have halakhic significance, but R. Nahman Yehiel Michel Steinmetz states otherwise, noting אין לומדים הלכה מדברי הגדה. See Meshiv Nevonim, vol. 6, p. 250. See also R. Weinberg’s comments regarding the Maharsha in Seridei Esh, vol. 3, no. 126.
[13] See e.g., Siftei Maharsha: Shemot, pp. 16-17.
[14] For opinions that the prohibition against abortion is only rabbinic, see R. Yishai Yitzhak Shraga, Torat ha-Ubar (Jerusalem, 2017), pp. 72ff.
[15] Ohalei Yaakov: Shemot, p. 1.
[16] See R. Eliezer Waldenberg, Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 9, p. 231, vol. 14, p. 184.
[17] Iggerot Moshe, Hoshen Mishpat 2, p. 295. There are a couple of strange things in this responsum, which first appeared in the R. Yehezkel Abramsky Memorial Volume. For example, see p. 298 how R. Moshe describes R. Joseph Hayyim’s responsum in Rav Pealim. (The word שהחכם in the bottom line right column should be שהתחכם, as it appears in the R. Abramsky Memorial Volume.) Yet as R. Waldenberg points out, Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 14, p. 186, R. Moshe’s summary of Rav Pealim is inaccurate and he also does not show much regard for R. Joseph Hayyim, leading R. Waldenberg to write: והוא פלאי, ושרי ליה מריה בזה. See Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 14, p. 186. (R. Moshe actually ends his own responsum by saying ושרי ליה מריה בזה about R. Waldenberg.)

R. David M. Feldman wrote to R. Waldenberg that R. Moshe did not write the responsum on abortion, and that could explain what he saw as various problems in this responsum. SeeTzitz Eliezer, vol. 20, p. 140.

I find this approach completely untenable, although in conversation with me R. Feldman insisted on it. Some might suggest that others were involved in writing the responsum, and that explains the passage dealing with Rav Pealim. I find this impossible to accept, and would prefer to assume that at least with regard to the inaccurate Rav Pealim description, that R. Moshe did not have the text in front of him and was citing from memory from what had earlier been shown to him. As such, it is easy to imagine how he could have forgotten the details, as we have all had similar experiences. For more on this responsum, see my post here.
[18] Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 14, p. 183.
[19] See R. Zvi Ryzman, Ratz ke-Tzvi, vol. 2, p. 295.
[20] Tehumin 37 (2017), p. 124.
[21] Refuah, Metziut, ve-Halakhah, p. 28.
[22] “Ha-Im Muteret ‘Hamatat Hesed’ al Yedei Amirah le-Goy,” Ha-Ma’yan 62 (Tamuz 5782), pp. 54-64.
[23] Iggerot Moshe, Hoshen Mishpat 2, p. 313.
[24] Ginat Egoz, p. 74.
[25] R. Yosef Aryeh Lorintz, Mishnat Pikuah Nefesh, p. 26.
[26] The pictures in this post are now kept at Ganzach Kiddush Hashem in Bnei Brak.
[27] All the big rabbis stayed and ate at the Silberhorn hotel, and yet until 1975 it had no hashgachah. People knew the family that owned it to be absolutely reliable in matters of kashrut, and like the other kosher hotels in Switzerland, the kashrut was trusted without any hashgachah. In 1974 the Swiss rabbinate informed the various kosher hotels that they would need to acquire a hashgachah, thus ending the era of religious owners’ kashrut being trusted without any outside supervision. (Thanks to Dr. Joshua Sternbuch who passed on this information from the family who owned the Silberhorn hotel.)

Regarding the pious practice of eating eggs at seudah shelishit, see Kaf ha-Hayyim 289:12.

Comments on recent books by R. Benji Levy and R. Eitam Henkin; R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik; and the first color photographs of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

Marc B. Shapiro

1. Benji Levy, Covenant and the Jewish Conversion Question: Extending the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Cham, Switzerland, 2021)

The last few decades have seen a lot of discussion regarding conversion, and what is and is not required before someone is accepted into the Jewish community. This is obviously a halakhic matter, as conversion is a halakhic procedure and the rabbis supervise it and are the ones to decide who is to be accepted for conversion. The issue also has a sociological component and in the State of Israel it has national and political significance as well. The fact that halakhic conversion standards in the last generation have become stricter, and conversions have even been revoked, shows that we are dealing with a matter that is far from simple. As most are aware, this has led to a good deal of tension in Orthodoxy.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993) was the leading Orthodox thinker in the post-World War II era. Combine this with his standing as a great talmudist and it is obvious that he will have important insights in the matter of conversion. It is to this that R. Benji Levy turns his attention in this valuable new book which analyzes the Rav’s halakhic thinking together with his philosophical perspectives. It is a book which all students of the Rav’s thought will want to examine.

Before his discussion of the Rav’s position, Levy deals extensively with earlier rabbinic views on the status of an apostate. This is helpful in and of itself, but also in terms of seeing the novelty of the approach advocated by the Rav. Bringing the Rav’s notions of Covenant of Fate and Covenant of Destiny into the halakhic arena, Levy argues the Rav arrived at his position by positing that holiness is not inherent, something one is born into. As such, one can lose this holiness. For the Rav, this is not only stated with regard to people, as he also that he felt that there is no such thing as holiness “inherent in an object.” Rather, holiness is “born out of man’s actions and experiences” (Levy, pp. 58-59, quoting from the Rav, Family Redeemed, p. 64). As is well known, R. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk had the same perspective. The Rav also offers this perspective when it comes to niddah. See Nathaniel Helfgot, ed., Community, Covenant and Commitment, pp. 325-326: “The entire concept of tum’at niddah, ritual impurity of the menstruant, is not an inherent description, but rather a relational one, for the niddah herself is not ritually impure at all. The ritual impurity expresses itself only in relation to the other.” This is definitely not the mainstream perspective in rabbinic literature.

In chapter 5, Levy gives us a good summary of the different halakhic positions regarding conversion. In the popular mind, this is often reduced to strict or lenient positions. But this is not really accurate, as the fundamental issue under dispute is what exactly does kabbalat ha-mitzvot means. It is often unclear which side is lenient and which is strict. For instance, if a rabbi voids a conversion because someone is thought to have converted without proper acceptance of mitzvot, this can be seen as strict when it comes to conversion. But the voiding of the conversion means that this individual does not need to fast on Yom Kippur, and if he is married he can leave his wife without giving her a get. So from this perspective, the voiding of the conversion is “lenient.”

Levy also calls attention to a fascinating “hiddush” of the Rav when it comes to conversion. According to the Rav, not only does a convert need to accept all the mitzvot, but he must also commit to a life of study of Torah. “A convert who wants to enter the congregation and accept upon himself the yoke of mitsvot, but is unprepared to toil in Torah, this is lacking in their conversion” (pp. 134-135). As Levy notes, this position is in line with the Rav’s stress on serious learning as opposed to the “sentimentality of ceremonialism” (p. 135). Levy adds that this stress on study “achieves a radicalization of the overall conversion process” (p. 135). I wonder, though, is this something that the Rav actually insisted on, or was this simply a point he mentioned in shiur like so many other ideas that sound appealing but are without practical significance? In fact, do we have any evidence that the Rav ever supervised conversions? If so, it would be fascinating to know what he required from future converts and how he guided them.[1]

Levy claims that R. Aharon Lichtenstein’s position in his famous article, “Brother Daniel and the Jewish Fraternity,” is not identical with the Rav’s outlook. This was surprising to me, as it is generally understood that R. Lichtenstein’s 1963 article was an attempt to explain the Rav’s approach in the wake of the Brother Daniel episode. Levy, p. 84, quotes the Rav as saying that “however much an irreligious Jew attempts to cast off his faith, he is fated to be unsuccessful.”[2] He contrasts this with R. Lichtenstein’s statement that there is “a point beyond which the apostate cannot go and yet remain a Jew” (p. 84). Yet these statements are not in opposition. The Rav is referring to an irreligious Jew, not an apostate. A document I recently published which quotes the Rav’s explanation of his position makes this very clear.[3] It also shows that R. Lichtenstein’s points are directly in line with those of the Rav, and knowing their relationship, the article itself must have been written under the close guidance of the Rav.

Usually people think of Jewish identity as an inherent part of someone, an inheritance that cannot be given up. Yet the Rav departs from the usual approach and considers Jewish identity as something that can be lost, but only in extreme circumstances. One who is not religious does not lose his halakhic standing as a Jew. However, one who actually converts to another religion is regarded by the Rav as having severed his connection to the Jewish people, and for most intents and purposes would no longer be regarded as Jewish. (I do not know how he would regard the child of an apostate woman.)

As such, I must also reject Levy’s conclusion that for the Rav a Jew may lose his individual holiness, but his “holiness qua member of the Jewish collective is unshakeable.” It is this point that I believe to be mistaken, and as noted already, I assume that the Rav’s settled position is as explained by R. Lichtenstein. I also believe that we need not be concerned that in shiur the Rav offered a different reading of a text, as what he said in shiur was often provisional, an exploration of different possibilities.[4] In the case at hand we have more than one testimony that R. Lichtenstein’s description, that in many ways an apostate is not to be regarded as Jewish, is exactly in line with the Rav’s position. With this in mind, we also need to review Levy’s discussion of the Brother Daniel controversy (pp. 186f.). To say that the Rav supported the ruling of the Israel Supreme Court and leave it at that creates a misinterpretation. Yes, the Rav agreed with the Supreme Court that Brother Daniel was not to be regarded as Jewish. Yet the Court’s assumption was that halakhah would regard him as Jewish. However, since the Law of Return is a secular law, the Court had to decide based on how the law was understood by “the ordinary simple Jew,” and such a Jew would never regard a Catholic religious figure as being part of the Jewish people. The Rav could not be more adamant that the Court was in error, as in his view, even from a purely halakhic perspective, Brother Daniel could not be regarded as Jewish.[5]

One final point: Levy deals with authorities who have seen circumcision or immersion as conveying what can be termed “limited sanctity” or “partial conversion.” There is another source that should be added to this discussion. R. Hershel Schachter records the Rav’s understanding that the Patriarchs had moved beyond the status of benei Noah, but had not yet achieved the full status of kedushat Yisrael. Nevertheless, they still had some kedushat Yisrael.[6] This puts them somewhere between non-Jews and Jews, a “partial Jew” if one might use the term.

2. Eitam Henkin, Studies in Halakhah and Rabbinic History (Jerusalem, 2021).

It has been eight years since the murder of R. Eitam Henkin, and the deep sadness over what was taken from us remains. A glance at what Henkin was able to accomplish in his short life— three books and numerous articles, all of the highest caliber—shows us what the future would have held for him in both rabbinic and academic scholarship. As Eliezer Brodt puts it in his introduction to Henkin’s Studies in Halakhah and Rabbinic History: “He was a unique combination of an outstanding talmid hakham and historian who was also blessed with exceptional research and writing skills.” Fortunately, in his short years R. Eitam left us with much to treasure.

Studies in Halakhah and Rabbinic History, published through the great efforts of Seforim Blog editor Eliezer Brodt, is a treat for anyone who values Torah and Jewish scholarship. All of us are in great debt to Brodt for this labor of love, which began immediately after Henkin’s murder, when Brodt was the prime mover behind the publication of Ta’arokh Lefanai Shulhan, Henkin’s posthumously published book on R. Jehiel Mikhel Epstein and the Arukh ha-Shulhan. The essays in the current volume are translations of many of Henkin’s important Hebrew articles, and the translators, volunteers all, also deserve our great thanks.

The first section of the book focuses on halakhah. R. Eitam deals with the kosher status of strawberries, modern utensils and absorption of taste, the sale of land in Eretz Yisrael to non-Jews, and other topics. The second section, which has more than 250 pages, deals with the girls’ dance on the 15^th of Av, the famous (or infamous) Bruriah story, the Shemitah controversy, the Novardok yeshiva, haredi revisionism when it comes to Rav Kook, and a number of other topics. The final section focuses on R. Joseph Elijah Henkin, offering a general survey of his life and significance, and a second article dealing with his statements about R. Shlomo Goren and the Langer Affair.

There is so much that can be said about this this rich book, but in the interests of space I will only offer a few comments. I am certain that in future posts I will have the opportunity to come back to it.

In chapter 2, Henkin discusses the fascinating issue of absorption of taste in modern utensils. If the halakhic concept of beliah is based on actual absorption, then when dealing with stainless steel, which does not absorb, the halakhic issues should disappear. Following this line of thinking, it could still be appropriate, for a variety of reasons, to have separate meat and dairy stainless steel utensils. But if one mistakenly cooked dairy in a meat stainless steel pot that had been used with meat in the last day, bediavad the food should be OK to eat and the pot should not need to be kashered. If one were to follow this approach, stainless steel would be treated just as Sephardim treat glass, which can be used for milk and meat as the glass does not absorb.

In response to such a claim about stainless steel, Henkin puts forth the original argument that the real issue is not the new type of materials we use for utensils, but that our ability to perceive taste is not what it used to be. In other words, if our taste buds have deteriorated, then we can no longer use them as the basis of determining if there are beliot.

To prove that our sense of taste has weakened compared to the days of the Sages, Henkin did an experiment:

I took a wooden spoon (an old one, like utensils in the average kitchen) and for about half a minute I used it to stir milk that had been boiled in a glass cup. I then washed the spoon well, and then stirred with it, also for a half minute, about half a cup of tea which had been boiled in a small metal pot (a cezve). At the same time, I stirred the same amount of tea using a new metal spoon. I tasted it myself and gave it to my family to taste (as mesihim lefi tumam, without knowledge of the experiment) and no one could discern any difference in taste between the cups. Even when the family members were asked to guess which of the two cups was “dairy,” the success of the guesses wavered as expected at around 50% (pp. 25-26).

The results he obtained led Henkin to conclude that our sense of taste has weakened. This is because it is clear from the talmudic sages that milk leaves a taste in wooden spoons, and yet in reality we see that this is not the case.

This is a very interesting point that I will leave to scientists to discuss, but I do not think it fundamentally changes the problem. Even if our sense of taste has weakened, and we cannot taste what in previous generations we would have been able to, the fact is that stainless steel by definition does not absorb taste. So even if in the days of the Sages they could sense the flavors absorbed in wood, they would not have been able to taste anything had they used stainless steel. Thus, we return to the question of whether there should be a halakhic concept of beliot when it comes to stainless steel.

I must also mention that Henkin’s teacher, R. Dov Lior, specifically states that one can use stainless steel for both meat and dairy (although in practice he requests that two other poskim agree with this position). [7] I find it hard to believe that this will ever become an accepted practice, but is there any halakhic reason why not, or is it only be a matter of continuing what we have done in the past even if there is no strict halakhic reason to do so? Must we assume, as stated by R. Yaakov Ariel, that the entire concept of beliah is a halakhic notion, which like other halakhot operates according to its own rules that are not tied to scientific facts?[8]

Finally, I must note that unfortunately when the essays were translated no attention was paid to Henkin’s website here. On occasion, Henkin corrected his essays, and when the essays were translated R. Eitam’s corrections should have been included. For example, in chapter 24 he discusses R. Shlomo Goren and the Langer affair. On p. 413 n. 17, he mentions various rabbis who were identified as having been on R. Goren’s special beit din that concluded that the Langer children were not mamzerim. Yet on his website here he notes that two of the names he mentioned are not correct. There are other articles of his where he added more material on the website, so readers who want the most up-to-date scholarship of Henkin are recommended to check there.

3. At the end of my last post I mentioned that the next post would include an unknown article by R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. I was mistaken, for not only is the article not unknown, but it is also included in R. Nathaniel Helfgot’s collection of the Rav’s letters and public statements, Community, Covenant and Commitment, pp. 263-265. Helfgot tells us that the article appeared in the Rabbinical Council Record (no date is given). I thought it was unknown because I found it in Jewish Horizon, Sep.-Oct. 1964, and didn’t at first realize that it was also reprinted in Helfgot’s book. What accompanies the Rav’s article is another article that is pretty much unknown. Although it is recorded in the bibliography of R. Lichtenstein’s writings found here, I have never seen anyone refer to it. While new material from the Rav is obviously very exciting, the same can be said for anything from R. Lichtenstein’s pen.

Since I promised something new from the Rav, how about the following which I believe is the first time that the Rav’s name ever appeared in print. It is from the German Orthodox paper Der Israelit, February 7, 1929, and mentions the shiurim for advanced students that the Rav delivered at an Ezra youth movement gathering in Berlin.

In my Torah in Motion classes on the Rav’s letters, available here, I also discussed the Rav’s reason for rejecting numerous pleas that he put forth his candidacy for the Israeli Chief Rabbinate after the 1959 death of R. Isaac Herzog. A lot has been written about this episode.[9] However, we also have the Rav’s testimony from the 1970s that he was again approached about becoming Chief Rabbi.[10] And there is even one other testimony about the Rav and the Chief Rabbinate, but this time I am referring to the Chief Rabbinate of the United Kingdom. Bernard Homa, Footprints on the Sands of Time (Gloucester, 1990), p. 127, writes as follows about the discussion of who would succeed Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz:

I was one of the representatives of the Federation on the London Board for Shehita, where I served as Vice-President from 1946 to 1948. I also represented the Federation in 1947 on the committee, under the Chairmanship of Sir Robert Waley Cohen, dealing with the appointment of a successor to Dr. Hertz, who had passed away in 1946. I recall two items worthy of mention. Among the several names that came up was that of the famous Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik of Boston. There was no discussion as to his merits but he was quickly excluded from consideration for a very silly reason. The Chairman reported that he had been informed that he did not know how to use a knife and fork properly.[11] His informant was clearly unaware that in the U.S.A. table customs are different from those in this country and the allegation against him was thus not only trivial, but entirely without foundation.[12]

In my article in Hakirah 32 (2022), I published a number of letters from the Rav. Let me share an additional letter, to R. Irwin Haut, which was originally supposed to be included in my article. Unfortunately, I only have the first page. (The family also only has the first page. If any reader has the complete letter, please be in touch.) I thank Professor Haym Soloveitchik for granting me permission to publish it.

י“ג אדר השני, תשי“ט
March 23, 1959

Dear Rabbi Haut:

Acknowledge receipt of your letter. 

1. Liquids which were cooked or boiled before the Sabbath and remained on the covered gas range during the בין השמשות period may be put back, after being removed for the night to the refrigerator, on the covered flame on Saturday morning, provided that the liquid foods do not reach the temperature of יד סולדת. If, however, the liquids are kept near the flame so that their temperature remains above the house temperature, we do not have to concern ourselves with the aspect of יד סולדת. 

2. I would advise you to put a a [!] tin or tin-foil cover on the [next page missing]

The issue here is heating up liquids on Shabbat, and the position of the Rav is more liberal than the standard Orthodox approach today which is not to allow any reheating of liquids (other than Yemenite Jews who follow Maimonides’ opinion). To understand the Rav’s position, we must first note that this was actually the opinion of his mother, Rebbetzin Pesha, who was a scholar in her own right. In this case, I think we can say that the Rav was simply following his family tradition.

This is what appears in Yeled Sha’ashuim, p. 30, a book devoted to R. Ahron Soloveichik[13]:

Rebbitzen Pesha would place cold soup on the hot Shabbos blech and be careful to remove the soup before it became יד סולדת בו. She was not concerned about the איסור חזרה because the psak of the Rama is that if the food was on the Shabbos blech for the duration of בין השמשות on Friday night and was later removed from the Shabbos blech, then there is no איסור חזרה. The only question then is whether there it is forbidden from the standpoint of the איסור בישול. Rebbitzen Pesha reasoned that it is permitted to do this on the basis of ספק ספיקא. First of all, there is a מחלוקת ראשונים as to whether in דבר לח we say אין בישול אחר בישול. The view of חכמי ספרד is that even in דבר לח we say אין בישול אחר בישול. But, in this case, one removes the soup from the Shabbos blech before it reaches the heat of בישול. The soup becomes only lukewarm. There is a מחלוקת רש“י ותוספות whether this is permitted or it is אסור מדרבנן גזירה שמא ישכח וזה יגיע לידי בישול. The question in this case revolves only around an איסור דרבנן. Rebbitzen Pesha, therefore, reasoned that it is permitted on the basis of ספק ספיקא.  

Quite apart from the specific issue of liquids, the Rav’s position allowing food on the blech or even in the oven during bein ha-shemashot to be placed in the refrigerator and returned to the blech or oven the next morning is well known and has been discussed by many. This leniency can be traced to R. Nissim of Gerona who derives it from the Jerusalem Talmud.[14] Let me, however, me add two points. The first is that R. Ahron Soloveichik told me that I could adopt this position in practice. (I only asked about food, not liquids). The second point is that the Rav’s position has been portrayed as only referring to foods, not liquids. Yet we see from his letter to Haut that he, together with his mother, also held this position with regard to liquids.

Having said this, I think people will find the Rav’s instructions to caterers at the Maimonides school of interest. I thank Steven DuBois for calling my attention to this document, which is found here.

In one of these instructions I think it is obvious that the Rav was adopting a more stringent approach because he was dealing with caterers, who will not be as careful in these matters as individuals at home.  As you can see, the Rav only mentions removing solid foods from the refrigerator, but nothing about liquids. I think the reason is clear. An individual at home can be careful that liquids not reach the level of yad soledet bo, but this is not something the Rav was willing to entrust to a caterer who while busily preparing the Shabbat meal will often not be so careful to make sure that the liquid does not reach yad soledet bo.

We only have the first page of the Rav’s letter to Haut, but it is clear that the Rav’s second point is his advice to put a tin or tin foil cover over the stove knobs in addition to the blech. He does not state this as an absolute requirement but as a preferable procedure. However, in his instructions to caterers, this is listed as a requirement.

Let me share some more things related to the Rav, the first one of which comes courtesy of Ovadya Hoffman. In 1993 R. Yitzhak Hershkowitz published the first volume of his responsa Divrei Or. The second section of this volume includes responsa from the sixteenth-century scholar R. Abraham Shtang. In the introduction we find the following sentence:

אחדים מתשובות אלו נדפס ביובל ע“י ר‘ יצחק זימער

This is a very strange sentence, because what does נדפס ביובל mean? It actually refers to the 1984 Sefer Yovel for R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik where Yitzhak (Eric) Zimmer’s article appears (and Zimmer himself spells his name זימר). As Hoffman notes, this is a sort of “the wise will understand” reference. The editor did not feel that his readership could “handle” the actual title of the book, so instead he refers to it in code.

Growing up, maybe the first thing I knew about practices of the Rav was that he stood up with his feet together for the entire repetition of the Amidah. I recall how certain YU students would imitate this practice of the Rav, which sometimes created problems when people would try to exit the row while the students were standing with their feet together. Regarding the Rav’s practice, see R. Schachter, Nefesh ha-Rav, pp. 123-124, and here.

Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Tefillah 9:3, actually explicitly states: “Everyone – both those who did not fulfill their obligation [to pray] and those who fulfilled their obligation – stands, listens, and recites ‘Amen’ after each and every blessing.” You cannot be much clearer than this, but nevertheless, there are those who offer a different interpretation of Maimonides. According to them, when Maimonides writes והכל עומדין ושומעין it does not mean literally to stand. Rather, עומדין ושומעין means to be quiet and listen. This argument is made by R. Ovadyah Hadaya[15] and R. Isaac Liebes,[16] and they both make the same point in support of their position. R. Moses Isserles, Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 124:4, writes: “There are those who say that the entire congregation should stand when the prayer leader repeats the prayer. (Hagahot Minhagim).” Both R. Hadaya and R. Liebes note that R. Isserles could have cited Maimonides to support the view that the congregation should stand for the repetition of the Amidah. The fact that he instead cites Hagahot Minhagim shows that R. Isserles also did not understand Maimonides to literally mean that the congregation stands.

The problem with this is that R. Hadaya and R. Liebes were unaware that the reference to Hagahot Minhagim, and all similar references to books in parenthesis, does not originate with R. Isserles. It was added by a later editor, and thus the point made by R. Hadaya and R. Liebes has no relevance to R. Isserles’ opinion.

Two more points about the Rav: I do not think it is widely known that one of the first publications of the Rav—based on notes of a listener—appeared in a Habad publication in 1942. Here is the title page which on Otzar haChochma is called מאמרי קודש פון כ“ק אדמו“ר שליט“א.

Here is the first page of the Rav’s article.

In a few of my online classes I dealt with the Rav’s opinion that even in contemporary times the hazakah of tav le-meitav tan du mi-le-meitav armelu (that a woman prefers almost any husband to being single) remains applicable. Here is what appears in R. Elyashiv’s Kovetz Teshuvot, vol. 4, no. 117. It sure seems like R. Elyashiv is rejecting the approach of the Rav.

4. In my post here I stated that Saul Lieberman began his studies at the Hebrew University in 1928. This information is based on Elijah J. Schochet and Solomon Spiro, Saul Lieberman: The Man and His Work, p. 8. However, a reader points out that in the August 16, 1927 entry of the unpublished diary of R. Mitchel Eskolsky, who was studying in Jerusalem at Yeshivat Merkaz ha-Rav, he speaks of meeting Saul Lieberman who was at that time a student at Hebrew University.

Regarding Lieberman, I thank Aron Rowe who called my attention to the fact that JTS has put some talks of Lieberman online. Before this, I had never heard Lieberman’s voice. See here, here, and here.

For those interested in Lieberman, I recently did eighteen classes on him. You can find them on Youtube here, and they are also currently being turned into podcasts which are on Spotify and other platforms. One interesting point about Lieberman which I did not mention is found in his letter to Gershom Scholem, dated July 10, 1967. (Lieberman’s letters to Scholem are found at the National Library of Israel.) Here he states that he was upset that he was not in Israel during the Six Day War, which would have enabled him to suffer together with Israel’s inhabitants. He comforted himself with the knowledge that he was able to have more of a positive impact in the U.S. than his presence would have had in Israel. He tells us what he has in mind, namely, that he permitted collecting money for Israel on the holiday. As Dr. Aviad Hacohen has pointed out to me, this must be referring to Passover, when tensions between Israel and its neighbors were already at a high level, rather than Shavuot, which came out after the war was over. Here are Lieberman’s words:

הצטערתי מאד שלא הייתי בארץ לפני פרוץ המלחמה ובפריצתה ולא זכיתי להצטער עם הציבור במקום הדאגה והצער, ונֶחׇׇמׇתי היא שהבאתי תועלת כאן הרבה יותר מאשר מציאותי בארץ. התרתי כאן לאסוף כספים ביו“ט, והרבנים שלנו פחדו לעשות כן בפומבי, ופסקתי להם שיטילו את כל האחריות עלי. מעניין שהרבנים האורטודוקסיים שהתנגדו לכך לא פצו אח“ז את פיהם למחות נגדי. אני מכיר יפה את אמריקה ואת ההתלהבות הגדולה שהיא גם עלול להצטנן קצת במשך שעות

We see that his pesak was for the Conservative movement, and when he says “our rabbis,” he means the Conservative rabbis, which he distinguishes from the Orthodox rabbis.

When people think of Lieberman they often think about another instructor in Talmud at JTS, namely, Rabbi David Halivni. I think readers will enjoy two recent publication by Zvi Leshem that record all sorts of interesting stories about Halivni, much like similar collections have been put together about so many great rabbis. See here and here.

Regarding Halivni, the following is also of interest. In 2006 a two-volume book about R. Menahem Mendel Hager of Visheva was published, Ha-Gaon ha-Kadosh mi-Visheva. Here is the title page.

R. Menahem Mendel was the grandfather of Halivni’s wife, and in the second volume there is a dedication from Halivni and his sons in memory of her. Notice how Halivni is referred to as Ha-Gaon and shlita.

5. Unlike today where there are thousands of color pictures of the current gedolim, in the past pictures of great rabbis were uncommon. Just think of the few that are available of for each gadol who lived before the Second World War. When it comes to R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, who died in 1966, we have a good number of pictures of him. However, until now no color pictures of R. Weinberg have ever appeared. I am happy to present the only color pictures of R. Weinberg that I have ever seen. They were taken by R. Weinberg’s nephew, Dr. David Corn, on a visit to Montreux in 1958 or 1959. I thank the Corn family for granting me permission to publish these pictures. The originals are now kept at Ganzach Kiddush Hashem in Bnei Brak.

In this picture we see a young R. Yitzhak Scheiner and a young R. Aviezer Wolfson on the right. Thanks to R. Jeremy Rosen for the identification of R. Wolfson.

Here is Dr. Corn with R. Weinberg.

Here are the remaining pictures he took.

6. In July 2023 I led what I was told was the first ever kosher tour to Tunisia, courtesy of Torah in Motion. Seeing this unique Jewish community up close was an amazing experience for all. 

Here is a beautiful picture from last summer’s trip to Tunisia. The photographer is Alan Messner and it was taken in Djerba. (I encourage everyone who studies Talmud Yerushalmi to check out Alan’s valuable index here.)

Quiz

Please identify the following and email me your answers:

1. There are two se’ifim in the Shulhan Arukh that only contain two words.

2. There is one siman in the Shulhan Arukh whose number is the gematria of the subject of the siman.

Coming next: More on Saul Lieberman, and R. Moshe Zuriel: A Great Teacher in Israel

* * * * * * *

[1] Regarding the Rav and converts, in R. Chaim Jachter’s fascinating new book, Gray Matter, vol. 5, p. 163, he mentions that in a 1985 shiur the Rav stated that non-Jews have a “right to convert.” R. Jachter elaborates on the halakhic implications of this notion.
[2] David Holzer, ed., The Rav Thinking Aloud (Miami Beach, 2009), p. 319.
[3] “Letters from the Rav,” Hakirah 32 (2022), p. 152. Here the Rav is quoted as attributing his position to his father, R. Moses. However, in Reshimot Shiurim: Yevamot (ed. Reichman), p. 211 (to Yevamot 17a), it is attributed to his grandfather, R. Hayyim. After mentioning R. Hayyim’s position that descendants of Jews in Spain who identify as Christians are to be regarded as non-Jews both le-humra and le-kula (meaning their children are also not halakhically Jewish), he adds: והוא חידוש נורא. Levy, p. 82, refers to this page in Reshimot Shiurim, but he focuses on the first possible explanation that the Rav offers, rather than the explanation of R. Hayyim which in practice was what the Rav adopted.

I have to say, however, that the Rav seems to have contradicted himself in a 1965 interview with Ha-Aretz (printed in Community, Covenant and Commitment, pp. 220-221). He stated:

During the “Brother Daniel” episode, I wrote to the Chief Rabbis urging that they should stop attempting to decide this issue according to [formal] Halakhah and decide it based on their emotions. Acccording to [formal] Halakhah, Brother Daniel is a Jew. . . . I prayed that the Justices would not follow the Halakhah.

I must also note that during the Brother Daniel episode in the early 1960s there was only one chief rabbi, R. Isaac Nissim.
[4] It might be an interesting project for someone who listened to many of the Rav’s online shiurim to put together a list of ideas he expressed that are not found in his writings or that are in contradiction to what he wrote. I am sure that there are plenty of examples where the Rav offers an idea that he is not sure about and never would have included in a published work. This is obviously relevant to how much weight we give passages in the series of books The Rav Thinking Aloud.

I thought of this when I read the summary of the Rav’s YU graduate school lecture from the late 1940s published in Hakirah 27 (2019), p. 51:

The commandment of lo tirtzah was not [meant to be] self-evident to the intellect. It is also a hok, as is the eating of hazir. The only difference is that it fits into our moral concept of thinking, whereas hazir doesn’t. [It is not obvious] reasoning that I should not murder someone who stands in my way.

Was this really the Rav’s settled opinion, or was he just trying to be provocative with the students, in order to bring out a point? I do not see how the Rav could have really thought that lo tirzah is a hok, and I do not know of anyone who has made such a claim. After all, the prohibition of murder is one of the Noahide Laws, none of which are hukkim. 

In Community, Covenant and Commitment, p. 333, the Rav accepts that there are “rational laws.” He adds that when the Jews were commanded about rational laws, “an internal-natural instinct was transformed into a Divinely revealed command.” Furthermore, “the normative field of operation was expanded and deepened and reached the depths and farthest boundaries of idealism, which are unknown to the psychological instincts and predilections.”

In Shiurei Harav, ed. Joseph Epstein (Hoboken, 1974), p. 114, the Rav includes lo tirtzah among the mishpatim, but here too he seems to be denying what we can call a natural law prohibition against murder according to R. Akiva. If one were to follow this approach, I do not see how the prohibition against murder can be regarded as a mishpat.

R. Akiva is saying that since you said “Do not murder,” we don’t murder; but if you did not say it, we might do it. R. Ishmael says that even without God, man would know better. For R. Akiva, a man is capable of murder and is stopped only because of God.

Today, not much proof is needed of R. Akiva’s point of view. There is some devil in man; some satan who can suddenly come to the fore. To prevent this, we need the word of God. For R. Akiva, the mishpatim, those rules for which we think we know the reason should be done on the same basis as the hukim, for which we do not know the reason.

Some might wish to bring proof that the prohibition against murder can be seen as natural law since God judged Cain guilty of murder and this was before the giving of the Torah. Yet this is not a strong point because according to Bereishit Rabbah 16:6, and see also Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 9:1, Adam was already commanded against murder. Yet the fact remains that non-Jews are forbidden to murder, and are called to account for violation of this command. This applies even if they had never heard of God’s revelation to Noah or Moses. Doesn’t this mean that this law is in principle knowable by reason?

Marvin Fox has a different approach.

“Ye shall keep my statutes (Lev., 18:5). This refers to those commandments which if they had not been written in Scripture, should by right have been written. These include the prohibitions against idolatry, adultery, bloodshed, robbery and blasphemy [Yoma 67b].” There is no suggestion here that human reason could have known by itself that these acts are evil, nor is it suggested that they are not consistent with man’s nature. What is asserted is only that, having been commanded to avoid these prohibited acts, we can now see, after the fact, that these prohibitions are useful and desirable.

Fox. Interpreting Maimonides (Chicago and London), p. 127. When it comes to Maimonides, the crux of the problem revolves around Guide 2:33 where he categorizes murder (and the other final seven commandments of the Ten Commandments) as belonging to the “class of generally accepted opinions,” as opposed to the first two commandments which are rational, “knowable by human speculation alone.” For the most recent discussion of Maimonides and Natural Law, see Shalom Sadik, Maimonides: A Radical Religious Philosopher (Piscataway, N.J., 2023), ch. 4.

In the Hakirah article mentioned earlier in this note, the Rav also states as follows:

Those who possess greater knowledge and skill possess also the higher ranks in society. Yet Judaism tried to equate the dignity of every individual regardless of his possession of knowledge. [It differentiated] only in regard to his intellectual drive. Where Judaism gave preference to the hakham over the am ha’aretz, it was not with regard to his accumulation of wisdom but simply because he was engaged in this great ethical drive. If a man tries and fails, he is not condemned. [Rather] he receives equal respect [to that] of the hakham.

These are nice sentiments, but the Rav knew full well that this was never how Jewish society functioned. The am ha’aretz, even one who tried, and failed, to become learned in Torah, was never given equal respect to the hakham.

In reading over this note, I see that I have another point to add. I wrote: “After all, the prohibition of murder is one of the Noahide Laws, none of which are hukkim.” I do, however, know of one source that disagrees with my statement. R. David Kimhi, Commentary to Gen. 26:5, writes:

גם יש בשבע מצות שנצטוו בני נח שאין טעמם נגלה אלא לחכמים והם הרבעת בהמה והרכבת האילן ואבר מן החי לפיכך אמר: חקותי, ואמר: מצותי, כלל לכל המצות השכליות בין בלב, בין ביד ובין בפה מצות עשה ולא תעשה

This is a problematic passage. Leaving aside his assumption that ever min ha-hai is a hok, the other two examples he gives, mixed breeding of animals and grafting of trees, are not included in the Seven Noahide Laws. There is a dispute among the rishonim if these actions are forbidden for non-Jews. Those who hold they are forbidden see these as additional prohibitions separate from the Seven Noahide Laws.

In a future post I will deal with the issue of positive commandments that non-Jews might be obligated in. These are also not included in the Seven Noahide Laws which are only negative commandments.
[5] See my “Letters from the Rav,” p. 151.
[6] Eretz ha-Tzvi, p. 140. This is noted by R. Chaim Jachter, Gray Matter, vol. 5, p. 188.
[7] See p. 25 n. 7, where Henkin tells us that after presenting his approach to R. Lior the latter agreed that one should also perform a comparative analysis with stainless steel and other materials. It does not appear that this would have any impact on his halakhic decision, and he has not publicized a retraction. I would say to R. Eitam, and I regret that I did not have the opportunity to do so in his lifetime, that if scientifically it has been shown that there is no absorption in stainless steel, then as I mentioned in the text, I do not see why the comparative study he suggests accomplishes anything.
[8] See his letter in Ha-Ma’yan 53 (Tevet 5773), pp. 90-93. See also the discussion in Nadav Shnerb, Keren Zavit (Tel Aviv, 2014), pp. 314-322.
[9] See Jeffrey Saks, “Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate,” B.D.D 17 (2006), pp. 45-67. See also the lengthy new article by Aviad Hacohen which focuses on the 1935 candidacy of the Rav for chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, but also discusses the period after R. Herzog’s death, “Ki mi-Neged Tir’eh et ha-Aretz ve-Eleha lo Tavo,” in Dov Schwartz, ed., Tziyonut Datit 9 (2023), pp. 153-222.
[10] See David Holzer, ed., The Rav Thinking Aloud (n.p., 2009), p. 143.
[11] R. Meir Mazuz, Mi-Gedolei Yisrael, vol. 1, pp. 197-198, points out that in the first printing of R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai (Hida), Ma’agal Tov (Livorno, 1879), the printer omitted the details that the Hida recorded about the way Jews in Tunis ate, which their coreligionists in Europe would have viewed as distasteful. This was restored in the Freimann edition, Ma’agal Tov ha-Shalem (Jerusalem, 1934). One of the things the Hida mentions is that in Tunis they ate with their hands, and you can see how uncomfortable it made him (p. 56):

ואוכלים בידיהם ורגליהם וכל שמנונית מלא חפניהם והיה מגביה הגביר חתיכת שומן בעודה בכפו יבלענה ומנקה ידו במטפחת שעל ברכיו והמטפחת נעשה כבית המטבחיים

“And they eat with their hands and with their feet, and with all the fat are their hands filled: the g’vir would lift up a piece of fatty meat and, while holding it in his hand, would he swallow it and then wipe his hands on a towel on his knees; and this towel would become like a butcher’s shop.”

The Diary of Rabbi Ha’im Yosef David Azulai, trans. Benjamin Cymerman (Jerusalem, 2006), Part 2, p. 20.

R. Yisrael Dandrovitz has a fascinating article devoted to the issue of eating with silverware, including the dispute over whether the sages of the Talmud ate with silverware or with their hands. He also deals with the practice of many hasidic rebbes to eat with their hands (some only eat fish with their hands). See “Al Ketzeh ha-Mazleg” Etz Hayyim 21 (5774), pp. 238-269.
[12] I was skeptical about this report of the Rav being considered, and wondered if Homa had remembered correctly. But R. Abraham Lieberman called my attention to Meir Persoff, Hats in the Ring: Choosing Britain’s Chief Rabbis from Adler to Sacks (Boston, 2013), p. 116, where we see that the Rav was indeed one of proposed candidates. The documentary evidence provided by Persoff contains nothing about the Rav’s table manners as a reason for him not being invited to interview for the position of Chief Rabbi.
[13] See also R. Bezalel Naor’s letter in Or ha-Mizrah, Nisan 5766, p. 192 n. 1. R. Naor, who is nothing less than a treasure in the world of Jewish scholarship, continues to amaze with his many contributions. His most recent book is Souls of the World of Chaos, which while focused on Rav Kook also encompasses the entire range of Jewish thinkers.
[14] Shabbat 17b in the Rif pages, s.v. u-mihu.
[15] Yaskil Avdi, vol. 2, no. 2.
[16] Beit Avi, vol. 3, no. 115:6.