Plagiarism, Halakhic Paradox, and the Malbim on Kohelet

Marc B. Shapiro

1. A story recently appeared alleging plagiarism in the writings of R. Yonah Metzger.[1] Such accusations are nothing new and the topic of plagiarism in rabbinic history is of great interest to me. Many of the scholars of Jewish bibliography have also written about the phenomenon,[2] and a good deal on the topic has appeared on the Seforim Blog.[3] Suffice it to say that every generation has had problems in this regard, and we see even see apparent instances of it in the Talmud.[4] The examples range from taking another’s ideas (including one’s teacher[5]), to copying sections of another work, to reprinting an entire book and changing the title page.[6] It is interesting that R. Moses Sofer, unlike others, is reported not to have been troubled by people plagiarizing from him. As he put it, he doesn’t mind if they attach his hiddushim to their names, as long as they don’t attribute their own hiddushim to him.[7]

R. Isaac Sternhell, in the introduction to his Kokhvei Yitzhak, vol. 1, gives a good illustration of how widespread the problem of plagiarism has been in explaining why R. Joseph Karo and R. Moses Isserles don’t mention anything in the Shulhan Arukh about the obligation to repeat a Torah teaching in the name of one who said it (itself of great importance, not to mention the geneivat da’at involved if one doesn’t give proper credit [8]). R. Sternhell states that that since so many people plagiarize, including תלמידי חכמים שיראתם קודמת לחכמתם, therefore, just like it is a mitzvah to say that which people will listen to, so too it is best to be quiet about something they won’t pay attention to [9]. R. Sternhell reports that this reason was actually given by R. Yissachar Dov Rokeah of Belz in explanation of why there is nothing in the Shulhan Arukh about the prohibition of leshon hara.[10]

והם מתוך שחששו מלהביא קטרוג על כלל ישראל התעלמו מדינים אלה בפסקי הלכה והשמיטום. ובכך קיימו דברי הנביא עמוס (ה’ ג’) והמשכיל בעת ההיא ידום

R. Sternhell then lists a few books that plagiarized, and the books from which they stole. The problem is that he only identifies the plagiarizing books by their initials, which makes identifying them quite hard.

Today we have Otzar ha-Hokhmah which makes spotting plagiarism easier. Let me share with you one example. I am a long time reader of the journal Or Torah, which is where so many of R. Meir Mazuz’s writings have been published. In Tamuz 5758 an article appeared by a certain R. Daniel Weitzman. Here are the first two pages. On the second page there is something suspicious, which I don’t know if anyone other than me would take notice of. He cites R. Weinberg’s famous responsum on abortion but instead of citing it from Seridei Esh, he refers to an earlier appearance in Ha-Pardes. This sort of thing immediately sets off bells for me, since how would a rabbi in Israel in the pre-hebrewbooks.org and pre-Otzar ha-Hokhmah era have access to a thirty-year-old issue of Ha-Pardes? How would he ever come to that? In fact, if you look at the article, it seems that he doesn’t even know what Ha-Pardes is, referring to it as Pardes. The title he gives to R. Weinberg’s article is also not correct and is taken from the source he plagiarized from.

Now compare what Weitzman wrote with what appears in R. Shmuel Hayyim Katz’s Devar Shmuel (Los Angeles, 1986).

Weitzman has not just plagiarized, but he has copied word for word from Katz. Needless to say, I was quite distressed when I saw this. Since it is rare that someone plagiarizes only once, I decided to check Weitzman’s other articles that appeared in Or Torah.

Here is an article from Tamuz 5757 (first page, but here is a link to the complete article).

This article is also plagiarized from R. Katz’s Devar Shmuel.

And here Weitzman’s article from Or Torah, Av 5758, and it too is plagiarized from R. Katz’s Devar Shmuel.

Here are the pages from Devar Shmuel:

With the aid of Otzar ha-Hokhmah I was able to find the following. Here is the first page of Weitzman’s article that appears in Or Torah, Heshvan 5761.

It is taken almost word for word from R. Mordechai Friedman’s Pores Mapah (Brooklyn, 1997).

Pores Mapah is not a well-known book (although it has much to recommend it), and having been published in the U.S. was probably hard to come by in Israel. This is the perfect sort of book for an Israeli to plagiarize from, and years ago it would have been virtually impossible for anyone to realize what had happened. Yet with Otzar ha-Hokhmah I was able to locate the plagiarism in a matter of seconds.

I think the explanation for plagiarisms like this is simply because people are greedy. They not only want that which they can achieve, but want to take from others as well. To once again cite the Gaon R. Mizrach-Etz, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”

Yet I must also note are cases of men who plagiarized in their early years but later became great Torah scholars, showing that a youthful error need not determine the course of one’s subsequent development.[11]

Sometimes, what appears to be a plagiarism has a much simpler explanation.[12] Here is a page from R. Moses Teitlebaum’s Heshiv Moshe, no. 87.

Compare this responsum with what appears in R. Abraham Bornstein, Avnei Nezer, Hoshen Mishpat, Likutei Teshuvot no. 101. The responsa are basically identical except for the dates and addressee.

What is going on here? I think it is obvious that R. Bornstein had a handwritten copy of the responsum, which he presumably copied out of Heshiv Moshe, a work published in 1866. After his death the one who put together his responsa did not realize that this was a responsum of R. Moses Teitelbaum, so he published it adding Bornstein’s signature and a new date. He also assumed that when the original responsum referred to the questioner as ש”נ it meant שינאווי when in fact it means שיאיר נרו or שיחיה נצח. Furthermore, in the original responsum it states דבר זה מתורת משה ילמדני which is an allusion to the one being asked the question, R. Moses Teitelbaum. Yet this was overlooked when the responsum was included in the Avnei Nezer.

Here is another example of what has been alleged to be plagiarism.[13] It is a passage from the Beur Halakhah, 494, s.v. מבחודש השלישי.

Now look at the Shulhan Arukh ha-Rav, 494:8-11, and you can see that it has been copied word for word, even though at the end of the Beur Halakhah it states: זהו תמצית דברי האחרונים

What to make of this? One of the commenters on the site that calls attention to this text sees here an indication that the Hafetz Hayyim’s son was also involved in the writing of the Mishnah Berurah (as he claimed), since the Hafetz Hayyim himself would not do such a thing. Yet matters are more complicated than this, as there are also other places where the Mishnah Berurah copies word for word from the Shulhan Arukh ha-Rav (and presumably from others sources as well).[14] Are we to assume that these were all inserted by his son?

It appears that the Hafetz Hayyim’s conception of what was proper in using earlier sources differed from what is accepted today, much like standards were also different in medieval times. Furthermore, since the Hafetz Hayyim writes זהו תמצית דברי האחרונים, even from a contemporary perspective we are not dealing with plagiarism. But the question is – and I don’t have the answer – why in some places the Hafetz Hayyim did not indicate when he was taking material from the Shulhan Arukh ha-Rav. He does mention in the introduction that the Shulhan Arukh ha-Rav is one of the sources from which his own commentary derives its material, and he constantly refers to it, so why in this case is there no indication of his source? Maybe one of the readers can answer if the Shulhan Arukh ha-Rav is unusual in this regard, or if this is done with other sources as well. As far as I know, we don’t yet have an edition of the Mishnah Berurah that provides all the sources used in the text.

2. In Ha-Ma’ayan, Tishrei 5771 and Tevet 5771 there are articles on the idea of “Halakhic Paradox” by R. Michael Avraham and R. Meir Bareli. You can see Ha-Ma’ayan online here.

Here is another halakhic paradox that I found in the journal Ohel Yitzhak, Sivan 5668, p. 4b. Take a look at R. Menahem Ratner’s second question. I tried to actually put what he is asking into English but was unsuccessful as my mind kept going in circles. As with all such cases, and one immediately thinks of Zeno’s paradoxes, the problem is to determine if we are indeed dealing with a real paradox or if the paradox is only apparent. So I ask those readers who want to try to get their head around what Ratner is saying, is this a real paradox or is he missing something?

3. In the past few years there were many topics I wanted to get to, but simply didn’t have the time. These matters are not much in the news now so I won’t discuss them in detail as I had originally hoped to. However, I will make a few comments as I think readers will still find the topics of interest.

Let’s start with the commentary of the Malbim on Kohelet that was published in 2008. Here is the title page.

Understandably, there was much excitement when this book appeared since it is quite an event when an unknown commentary of such a major figure is discovered. However, the excitement was short-lived, as it soon became known that the commentary was not by the Malbim but by a nineteenth-century maskil, Jonah Bardah. Even more embarrassing for the publisher, Machon Oz ve-Hadar, is that Bardah’s commentary even appeared in print in 1850. Here are the title pages.

This would be bad no matter who the publisher was, but the fact that Machon Oz ve-Hadar is from New Square, which is as far removed from Haskalah imaginable, makes the mistake drip with irony.

How did such a blunder happen? Today, it seems that everyone is looking for unknown material to publish. There are a number of journals that devote a good deal of space to this, and I often wonder what will happen when we run out of unpublished documents. With this mindset you can imagine how excited the publisher was when he was informed that someone had located a previously unknown commentary by the Malbim. The assumption that this was the Malbim’s text was due to the similarity between the method of commentary in the newly discovered work and other commentaries of the Malbim. Without careful examination, the Kohelet commentary was published and this would in turn lead to great embarrassment, not to mention a lot of wasted time and money.

The story of this mistake is found in a document entitled Sheker Soferim. Here is the title page.

(A softened version of this article appeared in Yeshurun 25 [2011], pp. 724ff., and there the author’s name is revealed: R. Avraham Yeshaya Zecharish.[15]) This is really a damning document as it shows that the publisher had already been told that the handwriting of the commentary was not that of Malbim. I am not going to say that the publisher knowingly printed a fraud in order to profit by the Malbim’s name. But I think it is obvious that that the publisher’s great desire to publish the work caused him ignore what he had been told and to instead rely on his own “experts.” Whoever edited the work also showed his (their?) ignorance, since when the commentary referred to רמבמ”ן , not knowing that this referred to Mendelssohn the text was “corrected” to read רמב”ן!

Despite my sense that there was no intentional fraudulence in this publication, I don’t entirely discount the possibility that the publisher knew the commentary was not by Malbim but printed it anyway. I say this because as shown in Sheker Soferim there is one passage in the commentary where the “Malbim” claims that there is a mistake in the biblical text. The editors censored this passage, and this to be expected as from a haredi perspective such a comment is heretical. But if so, could the publisher actually believe that the Malbim wrote that which was censored?

Lest people think that things like this don’t have real effects in the world, let me just note that, as pointed out by Eliezer Brodt, an entire chapter of a doctoral dissertation is devoted to the false Malbim commentary on Kohelet.[16] Just think of how many hours were devoted to this dissertation chapter, all of which were wasted.

While Zecharish points to various “problematic” elements of the commentary that the publisher should have been aware of, he misses one right on the first page.

The notes at the bottom of the page are found in the original manuscript and publication. Here is the page.

In the commentary to the first verse the “Malbim” explains how the beginning of biblical books, where the author is introduced, is written by a later person.

.ואדמה כי לא יטעה כל משכיל לחשוב אשר המחבר בעצמו דיבר אלה הדברים

In the note the “Malbim” adds:

.עיין בהראב”ע בהתחלת ספר דברים

The beginning of Deuteronomy states: “These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan.” Upon these words Ibn Ezra introduces his “secret of the twelve” which focuses on post-Mosaic additions to the Torah. It is incredible that while the “Malbim’s” intention is crystal clear, namely, that the beginning of Deuteronomy was written after Moses, the editors didn’t catch this and see anything problematic in the comment, a comment that would never have been made by the Malbim.[17]

——

[1] See here. For former French Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim’s plagiarism, see the statement in First Things available here.

I think this sentence, from the article, is particularly apt:

One of the perversions of our era is to make a god of intellectual property. Most commentators described Bernheim as “stealing” words and sentences. This is wrongheaded. Plagiarism is a sin against truth, not property. It’s first and foremost a kind of lying, not a kind of stealing. He violated our trust by speaking in a voice that was not his own, which is why in this and other cases of plagiarism the writer loses intellectual and moral authority broadly.

The importance of our spiritual leaders speaking the truth cannot be stressed enough. R. Kook writes about how forces of heresy were strengthened when people saw unethical behavior among בעלי תורה ואמונה. See Eder ha-Yekar, p. 43.

R. Joseph Ibn Caspi explains at length how a prophet, who models himself on God who is called א-ל האמת, always speaks the truth, even when speaking to his wife and children (!). See Shulhan ha-Kesef, ed. Kasher (Jerusalem, 1996), pp. 146, 163. This is so important to Ibn Caspi that he deals with a number of biblical examples where it appears that a prophet did not speak truthfully, and he argues that the meaning is not what appears at first glance. The one case where he acknowledges that we are dealing with a lie is Jacob telling Isaac, “I am Esau your firstborn” (Gen 27:19). Yet this does not affect Ibn Caspi’s thesis because he claims, p. 150, that when Jacob told this lie he was not yet a prophet.

.הנה כחש אבל עדין לא הגיע למדרגת הנבואה עד היותו בדרך חרן וראה הסולם

After his discussion about prophets and how they were always truthful, Ibn Caspi concludes, p. 163, that this is also how a חכם should behave. Our rabbis now stand in place of the prophets of old, thus they too much be paragons of truth.

With regard to Ibn Caspi’s Shulhan ha-Kesef, I would like to make one further point. In a previous post, see here, I discussed how, according to Ibn Caspi, the Torah contains statements that are not actually true, but were believed as such by the ancients. We see another example of this in Shulhan Kesef, p. 147, where he writes, in seeking to explain an example where it appears a prophet lied:

.כי הנביא שם משותף וכבר הרחיב הכתוב ואמר “חנניה הנביא” בסתם

What Ibn Caspi is saying is that even though the Bible refers to someone as a prophet, this doesn’t mean he was really a prophet. It could be that he is referred to as such because this is what the people believed, even though the people were incorrect. In other words, the Bible incorporates the incorrect view of the people in its narrative. The proof he brings is from Jeremiah 28 where Hananiah is referred to as a prophet but in reality he was a fraud.

[2] See most recently Shmuel Ashkenazi, “Ha-Gonev min ha-Sefer,” Yeshurun 25 (2011), pp. 675-690.

[3] See here.

[4] See e.g., Bekhorot 31b, Menahot 93b; R. Moses Zweig, Ohel Moshe, vol. 1, no. 41. The fact that the Sages had this problem in their own day is probably also why they stressed the importance of proper attribution. This is pointed out by R. Nathan Neta Olevski, Hayei Olam Nata (Jerusalem,1995), p. 241:

מזה נראה כי גם בימיהם כבר פשתה המספחת להתגדר בגנבי גנובי את תורת אחרים ולכן ראו חז”ל להגדיל ערך המשתמר מזה ולחשוב דבר זה בין המ”ח דברים שהתורה נקנית בהן

[5] See e.g., R. Yekutiel Yehudah Greenwald, Mekorot le-Korot Yisrael (n.p., 1934), p. 48.

[6] See e.g., Nahum Rakover, Zekhut ha-Yotzrim bi-Mekorot ha-Yehudi’im (Jerusalem, 1991), pp. 38ff.

[7] Otzrot ha-Sofer 14 (5764), p. 91:

.זה אני מוחל לכם אם אתם אומרים חידושיי בשמכם, אבל אם אתם אומרים חידושים שלכם בשמי זה אינני מוחל לכם

For a communal rabbi, who was expected to prepare his own derashot, it was unacceptable to inform his listeners that he was using material from others. However, R. Asher Anshel Yehudah Miller, Olamo shel Abba (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 187, reported one tongue-in-cheek justification of this practice if due to circumstances beyond his control the rabbi was unable to properly prepare for his Shabbat ha-Gadol derashah. Since the Talmud, Pesahim 6a, states שואלין ודורשין בהלכות פסח, one can derive from this that מותר “לשאול” מאחרים בשעת הדחק ולדרוש בהלכות פסח

[8] I mention geneivat da’at, yet according to some one who plagiarizes actually violates the prohibition against actual geneivah. See R. Yaakov Avraham Cohen, Emek ha-Mishpat, vol. 4, nos. 2, 24; R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer, Hadar Yaakov, vol. 5, no. 38. R. Isaiah Horowitz, Shenei Luhot ha-Berit: Masekhet Shevuot, no. 71, writes about plagiarism: יותר גזילה מגזילת ממון

R. Eleazar Kalir states that the plagiarizer violates a positive commandment. See Havot Yair (Vilna, 1912; printed as the second part of the Malbim’s Eretz Hemdah), p. 26a:

ואומרים חידושי תורה מה שלא עמלו בו רק מפי השמועה שמעו ואומרים משמיה דנפשם ועוברים על עשה . . . שכך אמרו כל האומר דבר בשם אומרו מביא גאולה לעולם

See also the very harsh comments of R. Joseph Hayyim David Azulai in his Berit Olam to Sefer Hasidim, no. 224, which should be enough to scare away at least some of the plagiarizers:

אם כותב ספר וגנב תורת אחרים . . . בחצי ימיו יעזבנו ואחריתו יבא בגלגול אחר ויהיה נבל ויהיה מזולזל כי נבל הוא ונבלה עמו. רחמנא ליצלן

[9] Robert Klein called my attention to the final part of R. Solomon Ephraim Luntshitz’s introduction to his Keli Yekar, where he suspects that some of the commentators who preceded him were guilty of plagiarism. See also his Olelot Ephraim, at the end of the introduction, where he claims that all the plagiarisms are delaying the arrival of the Messiah. He plays on the verse עשות ספרים הרבה אין קץ and explains that since so many new books are full of plagiarisms, עשיית ספרים הרבה גורם איחור קץ הימים.

R. Solomon Alkabetz, Manot ha-Levi (Lvov, 1911), p. 91b, also refers to the plagiarizers of his day. I called attention to R. Eliyahu Schlesinger’s plagiarism in my review of Avi Sagi’s and Zvi Zohar’s book on conversion, available here. See p. 9 n. 29. See also my post from June 25, 2010, available here, where I cite another case of plagiarism from Schlesinger. I found these examples by chance, and I am sure that if I were to carefully examine the latter’s writings I would come up with more. Yet there doesn’t seem to be much point in doing so, since in the haredi world there simply is no accountability in matters like this.

A number of scholars have discussed plagiarism with regard to Abarbanel, and I hope to return to this. For now, let me just note the following. In his introduction to Trei Asar, p. 13, Abarbanel explicitly denies that he plagiarized, while at the same time accusing R. David Kimhi of doing so.

שהמובחרים והטובים מהפירושים שזכר רבי דוד קמחי מדבר [!] הראב”ע לקחה [!], עם היות שלא זכרם בשמו ואני איחס כל דבר לאומרו פן אהיה ממגנבי דברים

At the end of his commentary to Amos, he repeats the accusation:

ומה שפירש עוד בהלא כבני כושיים בשם אביו הנה הוא לקוח מדברי הרב רבי אברהם בן עזרא ומה לו לגנוב דברים

See R. Dovberish Tursch, Moznei Tzedek (Warsaw, 1905), p. 195; Abraham Lipshitz, Pirkei Iyun be-Mishnat Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra (Jerusalem, 1982), p. 131.

[10] It is hard to take this explanation seriously. Talking during the repetition of the Amidah has always been common, yet rather than omit mention of this matter, the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 124:6, writes:

לא ישיח שיחת חולין בשעה שש”צ חוזר התפלה ואם שח הוא חוטא וגדול עונו מנשוא וגוערים בו

R. Zvi Yehudah Kook reported that his grandfather, R. Shlomo Zalman Kook, once strongly rebuked someone for talking during the repetition of the Amidah. When it was pointed out to him that דברי חכמים בנחת נשמעים, he replied that the Shulhan Arukh uses the word גוערים and that does not mean a gentle suggestion but a sharp rebuke. See R. Yair Uriel, Be-Shipulei ha-Gelimah (n.p., 2012), p. 32. (The story immediately following this one is also of interest. It records that R. Zvi Yehudah opposed the common practice [at least in America] of singing אשמנו בגדנו:

יש לומר את הדברים ברצינות, בצער ובכאב, ולא מתאימה לזה שירה

It seems that R. Abraham Isaac Kook followed in the path of his father. See ibid., pp. 58-59, for the famous story of how R. Kook, while rav in Bausk, once slapped a “macher” in the face when he insulted R. Zelig Reuven Bengis. (The story is told in great detail in R. Moshe Zvi Neriyah, Sihot ha-Re’iyah [Tel Aviv, 1979], ch. 22.) R. Kook later explained that he did not slap the man in a fit of anger, but was of completely sound mind and did it in order to follow the Sages’ prescription of how to respond to one who degrades a Torah scholar:

“וכך אמר: “דינא הכי, מי ששומע זילותא של צורבא מרבנן צריך למחות

All I would say is that one must be careful with who one slaps. R. Yekutiel Yehudah Greenwald, Li-Felagot Yisrael be-Ungaryah (Deva, 1929), p. 25, records a story from mid-eighteenth-century Hungary where in the synagogue and in front of the congregation the head of the community slapped the rabbi in the face. This was the last straw for the rabbi (who was really a phony), and he, his wife, and children converted to Christianity.

R. Naphtali Zvi Judah Berlin would occasionally slap a student in the face. On one occasion it even led to a noisy protest by the students. Because the students refused to back down, the Netziv unable able to deliver his shiur. This led to him making a public apology to the students, which they happily accepted. See M. Eisenstadt, “Revolutzyah bi-‘Yeshivah,’” Ha-Tzefirah, June 2, 1916, pp. 1-2 (referred to by Shaul Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Ninteenth Century [Oxford, 2012], p. 113).

Since we are on the subject of slapping in the face, and since I mentioned R. Yitzhak Zilberstein in my last post, here is something else from his Hashukei Hemed on Bava Kamma, pp. 492-493.

I think it is quite interesting that he takes it as a given that policemen in Israel will beat thieves until they confess. Is there any truth to this at all? He himself thinks it is good that thieves be given a good slap in the face.

There are many more examples I could cite of people being slapped in the face, including by rabbis. One thing that is clear is that face-slapping has gone out of style.. It is like fainting, which was common in old movies. But when was the last time you saw a woman faint? It just doesn’t happen anymore.

Returning to R. Bengis, it is noteworthy that he and R. Kook were great friends from their days in Volozhin. See the booklet Or Reuven (Jerusalem, 2011), which is devoted to their relationship R. Bengis’ letters to R. Kook in Iggerot la-Rei’yah show that he regarded R. Kook as rav of Jerusalem and chief rabbi of the Land of Israel. Only after R. Kook’s death did R. Bengis become Rosh Av Beit Din of the Edah Haredit in Jerusalem. His life-long admiration for R. Kook, even in his new position with the Edah Haredit, is, of course, not usually mentioned in haredi discussions of him. Since in the past I have criticized Yeshurun for its conscious distortions (all in the service of the haredi cause), let me now praise it for including the following in vol. 12 (2003), p. 156 n. 35.

Rabbi Nathan Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol, pp. 305-306, reports in the name of R. Yosef Buxbaum that R. Bengis knew the poetry of Pushkin. (He also quotes a report that R. Bengis did not know Russian and when tested by a government official to ensure that secular studies were being taught in Volozhin, he just repeated the page of Pushkin from memory which he had prepared ahead of time by having another student read it for him. This strikes me as an apologetic attempt to “kasher” R. Bengis, as followers of the Edah Haredit will not take kindly to the knowledge that R. Bengis knew Russian poetry.)

For a recent discussion of R. Bengis and his brother, who went by the name of “Ben Da’at”, see here.

According to an unpublished collection of Brisker stories in my possession, R. Velvel Soloveitchik said about R. Bengis that just because one is a great talmid hakham does not mean that he is also a leader. Perhaps R. Velvel had this view of R. Bengis because the latter’s extremist credentials left something to be desired.

[11] Marvin J. Heller, Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden and Boston, 2008), p. 204, writes as follows about R. David Lida: “I would suggest, and this is highly speculative and certainly not a justification, that Lida’s acts of literary piracy were youthful improprieties, albeit of a most serious nature. A young man, inexperienced, perhaps immature, from whom much was expected, hoping to impress others and to further a burgeoning career, erred and claimed authorship of works he had not written, but rather discovered in manuscript.”

[12] The following example, with some of the explanations I give, is found here.

[13] This too was noted here.

[14] In a comment to my last post, someone wrote:

“The part about Anshei Keneset ha-Gedolah requiring the Amidah to be recited twice a day and that women are also obligated in this is not from Nahmanides. This is the Mishnah Berurah speaking.”

Actually, these are the words of the Shulchan Aruch HaRav (או”ח קו,ב), quoted here verbatim.

This practice of the MB citing whole paragraphs from the SAH – without attributing the author – is common throughout the his work, in leads many times to run-on sentences and disambiguation such as the one at hand.

[15] See also the online discussion here.

[16] “Ha-Sinonomyah bi-Leshon ha-Mikra al Pi Shitat Malbim,” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Bar Ilan University, 2009).

[17] See here where I mention how R. Yosef Reinman also didn’t know anything about Ibn Ezra’s “critical” views. In the post I also discuss the controversy regarding Reinman co-authoring a book with a Reform rabbi. In the introduction to his Avir Yosef (Lakewood, 2008), Reinman defends himself.

Partnership Minyanim and More

Partnership Minyanim and More

Marc B. Shapiro

1. A few people have wanted me to comment on the recent debate between Rabbis Barry Freundel and Zev Farber about the so-called Partnership Minyanim in which women lead Kabbalat Shabbat. See here. The issue goes back to R. Freundel’s article in Tradition 44:2 (2011) on the topic. I was planning to respond to this article when it first appeared, and even wrote some pages, but I never completed the piece. Since the issue has once again surfaced, now is a good time to deal with it. Some of what I will say was also stated by an anonymous commenter on the Torah Musings blog, but both R. Zev Farber and Lazer Kaganovitch can testify that I sent them these points before the commenter posted anything, so I see no reason not to record my thoughts. (I should also note that this anonymous commenter, while pointing out errors and misreadings by R. Freundel, did not show proper respect in recording his criticisms.)

In his article, R. Freundel argues against the Partnership Minyanim with an original approach. Rather than summarize his viewpoint in my own words, this quotation sets forth his thesis, which the article attempts to prove:

In those communities which do not employ a Hazan for Kabbalat Shabbat, that lack would indicate that they view this liturgy as neither mandatory nor communal. Nonetheless, putting a woman (and maybe a child) into the role of Hazan would still be problematic. Adding a Hazan makes the prayer mandatory and communal but women and possibly children cannot lead a mandatory communal prayer. As a result, even in a setting that currently has no Hazan, the innovation of using a Hazan who cannot serve as a Hazan for communal prayer creates a halakhic dissonance that is unsustainable.

This is quite an argument and if it could be sustained, then it would be a significant contribution to the debate. However, in my opinion, and the opinion of everyone I know who has examined the issue, R. Freundel’s argument is completely unconvincing. There is simply no way that having a person read a few paragraphs of Psalms or more recent compositions before some other people makes the prayer “mandatory” and “communal.”

Before getting into some particulars of R. Freundel’s piece, let me offer a more general criticism. Reading the article I was troubled by the author’s need to come up with a halakhic argument to forbid that which pretty much everyone can see is not a halakhic matter at all (apart from possible halakhic concerns of tzeniut). Those who are in favor of Partnership Minyanim devote great efforts to show that there is no halakhic objection, and therefore these minyanim should be instituted, and R. Freundel is playing the same game, but from the other side. He feels that he needs to show why Partnership Minyanim are halakhically forbidden, and therefore shouldn’t be instituted.

The truth of the matter is that many of the most important things traditional Jews do and don’t do have nothing to do with halakhah. Something can be a bad idea, even a very bad idea, and deserve to be rejected even if there is no technical halakhic objection to it. As the Steipler wrote (Karyana de-Igarta [2011 ed.], vol. 2 no. 581):

יש כמה דברים שאין בכח החכם להורות איסור אע”פ שבאמת אינו נכון כלל

There are good reasons people can offer in opposition to Partnership Minyanim without falling into the “pan-halakhic” trap that everything you oppose has to be shown to be halakhically improper. Opponents of the Partnership Minyanim should be able to acknowledge that if non-bar mitzvah age boys are permitted to serve as a hazan for pesukei de-zimra or Kabbalat Shabbat then, apart from issues of tzeniut (in which I include kol ishah), there is no “technical” halakhic objection with women doing so as well. But as mentioned already, lack of a prohibition doesn’t necessarily make something a good idea. Plenty of synagogues will not let someone serve as a hazan if he is wearing jeans (or if he is not wearing a jacket or hat), yet this doesn’t mean that we need to find a technical halakhic objection for something which is at essence a matter of synagogue custom and propriety, and therefore does not need to be supported by halakhic sources. By the same token, I think we have reached the point whereby the typical Orthodox rabbi acknowledges (privately, at least) that there is no real halakhic objection to a woman rabbi, while at the same time continuing to oppose the concept (much like many oppose yoatzot halakhah). They oppose it because of how women rabbis will change the structure of traditional Judaism, change it in way they view as negative. This point can be made without using halakhic arguments that after a little investigation people will see don’t carry any weight. This is especially so in the Modern Orthodox world where there are women principals of Jewish day school, women synagogue presidents, women teachers of Talmud, women learning advanced halakhah, and no one bats an eye when a woman speaks in front of men.

For those who oppose things like women leading Kabbalat Shabbat, a weak halakhic argument is worse than no argument at all. The best tactic for the opponents is simply to keep the issue focused on what direction is best for Judaism. It is known that a number of great rabbis refused to provide halakhic reasons for particular decisions they gave, especially when the halakhic justification was weak. They chose this path precisely because they didn’t want these issues to become matters of halakhic debate, as there were other, even more important considerations guiding them. (In a future post I will give examples.) What R. Freundel’s article does is empower the proponents of Partnership Minyanim because they can rightfully say, “If this is the best our opponents can muster in terms of halakhic objections, then there really is no reason to oppose what we are doing.”

Now let’s turn to some particulars, as there are a couple of points in R. Freundel’s article that I would like to comment on. He writes:

The second oft-cited opinion in Rishonim is that of Nahmanides, who argues for obligatory twice a day recitations of the Amidah by women at Shaharit and Minha. The problem is that, despite the fact that the Mishna Berurah quotes this approach in the name of Ramban, I cannot find this opinion anywhere in Nahmanides’ writings. An examination of the section of Shulhan Arukh where Mishna Berurah makes this statement indicates that he is quoting R. Akiva Eiger.

There is a misunderstanding here. Here is the passage from the Mishnah Berurah 106:4 referred to by R. Freundel.

What the Mishnah Berurah is saying is that Nahmanides’ view is that prayer is a rabbinic commandment. The part about Anshei Keneset ha-Gedolah requiring the Amidah to be recited twice a day and that women are also obligated in this is not from Nahmanides. This is the Mishnah Berurah speaking. Contrary to what R. Freundel writes, the Mishnah Berurah is not quoting R. Akiva Eger.

In the next paragraph, Freundel writes:

R. Eiger cites Nahmanides from section 89 of Responsa Besamim Rosh. At one time this book was attributed to a variety of important scholars including Ramban, but now it is known to have been written by Isaac Molina in the 16th century. . . . Section 89 of Besamim Rosh tells us that women “in our area” are required to pray twice a day because “they have accepted this practice upon themselves.” This is hardly an indication that all Jewish women are required to recite the formal liturgy at Shaharit and Minha as Mishna Berurah claims.

Here is the responsum from Besamim Rosh.

It never uses the words “in our area”, and furthermore, the responsum is not from Nahmanides. It seems that R. Freundel makes the false assumption that at one time this book was attributed to Ramban because he thinks that R. Akiva Eger is citing a responsum of Ramban in Besamim Rosh. Yet Besamim Rosh was never attributed to Nahmanides nor to Isaac Molina.[1] The latter supposedly gathered the teshuvot (that is what it says on the title page, but this is part of Saul Berlin’s forgery). This means that R. Freundel’s critique of the Mishnah Berurah falls by the wayside, since the responsum in Besamim Rosh has nothing to do with the Ramban and thus nothing to do with the Mishnah Berurah’s point, which is derived from the Ramban. .

Here is the text from R. Akiva Eger.

In his heading he cites Ramban, but that is simply a quote from the Magen Avraham, and has nothing to do with the Besamim Rosh that he cites immediately following this. All R. Akiva Eger is doing by citing Besamim Rosh is providing another relevant text dealing with the issue under consideration, i.e., women and prayer. In R. Akiva Eger’s responsa, vol. 1, no. 9, he cites this same responsum in Besamim Rosh. (R. Akiva Eger thought that Besamim Rosh was an authentic work.[2])

However, how did R. Freundel ever assume that Besamim Rosh was citing Nahmanides? He never could have concluded this if he used the Machon Yerushalayim edition, which is the text I just used. He also could not have concluded this if he used one of the older editions of the Shulhan Arukh in which R. Akiva Eger’s note doesn’t even refer to Ramban. See here:

Yet here is the text as it appears in what used to be the standard edition of the Shulhan Arukh. In this edition there is a mistake in R. Akiva Eger’s text and it indeed has him stating that Nahmanides’ view is found in Besamim Rosh.

R. Freundel writes:

While all agree that women do not count towards adding Elokeinu, there is some debate about whether women can count among the three for zimmun. Nonetheless, even for those who say that women do count for the three no one suggests that a woman can lead if there are both men and women present. This is either because women’s obligation is rabbinic while men’s is Biblical or because the formal text of Birkat ha-Mazon contains references to certain mitsvot (e.g., circumcision) which are not applicable to women (emphasis added).

The passage I have underlined is incorrect. Ritva writes as follows[3]:

נשים חייבות בברכת המזון מן התורה, ולפיכך אשה מברכת לאיש על ידי זימון, או אם הוא עם הארץ להוציאו ידי חובתו כדרך שהאיש מוציאו.

See also R. Asher Ben Hayyim, Sefer ha-Pardes, ed. Blau (New York, 1984), pp. 176-177, and also the Hazon Ish, Orah Hayyim 30:8, who mentions that according to one approach in the rishonim גם הנשים רשאות לזמן כה”ג אם אין אנשים בקיאין .

R. Yitzhak Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Orah Hayyim 186:5, writes:

אשה שבירכה ברכת המזון ונתכוונה להוציא את האיש ידי חובתו, ושניהם אכלו כדי שביעה, בדיעבד יצא ידי חובה, ואינו צריך לחזור ולברך

A good discussion of the issue is found in R. Yehudah Herzl Henkin, Bnei Vanim, vol. 3, no. 1.[4]

R. Freundel writes:

The presence of a Hazan was essential to Magen Avot becoming a mandatory tefillah be-tsibbur. Magen Avot became mandatory with a Hazan. . . . If the presence of a Hazan makes a prayer mandatory, then Kabbalat Shabbat, which today has a Hazan in the vast majority of synagogues, is also mandatory.

I think R. Freundel has it all backwards. The presence of a hazan never made Magen Avot mandatory. Rather, when Magen Avot was made mandatory, it was required that there be a hazan. But what does this have to do with Kabbalat Shabbat which was never made mandatory by anyone?

R. Freundel writes:

R. Kook maintained that one who has heard the repetition of the Amidah on Rosh Hodesh thereby fulfilling his tefillah be-tsibbur requirement, but who must repeat his silent Amidah because he forgot Ya’ale ve-Yavo[,] counts among the six to whom four who previously prayed are added for recitation of devarim she-bi-kedushah. His repeat prayer constitutes tefillat rabbim in that venue, which is sufficient to count him in the majority of a tsibbur that has not yet prayed. Tefillat rabbim is, therefore, not a larger form of individual prayer, rather it is a diminished form of tefillah be-tsibbur and therefore, he counts because his is a minor act of communal prayer.

This description is incorrect as R. Kook does not “maintain” that which is being attributed to him. In his responsum, Orah Mishpat, no. 23, R. Kook presents both sides of the matter and concludes וצריך בירור. What this means is that he does not make a final decision. In any event, what does this have to do with someone such as a minor or a woman leading a prayer that is not obligatory?

The larger problem of R. Freundel’s article is that he makes assumptions which are simply not in accord with the practice of Jewish communities. For example, his argument leads to the conclusion that it should be forbidden (not just inappropriate, but forbidden) for someone under bar mitzvah age to lead any part of the service. Yet this is the practice in communities all over the world. Doesn’t every Modern Orthodox synagogue have a child lead Adon Olam? R. Freundel assumes that the only reason this can be permitted is because of hinnukh considerations. That is possible, but it is just as likely permitted precisely because there is no prohibition, and it is a nice thing to do. In other words, there is no default position that it is prohibited, from which one then needs to then find a way to permit.

The Beit Yosef, Orah Hayyim 53, discusses the practice of children leading the congregation in maariv and those who objected. He explains that the practice can be defended since there is no repetition of the Amidah, the hazan is not fulfilling anyone’s obligation for him, and maariv is also reshut. In other words, there are no considerations of hinnukh raised here, and for the Beit Yosef there is no default position that it is prohibited, and certainly no concept of tefillat rabbim, (which is mostly a hiddush of R. Freundel). It seems to be entirely a matter of synagogue etiquette, i.e., kevod ha-tzibbur, and if this can be overcome, then there is no halakhic problem. R. Yitzhak Zilberstein even argues that in an extreme circumstance (the particular case concerned a prison) one need not protest if a non-Jew leads the maariv service![5]

Let me stress that there is nothing wrong with R. Freundel coming up with a hiddush dealing with tefillat rabbim. However, a hiddush such as this cannot be the basis for forbidding a practice such as Partnership Minyanim. To see how far R. Freundel’s model takes him, in response to criticism he even stated that it is forbidden for a woman to recite tefillat ha-derekh on behalf of men and also to lead a communal recitation of Psalms. R. Freundel assumes that this is all tefillat rabbim and therefore forbidden for a woman to lead.

I have no doubt that if you ask the typical posek about a woman reciting tefillat ha-derekh or reading a Psalm before a mixed group of men and women, he will say it should not be done, for reasons of tzeniut or mesorah. But if you ask him if it is forbidden on account of tefillat rabbim, he won’t have a clue what you are talking about. Speaking historically, there is simply no such halakhic framework, and I find it hard to believe that people are going to be convinced that if some men and women sit down to read a few Psalms together (or a liturgical text of more recent vintage) that there is a prohibition for a woman to lead the recitation. (Again, I am not referring to tzeniut issues here.). Let me just remind readers that R. Ovadiah Yosef, relying on numerous rishonim, has ruled that if necessary a woman can read the Purim megillah for men (which might arise if no men know how to read it).[6] If the halakhically obligatory Megillah can be read by women for men, with none of the poskim saying a word about a concept of tefillat rabbim, then why should people accept that there is a prohibition for a woman to lead a group of men and women in recitation of a Psalm? (I realize that one can respond that reading the Megillah is not tefillah, but it would nevertheless be strange to permit a woman to read an entire book of the Bible before a group of men, and at the same time not allow her to read even a few verses from another book, i.e., Psalms.)

There is a good deal more to say about the phenomenon of Partnership Minyanim and the strange way they came about. Before Prof. Daniel Sperber got involved, the basis for them was an article written by an otherwise unknown rabbi in the Edah Journal. I can’t help but wonder about the halakhic methodology of changing traditional Jewish practice simply because a rabbi writes an article with some suggestions. If tomorrow a rabbi, any rabbi, writes an article arguing that in today’s day and age when men and women mix freely, that there is no need for a mehitzah in prayer (after all, it is not mentioned in the Shulhan Arukh), would that then give people carte blanche to remove the mehitzah? Had this not already been an issue between the Orthodox and Conservative, and thus of great symbolic significance, I am sure the mehitzah would already have been removed in liberal Orthodox synagogues. And what about counting women in the minyan? Halakhic arguments can be advanced for this as well. Is the only reason the liberal Orthodox don’t accept R. Ethan Tucker’s and R. Micha’el Rosenberg’s arguments[7] because of their non-affiliation with Orthodoxy? If an Orthodox rabbi had advanced the same argument as them, would it then be OK to move to complete halakhic egalitarianism?[8]

2. In a previous post I wrote about the dispute over whether there is pesak in hashkafah. Only recently did I see the following relevant statement of R. Soloveitchik, The Emergence of Ethical Man, p. 6 (emphasis added).

It is certain that the fathers of the Church and also the Jewish medieval scholars believed that the Bible preached this doctrine [the separateness of man from nature]. Medieval and even modern Jewish moralists have almost canonized this viewpoint and attributed to it apodictic validity. Yet the consensus of many, however great and distinguished, does not prove the truth or falseness of a particular belief.

In my article, I discussed some of the difficulties with the Hatam Sofer’s position that principles of faith can change with time, and are determined in a fashion no different than typical halakhic decisions. I argued that this understanding diverges from that of the rishonim. In R. Dovid Cohen’s recently published Ha-Emunah ha-Ne’emanah (Brooklyn, 2012), p. 41, he appears troubled by the Hatam Sofer’s approach.

וקשה מאד להתאים דברי הח”ס שעיקרי הדת חשובים עיקרים שהכל צריכים להאמינם מפני ההכרעה שאז י”ל שהפורק עול שאינו רוצה לקבל ההכרעה נענש מטעם זה, אבל איך זה שייך לסברת האברבנאל והגרי”ז שמי שאינו מאמין אין לו התפיסה שיוכל להשיג עולם הבא האם ההשגה תלויה בהכרעה או במציאות של האמת והאם שייך לומר שלרב הלל יש חלק בעוה”ב והבא אחריו שסובר כוותיה אין לו חלק לעולם הבא שאינו יכל להשיג. . . . ועיין לקמן בעיקר ז’ שהערתי שמשמע מהאריז”ל ומבעל התניא שהם חולקים על החתם סופר ודו”ק.

What does the last word (abbreviation) mean, as it does not stand for ודוחק קצת, which is how it is usually understood? Furthermore, what are we to do with the expression והדברים ברורים ודו”ק that appears in Maharsha and elsewhere? I remember how in yeshiva we didn’t know what to make of this, since it obviously doesn’t mean ודוחק קצת. One rebbe told us that the abbreviation mark is a mistake and it should be read as ודוק, that is, “examine it carefully” (like ודייק). It is also possible that the abbreviation stands for ודיק וקרא, although this meaning is not mentioned in Otzar Rashei Tevot. R. Meir Mazuz recounts that in Tunis they explained it: ואחר דרישה וחקירה קל. (Otzar Rashei Teivot has ודייק ותמצא קל). See his Lo Tashikh (Bnei Brak, 2005), p. 8 (first numbering). But he assumes that the real meaning is as I mentioned, i.e., ודייק.

Returning to R. Cohen’s book, it really requires a post of its own, as it contains all sorts of interesting things. Here is one example, from p. 127, where he suggests an interpretation of the Twelfth Principle of Maimonides according to which belief in a personal Messiah and other details in the Principle are not really required beliefs.

וצ”ל שהעיקר הי”ב הוא גאולה באחרית הימים והכופר בזה הוא כופר גמור והפרטים שכתב הרמב”ם שיהיה משיח והוא מיו”ח של שלמה בן דוד אין זה מהעקרים שהכופר בהם אינו נחשב ככופר והוא חידוש עצום.

I only quote this for its novelty, as it is contradicted by Maimonides’ explicit words in the Principle. With reference to the detail of the Messiah’s genealogy, Maimonides states: “Included in this fundamental principle is that there will be no king of Israel except from David and from the seed of Solomon exclusively. Anyone who disputes concerning this family denies God and the words of His prophets.”

On p. 162 R. Cohen states that according to Maimonides even non-Jews are obligated to believe in the Thirteen Principles. He concludes his paragraph with ודו”ק, and again, it does not mean ודוחק קצת.

ועיין סוף פ”ח ממלכים שכתב וז”ל כי [כל] המקבל שבע מצות ונזהר לעשותן הרי זה מחסידי אומות העולם ויש לו חלק לעולם הבא. והוא שיקבל אותן ויעשה אותן מפני שצוה בהן הקב”ה בתורה והודיענו על ידי משה רבינו שבני נח מקודם נצטוו בהן. אבל אם עשאן מפני הכרע הדעת אין זה גר תושב ואינו מחסידי אומות העולם ולא מחכמיהם עכ”ל. ומשמע מכאן שהרמב”ם בא לכלול הגוים שהם חסידי אומות העולם שמאמינים בתורה, אבל אינם מאמינים בי”ג עיקרים שאין להם חלק לעוה”ב . . . הרי מוכח כנ”ל שגוי צריך להאמין בי”ג עקרים ודו”ק

Contrary to R. Cohen, when Maimonides speaks of righteous non-Jews being required to believe in the revelation at Sinai, this has nothing to do with acceptance of the complete Thirteen Principles.

One more point about R. Cohen’s book is that it is obvious that at times he is responding to what I wrote in The Limits of Orthodox Theology (and he also makes use of many of the sources I cite). While I am not mentioned by name (no surprise there) I am apparently included among the משמאילים referred to on p. 5 (see Limits, pp. 7-8).

Finally, let me add more comment about the Thirteen Principles. Just when I was about send in this post, I received the latest issue (Spring 2013) of the journal Conversations, published by Rabbi Marc Angel’s Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. Each issue is a great read as it includes material from both well-known scholars as well as talented newcomers who have a lot to contribute and whose writings have often been real eye-openers for me.

Among the established writers in the new issue is R. Nathan Lopes Cardozo. If there is any contemporary writer in the Orthodox world who reminds me of the early Hasidic masters, the Kotzker, or even R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg in his private moments,[9] it is R. Lopes Cardozo. Reading him one can sense how difficult it is for R. Lopes Cardozo to live in a world in which spiritual authenticity is in such short supply. As with his similar-minded predecessors, he too must protest, and the real perplexity is why so many others don’t join in this protest. The questions he asks, and what keeps him up at night, are exactly what should be on the mind of all thinking Orthodox Jews, even if one may disagree with the answers he gives.

His latest article, which appears in Conversations, is entitled “Lonely but Not Alone: An Autobiography by a Jew Who Should Never Have Been.” On p. 10 he writes:

It became clear to me that Judaism is based on the need for absolute questioning. I discovered that there are no absolute dogmas in Judaism, at least not in the way they are found within the Catholic Church. Maimonides’ famous Thirteen Principles of Faith, which are sung in nearly every synagogue on Friday nights, were never accepted as the final version of Jewish belief and were in fact heavily attacked and challenged by the greatest rabbinical authorities. Today, I see that Maimonides’ thirteen principles caused major damage to Judaism. It was the famous Professor Leon Roth who once remarked: “For this Hebrew of Hebrews had in many respects a Greek mind and through his sense of logic and his passion for precision, he brought Judaism into a doctrinal crisis, the echoes of which are with us yet” (Judaism, A Portrait, 1960, p. 122). How true! Judaism, while surely consisting of certain beliefs, is open to self-critique, debate, and ongoing discussions that have almost never been resolved. This spoke to my imagination. A religion with no dogmas, always open to new ideas! What could be better than that!

3. In a previous post I called attention to a bizarre segulah from R. Zvi Hirsch Kaidonover which I didn’t translate and which I suggested the police might regard as a form of sexual abuse. The text is as follows:

ועוד סגולה נפלאה לתינוק הנולד שלא יקרה עליו חולי נכפה בר מינן, מיד כשנולד ישימו בפיו ברית קודש של תינוק ויהיה ניצול כל ימיו מחולי נכפה

If you thought that this was strange, I guarantee that you will find the following, which was sent to me by a friend, even stranger.

The text comes from Meir Benayahu, Toldot ha-Ari (Jerusalem, 1967), pp. 224-225, and describes a “cure” recommended by R. Isaac Luria. The passage is too bizarre to translate. If the man who “came to the rescue” was just a man off the street it would be one thing. However, we see that it was none other than R. Moses Galante, a great sixteenth-century Torah scholar of the land of Israel who was given real semikhah by R. Joseph Karo. Even though the pre-modern mind was able to come up with all sorts of strange “cures”, I would like to believe that the entire story is a fiction. But even if it never happened, the fact that people believed it happened tells us a great deal about their mindset.

On p. 110 n. 4, Benayahu cites the following text from R. Hayyim Vital (and note the shocking passage I have underlined):

בענין לילית ההורגות את הילדים מבן שמונה ימים ללידתם . . . נטיתי אז ושמתי אבר מילת נער קטן בפי הילד תכף כשנולד טרם שיינק . . . ואמנם פעמים אחרות עשיתי כל הנ”ל וגם דברים אחרים, שנבאר עתה, ולא ניזוק. ואלה הם: לשים אבר מילת אבי הנולד עצמו בפי הילד טרם שיינק

On p. 111 he records a story that once when a lion was about to attack R. Hayyim Ben Attar

גילה בריתו ברית קדש, וכשראה אותה האריה ברח מפניו . . . שמעולם לא ראה טפת קרי

All of these texts relate to the power of circumcision, a topic that is relevant to an earlier post here where I discussed the notion that Eliezer took an oath to Abraham by placing his hand on Abraham’s circumsision.

Returning to the first story quoted from Benayahu, there is no doubt that people can believe all sorts of strange things. There is currently a situation in London where a leading rabbi is charged with inappropriate contact with women. This rabbi denies the charges. However, he has admitted, so I am informed, that he did touch women in non-sexual ways, but this was done as part of his “therapy” which he claims was halakhically permitted. Now obviously we can’t have a situation where a male therapist, or “therapist”, is arm wrestling or massaging his female patients. In fact, after everything we have seen these last few years, I think we can all agree that there can’t be any touching.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when in the most recent volume of Ma’ayan Omer I came across the following text:

R. Ovadiah gives permission for a kabbalist to touch a woman as part of his kabbalistic healing. R. Ovadiah requires that he wear gloves when touching her, but this is still surprising, as once such a heter is given it is not too difficult to see where this can lead..

I didn’t know what to make of the words צריכה להתפשט. Does this mean that a woman can remove all her clothes if that’s what the kabbalist needs in order to complete the healing process? (According to news reports, the Breslov figure currently in the news for sexual impropriety operated in this way). I was certain it couldn’t mean this, but then what does it mean? I wrote to R. Avraham Yosef and here is his reply.

Even with R. Avraham’s explanations, both regarding the nature of the pesak and the limited removing of clothes, it is still very difficult to stomach. But I acknowledge that this is only because of my rationalist perspective and my assumption that virtually all of these “kabbalists” are more snake oil salesmen than anything else. (R. Yitzhak Kaduri, a real kabbalist, said that an authentic mekubal does not charge money for helping people, so that immediately knocks out some of the most popular “kabbalists” who make a very good living at their craft.) However, for one who believes that a kabbalist can heal just like a doctor, then all the heterim that apply to a male doctor, including touching a woman while healing her, would also apply to a kabbalist. Skeptical as I am, I wonder why such a powerful kabbalist can’t do his healing without touching the woman.[10]

[1] This information is available simply by googling “Besamim Rosh”, and the first two results are from Seforim Blog posts. The third result is Wikipedia which also states that Besamim Rosh is an eighteenth century forgery.

[2] This can be seen from how he cites the source, and see also his note to Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer 117, where he is explicit (this source was noted by one of the commenters on Torah Musings).

[3] Hilkhot Berakhot 7:2 (p. 106 in the Mossad ha-Rav Kook edition).

[4] R. Baruch Gigi, one of the roshei yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, believes that women saying birkat ha-mazon together with their families can be counted towards a mezuman. See Yonatan Gershon, “On Women Joining in a Zimmun,” Meorot 9 (2011), available here. I have yet to see this acted on in practice.

[5] Hashukei Hemed, Berakhot 51b. R. Zilberstein’s books contain some of the strangest cases. I don’t know whether these are actual cases or if people just ask him the strange questions knowing he will respond, or if perhaps even he makes up the questions so that he can then discuss the matter להגדיל תורה ולהאדירה

[6] See Yalkut Yosef, Dinei Keriat ha-Megillah, no. 12.

[7] See here.

[8] David Berger has recently alluded to Partnership Minyanim in his “Texts, Values, and Historical Change: Reflections on the Dynamics of Jewish Law,” in Michael J. Harris, et al., eds., Radical Responsibility: Celebrating the Thought of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (Jerusalem, 2012). In referring to Haym Soloveitchik’s thesis in “Rupture and Reconstruction,” Berger writes (p. 204): “[S]ome of those who lionize the mimetic society as they savour the anti-haredi uses of Soloveitchik’s analysis are simultaneously impelled by feminist convictions to change generations of synagogue practice on the basis of textual analysis far more tenuous than the considerations that lead the traditionalist Orthodox to their usually more stringent deviations from the practices of the past. Affirmation or rejection of a mimetic ideal can depend very much on whose ox is being gored.”

[9] I think readers will appreciate this letter of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg. It first appeared in Mordechai Eliav and Yitzhak Rafael, eds., Sefer Shragai (Jerusalem, 1981), p. 275, and was reprinted in Ba’ayot Aktualiyot le-Or ha-Halakhah (Jerusalem, 1993), pp. 58-59. We are now sixty years after R. Weinberg wrote his letter, and not only have things not gotten better, but they have actually gotten much worse.

[10] In the recently published Mesorat Moshe, p. 612, it records that R. Moshe Feinstein responded as follows, after being told of a dentist who sexually assaulted female patients while they were sedated: אמר רבינו שממש פלא, דהלא זה כנגד החזקה שאומן לא “מרע אומנותו”. I don’t understand R. Moshe’s surprise, as he could say the same thing about teachers or anyone else who engages in this sort of behavior. Since we are dealing with people who are sick, there is no rational calculation for which you can apply the concept of מרע אומנותו. We have already seen numerous people who have destroyed their lives and their families by engaging in the sort of behavior, and taking the sort of risks, that simple self-interest would be enough to deter normal people from. (In a future post I will discuss other passages in Mesorat Moshe.) Also regarding sexual (and physical) abuse, R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv writes, in discussing whether to inform the authorities (Kovetz Teshuvot, vol. 4, no. 198):

יש גם לשקול בגדר של ההתעוללות, שבהשקפה שלהם היא אחרת לגמרי משלנו

What does this mean? In what way is the religious Jewish approach to this matter superior to that found among non-Jews and non-religious Jews?

And finally, I found what I thought was a strange passage in R. Abraham Bornstein, Avnei Nezer, Even ha-Ezer no. 44. Much like Todd Akin, the Avnei Nezer thought that a woman couldn’t get pregnant through rape (unless . . . actually I would rather not explain it).

ואם היתה אנוסה מתחילה ועד סוף ולא רצתה בו כלל אי אפשר שתתעבר, רק שיש חשש שמא תחילה באונס וסופו ברצון . . . אלא ודאי כמ”ש משום דבאונס מתחלה ועד סוף אי אפשר שתתעבר

I have not found such a notion in any earlier rabbinic source. However, S. of On the Main Line called my attention to Rachel P. Maines, The Technology of Orgasm (Baltimore, 2009), pp. 51-52, from which we see that there was indeed a long-standing view that conception was not possible without female orgasm or at least desire.

Torah mi-Sinai and More

Torah mi-Sinai and More

by Marc B. Shapiro

1. Some people have requested that I do more posts on theological matters, as I have done in the past. So let me begin with what I think will be a three-part series on Torah mi-Sinai.

In a previous post, available here, I mentioned R. Shlomo Fisher’s rejection of R. Moshe Feinstein’s view that R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s “biblical criticism” was not authentic. As R. Fisher put it, R. Moshe assumed that even in the past everyone had to accept Maimonides’ principles, but that was not the case, and when it came to Mosaic authorship R. Yehudah he-Hasid disagreed with Maimonides. R. Uri Sharki has apparently also discussed this with R. Fisher, as he cites the latter as claiming that the issue of whether post-Mosaic additions are religiously objectionable is a dispute between the medieval Ashkenazic and Sephardic sages. See here.

What this means is that in medieval Ashkenaz it was not regarded as heretical to posit post-Mosaic additions, while the opposite was the case in the Sephardic world (and this would explain why Ibn Ezra could only hint to his view). I am skeptical of this point, particularly because Ibn Ezra’s secrets are, in fact, explained openly by people who lived in the Sephardic world.[1] Yet Haym Soloveitchik has also recently made same point, and pointed to differences between Jews living in the Christian and Muslim worlds. His argument is that since medieval Ashkenazic Jews were not confronted with a theological challenge of the sort Jews dealt with in the Islamic world, where Jews were accused of altering the text of the Pentateuch, there was no assumption in medieval Europe that belief in what we know as Maimonides’ Eighth Principle was a binding doctrine of faith.

Here is some of what Soloveitchik wrote (the emphasis does not appear in the original):

One tanna had stated, simply and with no ado, that the last eight verses were of Divine origin but not of Mosaic authorship, and R. Yehudah he-Hasid added that there were several more verses that were not penned by Moses. Was such a position seen as being thoroughly mistaken? Most probably. Was it viewed as odd and non-conformist? Undoubtedly; though hardly more eccentric than R. Yehudah’s view that King David, to flesh out his book of Psalms, lifted from the text of the “original” Pentateuch many anonymous “psalms” that Moses had penned! Were these strange and misguided views, however, perceived as being in any way heretical or even dangerous? At that time and place, certainly not. They contained no concession to the surrounding culture, opened no Pandora’s Box of questions. Indeed, one can take the religious temperature of R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s explanation by the matter of fact way European medieval commentators (rishonim) treated the passages in Menahot and Bava Batra where the tannaitic dictum of Joshua’s authorship is brought.[2] In their world, these words did not abut any slippery slope of a “documentary hypothesis” or of “Jewish forgery”. No need, therefore, to reinterpret this passage or to forfend any untoward implications. What concerned R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s contemporaries, the Tosafists, in this statement were its practical halakhic implications for the Sabbath Torah readings, not its theological or dogmatic ones, for to them, as to R. Yehudah, there were none.[3]

Sharki, who is a leading kiruv figure in the Religious Zionist world, adds something quite amazing. From the standpoint of Ibn Ezra and R. Yehudah he-Hasid, which he sees as an acceptable approach, he writes that what is important is the belief that the Torah is true and from God.

עיקר האמונה הוא להאמין שכל דברי התורה אמת ושהם מפי ה’

In other words, Mosaic authorship is not something people need to put such a focus on.

Sharki goes even further, stating that according to the Kuzari, post-Mosaic prophets could add to and delete material in the Torah. As support for this viewpoint, he cites an article by R. Yosef Kellner in Tzohar 22. (Kellner is a leading interpreter of R. Kook from the hardali camp.) I looked at Kellner’s article and found nothing that says this explicitly. However, I did find an interesting statement in Kellner’s article, and presumably this is what Sharki was referring to (although it still doesn’t say what Sharki claims it does):

אך לכוזרי, כמו לבה”ג, לא כל התרי”ג מצוות התגלו בסיני ההיסתורי, אם כי כולם דברי קבלה ממשה בסיני-הפנימי-נשמתי

This could be a very radical statement, depending on how it is interpreted. On the one hand, it could mean that some mitzvot in the Torah were actually established in a post-Mosaic era, but that is OK since these mitzvot arose from the spiritual wellsprings of Sinai. This is how Sharki must understand the passage. But I think it is obvious that Kellner doesn’t mean this at all, and the reference to the Halakhot Gedolot is the give-away. As is well known, the Halakhot Gedolot counts among the 613 commandments certain rabbinic laws. What the logic of this position is is not our concern at present. For our purposes what is important is that the Behag, and Kuzari, never say that there are mitzvot in the Torah that are post-Mosaic, only that post-Mosaic mitzvot can be counted as part of the 613. There is an enormous difference between this understanding and the following, which is Sharki’s formulation:

לפי שיטת הכוזרי שגם הנביאים יכולים להוסיף או לגרוע בתורה, בניגוד לדעת הרמב”ם

David Halivni, Breaking the Tablets: Jewish Theology After the Shoah, p. 99 (called to my attention by Cemmie Green), states that according to R. Saadiah Gaon, “certain areas of the Law were originally more complete and more explicit in the Torah given by Moses to the people.” Here is the text he bases this statement on, found in Lewin’s introduction to Iggeret R. Sherira Gaon, p. X:

שבתורת משה אנו מוצאים הרבה ענינים הכתובים באריכות כמו למשל מעשה משכן, פרשת מלואים, פקודי ישראל וחנוכת המזבח. ובנגוד לזה כתובים בקצור נמרץ חוקי הזיבות, וחוקי עבור השנה נכללים רק במלת “אביב” גרידא, מה שהוא תמוה מאד אם לא נניח, שגם החוקים הללו היו כתובים באר היטיב אלא שאינם אצלינו בכתב אלא מסורים בעל פה.

It certainly does seem as if R. Saadiah is saying that some laws were removed from the Torah. Yet I also see how someone can argue that, contrary to Halivni, it does not say anything about these laws originally appearing in the Torah. It could be that he is only telling us that part of the “Oral Law” was written down in Moses’ day.

Assuming the latter explanation is what R. Saadiah means, there is good reason to assume that he was not being frank here. At a lecture at the University of Scranton, Prof. Daniel Lasker memorably stated that “all is fair in love and polemics.” If R. Saadiah issaying that part of the Oral Law was written down in Moses’ day, I believe he was twisting the truth as part of his battle with the Karaites. The Karaites were arguing that the Oral Law was not authentic, and R. Saadiah replied that not only was it authentic, but at least some of it was even written down in Moses’ day, thus precluding the sorts of errors that would arise from an oral tradition. R. Saadiah’s approach here would thus be no different than his claim that the calendar was the original way to determine the new moon, with sighting a later innovation. Already Maimonides declared that R. Saadiah did not really believe this, but found it useful to argue this way in the midst of a polemic against the Karaites.[4]

R. Yuval Sherlo was recently asked if it is acceptable to posit post-Mosaic authorship of passages of the Torah, following in the paths of R. Judah he-Hasid and Ibn Ezra.[5] Rather than reject the latter viewpoint, he claims that it is important to stress the ikkar ha-ikkarim, namely, that the authority of the Torah does not depend on who wrote it. What is crucial is that it was given by God. Even if there are verses that were written by someone else other than Moses, as was held by R. Judah he-Hasid and Ibn Ezra, this is not heresy, unless one assumes that these portions were not written through Divine Inspiration. Sherlo himself acknowledges that there is a good deal of evidence apparently pointing to the fact that some verses are post-Mosaic.

ישנם סימנים רבים בתורה שלכאורה מעידים על כך שחלק מפסוקי התורה נכתבו לאחר משה רבינו

He concludes:

על כן, בשעה שמאמינים במוצא העליון המוחלט של כל פסוקי התורה אין איסור להרחיב את מה שאמרו חכמינו על הפסוקים האחרונים בתורה לעוד מקומות בתורה, בשל העיקרון הבסיסי הקיים בדברים אלה – התורה היא מוצא “פיו” המוחלט של ריבונו של עולם.

Needless to say, this is in direct contradiction to Maimonides’ Eighth Principle, and is an opening for Higher Biblical Criticism to enter the Orthodox world. For those who don’t read Hebrew, what Sherlo is saying is that Mosaic authorship does not matter, as long as one accepts that the Torah is divine. This is a huge theological step (a “game changer”), which for those who accept it entirely alters the playing field. This is such a break with the standard Orthodox view that I don’t know why Sherlo’s position has not received any publicity. Let me say it again, in case people haven’t been paying close attention: Sherlo’s argument permits Higher Criticism, as long as one asserts that the entire Torah is divinely inspired.

Sherlo is not some fringe figure. He is Rosh Yeshiva of the Hesder Yeshiva in Petah Tikva and a major personality in religious Zionism. (In the next installment of this series I will present further evidence that in some parts of the Modern Orthodox world the old taboo against Higher Criticism has begun to fade.)

Not surprisingly, Sherlo’s position was challenged by some commenters and he in turn defended what he wrote. Interestingly, one of the commenters writes about Ezra editing the Torah, and Sherlo does not reject this. Instead, he asserts that whoever arranged the Torah did it with prophecy that was the equal of Moses’ prophecy.

מי שסידר את התורה אף הוא עשה זאת בנבואה [!] התורה ולא בנבואה שהיא פחות מנבואת משה רבינו

In other words, Sherlo has adopted Rosenzweig’s point that “R”, instead of standing for “Redactor”, really means “Rabbenu.”[6]

When this formulation was challenged, since how could there be prophets of the level of Moses as this would contradict the Seventh Principle, Sherlo was unperturbed.

[שאלה] מה פירוש נביא שסדר את התורה עשה זאת בנבואת משה רבינו. האם היו עוד נביאים כמשה? הלא מעיקרי הדת שלא היו.

[תשובה] לפי הרמב“ם אלו עיקרי הדת. ברם, אפילו אמוראים סברו אחרת לגבי הפסוקים האחרונים בתורה

In other words, since there are amoraim who disagree with Maimonides’ Principle, it is not binding.[7]

In speaking of the Torah, Sherlo uses this provocative formulation (emphasis added):

ניסוח התורה הוא ניסוח שאנו מתייחסים אליו כולו כאילו כולו יצא מרבונו של עולם בדרגת “תורה” ולא בדרגה נמוכה ממנה.

One of the commenters asks as follows (and both of the possibilities he suggests are far from traditional):

הרב כותב כי “ניסוח התורה הוא ניסוח שאנו מתייחסים אליו כולו כאילו כולו יצא מריבונו של עולם”. האם זהו רק יחס שלנו, והיינו שיש לכתוב סמכות של תורה, או שבאמת אלוקים דיבר וסיעתו של עזרא כתבה?

Sherlo replies that he simply does not know, and that we don’t know what the Torah looked like in the years after it was given (until the days when the Torah she-ba’al peh was written down, and quotations of the Torah are found there). In other words, it might be significantly different than the Torah we have today:

אנחנו לא יודעים. יש חור שחור בתולדות מסירת התורה, כי אין לנו בדיוק מושג מה היה באלף השנים שבין מתן תורה לבין כתיבת התורה שבעל פה. לכן התנסחתי בנוסח זה.

In a previous post I already called attention to a comment by the great R. Solomon David Sassoon, who wrote as follows (Natan Hokhmah li-Shelomo, p. 106 [emphasis in original; I learnt of this passage from R. Moshe Shamah]):

אבל אם יאמר פסוקים אלה נביא אחר כתב אותם מפי הגבורה ומודה שקטע זה הוא מן השמים ומפי הגבורה, אדם שאומר כך אינו נקרא אפיקורוס, מה שהגדיר אותו כאפיקורוס אינו זה שאמר שלא משה כתב את הקטע אלא בזה שהוא אומר שדבר שזה מדעתו ומפי עצמו אמרו ושאין זה מן השמים

This too can provide a religious justification for Biblical Criticism.

Let me make one more comment relating to Biblical Criticism. (There is, of course, more to say, but this can wait until the next installment.) Those who have read my posts know that I find it very interesting when Orthodox figures attack a position as foolish or heretical not knowing that this very position was stated by a great sage. If one was dealing with a detached academic, obviously heresy wouldn’t be a concern. And as for regarding a position as foolish, even if it is pointed out to the detached academic that, for example, Aristotle held this view, he would not retract from his statement that the position he criticized was foolish. It would just be an example where the great Aristotle adopted a foolish position. But in the Torah world, this sort of attitude is improper, so people are in a bind when they learn that the position they thought was foolish was actually held by a great sage.[8] In many cases I assume the people cannot change the way they think. They still think the position is foolish, but they can’t say this publicly anymore. Let me given an example of this relating to Biblical Criticism.

As is well-known, one of the arguments of early Biblical Criticism was that the “Book of the Law”, found by Hilkiah and given to Josiah (see 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34), was actually the book of Deuteronomy, which the Critics assume to be the latest of the books of the Pentateuch.[9] They regard it as a pseudepigraphical document, attributed to Moses. In other words, it was a pious fraud created to provide the basis for Josiah’s reform. Readers can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that this theory has many advocates in recent scholarship. In any event, what concerns me here is that when rabbis and polemicists argue against Biblical Criticism, they often tear part the claim that Deuteronomy is the subject of the Josiah story. One can find lectures online where the speaker will mention this notion, and then reject it with great contempt. The attitude expressed is that anyone with any understanding of the Torah, or even of simple peshat of the relevant verses, would realize that Josiah story must be dealing with a complete Torah, not one book of the Pentateuch. Some go so far as to make it seem that only an idiot could conclude that Josiah is dealing with the book of Deuteronomy. For a traditionalist, this would appear to make perfect sense, since who ever heard of dividing the Torah into separate scrolls?[10]

Yet if the people arguing so strongly against the Josiah-Deuteronomy connection would look at the version of the story in 2 Chron. 34, they would find something that would shock them. While verses 14 and 15 speak of finding ספר תורת ה’ ביד משה and ספר התורה, the commentary attributed to Rashi understands this to mean משנה תורה, i.e., the book of Deuteronomy! In other words, the position of the Bible Critics as to which book was “found”,[11] and the position attacked so mercilessly by the opponents of the Biblical Critics, is in fact held by a rishon! I am not saying that this rishon is a proto-Biblical Critic, or that he denies the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. But he does say that the book found, and which was read to Josiah and so affected him, was not the Torah itself, but only the book of Deuteronomy. I grant that this is an unusual position, but now that we have seen what this rishon holds, does this mean that this viewpoint now has to be treated with more respect, as opposed to the current treatment it gets at the hands of Orthodox polemicists?[12]

This notion, that the book Hilkiah found was Deuteronomy, is also advocated by R. Elijah Benamozegh. [13] Benamozegh states that if this viewpoint is correct, it means that from early on there was a practice to write the book of Deuteronomy separately from the rest of the Pentateuch. He also cites a rabbinic view that the Torah that the king carried was only the book of Deuteronomy.[14] Based upon this, he explains why the book found was brought to the king, since it was precisely this book that the king was obligated to write and carry with himself. Benamozegh concludes:

סוף דבר קרוב ונראה שהיו מעתיקים ס’ מ”ת בפ”ע כמו שנוכיח להבא בע”ה כי ספר תורת משה נכתבה בימי קדם חלקים ונתחים כל א’ בפ”ע, ובראש כל אתוון מה שהעידו רבותינו באומרם: תורה מגלה מגלה נתנה

2. Since in the previous section I referred to Ibn Ezra’s view on post-Mosaic additions to the Torah, let me say a little bit more about this. At the beginning of his commentary to Deuteronomy chapter 34, Ibn Ezra states that the last twelve verses of the Pentateuch were written by Joshua. The Talmud only offers this possibility concerning the last eight verses. The Kol Bo, Seder Tefillat ha-Moadot (ed. Avraham [Jerusalem, 1992), vol. 3, p. 220) writes:

ושמנה פסוקים אשר בזאת הברכה שהם מויעל משה עד ויהושע בן נון, יחיד קורא אותם.

The problem with this formulation is that there are twelve verses from ויעל משה (Deut. 34:1), not eight. I presume that instead of ויעל משה the text should read וימת משה (Deut. 34:5), which is the eighth verse from the end and what the Talmud refers to. It is also possible that instead of stating “eight verses” it should read “twelve verses,” and the Kol Bo would then be agreeing with Ibn Ezra.[15]

In The Limits of Orthodox Theology I referred to Avat Nefesh, an anonymous medieval commentary on Ibn Ezra, as one of those who understood the latter as positing post-Mosaic additions. I had access to the Genesis portion of the commentary which appeared in William Gartig’s 1994 Hebrew Union College doctoral dissertation. A typescript of the complete commentary is now available on Otzar ha-Hokhmah, and this typescript pre-dates 1994. (In the preface to the typescript, the transcriber presents evidence that the author is R. Yedayah ha-Penini [ca. 1270-1340].)[16] In his commentary to Gen. 12:6, Avat Nefesh states that according to Ibn Ezra “many verses” in the Torah were only added after Moses’ death. He also notes that this is the focus of most of Ibn Ezra’s “secrets”.

כי כונתו שזה לא כתב משה אך נכתב אחר שנכבשה הארץ וכן דעתו בהרבה פסוקים ורוב סודותיו סובבים בזה כאשר אמר בראש אלה הדברים.

With the complete commentary we can also see what he says in Deut. 1:1. Here again he explains Ibn Ezra’s secret to be referring to post-Mosaic verses. Yet he also expresses his disagreement with Ibn Ezra and defends Mosaic authorship, although it is not clear if he is disagreeing in general or only with regard to the example he is discussing, where he explains why the expression בעבר הירדן is not an anachronism.

The principle by which Ibn Ezra determined that certain verses are post-Mosaic is if they contain what he regarded as clear anachronisms. All of the examples he gives in his commentary to Deut. 1:1 fall into this category. R. Joseph Bonfils famously argues that while Ibn Ezra acknowledged post-Mosaic additions of individual words and verses, which function as explanatory glosses, Ibn Ezra did not believe that there could be entire sections that are post-Mosaic. This is how Bonfils explains why Ibn Ezra, in his commentary to Gen. 36:31, responded so sharply to Yitzhaki’s suggestion that Gen. 36:31-39 is post-Mosaic:

וחלילה חלילה שהדבר עמו . . . וספרו ראוי להשרף

The problem with these verses is that they begin with the following: “And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.” Some viewed it is an anachronism to speak of the Israelite monarchy when still in the desert. As mentioned in The Limits of Orthodox Theology, R. Judah he-Hasid, R. Avigdor Katz, and according to one Tosafist collection also Rashbam identified these verses as post-Mosaic. As far as I can tell, there is no evidence to support Bonfil’s supposition that Ibn Ezra, for dogmatic reasons, denied that there could be post-Mosaic additions of entire sections. In the case of Gen. 36:31-39, there are internal reasons why Ibn Ezra would not see it as problematic, as he explains in his commentary.

Returning to Avat Nefesh, there is something else noteworthy in the commentary. He mentions that Ibn Ezra believes that “many verses” are post-Mosaic. Although Ibn Ezra himself doesn’t supply us with that many verses, once we assume that Ibn Ezra was guided by what he viewed as anachronisms in pointing to post-Mosaic additions, there is no reason to conclude that the examples he gives in his commentary to Deut. 1:1 exhaust the list. In support of Avat Nefesh’s point, let me mention the following: Ibn Ezra lists Gen. 12:6, “And the Canaanite was then in the land,” as one of the post-Mosaic additions. Understood according to their simple sense, these words can be seen as anachronistic as the Canaanites were still in the Land of Israel in the days of Moses. In other words, the words are written from the perspective of one living in a generation when there were no longer Canaanites in the Land of Israel. If these words are post-Mosaic, then the second half of Gen. 13:7 must also be post-Mosaic, as it says, “And the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the land.” Just as Ibn Ezra didn’t feel it was necessary to spell out his view with regard to Gen. 13:7, so too, Avat Nefesh believes, there are other similar cases.

Avat Nefesh provides an example of this in his commentary to Num. 13:24, where he writes that according to Ibn Ezra (see his commentary, ibid.) at least some of what appears in this verse was written in the days of the Judges.

ר”ל שוירדוף עד דן נכתב לפי דעתו בימי השופטים שאז נקרא שם העיר דן כשם דן אביהם, כן כוונתו בנחל אשכול שנכתב אחרי כן בשמו שקראו הקורא

3. Let us now return to R. Shlomo Fisher, with whom we began this post. Despite coming from a very haredi background, he has close ties with the religious Zionist world. You can see many of his shiurim on www.yeshiva.org.il and here is his picture.

It is because of his ties with religious Zionists that R. Shach criticized him in conversation with R. Mordechai Elefant, late Rosh Yeshiva of the ITRI yeshiva, presumably as a way of pressuring R. Elefant to fire R. Fisher.

Here is how R. Elefant told the story, in his own words:

Rav Shlomo Fisher is a member of my faculty and one of the most brilliant talmudists of this generation. He was born and raised in the heart of Meah Shearim, but he has connections with religious Zionist institutions. I once came into Rav Shach, and he started calling Rav Shlomo a kalyekker [someone not firmly devoted to the purest Torah ideals]. I was annoyed, but I didn’t say anything. This happened a second time. I said to myself then, “If this happens again, I have to do something about it.” It happened again. So I went into Rav Shlomo’s room here in the yeshiva, and I took out a letter written by the Steipler in which he calls Rav Shlomo “pe’er ha-dor” (glory of the generation). Next time I went to Rav Shach, he said again that Rav Shlomo is a kalyekker. I said, “Rav Shach, listen to me. The Steipler is also a kalyekker.” He looked at me like I was crazy, but then I showed him the letter. I never heard any more complaints about Rav Shlomo. I told this to Rav Shlomo and it didn’t mean a thing to him. The only thing he cares about is understanding the Torah.

R. Elefant continued with the following story:

Then there was a time when a member of my own staff came to me with similar objections. He wanted me to get rid of Rav Shlomo. He quotes Bialik, Nietzsche, and all sorts of other things that are generally unacceptable in yeshivot.[17] I told him, “You’re right, but I’ve got one problem. You and me, we can teach these boys here how to understand Talmud. But there’s a lot more to education than that. Who’s going to teach these kids about purity, humility, and integrity? You? Me? That’s what we need Rav Shlomo for.” The guy chuckled and agreed with me.

I have previously mentioned that R. Fisher is, to my knowledge, the only gadol be-Yisrael who is also an expert in medieval Jewish philosophy. Many are disappointed that he does not take a public profile and express his views on issues of the day. If you are part of the group that studies with him every week, then you are fortunate to hear his views (which sometimes filter out). But what about the rest of the world?

A couple more stories R. Elefant told of his relationship with R. Shach are worth repeating. The two of them were close friends for decades, from before the time when R. Shach was recognized as the leader of the Lithuanian Torah world. That is why R. Elefant was able to speak to him in a way that others would never have dared.

Once R. Elefant was in Bnei Brak to give a shiur, and he went to visit R. Shach.

I went into Rav Shach’s room. He greeted me and asked what my lecture was about. I said, “Rav Shach, let’s be frank with each other. You don’t want to know what I lectured about, and I don’t want to know what you lectured about. I came here because you want to shoot the breeze.” His laugh was worth a million bucks to me.

The other story relates to a conflict between R. Shach and R. Yehudah Zev Segal of Manchester. R. Shach was upset with R. Segal because the latter didn’t accept R. Shach’s views which were creating great conflict between the yeshiva world and the hasidim.

Rav Shach heard that I was a friend of Rabbi Segal’s, so he told me he wanted to talk with me about him next time I was in Bnei Brak. It wasn’t too long before I was there, and Rav Shach asked me what I knew about Rabbi Segal. I told him, “I’ll tell you the truth. Rav Shach, you are the most powerful man in this world. You build governments, you break governments. What you say goes. People say about you “kocho ug’vuraso molei olam.” But Rabbi Segal is different. His opinion counts over there in the other world.Rav Shach’s attendants were dumbstruck. They couldn’t believe I had the nerve to say that to his face. But I didn’t meant to insult Rav Shach and he wasn’t fazed. He asked, “Do you really mean that?” I said I did, and after that he left Rabbi Segal alone.

Here is some of what R. Elefant said about Saul Lieberman.

When Lieberman came to Israel, the Brisker Rav acted like he was his best friend. They asked him why, and he had a one-word explanation, “mishpochoh.” They were cousins.

One of the Rav’s sons, I think it was Meir, got engaged to a girl from a family called Benedikt. I was invited to the engagement party. The Brisker Rav was sitting next to Saul Lieberman. I saw it. On Lieberman’s other side was the Mir Rosh Yeshiva, Reb Leizer Yehudah Finkel. That time Lieberman was persona non grata.

Here is another story from R. Elefant.

Lieberman was good friends with Rav Hutner. They were both students of Rav Kook, and they palled around in New York back in the fifties. They both used to go to the 42nd Street Library because there were lots of seforim there. Rav Hutner had a beard as black as coal back then. He wore a short jacket. Lieberman was once standing there in the library and who should come in but his friend, Rav Hutner. Lieberman says in Yiddish, “Here comes God’s dog.” Rav Hutner retorted, “Better to be a dog of God than to be a god to dogs.” Rav Hutner told me that one himself.

4. In a recent post on his blog, R. Daniel Eidensohn refers to my comment in this post where I suggested that the lenient attitude towards pedophilia in much of right wing Orthodoxy is due to the fact that the real trauma of sexual abuse is not something that one can learn about in traditional Jewish sources but comes to us from psychology, and as such is suspect in those circles that see psychology as a “non-Jewish” discipline. Let me offer another example that illustrates how today we take sexual abuse much more seriously than in previous years. Here is a responsum no. 378 from R. Joseph Hayyim’s Torah li-Shemah.

As you can see, the sexual abuse of a child under nine years old was not regarded by him as an earth-shattering violation (certainly not at the level of violating Shabbat or eating non-kosher food). While we regard child sexual abuse as one of the worst things imaginable, it is easy to see how someone whose only exposure to these matters would have been through traditional sources would not see it as such a terrible offense, namely, an offense that would require one turn the person into the police. In another responsum, Torah li-Shemah no. 441, R. Joseph Hayyim writes as follows regarding one who has sex with a child under nine years old:

והרי זה הבועל כמי שמשחית זרעו ע”ג עצם ואבנים

In other words, he sees this as an issue of wasting seed, without any cognizance of the terrible damage done to the child.[18] Responsa like this are important in showing how, with increased knowledge, attitudes have changed. What our generation regards as the most vile behavior was often seen in a very different light in previous generations. This is the only limud zekhut for those who in past years did not take sexual abuse seriously.

R. Ysoscher Katz also called my attention to a relevant discussion on a Yiddish site. See here. One of the matters discussed is a responsum of R. Yair Hayyim Bacharach, Havot Yair no. 108.

I think any modern person reading it will be surprised to see that there is no emotion shown, no reflection on the difficult circumstances of the girl. Everything is examined from a halakhic standpoint. But this again shows how differently we approach these sorts of matters than was the case years ago.

If sexual abuse is treated just like another sexual transgression, then the lenient approach some rabbis have adopted towards it makes sense. After all, shouldn’t a rabbi want to give a sinner the opportunity to repent? Sexual sins have always been regarded differently than kashrut or Shabbat violations. If a rebbe was seen eating a hamburger in McDonalds or driving on Shabbat he would immediately be fired, without any opportunity to repent. But more leeway is given when it comes to sexual sins, the reason being, no doubt, that everyone understands the power of the evil inclination in this area. A good illustration of my point is seen in R. Aaron Walkin, Zekan Aharon, vol. 2, no. 30.

The responsum deals with a shochet who was seen entering the home of a “loose” woman. R. Zalman Sorotzkin didn’t know what do about it and wrote to R. Walkin. R. Walkin refuses to disqualify the shochet, and tells R. Sorotzkin that even if there were two witnesses testifying to the matter it would not change his mind, since this would only turn the shochet into a mumar le-davar ehad! It is true that not all rabbis would have been as lenient as R. Walkin,[19] but the fact that this great posek ruled the way he did is quite significant.[20]

Finally, I am curious to hear what some of the lawyers reading this post have to say about the following: Some time ago, I was contacted by a man who wanted to talk to me about being an expert witness for the defense in the appeal of a sexual abuse conviction. The case is actually one of the worst we have seen. I was told that my role would only be to answer questions about sexual mores in the hasidic world, in particular, how they understand tzeniut. While I am far from an expert on this, not being from that world, the defense team wanted an academic on the stand. (Needless to say, there are academics who would also be much better choices than me.) .

Nothing came of this discussion, and I myself decided that I would have nothing to do with the case after learning the particulars, which are indeed sickening. My question is as follows: We know that defense lawyers are not personally tainted even if they represent horrible people. We recognize that this is their job. My sense is that people would not give the same leeway to an expert witness, and he would be viewed very negatively, as one who was helping to free a sexual abuser. Yet I would like to get some feedback from the lawyers. If I would have agreed to be called to the stand to answer general questions about halakhah and tzeniut, does the fact that I was part of the defense team’s strategy mean that I would be “helping” the defense? It was made clear to me that my role would be to simply to answer general questions and I would have nothing to do with the defendant per se. Another way of framing the question is, would it have been immoral for me to agree to this role if, after having examined the evidence, I was convinced that the defendant committed terrible crimes and should remain in jail?

5. For the runoff quiz I asked the following:

A. What is the first volume of responsa published in the lifetime of its author?

B. There is a verse in the book of Exodus which has a very strange vocalization of a word, found nowhere else in Tanach. (The word itself is also spelled in an unusual fashion, found only one other time in Tanach). The purpose of this vocalization is apparently in order to make a rhyme. What am I referring to?

Some got the answer to the first question, and others got the answer to the second question. But only one person, Peretz Mochkin, got the answers to both.

The answer to the first question is the responsa volume Binyamin Ze’ev (Venice, 1539), by R. Benjamin Ze’ev of Arta.

The answer to the second question is the word אתכה in Ex. 29:35. It is spelled and vocalized the way it is in order to rhyme with the word ככה that appears earlier in the sentence.

וְעָשִׂיתָ לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו, כָּכָה, כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר-צִוִּיתִי, אֹתָכָה

One of the sources that refers to this text is Zev Grossman, Darkhei ha-Melitzah be-Sefer Tehillim. This is a very interesting book on aspects of grammar in Tanach. Here is the title page, with an approbation of sorts from William Chomsky. I don’t know of any other book that puts the approbation on the title page, and in this case the approbation is in English. (William Chomsky, incidentally, is the father of Noam Chomsky.)

One of the things Grossman points out in his book is that there are many examples of verses where we find words in non-grammatical forms in order that they rhyme. Here is just one example, from Psalms 5:8:

וַאֲנִי–בְּרֹב חַסְדְּךָ, אָבוֹא בֵיתֶךָ; אֶשְׁתַּחֲוֶה אֶל-הֵיכַל-קָדְשְׁךָ, בְּיִרְאָתֶךָ

In context, the final word, ביראתך, means “in fear of you”, even though this is not grammatically correct. This form is used to make the rhyme, because if one were applying grammatical rules it would not be spelled this way.

At the end of the Hebrew section of the book, Grossman has a page listing his published books.

As you can see, he also produced a set of gedolim cards. When I was young, in the 1970s, there were gedolim cards. I know this because I collected them.[21] But I never imagined that they existed already in the early 1950s.

6. In my post of January 13, 2013, I wrote: “R. Meir Schiff (Maharam Schiff) is unique in believing that one without arms should put the tefillin shel yad on the head, together with the tefillin shel rosh. This is the upshot of his comment to Gittin 58a.” I saw this comment of Maharam Schiff many years ago, and unfortunately did not examine it carefully before adding this note. As R. Ezra Bick has correctly pointed out, Maharam Schiff is not speaking about wearing tefillin shel yad on the head to fulfill the mitzvah, but only stating that this is a respectful way to carry the tefillin shel yad if you have to remove it from your arm. This has no relevance to what I wrote about someone without arms (unless he has to carry the tefillin shel yad).

[1] In The Limits of Orthodox Theology I listed numerous rishonim and aharonim who understood Ibn Ezra’s hints to mean that there are post-Mosaic additions the Torah. I have added to this list in various blog posts, and we are now up to around thirty-five different sources. Yet until now I overlooked an important text, namely, a comment by Tosafot. See Tosafot ha-Shalem, ed. Gellis, to Gen. 12:6 (p. 14):

זהו אמרו ואם איננו כן יש לו סוד, כי כוונתו שזה לא כתבו משה אך נכתב אחר שנכבשה, וכן דעתו בהרבה פסוקים

Tosafot rejects this opinion, stating:

ואנחנו לא ניאות בזה הדעת שכל התורה כתבה משה מפי ה’ בלא חילוק ושנוי.

It is significant that Tosafot does not refer to Ibn Ezra’s interpretation as heretical. For another source that assumes that Ibn Ezra believes that there are post-Mosaic additions in the Torah, see R. Aharon Friedman, Be-Har ha-Shem Yeraeh (Kerem be-Yavneh, 2009), p. 30.

[2] I am aware of no evidence that the rishonim in the Islamic world interpreted these passages in a fundamentally different way than the Ashkenazic rishonim. As noted in The Limits of Orthodox Theology, R. Joseph Ibn Migash openly accepted the viewpoint that Joshua wrote the last eight verses of the Torah.

[3] “Two Notes on the Commentary on the Torah of R. Yehudah he-Hasid,” in Michael A. Shmidman, ed. Turim (New York, 2008), pp. 245-246. In his just published The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz (Detroit, 2013), p. 32, Ephraim Kanarfogel writes: “The availability of this kind of interpretational freedom and variety also allowed Hasidei Ashkenaz to be comfortable with Ibn Ezra’s stipulation of verses that may have been added to the Torah after the revelation at Sinai.”

[4] I deal with this in my forthcoming book, where the relevant citations will be found.

[5] See here

http://www.moreshet.co.il/web/shut/shut2.asp?id=68707

[6] Rosenzweig wrote: “We, however, take this R to stand not for Redactor but for rabbenu [our rabbi]. For whoever he was, and whatever text lay before him, he is our teacher, and his theology is our teaching.” See Dan Avnon, Martin Buber: The Hidden Dialogue (Lanham, 1998), p. 50.

[7] Sherlo’s answer is not clear. He was asked about the Seventh Principle, that Moses’ prophecy is superior to all others. Rather than replying to this, he answers that there were amoraim who did not think that Moses wrote the last verses of the Torah. This, however, relates to the Eighth Principle, not the Seventh. None of the amoraim who thought that Joshua wrote the last verses assumed that he was on Moses’ prophetic level, so Sherlo’s answer is really a non-sequitur.

[8] In recent years I have seen many examples of this. Some extreme statement or ban is attributed to a haredi gadol, and commenters on haredi news sites declare that Gadol X could never have made such a hurtful and counterproductive statement. These commenters argue that it must be the “askanim” who are responsible for this. (I specifically remember such arguments in the first few days after the ban on Making of a Godol was announced.) When a few days later it becomes clear that the statement is accurate, and was indeed made by the gadol, what then are these people to do, people who just a few days prior were so adamant in rejecting the position?

People convincing themselves that their leaders could not really mean what they say is obviously not merely a haredi issue. Here is what Paul Veyne writes: “Under France’s Old Regime, people believed and wanted to believe in the king’s kindness and that the entire problem was the fault of his ministers. If this were not the case, all was lost, since one could not hope to expel the king the way one could remove a mere minister.” See Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths (Chicago, 1988), p. 91.

[9] Regarding the Sefer Torah found by Hilkiah, R. Jacob Emden, Birat Migdal Oz (Zhitomir, 1874), p. 152a, claims that Josiah was unable to read the old Hebrew script in this Torah, and that is why it had to be read to him. For a rejection of this view, see R. Jacob Bachrach, Ha-Yahas la-Ketav Ashuri u-le-Toldotav (Warsaw, 1854), pp. 47-48.

[10] The division of the Pentateuch into different books is itself quite ancient. See R. Hayyim Hirschensohn, Seder la-Mikra (Jerusalem, 1933), vol. 1, p. 52.

[11] As mentioned already, the Bible Critics of whom I speak don’t really believe that it was “found”.

[12] There is another unusual tradition that appears in Yemenite texts according to which the entire Torah (and also the rest of the Bible) was forgotten by the Jews during the First Exile, and Ezra later reconstituted it from memory. See R. Saadiah ben David, Midrash ha-Beur, ed. Kafih, vol. 2, p. 676. See also here.

[13] Mavo le-Torah she-Baal Peh, ed. Zini (Jerusalem, 2002), pp. 25-26.

[14] See also Bezalel Naor, The Limit of Intellectual Freedom (Spring Valley, 2011), pp. 77, 253. In Deut. 17:18 it says about the king: וְהָיָה כְשִׁבְתּוֹ, עַל כִּסֵּא מַמְלַכְתּוֹ–וְכָתַב לוֹ אֶת-מִשְׁנֵה הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת

For a rejection of the view that the words “Mishneh Torah” refer to Deuteronomy, see Bachrach, Ha-Yahas la-Ketav Ashuri u-le-Toldotav, p. 70.

I have often heard the notion expressed, in line with Ibn Ezra to Deut. 4:14, Nahmanides to Lev. 8:38 and in his introduction toDeuteronomy, and Abarbanel in his introduction to Deuteronomy, that all of the mitzvot were given at Sinai or soon after. I don’t think this is the simple meaning of the Torah. After all, there are loads of mitzvot in the book of Deuteronomy, and this was years after the revelation at Sinai. Apparently, Nahmanides’ viewpoint was motivated by his dogmatic assumption. R. Bahya ben Asher, Commentary to Gen. 24:22, and Radbaz did not share Nahmanides’ outlook, with Radbaz writing: ודברי [הרמב”ן] תימה הם בעיני. See She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Radbaz, no. 2143. Radbaz has a very provocative formulation in this responsum, and I am not sure what to make of it.

אין הכי נמי שצוה במצוות רבות בערבות מואב וכמה מצוות מצינו שאמרן משה לישראל ולא נאמר בהם צו את בני ישראל או דבר אל בני ישראל אלא משה יושב ודורש והכל יודעין שהכל מפי הגבורה

The words משה יושב ודורש are found in Bava Batra 119b where it means that Moses was expounding on a certain biblical law. As these words are used here, however, they appear to mean that Moses generated new mitzvot by means his יושב ודורש. This is not the same as God directly informing Moses of these new commandments, and I don’t know any earlier source that portrays mitzvot as originating in this fashion. It is also contradicted by how Maimonides describes the revelation of the Torah in his Eighth Principle.

Yet I am not certain about this, since the passage immediately following the one quoted above seems to offer a different perspective:

וכל המצוות המחודשות אשר במשנה תורה הקב”ה אמר למשה בערבות מואב ומשה אמרן לישראל בכלל שבאר להם המצוות אשר כבר נאמרו וכל מה שנתחדש בהם מפי הקב”ה הוא ומשה לא דרש דבר מדעתו.

[15] See R. Eliah Shapiro, Eliah Rabbah 669:17.

[16] Avat Nefesh is discussed here.

[17] One student told me that he would often cite Kierkegaard.

[18] Both of these responsa, and others as well, are analyzed by Dr. Yitzhak Hershkowitz in a forthcoming article. I thank him for sharing his article with me prior to publication.

[19] For more stringent rulings, see R. Yekutiel Yehudah Greenwald, Ha-Shohet ve-ha-Shehitah ve-Sifrut ha-Rabbanut (New York, 1955), pp. 86ff.

[20] In Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 211 n. 172, I refer to R. Walkin as R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg’s “short lived successor to the rabbinate of Pilwishki.” Some have wondered how I know this information, and indeed there is nothing about this in Eliezer Katzman’s articles on R. Walkin in Yeshurun vols. 11 and 12. That R. Walkin was rav of Pilwishki is found in R. Weinberg’s article about the town in Kitvei R. Weinberg, vol. 2, p. 390. In a letter to R. Kook, R. Walkin asks his advice on whether he should accept the rabbinate of Pilwishki. See Iggerot la-Reiyah (Jerusalem, 1990), no. 151. The date given in R. Walkin’s letter to R. Kook is Heshvan 5684 (1923), but this can’t be correct, as by this time R. Walkin was the rav of Pinsk. The original must say תרפ”ב not תרפ”ג.

[21] A few readers might remember my bar mitzvah party, where some of these gedolim pictures were turned into posters. Also, smaller blow-ups were placed on each table as the table identifier. While most of the posters were thrown out, I saved one. When I attended JEC in Elizabeth for high school, I brought in the poster made from this picture of R. Elchanan Wasserman, and hung it on my classroom wall..

Everyone in the class thought this was very nice. One day I came to school and the poster was gone. Someone told me that R. Pinchas Teitz had taken it down. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he would do that. I didn’t know then what I know now, about how many people strongly opposed R. Elchanan’s viewpoints (e.g., R. Zvi Yehudah Kook wouldn’t allow R. Elchanan’s Kovetz Ma’amarim in Merkaz ha-Rav’s library. See Hilah Wolberstein, Mashmia Yeshuah [Or Etzion, 2010], pp. 192-193, 404). But even if I knew that, this would not have been a reason for R. Teitz to take down the poster. I went to see him, first to get my poster back, and also to understand why he took it down. He explained that since we had a minyan in the classroom, it was improper to have a picture of a man on the wall, even if this man was R. Elchanan.

Quiz Runoff

Quiz Runoff

by Marc B. Shapiro

Written on 4 Shevat, 5773, the yahrzeit of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

1. In the last post, as the quiz question, I asked for the name of the first Hebrew book published by a living author. The answer is Nofet Tzufim by R. Judah Messer Leon. As the Wikipedia entry for Messer Leon states, this work “was printed by Abraham Conat of Mantua in 1475-6, the only work by a living author printed in Hebrew in the fifteenth century.”

A number of people got the right answer, and as a few of them told me, and I confirmed for myself, it was not that difficult to find the answer using Google. There is nothing wrong with using Google or any other search tool, and it is my fault for not realizing that the answer could be found so easily.

Some of the material in the Wikipedia entry for Messer Leon comes from the Jewish Encyclopedia, but not the sentence I quoted above. The second part of the sentence is in fact incorrect, as there is at least one other work by a living author printed in Hebrew in the fifteenth century. I refer to the Agur, by R. Jacob ben Judah Landau (died 1493). This work appeared sometime between 1487 and 1492, so Wikipedia tells us, and in this instance Wikipedia’s information comes from the Jewish Encyclopedia. These sources also tell us that “The ‘Agur’ was the first Jewish work to contain a rabbinical approbation, besides being the second Hebrew book printed during the author’s lifetime.”

Why then did a number of those who contacted me think that the Agur was the first book to appear in the author’s lifetime, rather than the second? Perhaps because in the Encyclopaedia Judaica entry “Haskamah”, which is reprinted here, we find the following incorrect statement: “The first haskamah appeared in the 15th century, in the Agur by Jacob Landau (Naples, c. 1490), the first Hebrew book printed during its author’s lifetime.”

Starting now, I will try to make my quiz questions a bit harder (i.e., not so easy to find the answers via Google). Here are the names of those who answered correctly on the last quiz: Shalom Leaf, Alex Heppenheimer, Leor Jacobi, Eric Lawee, Moshe Lapin, Shimon S., Ari Kinsberg, Yonason Rosman, Peretz Mochkin, Yehudah Hausman, Dovid Solomon

Since I can’t reward all of them, there will be a runoff. The following questions are to be answered only by them and only by emailing me the answer. If you can only answer one of the questions please do so.

A. What is the first volume of responsa published in the lifetime of its author?

B. There is a verse in the book of Exodus (hint: we haven’t yet reached it this year) which has a very strange vocalization of a word, found nowhere else in Tanach. (The word itself is also spelled in an unusual fashion, found only one other time in Tanach). The purpose of this vocalization is apparently in order to make a rhyme.[1] What am I referring to?

I had thought to ask: What is the first Hebrew work to use modern punctuation including question marks, but via Google I found the answer in a few seconds. So hopefully the answers to what I have asked are not so easily found.

2. I have a good deal more to say on themes discussed in the last post, which I will get to in future posts. But I have one piece of information that I think is quite significant (a real “chiddush”) and I don’t want to delay passing it on. It turns out that R. Schachter was too quick to add the correction in Nefesh ha-Rav. Here is an email I received by someone who prefers to remain anonymous.

I am not into writing reactions (Israelis call them “talkbacks”) on blogs, since I have not become accustomed to the 21st Century. But I want to give you a bit of information that is relevant to your discussion of Metzitza. I attended Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s shiurim at Gruss for a number of years, and I clearly remember what he said on the subject during what the guys called “a press conference.” He said very clearly that the Rav was against any Metzitza at all, and he expressed this view explicitly at the brit of one of Rav Aharon’s sons. To me such a view makes lots of sense, if one understands that it is required in the gemara only because it was then thought that the lack of Metzitza was dangerous.(כי לא עביד סכנה הוא (שבת קלג,

3. Many people have mentioned to me the problems with the commenting feature (at least for those using Chrome). When you click on it, you often don’t see the most recent comments. One way to fix this is after you click to see the comments, where it says “Discussion” check “Newest” or “Oldest”, and everything will come up. We will try to come up with a fix for this.

[1] I am referring to the level of peshat, as I realize that all sorts of explanations based on derush, remez, and kabbalah can be offered.

Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More

Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More

Marc B. Shapiro

Hakirah has performed a valuable service in dealing forthrightly with the matter of homosexuality. Issue no. 13 (2012) contains R. Chaim Rapoport’s “Judaism and Homosexuality: An Alternative Rabbinic View,” which I think is an outstanding presentation of the alternative to what has seemingly become the “official” haredi position in this matter. This “official” position is, in my opinion, so misguided that I would like to say a few words on the topic, since R. Rapoport did not go far enough in his criticism.

To remind readers, Hakirah no. 12 had a discussion on homosexuality with R. Shmuel Kamenetsky. This was followed by the publication of a document signed by many rabbis which follows R. Kamenetsky’s approach. It is available here. (The document is also signed by an assortment of mental health professionals, rebbitzens and “community organizers”.)

There are so many problems with the approach found in this document (called a “Torah Declaration”), some already noted by R. Rapoport in his response to R. Kamenetsky, that it would take a lengthy piece to go through them all. Let me just call attention to a few points that I don’t think have been made yet. To begin with, while many rabbis have signed this document, including a number that I know personally, I have yet to speak to someone who actually believes what the document says, and this includes the people who have signed it! Many will regard what I have just said as pretty shocking, in that I have declared that people who signed the document do not believe what it says. Yet I know this to be true, at least with regard to some of the signatories (those that I know personally), and I suspect that other than R. Kamenetsky, it might be that no one who signed the document really believes what it says (and it wouldn’t be the first time that people sign declarations that they really don’t believe in).

Let me explain what I mean. According to the document,

Same-Sex Attractions Can Be Modified And Healed. From a Torah perspective, the question whether homosexual inclinations and behaviors are changeable is extremely relevant. . . . We emphatically reject the notion that a homosexually inclined person cannot overcome his or her inclination and desire. . . . The only viable course of action that is consistent with the Torah is therapy and teshuvah. The therapy consists of reinforcing the natural gender-identity of the individual by helping him or her understand and repair the emotional wounds that led to its disorientation and weakening, thus enabling the resumption and completion of the individual’s emotional development.

The ideas just quoted are the very foundation of the Torah Declaration, and as we see in his Hakirah interview, R. Kamenetsky has been convinced by the dubious proposition that homosexuals can change their sexual orientation. He goes so far as to say that “no one is born gay with an inability to change” (p. 34 [emphasis added]. Not long after the appearance of the interview and the Torah Declaration, the man most prominently identified with the notion that gays can change publicly rejected his earlier viewpoint.)

Whether people can change their sexual orientation is a scientific or psychological issue, no more and no less. The first objectionable point of R. Kamenetsky’s approach is turning this into a matter of theology. Indeed, R. Kamenetsky has created a new dogma in Orthodoxy. According to him, believing that a homosexual can change his orientation is a basic Torah value. The reason for this is stated in the document: “The Torah does not forbid something which is impossible to avoid. Abandoning people to lifelong loneliness and despair by denying all hope of overcoming and healing their same-sex attraction is heartlessly cruel. Such an attitude also violates the biblical prohibition in Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:14 “and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind.”[1]

There you have it. Human beings are deciding what God can and cannot do and declaring that it is impossible for someone to be created with an inalterable homosexual nature. That this is completely incorrect is acknowledged by none other than the most extreme advocates of reparative therapy. They themselves acknowledge that there is a significant percentage of people who cannot change their orientation. They have never claimed that everyone can change. What the document gives us, therefore, is a theological statement that is rejected by all scientists and psychologists, including the ones who provide the very basis for reparative therapy. That itself should be reason enough to reject it. (On Nov. 29, 2012 the RCA acknowledged “the lack of scientifically rigorous studies that support the effectiveness of therapies to change sexual orientation.” See here.)

This relates to my point above that no one really believes what they signed. To those who doubt what I say, do the following experiment and report back if your results differ. Ask someone who signed the document if he really believes that every homosexual can change his sexual orientation. The answer you will get will be “Of course not everyone. You can never speak about everyone. But many (or most) can change.” In other words, the signatories will acknowledge that they diverge from the document on a basic point. You will have to ask them why they signed a document if they don’t accept everything it says, and the response will probably be that there is much about the document that they do accept, and that is why they signed it. But I repeat my point that this is an unusual document in that I don’t think that there is any signatory, with the possible exception of R. Kamenetsky, who accepts the Torah Declaration on Homosexuality in its entirety.

Furthermore, it is not a “liberal” idea to say that people can’t change their sexual inclinations. By looking at another example we can see that it is indeed nonsense to say that everyone can change their sexual orientation and recreate themselves as typical heterosexuals. There are some men who have strong urges for pedophilia. No matter what they do, and how much therapy they get, they can’t get rid of these urges. (I am obviously not comparing homosexuals with pedophiles, or implying that there is any connection between the two. I am only using the example of pedophiles to make a point.[2]

) If we adopt the theology of the Torah Declaration, it means that even hardened pedophiles, who have abused lots of children, can change, because God wouldn’t create someone without a possibility for a healthy sex life. Yet we know that this isn’t the case, and some people simply can’t change. They might be able to control their urges, but as they have told us again and again, the urges don’t go away. It is hardwired into them. (Is it perhaps the false theological notion expressed in the Torah Declaration that explains why yeshivot continued to allow known pedophiles to work? That is, did the rabbis assume that just because someone sexually abused children last week, there is no reason to think he can’t repent and cease to be a danger this week?)

And what about the people who are created with uncontrollable urges to kill? We know about these people, as they usually become murderers. And what about the people who are created with diseases that kill them before they are able to marry and have children, or the ones created without arms so they can’t wear arm tefillin[3]? In other words, sometimes people are created a certain way and they are not what we regard as normal. That is the world, and we simply can’t understand why things are the way they are. But one thing I would hope that we can agree on is if people can keep their faith in a good God even while knowing that some children are born with terrible illnesses that will cause their death, it certainly should not shake their faith to believe that some people are born with inalterable homosexual urges. A homosexual who can’t be changed hardly presents a challenge to theodicy the way a child with cancer does, so I can only wonder why the Torah Declaration feels that only the former is theologically untenable.

All traditional sources cited in support of the Torah Declaration’s assumption that people can change their orientation only refer to behavior. That is, it is an accepted belief that all people have the ability to control their behavior. Without this belief, the notion of a mitzvah doesn’t make sense. This distinction between orientation and behavior is so obvious that I don’t know how so many learned rabbis overlooked the document’s collapsing the two categories.

The more problematic element of the document, which I have already mentioned and which verges on the blasphemous, is that the Torah Declaration presumes to tell God what he can and cannot do. Based on the human intellects of the authors of the document, they establish as dogma that God would never create someone whose only sexual attraction is to his own gender. This is all very nice, but since when can humans dictate to God what he can and cannot do? If God “wants” to create a person who only has same-sex attraction, He can, and the proper response is silence, since we can’t understand why God would do that. Humans don’t have all the answers, and the Torah Declaration should stop pretending that we do. Whether homosexuality is nature or nurture is something the scientists and psychologists can discuss, but contrary to the document, all of the evidence is that there are plenty of people who cannot be “fixed.”

2. In my last post I mentioned that Agudat Israel has transformed itself into a lobbying organization. One of the areas they have been involved with is metzitzah ba-peh, so let me say a few things about this. It is really incredible how for many the debate around metzitzah ba-peh has become one in which the Modern Orthodox are one side, and the traditionalists on the other. I say this because the truth is that the virtually all of the rabbinic greats of Lithuania approved of metzitzah without oral contact. Alexander Tertis’ Dam Berit is a valuable resource that all interested in this matter must consult. Here is the title page.

On p. 33, R. Shlomo Cohen, the famed dayan of Vilna, says the following about metzitzah, which is very relevant to what we ourselves have seen (namely, the rejection of the firm opinions of countless doctors and scientists on the matter, all in the name of tradition).

דבר הזה אינו שייך לרבנים רק לרופאים המומחים ולכן אין לי מה להשיב על שאלתו

According to R. Shlomo, the question of how to perform metzitzah is entirely a medical issue, and the rabbis therefore have nothing to say on this matter, much like in all other halakhot dealing with medical issues the opinions of the doctors are determinative. (It hardly needs to be said that in matters of pikuah nefesh the opinions of thousands of experts, including the world’s most outstanding authorities, cannot be overruled by one idiosyncratic figure who appears to be motivated by non-scientific concerns.)

Also of interest is that in 1906 R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski reported that in Vilna virtually all of the mohalim did metzitzah with a sponge. He wasn’t happy with this, but this was the reality.[4]

An interesting tidbit regarding metzitzah ba-peh is found in the Taz, Orah Hayyim 584:2. Here he mentions that he heard that R. Feivish of Cracow, when he circumcised on Rosh ha-Shanah, would not clean the blood out of his mouth. Rather, he would blow the shofar with the blood in his mouth so that the mitzvot of milah and shofar were joined.

Finally, for those who want to understand why it was only in the nineteenth century that metzitzah came to be regarded as central to the mitzvah of milah, Jacob Katz’s article “Polmos ha-Metzitzah” in his Ha-Halakhah ba-Metzar is crucial. In short, the centrality of metzitzah, and its description as a basic part of milah, is a product of the Orthodox defense of metzitzah in the face of Reform attacks. I think we are seeing something similar today. The digging in of haredi heels in defense of metzitzah ba-peh, complete with over-the-top rhetoric, is understandable (to a certain extent) and due precisely to the fact that it is an outside force that is threatening the practice. Had their own poskim suggested what the government is now insisting on, we would not have seen the same reaction. Yet it is still difficult for outsiders to grasp why some rabbinic leaders of these communities seem entirely oblivious to any medical dangers associated with the practice, וסלחת לעונם כי רבנים המה

Let me say a few more things about metzitzah ba-peh.

1. I saw on one of the blogs (I can’t locate it at present) that someone stated as self-evident that metzitzah ba-peh is only done with babies, not adults. The truth is that while the accepted opinion is indeed that metzitzah ba-peh is only done on babies (and maybe also on older child converts – I haven’t been able to find an answer to that), there are indeed opinions that even adult converts have to have metzitzah ba-peh performed on them. R. Moshe Klein (the son of R. Menasheh), Mishnat ha-Ger, p. 71, states without qualification that a convert has to have metzitzah, and if the mohel is afraid of catching a disease he should inquire of a posek if it can be done without the mouth. However, R. Yitzhak Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Milah 6:1, rejects this viewpoint and states that there is no metzitzah, ba-peh or otherwise, with an adult convert.

2. According to R. Marcus Horovitz, Mateh Levi, vol. 2, Yoreh Deah no. 60, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch was prepared to accept the government’s abolishment of metzitzah without objection. It is difficult to square this assertion with Hirsch’s writings on the topic that show him as a strong defender of the practice.[5] Is it possible that Horovitz’s comment, meant as a criticism of Hirsch, reflects the difficult relationship these two men had?

3. In Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh Deah I, no. 223, R. Moshe Feinstein, in writing to a hasidic rebbe, expresses the standard viewpoint that metzitzah is only a medical procedure and has nothing to do with the mitzvah of milah. There is nothing surprising here. However, his correspondent had written otherwise, that metzitzah was an essential part of the mitzvah. In response to this, R. Moshe writes: חושב אני שהוא רק פליטת הקולמוס. The language R. Moshe uses implies that he did not know that among the hasidim metzitzah isindeed viewed as part of the mitzvah. Is it possible that R. Moshe was unaware of this? I don’t think so. It would appear, therefore, that the words I just quoted are a polite way of R. Moshe telling his correspondent that “what you wrote is without any substance.”

4. In 1994 R. Schachter’s Nefesh ha-Rav appeared. On p. 243 he states that R. Soloveitchik thought that today there is no need for metzitzah at all, not just metzitzah ba-peh. I remember how shocked I was when I read this, and was certain that it had to be wrong. As far as I know, no Orthodox authority has ever agreed to abandon metzitzah entirely, and I therefore couldn’t believe this report. My doubts were strengthened by the fact that R. Schachter quotes the Tiferet Yisrael as agreeing that metzitzah could be abandoned, when the truth is that the Tiferet Yisrael, Shabbat 19:2, says the exact opposite, that metzitzah must be continued no matter what the doctors say.

As part of this post I wanted to include this page of Nefesh ha-Rav, so I went to Otzar ha-Hokhmah to download a PDF. Here it is.

Lo and behold, the copy on Otzar ha-Hokhmah is the third edition published in 1999, and there is a note on this page in which R. Schachter states that he has been told that what he wrote was incorrect, and that R. Soloveitchik only opposed metzitzah ba-peh. This makes much more sense and is what I assumed all along, so I was happy to see that my suspicions were confirmed.

R. Schachter recently spoke publicly about metzitzah ba-peh, and he is entirely opposed to it.[6] You can listen to his talk here.

Some might be surprised to hear R. Schachter say, after explaining that the Sages followed the most advanced medicine of their times, “When we look back at Chazal, look at medical statements in the Gemara, we laugh. . . . So you look back in the Gemara, it’s ridiculous, but the Gemara, in the days of the Tannaim, they were following the latest information of the doctors of their generation, of the scientists of their generation.”

I have to say, however, that R. Schachter is mistaken in his description of how the Hasidim understand metzitzah ba-peh. He incorrectly assumes that no one really regards it as a basic part of the mitzvah, i.e., halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai. “You know and I know and we all know that it is not halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai.” He claims that all those who do say it is halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai are exaggerating for rhetorical purposes, much like the expression yehareg ve-al yaavor is used for all sorts of things but is not meant to be taken literally. (R. Schachter himself created a good deal of controversy a couple years ago when he said that the refusal to ordain women was a matter of yehareg ve-al yaavor.)

Finally, I would like to make a general statement about how many in the Modern Orthodox world have been relating to metzitzah ba-peh. There is no question that for those in this segment of Orthodoxy, metzitzah ba-peh should not be done, both for medical reasons and also, I have learnt, for aesthetic reasons. With regard to the latter point, there is a sense among many in the Modern Orthodox world, and I myself have heard this and seen it in writing, that metzitzah ba-peh is “disgusting”. I understand that this is how people feel, but it is an improper feeling. Until the nineteenth century, metzitzah ba-peh was universal at every circumcision. How can observant Jews regard a practice that was basic in every Jewish community of the world as “disgusting”? I understand that it doesn’t fit in with today’s aesthetic sense, and that itself is perhaps reason enough for people not to do metzitzah ba-peh. However, everyone should be careful to avoid any denigration of metzitzah ba-peh that does not originate in medical concerns.

Don’t get me wrong, as I don’t mean that every practice that we find in Jewish communities throughout history should get such a “pass”, but here we are talking about a universal practice over thousands of years. It can’t be denied that there were “repulsive” and “gruesome” practices in Jewish communities.[7] Here are two cited by Shlomo Sprecher in his article mentioned in note 6: 1. Barren women would swallow the foreskin of newly circumcised boys as a segulah so that they could become pregnant. 2. Epileptics drank a potion that contained a girl’s first menstrual blood as a segulah to cure them of their epilepsy.[8]

I recently found another bizarre segulah that also falls under the rubric of “repulsive”, and I think that it would probably also be regarded by law enforcement as a form of sexual abuse. It comes from R. Zvi Hirsch Kaidonover (1646-1712), Kav ha-Yashar, ch. 51. For obvious reasons I am not going to translate this into English.

3. Following one of my previous posts I had correspondence with a reader and the discussion turned to the issue of how much of rabbinic literature is inner directed, that is, from intellectuals to other intellectuals.[9] I assume that this was the mindset of the Sages, and this explains some texts that I don’t think would have been recorded had there been an expectation that the masses would ever see them. In particular, I have in mind the talmudic stories that do not reflect well on certain rabbis. If we understand these texts as scholars talking to other scholars, then it makes sense that they would criticize each other, and even make fun of one another.[10] People in a closed community (in this case, the rabbinic elite) converse with one another in a different way than when outsiders are allowed in.[11] The problem is when the masses are studying Talmud, as today, that they have a difficult time with these texts, and Artscroll needs to explain them in an appealing fashion.

Here is one example of the sort of story I am referring to, that I assume was designed for internal consumption only, as it doesn’t reflect well on one of the Sages who is portrayed as being quite rude and insensitive. Taanit 20a-20b:

Our Rabbis have taught: A man should always be gentle as the reed and never unyielding as the cedar. Once R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon was coming from Migdal Gedor, from the house of his teacher, and he was riding leisurely on his ass by the riverside and was feeling happy and elated because he had studied much Torah There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man who greeted him, “Peace be upon you, Sir”. He, however, did not return his salutation but instead said to him, “Raca,1 how ugly you are. Are all your fellow citizens as ugly as you are?” The man replied: “I do not know, but go and tell the craftsman who made me, ‘How ugly is the vessel which you have made’.” When R. Eleazar realized that he had done wrong he dismounted from the ass and prostrated himself before the man and said to him, “I submit myself to you, forgive me”. The man replied: “I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, ‘How ugly is the vessel which you have made’.” He [R. Eleazar] walked behind him until he reached his native city. When his fellow citizens came out to meet him greeting him with the words, “Peace be upon you O Teacher, O Master,” the man asked them, “Whom are you addressing thus”? They replied, “The man who is walking behind you.” Thereupon he exclaimed: “If this man is a teacher, may there not be any more like him in Israel”! The people then asked him: “Why”? He replied: “Such and such a thing has he done to me.” They said to him: “Nevertheless, forgive him, for he is a man greatly learned in the Torah.” The man replied: “For your sakes I will forgive him, but only on the condition that he does not act in the same manner in the future.” Soon after this R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon entered [the Beth Hamidrash] and expounded thus, A man should always be gentle as the reed and let him never be unyielding as the cedar. And for this reason the reed merited that of it should be made a pen for the writing of the Law, Phylacteries and Mezuzoth.[12]

It appears that we see a continuation of this internal conversation in post-talmudic times. For example, I don’t think the rishonim who so harshly criticize their colleagues — I am referring to the colleagues they respected — would speak this way in a derashah before the common man. However, in internal dialogue they exercised more freedom. I think this can also explain the strange way that R. Isaac of Corbeil, the author of Sefer Mitzvot Katan, is referred to. He is called בעל החוטם. According to tradition, he was called this לפי שהיו לו שערות על החוטם.[13] Here too, I think that this was a humorous nickname that his colleagues knew him as, but not something that the average person would be expected to use. (Those who went to BMT will probably recall how various rabbis would speak of “Whitey Horowitz”. I don’t recall students ever referring to R. Moshe Horowitz this way.)

I came across another example of what appears to be “internal conversation” from modern times that I think readers will find interesting. Both are found in R. Pinchas Miller’s Olamo shel Abba. Miller’s father, R. Asher Anshel Yehudah Miller, was a posek and author of seforim. I can’t imagine that the following comment, cited in the name of R. Shmelke of Nikolsburg, was something Miller, or R. Shmelke, wanted the masses to hear. Rather, I assume that it was an insider’s joke, designed to be shared among colleagues.

Shabbat 118b states that if Israel observes two Sabbaths properly they will immediately be redeemed. R. Shmelke explained that this refers to Shabbat ha-Gadol and Shabbat Shuvah. It is traditional that on these Sabbaths the rabbis give derashot before the community. R. Shmelke added that the rabbis act as if what they are saying is original to themselves, even though they have taken it from others. The Sages say that if you repeat something in the name of one who said it, you bring redemption to the world (Avot 6:6). Based on this text in Avot, R. Shmelke explained the above talmudic passage as follows: “If Israel observes two Sabbaths properly”, that is, if the rabbis who give the derashot on Shabbat ha-Gadol and Shabbat Shuvah (“two Sabbaths”) actually acknowledge where they get their ideas from (“repeat something in the name of one who said it”), “immediately Israel will be redeemed” (p. 501). This is such a provocative text because not only does it accuse the rabbis of plagiarism, but it states that the redemption itself is being delayed because of their behavior. If it was repeated by the masses it would be regarded as terribly degrading of the rabbis, but seen as a somewhat playful “derashah” to be shared among rabbinic colleagues, it loses much of its sharpness.[14]

There is another interesting passage on p. 326, which despite being humorous, I would have also assumed could only be said among colleagues. Yet Miller’s son tells us that his father used to repeat the following in his derashah at weddings: We know that it is a mitzvah to help the bride and groom to rejoice, but the rabbis come to weddings and instead of doing this, they deliver a long derashah and speak words of mussar to the young couple and thus disturb their joy.[15] That is why at the sheva berakhot we state שמח תשמח רעים האהובים כשמחך יצירך בגן עדן מקדם. In other words, we wish the bride and groom that their joy should be complete like the joy Adam felt when Eve was created for him, because in their time, in the Garden of Eden, there were no rabbis around who were able to disturb their joy!

* * * *

4. I want to call attention to a book that has just appeared. Its English title is Jewish Thought and Jewish Belief and it is edited by Daniel J. Lasker. You can read more about it here. It is available for purchase at Bigeleisen.

This is just the latest in a series of valuable books published by Ben Gurion University Press as part of the Goldstein-Goren Library of Jewish Thought. The articles that I think readers of this blog will find particularly interesting are David Stern, “Rabbinics and Jewish Identity: An American Perspective;” David Shatz, “Nothing but the Tuth? Modern Orthodoxy and the Polemical Uses of History,” Baruch J. Schwartz, “Biblical Scholarship’s Contribution to the Concept of Mattan Torah Past and Present;” Menachem Kellner, “Between the Torah of Moses and the Torah of R. Elhanan;” Tovah Ganzel, “‘He who Restrains his Lips is Wise’ (Proverbs 10:19) – Is that Really True?” and the symposium on Jewish thought in Israeli education, with contributions from R Moshe Lichtenstein and Adina Bar Shalom (R. Ovadia Yosef’s daughter).

Here are a few selections from Shatz’s article:

To be clear, academics, I find, generally shun blogs that are aimed at a popular audience because the comments are often, if not generally, uninformed (and nasty). A few academics do read such blogs, but do not look at the comments. One result of academics largely staying out of blog discussions is that non-experts become viewed as experts. Even when academics join the discussion, the democratic atmosphere of the blog world allows non-experts to think of themselves as experts and therefore as equals of the academicians. Some laypersons, though, as I said earlier, are indeeed experts in certain areas of history.

(In this quotation, one could also substitute “rabbis” or perhaps better, “poskim”, for “academics”, and “areas of halakhah” for “areas of history.”) Shatz is specifically speaking about historians, and contrasting experts vs. non-experts in this area. Yet when it comes to the sort of things I often write about here, I can attest that it is usually non-academics who are the real experts. Time and again I am amazed at the vast knowledge of so many of the people who read this blog. As for the general phenomenon of blogs, there are many people who for whatever reason (usually lack of interest, ability, or patience) are not going to write lengthy articles. Yet they often have a great deal to contribute, much of which is very important to the world of scholarship (almost always in terms of uncovering unknown sources and correcting earlier errors, as opposed to offering new interpretations or original theories). Academics ignore this to their own loss.[16]

In my future book I refer to numerous blog posts, and posts from the Seforim Blog have already been mentioned in a number of scholarly publications. My own reason for writing posts is because most of the material I discuss is, I think, interesting and sometimes even important. While this material is often not of the sort that can be included in a typical article, the genre of the blog post suits them just perfectly. Speaking of the Seforim Blog in particular, its readership encompasses a very large percentage of English speaking traditionally learned Jews of all backgrounds, beliefs, and professions (from Reform rabbis to Roshei Yeshiva and poskim, and everything in between). Thanks again are due to Dan Rabinowitz for providing this unique and wonderful platform.

Here are two more quotes from Shatz:

Be the causes what they may, there is an intramural struggle among the Orthodox, a competition for the soul of Orthodox Judaism, and the primary weapon with which it is being waged is history. For Modern Orthodox Jews today, instead of history being a threat to belief, as in earlier periods, it has become a way of arguing for one version of Othodoxy over another. And it is used for polemical purposes far more than philosophy. There are today few Orthodox philosophers, but comparatively many Orthodox academically trained historians.

Can the Modern Orthodox explain why it is admissible for Hummash and the Sages (in aggadot) to write non-accurately and provide inspiration and memory, but inadmissible for those on the right to write in that genre?

My article in Jewish Thought and Jewish Belief is entitled “Is there a ‘Pesak’ for Jewish Thought.” Those who publish know that it is often the case that only after it is too late does one realize that one’s article or book omits something important. Here too that was the case. In the article I discuss Maimonides’ view in Guide 3:17 that there is no punishment without transgression. That is, he rejects the notion of yissurin shel ahavah. I note that Maimonides claims that this is the opinion “of the multitude of our scholars,” and he cites R. Ammi’s opinion in this regard from Shabbat 55a. What is significant is that later in the sugya the Talmud states that R. Ammi’s opinion was refuted. Maimonides ignores this rejection, and even states that R. Ammi’s opinion is the majority view. This illustrates how Maimonides felt free to reject a talmudic viewpoint in a non-halakhic matter, even when it seems that the opinion is deemed authoritative by the Talmud.

What I unfortunately neglected to mention is that in Guide 3:24 Maimonides also deals with yissurin shel ahavah. Here he acknowledges that there are talmudic sages who accept this notion, but he adds that his own opinion, i.e., the rejection of yissurin shel ahavah, “ought to be believed by every adherent of the Law who is endowed with intellect.” In our own language, we might say that this viewpoint should be obvious to anyone with “half a brain.” Yet this is quite a shocking statement when one considers that there were talmudic sages who had a different perspective. Did Maimonides regard them as lacking intellect?

Here is another point I would like to add: In my Limits of Orthodox Theology I argue that it is most unlikely that Maimonides would choose to establish something as a dogma if it was a matter of debate among the Sages. (If establishing dogma was simply part of the halakhic process, this would not be problematic.) I see that R. Shlomo Fisher apparently has the same perspective, as he writes in his Hiddushei Beit Yishai, no. 107 (p. 413):

וגוף הדברים שכתב הרמב”ם בפה”מ ועשאן עיקר גדול תמוהין מאד. חדא, אם הם עיקר גדול היכי פליג עלה ר’ יהודה.

The issue of deciding matters of hashkafah in a halakhic fashion has also recently been discussed by R. Yaakov Ariel in his new book Halakhah be-Yameinu, pp. 18ff. I have to say that the more I read by Ariel the more impressed I am, as everything he writes is carefully formulated and full of insight. He strikes me as very open-minded with a good grasp of Jewish philosophy. He is, of course, also an outstanding posek. I now understand why it was so important for the haredim, under R. Elyashiv’s lead, to prevent him from being elected Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. What the haredim wanted, and were successful in this, was to destroy the Chief Rabbinate as a force to be reckoned with. The way to do this was to make sure that its occupant would be nothing but a “crown rabbi”. That is, they wanted to appoint a chief rabbi who is a figurehead, who interacts with the government on behalf of the haredi leadership, who goes around the world speaking about Jewish topics to the masses, and who can deal with non-Jews. What they absolutely did not want in a chief rabbi was a figure who had any rabbinic standing and who could thus challenge haredi Daas Torah.

At a time when much of the right wing religious Zionist world appears to have gone off the deep end, R. Ariel stands as a voice of sanity. Be it his attack on Torat ha-Melekh (a book which I still plan on discussing) or his strong rejection (together with R. Aharon Lichtenstein and R. Nachum Rabinovitch) of the outrageous letter written by Rabbis Tau, Aviner and others in support of Moshe Katzav, or his defense of women voting (arguing that today R. Kook would not be opposed; Halakhah be-Yameinu, p. 189) he shows that right wing religious Zionism need not be identified with the craziness we have been accustomed to see in recent years.

Let us return to his recent essay where he argues, in opposition to what I wrote in my article, that Maimonides often does “decide” in matters of hashkafah no different than in halakhah. To illustrate his point, Ariel notes that there is a dispute among the Sages about whether there are reasons for commandments. He claims that Maimonides מכריע ופוסק in accord with the position that there are reasons. He concludes:

אף על פי שלדעתו כללי ההלכה אינם חלים בענייני אמונה, בכל זאת ניתן להכריע את האמונה על פי דרך הלימוד הנקוטה גם בהלכה.

The notion of a pesak emunah, if it is to be parallel to a pesak halakhah, would mean that after Maimonides gives his pesak, in his mind it is now forbidden to adopt the other viewpoint (just as when Maimonides rules that something is forbidden on Shabbat) .Yet where does Maimonides ever say that there is an obligation to accept his viewpoint about reasons for the commandments? What Maimonides does is show why his viewpoint is correct, and Ariel cites these sources. But just because Maimonides wants his readers to adopt his own viewpoint, in what way is this a “pesak emunah”? Maimonides is simply expressing his strongly held belief. He is not ruling alternative positions out of bounds, as he does in deciding halakhah. This appplies as well to the other examples Ariel brings to prove his point. All he has established is that Maimonides argues for a position in matters such as the nature of prophecy and providence, but that is far removed from the notion that Maimonides saw his opinions as halakhically binding. On the contrary, just because Maimonides tells us what he thinks the Torah’s position is in a matter such as providence, he had no expectation that the masses would (or in some cases even should) follow him in this, and he was fully tolerant of the masses holding to their errant opinions as long as the matter was not an authentic dogma.

5. I have now finished my book on censorship. I can’t say when it will appear as it still has to be properly edited, typset etc., but hopefully this won’t take too long. I have loads of interesting material that for various reasons I was unable to include in the book, so the Seforim Blog will give me a good opportunity to bring it to the public’s attention. Let me begin with something sent to me by Rodney Falk.

Professor Louis Henkin, the son of R. Joseph Elijah Henkin, died in 2010. Here is his obituary as it appeared in Ha-Modia.

Notice what is missing! The obituary won’t even mention who his father was. Had Louis Henkin been a businessman or a doctor this information would not have been excluded, of this there is no doubt. But it is considered a disgrace to R. Henkin’s memory that his son was an intellectual, one who lived the life of the mind, and yet he didn’t become a rav or a rosh yeshiva . People in the haredi world can understand how not everyone is cut out to be a rosh yeshiva or sit in kollel, and these “unfortunates” are therefore forced choose a profession. But apparently, the notion that one who has the brains and intellectual stamina to become a great scholar might choose to devote himself to non-Torah subjects borders on the blasphemous for Ha-Modia. As such, while Louis Henkin can be acknowledged for his achievements, he has to be severed from his father’s house (the same father who sent him and his two brothers to Yeshiva College).

I think Yoel Finkelman has put the matter quite well in discussing the larger issue of which this example is part and parcel of:

Haredi writers of history claim to know better than the great rabbis of the past how the latter should have behaved. Those great rabbis do not serve as models for the present. Instead, the present and its ideology serve as models for the great rabbis. Haredi historiography becomes a tale of what observant Jews, and especially great rabbis, did, but only provided that these actions accord with, or can be made to accord with, current Haredi doctrine. The historians do not try to understand the gedolim; they stand over the gedolim. Haredi ideology of fealty to the great rabbis works at cross purposes with the sanitized history of those rabbis.[17]

6. Rabbi Jason Weiner, a fine musmach from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, has recently published a Guide to Traditional Jewish Observance in a Hospital. Formerly assistant rabbi at the Young Israel of Century City, he now serves as Senior Rabbi and Manager of the Spiritual Care Department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The book comes with approbations from R. Asher Weiss and R. Yitzchok Weinberg, the Talner Rebbe, and the halakhot in the book have been reviewed by Rabbis Gershon Bess, Nachum Sauer, and Yosef Shuterman. The book can be downloaded here.

7. Some readers have asked me about upcoming shul lectures. Here is what is on my schedule through Passover.

Feb. 15-16: Sephardic Institute of Brooklyn

March 1-2: Beth Israel, Miami Beach

March 8-9: Shearith Israel, New York

March 15-16: Beth Israel, Omaha

If any readers are interested in having me speak at their shuls, please be in touch.

8. No one got the answer to the last quiz, so let me do it again. The winner gets a copy of one of the volumes of R. Hayyim Hirschensohn’s commentary on Rashi. If you know the answer to the question, send it to me at shapirom2 at scranton.edu.

What was the first Hebrew book published by a living author?

[1] What does this last sentence mean? How can an attitude violate a biblical prohibition?

[2] As a good illustration of changes in attitude in the last forty years, here is what R. Norman Lamm wrote in his classic article on homosexuality in the 1975 yearbook of the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Such a sentence would, today, be quite politically incorrect, and regarded by gays as incredibly offensive: “Were society to give its open or even tacit approval to homosexuality, it would invite more aggresiveness on the part of adult pederasts toward young people.”

[3] R. Meir Schiff (Maharam Schiff) is unique in believing that one without arms should put the tefillin shel yad on the head, together with the tefillin shel rosh. This is the upshot of his comment to Gittin 58a.

[4] See R. Sinai Schiffer, “Mitzvat ha-Metzitzah,” p. 106 (printed together with R. Sinai Adler, Devar Sinai [Jerusalem, 1966])

[5] See Eliyahu Meir Klugman, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, pp. 292-293.

[6] “Following in the Footsteps of Our Fathers,” Nov. 13, 2012.

[7] The words are those of Shlomo Sprecher from his article on metzitzah in Hakirah 3 (2006), p. 51.

[8] Speaking of drinking, take a look at this strange passage. It appears in R. Hayyim Rabbi’s letter at the beginning of R. Haggai Ben Hananyah’s Nimukei Levi (Ashdod, 2008), p. 2. Add this to the long list of texts that I refuse to translate.

בדין חלב אשה. נשאלתי פעם, אם בזמן תשמיש עם אשתו, החלב שלה אסור עליו, או שבעל ואשתו כגופו, ואין בו דין של יונק שרץ. ובפרט לטעם שמא יינק מבהמה טמאה, ובאשתו כגופו שהתירו לו בשעת פיוס וכו’, לא גזרו בזה. ויתכן שמותר כדין פסיק רישיה בדרבנן. ובנידון כזה, שזה חשש גזירה, גם בניחא ליה יש מקום להתיר. כן נראה לכאורה.

[9] The previous post is found here.

In the comments, Yehudah Mirsky wrote:

Fwiw, as I recall, Steve Wald in his book on Eilu Ovrin shows that the genuinely awful am-haaretz passages in Pesachim are a later stammatic addition, and that Jeff Rubinstein argues has a chapter on this in his “The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud” where he argues both that that sugya in Pesachim is sui generis in Hazal and – interestingly – reflects the Stammaim’s needing to justify their very scholastic lifestyle vis-a-vis people who were working for a living. Rubinstein cautions that the whole sugya may have been intended as a series of private jokes and need not necessarily reflect actual social relations between the stammaim and their surrounding society.

[10] Yeshayahu Leibowitz quipped that the Sages must have had a good sense of humor, since they included the following passage in the Talmud: תלמידי חכמים מרבים שלום בעולם. See Sihot al Pirkei Ta’amei ha-Mitzvot (Jerusalem, 2003), p. 289. In all seriousness, however, there are indeed humorous passages in the Talmud, as pointed out by R. Moses Salmon, Netiv Moshe (Vienna, 1897), pp. 45-46. Here is one example he gives (Bava Batra 14a).:

The Rabbis said to R. Hamnuna: R. Ammi wrote four hundred scrolls of the Law. He said to them: Perhaps he copied out the verse תורה צוה לנו משה

Salmon claims that anyone with a bit of sense can see that R. Hamnuna’s reply is a wisecrack made in response to the obvious exaggeration about R. Ammi.

Nehemiah Samuel Leibowitz states that even in the Zohar we have passages that show a humorous side. One of the many examples he points to is Zohar, Bereshit, p. 27a:

וימררו את חייהם בעבודה קשה בקושיא. בחומר קל וחומר. ובלבנים בלבון הלכתא. ובכל עבודה בשדה דא ברייתא. את כל עבודתם וגו’ דא משנה.

See Leibowitz, “Halatzot ve-Divrei Bikoret be-Sefer ha-Zohar,”Ha-Tzofeh le-Hokhmat Yisrael 11 (1927), pp. 33-45. For more on humor in the Talmud, see Yehoshua Ovsay, Ma’amarim u-Reshimot (New York, 1946), ch. 1; R. Mordechai Hacohen, “Humor, Satirah, u-Vedihah be-Fi Hazal,” Mahanayim 67 (5722), pp. 8-19.

[11] Such a community also establishes special rules for itself, of which I can cite many examples. Here is one, from R. Solomon Luria, Yam Shel Shlomo, Bava Kamma 8:49:

ואם חוזר בפעם השלישי א”כ הוא משולש בחטא, אזי אין מניחין כלל לפדותו מן המלקות אלא ילקה בב”ד ודיו, אם לא שהוא בר אורין שאין ראוי להלקותו

After all we have seen in the last few years, I am quite certain that today the average person would not accept that when it comes to criminal matters that the rabbis should be given special privileges and exemptions.

[12] See also Va-Yikra Rabbah 9:3 where it describes how R. Jannai called his host “a dog”, and then learnt how wrong he was.

[13] See the introduction to the Constantinople 1510 edition of the work, reprinted in the Jerusalem, 1960 edition.

[14] On p. 187 Miller offers a different perspective. Here he quotes another rabbi who said that if necessary it is OK for one to repeat another’s hiddushim in the Shabbat ha-Gadol derashah, because the Sages tell us (Pesahim 6a): שואלין ודורשין בהלכות פסח. This means:

מותר “לשאול” מאחרים בשעת הדחק ולדרוש בהלכות פסח

[15] I am told that it is still the practice in certain communities for the rabbi to deliver a derashah at a wedding..

[16] I think in particular of S.’s wonderful blog On the Main Line, which routinely provides important, and until now unknown, primary sources that are vital to a wide range of areas of scholarship.

[17] Strictly Kosher Reading, p. 122.

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

Marc B. Shapiro

1. I recently published a translation of Hirsch’s famous lecture on Schiller. You can see it here.

At first I thought that this lecture remained untranslated into English for so long because of ideological concerns. (I still think that this is the reason it was never translated into Hebrew.) Yet before the article appeared, I was informed that the reason it did not appear in the English translation of the Collected Writings of Hirsch was not due to ideological censorship, but censorship of a different sort (see the article, note 2). I will let readers decide if this was a smart choice or not. I plan on publishing another translation from Hirsch which has also never appeared in English or Hebrew, and which many people will regard as not “religiously correct” for the twenty-first century.

With regard to the Schiller lecture, I thank Elan Rieser who called my attention to the following: Hirsch quoted Schiller as saying about a plant, “What it [the plant] unwittingly is, be thou of thine own free will.” It so happens that this very thought also appears in the Nineteen Letters, Elias translation, p. 56: “The law to which all forces submit instinctively and involuntarily—to this law you, too, are to subordinate yourself, but consciously and of your own free will.” This shows that even in his earliest work, Hirsch was influenced by Schiller.

While on the topic of non-Jewish writers influencing German rabbis, here is another example which might lead some to wonder if we have crossed the line from influence into plagiarism. (I do not think so, as I will explain.) Rabbi Marcus Lehmann (1831-1890) was a well-known German Orthodox rabbi. He served as rabbi of Mainz and was founder and editor of the Orthodox newspaper Der Israelit. Apart from his scholarly endeavors, he published a series of children’s books, and is best known for that. These were very important as they gave young Orthodox Jews a literature that reflected traditional Jewish values and did not have the Christian themes and references common in secular literature. Yet despite their value for the German Orthodox, R. Israel Salanter was upset when one of Lehmann’s stories (Süss Oppenheimer) was translated into Hebrew and published in the Orthodox paper Ha-Levanon. Although R. Israel recognized that Lehmann’s intentions were pure and that his writings could be of great service to the German Orthodox, it was improper for the East European youth to read Lehmann’s story because there were elements of romantic love in it. This is reported by R. Isaac Jacob Reines, Shnei ha-Meorot, Ma’amar Zikaron ba-Sefer, part 1, p. 46. Here is the relevant passage:

והנה ברור הדבר בעיני כי הרה”צ רמ”ל כיון בהספור הזה לש”ש, ויכול היות כי יפעל מה בספורו זה על האשכנזים בכ”ז לא נאה לפני רב ממדינתינו להעתיק ספור כזה שסוף סוף יש בו מענייני אהבה.

This passage is followed by another, which was made famous by R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg in Seridei Esh, vol. 2 no. 8. This is Weinberg’s well-known responsum on co-ed groups. He describes how R. Israel Salanter visited R. Esriel Hildesheimer and saw him giving a shiur in Tanakh and Shulhan Arukh before young women. R. Israel commented that if a rabbi from Lithuania would institute such a practice in his community they would throw him out of his position, and rightfully so. Yet he only hoped that he would be worthy enough to share a place in the World to Come with Hildesheimer: הלואי שיהי’ חלקי בג”ע עם הגה”צ ר”ע הילדסהיימר.

Weinberg doesn’t say where he learnt of this story, but it comes from Reines, who heard it directly from R. Israel Salanter. Yet Weinberg’s recollection was not exact. Before World War II, Weinberg had access to Shnei ha-Meorot, and he refers to it in his essay on Reines (Seridei Esh, vol. 4, p. 355, originally published before the War). After the War he no longer had access to this book, and thus was not able to check R. Israel Salanter’s exact words. Although, based on Weinberg, people often repeat Salanter’s comment that he hopes for a share of the World to Come together with Hildesheimer, he never actually said this. Here are his words, as recorded by the only witness, Reines, and I hope that from now on the great R. Israel Salanter will be quoted accurately. (The passage in the parenthesis is a comment from Reines himself.)

הלכתי לבקר גם את ביה”ס אשר לבנות, ששמעתי שגם שם מגיד הרה”ג הנ”ל [הילדסהיימר] איזה שעור, ומצאתי שבחדר גדול ורחב ידים עומד באמצע שולחן גדול וסביב השולחן יושבות נערות גדולות, והרה”ג הנ”ל בראש השלחן מגיד לפניהם שעור בשו”ע (הוא אמר לי אז גם באיזה הלכה שאמר להם אבל שכחתי) והוסיף לומר בזה”ל “ברור הדבר בעיני כי כוונת הרב היא לש”ש, וגם נעלה הדבר בעיני מכל ספק, כי כל התלמידות האלה השומעות לקח מפיו תהיינה לנשים כשירות, תמלאנה כל המצות שהנשים חייבות בהן, תחנכנה ילדיהן על דרכי התורה והאמונה, באופן שיש לומר בוודאות גמורה ומוחלטת כי הרה”ג הנ”ל עושה בזה דבר גדול באין ערוך, בכ”ז ינסה נא רב במדינתינו לעשות ב”ס כזה, הלא יקראו אחריו מלא ומן גיוו יגרשוהו; ואין ספק כי יהי’ מוכרח לנער את חצני’ מן הרבנות כי לא תהלמו עוד”, כל הדברים האלה דבר הרה”ג הצדיק הנ”ל בהתרגשות מיוחדה והתלהבות יתירה

Returning to Lehmann, one of his short stories is titled Ithamar. Eliezer Abrahamson called my attention to the fact that chapter 17 tells the same story as is found in Lew Wallace’s classic American novel, Ben-Hur, Book 3, chs. 2-3. I prefer to call this “borrowing”, rather than plagiarism, since Ben-Hur was a worldwide sensation and Lehmann was not trying to hide his borrowing. At that time, any adult reading Lehmann’s book would know what he was basing the chapter on, and that he was providing a Jewish version of certain episodes. In fact, the name of the main character of Lehmann’s book, Ithamar (not a very common name), is also the name of the father of the main character of Ben-Hur (Judah ben Ithamar ben Hur). By naming his character Ithamar, Lehmann was signaling his debt to Wallace.[1]

Regarding Lehmann’s stories, in the 1990s they also appeared in a censored haredi version. Ha-Modia actually published an article attacking this “reworking”. Here it is, followed by the response. (You can right-click to open larger images, or download it as a pdf here.)

I found these on my computer and don’t remember anymore how I got them (and unfortunately, there is no date visible on the articles). Click them to enlarge.

2. Not too long ago Hakirah 13 (2012) appeared, and as with the previous issues, it is a great collection of articles. The other Orthodox journals have to ask themselves why Hakirah has been so successful in overshadowing them. I think the answer is obvious. Hakirah is not afraid to take risks in what they publish. They don’t mind rocking the boat a bit, and dealing with controversial matters. I want to respond to two articles in the issue. The first is R. Elazar Muskin’s piece in which he discusses a 1954 Yom ha-Atzmaut event in Cleveland, which featured R. Elijah Meir Bloch, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telz yeshiva. From the article one sees that Bloch had a positive attitude towards the State of Israel. Before reading further, I suggest people look over Muskin’s article again, so you can best appreciate that which will follow. You can find the article here.

Muskin notes that Bloch’s letter justifying his appearance at the Yom ha-Atzmaut event was published in R. Joseph Epstein’s 1969 book Mitzvot ha-Shalom. Although there have been many books that express a positive, or tolerant, view towards Zionism, anti-Zionist extremists chose to focus on this volume. Muskin quotes Gerald Parkoff who wrote as follows in a letter published in the Torah u-Madda Journal 9 (2000), p. 279:

When the first edition of the Mizvot ha-Shalom was published, the unsold inventory, which represented most of the extant copies, was kept in Rabbi Epstein’s garage. As it turned out, the sefer came to the attention of some misguided people[2] who were particularly upset with Rabbi Epstein’s association of Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch with Yom ha-Azmaut. They proceeded to burn the first edition of Mizvot ha-Shalom in Rabbi Epstein’s garage. Subsequently, the perpetrators of this dastardly act were found and brought to a Satmar Bet Din. Financial restitution was then made to Rabbi Epstein.

As Parkoff notes, when the next edition of the work was published, Epstein took out Bloch’s letter, so as not to have another confrontation with the extremists. Yet something doesn’t make sense. Why would Satmar (or Satmar-like) extremists care about a letter from Bloch in Epstein’s book? What does this have to do with them? The extremists certainly had no interest in defending the honor of an Agudist whose ideology is rejected by them just as they reject the Mizrachi position. So why would they care about Epstein’s book at all?

If you compare the first edition of Mitzvot ha-Shalom to the second edition, the answer is, I think, obvious, and it has nothing to do with the Bloch letter. Pages 605-624 from the first edition are omitted in the second edition. The first few pages of this is Bloch’s letter, but beginning on p. 612 there is a section titled “Al ha-Geulah ve-al ha-Teshuvah.” This section is a rejection of R. Joel Teitelbaum’s views (in which, by the way, Epstein refers to the writings of R. Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, R. Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, and R. Menachem M. Kasher). The very title of the section is an allusion to the Satmar Rav’s book, Al ha-Geulah ve-al ha-Temurah. While Epstein’s views are expressed respectfully, it is easy to see why the extremists would have gone after him, as a means of upholding the honor of their Rebbe. They presumably also saw the following passage, p. 611, as directed against the Satmar Rav, and even if it wasn’t directed against him personally, it is certainly directed against his followers.

אמנם השטן מרקד בין תלמידי חכמים על תלמי הפירוד והפילוג בישראל להטיל קטטיגוריא ביניהם, עד כדי השמצת שמות אהלי תורה ויראה, ועד כדי הורדת כבוד גדולים ארצה בכתבי פלסתר והוצאת דיבה, ללא חשש הלבנת פנים, וחטא מבזה תלמיד חכם, ונמצאים נכשלים בחטאים יותר חמורים מאלה שבאו לצעוק עליהם.

On p. 615 he writes as follows (even referring to the Satmar Rav’s views as “has ve-shalom”):

עיני גדולי וצדיקי הדור רואים נסים ונפלאות (ראה לעיל מבוא, מ”מ 32) – קול דודי דופק – אם אתחלתא דגאולה, אם רק פקידה, אם רק רמז רמיזה “מן החרכים” מאבינו שבשמים לריצוי, לפיוס – בהדי כבשי דרחמנא למה לן – איתערותא דלעילא הקוראת לאיתערותא דלתתא – וכי כל זה אך אור מתעה הוא חו”ש? (ראה “על הגאולה ועל התמורה עמ’ כ’ . . . )

I found a relevant “open letter” in the R. Leo Jung archives, File 2/1, at Yeshiva University. I thank the Yeshiva University Archives for permission to reproduce the letter here.

From this letter we see again that the issue had nothing to do with Bloch. Yet since there were other people attacking the Satmar Rav’s views during this time, I still think we need an explanation as to why these crazies decided to focus on Epstein. From the “open letter” it would appear that this was just another way to attack R. Moshe Feinstein, who wrote a haskamah for Epstein. In the “open letter” it states that if R. Moshe does not retract his haskamah then those behind the letter will take action. This action no doubt includes the burning of Epstein’s sefer.[3]

Here is how these wicked people expressed themselves, sounding just like mobsters:

משה’לע תדע שזה היא האזהרה האחרונה שאם לא תתחרט ברבים על ההסכמה שכתבת להספר הנ”ל לא נבוא עוד בכתב רק בידים נעשה מעשים נבהלים שתסמר שערות ראשך שתבוש להראות פרצופך הטמא.

Regarding R. Elijah Meir Bloch, he was a real Agudist, even serving on the U.S. Moetzet Gedolei ha-Torah. Yet his positive view of the establishment of the State of Israel is not unexpected. I say this because his father, R. Joseph Leib Bloch, Rosh Yeshiva of Telz and also rav of the city – the combination of rosh yeshiva and city rav was not so common [4] – appeared to be inclined to a type of Religious Zionism. Here is his letter to R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, published in the latter’s Li-Netivot Yisrael (Beit El, 2001), vol. 1.

I realize that R. Joseph Leib Bloch is usually portrayed as a strong anti-Zionist. This needs further investigation, but it could be that his opposition was only against secular Zionism and what he regarded as the Mizrachi’s compromises with the secular Zionists. From his letter, we see that he had a much different view of R. Kook’s Degel Yerushalayim.[5]

The letter above that of R. Joseph Leib Bloch is from R. Avraham Shapiro, the Kovno Rav, who unlike many other Lithuanian gedolim was a real opponent of Agudat Israel. (Another noteworthy opponent was R. Moses Soloveitchik.) Here is R. Shapiro’s picture.

R. Shapiro also was a supporter of Religious Zionism and a great admirer of R. Kook. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a biography of his life. Those who want to know a little more about his attitude towards Zionism can see his 1919 letter to R. Kook in Iggerot la-Re’iyah, no. 94. Here he writes as follows:

החלטנו שבהמעשים הפוליטיים להשגת חפצנו באה”ק, כלומר העבודה לפני אסיפת השלו’, נלך ביחד עם הציונים שלא בהתפוררות כבאי כח מפלגה ומפלגה, כי אם כבאי כח כל העם העברים בסתם. למטרה זו נבחרה קומיסיה פוליטית לבוא בדברים עם הציונים, וכבר נעשה הצעדים הדרושים לזה. מקוה אני שתמצא הדרך להתאחדות הפעולות.

We see very clearly from this letter that the Kovno Rav supported working with the non-Orthodox Zionists in order to achieve the Zionist objective, which became a real possibility after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War 1.

In a 1921 letter to R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, Iggerot la-Re’iyah, p. 557, the Kovno Rav refers to the Agudah paper Ha-Derekh in a mocking tone: כפי שראיתי מ”הדרך” לא-דרך. In this letter he tells R. Zvi Yehudah that it is important for the Orthodox in Palestine to be involved in the political process that was set up by the British Mandatory authorities. Yet instead of doing that, he claims that the Orthodox have turned a large portion of the women against them, alluding towards the Eretz Yisrael rabbis’ ruling forbidding women’s suffrage, a ruling which R. Avraham Yitzhak Kook was at the forefront of. Look at these words and remember that the one writing them was one of the greatest poskim of his time, the great rav of Kovno, not some minor Mizrachi figure:

האומנם חושבים הם את השתתפות הנשים לאיסור גמור המפורש בתורה שאין אומרים בו מוטב יהיו שוגגים כו’? לדעתי הסכילו עשה.

This opposition to women voting in Israeli elections has disappeared from the haredi world, for obvious political reasons. Yet examination of haredi writings leads to the conclusion that female suffrage is only a hora’at sha’ah, and that if the haredim ever became a majority the right to vote would be removed from women. But I think that this is more theory than reality, as I can’t imagine that even a haredi society would take this step as the backlash from women would be quite significant. As for the followers of R. Kook, do they also think that female suffrage is hora’at sha’ah and hope for a day when the vote will be taken away from women, for all the reasons R. Kook offered? Based on a recent statement by R. Aviner, it appears that for some of them the answer to this question is yes.

The Kovno Rav ends his letter to R. Zvi Yehudah with these strong words against Agudat Israel:

כנראה אסע אי”ה בקרוב בשביל צרכי צבור ללונדון. כמובן לא בשביל אגודת-ישראל. כנראה אחר כ’ את האספה בפ”ב. מה דעתו עליה? אנכי בכוונה לא נטלתי חלק בה, לפי שכל מעשיהם עד עכשיו אינם רצוים בעיני ואינם בדרך האמת. הדו”ח של רוזנהיים לא הי’ אמת. הקומיסא הפוליטית איננה יודעת מאום מאשר עשו ולכה”פ אנכי איני מסכים על כל דרכיהם שהזיקו רק להאורטודקכסיא ולא לאחרים. אני אומר זאת לכל מפורש מבלי התחבא בהשקפתי.

I mention the Kovno Rav’s opposition to Agudat Yisrael not only for its historical significance, but also because it brings us back to a time when Agudat Israel actually did something other than put on a big Daf Yomi celebration every seven years.[6] There was a time when Agudat Israel tried to accomplish great things, so there was reason to oppose it by those who thought that it was moving in the wrong direction. Today, however, what is Agudat Israel? There was a time when it was a movement, and today it is a lobbying organization, pure and simple, and without much influence at that. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t even have a website or a journal. You sink into oblivion, only to be remembered in another seven years at the next Siyum ha-Shas.

In a 1931 letter to R. Kook, Iggerot la-Re’iyah, no. 273, the Kovno Rav asks R. Kook if he agrees with him that a world congress of rabbis should be convened – אספת רבנים עולמית . I mention this only because in later years it became almost an article of faith in the haredi world that such rabbinic gatherings were absolutely forbidden. The fear was that the gatherings would make decisions at odds with the haredi Daas Torah. The only way to make sure that their followers would not attend these gatherings, where they might actually hear different viewpoints, was for the haredi leaders to ban these gatherings.[7] This is as good an example of any of how the haredi leadership uses its rabbinic “muscle” for political goals. If someone were to ask on what basis can one state that it is forbidden for rabbis with different viewpoints to gather to discuss issues, the answer is obviously not going to be that the Talmud or Shulhan Arukh says it is forbidden. It is forbidden because the gedolim say it is forbidden, i.e., Daas Torah.

R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg writes as follows about the Kovno Rav (Kitvei ha-Rav Weinberg, vol. 2, p. 234):

ועלי להעיר כי הגאון דקאוונא שליט”א הוא אחד מגדולי הדור בזמננו, אחד המוחות היותר טובים שבתוכנו. ואעפ”י שאנשים ידועים משתדלים להשפילו ולהמעיט את ערכו, מ”מ אי אפשר להחשיך את אור תורתו וחכמתו.

What does Weinberg mean when he speaks of those who oppose the Kovno Rav and try to minimize his importance? Who are these people and what led them to this judgment of the great Kovno Rav? Let me thicken the plot. The late R. Tovia Lasdun wrote to me as follows: “Kovner Rav was a great person, but his views did not always meet the views of the Orthodoxy [!]”[8] By “Orthodoxy” he meant Lithuanian yeshiva world Orthodoxy. From what we have seen already, namely, his anti-Agudah stand and the other points I noted, one can begin to understand why there would be opposition to the Kovno Rav from yeshiva circles.

R. Jeffrey Woolf recorded the following story about the Kovno Rav. He heard it from an eyewitness and it is very illuminating.[9]

The pre-war Jewish community of Kovno (Kaunas, today) Lithuania was divided into different components, divided by the Neris River. On the one side was the general community, which was made up of every type of contemporary Jewish religious and cultural population. Indeed, the community was a bit notorious for a lackadaisical form of religiosity. On the other side of the Williampol bridge, was the famous Slabodka Yeshiva, a flagship of the Mussar Movement. As might be expected, relations between the two sectors were often tense. There was a saying attributed to the Alter of Slabodka, R. Nosson Zvi Finkel זצ”ל, that the bridge from Kovno to Slabodko only went one way.

Coping with the myriad of challenges, modernization and secularization in Kovno was its illustrious rabbi, R. Avraham Dov-Bear Kahana-Shapira זצוק”ל, author of the classic collection of responsa and Talmudic essays דבר אברהם, and known more popularly as the ‘Kovner Rov.’ One central concern of his was the alienation of young Kovner Jews from the synagogue. Thus, when the administration of the Choral Synagogue came to him with an intriguing approach to the problem, he jumped at it.

The idea was to have the synagogue’s cantor, the internationally renowned tenor Misha Alexandrovich, offer public concerts that would feature classical חזנות alongside renditions of serene Italian bel canto compositions. The hope was that this type of cultural evening would draw modernizing young Jewish men and women to the synagogue, where they would socialize and (perhaps) find mates.

The first concert was a smashing success and more were planned. Everyone was thrilled, except for the heads of the Slabodka Yeshiva. They turned angrily to the Kovner Rov and demanded that he intervene to stop the concerts. They were indecent, the Rashe Yeshiva objected. The led to fraternization between men and women, and in the synagogue. Worse still, they might corrupt yeshiva students.

The Kovner Rav listened quietly, and then firmly rejected the Yeshiva’s objection. “You are responsible only for your yeshiva,” he asserted. “I am responsible for the spiritual welfare of all of the Jews of Kovno.” The concerts, he declared, would continue.

Returning to R. Elijah Meir Bloch, there is another relevant source and that is found in Chaim Bloch’s Dovev Siftei Yeshenim. (There was no familial relationship between the two Blochs.) As we have discussed numerous times, one can’t believe anything that Bloch wrote, and all of the letters of gedolim he published must be assumed to be forgeries. However, this only applies to the letters he published of deceased individuals, but the letters he published of living figures are indeed authentic. In vol. 1 (1959), p. 392, he published a letter he received in December 1944 from Jacob Rosenheim, the president of World Agudat Israel, then living in New York. Chaim Bloch had written to him asking on what basis the Agudah was now supporting the establishment of a Jewish state. Rosenheim replied that this policy was based on the decision of the “gedolei ha-Torah.” He also mentioned that this support was dependent on two important points. (1) The State had to be run according to Torah, and (2) that the new State would be accepted peacefully by the Arabs. He states that if the Arabs and the world governments agree to the establishment of the State, then there is no prohibition of שלא ימרדו באומות. He also adds that there is no prohibition to establish a state without a Temple, i.e., a State before the coming of the Messiah.

Chaim Bloch strongly rejects Rosenheim’s words, and declares that based upon what Rosenheim writes, there is now no difference between the Agudah and the Mizrachi. This was exactly the claim of the Edah Haredit in Jerusalem, and eventually it and the Agudah would go their separate ways.

The end of Rosenheim’s letter is of interest to us, because after stating that he personally doesn’t believe that in the current (end of 1944) circumstances there is any chance of a Torah state, he adds that R. Eliezer Silver and R. Elijah Meir Bloch do think such a Torah state is possible. I don’t know what this says about the political acumen of Silver[10] and R. Elijah Meir Bloch, but it shows that R. Bloch had a very optimistic view of the religious development of the future State.

Rosenheim concludes his letter by stating that, unlike Silver and R. Elijah Meir Bloch, “we” (by which he must mean the rest of the Agudah leadership) regard the creation of a State as a real catastrophe. Rosenheim and the others assumed (correctly) that the non-religious would be the majority and that this would create a very difficult circumstance for Orthodox Jews. Their preference was that the land remain under British control, with religious freedom given to all. Rosenheim’s comments today appear surprising, but we must remember that from the perspective of most Agudists, nothing was worse than having a secular “Hebrew State”. Many of them assumed that Zionist control of the Land of Israel would lead to anti-religious measures (which turned out to be correct in some instances). Others might even have believed that the Zionists were to be suspected of wanting to kill the Orthodox![11]

Regarding R. Elijah Meir Bloch, let me call attention to one more interesting source. In the volume Yahadut Lita, vol. 2, pp. 234-235, Bloch contributed an article on Agudat Israel, in which, as mentioned, he was very involved. In this article he says the following, which fits in very well with what we learn from Muskin’s essay (I have added the emphasis).

“אגודת ישראל” בליטא, כמו מרכז “יבנה”, התענינו גם בהפצת הדיבור העברית והשתמשו בטקסיהם בדגל הכחול-לבן, שכן סיסמתה של ה”אגודה” בליטא היתה ללחום רק נגד הדברים שהם בניגוד להשקפתה, אבל לא נגד דברים נכונים כשלעצמם, אף שאחרים דוגלים בהם בדרך מנוגדת להשקפת העולם החרדית. סיסמתנו היתה שכל דבר טוב שייך לנו, אף שאחרים הרימוהו על נס, ונקבל את האמת ממי שאמרו. אדרבה, בזה יכולנו לרכוש את דעת-הקהל לצדנו בהיות מאבקנו רק נגד הדברים שהם בניגוד למסורת.

As Bloch says, the approach of the Lithuanian Agudah was not to oppose something just because it was supported by the non-Orthodox. Just because the non-Orthodox spoke in Hebrew in their schools and used the blue and white flag didn’t mean that the Orthodox had to avoid these things. (I have to admit that for Agudah members to use the blue and white flag strikes me as very strange, as from its beginning this was a Zionist flag, not a flag for the Jewish people as a whole.)

In his article, Bloch describes how in the 1930s two hundred Agudah halutzim went on aliyah, after hakhsharah at Tzeirei Agudah kibbutzim in Lithuania. Sounding very Zionistic, he notes that among them were those who took part in defense of the yishuv against Arab attacks: ופעלו במסירות למען בנין הארץ.[12]

* * * *

In a previous post I asked two quiz questions. No one was able to answer no. 1, which means that the prize will remain for the winner of a future quiz. These were the questions.

1. Tell me the only place in the Shulhan Arukh where R. Joseph Karo mentions a kabbalistic concept? I am referring to an actual concept e.g., Adam Kadmon, Ein Sof, etc.

2. If more than one person answers the above question correctly, the one who answers the following (not related to seforim) will win: Which is the only United States embassy that has a kosher kitchen?

Nachum Lamm and Ari Zivotofsky both got the answer right for no. 2. The embassy is in Prague and the ambassador is Norman L. Eisen. I had the pleasure of davening with him every morning on my trip to Prague last summer. You can read about him here.

Now let’s turn to the question no. 1. The first thing to note is that there are many halakhot in the Shulhan Arukh. If R. Joseph Karo was a mystic, as in the title of Werblowsky’s book on him,[13] one would expect to see evidence of this in the Shulhan Arukh, and also in the Beit Yosef. Yet we don’t have this, and references to the Zohar and even basing halakhot on the Zohar have nothing to do with whether one should be thought of as a mystic. By the 16th century the Zohar was a canonical text, so referring to it says nothing about whether one is a mystic, neither then nor today.

However, we know that R. Joseph Karo was a mystic because of his book Magid Meisharim, which recounts his visions of a heavenly figure, who taught him over many decades.[14] Interestingly, R. Leopold Greenwald denied that Karo wrote this book. He attributes it to an anonymous לץ.[15] This reminds me of something I noted in an earlier post. See here where I mention how Abraham Samuel Judah Gestetner denies that R. Jacob Emden wrote Megilat Sefer, his autobiography. Gestetner claims that it could only have been written by a degenerate maskil! (There is no doubt whatsoever that Emden wrote the work.)

Despite the fact that the Shulhan Arukh does not generally mention kabbalistic ideas, there is one place, and only one place, where he indeed does so. It is in Orah Hayyim 24:5, where he states that the two tzitzit in front have ten knots, which is an allusion to the ten Sefirot:

כשמסתכל בציצית מסתכל בשני ציציות שלפניו שיש בהם עשרה קשרים רמז להויות

* * *

I am happy to report that this summer, God willing, I will once again be leading Jewish history-focused tours to Central Europe and Italy. (A trip to Spain is being planned, but will not be ready by the summer.) For information about the trip to Central Europe, please see here.

Complete information about the Italy trip will will soon be available on the Torah in Motion website.

To be continued

[1] With regard to Ben-Hur, there are at least eight different Hebrew translations, and they all censor Christian themes in the novel. See Nitsa Ben-Ari, “The Double Conversion of Ben-Hur: A Case of Manipulative Translation,” Target 12 (2002), pp. 263-302.

[2] Why such lashon nekiyah? I can think of many more appropriate ways to refer to such criminals.

[3] In the introduction to Iggerot Moshe, vol. 8, p. 27 (written by the sons and son-in-law), it states that some Satmar hasidim would come to R. Moshe for advice and to receive blessings. But on p. 26 it also records as follows:

בגלל עמדת האגודה לגבי ארץ ישראל וההתנגדות החריפה של חסידות סטאמר לעמדה זו, הוחלט אצלם לתקוף את רבנו ופסקיו (כך ספרו לרבנו אנשי נטורי קרתא בירושלים כאשר היה שם בשנת תשכ”ד). כמטרה להתקפה זו נבחרו תשובותיו בעניין הזרעה מלאכותית ושיעור מחיצה של עזרת נשים. מחלוקת זו שלא היתה לאמיתה של תורה גרמה לרבנו עגמת נפש מרובה. התקפות אלה לא היו רק באמצעות מאמרים ותשובות, אלא גם בהתקפות אישיות חירופים וגידופים, מעשי אלימות, איומי פצצות, הטרדות טלפוניות ושריפת ספריו.

[4] His father-in-law, R. Eliezer Gordon, also held both positions, as did his son, R. Avraham Yitzhak Bloch (who was martyred in the Holocaust). Although in the U.S. the Telz yeshiva adopted a very anti-secular studies perspective, this was not the case in Europe. R. Joseph Leib Bloch was very involved with the Yavneh day school system in Lithuania, which incorporated secular studies (and also Tanakh), and in the context of Eastern Europe can be regarded as a form of Modern Orthodox education. It is also significant that in Yavneh schools Hebrew was the language of instruction for all subjects. The preparatory school (mekhinah) of the Telz yeshiva also contained secular studies (which the government insisted on if students wanted to be exempted from the draft).

The graduates of Yavneh attended universities, in particular the University of Kovno, and they had an Orthodox student group named Moriah. By the 1930s, Lithuania had begun to produce an academically trained Orthodox population. Had the Holocaust not intervened, much of Lithuanian Orthodoxy would have come to resemble German Orthodoxy. This is important to realize since people often assume that Bnei Brak and Lakewood are the only authentic continuation of Lithuania, when nothing could be further from the truth. What R. Ruderman attempted to establish in Baltimore was, speaking historically, the true successor of the pre-War Lithuanian Orthodox society’s dominant ethos. (I am speaking of Orthodox society as a whole, not the very small yeshiva population.)

In speaking of R. Joseph Leib Bloch, Dr. Yitzhak Raphael ha-Halevi Etzion, the head of the Yavneh Teacher’s Institute in Telz, writes as follows:

בדברי על הגימנסיה העברית לבנות “יבנה” בטאלז ובהזכרי על החינוך בעיר בכלל אינני יכול שלא להזכיר את דמותו המופלאה והדגולה של הרב ר’ יוסף ליב בלוך זצ”ל, רבה של טאלז וראש ישיבתה. אחד הרבנים הגדולים והקנאים ביותר של ליטא – היה הראשון שהבין את הנחיצות של חינוך עברי דתי-מודרני לבנות ולבנים.

See “Ha-Zerem ha-Hinukhi ‘Yavneh’ be-Lita,” Yahadut Lita, vol. 2, pp. 160-165.

R. Shlomo Carlebach wrote as follows, after describing the creation of the Kovno Gymnasium, a Torah im Derekh Eretz school established by R. Joseph Zvi Carlebach (Ish Yehudi: The Life and the Legacy of a Torah Great, Rav Joseph Tzvi Carlebach (Brooklyn, 2008), pp. 74, 76):

The Kovno Gymnasium left a deep impression upon the Lithuanian Torah leaders, who could not help but notice the enthusiastic response to the Torah im Derech Eretz educational approach on the part of students and parents. They realized that this approach caused no compromise in Yirat Shamayim. The enormous upheaval in the political and social structure of Jewish society throughout the land, in the aftermath of war, threatened the stability and loyalty of Jewish youth. Under those circumstances, these Torah leaders felt an urgent need to introduce a similar educational program, on a broad scale, by reorganizing existing schools and establishing new ones, where subjects in Derech Eretz would be taught alongside Limuday Kodesh.

At the behest of the Telzer Rav, Rav Joseph Leib Bloch, a world-renowned gaon and Rosh Yeshivah of the equally renowned Telzer Yeshivah, Dr. [Leo] Deutschlaender, director and guiding spirit of the Keren Hatorah Central Office in Vienna, was summoned to Kovno to organize, in consultation with the Rav [Joseph Zvi Carlebach] such an educational system, to be called Yavneh. . . . At its conclusion, he published a summary of the “Yavneh educational project” in the “Israelit”. He reported that separate teachers’ seminaries for men and women had been established in Kovno, in addition to “gymnasium-style high schools in Telz, Kovno, and Ponevesh, and approximately 100 elementary schools spread throughout the land.”

It is interesting that when the late, unlamented, Jewish Observer published a review of this book by R. Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer, the editor felt constrained to insert the following “clarification,” knowing that its readers would be shocked to learn that Lithuanian Torah Jewry was not an enlarged version of Lakewood.

The best part of this “clarification” is the final sentence. I wonder, why does such a careful scholar and talmid hakham as Rabbi Carlebach need to have his book vetted by “gedolei Torah and roshei yeshivos”, who for all their talmudic learning are not known as experts in historical matters? Since the Agudah gedolei Torah and roshei yeshivot are prepared to cover up historical truths (as seen in their signing on to the ban of Making of a Godol), why in this case did they agree to allow the masses to learn what really was going on in Lithuania? Is it because they too feel the need to change the direction of American haredi Orthodoxy to a more secular studies friendly perspective, and this could help set the stage for this?

Returning to Telz, the question remains why Telz in Cleveland adopted such an extremely negative outlook regarding secular studies? Maybe a reader can offer some insight. R. Rakeffet has reported that R. Samuel Volk of YU, who was himself an old Telzer, commented that Telz in Cleveland distorted what Telz in Europe was about.

An interesting story about the Cleveland Telz was told to me by Rabbi M.C., a Cleveland native (and YU musmach). He was at the Telz high school and upon graduating decided to go to YU. R. Mordechai Gifter summoned M.C.’s mother and told her that if her son goes to YU, within a few months he will no longer be religious. She then angrily demanded that R. Gifter return to her all the years of tuition she had paid. She said: “If you tell me that after all the years my son has studied here, it will only take a few months at YU before he becomes non-religious, then the education you offer must be pretty lousy, and I want my money back!”

R. Dov Lior recalls that R. Zvi Yehudah Kook had a similar reaction when at a meeting of roshei reshiva with Minister of Defense Shimon Peres a haredi rosh yeshiva claimed that putting yeshiva students in the army could lead to them becoming non-religious (Hilah Wolberstein, Mashmia Yeshuah [Merkaz Shapira, 2010], p. 296):

הרכין הרב צבי יהודה את ראשו כולו בוש ונכלם. הרי צבא ישראל, צבאנו הוא, ולא צבא הפריץ הנוכרי, ולכן חובה עלינו להשתתף בו. זאת ועוד, האם המטען שהבחורים קיבלו בישיבות אינו חזק דיו שיש לחשוש כל כך לקלקולם?

[5] See his Shiurei Da’at (Tel Aviv, 1956), vol. 3, p. 65 (in his shiur “Dor Haflagah”), where we see that he was also opposed to messianic Zionism, so it appears that he didn’t really understand R. Kook’s ideology.

הגאולה אי אפשר להביא על ידי תחבולות בני אדם ואי אפשר לדעת אותן, נעלה ונעלם הוא ענין הגאולה, ולכן תבא בהיסח הדעת, כי לא ידעו בני אדם אל נכון איזה מצב הוא הראוי לגאולה.

[6] In all the discussions recently about the success of Daf Yomi, I didn’t see anyone note that one of the reasons this success is so surprising is that the whole notion of Daf Yomi goes against what for many years was the outlook of the rabbinic elite. The Shakh, Yoreh Deah 246:5, quoting the Derishah, states that laypeople should not only study Talmud but also halakhah, which he thinks should be their major focus as practical halakhah is שורש ועיקר לתורתינו. It is not hard to understand the point that since a layperson’s time is limited, he will get more out of his learning by focusing on practical material. If, for example, one has an hour a day to learn, what makes more sense: to go through hilkhot Shabbat or to study Talmud? While people today prefer Talmud, the Shakh prefers halakhah, and I don’t know of any rabbinic figures in years past who disagreed with the Shakh. This Shakh is also mentioned in the introduction to the Mishnah Berurah. While it is obvious that one who has time to learn both Talmud and practical halakhah is in the ideal circumstance, how did we get to the situation where those whose time is limited are now encouraged to focus on Talmud? The credit (or blame, depending on your outlook) for this development can, I think, be laid at Artscroll’s door, for Artscroll made learning Talmud exciting for the masses, in a way that halakhah is not, and maybe can never be.

Daf Yomi is so revolutionary precisely due to its democratic ethos, that everyone is welcome to study that which used to be the preserve of only the elites. Much like American universities opened up higher learning to the masses, and created a situation where for the first time in history texts such as Plato and Aristotle were now taught (or spoon-fed) to all, so too, for he first time in history, Daf Yomi allowed Talmud to become a product of mass consumption.

[7] See e.g.. R. Eleazar Shakh, Mikhtavim u-Ma’amarim, vols. 1-2, no. 111.

[8] Rabbi Rakeffet has reported the following story that he was told by R. Bernard Revel’s widow, Sarah. When the Kovno Rav was in New York he was at some gathering with Revel. Revel told him that he had to excuse himself as he had yahrzeit and had to go recite kaddish at a minyan, The Kovno Rav replied: “You also believe in that?” The implication was that the notion of saying kaddish on a yahrzeit was folk religion, not something that Torah scholars take seriously. Mrs. Revel was shocked when she heard the comment, but Rakeffet is probably correct that this was an example of Lithuanian rabbinic humor.

[9] See here.

[10] I heard from a Holocaust survivor that in 1946 Silver came to Kielce. Dressed in a military uniform, he gave a speech telling the people to remain in Poland in order to rebuild Jewish life there. The man who told me this thought that Silver’s speech was directed against the Mizrachi. (Silver was in Poland on July 4, 1946, the date of the infamous Kielce pogrom, yet I don’t know if his visit to Kielce was before or after the pogrom.) Silver was not a chaplain, but rather an emissary of Agudat ha-Rabbanim and Vaad Hatzalah. “The American government agreed to Silver’s wearing an Army uniform so its insignias would add to his protection in areas where anti-Semitism was still rife.”Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Silver Era (Jerusalem/New York, 2000), p. 228.

[11] It has been reported that R. Moshe Sternbuch claims that he was told by R. Velvel Soloveitchik that his father, R. Hayyim, once expressed fear of not being left alone with a religious Zionist. He was worried that the latter would kill him, since the Zionists are suspected of shefihut damim. See Mishkenot ha-Ro’im, vol.1, p. 271, quoting Om Ani Homah, Sivan 5732. (I don’t know if Sternbuch is being quoted accurately, but I can’t imagine that R. Hayyim would ever have said this about a religious Zionist. A number of his own students and relatives were religious Zionists!). The exact same fear was, according to Moshe Blau, expressed by R. Joseph Rozin, the Rogochover:

הלא הם [הציונים] חשודים על הכל, הם חשודים גם על שפיכות דמים

See Yair Borochov, Ha-Rogochovi p. 70. (After the killing of Jacob de Haan, this viewpoint was given some basis.) See ibid., where Blau also quotes the Rogochover as saying that the reason he stopped publicizing his anti-Zionist views was because he was asked to do so by his daughter, who was married to R. Yisrael Abba Citron, the rav of Petah Tikvah. Citron was a Mizrachi supporter and it was creating problems for him that his father-in-law was attacking the Zionist movement. Regarding Citron, see the fascinating book-length biography of him that appears at the beginning of his volume of hiddushim, published in 2010.

[12] As Eliezer Brodt noted in his last post, Bloch’s son, R. Yosef Zalman Bloch, Be-Emunah Shelemah (Monsey, 2012), pp. 115-116, quotes a strongly anti-Zionist and anti-Mizrachi letter of the elder Bloch, attempting to leave the impression that when it came to this issue his father had a completely negative attitude. However, as we have seen, the truth is more complicated. In general, Y.Z. Bloch’s book is quite a strange mix of wide learning combined with unbelievable nonsense, a point alluded to much more gently by Brodt. On the very page that he quotes his father’s view of Zionism, he tells us that one who does not believe that God’s individual providence encompasses everything in the world, even the animals, insects, falling leaves, etc. הרי הוא כופר בעיקר, ואין לו חלק לעוה”ב. He says that the sages in earlier times who didn’t have this perspective were tzadikim and they are at present in Olam ha-Ba, but today, after the matter has been “decided” by the Masorah, holding such a position is heretical. Leaving aside the question as to why he feels he is a prophet and can in bombastic fashion declare who has lost his share in the World to Come (something he is fond of doing in this book), does he not realize how many great Torah scholars from even recent generations he has (inadvertently?) condemned as heretics?

This is all so obvious to me that I don’t see any need to cite “authorities.” But for those who want this, let me offer the following. A few years ago, an author writing in Mishpahah asserted that one who believes that animals are not subject to individual providence, it is like he is “eating fowl with milk” (which is a lot less severe than Bloch’s judgment that such a person is a heretic with no share in the World to Come). R. Meir Mazuz, Or Torah, Tamuz 5769, pp. 867-868, responded to this strange assertion by citing many authorities who indeed held this position, and he mentions nothing about it being “rejected by the Masorah.” He concludes:

אבל אטו מי שסובר כדעת הרמב”ם והרמב”ן והרד”ק ורבינו בחיי וספר החינוך ומהרש”א והרמ”ק ומהר”י אירגאס והגר”א נקרא אוכל בשר עוף בחלב?

A large section of Bloch’s book is designed to show that the only acceptable Torah belief is that the sun, planets, and stars revolve around the earth. As for Copernicus, he refers to him as קופירניקוס הרשע שר”י (p. 351 n. 36).

Among his nuggets of wisdom is that astronomy is the most heretical, and anti-Jewish, of all the sciences. P. 387 n. 1:

וצריכה למודעי, דספרי חכמת התכונה גרעי טובא יותר מכל שאר ספרי חכמתם, שמלאים אפיקורסות ושנאת הקב”ה ר”ל, שנאת דת יהודית, ושנאת האמת, שטויות ושגעונות, עד שיש להתפלא מה טעם יהיו “חכמיהם” וספריהם האלו כל כך מטופשים ומלאי ארס הכפירה יותר מכל שאר ספרי חכמיהם.

Since, as he states, these scientists are not only heretics but also stupid fools, one can only wonder how they were able to figure out how to put a man on the moon.

On p. 331 he refers to the view of R. Jacob Kamenetsky (without mentioning him by name) that the first four chapters of Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah are not to be regarded as Torah but as פילוסופיא בעלמא. See Emet le-Yaakov (New York, 1998), pp. 15-16. Bloch sees this as absolute heresy, and he quotes R. Yehudah Segal of Manchester as saying that even if the Hatam Sofer or the Noda bi-Yehudah said this, we would not accept what they said, and would be forced to reinterpret their words. Bloch quotes this approvingly, and this illustrates the problem. He is so locked into his dogmatic assumptions that his mind is closed and doesn’t want to be confused with the facts.. If most people were shown an explicit text of the Hatam Sofer or Noda bi-Yehudah that diverges from their dogmatic assumption, they would conclude that their assumption of what is “acceptable” needs to be revised. But Bloch refuses to even acknowledge the possibility that people greater than him might have a different perspective on what constitute the fundamentals of faith.

Bloch advocates this approach even when it comes to the rishonim (p. 117):

ואפילו מה שכתבו עמודי העולם הראשונים ז”ל, אם אינו מתאים עם האמונה הפשוטה הברורה שבה”אני מאמין”, וכפי שנמסרה לנו ה”אני מאמין” מאבותינו ואמותינו הצדיקים והצדקניות, הַניחו אותה בקרן זוית.

On p. 336 Bloch goes further than merely rejecting the Copernican outlook that earth revolves around the sun. He also denies that the earth rotates on its axis. According to him, it is a Torah truth that the earth stands still: שהארץ עומדת על עמדה ואינה זזה כלל.

The absolute craziest thing he says, in a book filled with absurdities, is that the sun, moon, and all the stars [!] revolve around the earth every twenty-four hours!:

שהשמש והירח וכל הכוכבי-לכת וכל הכוכבים וכל צבא השמים סובבים יחד את כדור הארץ בכל עשרים וארבע שעות.

I guess it is a neat trick that stars so many light years away (i.e., trillions of miles away) are able to circle earth each day. (Our galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of stars.) But seriously, is one supposed to laugh or cry when reading this? How should one relate to a rabbi who so dishonors the Torah by claiming that this is Torah truth, and a required belief of any religious Jew?

On p. 289 Bloch writes:

והא דמצינו לפעמים שאחד מרבותינו הראשונים או אחד מגדולי האחרונים ז”ל אשר מימיהם אנו שותים, אמרו על איזה אגדתא שזה גוזמא, תדע לנכון דלא משום שח”ו לא הרכינו ראשם לכל הנאמר בגמרא, וחשבו שמה שרחוק מהמציאות שלעינינו בהכרח יתפרש רק כגוזמא, אלא דכך היתה קבלתם דזה המאמר המובא בתלמוד לא נאמרה מעיקרא כפשוטה אלא כגוזמא.

Everything in this sentence is incorrect, and is contradicted by numerous explicit statements in rishonim and aharonim.

[13] Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic (Oxford, 1962)

[14] Regarding why R. Joseph Karo doesn’t mention the maggid in his halakhic writings, see Eliezer Brodt, Likutei Eliezer (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 106ff. As usual, Brodt shows incredible erudition.

[15] Kol Bo al Avelut (Brooklyn, 1951), vol. 2, p. 31, in the note. Greenwald elaborates on this position in Ha-Rav R. Yosef Karo (New York, 1953), ch. 8.