Taliban Women and More

Taliban Women and More

Marc B. Shapiro

1. In this post I am going to respond to a number of emails and requests to deal with certain topics. I can’t get to everything I was asked about, and will only touch on some topics, but here is a start.
Let’s begin with the common practice in the Israeli haredi world of ignoring what the Sages tell us in Kiddushin 29a and not teaching young men a trade so that instead they can devote themselves to Torah study.[1] People assume that this is a late twentieth-century phenomenon. While it is true that the numbers of people who currently follow this approach is much larger than ever before in history, it must be noted that even in previous years there were those who acted in the same fashion. We see this from R. Pinhas Horowitz’ strong words against this approach in his Sefer ha-Berit, vol. 2, ma’amar 12, ch. 10.
R. Meir Mazuz has recently suggested that this negative attitude towards work explains a passage in one of the most popular Shabbat zemirot.[2] The following lines appear in Mah Yedidot.

חפציך בו אסורים וגם לחשוב חשבונות, הרהורים מותרים ולשדך הבנות, ותינוק ללמדו ספר למנצח בנגינות
Artscroll, Family Zemiros, translates as follows:

Your mundane affairs are forbidden on it [Shabbat] and also to calculate accounts; Reflections are permitted and to arrange matches for maidens; To arrange for a child to be taught Scripture, to sing a song of praise.

(R. Jonathan Sacks, in his siddur, p. 388, translates the last words similarly: “singing songs of praise.”)
The first thing to note is that the translation is incorrect. The words למנצח בנגינות do not mean “to sing a song of praise”. The word למנצח is not an infinitive (that would be לנצח, patah under the nun). It is a noun with a prefix, and means “to the choirmaster” or something like that. Artscroll, in its Tanach (Ps. 6:1), translates למנצח בנגינות: “For the conductor, with the neginos.” The note tells us that neginos are a type of musical instrument.
I sympathize with Artscroll when confronted with the need to translate the words למנצח בנגינות in the song. It is obvious that the words make no sense. Until then the passage was speaking about what was permitted on the Sabbath and then you have למנצח בנגינות .
This is an old problem and while a couple of forced answers have been suggested, others have argued that what we have here a mistaken reading, and instead of למנצח בנגינות it should read וללמדו אומנות (perhaps even reading אומנות with a final holam in order to make it rhyme). The entire paragraph in Mah Yedidot is derived from Shabbat 150a, and there it states: משדכין על התינוקות ליארס בשבת ועל התינוק ללמדו ספר וללמדו אומנות. After seeing this, can anyone still have a doubt that the standard version is incorrect?

R. Mazuz is apparently unaware that others before him had already suggested that וללמדו אומנות was the original version,[3] but he is the only one to suggest why the text was changed. Although it strikes me as a bit far-fetched, he assumes that when people stopped teaching their sons a trade this verse became problematic, and therefore someone took it upon himself to alter the text.
After criticizing Artscroll’s translation (and in future posts I will have more such examples), let me now mention an instance where of all the translations I have consulted, only Artscroll gets it right.

Every Friday night we say the following (which is based on Isaiah 52:1):
התנערי מעפר קומי לבשי בגדי תפארתך עמי
Sacks translates: “Shake yourself off, arise from the dust! Put on your clothes of glory, My people.” All the translations I have consulted render along these lines. The problem, however, is obvious. If “My people” is being addressed, then why are the verbs and the suffix of תפארתך  feminine?
Artscroll recognized the problem and translates: “Shake off the dust – arise! Don your splendid clothes, My people.” The translation is explained in the note: “Jerusalem – your most splendid garment is Israel. Let the redemption come so that they may inhabit you in holiness once more.” In other words, Jerusalem is being addressed, not the people of Israel. “My people” is therefore identified metaphorically with “your splendid clothes.” The stanza thus needs to be read as a continuation of the prior stanza – מקדש מלך עיר מלוכה – which is also addressed to Jerusalem.
Furthermore, if you look at Isaiah 52:1, upon which the text is based, it reads: לבשי בגדי תפארתך ירושלים עיר הקודש  “Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.” So we see that also in the original verse it is Jerusalem that is being addressed. Artscroll cites this interpretation in the name of Iyun Tefillah (found in Otzar ha-Tefilot) and refers to it as “novel”. This understanding (which is actually the peshat of the words) was also suggested by R. Kook[4] R. Baruch Epstein,[5] and R. David Hadad.[6] 
2. A long time ago I was asked to deal with the so-called Jewish Taliban women, who completely cover their faces when they go out. I know that everyone has downplayed their significance and referred to them as crazy. I think that this is too optimistic an assumption. Although I am not predicting it, I would not be surprised if this turned into a real phenomenon. All these women need is one somewhat respected Torah scholar to support them and they will then become just another faction in extremist Orthodoxy. You will then have groups that don’t allow women to drive (or smoke, or use a cellular phone, etc.), and another group that also requires that they cover their faces when they leave home. The real difference today is that while with the other groups we have men telling women how to behave for reasons of tzeniut, the Taliban group is completely female driven and led.

The truth of the matter is that the Taliban women make a certain amount of sense. They are part of a community that forbids women’s (and even little girl’s) pictures to appear in printed matter because seeing this might arouse sexual thoughts in men.[7] Even though these women never studied Talmud, we know that one doesn’t need to be talmid hakham to derive a basic kal va-homer. Even these uneducated women can conclude that if men’s souls can be destroyed by seeing a picture of a woman or a little girl, how much more so can they be driven to sexual frenzy by seeing a live woman or girl? As such, it makes perfect sense that when they go out on the street they are completely covered and only their husband and children are permitted see their faces.[8] It is their opponents in the haredi word who have to explain why it is permitted to see the faces of real live women but forbidden to see their pictures. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, as the Taliban women have rightly concluded.
I am sure that any rabbinic authorities that come to support the Taliban women will be able to find relevant sources to defend this lifestyle. I know this will surprise readers, especially as many rabbis have declared that the Taliban women are completely distorting Jewish rules of modesty. These rabbis have claimed that unlike Arabs, Jewish women have never dressed this way (unless they were forced to) as the face is not ervah. Therefore, these rabbis have asserted, Jewish tzeniut has never, has ve-shalom, seen it as a value for women to completely cover their faces.

Lines like this are good for applause in a Modern Orthodox (and even a haredi) shul, among people anxious to be reassured that these Taliban women couldn’t possibly have any sources in our tradition for their actions. The truth of the matter is that, whether we like it or not, there are sources that are strong supports for the Taliban women, and there is no reason to deny that they exist.[9] Sotah 10b is clearly praising Tamar when it mentions that she was so modest that she covered her face in her father-in-law’s house. R. Joseph Messas (Mayim Hayyim, vol. 2, Orah Hayyim no. 140) points out that Shabbat 6:6 refers to Arabian Jewish women going out veiled, which means that their entire face was covered except for their eyes. He also points to Shabbat 8:3: כחול כדי לכחול עין אחת, which as explained in the Talmud refers to those women who were so modest that they were completely veiled, with only one eye showing in order for them to see (see Rashi, ad loc. See also Rashi to Isaiah 3:19.) Messas tells us that in his youth he personally saw Jewish women who dressed like this: וכן ראינו בימי נעורנו. R. Meir Mazuz’s mother testified that brides in Djerba would only show one eye, also for reasons of modesty.[10]

Here we have evidence that the Taliban dress was actually a traditional Jewish dress, just the sort of material that can be used to support the new dress code. In fact, one doesn’t even need to look to Morocco or Djerba, or even to talmudic literature, to find sources that women dressed this way. It is found right in the Song of Songs 4:9. This verse states: “Thou has ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.” The Soncino translation explains: “It is customary for an Eastern woman to unveil one of her eyes when addressing someone.” In other words, normally, for reasons of modesty, the woman is entirely covered (although this covering would be see-through so she could walk properly), and only at certain times would she remove it to reveal one eye. I know some people are thinking that this is exactly the sort of explanation you can expect from Soncino, which loves to quote non-Orthodox and even non-Jewish commentators, and if you look at the various traditional commentaries they do indeed provide all sorts of allegorical meanings for this verse. Yet the Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 8:3, also understands the verse as giving an example of modest behavior on the part of the woman, that she only uncovers one eye. As explained by Korban ha-Edah:
מביא פסוק זה לראיה שדרך הצנועות לצאת באחת מעיניה מכוסה ואחת מגולה
(Korban ha-Edah and all the other traditional commentaries I have seen assume that the woman always goes with one eye uncovered, while Soncino explains that she only uncovers this one eye on special occasions.)
R. Baruch Epstein takes note of this passage in the Jerusalem Talmud in his commentary to Song of Songs, and adds.
לפנים בעת שהיו נוהגות הנשים ללכת עטופות היו מגלות רק עין אחת כדי לראות מהלכן, ומכאן רמז שמנהג כזה הוא מנהג כשר וצנוע, שהרי כן משבחה הכתוב שלבבתו בעין אחת.
If this practice is, as Epstein says, a מנהג כשר וצנוע, then I don’t think we should be surprised if some circles attempt to bring it back into style.
A few paragraphs above I quoted a responsum of R. Joseph Messas.[11] In this teshuvah he also explains why women can’t be given aliyot. As is well known, in earlier days this was permitted but the Sages later forbid it on account of kevod ha-tzibbur (Megillah 23a). There have been lots of interpretations of what kevod ha-tzibbur means, but Messas has a very original perspective. He claims that the reason women were banned from receiving aliyot is because this would lead to sexual arousal among the male congregants. Messas believes that this came from the actual experience of the Sages, who saw what happened when women received aliyot. He also assumes that these women would have been dressed in a Taliban-like fashion[12]: בהסתר פנים כמנהג נשים קדמוניות. But even such a woman, covered head to toe, still created problems with the sexually fixated men.[13]
ובדורות שאחריהם ראו שיש בזה מחשבת עריות, שהצבור היו שואלים זה לזה, מי זאת עולה . . . ואם היה קולה ערב מוסיף להבעיר אש היצר, ולכן עמדו ובטלו את הדבר.
Knowing how concerned the Sages were about avoiding situations that could lead to sexual thoughts, it makes sense that they would ban the practice if they thought that women’s aliyot would lead in this direction.[14] But Messas now has a problem, because the Talmud doesn’t give this as a reason for abolishing women’s aliyot. Instead, it states that they were abolished because of kevod ha-tzibbur. This leads Messas to offer one of the wonderfully original interpretations that can be found so often in his writings. He claims that because the Sages didn’t want to insult the (male) community by telling them the real reason why they abolished the aliyot, namely, that even during Torah reading men can’t control themselves from sexual thoughts, therefore they invented the concept of kevod ha-tzibbur! However, this is not the real reason, and therefore all attempts to explain the meaning of the term are irrelevant. The real reason is the male sexual desire which as Messas states, is always in need to being fenced in:[15]
וכדי שלא להראות את הצבור שחשדו אותם, תלו הטעם מפני כבוד הציבור, שלא תהא האשה הפטורה מן הדבר מתערבת עם האנשים המחוייבים בו וכן בכל דור היו גודרים גדרים בעריות
Based on this male weakness, Messas claims that the mehitzah has to be built in such a fashion that the men cannot see the women. He even has a most original way to explain to the women why they are placed in what amounts to a completely other room. Rather than being a sign of their insignificance, it is a sign of how important they are. The proof of this importance is that men are constantly drawn to look at them. Therefore, by building a high mehitzah we are able to save the men from themselves.
I haven’t yet mentioned the shawls that some women have started wearing (and which was the practice in the days of the Rambam; see Hilkhot Ishut 13:11) Most shawl-wearers are not so extreme as to completely cover their faces, and because of this the practice has been defended by some fairly mainstream people. According to R. Ovadiah Yosef’s son-in-law, R. Aharon Abutbol, and R. David Benizri, R. Ovadiah sees the practice in a positive light for those women who are able to take it on.[16] Among others who have spoken out in favor of the shawls are R. Yitzhak Ratsaby,[17] R. Avraham Baruch,[18] and R. Mendel Fuchs, a dayan for the Edah Haredit (who refers to the “heilige shawl”).[19] There is even a fairly recent book that discusses the matter in detail. It is Ahoti Kalah, by R. Avraham Arbel. Here is the title page.
Arbel is a great talmid hakham.[20] His book carries haskamot from mainstream figures, including R. Ovadiah, R. Neuwirth, and R. Nebenzahl. In the book, he explains the importance of the shawl, how women are not supposed to leave their home and if they must go out they should appear unattractive so that men are not drawn to them, and how it is absolutely forbidden for women to wear jewelry outside their home. (Recently, Arbel expanded the section of the book dealing with women’s tzeniut into a full-fledged book of its own.)

3. In the last post I quoted R. Kook’s comments about the holiness of the am ha’aretz. This is not a sentiment that has been widely shared among the rabbinic elite, and negative comments about the am ha’aretz abound in rabbinic literature from all eras. Most of these comments appear in non-halakhic contexts, but there are plenty that are found in classic halakhic works. See for example Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 198:48, where R. Moses Isserles states that if a woman coming home from the mikveh enounters a דבר טמא או גוי , if she is pious she will immerse again. This is obviously not so applicable today, as in any big city in the Diaspora, where people walk to the mikveh, it is impossible not to come across a non-Jew on the way home. The formulation of Rama was made in an era when Jews lived in their own quarters, and at night it wouldn’t be common to come into contact with non-Jews. On this halakhah, the Shakh quotes the Sha’arei Dura who expands the lists of things a woman hopes to avoid on the way home to include an am ha’aretz. (This formulation obviously troubled some, and Pithei Teshuvah quotes the opinion that only an am ha’aretz gamur is meant, i.e., one who doesn’t even recite keriat shema [due to his ignorance]. This definition of an am ha’aretz is found in Berakhot 47b and Sotah 22a. Examination of rabbinic literature shows that the term “am ha’aretz” has a variety of meaning, ranging from a simple ignoramus to one who is actually quite wicked and hates the Sages.)
Speaking of the am ha’aretz, here is something interesting, as it includes both a difficult comment of Rashi (actually, the commentary falsely attributed to Rashi) and what might be is an example of Artscroll purposely omitting mention of it because of how problematic it would be to explain. Nedarim 49a states: “Rav Judah said: The soft part of a pumpkin [should be eaten] with beet; the soft part of linseed is good with kutah. But this may not be told to the am ha’aretz.”
Why don’t we tell this to the am ha’aretz? Artscroll quotes the explanation of the Ran that if the boors knew about this, they would uproot the plants before they could be harvested. Tosafot claims that the ignoramuses won’t believe what we tell them and they will mock the teaching of the Sages. “Rashi” has a completely different explanation. He writes:
משום דדבר מעולה הוא לרפואה ואסור לומר להם שום דבר שיהנו ממנו
What this means is that we don’t let the am ha’aretz know about the medicinal property of this plant. In other words, we don’t want the am ha’aretz, even though he is another Jew, to benefit, and he is thus treated no differently than an idolater. (Tosafot cites this explanation and rejects it.) Even though “Rashi” is referring to a real am ha’aretz, as per the Talmud’s description in Berakhot 47b, it is still quite a shocking explanation. It is true that there is a passage in Pesahim 49b which states: “R. Eleazar said: An am ha’aretz, it is permitted to stab him [even] on the Day of Atonement which falls on the Sabbath . . . R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in R. Johanan’s name: One may tear an am ha’aretz like a fish.” Still, these passages are according to almost everyone not meant to be taken literally,[21] while “Rashi,” on the other hand, means exactly what he says.
[1] Many have discussed why Maimonides doesn’t explicitly record this halakhah in the Mishneh Torah. See the interesting approach of R. Hayyim Eleazar Shapira, Divrei Torah, Eighth Series, no. 18 (p. 974), which can be used to justify the Israeli haredi perspective.
[2] See Or Torah, Heshvan 5772, pp. 169-170. R. Mazuz’s own attitude towards yeshiva students preparing themselves to earn a living is seen in his haskamah to R. Hayyim Amsalem’s Gadol ha-Neheneh mi-Yegio. The book is available here.
Here is R. Mazuz’s haskamah.

Here is the letter of R. Mazuz that appears at the end of the volume.

There are numerous texts I could bring in opposition to the approach of Amsalem and Mazuz (which I believe is also the approach of the Sages). One noteworthy one is found in Ateret Menahem, p. 23a, where R. Menahem Mendel of Rimanov is quoted as follows:

אם א’ אומר לחתנו היושב ולומד תורה בהתמדה שיתחיל לעסוק במו”מ עבור כי איתא [אבות פ”ב מ”ב] יפה ת”ת עם דרך ארץ וכו’, זה הוא מערב רב חו”ש
[3] See e.g., Naftali ben Menahem, Zemirot shel Shabbat (Jerusalem, 1949), p. 134.
[4] See Zev Rabiner, Or Mufla, p. 92.
[5] Barukh She-Amar, p. 238.
[6] See R. Meir Mazuz, Darkhei ha-Iyun, pp. 127ff.
[7] Regarding not seeing women’s pictures, this position can also find sources to support it. R. Joseph Hayyim, Rav Berakhot, ma’arekhet tzadi (p. 137), writes quite strongly against women’s pictures, because men will come to look at them. Here is the page.

[8] For some, it is better if the women basically do not go out of the house at all at all. Such a position is held by R. Hayyim Rabbi, a mainstream Sephardic rabbi (who like all significant Sephardic rabbis, also has a website. See here).
Here is his haskamah to R. Hanan Aflalo’s, Asher Hanan, vol. 3, and see Aflalo’s response that a rabbi has to actually be part of a community and know its situation in order to properly decide matters for it.

While Aflalo’s reply is phrased very respectfully, his feeling that Rabbi is way off base comes through very clearly.

Rabbi’s position about a woman not leaving the house can find support in a variety of traditional texts (not least, the Rambam, Hilkhot Ishut 13:11). What makes it significant is that he offers this advice even today. While it is true that in the Islamic world Jewish women were more accustomed to stay inside than their co-religionists in Europe, we also find European rishonim who see this as something to strive for. See e.g.,, Radak to 2 Samuel 13:2: ודרך הבתולות בישראל להיות צנועות בבית ולא תצאנה החוצה. See also Rashi, Deut. 22:23: פרצה קוראה לגנב הא אלו ישבה בביתה לא אירע לה. For other relevant sources, see R. Mazuz’s comment in R. Raphael Kadir Tzaban, Nefesh Hayah, vol. 2, p. 267.
I was surprised to find that the Moroccan R. Raphael Ankawa, in the twentieth century, ruled that a husband could forbid his wife from leaving the house without his permission. If she didn’t listen, she would lose her ketubah. See Toafot Re’em, no. 3. In a letter of support for Ankawa by R. Shlomo Ibn Danan and R. Mattityahu Serero they go so far as to state that if the woman doesn’t go along with the husband’s command and take an oath binding herself in this matter, the husband can, if he wishes, refuse to divorce her and she will remain an “agunah” her entire life without any financial support from him! He, of course, will be given permission to remarry.
ואם לא ירצה לגרשה תשב עד שתלבין ראשה ונותנין לו רשות לישא אשה אחרת אחר ההתראות הראויות והיא אבדה כתוב’ ואין לה לא מזונות ולא פרנסה ולא שום תנאי מתנאי הכתובה.
(As late as 1965, another Moroccan posek, R. Yedidyah Monsenego, ruled that where the husband had reason to suspect his wife of being unfaithful, he could require her to never leave home without him, even to visit relatives, except when she had to go to work. See Peat ha-Yam, no. 24)
All I can say is that contemporary women should be thankful that the RCA beit din and many of the rabbinic courts in the State of Israel have realized that in modern times men and women must be treated equally in the divorce proceedings, and women can no longer be held prisoner in a dead marriage as was often the case in earlier times. With this in mind, let me remind people that in an earlier post, available here, I wrote as follows:
R. Hayyim Benveniste, Keneset ha-Gedolah, Even ha-Ezer 154, Hagahot Beit Yosef no. 59, in discussing when we can force a husband to give a divorce, writes:
ובעל משפט צדק ח”א סי’ נ”ט כתב דאפי’ רודף אחריה בסכין להכותה אין כופין אותו לגרש ואפי’ לו’ לו שחייב להוציא.
Can anyone imagine a posek, from even the most right-wing community, advocating such a viewpoint? I assume the logic behind this position is that even if the man is running after her with the knife, we don’t assume that he will actually kill her. He must just be doing it to scare her, and that is not enough of a reason to force him to divorce her. And if we are wrong, and he really does kill her? I guess the reply would be that this isn’t anything we could have anticipated even if we saw the knife in his hand, sort of like all those who have let pedophiles run loose in the yeshivot, presumably on the assumption that just because a man abused children in the past, that doesn’t mean that he will continue to do so.
(I will return to the issue of sexual abuse in a future post, because readers might recall that I expressed doubt that any rabbis would ever join the Agudah’s proposed rabbinic panel to determine if an accusation warranted going to the police. See here. The Agudah has just acknowledged that it was impossible to form such a panel precisely because of the legal jeopardy it would place the rabbis in. See here. Since it looks like all the public pressure will lead to clergy being made mandated reporters, it will be interesting to see what the Agudah response will then be. Will they instruct their followers to follow the law or expect them to go to jail in order to avoid mesirah?)
Regarding Aflalo’s point mentioned earlier in this note that a rabbi has to know the situation of a community, I recently found a very interesting comment by R. Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, Kedushat Levi ha-Shalem (Jerusalem, 1958), Likutim, pp. 316-317. He asks why we say תשבי יתרץ קושיות ואבעיות, that in Messianic days Elijah will answer all problems. Since Moses will be resurrected, and he is the giver of the Torah, why don’t we say that he will provide the answers? R. Levi Yitzhak explains that only one who is living in this world knows what the situation is and how the halakhah should be decided. This is not the case with one who is dead and has lost his worldly connection. This explains why Elijah will provide all the answers, as he never died and was always part of the world. Therefore, unlike Moses, Elijah is the one qualified to decide matters affecting us. The lesson here is obvious, especially for those who think that every issue must be decided in Israel by authorities who really have really no conception of how American Jews live.

[9] I can’t tell you how often I have been with people (usually at Shabbat meals) who go on about how backwards the Muslims are, the proof being how they treat their women. This is usually contrasted to Judaism, which puts women on a pedestal. As an example of this “backwardness” people have pointed out that in Saudi Arabia (which is only one Muslim country, mind you), women are not even permitted to drive. I never have the heart to point out that there are hasidic sects, less than an hour away from where we are, that also don’t allow women to drive.
[10] See Ma’amar Esther, printed together with Va-Ya’an Shmuel (n.p., 2001), vol. 4, p. 19 (third numbering).
[11] Messas’ responsum is analyzed by Avinoam Rosenack, “Dignity of the Congregation” as a Defense Mechanism: A Halakhic Ruling by Rabbi Joseph Messas,” Nashim 13 (2007), pp. 183-206. On p. 201 n. 41, he provides references to scholarly literature that discusses medieval Jewish women’s adoption of Muslim modes of dress.
[12] Contrary to what Messas assumes, as far as I know there is absolutely no evidence that Jewish women generally dressed like this in the Rabbinic period. The fact that the Mishnah specifies the Arabian Jewish women shows that only one specific group dressed this way.
[13] Since he mentions women’s voices, let me return briefly to my second to last post which dealt with kol isha. I neglected to note the pesak of R. Abraham Yaffe-Schlesinger, Be’er Sarim, vol. 2, no. 54, who sees it as obvious that a woman is permitted to sing in front of non-Jews.
In the post, I mentioned three Modern Orthodox high schools that allow young women to sing solos. I was informed that the North Shore Hebrew Academy also has to be added to this list. See here.
My correspondent further wrote: “I wanted to let you know that the son of Rabbi _____ (former president of the RCA [name deleted by MS]) told me that his father used to go to see Broadway shows based on the Psak of the Rav, who felt that if you couldn’t totally make out the face of the female singer it would be permitted.”
One of the commenters on the post called attention to R. Yehudah Herzl Henkin, Bnei Vanim, vol. 4, no. 7. In this responsum, he says a couple of things very relevant to the post. To begin with, he writes that it is permitted to listen to the singing of a single woman if this is something that you are used it, and it will not be sexually arousing.
לע”ד מדינא מותר לשמוע קול שיר של בתולות אם רגיל בקולן שאז שמיעתן זהה לראיית שערן
This is the same viewpoint I quoted from R. Jacob Pardo, who distinguishes between married women, whose singing is always forbidden, and single women whose singing is only forbidden if it is sensual song. Also noteworthy is that R. Henkin rejects the viewpoint found in various aharonim that a post-pubescent female (i.e., niddah) has the same status as a married woman, and her singing is therefore forbidden:
וכיון שנהגו להקל בשערן של בתולות ולא חלקו בין נדות לטהורות הוא הדין בקולן, כל שהוא רגיל בו ואינו מהרהר.
He concludes his responsum by stating that if the song is not sensual, and the woman’s voice is heard on the radio or out of a loudspeaker, since this is not really “her” voice it is permissible to listen. What this apparently means is that any time a woman sings into a microphone, it is permissible to listen to her (assuming her very appearance is not arousing). This basically gets rid of the entire kol isha prohibition in our time (when the songs aren’t sensual), since today every event with a woman singer uses a microphone. Based on R. Henkin’s responsum, all Modern Orthodox high schools could once more return to having young women sing solos (even though I am certain that this is not his intention).. Here is his conclusion (emphasis added):
ולא מפני שאנו מדמים נעשה מעשה להתיר לכתחילה לשמוע קול אשה המזמרת לפננו לבדה, אבל בשירה ברדיו או דרך רמקול וכו’ שעל פי דין אינה קולה ממש ובצירוף עוד טעמים [ראה להלן מאמר כ’] ובתנאי שהשירה אינה של עגבים נראה פשוט להקל.
In Bnei Vanim, vol. 2, p. 211, he quotes his grandfather as even permitting watching a woman sing on the television, because again, the voice is not her actual voice. He also notes that his grandfather later expressed doubt on this point.
שמעתי מפיו הקדוש שקול אשה על הרדיו אינו נקרא קול אשה ומותר לשמעו [בפעם הראשונה ששאלתי אותו על זה אמר בפירוש שגם בטלביזיה אינו נקרא קול אשה ומותר לשמעו, אבל כשחזרתי ושאלתי אותו על זה אחרי זמן לא היה ברור אצלו – ואולי מפני חולשתו]

In vol. 4, p. 30, he refers to a woman singing the national anthem, which based on his argumentation would, I think, be quite easy to permit, even watching on television. As he notes, this is not the sort of song that arouses sexual thoughts:
ורבים מקילים לשמוע קול שיר של אשה ברדיו כשהיא אינה לפניהם, ואינה שרה שירי עגבים אלא שירי מולדת וכיוצא באלה ורחוק שיהרהרו בה ואינו תלוי באם מכירה או לא.
I would also like to share an email I received from Benny Hutman which relates to R. Moshe Feinstein’s opinion. In my post I called attention to a responsum of R. Moshe Feinstein which I claimed cast doubt on R. Mordechai Tendler’s assertion that according to R. Moshe kol isha is entirely situational and depends on whether or not someone is aroused.
Benny writes:

It seems to me that R’ Moshe must hold that the prohibition on Kol Isha depends on whether a person is used to hearing women sing. R’ Moshe holds like the Aruch Hashulchan that nowadays one can say Shema in front of a woman with uncovered hair because the reality is that we are constantly confronted with such hair and therefore it is no longer arousing. For this to make sense we need to understand the Gemara in Berachos when it says “sear b’isha erva” to mean that hair could be ervah, meaning I would have thought that ervah by definition could only refer to parts of her body, ka mashma lan that hair despite not being skin can be ervah. However it won’t actually be ervah unless it is normally covered. Since the language of the Gemara is exactly the same (as is the source) it follows that the gemara means that Kol Isha could be ervah despite not physically being attached to the body at all. However, just as R’Moshe says that our constant exposure to uncovered hair makes sear no longer be ervah, the same logic dictates that if someone has been listening to women sing all his life kol isha will not be ervah. Arguably it can also be situational so that if someone has been going to the opera all his life such singing will not be kol isha, but pop music will be. It seems to me that this heter should apply to almost all Modern Orthodox men. This would explain how Rabbi Tendler could say that R’ Moshe held that the prohibition is situational despite R’ Moshe’s tshuva apparently holding it is forbidden. It depends on who is asking the question and the time, place and manner of the singing.

Finally, R. Hayyim Amsalem, in his recently published Derekh Hayyim, p. 45, states that it is a well known fact that great Torah scholars and chief rabbis have in the past been present at various official events that included women singing, and they did not walk out. As he explains:
הם ידעו לחשב שכר “מצוה” כנגד הפסדה, ושגדול כבוד הבריות שדוחה לא תעשה שבתורה (ברכות דף יט ע”ב), שלא לדבר על העלבת פנים העלולה להגרם, והרי המלבין פני חברו ברבים אין לו חלק לעוה”ב (בבא מציעא דף נט ע”א), יתכן וכשהיו יכולים להשתמט מלהופיע בטקס כזה שידעו מראש שיכלול גם שירת נשים היו נמנעים מלהופיע, אבל היכן שההכרח אלצם להשתתף הרי שמעולם לא נשמע רינון אחריהם על השתתפותם, או על העלבת המעמד ביציאה פומבית.
[14] Rosenack writes (“Dignity”, p. 190): “Messas’s remarks allow the inference that he knew of an ancient tradition—either from the days of his own ancestors, or from the time of the talmudic sages—of women going up to the Torah, before the institution of the [talmudic] prohibition discussed here.” This is incorrect. What Messas is doing in this responsum is describing what he imagines the situation was like in the era that women received aliyot, and why this was later prohibited. There is not even the hint that he knew of any ancient tradition in this regard, and he certainly did not.
In terms of women’s aliyot, in my post here I called attention to R. Samuel Portaleone’s opinion that in theory it is permitted to give a woman an aliyah in a private synagogue. Without knowing of Portaleone’s view, R. Yehuda Herzl Henkin concluded that ”if done without fanfare, an occasional aliyyah by a woman in a private minyan of men held on Shabbat in a home and not in a synagogue sanctuary or hall can perhaps be countenanced or at least overlooked.” “Qeriat Ha-Torah by Women: Where We Stand Today,” Edah Journal 1:2 (5761), p. 6. (Henkin also assumes that women’s aliyot on Simhat Torah are permissible.) There is another source in this regard that has been overlooked by those arguing for women’s aliyot in so-called partnership minyanim (I hate this term!). R. Moses Salmon, Netiv Moshe (Vienna, 1899), p. 24 n. 112, sees no problem with women getting aliyot today. As mentioned already, women are denied aliyot because of kevod ha-tzibur. Yet according to Salmon, since today men who get aliyot no longer read from the Torah, kevod ha-tzibur is no longer a concern. This was all theoretical for Salmon, as no one in his Hungarian town was dreaming of calling women up to the Torah, but from the standpoint of pure halakhah, he saw no objection. He also claims that according to Maimonides, women can be counted in a minyan. See ibid., n. 111. Here is the page from Salmon.
[15] The same approach is adopted by R. Matzliah Mazuz, Ish Matzliah, vol. 1 no. 10. He writes:
לע”ד כבוד ציבור דהתם, אינו כפשוטו, אלא לישנא מעליא, ועיקר הכוונה כאותה ששנינו בסוכה דנ”א תיקון גדול

[16] See here and here.
[17] See here and here. See also his Shulhan Arukh ha-Mekutzar, vol. 6, pp. 246ff., and here for a placard signed by some leading Sephardic rabbis.
[18] See here. He thinks that a woman who refuses to say good morning to her male neighbor is demonstrating proper tzeniut.
[19] See here.
[20] Incidentally, in no. 328:2, he states that there is no longer a problem taking medicine on Shabbat, since people today do not grind their own medicine.

  • [21] See the numerous explanations of these passages in R. Moshe Zuriel, Leket Perushei Aggadah, ad loc. Tosafot, ad loc., quotes one opinion that does take the passage literally, but this opinion assumes that the am ha’aretz spoken of is a violent person suspected of murder


Kalir, False Accusations, and More

Kalir, False Accusations, and More
by Marc B. Shapiro
1. I now want to return to Kalir and the criticism of me. To recap, I had earlier mentioned how Artscroll originally correctly identified Kalir as post-tannaitic, but later changed what it wrote in order to be in line with Tosafot’s opinion that he was a tanna. Some think that it is wrong to criticize Artscroll by using academic methodology instead of judging them by traditional sources, since they don’t recognize the academic approach.
My first response is that this is nonsense and a textbook example of obscurantism. If there is evidence of a certain fact, one can’t say that it is only a fact if it appears in some “traditional” source, and therefore one who ignores this evidence gets a pass.
Furthermore, when it comes to Kalir one can also date him using traditional sources.[1] One of these sources is quite fascinating. Whether there is any truth to the event described, I can’t say, but the fact that a traditional source dates him after the tannaitic era is what is important for us at present. This shows that Tosafot’s dating is not the only traditional source in this matter. The source I refer to is the medieval R. Ephraim of Bonn who states that the paytan Yannai, who is usually dated to the seventh century but could even be a few centuries earlier (but still post-tannaitic), was the teacher of Kalir.
R. Ephraim notes that Yannai was not the most kind of teachers and he was jealous of his student Kalir, showing that the Sages’ statement that people are jealous of all, except for a son and student (Sanhedrin 105b), can have exceptions. In order to deal with his problem, Yannai decided to terminate Kalir, with extreme prejudice of course. He therefore put a scorpion in Kalir’s sandal which took care of matters. R. Ephraim reports that because of this murder, in Lombardy (Italy) they refused to recite one of Yannai’s hymns.[2]
אוני פטרי רחמתים. ואמר העולם שהוא יסוד ר’ יניי רבו של רבי אלעזר בר קליר, אבל בכל ארץ לומברדיאה אין אומרים אותו, כי אומרים עליו שנתקנא בר’ אלעזר תלמידו והטיל לו עקרב במנעלו והרגו. יסלח ה’ לכל האומרין עליו אם לא כן היה.
R. Ephraim is the source for this report and as you can see from his final words, he took the report very seriously and literally, declaring that if it wasn’t true then those who spread this rumor were in need of repentance. Israel Davidson, however, claims that to take the report literally would be “absurd”, and the report of the scorpion is merely an “idiom, undoubtedly Oriental in origin, for expressing unfriendliness.”[3] The problem with this is, as we have seen, R. Ephraim and the community of Lombardy did take the report literally, so why should Davidson, living well over a thousand years after the supposed event, know more than people who lived in medieval times?[4] It is one thing to say that the murder never occurred, but that doesn’t mean that the story as told was not meant to be understood literally, and there is every reason to assume that it means what it says. If it happened, it would hardly be the first murder committed by a Jew. Thus, although the story is almost certainly a legend, our reason for making this determination is not because it is impossible to imagine one Jew doing such a thing to another.
Another important source is found in R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Mahazik Berakhah, Orah Hayyim 112 (end). Azulai, as we all (should) know, had a keen bibliographical sense, and knew rabbinic history very well. After mentioning how Tosafot and the Rosh state that Kalir was really the tanna R. Eleazar ben Shimon,[5] the Hida quotes R. Isaac Luria as follows:
דהפייטן היה בו ניצוץ מנשמת ר’ אלעזר ברבי שמעון.
In other words, it is not that Kalir was actually a tanna, but that his soul was connected with R. Eleazar ben Shimon. I presume that this is an attempt to preserve the old tradition identifying the two, while at the same time recognizing that historically they were two different people. We find the same approach among many commentaries that deal with aggadic statements that make all sorts of identifications, of what can perhaps be called the rabbinic “conservation of people.” In other words, there is a tendency to identify biblical figures with other known biblical figures, such as Elijah with Pinhas and Harbonah, Hagar with Keturah, Pharaoh with the King of Nineveh, Yocheved and Miriam with Shifrah and Puah, Mordechai with Malachi[6] and Ezra, Tziporah with the Cushite woman,[7] Balaam with Laban, Daniel and Haman with Memukhan, to mention just a few.[8]
I don’t think people should be surprised that also among traditional commentators one can find the viewpoint that these identifications are not to be taken literally[9]—kabbalists are often inclined to see these texts as referring to reincarnation[10]—and some modern scholars have spoken of these identifications as examples of what they term “rabbinic fancy.” Some of these identifications are so far-fetched that I have no doubt that R. Azariah de Rossi and R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes are correct that the Sages who expounded them never intended them to be taken literally.[11]  Although I haven’t investigated the matter, I assume one would find the same tendency to non-literal interpretation when dealing with Aggadot that insert historical figures into other biblical episodes, e.g., Balaam and Jethro becoming Pharoah’s advisors, or when the Aggadah identifies spouses, e.g., Caleb marrying Miriam and Rahab marrying Joshua (and having daughters with him[12]).
2. In the previous post I quoted what the late R. David Zvi Hillman said in the name of R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin regarding Saul Lieberman. Some people were incredulous, and this raises the question of how reliable Hillman was and if he would distort things for ideological purposes.[13] I have spoken about him before, and I reproduced his defense of the Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah not citing R. Kook.[14] Despite his strong ideological leanings, as of yet I haven’t found any evidence that he would purposely distort. My sense is that he was quite honest in his scholarship (and the issue with R. Zevin and Lieberman might have been something he misunderstood or perhaps R. Zevin wasn’t clear in what he said. It simply is impossible now to reconstruct events.)
Even though I believe that Hillman was honest in his scholarship (i.e., not intentionally distorting as is so often the case with haredi writers), we do find that his ideology led him to unfounded conclusions. These are not intentional distortions because he really believed what he was saying, but they are distortions nonetheless. Here is one example.
In 1999 a memorial volume appeared called Ohel Sarah Leah. Beginning on p. 246 is an article by Hillman dealing with R. Joseph Saul Nathanson’s view of the International Date Line. In this article, he deals with a letter by R. Zvi Pesah Frank published by R. Menachem M. Kasher. He believes that Kasher added material to the letter so as to align it with his own viewpoint. The fact that Kasher published the letter in 1954, almost seven years before R. Zvi Pesah Frank’s death, does not deter Hillman from his argument. Other than Hillman, I think everyone realizes that if you are going to forge something in another’s name, you don’t do it when they are still alive![15] We can thus completely discount Hillman’s argument and see it as an ideologically based distortion.
Despite this defense of Kasher, it must also be pointed out that there are serious questions about the reliability of some things he published. In Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy I mentioned R. Eliezer Berkovits’ claim that the Weinberg letter Kasher published was not authentic. Berkovits clearly thought that Kasher forged it, but when I pressed him to say so openly, he wouldn’t. All Berkovits would say is that Weinberg never wrote such a letter, and it was fraudulent. When I asked, “So R. Kasher forged it?” he replied that he wasn’t going to speculate about this, and would only say that the letter did not exist. Being that Kasher claimed that Weinberg wrote the letter to him, this means that Berkovits was accusing him of forgery, but for whatever reason did not want to say so openly.
I have a 1982 letter from Berkovits to another rabbi, and in this letter he is not as circumspect as he was with me. Here he pretty much states that Kasher forged the letter “le-shem shamayim.”
בענין מו”ר הגאון זצ”ל אני בטוח שהוא מעולם לא כתב אותם הדברים שהרב כשר מוסר בשמו בנועם. אדרבה יראה לנו את מכתבו של מו”ר זצ”ל. לפני כשנה כתבתי לו בדואר רשום ובקשתי בעד צילום או העתק של מכתבו של הרב וויינברג זצ”ל. עד היום לא קבלתי תשובה ממנו. מבטחני שהדברים שנאמרו ושנכתבו בשמו אינם אמיתייים. בעונותינו הרבים הגענו למצב שגם אנשים ירא שמים וכו’ מורים היתר לעצמם בכל מיני ענינים כשהם חושבים שכל כוונתם לשם שמים היא. והוא רחום יכפר וכו’.
In the recently published Genazim u-She’elot u-Teshuvot Hazon Ish, pp. 263ff. the unnamed editor also levels serious accusations against Kasher, in a chapter entitled הזיוף החמור והנורא. He puts forth a series of claims designed to show that another letter Kasher published on the International Date Line, this time a posthumous letter from R. Isser Zalman Meltzer, is also forged. I have to say that in this example, unlike the one dealt with by Hillman, there is at least circumstantial evidence, but no smoking gun. The most powerful proof comes from Kasher himself in which he tells of a meeting with the Hazon Ish and how at that meeting he told the Hazon Ish about the letter he received from R. Isser Zalman in opposition to the Hazon Ish’s position. Yet the letter Kasher publishes from R. Isser Zalman is dated from after the Hazon Ish’s death. There is clearly a problem here, but more likely than assuming forgery is that Kasher was simply mistaken in his description of his visit with the Hazon Ish. Let’s not forget that this element of the account of his visit was published thirty-three years after the event, and it is possible that Kasher didn’t recall everything that was said. The followers of the Hazon Ish have indeed always claimed that his description of his visit, in Ha-Kav ha-Ta’arikh ha-Yisraeli (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 13-14, is not to be relied upon. Since his own recollection of his visit is the strongest evidence in favor of Kasher forging R. Isser Zalman’s letter, it is not very convincing.
In the previous paragraph I wrote that “this element” of Kasher’s account was published thirty-three years after his visit, so let me explain by what I mean by that. In Ha-Pardes, Shevat 5714, p. 30, soon after the Hazon Ish’s death, he originally published his account. Only when he later published his Kav ha-Ta’arikh ha-Yisraeli did he mention that he told the Hazon Ish that he received letters from R. Zvi Pesah and R. Isser Zalman, and this point is mentioned after his description of his visit. In his original description he mentions nothing about receiving letters, only that R. Zvi Pesah told him his opinion and R. Isser Zalman agreed with this. I think what likely happened is that in the passing decades Kasher forgot that the letters he received only arrived after the Hazon Ish’s death. As mentioned, if you look at what he wrote right after the death of the Hazon Ish, he doesn’t mention any letters, and he even states explicitly that he didn’t have anything in print from R. Zvi Pesah. I think this shows that while Kasher’s recollection was not exact, there is no evidence that he forged the letter.
I do, however, have to mention that in the 1977 version of the visit Kasher adds something that is not in the original recollection and must therefore be called into question. In the original recollection he reports that the Hazon Ish began reading Kasher’s work on the dateline and then said that he is tired and asked if he could hold on to the work to read later. In the 1977 version Kasher then adds the following, which shows the Hazon Ish as not very committed to his own position, a point which is at odds with everything else we know about the Hazon Ish and the dateline:
והוסיף בזה הלשון: נו, יעדער מעג (קען) זיך האלטען ווי ער פערשטעהט. [כל אחד רשאי (יכול) להחזיק כפי הבנתו].
Kasher was also involved in another problematic episode related to his book Ha-Tekufah ha-Gedolah, which is dedicated to showing the messianic significance of the State of Israel. In the book, pp. 374ff., he includes a proclamation urging participation in the Israeli elections. This proclamation is signed my many rabbinic greats and states that the State of Israel is the beginning of the redemption. This is a very significant document and is often referred to, because among the signatories are some who were never identified with Religious Zionism.
But is the document authentic? Zvi Weinman has shown (and provided the visual evidence) that a number of the rabbis signed a document that did not mention anything about athalta di-geula but instead referred to kibutz galuyot.[16] In Kasher’s book, their names are listed together with those who signed the document referring to athalta di-geula, even though they never agreed with this formulation. This would appear to be a Religious Zionist forgery (unless it is simply a careless error), although it is impossible to know whether Kasher was responsible for this or if he was misled by someone else.
If it can ever be proven that Kasher was indeed responsible for a forgery, there is still a possible limud zekhut for this type of behavior (and I mentioned it in a prior post): If you are convinced of the correctness of your position, it is not hard to construct an argument, based on traditional Jewish sources, that false attribution and even forgery is permissible. In the book I am currently working on I bring all sorts of examples of this which I think will be very distressing for readers, as it is in complete opposition to what most of us regard as basic intellectual honesty.
Returning to the recently published Genazim u-She’elot u-Teshuvot Hazon Ish, the editor also makes an outrageous accusation and I am surprised that no one has yet publicly protested. The canard is leveled at Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, whose saintliness was universally acknowledged even by those who opposed his Zionist outlook. It was R. Herzog who in early 1940 flew to London and was able to convince the English government to grant a number of visas for Torah scholars. He was thus directly responsible for saving the lives of, among many others, R. Velvel Soloveitchik and R. Shakh.[17] This fact alone should have been enough to prevent any scurillous accusations directed against R. Herzog.
On pp. 226ff. there appears a 1941 letter, dated 24 Elul, from R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin to the Hazon Ish asking him about the problem of Shabbat in Japan for those who had escaped the Nazi clutches. R. Zevin wrote to the Hazon Ish at the request of R. Herzog, who said that only two people in the Land of Israel were expert in this matter, R. Tukatchinzky and the Hazon Ish.
There is a good deal that can be said about R. Zevin’s letter and the Hazon Ish’s response, but that is not my concern at present. Yet I must at least mention that the editor provides another letter from the Hazon Ish in which he expresses his displeasure that R. Zevin’s Torah writings had appeared in the newspaper Ha-Tzofeh. According to the Hazon Ish, these should have been published as a special booklet, as it is inappropriate to publish Torah articles in a newspaper that in the end is used to wrap food in. He also mentions that Ha-Tzofeh itself is not suitable, referring obviously to its Religious Zionist outlook. (R. Zevin would, over his lifetime, write hundreds of articles for Ha-Tzofeh, many of which have not yet been collected in book form.)
Also noteworthy is that in his reply to R. Zevin the Hazon Ish raises the possibility that the viewpoint of the rishonim would have to be rejected if it turns out that they were mistaken in their understanding of the metziut.

העומד עדיין על הפרק הוא אם טעם הראשונים ז”ל הוסד על המחשבה שאין ישוב בתחתית הכדור, ואז נקח עמידה נועזה לנטות מהוראת רבותינו ז”ל ולעשות למעשה היפוך דבריהם הקדושים לנו ולכל ישראל, או שאין לדבריהם שום זיקה לשאלת ישוב התחתון.
(In a later letter, quoted on p. 231, we see a different perspective.) In R. Zevin’s letter he mentions why the issue of Shabbat in Japan was so pressing. R. Herzog had recently received a telegram from Kobe, Japan, asking on what day the Jewish refugees should fast.[18] Here is a copy of the telegram, as it appears in David A. Mandelbaum’s Giborei ha-Hayil, vol. 1.





















































Genazim u-She’elot u-Teshuvot Hazon Ish, p. 227, makes the astounding assertion that this telegram was a scheme cooked up by the Chief Rabbinate (i.e., R. Herzog).This would enable R. Herzog to call a gathering a great Torah scholars at which time he could push them to accept his opinion in opposition to the viewpoint of the “gedolei Yisrael.” It is hard to imagine a more outrageous accusation directed against a man of unquestioned piety such as R. Herzog.

Quite apart from the slander I have just pointed to, the volume also contains a good deal of ideologically based distortion, which is why it is noteworthy that it not only includes the letter from the Hazon Ish to Saul Lieberman (p. 330) that I published in Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox,,[19] but even identifies him in the following respectful way:
המכתב נשלח לבן דודו פרופ’ ר’ שאול ליברמן ז”ל מחה”ס תוספתא כפשוטה, ירושלמי כפשוטו וש”ס.
Considering how Lieberman is persona non grata in the haredi world, I find this identification, as well as mention of his books, nothing sort of remarkable.[20]
In fact, the story gets even more interesting. A couple of months ago volume two of Genazim u-She’elot u-Teshuvot Hazon Ish appeared. Before I was able to get a copy, people emailed me to let me know that this volume contained a lengthy letter from Lieberman to the Hazon Ish. (I thank Ariel Fuss for sending me a copy of the letter.) It appears on pages 207-209 and is really fascinating. Leaving aside the talmudic analysis, the end of the letter shows the different outlooks of these cousins. We see that the Hazon Ish had criticized Lieberman for referring to Prof. Jacob Nahum Epstein as mori ve-rabbi. Lieberman didn’t understand why the Hazon Ish found this objectionable, since Epstein was a pious Jew and Lieberman learnt many things from him, “true Torah and not the path of the maskilim but that of our teachers of blessed memory, who search for the truth in the words of Hazal, in all possible ways, and many obscure places in the Jerusalem Talmud were explained to me precisely through this approach.”[21]
Lieberman then turns to another criticism of him by the Hazon Ish, that he was not devoting himself adequately to his Torah study. It is hard to know what to make of this critique, as who was more devoted to his studies than Lieberman. Lieberman defends himself from this accusation, noting:
אני לפעמים נופל על הספסל מחוסר אונים מרוב התאמצות ויושב אני לפעמים כמה ימים על סוגיא אחת עם ראש חבוש.
Here is Lieberman’s grave, in the Sanhedria cemetery. Note who he is buried next to. (As I mentioned in Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, according to Chaim Herzog, Lieberman was R. Herzog’s closest friend. It is therefore fitting that he be buried next to R. Jacob David.)
3. Regarding the last post, a number of people emailed me pointing out other “immodest” title pages and also learned women that I didn’t mention. I thank all who emailed. Many of the other title pages I knew about and might refer to at a future time, but the post was specifically concerned with censorship of title pages, and this explains the ones I cited. One of the commenters did refer to a title page that I did not know, from a 1731 Hamburg manuscript. See here (the rest of the Haggadah has other interesting pictures). If you ever needed an example of how what we today regard as unacceptable is not necessarily how people hundreds of years ago viewed matters, this is it.[22]
Regarding learned women, a great deal has obviously been written about this and I don’t see it as my purpose to simply repeat what others have written elsewhere. I hope that in the prior post (and indeed in all my posts), people find new material and learn things that they wouldn’t know from elsewhere, even those who are experts in the various topics.
Since the matter has been raised again, le me mention something that I originally was going to write about. At the last minute I took it out, as I was convinced (by both a scholar who will remain anonymous and Prof. Shamma Friedman) that I was in error.
Tosefta Ketubot 4:7 (and the parallel passage in J. Ketubot 5:2) reads:
נושא אדם אשה . . . על מנת שתהא זנתו ומפרנסתו ומלמדתו תורה.
It then follows by telling us that R. Joshua son of R. Akiva arranged exactly this sort of marriage. I think that if you show this passage to people, and cover up the commentaries, they will translate it to mean that a man can marry a woman on the condition that she will take care of his physical sustenance “and will teach him Torah.” (This is how Neusner translates in his Tosefta and Yerushalmi translation, and is also found in some academic articles.) Yet all of the traditional commentaries understand this text to mean that the woman provides the financial support her husband needs in order that he is able to study Torah on his own. For a while I assumed that this was an apologetic understanding by the commentators, and we know that the Talmud does offer a few examples of learned women. Yet as mentioned, I was convinced of my error.[23] In email correspondence, Friedman also called attention to other unusual Hebrew formulations which don’t mean what they literally say. For example, Yevamot 13:12 states: בא על יבמה גדולה תגדלנו. Yet this does not mean that she has to raise the boy, but only that she has to wait until he is of age to give her a divorce. He also pointed to Nazir 2:6 (and see also 2:5) which uses the language of הרי עלי לגלח חצי נזיר and this has nothing to do with shaving the Nazir.
One final point I would like to make about learned women is that before drawing any conclusions about their knowledge, we must be sure that we are not dealing with ghost writers. For example, Dov Katz, Tenuat ha-Mussar (Jerusalem, 1982), vol. 1, p. 242 n. 30, refers to the wife of R. Aryeh Leib Horowitz (the son of R. Israel Salanter) as a “learned woman” based on the introduction she wrote to her deceased husband’s Hayyei Aryeh (Vilna, 1907). Here is the text.

I can’t prove it, but I am very confident that someone wrote this on behalf of the wife, who was a traditional rebbetzin, not a maskilah.

4. In preparation for the trip I am leading to Italy in July (we still have room for some more people, and also for the August trip to Central Europe), I thought it would be helpful to read the letters of R. Ovadiah Bartenura. Right at the beginning of the first letter[24] I found something very interesting. I immediately suspected that this passage would be omitted from a translation directed towards the Orthodox masses. I checked, and lo and behold, the passage is indeed deleted. Here is the text:

Note how R. Ovadiah testifies that while the Jews in Palermo were careful about not drinking non-Jewish wine, which was noteworthy since elsewhere in Italy Jews routinely consumed this, their sexual morality and observance of the Niddah laws left something to be desired. He claims that most young women there were already pregnant at their wedding.
Here is how the page appears in the translation by Yaakov Dovid Shulman:
This text was censored even though the preface to the book states: “In publishing these letters in their entirety, including the critical comments made by Rabbi Ovadiah Bartenura of those people and practices of which he disapproved, the assumption is made that these criticisms were written to instruct the reader and not to denigrate any individuals.” As you can see, the letter has not been published in its entirety, and if one were to go through the text carefully, perhaps some other deleted passages would be discovered.[25]
5. I have done six posts on R. Kook and from email I receive I know that some people want me to return to this. I plan to, but I still have a few more posts to do before I get to that. In the meantime, however, I want to inform readers that a new volume of R. Kook’s writings has just appeared. It is called Ginzei ha-Rav Kook and I thank R. Moshe Zuriel for drawing my attention to it. My sense is that this volume does not have much importance, as much of it, and maybe even the majority, has already appeared in other collections, particularly the Shemonah Kevatzim. I was able to determine this using the R. Kook database, which except for the most recently published material includes all of R. Kook’s writings.
I did find one passage (p. 87, no. 85) which I am pretty sure has not yet appeared, even in the most recent writings. It relates back to a point I already called attention to in R. Kook, namely, his privileging of the pious masses over the Torah scholars in certain ways. One rabbinic text that would appear to oppose R. Kook’s conception is the famous Avot 2:5: ולא עם הארץ חסיד. See how R. Kook neutralizes this text, pointing out that there are a lot of things more important than being a hasid. Here is R. Kook, a member of the rabbinic elite, nevertheless insisting that the am ha-aretz can have just as much holiness as the Torah scholar, be visited by Elijah, and even have ruah ha-kodesh:
“ולא עם הארץ חסיד”. אבל מה שהוא למעלה מהחסידות, כמו קדושה וענוה ותחית-המתים וגילוי אליהו ורוח-הקודש, מפני גודל קדושתם הם שוים לכל נפש. כי כל לבבות דורש ד’, ואחד המרבה ואחד הממעיט ובלבד שיכוון לבו לשמים, ומעיד אני עלי שמים וארץ, אמר אליהו, בין איש בין אישה, בין עבד בין שפחה, בין נכרי בין ישראל, הכל לפי מעשיו רוח הקודש שורה עליו. וכיון שלא יצאו שפחה ונכרי מכלל רוח-הקודש, קל-וחומר שלא יצא עם-הארץ שהוא מזרע קודש, מעם ה’ וצבאותיו אשר הוציא ממצרים להיות לו לעם נחלה כיום הזה, סגולה מכל העמים.
(The reference to Elijah is from Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu, ch. 9.)
P. 112, no. 104, returns to a theme I have also dealt with, that study of halakhic details can be problematic for a mystical personality such as R. Kook.[26] Yet he adds that this is still the job of the righteous ones, and we can see here an autobiographical reflection.
אף על פי שלימודם של המצוות המעשיות בדקדוק קיומם מכביד לפעמים הרבה על הצדיקים הגדולים השרויים תמיד באור המחשבה העליונה, מכל מקום מתוך כח היראה העליונה שבלבבם, מתגברים הם גם על שפע קדושתם, ועוסקים בתורה ובמצוות במעשה ובדקדוק, אף על פי שהם צריכים למעט על ידי זה את אורם העליון.
Can we also see an autobiographical reflection on p. 114, no. 106, where R. Kook speaks about the righteous who want the world to recognize their greatness and holiness?
לפעמים מתגלה בצדיקים גדולים תשוקה גדולה, שיכירו הכל את מעלתם ושיאמינו בקדושתם. ואין תשוקה זו באה כלל משום גסות הרוח או אהבת כבוד המדומה, כי אם מפני החשק הפנימי של התפשטות האור הטוב שבהם על חוג היותר רחב האפשרי. וזהו מעין התשוקה של הופעת החכמה על ידי המצאות טובות וספרים טובים שכשהיא אידיאלית היא עומדת בנקודה היותר עליונה שבאור הנשמה הא-להית.
He then returns to the difficulty the Tzaddik has with halakhic particulars (p. 115):
ישנם צדיקים גדולים כאלה, שהם למעלה מכל שרש הדינים, ועל כן אינם יכולים ללמוד שום דבר הלכה. וכשהם מתגברים על טבעם ועוסקים בעומקא של הלכה, מתעלים למעלה גדולה לאין חקר, והם ממתקים את הדינים בשרשם.
[1] R. Yaakov Yisrael Stoll, in his recently published Segulah (Jerusalem, 2012), pp. 50ff., takes it as a given that Kalir is post-tannaitic.
[2] Israel Davidson, Mahzor Yannai (New York, 1919), p. xlix                     
[3] Ibid, p. xxv.
[4] Unless R. Ephraim was misinformed about Lombardy, this practice must have changed at some time because we know that in Lombardy the piyut was recited on Shabbat ha-Gadol. See R. Moshe Rosenwasser, Le-Hodot u-le-Halel  (Jerusalem, 2001), p. 379. As Rosenwasser points out, R. Ephraim is also the source for the story of R. Amnon of Mainz writing U-Netaneh Tokef.
[5] This is impossible as in one of his hymns he tells us that is father’s name is Jacob. See R. Simon Federbush, Ha-Lashon ha-Ivrit be-Yisrael u-ve-ha-Amim (Jerusalem, 1967), pp. 70-71.
[6] This identification explains how in Italy Jews with the Hebrew name Mordechai were sometimes given the vernacular name Angelo (= מלאכי). See Cecil Roth, Venice (Philadelphia, 1930), p. 168.
[7] This identification is rejected by Rashbam. See his commentary to Num. 12:1. Regarding Rashbam’s comment, see the lengthy discussion of Lockshin in his translation. While Rashbam rejects the notion that the Cushite is Tzipporah, he apparently has no problem repeating the legend  that “Moses reigned in the land of Cush for forty years and married a certain queen [from there].” He knew this legend from the work Divrei ha-Yamim de-Moshe Rabbenu, although as Lockshin mentions, it is also found in more “kosher” sources, such as Yalkut Shimoni. Ibn Ezra also cites the legend of Moses ruling in Cush in his commentary to Num. 12:1, despite the fact that in his commentary to Ex. 2:22 he writes:
Do not believe what is written in the book called the History of Moses. I will give you a general rule. We should not rely on any book not written by prophets or by the sages who transcribed traditions passed on to them. We definitely should not rely on these books when they contradict reason. The same applies to the Book of Zerubavel, the Book of Eldad ha-Dani, and similar compositions.
In a previous post I discussed Rashi’s understanding of the word Cushite, and how it is not to be taken literally. Ibn Ezra does take it literally (and still thinks that it refers to Tziporah). As with Rashi, he assumes that Cushites are not very attractive and explains that Miriam and Aaron, who spoke negatively about Moses, “suspected that Moses refrained from sleeping with Tzipporah only because she was not beautiful.” (Commentary to Num. 12:1).
Regarding the Cushite woman, I found something strange in R. Joseph Solomon of Posen’s Yesod Yosef (Munkacs, 1907), p. 8b. This is how he explains Aaron’s and Miriam’s talk against Moses on account of the Cushite he married (Num. 12:1):
מרים ואהרן רצו לתלות בוקי סריקי במשה ולהטיל מום בקדשי’ לפי דברי התרגום שני שפירש אשה כושית מלכה כוש שטימא את ברית קודש ובעל בת אל נכר וכל ביאה שאינה בהיתר נקרא הוצאת זרע לבטלה
R. Joseph Solomon goes on to explain why Aaron and Miriam were mistaken in their judgment.
[8] See R. Joseph Zekhariah Stern, Zekher Yehosef, Orah Hayyim no. 121 (p. 34a). R. Shmuel Avraham Adler, Aspaklaryah, vol. 27, s.v. shem, pp. 119ff
[9] R. Menahem Azariah of Fano acknowledges that when it comes to Elijah-Pinhas, most scholars understood this literally. Yet he rejected this position, perhaps because it would require Pinhas to have lived at least 350 years.) See Asarah Ma’amarot, Hikur Din section 4 ch. 18:
ואף על פי שיש מרבותינו אומרים בפשיטות פינחס הוא אליהו אין הדבר כמחשבת המון החכמים שפינחס לא מת ושקיים בעצמו שנוי השם.
[10] Opponents of gilgul had argued that if this was an authentic Jewish doctrine, certainly the Talmud would have mentioned it. R. Elijah Benamozegh argues that these texts, identifying various people as one and the same, are the proof that the talmudic sages indeed accepted reincarnation. He assumes that for many of these passages, where the different eras of the individuals mentioned is an obvious problem, no one with any intelligence can believe that the Talmud meant these passages to be understood literally. The meaning must therefore be reincarnation. See Eimat Mafgia, vol. 2, p. 2b:
איככה יוכל האיש לא טח עיניו מראות להניח כי לבן הארמי אשר חי בימי יעקב אבינו הוא עצמו בלעם הרשע, אשר היה בימי בני בניו האחרונים . . . וחירם שהיה בימי שלמה הוא אשר היה בימי יחזקאל . . . כיצד נוכל לייחס הבנתם הפשטית לחכמינו הקדושים אשר גם לפי דעות המנגדים לא יתכן לתלות בהם חסרון ושגעון כ”כ עצום כאשר כל אחד יראה בדמיונות האלה.
There are two books entitled Eimat Mafgia, one by Benamozegh and the other by R. Moses ben Ephraim of Brody (Warsaw, 1888). Both of them are directed against R. Leon Modena’s Ari Nohem. The title comes from Shabbat 87b: אימת מפגיע על ארי
[11] Meor Einayim, ch. 18; Mevo ha-Talmud, ch. 21, in Kol Sifrei Maharatz Chajes, vol. 1. In other words, the peshat is not literal. According to traditional commentaries, we find plenty of examples of this in the Bible also. Thus, when the Torah speaks of God’s outstretched arm, Maimonides insists that the peshat is that these words are not to be understood literally. Many have argued that even according to the peshat “an eye for an eye” is not to be understood literally. I think that most people today who read the book of Job will conclude, as did Maimonides, that the peshat is that it is not a historical tale.
[12] See Megillah 14b, Tosafot, Megillah 3b s.v. melamed, Maharsha, Hidushei Aggadot, Eruvin 63b (why does he quote Tosafot and not the Talmud in Megillah14b?), R. Samuel Strashun’s note to Eruvin 63a.
[13] Some people might have been led to thinking this because his letter was published in Yeshurun, which has in the past published articles that have engaged in censorship and ideological distortion. In the most recent volume, Nisan 5772, which also contains the Hillman letter, we find another instance of the disrespect for Torah scholars that is routine, and almost required, in haredi literature, and which in previous posts I have provided numerous examples of. (I refer obviously to Torah scholars not in the haredi camp.) On pp. 456-467,  there are letters from five deceased rabbis to R. Avraham Zeleznik. Four of them have the acronym זצ”ל put after their name. The only one who doesn’t merit זצ”ל, and instead is given ז”ל , is the Zionist R. Avraham Shapira (who incidentally was by far the most distinguished Torah scholar of the five.) R. Shapira also wasn’t provided with a short biography, presumably because then his position as Rosh Yeshiva of Merkaz ha-Rav and Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel would have to be mentioned.
[14] See here. With regard to Hillman, in this post I misstated his genealogy. Prof. Shlomo Zalman Havlin wrote to me as follows:
יש לתקן: הגרד”צ אינו נכד של הגרמ”מ חן הי”ד כפי שכתב [ע”פ האיזכור מבטאון חב”ד שהשתבש.] הוא בנו של ד”ר אשר הילמן בעל משרד רו”ח בת”א, נינו של הגרד”צ, רבה הידוע של צ’רניגוב, אביו של הרמ”מ. אגב, גם המשוררת זלדה [מישקובסקי] היתה נכדת הגרד”צ מצ’רניגוב, ואף אחיינית האדמו”ר האחרון מליובאוויטש.מאחיו של הגרמ”מ היה הרב אברהם חן, שהיה סופר מעולה, מחבר ‘במלכות היהדות’, קונטרס יפה ומרגש על אביו  
הגאון. היה רבה של שכונת בית הכרם [כמדומה שהיתה זו שכונה שלא נזקקה לרב]. מעניין לעניין, כדאי להוסיף, כי לגרמ”מ דובר בשעתו שידוך עם בתו של ר’ חיים מבריסק. לצ’רניגוב בא שליח להכיר את החתן המיועד, ולפי התיאורים ששמעתי ,הוא היה כנראה הגאון ר’ זלמן סענדר, אביו של הגאון ר’ אברהם בעל דבר אברהם, ורבה של קובנה [הוזכר ג”כ במאמר זה]. וכמה נשים ממשפחת הגרד”צ נסעו לבריסק להכיר את הכלה ומשפחתה. בגלל שיבושי הדואר הרוסי, חשבו בצ’רניגוב שאין תשובה, בעוד התשובה החיובית נדדה לעיר אחרת, והשידוך כידוע לא יצא אל הפועל. אגב, שמעתי, כי הנשים ממשפחת הגרד”צ כששבו אמרו, שלאור המסופר על גדולת ר’ ‘חיים וכו’, הרי כאשר שמעוהו בתפילת ערבית, אמרו, אצל אבא רואים יותר אפילו ב”אשר יצר
[15] See the response to Hillman by R. Ephraim Greenbaum (Kasher’s grandson), in Ohel Leah Sarah, pp. 942-943.
[16] Mi-Katovitz ad Heh be-Iyar (Jerusalem, 1995),  pp. 130ff.
[17] See A. Bernstein et al., Yeshivat Mir: Ha-Zerihah be-Fa’atei Kedem (Bnei Brak, 1999), vol. 1, pp. 218-219.
[18] One of my high school teachers was with the Mir yeshiva during the War. He told us how on Yom Kippur some people actually fasted for two days, eating pahot mi-ke-shiur after the first day so that they would be able to fulfill both the opinion of R. Herzog and the rabbis aligned with him as well the Hazon Ish’s view.
Fasting two days on Yom Kippur is actually not new. Ibn Ezra records how certain people did it in medieval times. He minces no words about what he thinks of them. See Sefer ha-Ibur, ed. Halbertam, pp. 4a-b:
ואם טען טוען הלא אתם אומרים כי שני ימים טובים צוו לעשות קדמונינו בעבור הספק למה לא קבעתם צום כפור שני ימים גם יש טפשי עולם מחברינו שיתענו שני ימים ואני אראה להם שלא יועיל להם תעניתם כי הוא שוא ושקר.
[19] This letter was previously printed in Sefer Zikaron Tuv Moshe (Bnei Brak, 2008), p. 253, and here too Lieberman is referred to respectfully. This book does not inform the reader where it found this letter, although Genazim u-She’elot u-Teshuvot Hazon Ish informs us that its source is Sefer Zikaron Tuv Moshe. I know that a number of copies of Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox made their way around Bnei Brak, and one of them apparently found its way to the editor of Sefer Zikaron Tuv Moshe.
[20] With reference to the Hazon Ish’s family, in Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox I noted how the Steipler stated that one should not study Lieberman’s books since he left the Orthodox world. Last year a new edition of the Tosefta was published and included some questions to R. Chaim Kanievsky. In the original question the authors spoke negatively about Lieberman. When they gave the page with their question and R. Hayyim Kanievsky’s reply to the typist (who might even have been a woman) they added the word להשמיט with reference to the comment about Lieberman. Perhaps this was because they didn’t want people to know about the family connection between the Hazon Ish and Lieberman. However, the typesetter didn’t understand their intention and included the word להשמיט, thinking that this word was to be added to the text. Here is the page (click to enlarge, or see detail directly below it).

Portions of the letter of the Hazon Ish to Lieberman, referred to on this page, are also found in Kovetz Iggerot Hazon Ish, vol. 3, no. 2.

I just mentioned women typists, which is common in the haredi world (Kitvei R. Weinberg vol. 1, which was printed by a Satmar company, was typed by a woman.) Let me now turn to what I think is an example of a woman translator, and I thank Elchonon Burton for bringing this text to my attention. Here are two pages from R. Shakh’s Lule Toratekha.

In it he mentions how the Hafetz Hayyim famously referred to Adam ha-Kohen as yemah shemo. Adam ha-Kohen was the pen name of Abraham Dov Baer Lebensohn, and for more on how the Hafetz Hayyim viewed him, see S.’s post here. Note how R. Shakh adds שר”י  to Adam ha-Kohen’s name. This stands for שם רשעים ירקב (“the name of the wicked shall rot” – Prov. 10:7) and is only applied to the most wicked.

Here is how this passage appears in Artscroll’s English translation, Rav Shach on Chumash.

The translator did not understand what שר”י means and assumed that it was part of his name, creating a previously unknown maskil, Adam HaKohen Sherry. Based on this error, I assume that the initial translation was done by a woman who knew modern Hebrew but not “rabbinic code.” The final translator, who is a talmid hakham, probably just revised the initial translation. Now knowing anything about the Haskalah, when he saw the name Sherry it didn’t raise a red flag leading him to check the original. S. pointed out to me that in the Wikipedia entry for Yimach Shemo, Adam HaKohen Sherry also makes an appearance.

[21] While on the topic of Lieberman, let me note that he has an unknown article in Otzar ha-Hokhmah 10 (1934), pp. 83-84, signed ש. ל.. In this short article he criticizes some of what R. Leopold Greenwald wrote about the Jerusalem Talmud. I refer to this article as “unknown” because I have never seen anyone refer to it, and it is not found in Tuvia Preschel’s bibliography of his writings included in Sefer ha-Zikaron le-Rabbi Shaul Lieberman, ed. Shamma Friedman (New York and Jerusalem, 1993).
 [22] After writing these words I saw that the title page of this haggadah was included in Leon Wieseltier’s article in the most recent Jewish Review of Books (Spring 2012), which is presumably where the commenter saw it. See here. See also this post regarding a different Haggadah, and see also Dan’s post here.
Here are some other pictures that I think people will find interesting. They appear in R. Leon Modena’s Tzemah Tzadik (Venice, 1660). This is not found on hebrewbooks.org but is on Otzar ha-Hokhmah (at least for now). This particular copy was originally part of Elkan Nathan Adler’s collection. (Adler used for his middle name the name of his father, R. Nathan Adler, chief rabbi of England. This was not unusual. To give another example, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch’s father’s name was Raphael.) Here is Adler’s book plate. His Hebrew name was Elhanan.
From Tzemah Tzadik, here is an illustration showing love of people.
Here is one showing love of man and wife.

Here is an “immodest” picture showing mermaids, which Modena, like so many others of his time, believed in.

Modena’s name does not appear on the title page of Tzemah Tzedek, but he reveals his authorship at the beginning of ch. 1, where first letters of the first sixteen words read: יהודה אריה ממודינא

Here is the page.

[23] He had already corrected Tal Ilan in this regard. See “A Good Story Deserves Retelling – The Unfolding of the Akiva Legend,” Jewish Studies Internet Journal 3 (2004), p. 85 n. 96.
[24] Darkhei Tziyon (Kolomea, 1886), pp. 5a-b
[25] As part of my preparations for the trip I have also been reading Elliot Horowitz’ many important articles on Italy. Not long after finding the censored text I saw that Horowitz had already discussed this passage and showed that there is indeed a history of omitting and distorting it. See “Towards a Social History of Jewish Popular Religion: Obadiah of Bertinoro on the Jews of Palermo,” Journal of Religious History 17 (1992), pp. 140ff. While the examples Horowitz discussed are motivated by a Victorian style of writing, the example I give is probably motivated by a desire to shield the masses from the knowledge that even in pre-Reform Europe violation of halakhah was in many places a common phenomenon. It never ceases to amaze me how little knowledge of history some otherwise very intelligent people have, which I guess means that the censorship and rewriting of history is having an effect. Not long ago I was with someone who had spent a number of years in yeshiva, and he really believed that in 19th century Eastern Europe the porters and wagon drivers were all great talmidei hakhamim whose free time was devoted to mastering Shas.
[26] See also Tomer Persico, “Ha-Rav Kook: Al Tzadikim Gedolim ve-Yishrei Lev – be-Ma’alah ha-Hasagah ha-Mistit,” Moreshet Yisrael 5 (2008), available here.


Post-script by S. of On the Main Line:

Two points may be of further interest.

1) Regarding the Western Askenazic custom of using the father’s name as a middle name ala  the aforementioned R. Hirsch and Elkan Nathan Adler, E. N.’s two older half brothers also used  their father’s name, Nathan, as middle names; there was Marcus Nathan Adler, best known for his edition of Benjamin of Tudela’s Travels. In addition, Chief Rabbi Herman Adler also used it as a middle name, especially in his earlier years. In his university matriculation record from 1856 he is listed as “Hermann Nathan Adler.”

2) In addition to the coded acrostic self-reference by the author of Zemach Zedek in the opening lines referred to above (‘יושר האהבה וכו), R. Yehuda Aryeh Modena also refers to himself in the opening lines of the hakdamat ha-mekhaber: נודע ביהודה אלקים ובישראל אריה שאג.



Answers to Quiz Questions and Other Comments, part 2

Answers to Quiz Questions and Other Comments, part 2
 
by Marc B. Shapiro
1. In my previous post, in discussing the words in Ecclesiastes 2:8 עשיתי לי שרים ושרות, I referred to the interpretation in Kohelet Rabbati. This very section of Kohelet Rabbati has an amazing comment, which as far as I know was never referred to in the dispute over Sara Hurwitz’ rabbinical ordination. Commenting on the words שדה ושדות, which appear in the same sentence as שרים ושרות, the Midrash states:

שדה ושדות: דיינים זכרים ודיינות נקבות
In other words, Solomon is portrayed as appointing female dayanim! (See also Ruth Rabbah 1:1 where Deborah and Yael are described as judges.[1]) The standard commentaries find this passage very difficult and offer alternative explanations, sometimes in opposition to the plain sense of the words. Etz Yosef suggests that the job of the women was to judge other women. R. David Luria adopts the lav davka approach, and assumes that דיינות must mean policewomen of sorts.
ודיינות נקבות: לאו דווקא דיינות דאשה פסולה לדון. אלא שופטת להשגיח שלא ישלטו [ישלחו?] הנשים בעולתה איש לרעותה את ידה
His position is rejected by R. Abraham Horowitz, Kinyan Torah ba-Halakhah, vol 1, no. 8:3. Rabbi Horowitz, who was a member of the Edah Haredit beit din, assumed that when the Midrash referred to female dayanim, it didn’t mean that they actually took part in beit din proceedings, but it did mean that they decided halakhic matters, and in that sense they are דיינות. Here are his words, which everyone should examine closely.
ובאמת ל”י [לא ידעתי] מה החרדה הזאת דהא הפת”ש בחו”מ סי’ ז’ סק”ה הביא מספר החינוך מצוה קנ”ח דאשה חכמה ראוי’ להורות . . . אפש”ל דיינות שנתמנו [ע”י שלמה] רק לפסוק הוראה ולא לדון. ועימנ”ח סו”מ ע”ח דפשיטא לי’ דנשים מצטרפות לרוב חכמי הדור אם חולקין באיזו דין . . . מכ”ז נראה דאין לזלזל בסמכות אשה כשירה
I requested that readers examine his words, because in the backlash over Hurwitz’ ordination a number of statements were made the upshot of which was that halakhic decision-making is reserved for men. Ironically, this position is given support by at least some of the women serving as yoatzot, for they are careful to stress that while they provide guidance, they don’t, Heaven forbid, actually decide halakhah. When there is a real halakhic question they turn to the experts, that is, the male rabbis. The message of this is, of course, that women, no matter how learned, are disqualified from deciding halakhah.[2]
Returning to Kohelet Rabbati, R. Yisrael Be’eri accepts that the Midrash means what it says when it refers to dayanim, but suggests that Solomon not only had female courts, but also “co-ed” batei din. See Ha-Midrash ka-Halakhah (Nes Tziyonah, 1960), p. 317:
ולולי מסתפינא אמינא שזה היה הרכב זוגי ז”א אותו דין היה מתברר בפני בי”ד רגיל וכן הוסיף שיתברר בפני דיינות נקבות שאולי יש בהן בינה יתירה וגישה מיוחדת ואחר כך שוקלין זה מול זה ואז היה מתברר הדין בדקדוק ושיקול מיוחד וצ”ע.
It is noteworthy that he sees value in having the female dayanim examine the matter, since they can bring a feminine perspective to bear. If I just presented the text without telling you who the author was and when it was written, I am sure people would assume that only a modern feminist type could have penned these words. Yet we see that this is not the case.
R. Hayyim David Halevi also deals with this Midrash (Aseh Lekha Rav, vol. 8, pp. 247-248). He suggests that the Midrash is indeed operating under the assumption that there is no problem with women dayanim. Alternatively, he suggests that Solomon and his council accepted the authority of the women, and therefore this was permissible. In other words, there is only a halakhic problem when a woman is made a dayan against the will of the community, but if she is accepted by them, then she can serve. And how do we determine if the community accepts her as a dayan? Halevi explains:
וקבלה ודאי שמועילה, והכל כשרים לדון בקבלה, וקבלת גדולי הקהל מספיקה ואין צורך שכל העומדים לדין יקבלו עליהם. וכן מצאנו “דיינות נקבות” כלשון המדרש, ואין סתירה להלכה
What this means is that if the leaders of the community accept women dayanim, then this is sufficient. (I am speaking about in matters of Hoshen Mishpat, not dayanim for Even ha-Ezer.) Therefore, if leaders of the OU or the RCA declare that they accept women, that would open the door to appointing a woman as a dayan on the RCA beit din. Halevi refers to acceptance by גדולי הקהל. In the context of the United States, where there are lots of different kehilot, I would assume that this means that if the leaders of any one community, or even of one synagogue, agree to accept a woman as dayan, then this is sufficient.
R. Ben Zion Uziel also claimed that women can serve as dayanim, and the means of achieving this would be through a takanah. He cites meta-halakhic reasons to explain why this is not a good idea, but from a pure halakhic standpoint, he sees it as entirely acceptable.[3]
Leaving aside the issue of serving as a dayan, it is obvious to me that women rabbis are coming to Modern Orthodoxy, even if the powers that be are standing firmly against it. Yet they have already let the genie out of the bottle. By sanctioning advanced Torah study for women, there is no question that the time will come when there will be women scholars of halakhah who are able to decide issues of Jewish law. The notion that a woman who has the knowledge can “poskin” is not really controversial, and has been acknowledged by many haredi writers as well.[4] Very few rabbis are poskim, but every posek is by definition a “rabbi”, whether he, or she, has received ordination or not.[5] So when we have women who are answering difficult questions of Jewish law, they will be “rabbis”,[6] and no declarations by the RCA or the Agudah will be able to change matters. I am not talking about pulpit rabbis, as this position has its own dynamic and for practical reasons may indeed not be suitable for a woman. Yet as we all know, very few rabbis function in a pulpit setting, and much fewer will ever serve as a dayan on a beit din.
The reason why the issue of ordaining women has been so problematic is because the Orthodox community is simply not ready for it. Yet when women will achieve the level of scholarship that I refer to, and are already deciding matters of halakhah, then their “ordination” will not be regarded as at all controversial in the Modern Orthodox world, and will be seen as a natural progression. People will respond to this no differently than how they responded to the creation of advanced Torah institutes for women. [7] Since women were already being taught Talmud, the creation of these institutes was a natural step.
There is one more thing that needs to be added, and that is that we have not reached the point where there are women halakhic authorities.[8] I hope I won’t be accused of bashing women by pointing out the following fact, that as of 2012 not one traditional sefer, in Hebrew, written by a woman has been published. By traditional sefer I mean a halakhic work or a commentary on a talmudic tractate. I am waiting for this day, which I hope won’t be too long in the future. I also hope that a learned woman is currently working on a commentary to a tractate, even if it is one of the easier tractates such as Megillah. The point is that for women to be recognized as talmudic and halakhic authorities they will have to do exactly what the men do, and that is show the world that they are serious talmidot hakhamim. The major way to do this is through publishing. (Publishing has its own significance, even if no one actually reads the book. Let’s be honest, of the many volumes of commentary on talmudic tractates that are published by people in yeshiva and kollel every year, does anyone read them? With so many great works of rishonim and aharonim on the tractates, as well as the writings of contemporary gedolim, the modern commentaries by unknown talmidei hakhamim are understandably not anyone’s focus. Yet they are of great benefit to the author, in developing his ideas and advancing his learning, and that is reason enough for the works to appear.)
I agree that it isn’t “fair” that while men can be given the title “rabbi” simply by learning sections of Yoreh Deah, the women must do a lot more to be accepted. But that is required any time new developments come into place. I have been assured by people in the know that the day is coming when we will have first-rate women halakhists and talmudists. It will be fascinating to see what insights they bring to matters, and if a woman’s perspective affects how halakhah is decided. But we haven’t reached that day yet, and just as importantly, the Orthodox world as a whole is not yet ready for that day, as they have not yet become comfortable with the idea of a woman poseket.
In note 7 I refer to the recent article by Broyde and Brody in Hakirah 11. While they leave open the possibility of a future with women rabbis, R. Hershel Schachter also has a very short article in that issue, and he is completely opposed. What I think is interesting is that the only recent authority he cites in support of his rejection of women rabbis is “Rabbi Shaul Lieberman.” I guess R. Schachter regards Lieberman as one of the gedolei Yisrael.[9]
Regarding R. Schachter’s opposition to women rabbis, there is one other point worth noting. In an earlier post, available here, I wrote as follows:
R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai has an entry for “rabbanit” in his Shem ha-Gedolim. He lists there a few learned women. When Azulai uses the term rabbanit, it does not mean “rebbetzin” but “female rabbi”. I am sure that there are those who would object to the Hida that these women were never “ordained”. Yet the Hida also includes many others who were not ordained, but I don’t think anyone would take the title of “rabbi” away from them. One such figure is Moses ben Maimon.
My point in this was to show that women have already been given the title approximating that of rabbi by no less than the Hida (obviously in a pre-feminist context).[10] As far as I know, I was the only one to make this point during the hullabaloo a couple of years ago about the ordination of Sara Hurwitz. I was surprised that no one else picked up on this as I happen to think it would give the pro-ordination side a strong piece of ammunition.
My post went up on June 25, 2010, and someone must have mentioned this to R. Schachter because on July 7, 2010 he responded. You can listen to what he says here (beginning at minute 6). He mentions that the Hida’s use of rabbanit was cited in support of women’s ordination, and concludes that nevertheless this proof is “not so conclusive.” [11]
Flora Sassoon (1859-1936) was an extremely learned woman who lived too late to be included by the Hida.[12] In 2007 the Sassoon family published Nahalat Avot, which is a large collection of letters sent to the Sassoons by great Torah figures. Many of the Torah letters in this book were sent to Flora, and she is addressed in a number of them as “rabbanit”. Her husband held no rabbinic office and I think we can therefore conclude that the term “rabbanit” is being used as a title of respect for her knowledge.[13] Another example of this is seen in how she is introduced by R. Joel Herzog, who published a derashah she delivered in his Imrei Yoel, vol. 3, pp. 204-206. (Are there any other examples of a traditional sefer including something written by a woman?) Herzog too uses the term rabbanit as a title of respect.
Finally, with regard to women’s roles, let me call attention to what I think is a little known fact. Liberal Orthodoxy is very interested in finding ways to expand the opportunities for women to be involved in Jewish rituals. This encompasses everything from reading the Torah and leading Kabbalat Shabbat, to reciting sheva berakhot and reading the ketubah at a wedding. I haven’t yet seen any proposals to have a woman serve as a sandak. This would not be a new practice. R. Meir of Rothenburg writes that in his day in “most places” a woman sat in the synagogue and held the baby during circumcision.[14] In other words, this was the mainstream Ashkenazic minhag. R. Meir opposed this practice and made efforts to uproot it. This opposition was successful and is the background of R. Moses Isserles, Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 265:11, declaring that a woman cannot be a sandak, because it is peritzut.[15] Yet despite Rama’s comment, my experience is that this is the sort of judgment that the liberal Orthodox are quick to revise. Certainly, the Rama would assume that there is more peritzut in having a woman serve as a hazzan than in holding the baby during a circumcision. Yet for some reason, while the latter has become accepted on the left of Orthodoxy, I haven’t heard anyone speak about instituting female sandakot. (If there are places where women are indeed serving as sandakot, please leave a comment.)
2. In an earlier post I discussed how R. Moses Kunitz’s biography of R. Judah the Prince was censored from a recent printing of the classic Vilna Mishnah. I also included a picture of Kunitz. Here is another, completely unknown, picture of Kunitz.
I found it in the Yeshiva University Archives, call no. 1992.008, and I thank the Archives for permission to publish it here.
In the earlier post dealing with Kunitz, I wrote:
Immediately following Kunitz’ essay, there is another article on the grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew by Solomon Loewisohn.[16] In the very first note he refers to the book of Ecclesiastes, and concludes his comment with והטעם ידוע למשכילי עם. What he is alluding to in this note is that Ecclesiastes is a late biblical book, and thus could not have been written by Solomon. To show this he points to the word חוץ, which in its usage in Ecclesiastes 2:25 is an Aramaism, and thus post-dates the biblical Hebrew of Solomon’s day. To use an expression of the Sages, we live in an olam hafukh. Kunitz’ essay was thought worthy of censorship, and at the same time this note remains in every printing of the Vilna edition of the Mishnah. Yet as I mentioned above, let’s see how long it is before this note, or even the complete essay, is also removed.
What I didn’t realize, and I thank an anonymous commenter for pointing out, is that this note has already been tampered with, and in such an ingenious fashion that there is now no need for it to be deleted. Here is how it appears in the Vilna Mishnah.[17]
And here is the page in the 1999 Zekher Hanokh edition of the Mishnah, published by Wagshal (an edition which also deletes Kunitz’ introduction).
Now, instead of והטעם ידוע למשכילי עם, we have והדבר ידוע למשכילי עם. In the original, Loewisohn is telling the reader that the reason why there is an Aramaism in Ecclesiastes is known to the wise (i.e., the book is post-Solomonic), In the Zekher Hanokh edition all he is saying is that the existence of Aramaisms in Ecclesiastes is known to the wise, with no daring implication as to dating.
I also found something else of interest. Here is the last page of Kunitz’ essay on R. Judah the Prince.
Notice how he mentions Mendelssohn, Rabe’s German translation of the Mishnah, and how in his opinion R. Judah would be happy with such a translation.
This all sounds a little too “maskilish,” and here is what same page looks like as it appears on Otzar ha-Hokhmah.
Look at what has been removed. Is there really such an edition with the removed lines, or did Otzar ha-Hokhmah censor the material itself? (I will return to the censorship of Kunitz in the next post, as new information regarding this has recently come to light.)
There are other examples where I think it is Otzar ha-Hokhmah that is responsible for the censorship. Here is the title page of the book Va-Yakem Edut be-Yaakov (Prague, 1594) as it appears on Otzar ha-Hokhmah
Here is the uncensored page, as is found on hebrewbooks.org
Incidentally, the title page of R. Yitzhak Chajes’ Derashah (Prague, 1589) used the exact same model.
Dan already discussed the Chajes title page here and called attention to how an auction catalog ridiculously suggested, without any evidence whatsoever, that the non-Jewish workers of the Jewish publisher put this immodest picture in.
How were the workers able to get away with this? The catalog has the “religiously correct” answer: it was hol ha-moed and the owner was not around! Since a pious Jew would never have anything to do with such a picture, the non-Jewish workers must have used their own money to buy the plates for this engraving. And why would the non-Jewish workers have spent their own money doing something that would anger the owner and get them fired? It must be that they wanted to cause Jews trouble, which is what non-Jews are always interested in. Knowing that when the owner saw what they did he would never agree to sell a book with such a title page, the non-Jewish workers must have taken all the books from the printing press and, at their own expense, sent them out to all the book sellers. All this could happen without the owner being aware because it was hol ha-moed and during this time the owner of the press wouldn’t dream of dropping by his shop (so much did he trust his workers), just like today none of us know any religious Jews who would ever consider going to work on hol ha-moed.
The title page of Va-Yakem Edut be-Yaakov, published in Prague five years after Chajes’ Derashah appeared, shows us that the non-Jewish workers must have once more, on hol ha-moed of course, surreptitiously inserted the same picture as a title page for a different book. I think everyone has to wonder, why didn’t the publisher learn anything from the first time these non-Jewish trouble makers played around with a Jewish printing press?
Another example of censorship on Otzar ha-Hokhmah is seen with the Venice 1574 edition of the Mishneh Torah. Here is the title page.
Here is how the second page looks, from volume 2 (as seen on hebrewbooks.org). The verse along the edges is from Psalm 45:12: “The king shall desire your beauty.”.
This edition was published in four volumes. In the copy on Otzar ha-Hokhmah, three of the four volumes contain the second page. Two of the pictures are significantly whited out, and in the second picture below you can see that they have whited out enough so that the reader will think he is looking at a man.
There are, to be sure, plenty of examples where the pictures appear without any censorship on Otzar ha-Hokhmah (and even with the examples I have given, it is not clear if Otzar ha-Hokhmah is responsible for the censorship or the book came to them this way). Here, for example, is the famous family crest of R. Abraham Menahem Rapa of Porto, which appears at the end of his Minhah Belulah.
S. has already pointed out that this picture was altered in a recent printing of the sefer.[18] Here is what the altered version looks like.
Michael Silber has noted that in Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger’s recent book Ha-Yeshiva be-Fiorda, the women have been turned into men, complete with beards![19]
Here is what the Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. Rapoport, writes:
The name Rapa originated in the German Rabe (Rappe in Middle High German), i.e., a raven. In order to distinguish themselves from other members of the Rapa family, the members of this family added the name of the town of Porto, and thus the name Rapoport was formed . . . The family escutcheon of Abraham Rapa of Porto shows a raven surmounted by two hands raised in blessing (indicating the family’s priestly descent).
Regarding the sefer Minhah Belulah, at the beginning of each book of the Pentateuch the following “immodest” picture also appears.
As far as I know, hebrewbooks.org has not censored any of the books that appear on the site. (We have previously discussed books that it refuses to put up.) A few years ago the Reich collection of reprints was added to hebrewbooks.org and these have all sorts of interesting title pages. Here is the title page of R. Samuel ben David Ha-Levi’s Nahalat Shivah.
The year is expressed as משיח בן דוד בא. This adds up to 427 (i.e., 5427), and is an allusion towards Shabbetai Zvi. The year 5427 corresponded to 1666-1667, and the convention normally would be to write 1667 (and this is the date given in the Harvard catalog). However, in this case I assume it is more accurate to give the date as 1666. We know that Shabbetai Zvi converted on September 15, 1666. By 1667 this information would have reached Amsterdam and the title page would no longer refer to him as the Messiah. Therefore, I think we can conclude that the book appeared after Rosh ha-Shanah of 1666, but before January 1, 1667. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that if you look at the end of the book there is a comment by the typesetter from which we see that, despite the date on the title page, the book was not actually ready for publication until the beginning of 1668. In other words, the title page was not changed in the interim, despite Shabbetai Zvi’s apostasy.
Among the Reich reprints, here is another fascinating title page (actually the first of two title pages in this book). It is from R. Abraham ben Shabbetai’s Kehunat Avraham (Venice 1719).
Here is the author’s picture, that appears on the second page. He clearly is wearing a wig.
3. In the previous post I mentioned something I was told by R. Avraham Yosef, the son of R. Ovadiah. He is the chief rabbi of Holon and while a great talmid hakham, unlike his brothers R. Yitzhak and R. David he has not published very much. Here is his picture.
Like his father, R. Avraham is known for some controversial statements. He has also surprised people with his viewpoints. See here, for example, where he expressed his support for Livni becoming prime minister. I have found that he is very accessible and will answer any letter written to him. Since we are approaching Passover, let me share with readers the following.
From reading the works of R. Ovadiah Yosef,[20] I have always assumed that in his opinion even Ashkenazim living in Israel are obligated to follow R. Joseph Karo. Despite what R. Yitzhak states in his letter published below, I haven’t seen any convincing explanation as to why the Moroccans and the Yemenites should be obligated in this according to R. Ovadiah, but not the Ashkenazim. And yet R. Ovadiah does not say so openly, perhaps to avoid involving himself in controversy. He also doesn’t say that Ashkenazim should keep their practices in the Land of Israel, except for one issue, namely, kitniyot, where he is explicit that Ashkenazim are obligated to follow their tradition.[21] However, based on my assumptions from reading R. Ovadiah, I assumed that the obligation of kitniyot in the Land of Israel only applied to those who identified as Ashkenazim. If, on the other hand, someone wanted to “convert,” as it were, to Sephardi practice, he would no longer be obligated in kitniyot.
To test my theory, I wrote to three of R. Ovadiah’s sons, R. David, R. Yitzhak, and R. Avraham, asking if it was permissible for an Ashkenazi to adopt Sephardi practices in all areas, meaning that he would no longer have to avoid kitniyot. R. David never replied, but I did receive replies from R. Yitzhak and R. Avraham. Readers might recall how R. David and R. Yitzhak differed about what blessing should be recited over Bamba, and each claimed to have the support of their father. In the kitniyot case as well there is a dispute. R. Yitzhak wrote to me that an Ashkenazi, even in Israel, is bound to his communal practices. The only exception is if he is a baal teshuvah., In this case, he hasn’t yet adopted the Ashkenazic practices, and he can therefore “become Sephardi”. Here is R. Yitzhak’s letter (it was one letter, with two signatures).
However, R. Avraham has a different perspective, believing that he too is properly representing his father’s outlook (and what he writes is what I also assumed based on my own reading of R. Ovadiah). According to R. Avraham, an Ashkenazi in Israel (and only in Israel) is permitted to become Sephardi, בין לטוב ובין למוטב. Here is R. Avraham’s letter.
4. Rabbi Moshe Shamah’s commentary on the Torah has recently appeared. At over one thousand pages, it is titled Recalling the Covenant: A Contemporary Commentary on the Five Books of the Torah. In a future post I hope to deal in more detail with one of Shamah’s essays, but in the meantime I wanted to let readers know about the book’s appearance. Many volumes of Torah commentary appear each year, usually written in the same style. Shamah’s book is different. The sources used and the questions asked will be eye-opening for many. It is not derush and does not psychoanalyze biblical figures. Rather, Shamah’s book is high level Torah scholarship in the tradition of the great peshat commentators, both medieval and modern,. I also found it interesting that the book contains a blurb from the noted biblical scholar Gary Anderson (as well from Yaakov Elman, Barry Eichler, and Jack Sasson).
Just as I was about to send in this post I also received Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot’s just published Mikra and Meaning: Studies in Bible and Its Interpretation. This is a collection of essays on different themes in Tanakh and is a good example of the Modern Orthodox revolution in the study of Bible. Just as the Rav commented that that it would be impossible today to (successfully) teach Talmud to students who are secularly educated if not for R. Chaim’s approach, something similar can be said regarding Tanakh. For those with a secular education, who have read great books, it is very difficult to connect to Tanakh without the new approach that has been developed in the last forty years or so. As R. Yoel Bin Nun puts in his preface to Helfgot’s book: “It is impossible to study Tanakh in the land of Israel as if we are still residing in Eastern Europe prior to the Holocaust.”[22]
[1] There are, to be sure, opposing passages. See e.g., Bamidbar Rabbah 10:17, where it records that Manoah stated: והנשים אינם בנות הוראה. This text is cited by a number of halakhists to show that women are not to issue halakhic rulings. Both R. Hayyim Hirschensohn, Malki ba-Kodesh, vol. 4 p. 104 and R. Yissachar Tamar, Alei Tamar, Zeraim, p. 151, reject drawing any conclusions from the passage. Both of them claim that one can’t rely on what Manoah said, as he was an am ha-aretz (see Berakhot 61a: מנוח עם הארץ היה). This is an interesting point, but I wonder if it has any validity. It obviously depends on how one is supposed to read Midrash. On the one hand, Manoah may have been an am ha-aretz, but the sage who put this expression in his mouth was not, and neither was the redactor of the text, so perhaps Manoah’s statement should indeed be seen as a rabbinic position. On the other hand, since it was put in the mouth of an am ha’aretz, perhaps it should be regarded as simply that, namely, an uninformed opinion.
It is interesting that the well-known author, R. Aaron Hyman, responded to Hirschensohn in Malki ba-Kodesh, vol. 6, p. 204. He criticized Hirschensohn for writing as if he believed that because the Midrash quoted a statement of Manoah, that the historical Manoah actually said this:
ומה שמביא חתנו הלשון מבמ”ר נשים אינן בנות הוראה, ורוצה אדוני לתלות יען שמנוח ע”ה הי’ אומר דבר זה, חס מלהזכיר שיאמין כבודו שבאמת מנוח אמר דבר זה, האם אמרו חז”ל מדברי נביאות או בקבלה, הלא אך בדרך דרש אמר הדרשן כן וכן והוא דברי הדרשן הי’ מי שהי’ אבל מדרש הוא ואדם גדול קבצם, וכן ידוע כל השקלא וטריא שהיה בין קרח ומשה בענין טלית שכלה תכלת והאלמנה והכבשה, זהו אך מליצה נשגבה אבל לא שבאמת היה כן.
See Hirschensohn’s reply, ibid., p. 209, that his intent was only that the Midrash, בדרך דרש, attributed words to Manoah.
[2] Another irony is that the halakhic textbook written by the most distinguished of these yoatzot turns out to be more stringent, and requires consultation with rabbis more often, than halakhic texts written by men. See Aviad Stollman’s review of Deena R. Zimmerman’s A Lifetime Companion to the Laws of Jewish Family Life in Meorot 6 (2007), p. 5. I can’t imagine that women think that there is an advantage in having halakhic works written by other women if these works actually reduce female autonomy in intimate hilkhot niddah matters and require more consultation with male rabbis.
With regard to calling the women yoatzot and not poskot, Stollman, p. 8, n. 20, believes that “this is merely a tribute to Orthodox political correctness.” Maybe someone who knows the situation better than I can comment on Stollman’s point. That is, are these women really giving halakhic decisions and merely “covering” themselves by using the politically correct term yoatzot?
Regarding Stollman, I should point out that he is an academic scholar, and in addition to articles has published a critical edition and commentary of Eruvin, ch. 10, Ha-Motze Tefillin (Jerusalem, 2008). He has also published a volume of responsa, Pele Yoetz (Jerusalem, 2011). Responsum no. 45 is, I think, unique in responsa literature. Stollman was asked if it is permitted to create Santa Claus dolls that sing Jingle Bells. He rules that it is permissible. If I’m not mistaken, Stollman is the first one since R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg to combine academic Talmud study with the writing of halakhic responsa.
Returning to yoatzot, I think many will find interesting that in Yemen and in some of the Sephardic world there was never a concept of asking a rabbi intimate niddah questions. This was because the women were embarrassed to do so, seeing it as “untzniusdik”. I mention this only because I have heard rabbis say that in truth there are no tzeniut issues with this, and women shouldn’t be embarrassed. They make it seem that it is only due to modern values that all of a sudden this sort of thing is uncomfortable for women. This is clearly not the case, as we see from what happened in the Yemenite and some of Sephardic worlds, hardly centers of modernity. (I am only speaking of the historical reality, not the wisdom of the Yemenite and Sephardic approaches, which usually meant that any doubt would be assumed to render the woman impure.) R. Yitzhak Shehebar, the Sephardic rav of Buenos Aires, writes as follows in his Yitzhak Yeranen, no. 95 (quoted in Beit Hillel, Tamuz 5769), p. 120:
ואשר לעניין מראות הדמים לא נהגנו בזה כלל, כי מעולם לא ראיתי להרבנים באר”צ [ארם צובה] שטפלו בזה, אך הנהיגו את הנשים שכל מראה הדומה למראית אדמומית שהוא טמא, זולתי אם יהיה כמראה לבן או ירוק שהוא טוהר.
Regarding Yemen, R. Yitzhak Ratsaby writes (Piskei Maharitz, vol. 3, section Be’erot Yitzhak, pp. 339-340):
אצלנו בק”ק תימן יע”א אין שואלין כלל לחכמים בעניין הכרת מראות הדמים, ובכל ספק הנשים מחזיקות עצמן טמאות ויושבות ז’ נקיים [ואפי’ לבעליהן נמנעות מלהראות כדי שלא יתגנו בעיניהן . . .] וכ”ה גם ברב ק”ק ספרדים יע”א . . . האידנא דהשאלה בדרך כלל היא רק לעיתים רחוקות, עי”ז נשתלשל הדבר שנמנעו מלשאול לגמרי מחמת בושתן היתירה וצניעותן המרובה כנודע
Ratsaby points out that this practice developed even though talmudic literature provides plenty of examples showing that in the days of the tannaim and amoraim the Sages did examine ketamim.
Regarding Yemen, see also R. Nachum Eliezer Rabinovitch, Siah Nahum, no. 60. In this responsum, Rabinovitch supports the institution of yoatzot and suggests that this practice, of turning to women in niddah matters, even existed in tannaitic times: כי לפנות לאשה חכמה אין חשש שמא תתגנה
In a note to this responsum, the editor provides further testimony about Yemen.
שמעתי עדות מחכם נאמן, שהיו מקומות בתימן בהם היו זקנות שהיו מוחזקות כבקיאות בעניני מראות, והנשים היו פונות אליהן, ומעולם לא ערער אדם על כך.
R. Moshe Maimon called my attention to the Meam Loez’s discussion of the laws of niddah, addressed to both men and women, and there is no mention there of bringing anything to the rabbi. This omission was rectified by R. Aryeh Kaplan, who in his translation (vol. 1, p. 136) adds: “When in doubt, a competent rabbi should be consulted.”
[3] Mishpetei Uziel, Hoshen Mishpat, no. 5.
[4] For sources on women deciding halakhic questions, see the three responsa in support of Sara Hurwitz’ being ordained as a “Maharat,” authored by Rabbis Yoel Bin-Nun, Daniel Sperber, and Joshua Maroof, available here.
[5] The Hafetz Hayyim, who was a “rabbi” if there ever was one, only received semikhah when he was 85 years old, and that was to satisfy a bureaucratic requirement. See Moshe Meir Yashar, He-Hafetz Hayyim (Tel Aviv, 1958), vol. 1, p. 19. According to R. Isaac Abarbanel, rabbinic ordination as currently practiced arose due to Christian influence. See Nahalat Avot, beginning of ch. 6:
אחרי בואי באיטאליאה מצאתי שנתפשט המנהג לסמוך אלו לאלו. וראיתי התחלתו בין האשכנזים כלם סומכים ונסמכים ורבנים. לא ידעתי מאין בא להם ההתר הזה אם לא שקנאו מדרכי הגוים העושים דוקטורי ויעשו גם הם.
[6] The title “rabbi” is indeed significant. This can be seen by the fact that when Sara Hurwitz was called Maharat there wasn’t any outcry, but when she was given the title “rabba” that is when the controversy really broke out, even though her job description didn’t change in the slightest. Does this mean that there was no objection to a woman functioning as a rabbi as long as she didn’t have the title? Only after she was renamed “rabba” did the RCA adopt a resolution rejecting the “recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title.” Yet despite that resolution, there are synagogues where women are still serving, for all intents and purposes, as members of the rabbinate minus the title.
[7] Similar, though not identical, perspectives have recently been offered by Rabbis Norman Lamm, Michael Broyde and Shlomo Brody. See Broyde and Brody, “Orthodox Women Rabbis? Tentative Thoughts that Distinguish Between the Timely and the Timeless,” Hakirah 11 (Spring 2011), pp. 25-58. None of them reject the notion of Orthodox women rabbis at some time in the future. From speaking to many people, my own sense is that a majority of the Modern Orthodox community supports women rabbis (although not necessarily pulpit rabbis). When I say “support,” I mean if asked the question, the reply will be yes. But at the same time, the overwhelming majority of the Modern Orthodox world doesn’t care about this issue at all, and this includes women also. However, I believe that the minority will continue to push this issue, and when women rabbis become a reality, the Modern Orthodox will not reject these women or the congregations that employ them, as we can already see at present with Rabba Hurwitz and other female synagogue rabbis (in everything but name). I think this will happen before the natural development of female poskot who, as already indicated, will by definition be rabbis even without a formal ordination.
One more point that needs to be mentioned with regard to women rabbis is the issue of economic fairness. There are significant tax savings, due to parsonage, that an ordained clergyman receives from the government. While it is true that R. Michael Broyde has written that even women teaching Torah are eligible for this even under current tax laws (see here) and a prominent New York law has firm also expressed this opinion, many yeshiva day schools, acting under the advice of their accountants, have refused to adopt this policy. Some sort of formal ordination for women would settle the parsonage question, and give a financial boost to many of our underpaid teachers.
[8] There are, however, a number of very good articles on halakhah written by women. See e.g., Devorah Koren’s article in the recently published Milin Havivin 5 (2011), available here.
[9] Regarding Lieberman, I would like to call readers’ attention to what appears in the latest Yeshurun, vol. 25. On p. 21 the following footnote appears:
“How Much Greek in Jewish Palestine לגרסאות ופירוש תיבות אלה, ראה דברי הגר”ש ליברמן “
Here Lieberman is given the title due a gadol be-Yisrael. Perhaps this can be seen as making up for the censorship of references to Lieberman (and Louis Ginzberg) in an article by R. Mordechai Gifter that appeared in an earlier Yeshurun. See Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, p. 32 n. 117. After my book appeared, I was informed by one of the editors of Yeshurun that the censorship of R. Gifter’s piece was carried out by the one who prepared the article for print, and the editors knew nothing about this and were upset when they learnt what had occurred.
On p. 632 of the new Yeshurun there is a letter from R. David Zvi Hillman to Prof. Shlomo Zalman Havlin in which he states the following: In the early volumes of the Encylopedia Talmudit Lieberman was referred to as ר”ש ליברמן, a point I noted in Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox. Yet American rabbis protested and insisted that he not be mentioned. These rabbis are identified with the Rabbinical Council of America: מהסתדרות הרבנים ר”ל המזרחניקים. In response to this, R. Zevin from that point on only mentioned the name of Lieberman’s books but not Lieberman himself. A Bar Ilan search reveals that vol. 13 is the last volume where ר”ש ליברמן is mentioned. (Vol. 15 was the last volume to appear in R. Zevin’s lifetime. See Zevin, Ishim ve-Shitot [Jerusalem, 2007], p. 40 [first pagination]).
Why would R. Zevin agree to this? The answer is obvious: money. The Mizrachi in America was an important source of funds for the Encyclopedia Talmudit.
[10] The term “rabbanit” was primarily used for the wife of a rabbi. See Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy, p. 77 n. 186. My point is only that it was also used for scholarly women.
[11] The continuation of the shiur is also of great interest, as he explains that if one ends up in a hotel on Shabbat and sees that the lights in the hall go one every time one leaves one’s room, it is still permissible to walk in the hallway and it is not even regarded as a pesik reisha.
[12] See the biography and picture of her here. For pictures of Flora and her family, see also here.
[13] Rivka bat Meir of Prague (died 1605) was another learned woman who was called “rabbanit”, see Frauke von Rohden, ed. Meneket Rivkah (Philadelphia, 2009), pp. 6-7. Rivka authored the Yiddish mussar work Meineket Rivka, published in Prague, 1609. On the title page she is referred to as הרבנית הדרשנית . (In the Altneuschul memorial book it also says that she preached. See Von Rohden, p. 6) Here is the first page of the book, where she is again referred to as “rabbanit”.
Lest anyone misunderstand, I must stress that Rivka only served as a rabbi and preacher for other women, and was therefore not a prototype for twenty-first century women rabbis. My point in referring to her is to highlight the use of the term “rabbanit” as designating a learned woman.
[14] Teshuvot Pesakim u-Minhagim, vol. 2, ed. Kahana, nos. 155-156.
[15] See Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael, vol. 1, pp. 65-66.
[16] I originally wrote Levinsohn, and thank a helpful reader for the correction. Loewisohn’s essay originally appeared in his posthumously published Mehkerei Lashon (Vilna, 1849).
[17] Incidentally, the note as it appears in the Vilna Mishnah has also been altered from what appears in the original work. In the original it states אשר אינם על טהרת לשון עבר, and in order that people understand what Loewisohn was saying, these words were altered to read: אשר המה כפי תכונת לשון הארמי
[18] See here.
[19] See here. As one of the commenters pointed out to this post, the women appear to be mermaids. He helpfully provided this link.
[20] For my essay on R. Ovadiah, see here.
[21] See Yabia Omer, vol. 5, Orah Hayyim no. 37, Yehaveh Da’at, vol. 1, no. 9, vol. 5 no. 32.
[22] R. Aharon Lichtenstein also has a preface to the book, where his ambivalence about the new approach comes through very clearly. This short essay deserves its own analysis.


Answers to Quiz Questions and Other Comments, part 1

Answers to Quiz Questions and Other Comments, part 1
By Marc B. Shapiro
It is now time to announce the names of those who were able to answer the quiz questions I posed. The only two people to answer both questions correctly were Alex Heppenheimer and Yonason Rosman. I fortunately had two CDs so both of them received the prize.

Question no. 1 was: The word for turkey is תרנגול הדו. There is a dagesh in the dalet. Why? Bring a proof for your answer from Berakhot between page 34a and 38a.

Alex Heppenheimer emailed as follows: “The dagesh represents a missing nun in the word הדו. The Aramaic form, in Berachot 36b, is הנדואי. (There is also similarly הנדויין in Yoma 34b and ר’ יהודה הנדואה in Kiddushin 22b.)”

This is correct. The name India (and thus also Hindu) originates with the Persians and Greeks for the land beyond the Indus River. You can see in the Aramaic terms referred to by Heppenheimer that the nun is part of the word. See also the Targum to Esther 1:1 where הדו is translated as .הנדיא Bava Batra 74b, Avodah Zarah 16a, and Bekhorot 37b have other forms of the word, all including the nun.[1] Berakhot 37b refers to נהמא דהנדקא, i.e., “Indian bread.” Targum Ps. Jonathan to Gen. 2:12 translates translates חוילה as הינדקי.

(As to why turkey was referred to by those in Spain, and later the rest of Europe, as “Indian fowl”, that is because when it was first brought back to Europe it was believed to be coming from the area around India, which is where Columbus himself thought that he had ended up.)

For those who are interested in grammatical matters like how the dagesh is used, let me recommend a new book, Adir Amrutzi’s Dikdukei Aviah (Tel Aviv, 2010). In speaking of nuns that drop off, on p. 13 he calls attention to Kiddushin 70a where the word אתרונגא appears. The nun in this word shows us that the plural of etrog is not etrogim, but etrugim, with a dagesh in the gimel and a kubutz under the resh. The singular word etrog should be written as אתרג (All this follows the pattern of tof-tupim [תף-תפים], dov-dubim [דב-דבים]. When the vav holam is in the word, the holam sound remains: חול-חולות, עוף-עופות).

Returning to India, the passage in Berakhot 36b reads: “The preserved ginger which comes from India (הנדואי) is permitted.” The problem is that when you look at Rashi, for his translation of הנדואי he writes: כושיים.

Cushi’im means “Ethiopians” (Translating “Cush” as “Ethiopia” does not imply that it corresponds to the borders of modern day Ethiopia. Some even prefer “Nubia” to Ethiopia”, as Ethiopians are Semitic while Nubians are “Hamitic” [and Cush was a son of Ham]. It perhaps also can refer generally to black Africa. This can explain Pesahim 94a which states that Egypt is one sixtieth of Cush. Also, the Targum to II Chron. 21:16 translates כושים as אפריקאי.)

So where does Rashi get the idea that Cushites are Indians? Did he not know that הנדואי means India? In his commentary to Kiddushin 22b he writes as follows:


הנדואה: מארץ כושי כוש מתרגמינן הנדואה

We see the same identification by Rashi in Yoma 81b.[2] Since the book of Esther distinguishes between India (הדו) and Cush, and Rashi identifies הנדואה with Cush, one might be tempted to conclude that Rashi didn’t realize that הנדואה is the same as הדו. But is it possible that he wouldn’t know this?

And to confuse matters even more, in Avodah Zarah 16a, where הינדואה is mentioned, Rashi explains that it means ארץ הדו.

So not only do we have the problem of Rashi identifying הנדואה as Cush, but we also have the problem of consistency, because in one instance he identifies the place correctly. To add one more thing to the mix, in his commentary to Sukkah 36a Rashi states that Cush is further from the Land of Israel than it is from Babylonia. This means that Rashi thought that Cush is to the east of Babylonia. In other words, Rashi does not believe that Cush is Ethiopia.[3]

So where does Rashi get this notion? He actually gives us his source in his commentary to Yoma 34b, where he refers to the Targum to Jeremiah 13:23. This verse famously states: “Can the Cushi change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” If you look at the Targum on this verse Cushi is translates as .הנדואה In the Targum to Isaiah 11:11 Cush is also identified as India.

So again, I ask, what is going on here? How could the Targum translate Cushi as “Indian”?

P. S. Alexander writes as follows: “It was a common view in ancient geography, shared by Ptolemy and probably also the author of the book of Jubilees . . . that Ethiopia was joined to India in the east. It is this idea that lies behind the [talmudic] statement that Cush and Hodu are adjacent.”[4] He also notes that the Indians dark skin was one reason for the identification. Furthermore, Alexander tell us, there was an ancient belief that there was a land connection between Ethiopia and India south of the Indian Ocean.

Since we have been speaking of India,[5] let me share with you what I found in R. Hayyim Hirschensohn’s Nimukei Rashi on Bamidbar (a copy of which I will give out to the winner of my next quiz[6]). On p. 81b he suggests that the revolt in India against English rule was a punishment of England for splitting the Land of Israel when it created Transjordan.

Returning to the quiz, my second question was: There is a rabbinic phrase that today is used to praise a Torah scholar, but in talmudic days was used in a negative fashion. What am I referring to?

Megillah 28b speaks of a צנא דמלא סיפרי . Today this expression is used to praise scholars. Yet if you look at the talmudic passage its meaning is the exact opposite. Rashi explains:
אינו אלא כסל שמילאוהו ספרים ואין מבין מה בתוכה אף שונה הלכות ולא שימש ת”ח ללמוד שיבינוהו טעמי משנה ופעמים שדברי משנה סותרין זה את זה וצריך לתרצה כגון הכא במאי עסקינן וכגון הא מני רבי פלוני היא וכגון חסורי מיחסרא אינו יודע מה שונה.

Rashi’s explanation should remind people of a phrase used by R. Bahya Ibn Paquda in Hovot ha-Levavot 3:4. In its medieval Hebrew translation it became famous: חמור נושא ספרים. I first heard this expression in yeshiva. Only later did I realize that it came from R. Bahya, and only some time later did I learn that R. Bahya didn’t invent it. Rather, it originates in the Quran 62:5.[7]

* * *

Since this post is not up to my normal length, let me make some more comments. At least one person thinks that my criticism of Artscroll regarding Kalir is unfair. If you recall, I originally criticized them for identifying Kalir as a tanna. In my last post I mentioned that in the first edition of the Artscroll Machzor this identification is rejected, and only in subsequent editions does the Machzor state that Kalir was a tanna. I also claimed that Artscroll knows the truth but in order to mollify its critics, changed what it originally wrote.

This, incidentally, is not the only time that I assume that Artscroll knows what it is writing is incorrect, but writes so anyway. I have a good example of this in the book I am currently working on, so I don’t want to give it away now. I already noted another example in Limits, where I call attention to the introduction to the Artscroll Chumash which states: “Rambam sets forth at much greater length the unanimously held view that every letter and word was given by God to Moses” (emphasis added). This statement, that the view of the Rambam is unanimously held, is false. Furthermore, Artscroll knows it is false, and in its commentary to Deut. 34:5 it mentions the talmudic view that the last verses were given to Joshua.[8]

Here is another example along these lines that I think readers will find interesting. It comes from the new Artscroll Midrash Rabbah, and was called to my attention by R. Avrohom Lieberman (who already called my attention to the Kalir change in the Machzor).

In explaining Tikun Soferim, Artscroll’s note states that this “cannot, Heaven forbid” be taken literally. Yet the editors of Artscroll, who are learned men, know perfectly well that there are traditional sources that state precisely this (See Limits, pp. 98ff). There is no question that the intent of the words “Heaven forbid” is to make the reader think that Artscroll’s perspective is unanimously held.

Since we are now on the subject of Artscroll (the most important and influential Orthodox publishing venture of all time), and lots of people want me to post more on this topic, let me give one final example.[9] It comes from Ecclesiastes, as I dealt with this book in the last series of posts. The upshot of what I and others have already pointed out is something everyone already knew, namely, that Artscroll has a religious agenda. Much like the New York Times’ agenda can be seen not only in the editorial page, but in the news reports as well, so too Artscroll’s agenda is seen not only in the “overviews,”[10] but in the selection of commentaries also. There is enough material for a very long and detailed article spelling all this out.

Eccl. 2:8 states: .עשיתי לי שרים ושרות
What does this mean? The simple explanation is that the author, traditionally Solomon, is telling us about all the wonderful things he amassed with which to enjoy himself, and among them are “men singers and women singers.” Artscroll translates the passage as “I provided myself with various musical instruments.” Now this might be an apologetic translation, but if so, it is not Artscroll that is to be too criticized, but the Talmud, Gittin 68a, since according to Rashi this is how the Talmud explains the words.[11] Artscroll is obviously within its rights to adopt this understanding, even if one assumes that this explanation is not in accord with the simple sense of the verse.

The problem comes with the next passage in the Artscroll commentary which states: “Rav Yosef Kara, Alshich, Metzudas Zion and others translate ‘singers.’” I will get to Kara and Alshich shortly, but let’s begin with Metzudat Tziyon, since this is easiest for most people to access as it appears in the Mikraot Gedolot. He writes as follows:

שרים: משוררים זכרים. ושרות: משוררות נקבות

So now I ask my fair-minded readers: Is Artscroll’s statement that Metzudat Tziyon translates שרים ושרות as “singers” accurate? I think the answer is clearly “no”. Metzudat Tziyon translates the words in question as “male singers and female singers,” and yet—don’t tell me you are surprised—in Artscroll this morphs into “singers”. Why would Artscroll fudge the translation? The answer is obvious. They don’t want people to think that Solomon would have listened to women singing. I am not sure why this is so problematic for them. After all, if Solomon engaged in idolatry (at least according to the biblical text’s simple meaning),, hearing women sing is not so far-fetched. In fact, in his comment on some other words in the verse, R. Jacob Lorberbaum[12] writes as follows):

רמז על שעבר על לא ירבה נשים שהזהירה התורה

Lorberbaum, therefore, has no difficulty in seeing the verse as pointing to misdeeds of Solomon.

Let us now see what Kara and Alshich say on the verse, since they too were quoted by Artscroll. Kara’s commentary is printed in Otzar Tov, ed., Berliner and Hoffmann (Berlin, 1886-1887), p. 10: עשיתי לי שרים ושרות: תיקנתי לי זכרים ונקיבות לשורר לפניי

Alshich explains the verse to be referring to משוררים ומשוררות

So we see that the commentators Artscroll refers to are explicit that the meaning of the passage is “male and female singers.”

Among other sources that interpret this way are Kohelet Rabbati, ad loc:


שרים ושרות: זמרין וזמרתא

Yalkut Shimoni, Kohelet no. 968:

עשיתי לי שרים ושרות: משוררים זכרים ונקבות.

See also the Targum to Eccl. 2:8, where שרים ושרות is translated as .זמריא וזמריתא

R. Moses Almosnino, Yedei Moshe (Tel Aviv, 1986), Eccl. 2:8 (p. 58), even explains why the female singers were desirable, as they helped create a better harmony:


על כן אמר שהיו לו שרים ושרות שהם המשוררים והמשוררות, אנשים ונשים יחד, שבהתמזגם יהיו הקולות ערובות, שקול האשה דקה וקול האיש הוא קול יותר עב, ובהתמזגם יחד יצא השיר בנועם.

When the Jews returned from Babylonia to the Land of Israel in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Bible (Ezra 2:65, Nehemiah 7:65) states explicitly that they came with משוררים ומשוררות, “male and female singers.”

As for how Solomon could listen to women sing, for those who feel the need to answer this question, perhaps Solomon agreed with those authorities who feel that there is no blanket prohibition on hearing a woman’s singing voice,[13] a viewpoint that has recently been resurrected by Rabbis Moshe Lichtenstein,[14] David Bigman[15] and Avraham Shammah.[16] According to this perspective, only singing that is sexually arousing is forbidden.[17] Let us not forget that the Talmud speaks of a woman’s voice. It is the post-Talmudic authorities who clarify that this refers to a singing voice, but does this mean any singing voice or only one that in the minds of normal men could be arousing?

R. Marc Angel agrees with the rabbis mentioned in the last paragraph. He writes: “When the prohibition of “kol ishah” is applied to all instances of women singing in the presence of men, this is a distortion of the intent of the halakha. . . . Men and women may sing in the presence of those of the other gender, as long as the songs are of a religious nature, or of a general cultural nature (e.g., opera, folk songs, lullabies).”[18]

R. Yonatan Rosenzweig doesn’t go so far as to permit one to attend a concert with a female singer, but he does say that since today many people are used to hearing recordings of women’s voices, that possibly it is even permissible to watch a woman singing on television.[19]

A number of years ago there were ads in New York Jewish papers for a concert by Neshama Carlebach. The ads stated that the concert was open for women, as well as for men for whom the singing was permissible. This was a very strange formulation. Knowing that R. Mordechai Tendler was Neshama’s posek, I asked him about this. He explained to me that the language originated with him and was based on the notion that the prohibition against kol ishah is not a blanket prohibition, but depends on whether the singing is sexually arousing. (This approach can be supported by the view found in some rishonim that kol ishah that is not sexually arousing is only forbidden during keriat shema. Otherwise, there is no prohibition.[20]) Therefore, men who are used to hear women sing and will not be aroused by Neshama are permitted to attend the concert, and this explains the strange language in the ads.[21] Tendler also told me that this view of kol ishah as being what we can call a “situational prohibition” rather than an absolute issur, was held by his grandfather, R. Moshe Feinstein.[22]

This opinion, that whether or not a woman’s singing voice is prohibited depends on how men will react to it, will no doubt strike some as “unorthodox.” This approach is definitely not as widely held today as in years past. Yet many people reading this post can recall a time when kol ishah, as a general prohibition, was simply not an issue for the Modern Orthodox, or even for many of the more right-wing Orthodox. This was no different than the situation in Germany, where pretty much all of the Orthodox, including members of Hirsch’s community, saw no problem in attending the opera.

If you went back to the 1960s, other than the hasidim and the tiny yeshiva world, it would be hard to find an Orthodox Jew in New York City who didn’t see the Broadway performance of “Fiddler on the Roof.” I would even assume that that there were some roshei yeshiva who saw it. Until the 1980s there was no problem with Modern Orthodox synagogues sponsoring trips to Broadway musicals. My own shul even put on a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” in the early 1980s. That would be unimaginable today at almost all Orthodox shuls.[23] (Yet somehow YU is able to continue its long tradition of a fundraising night at the opera, and I have not heard of any attempt by the roshei yeshiva to end this practice.)

Until the 1980s, girls would also have solo singing roles in the musical productions put on by many Modern Orthodox yeshiva high schools and summer camps. (Was there a Modern Orthodox summer camp where girls did not sing?) Readers can correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I know, only Ramaz, Flatbush, and SAR still have girls singing solos.[24] The other schools that have girls sing have them do so in groups, or at least with one other girl.

To bring us back to the earlier era, where women singing was acceptable in the Modern Orthodox world, let me quote Rabbi Marc Angel:

I was raised in the Sephardic community of Seattle, Washington, and well remember our many family gatherings where romances were sung. Jews of great piety sang right along with those of lesser piety. I do not remember anyone ever objecting to the singing of love songs by men and women. In the early 1980s, Haham Dr. Solomon Gaon, himself a Judeo-Spanish-speaking rabbi, taught classes in Sephardic folklore at my Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City. I well remember him singing love songs, enthusiastically and nostalgically. Both of us participated in a program of Sephardic culture sponsored by the Hebrew College of Boston. A female soloist sang a selection of romances, after which Haham Gaon not only applauded loudly but rose to speak in praise of the singer for her beautiful rendition of the songs. Haham Gaon, who served as chief rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregations of England and as head of the Sephardic Studies Program of Yeshiva University in New York, was a very prominent Orthodox Sephardic rabbi and a man of impeccable piety.[25]

R. Eliezer Berkovits wrote:


Nowadays, the singing of a woman is not fundamentally different from what the original Halakhah termed “her regular voice.” A woman’s voice, even when she is singing, is nothing unusual today, and it is no more distracting during the Shema prayer than that of a man singing. Only in specific amorous situations as in the Song of Songs, may it have a sensual quality.[26]
In Hirsch’s famous Schiller speech, delivered at his Frankfurt school, a note states that male and female students alternatively sang songs.[27] As I pointed out in my own note to the speech, girls were permitted to sing at Hirsch’s school. Mordechai Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition, p. 411 n. 11, calls attention to a report in Jeschurun 18 (1885), p. 11, of a public function at the school at which a teenage girl sang in the presence of a crowded audience.

In Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 216, I quote Jacob Rosenheim who attempts to explain why Hirsch permitted girls to sing at public examinations in the higher grades (and I also note that this passage was censored in the Netzah translation). A halakhic justification of hearing unmarried girls sing was actually penned by R. Isaac Unna, the rav of Mannheim. The short responsum appears in his Shoalin ve-Dorshin no. 2.

Unna cites the Ba’er Heitev thatקול פנויה מותר . In context, what this means is exactly what it says, namely, that unlike a married woman’s (singing) voice, which is always prohibited, the singing of an unmarried woman is permitted to be heard. When he says this is permitted, he means if it doesn’t cause sexual thoughts. (Moderate sensual thoughts would be permitted according to Maimonides, as I mention below.) If it does, then of course it is forbidden. But this prohibition is a general prohibition against arousing oneself sexually and has nothing to do with the prohibition of kol ishah, which only refers to married women and is apparently based on the assumption that the voice of a married woman is always sexually arousing.[28]

In recent generations, poskim have all written that the פנויה referred to here is one who does not have the status of a Niddah, that is, a pre-pubescent girl. The first source to adopt this approach seems to be the eighteenth-century Peri Megadim, Orah Hayyim 75:3. As far as I can tell, none of the early poskim who discuss the matter even mention this point, and they all assume that פנויה mean an unmarried woman, of any age. This approach also continued among certain poskim even subsequent to the Peri Megadim.

See for example this page R. Jacob Pardo’s Apei Zutrei (Venice, 1797), Even ha-Ezer 21:8:

Pardo is very clear that פנויה means exactly what it says. He compares the halakhah of kol ishah to that of hair covering, and just like only a married woman has to cover her hair, so too it is only a married woman’s voice that is prohibited, not the voice of a single woman. (As mentioned already, this would only be prohibited if it was sexually arousing.) As for extending the prohibition to unmarried women, he sees this as an excessive stringency and applies the rabbinic phrase kol ha-mosif gorea, noting that the people will not listen to such a ruling and this will turn them into brazen sinners.

This is not to say that Pardo approves of listening to single women sing. He doesn’t, and applies to such singing the rabbinic phrase מוטב שיאכלו ישראל בשר תמותות כשרות, which comes from Kiddushin 22a and is stated with reference to something distasteful. It is distasteful, yet permitted nonetheless. Pardo’s careful distinction between what is preferred behavior and what the halakhah actually requires is seen in this comment as well, where he refers to Job. 31:1: “[I made a covenant with mine eyes;] how then should I look upon a maiden?”[29]


הן אמת דלבטל ההרהור יש להחמיר ע”ד ומה אתבונן על בתולה. אך אינו מן הראוי להשוותה לנשואה לאסור מפאת הדין.

Here is a page from R. Aaron ha-Levi, Mateh Aharon (Salonika, 1820), p. 260b, where we see some more interesting comments, including defending a rabbi who permitted listening to the voice of a single woman.

And finally, here is a page from R. Hayyim Kasar’s Shem Tov, a twentieth-century commentary on the Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Issurei Biah 21:2. While Kasar is quite strict in forbidding a man to hear the voice of an ervah, even if he is not familiar with her, he is also clear that a penuyah means an unmarried woman and that there is no blanket prohibition on hearing her voice, just like there is no blanket prohibition on seeing the hair of an unmarried woman.

I would only add that this makes perfect sense according to Maimonides. If, as Maimonides says, one is permitted to look at an unmarried woman and enjoy her beauty,[30] it stands to reason that one can listen to the singing of an unmarried woman and also enjoy it.[31]

Returning to German Orthodoxy, Der Israelit was the newspaper of the German separatist community. Yet it seems to have had no problem highlighting an Orthodox female opera singer and stressing her commitment to Orthodoxy.[32] Mordechai Breuer called attention to this last point, and I assume that he didn’t have any knowledge of opera or he would have pointed out that the female singer referred to by the paper, Rosa Olitzka (1873-1949), was quite famous in her day. Here is a picture of her.

Right after telling us that Olitzka is the daughter of the hazan of the Berlin Adass Jisroel (i.e., R. Esriel Hildesheimer’s separatist community), Der Israelit mentions her starring as Carmen in the London Opera production. One can find a good deal of material about Olitzka online,[33] and can even purchase recordings of hers.[34] Maybe a reader knows whether she remained observant in her later years.

Breuer also refers to the JüdischePresse’s review of the opera “Samson and Delilah”.[35] While Der Israelit was the paper of the Frankfurt Orthodox, Jüdische Presse was published by the Orthodox of Berlin.[36]

The view that kol ishah is not an absolute prohibition, but depends on whether or not the singing is sensual in nature, was also held by R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, at least according to R. Aharon Rakeffet.[37] Rakeffet has also reported on a number of occasions that the Rav attended the opera in Berlin.[38] At the Maimonides School first Hanukkah Banquet in 1939, “the program included Betty Brooks, a prominent radio personality singing a variety of Jewish and English songs, Mabel Wingert, a dancer, and Frost and Helene, society dancers.”[39]

R. Ovadiah Yosef’s viewpoint on kol ishah is also worth noting, especially as it has undergone a change. In the first volume of Yabia Omer, published in 1954, R. Ovadiah deals with the following question (Orah Hayyim no. 6):

נשאלתי בדין קול זמר של אשה בגרמפון או ברדיו, אם יש בו משום קול באשה ערוה, וצריך להזהר שלא לשמעו בעת ק”ש ותפלה.
His formulation reflects the notion we have already seen, expressed by some rishonim, that the prohibition of kol ishah is a special prohibition related to shema (and prayer), rather than a general prohibition on hearing women sing (which if sexually arousing would be forbidden on other grounds.)

Here is how he formulates the question and answer in the table of contents:

קול זמר של אשה ברדיו וגרמפון, אין צריך להזהר מלשמעו בשעת ק”ש ותפלה, כשאינו מכיר את המשוררת, ואין בזה משום קול באשה ערוה
We see from here that there is no problem of kol ishah when you are not familiar with the female singer. In other words, you can recite shema and tefillah while hearing this. Again, however, this is not related to the wider issue of sensual songs. If you are “turned on” by hearing a song even if you don’t know the singer, then it is forbidden at all times. But by the same token, since the prohibition of kol ishah is exclusive to shema and tefillah, the implication is that a woman’s voice at other times is not prohibited if it doesn’t arouse sensual feelings.

Based on this understanding of R. Ovadiah’s responsum, I don’t think there is a contradiction between this teshuvah and R. Ovadiah’s well known love for the music of the Egyptian singing sensation Umm Kulthum.[40] Here is what Umm Kulthum looked like in her younger years.

If R. Ovadiah’s responsum in Yabia Omer intended a blanket prohibition on hearing the voice of a woman you are familiar with, rather than just confining this prohibition to shema and tefillah, then we would be confronted with a tremendous contradiction between the responsum and how R. Ovadiah lived his own life. It is not like R. Ovadiah wrote something in his responsum and did something else in his private life where people couldn’t see. His love of Umm Kulthum’s music was something everyone knew about, and he listened to it in the company of others. Clearly, therefore, his responsum which prohibits listening to the singing of one you are familiar with only applies during shema and tefillah. At other times, it is only prohibited if one is sexually aroused by the music, and since R. Ovadiah was not, he was permitted to listen to Umm Kulthum. Rabbi J. David Bleich is therefore incorrect when he summarizes R. Ovadiah’s responsum as follows: “Rabbi Yosef concurs in this ruling but adds that it is forbidden to listen to a female vocalist who is known to the listener even if the woman in question is known to him only through photographs.”[41] (I hope no one attempts to argue that R. Ovadiah didn’t know what Umm Kulthum looked like. She was only the most prominent celebrity in Egypt, with her picture everywhere.)

I was also informed by R. Avraham Yosef that his father, R. Ovadiah, later retracted his ruling in this responsum that if you are familiar with the singer that you can’t hear her voice in shema and tefillah. I later saw that R. Ovadiah himself states as much in Yabia Omer, vol. 9 no. 108:43:

ומה שכתבתי שם שאם ראה אותה בתמונה ג”כ, אסור, אינו מוכרח, שיש לומר . . . “ביודעה ומכירה”, זהו רק כשראה אותה בחיים חיותה במלא קומתה

If you hear her voice while you are saying shema or reciting blessings, R. Ovadiah advises וירכז מחשבתו לכוין בברכותיוR. Ovadiah’s words בחיים חיותה במלא קומתה might be taken to imply that even if you know the woman from television, there still is no prohibition of kol ishah.

R. Avraham Yosef states that while it is permitted to hear a woman sing even if you know what she looks like, it is not permitted to attend a live performance or even watch on television. R. Avraham assumes that alllive and television performances are prohibited, not only those that could be sexually arousing.[42] It also needs to be stated that despite how I interpreted R. Ovadiah, that female singing is only prohibited if it is sensual music, the upshot of what R. Ovadiah states throughout his writings is that by definition a live female singer is sexually arousing and thus prohibited. Although I think the evidence shows that R. Ovadiah agrees that theoretically kol ishah is only forbidden if it leads to <>hirhurim >, in practice he assumes that <>alllive female singing falls into this category. (I wonder, however, if he would also forbid the live singing of a very old woman, which would in no way be sensual.)


I found another interesting passage regarding kol ishah in the Meshivat Nefesh of R. Yohanan Luria (16th century). On p. 144, after explaining how the women of the desert could sing in front of the men (Ex. 15:21), he writes:

ומזה הטעם ראוי למחות לנשים המשוררות לכלות לפני האנשים רק הבתולות שמותרים בזה כדי לחבב הבחורים לקפוץ עליהם לשם אישות.

He makes the same point on the previous page, and concludes (p. 143):

רק הבתולות ראוי להם שיחבבו עצמם על הבריות לקפוץ אחריהם

What it means is that while married women can’t sing in front of men, unmarried women are permitted to do so in order to attract the attention of the young men, similar to what they did in Temple days when they would dance before the eligible bachelors.

Some might be wondering, how was this permitted since married men will also hear the women sing, and being that they are not in the “market” for a wife, what permission is there for them to listen to and be physically attracted to the young women? I think the answer is obvious, that those men who would have had improper thoughts were not supposed to listen to the women, just as I presume they were not supposed to watch the single women dance in Temple days. Yet the Sages did not ban this dancing because of what some men might be thinking, and similarly, Luria permits the singing by single women and is not concerned that some married men might also be listening. The logic behind Luria’s position is that young men looking for brides are supposed to be attracted to young women. The latter dress up nicely so that the men look at them, they put on makeup for this purpose, and yes, they sing in front of the men, all in order to make themselves attractive.

Here is the title page of Luria’s sefer.

I already mentioned the opera, so before concluding I refer you to S.’s post here.

He points to an early eighteenth-century communal decree in Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbek forbidding attendance at the opera, except for on Hanukkah and Purim when it was permitted. The text is also found in Simhah Assaf, Ha-Onshin Aharei Hatimat ha-Talmud, p. 116.

Finally, I would like to point to a very interesting source that as far as I know has never been mentioned in any of the many halakhic articles dealing with kol ishah. I refer to R. Joseph Hayyim’s Imrei Binah, ch. 3, no. 79. Here is the page.

For those who are unclear as to what he means, he explains it himself in his book Ateret Tiferet im Pelaot Rabot. Here is the title page of the book, which for some reason is not on hebrewbooks.org or Otzar ha-Hokhmah. The text that appears in Imrei Binah also appears in this book, and R. Joseph Hayyim’s explanation is found on p. 116 (no. 202).

According to R. Joseph Hayyim, if the singing of an individual woman is accompanied by instruments, meaning that there are “many voices”, then it is permissible. This is an incredible limud zekhut, because pretty much every singer today is accompanied by music.[43]
[1] Referring to the beginning of Esther, where Ahasuerus is said to rule from Hodu to Cush, the Talmud, Megillah 11b, states:
From Hodu to Cush: Rav and Samuel gave different interpretations of this. One said that Hodu is at one end of the world and Cush at the other, and the other said that Hodu and Cush adjoin one another, and that [the meaning is that] as he ruled over Hodu and Cush, so he ruled from one end of the world to the other.
This passage should immediately raise a couple of questions in people’s minds. 1. Since there is no doubt that both amoraim knew where India and Ethiopia were located, why did one of them explain that the two countries are next to each other? How come he didn’t accept the common identification of Cush and Ethiopia? 2. According to the first opinion, that Hodu is at one end of the world and Cush at the other, are we to understand from this that he thought that the world was flat? (I realize that “end of the world” could be used the same way we use it today, but I wonder if that is the peshat.)

[2] See also his commentary to Isaiah 18:1, where he regards Cush as being in the East.

[3] In the last post I spoke a bit about what Rashi regarded as beautiful, based on his commentary to Song of Songs. We also find from other comments of his that he did not regard Cushim as beautiful. Based upon what we have already seen, I assume that for Rashi a Cushi would have an Indian complexion. (See Moed Katan 16b regarding the skin of the Cushites.) In his commentary to Gen. 12:11 he speaks of “black and repulsive people, brothers of the Cushim.” In Num. 12:1 the Torah speaks of the Cushite that Moses married. Rashi does not take this literally and writes: “Because of her beauty she is called Cushite, as one calls his handsome son ‘Cushite’ in order that the evil eye should not have power over him.” (This same passage appears in Midrash Tanhuma 96:13, and see Yitzhak Aviner, Heikhal Rashi [Tel Aviv, 1960], vol. 4, p. 234, that it was inserted from Rashi into the Tanhuma). I think it must be very hard to teach this Rashi in elementary and even high school. One can easily see that if one of the students is a “person of color” or the student’s parent is, that the assumption of this Rashi could be very hurtful to the student. Has any reader had to deal with this?

For the same approach by Rashi, and here too it appears to be his own interpretation (although obviously based on the earlier rabbinic understanding of Cushite), see Sukkah 53a, where it mentions that Solomon had two Cushite servants. Rashi writes:

תרי כושאי: על שם שהיו יפים קרי להו הכי
See Arukh la-Ner, ad loc., who questions Rashi’s explanation, since while the Sages speak of Tziporah as being called Cushite in Num. 12:1 because of her beauty, they never say that a man would be called Cushite if he was handsome. This is precisely why I noted that what Rashi writes here is apparently his own interpretation.

Incidentally, the Artscroll translation to this passage makes as unfortunate error. While the Talmud speaks of “two Cushites”, Artscroll translates תרתי כושאי as “two Cutheans.”


The Vilna Talmud’s version is תרתי כושאי, while Rashi has תרי. Rashi’s text preserves the correct version (see also Arukh ha-Shalem, s. v. כש, p. 348 n. 4) as תרי is masculine while תרתי is feminine. In R. Meir Mazuz’s new book, Darkhei ha-Iyun, p. 5, he deals with these words and calls attention to the common grammatical error when people write תרתי דסתרי. Since דסתרי(=(הסותרים is masculine, the proper formulation is ether תרי דסתרי or תרתי דסתרן.

For more on the identification of Cushite with ugliness, see Jonathan Schorsch, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (Cambridge, 2004), chs. 3-4, and Abraham Melamed, The Image of the Black in Jewish Culture (London, 2003).
[4] “Toponomy of the Targumim,” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Oxford University, 1974), p. 134.

[5] I think readers will find this document interesting: link (pdf).

It contains the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s acknowledgment that Hinduism is monotheistic. I don’t even think that one can speak of shituf when it comes to Hinduism. What you have in Hinduism are manifestations of the one God, and this does not appear to violate any Noahide commandment. This is significant since in the Jewish imagination Hinduism has often been seen as a classic example of real idolatry. Thus, right at the beginning of many seforim it states that passages dealing with Gentiles are only referring to idolators in places like India.


Related to the latter point, there is an unbelievable error by the great R. Judah Aszod. In 1833 the Hatam Sofer responded to the following query of a Hungarian rabbi: During Christian religious ceremonies that pass through the city, are Jews permitted to put candles in their windows? The fear was that if the Jews don’t do that, their homes would be attacked on Christian thugs (Hatam Sofer, Yoreh Deah, no. 133 [end]). The Hatam Sofer concluded that while it was permissible to indirectly request a non-Jew to light the candle, it is absolutely forbidden for a Jew to do so.

הישראל אסור לעשות וצריך למסור נפש ע”ז
The same issue is dealt with by the Hatam Sofers’s son in Ketav Sofer, Yoreh Deah no. 84, and a similar issue by his grandson in Da’at Sofer, Yoreh Deah, no. 59. See also R. Eliezer Deutsch, Peri ha-Sadeh, vol. 3 no. 10.

In the Hatam Sofer’s responsum he speaks of the candle lighting that takes place in “India”.

ולענין מה שמסבבים בארץ הודו בע”ז שלהם, וכל הדרים באותו המבוי צריכים להדליק נרות, ויהודים הדרים שם אם אינם מדליקים הם בסכנה מפני ההמונים.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the word “India” is not to be taken literally and that the Hatam Sofer is referring to local Christian practices. After all, he was responding to the question of a Hungarian rabbi! The responsa by his son, grandson, and Deutsch don’t even feel that it is necessary to point this out, as it is so obvious.

It is incredible is that R. Judah Aszod, Yehudah Ya’aleh, Yoreh Deah, no. 170, takes the Hatam Sofer to really be speaking of India, even though as just mentioned, he was responding to a halakhah le-ma’aseh question from Hungary, not from a rabbi in Bombay! This misunderstanding contributes to Aszod’s lenient decision.


לענ”ד הח”ס דוקא קאי על ארץ הודו שמסבבים בע”ז שלהם . . . משא”כ במדינתינו אינו חק המדינה כ”א באיזו מקומות ולא עפ”י המושל אלא מרשעת שונאי ישראל, והדלקת הנרות אצלם נמי רק אין כוונתם להעביר על הדת כ”א שיהודים ישמחו עמהם וזה מותר משום איבה כברמ”א ביו”ד ססי’ קמח . . . וגם בזה”ז לא עובדי ע”ז הן לא מקרי אליל שלהם עכו”ם כמ”ש הש”ך סי’ קנא ס”ק יז.
In this passage he cites two sources. The second one is the Shakh, whom he cites as claiming that the Christian religious item (I assume he means the crucifix) does not have the status of an אליל. However, the Shakh actually says the exact opposite of what Aszod quotes him as saying.

ודוחק לומר דכיון דבזמן הזה לאו עובדי עבודת כוכבים הן לא מיקרי אליל שלהם עבודת כוכבים
The other source he cites is R. Moses Isserles, whose comments are indeed quite significant. I don’t understand why this source is not cited in support of celebrating Thanksgiving even by those who assume that there is some religious component to the holiday.

אם נכנס לעיר ומצאם שמחים ביום חגם ישמח עמהם משום איבה דהוי כמחניף להם ומ”מ בעל נפש ירחיק מלשמוח עמהם אם יוכל לעשות שלא יהיה לו איבה בדבר
Presumably, the opponents of Thanksgiving assume that there is no enmity in not celebrating, so the Rama’s permission doesn’t apply. I wonder though, do the people in Lakewood who require the non-Jewish bus drivers to work on Thanksgiving really think that this insistence doesn’t create enmity?
Returning to the responsum of Aszod, the problems I have pointed to were noted by R. Hayyim Eleazar Shapira, Minhat Eleazar, vol. 1 no. 53:3, and he is dumbfounded. It is precisely with regard to this sort of responsum, where the errors are obvious (misunderstanding the clear meaning of the Hatam Sofer, misquoting the Shakh), and it was published posthumously, that people are often tempted to claim that it is not authentic. I won’t go this far, but is it possible that a student wrote the responsum and Aszod just signed his name without examining it carefully?
[6] As with the other volumes of this series, one can find lots of interesting passages in vol. 4. Here are just a few. P. 56b: Moses opposed the eating of meat, but he could not forbid it because the people would regard this as heresy. P. 98b: Hirschensohn mentions the notion, already expressed by the Vilna Gaon, that sometimes the Talmud’s explanation of the Mishnah is to be understood as a form of derash. In other words, the explanation is not in accord with what the Mishnah really intended. He also refers to Berdyczewski and writes zikhrono li-verakhah after his name. P. 14a: There is no obligation in contemporary times for married women to cover their hair.

וזהוא ההיתר שנוהגים היום ברוב המדינות שהנשים מבנות ישראל הולכות בגלוי הראש, אם שהראשונות שבטלו את המנהג היו נקראות עוברות על דת משה אבל הבאים אחריהם אחרי שכבר נתבטל המנהג אין בזה איסור עוד.
This source has not been mentioned in any of the recent discussions about women’s hair covering. I hope to soon discuss Hirschensohn’s viewpoint at greater length, including his radically new understanding of שער באשה ערוה. I will do so as part of a larger discussion of the issue of women’s hair covering.
[7] See S.’s post here.

[8] R. Moshe Taub reminded me of Artscroll’s commentary to Deut. 34:5, which I neglected to mention in my book.
[9] I had been planning to offer one further example, but I was shown to be wrong. Let me explain: A little while ago R. Natan Slifkin had a post on werewolves, citing R. Efraim ben Shimshon’s strange comments in this regard. See here.

Slifkin earlier had written about this in his Sacred Monsters. None of this was a revelation to me since I had earlier seen the material from R. Efraim in R. Yosef Aryeh Lorincz’ Pelaot Edotekha, vol. 2, pp. 136-137. Not surprisingly, Lorincz takes this all very seriously. Readers might recall that I mentioned Lorincz’ book here. I called attention to his discussion of whether it is permitted to eat the flesh and drink the blood of demons. After this post I had a correspondence with someone who wanted to know what I thought about what Lorincz had written. I told him although I don’t know what the halakhah is in this matter, I nevertheless promise to eat the first demon that Lorincz is able to capture. I further told him that I would even volunteer to shecht it. My correspondent wasn’t seeing the comedy in this, as he thought that this was a very serious issue, that someone whom we are told to respect for his Torah knowledge could actually, in the twenty-first century, be discussing such a matter as a real halakhic problem. He was also adamant that if such a book was published by someone who taught at a Modern Orthodox school, the principal should immediately fire the author. Further correspondence revealed that he also didn’t think that anyone who believed in demons should be allowed to teach at Modern Orthodox schools.

My response to him was that I don’t think we need to get all out of shape about demons. To begin with, and readers can correct me if I am wrong, I don’t think that most people in the American haredi world really believe in demons. Yes, I know they study the talmudic passages that refer to demons, and will mention them as the reason for washing one’s hand three times in the morning, but based on conversations I have had with people in the haredi world (admittedly, most of them from the intellectual elite), I don’t think that they take it seriously. (When I say they don’t “believe” in demons, I mean real belief in the role of demons and how they affect humanity, as expressed in the Talmud and elsewhere.) It is almost like the emperor has no clothes, in that they don’t believe it but continue acting as if they do, afraid of what will happen if they are “outed”. (I have found a similar phenomenon with regard to Daas Torah. I have discussed this issue with many people in the haredi world, and have yet to find even one who accepts the version of Daas Torah advocated by so-called Haredi spokesmen and Yated Neeman.) But even if I am wrong in this, there are lots more important things to keep out of Modern Orthodox schools than an occasional reference to demons. How about the negative comments about non-Jews and even racist statements (sometimes under the guise of Torah) that children are exposed to in Modern Orthodox schools? How about rebbes telling the students that there is such a thing as spontaneous generation, which is akin to telling the students to sign up with Flat Earth society?

Getting back to werewolves, there is someone much better known than R. Efraim who refers to them, namely, Rashi. In his commentary to Job 5:23, Rashi explains that חית השדה means werewolf. (He offers the Old French, for which see Moshe Catane, Otzar ha-Loazim, no. 4208, and Joseph Greenberg, Otzar Loazei Rashi be-Tanakh, p. 211) He further adds that this is also the meaning of אדני השדה (See Kilayim 8:5). I have to admit that I was all set in this post to mention that Artscroll, which always cites Rashi’s interpretation, in this example chose to omit it. Without even examining the commentary, I was sure that Artscroll would choose to avoid mentioning anything about werewolves. Yet when I actually opened up the commentary, prepared by R. Moshe Eisemann, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he indeed tells the truth, and the whole truth, i.e.,, that Rashi was referring to a werewolf. I found something else in this volume that I didn’t expect. In an appendix he discusses whether the commentary attributed to Rashi was actually written by him. Unfortunately, Eisemann did not feel that he should inform the reader which academic sources he used in preparing this appendix.
[10] I don’t understand why Artscroll uses this word. The overviews found at the beginning of their books are actually not overviews. (Look up the word if you are not sure what it means). They should have been called what they are, namely, “introductions.”
[11] The Talmud explains sharim ve-sharot as מיני זמר, and Rashi, Eccl. 2:8, clearly based on the Talmud, explains sharim ve-sharot as מיני כלי זמר. Either Rashi’s text of the Talmud also included the word כלי , or this is how he understood the talmudic expression מיני זמר. (Literally, מיני זמר means “types of music”, and when the word כלי is added it means “various musical instruments.”)
[12] His commentary, Ta’alumot Hokhmah, is found in the standard Mikraot Gedolot.
[13] According to R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, the Rambam’s opinion is that kol ishah is only forbidden if one derives sensual pleasure from it. See Seridei Esh, vol. 2 no. 8.
[14] See here.
[15] See here.
[16] See here.
[17] R. Yuval Sherlo does not permit one to attend the opera, but if one is stuck in a situation, such as a soldier at a military event, then he rules that it is permissible to remain even though women are singing. See here.
[18] Conversations 12 (Winter 2012), pp. 43, 47; also available here. At the end of the article, Angel concludes: “Married women need not cover their hair, as long as their hair is maintained in a modest style. The wearing of wigs does not constitute a proper hair-covering for those married women who wish to cover their hair. Rather, such women should wear hats or other head coverings that actually cover their hair.” He also discusses hair covering on YouTube here.
[19] “Kol Ishah Bimeinu,” Tehumin 29 (2009), p. 143.
[20] See Seridei Esh, vol. 2 no. 8, and see also the helpful summary of positions available here.

[21] In support of this view, one can cite Hagahot Maimoniyot, Hilkhot Keriat Shema 3:16:
וקול אע”ג דאינה נראית לעינים הרהור מיהא איכא וכל אלה דוקא שאין רגילות להגלות אבל בתולה הרגילה בגלוי שער לא חיישינן דליכא הרהור וכן בקול לרגיל בו
[22] It seems to me that Tendler’s description of R. Moshe’s opinion is contradicted by Iggerot Moshe, Orah Hayyim 1, no. 26, Orah Hayyim 4, no. 15.

[23] For a contemporary example of an Orthodox synagogue allowing women to sing, see here.

[24] See e.g., here, here, here and here.
[25] Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality (Woodstock, VT, 2006), p. 186.
[26] Jewish Women in Time and Torah (Hoboken, 1990), p. 62. Berkovits also understood the matter of women’s hair covering in the same fashion, and did not regard it as an obligation in contemporary times (heard from Berkovits’ son, Prof. Avraham Berkovits).

[27] See here.
[28] Note the language of the Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer 21:1: ואסור לשמוע קול ערוה או לראות שערה

I don’t think anyone today assumes that there is a prohibition in seeing the uncovered hair of an ervah, if one is not sexually aroused, the reason being that we see it all the time and are thus used to it. By the same logic, if one is unaffected by hearing a woman sing, even if she is married, there should be no prohibition even according to how I explained the Ba’er Heitev. This is indeed the conclusion of R. Aharon de Toledo, Divrei Hefetz (Salonika, 1795), p. 113a:

עלה בידינו דהא דאמרי’ קול באשה ערוה היינו כשהיא הומיה ושוררת שירי עגבים ומתכווין ליהנות ממנה
However, the subsequent words of Toledo show that he only permits listening to a woman who is singing non-sensual songs on her own. He specifically forbids female songs directed towards men, as in a concert.

[29] The verse from Job is used in an Aggadic sense in Bava Batra 16a and Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, ch. 2, and then used by Maimonides in Hilkhot Issurei Biah 21:3.


ומותר להסתכל בפני הפנויה ולבודקה, בין בתולה בין בעולה, כדי שיראה אם היא נאה בעיניו, יישאנה; ואין בזה צד איסור. ולא עוד, אלא ראוי לעשות כן. אבל לא יסתכל דרך זנות, הרי הוא אומר “ברית, כרתי לעיני; ומה אתבונן, על בתולה”
Since he cites a verse from the book of Job, it appears that looking דרך זנות is only a rabbinic prohibition.
[30] Commentary on Sanhedrin 7:4. What this means is that one can look at a possible future wife and appreciate her beauty, for after all, one is supposed to be attracted to her. As we have seen already, in Hilkhot Issurei Biah 21:3, Maimonides adds a caveat. He states that is forbidden to look at an unmarried woman דרך זנות. What this means is that while one can look at and admire the beauty of a single woman (what I earlier referred to as “moderate sensual thought), one cannot leer at her, i.e., with lascivious intent.
[31] When Maimonides speaks of enjoying an unmarried woman’s beauty, I am certain that he is speaking of a Jewish woman, whom you can marry.
[32] Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition, p. 150. See Der Israelit, April 5, 1894, p. 503. See my post here, where I deal with the unsubstantiated rumor that Hirsch attended the opera. I quote from Prof. Breuer’s email to me where he writes: “When I went to the opera as a boy of 13-14 years my father [Isaac Breuer] did not express his dissatisfaction.”

[33] See e.g. here.
[34] See e.g. here.
[35] Modernity Within Tradition, p. 150.
[36] Since I am speaking about German Orthodoxy, let me use this opportunity to correct something I wrote. In Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 53, I record the recollection of Judith Grunfeld, “daughter of a learned German rabbi,” that she had never heard of a prohibition against women singing in front of men until she went to Poland (where she taught at the Beth Jacob school). Dr. Yitzchok Levine pointed out to me that Grunfeld’s father, while living in Germany, was actually Hungarian.
[37] Listen to his shiur from Feb. 8, 2010, available here, beginning at 48:20. Rakefet also quotes R. Aharon Lichtenstein that the Rav held that in modern times there is no obligation for married women to cover their hair. Listen to the shiur just mentioned beginning at 62 minutes. I will return to this point in a future post when I deal with R. Michael Broyde’s article on the topic.

[38] See, however, R. Hershel Schachter, Mi-Peninei ha-Rav, p. 269, that the Rav told YU students that due to kol ishah it was forbidden for them to sell tickets to the opera (presumably referring to the annual YU fundraising event). This is not necessarily a contradiction to Rakefet’s point. If the Rav felt that a woman’s singing voice was only prohibited if it was sexually arousing, who can say if that applies to the person you sell the ticket to? Perhaps that is why he told them it was prohibited.
[39] Seth Farber, An American Orthodox Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Boston’s Maimonides School (Hanover, NH, 2004), p. 165 n. 19.
[40] See Zvi Alush and Yossi Elituv, Ben Porat Yosef (Or Yehuda, 2004), p. 37. See p. 408 that to this day he listens to her music, and see also the testimony to this in Or Torah, Tevet 5770, pp. 383-384. According to R. Avraham Shammah, cantors used her tunes for various tefillot, a practice that continues to this day. See here, p. 10.
[41] Contemporary Halakhic Problems, vol. 2 p. 151. One could be led to this summary by reading the conclusion of the responsum, which states as follows:

המורם מכל האמור דביודעה ומכירה אפי’ ע”י תמונה אסור לשמוע קולה בגרמפון או ברדיו, אבל אם אינו מכירה מותר, ואין בזה משום קול באשה ערוה.
However, this conclusion needs to be read in conjunction with the question as well as the summary of the answer in the table of contents, both of which are quoted in the text and clearly state that the issue is kol ishah in the context of shema and tefillah.

[42] See here.

[43] For another important limud zekhut by R. Joseph Hayyim, see here. In the newly translated text, we see that R. Joseph Hayyim believed that the practice of European Jewish women to go with uncovered heads can be justified, and is not to be regarded as sinful.


“Torah Study on Christmas Eve” free Torah in Motion lecture by Marc B. Shapiro

In the spirit of inyana de-yoma, Torah in Motion is offering, free of charge, Dr. Marc B. Shapiro’s lecture “Torah Study on Christmas Eve,” delivered on Christmas Eve, 2009. You can get it here.

We invite all those who download the lecture to visit Torah in Motion’s website www.torahinmotion.org where over a thousand other lectures are available for download (including lectures by Dan Rabinowitz, Eliezer Brodt, and Marc Shapiro’s bundle of 103 lectures on great rabbinic figures, available here). We also invite you to check out Marc Shapiro’s upcoming tours to Italy and Central Europe. Information is available here. Summer 2011’s tour was sold out and we expect the same thing this summer, so if you are interested, please act quickly.



Comments on This and That, part 2

Comments on This and That, part 2
by Marc B. Shapiro

Continued from here.

Barth’s opinion was shared by R. Joseph Hertz, who referred to Song of Songs as a “collection of ancient lyrics of the spring-time and youthful love.”[1] Some might regard this as a radical, even un-Orthodox opinion, but from Avot de-Rabbi Natan 1:4, we see that the early Jewish leaders did not regard the Song of Songs (and Ecclesiastes and Proverbs) as anything special.


Originally, it is said, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes were suppressed, for since they were held to be mere parables and not part of the Holy Writings [the religious authorities] arose and suppressed them. [And so they remained] until the men of Hezekiah came and interpreted them.

I already quoted a couple of times from R. Moses Isaac Ashkenazi’s Ho’il Moshe, so let me mention that in the introduction to his commentary on Song of Songs, he assumes that the book was indeed sung as part of the wedding celebrations, and as with Barth, he thinks that this was the original purpose of Song of Songs. He also suggests that perhaps שיר השירים אשר לשלמה  does not mean that Solomon wrote it, but that it was written for Solomon. He compares this to Psalm 72:1 which begins לשלמה and means “[A Psalm] for Solomon.” Interestingly, he also thinks that the Shulamite (7:1) is none other than Abishag the Shunamite.[2] Here is the title page of his book.


While Artscroll sees a literal interpretation of Song of Songs as blasphemous, Ashkenazi (together with Breuer and Barth) sees the book as teaching the values that make for a successful marriage. This viewpoint is also expressed in the introduction to the Soncino translation:

The main moral of the Book is that love, besides being the strongest emotion in the human heart, can also be the holiest. God has given the gift of love to sweeten the toil of the laborer, as in the case of Jacob to whom the fourteen years in which he toiled for Rachel appeared but a few days, for the love he had for her (Gen. xxix. 20). Love transfigures and hallows, but it’s a boon that requires zealously to be guarded and sheltered from abuse. This Book pictures love as a reward enjoyed only by the pure and simple, a joy not experienced by the pleasure-seeking monarch and the indolent ladies of the court. It is a joy reserved for the loyal and the constant, and is denied to the sensual and dissolute.

Ashkenazi concludes with these strong words:

גם אם נפרשהו ע”ד הפשט, נוכל ללמוד ממנו דברים נאותים. . . . רק אנשי חונף העושים מעשה זמרי ומבקשים שכר כפנחס יטילו בו דופי, בעוד שהם בשבתם על השולחן בבית חתן וכלה יוציאו מפיהם דברי נבלה המלבינים פני כל אדם ישר השמועה; והלואי ואולי היו משוררים שיר נחמד זה בסעודת חתנים. ויופי הקולות והנגינה ישמחו הלבבות ויגדילו חשק חתן וכלה זה לזה, ויגביהו לבות הבחורים והעלמות ברחשי הכבוד הראוים והנאותים להם.

Finally, let me mention Amos Hakham’s introduction to the Daat Mikra edition of Shir ha-Shirim. While he isn’t sure if the entire book can be traced to wedding feasts, he is certain that this is so for at least one section, namely, the song that ends in 5:1:: “Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” How could this not originate in a wedding feast? As for dance songs, Hakham points to 7:1 as an example: “Return, return, O Shulamite; Return, return, that we may look upon thee.” As with those already cited, Hakham argues that the allegory only adds a deeper level to our understanding, but it in no way discounts the peshat of the verses.[3] This is in direct opposition to Artscroll’s position that “The literal meaning of the words is so far from their meaning that it is false” (Artscroll Pesach Machzor, p. 567).

Hakham also calls attention to Va-Yikra Rabbah 9:6, where R. Yohanan understands Song of Songs on the peshat level to be referring to a real married couple. Based on two verses in Song of Songs, R. Yohanan derives “that a bridegroom should not enter the bridal chamber unless the bride gives him permission.”

Hakham states: “It is unimaginable that prophecy would use matters that are distasteful in themselves as an allegory for holy and pure matters.” Here is how he sums up his main point (pp. 8, 9):

כלומר שאמנם לפי המשמעות המילולית הפשוטה מתוארת בשיר השירים אהבה שבין דוד ורעיה שהם שניהם בשר ודם, אלא שבהיות אהבה זו תמה, זכה, טהורה וקדושה, ראויה היתה שתשמש סמל ודוגמה לאהבה נעלה יותר. . . . טעות ביד מי שחושב, שחז”ל דרשו את שיר השירים על דרך הרמז משום שבפירושו כפשוטו היה נראה בעיניהם כשיר העוסק בענינים שאינם ראויים להכלל בכתבי הקודש. לא כן הדבר. כבר העירו גדולי המפרשים שאין להעלות על הדעת, שהנבואה תקח עניינים מאוסים כשלעצמם כמשל לענינים קדושים וטהורים, אלא ודאי שכמו הנמשל כן גם המשל קודש הוא. ואם מצאנו שהנבואה ממשילה את הברית שבין כנסת ישראל ובין הקב”ה כברית שבין איש ואשתו, משמע שהברית הזאת שבין איש ואישה קדושה היא ונעלה. וכבר אמרו חז”ל: איש ואשה, זכו – שכינה ביניהן.

I would assume that if a Modern Orthodox Machzor for Passover is ever published, that Hakham’s perspective will be the one to be included rather than what we find in Artscroll.

R. Zvi Yehuda has the same perspective, writing that the literal meaning has an independent existence, and “it too is raised to the level of holiness, not just on account of the nimshal, but on its own strength.”[4] He quotes Rashi who in his introduction to Song of Songs stresses that the allegory must be attached to the peshat of the verse:

ואף על פי שדברו הנביאים דבריהם בדוגמא, צריך ליישב הדוגמא על אופניה ועל סדרה.

Yehuda brings a wonderful example of this. Song of Songs 4:1 reads: “Behold, you are fair, my beloved; behold, you are fair; your eyes are [like] doves; from within your kerchief your hair is like a flock of goats that streamed down from Mount Gilead.” Rashi explains the second part of the verse as follows: “This praise is a paradigm of the praise of a woman beloved by her bridegroom. Within your kerchief, your hair is beautiful and glistens with brilliance and whiteness like the hair of white goats descending from the mountains whose hair gleam in the distance.” The biblical text does not give any color to the goats, and Yehuda notes that the standard approach is that the goats are black, so that the hair being praised is also black. Yet Rashi speaks of light hair as being beautiful, and therefore he understands the color of the goats differently. Based on this, Yehuda concludes that “Visions of female beauty, in his [Rashi’s] time and place, influenced his commentary.”

The fact that the mashal needs to reflect reality is seen in another Rashi as well (not cited by Yehuda). Song of Songs 7:5 reads אפך כמגדל הלבנון. Rashi writes: “I cannot explain this [אפך] to mean a nose, either in reference to its simple meaning or in reference to its allegorical meaning, for what praise of beauty is there in a nose that is large and erect as a tower? I say therefore that אפך means a face.”
If the allegory is all that is important, then Rashi would not have a problem. He could translate אפך as nose, which is the literal translation,[5] and offer the allegorical explanation. Yet precisely because it is important that the peshat be coherent, Rashi is forced away from the literal meaning, for what man can praise his bride as being beautiful for having such a nose?[6]

One other interesting point that I learnt from Yehuda’s article is that the rishon, R. Avigdor Kohen Tzedek, gives the following strange explanation for why God’s name doesn’t appear in Song of Songs.[7]

ולא נכתב שם קודש בשיר השירים לפי שנאמר כל הספר בלשון חשק ואהבה ואינ’ דרך כבוד להזכיר השם ב”ה על דבר חשק.

Yehuda also cites the sharp comment of R. Solomon Akriti in R. Joseph Kafih, ed., Hamesh Megilot (Jerusalem, 1962), p. 19:

ואחרי אלה ההערות אינני רואה שיסופק שום משכיל בדברי הספר לחשב בם שהם כפשוטם, ואלו היו כפשוטם לא היו חולי חולין בעולם כמותם, ולא היה נזק גדול לישראל כיום שניתן להם שיר השירים, כי פשוטו יעורר תאוה וביותר תאות המשגל אשר היא המגונה מכלם

Yet after quoting these passages, which Artscroll would be very happy with, Yehuda takes his place with the others I have referred to and insists on the validity, and holiness, of the peshat interpretation (p. 478):

שיר השירים, על כל בחינותיה ורבדי מובניה – ואף לפי פשוטה – היא “קודש קודשים”. האהבה האנושית המתוארת בה – מתרוממת לגובהי קדושה.

He concludes (p. 481) that it is a mistake to think that the Sages explained Song of Songs allegorically because they had a problem with its literal meaning. According to Yehuda, the opposite is the case, and it is precisely because the Sages valued the literal meaning of the book that they explained it allegorically. It is because they saw the human love described in the book as so exalted that they were prepared to also view the book as an allegory for heavenly love.

With reference to Song of Songs, there is another reason why it is important to know the peshat. Maimonides’ Hilkhot Teshuvah 10:3, speaks about the love of God. He compares it to the love of a woman. Just as one who is in love constantly thinks about the woman, so too should be your love for God. He concludes that “The whole book, Song of Songs, is an allegory on this subject.” In other words, only one who understands what human love is all about can move to the next level and achieve love of the Divine. This is elaborated upon by R. Mordechai Gifter in his Hebrew preface to the Artscroll Shir ha-Shirim. One can only wonder why Artscroll did not see fit to translate R. Gifter’s important words into English. R. Gifter even mentions the importance, indeed centrality, of sexual desire. He does so not to speak of its great danger, as is often the case, but to stress how vital the sexual urge is even from a spiritual sense:

וכל זה מבו’ בדבריו של ר’ יצחק דמן עכו ז”ל שהביא בראשית חכמה – בסוף פ”ד משער האהבה – שמי שלא חשק לאשה הוא דומה לחמור ופחות ממנו והטעם כי מהמורגש צריך שיבחין העבודה האלקית.

He also writes:

שכל הלשונות שבמשל הן עצמיים ובשרשם העליון ענינם נשגב למאד, אלא שהענינים הרמים אלה משתלשלים ויורדים מעולם לעולם עד שמגיעים אלינו מצטיירים לנו צורה זו הנאותה לפי מציאות האדם בעולם הזה.

With regard to Artscroll, everyone knows that the “translation” they provide of Song of Songs is allegorical. In the Passover Machzor that is all you get, but in their separate edition of Song of Songs they do provide the literal translation in the commentary, for those who wish to look at it. Artscroll’s approach vis-à-vis the Song of Songs has been the subject of harsh criticism in the Modern Orthodox world, especially from its intellectual elite. In fact, I think when people criticize Artscroll, this is one of the things that is high on the list of what annoys them.

Yet it must also be noted that Artscroll’s method of translation is exactly what the Targum does.(See also R. Nahum Finkelstein’s Yiddish “translation” of Song of Songs [Jerusalem, 1929]) So it is not like Artscroll invented this approach. In addition, there is a responsum of R. Joseph Hayyim in Rav Pealim, vol. 1, Yoreh Deah no. 56, that is relevant. Here he states that a teacher in Baghdad translated the Song of Songs into Arabic, and the children copied this translation. R. Joseph Hayyim opposed this, stating that one should not teach the children and the masses the literal meaning of the words because they are not meant to be understood literally. The literal meaning of the book, he states, is no different than a love song (he adds “has ve-shalom”),[8] and unlike the opinions we have already noted, for R. Joseph Hayyim (as with Artscroll) the literal meaning of the Song of Songs is obscene.[9] The same viewpoint is expressed by the nineteenth-century R. Elijah Schick in his Ein Eliyahu, Yadayim 3:1:

כל הכתובים יש פשטות ג”כ אבל בשיר השירים אין שום פשטות אלא הכל קאי על יראת שמים וקבלת עול מלכות שמים, כי על פי פשט היא דברי חשק וזה אי אפשר לומר וקאי הכל על דביקות בה’.

Today we have an interesting phenomenon. When the Targum was written the vernacular was Aramaic, so the typical Jew would not be able to understand Song of Songs in the original. Only the scholar could understand the actual words, and he would know that they were to be interpreted allegorically. Today, in America, the situation is the same, as the typical Jew also cannot understand the Hebrew. Artscroll’s English “translation” therefore serves the same function as the Targum did centuries ago.

Yet what about Israelis? We now have a situation where “the masses” can understand the Hebrew Bible since Hebrew is their vernacular. This is a completely new phenomenon. How are these masses to be protected from reading the text literally, for as we have seen, Artscroll tells us in the Pesach Machzor that “the literal meaning of the words is so far from their meaning that it is false”? In the Introduction to the Artscroll Shir ha-Shirim, p. lxiv, we are told that when the words שני שדיך, “your bosom” [Artscroll won’t use the word “breasts”] refer to Moses and Aaron, this is not

departing from the simple literal meaning of the phrase in the least. Song of Songs uses words in their ultimate connotations. Just as geshem, rain, means the power of stimulating growth, shodayim, the bosom, refers to the Heavenly power of nourishment. . . . They [Moses and Aaron], Israel’s sources of spiritual nourishment, are not implied allegorically or derived esoterically from the verse; the verse literally means them.

In other words, Shir ha-Shirim (in this instance, at least) is not even speaking about a woman, not even on the level of peshat. I have to admit that all this seems like a lot of double-talk to me. I can understand if you tell me that “breasts”, excuse me, “bosom”, allegorically means “Moses and Aaron.” But when you tell me that even the literal meaning of shodayim is “Moses and Aaron”, that’s when I have difficulty.

(Speaking of haredi circumlocutions, since the Agudah convention is in a few days I can’t resist mention of the following. A letter was sent out to attendees inviting them to a breakfast at which they will be addressed by a psychologist and and rabbi-lawyer. You can see the letter here. Notice that the letter speaks about how “the issue of child abuse has become a major topic in our society and children in our community have been and continue to be at risk.” Of course, child abuse is not the issue at all. We are not being confronted on an almost weekly basis with stories of children in our communities being beaten or anything like that. What we have is child sexual abuse, and yet the author of this letter can’t even bring himself to say the word “sexual.” It’s like we are all in grade school and this word is off-limits.)

One opinion in Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:10 states that Solomon wrote Song of Songs in his youth. This is elaborated upon by R. Hayyim Jeremiah Flensburg, Markevot Ami (Vilna, 1910), p. 6. He explains how Solomon’s words are indeed drawn from the real world he experienced, which once again shows how important the peshat, the literal meaning of the words are:

שאף שהנמשל של שיר השירים הוא קודש קדשים, עכ”ז מתוך המשל שעשה לעטוף בו הנמשל, ניכר שהיה אז ילד, שהוא נשא משלו מחתן וכלה, ומגנים ושושנים יפים, ומכל הדרת האביב, וזמרת צפרים.

R. Yosef Ben Arzah, in his popular Yosef Da’at, Bava Kamma 97, also explains in this fashion.

וידוע, האהבה זמנה בימי הנעורים, משא”כ בימי הזקנה “ותפר האביונה”. וכמו שאמרו ששלמה המלך עליו השלום, בילדותו אמר שיר השירים, שהוא תוקף האהבה.

When Ben Arzah writes that the time of love is the youth, he is clearly referring to sexual love, for he follows this by noting that this is not the case in old age when (quoting Eccl.12:5) “[sexual] desire fails.” In other words, the Midrash means that because Solomon wrote the Song of Songs in his youth, that is why it has sexual imagery, for sexual love is strongest when one is young.[10]

I don’t think anyone is going to suggest that Artscroll produce a Hebrew version of its allegorical translation and that this is what the masses should be looking at during the reading of Song of Songs. But why not? If it is religiously objectionable for English speakers to be exposed to the literal meaning of the words of Song of Songs, then it is just as objectionable (if not more so) for Hebrew speakers to read the actual words and understand them literally.

Despite my facetious comment, no one has ever assumed that the Israeli masses should be told not to look at the actual text of Song of Songs. Rather, they are provided with commentaries that explained what the allegorical meaning of the text is. If it is therefore acceptable for Israelis to first understand the text literally, and then see what the allegorical meaning is, I ask Artscroll, why can’t American Jews be given the same prerogative, namely, to have a literal translation together with a commentary that offers the allegorical interpretation?

Finally, let me mention that for Sefer Hasidim it was important to know what the Song of Songs literally meant, for he declares that all the parts of a woman’s body mentioned in the book are forbidden to be seen. See no. 110: שער באשה ערוה לגלות וכל האמור בשיר השירים כגון בטנך ערימת חטים שוקיו עמודי שש שני שדיך וכו’ וכל שדרך לכסות ערוה לאשה לגלות He repeats this in no. 614 where he also adds the following, which never became normative halakhah: צריך להזהר שלא ישמע קול אשה והוא הדין לאשה שלא תשמע קול איש.

Adopting this position might be a good strategy for those who have been trying unsuccessfully to shut down the Jewish concert scene. They haven’t been able to convince the haredi masses that these are in any way problematic, especially when men and women sit separately. But perhaps the new humra that could achieve their objective is that it is forbidden for women to hear men singing. A few years of indoctrination of this view in the various Bais Yaakovs should be able to convince the younger generation, and would mean the end of the haredi concerts.[11]

* * *

Returning to my post on Adon Olam, the other point dealt with in that post was the meaning of the abbreviation ס”ט. I don’t think anyone who read the post still thinks that it means “Sephardi Tahor.” But in case there are still any doubters, let me offer the following. Here is a page from R. Joseph Shabbetai Farhi’s Tokfo shel Yosef (Livorno, 1846), p. 38b. It contains the end of a letter from none other than Jacob the Patriarch, and you can see clear as day that he also signed himself ס”ט. Now if that isn’t a proof, I don’t know what is. . . .


There was, in fact, one person who did refuse to change his mind, even after I presented him with the evidence. I refer to the late R. Meir Amsel, editor of Ha-Maor. Amsel is deserving of his own post, having edited Ha-Maor for over fifty years. If I were to ever write a history of Orthodox Jews in America, this journal would be an important source, together with its competitor, Ha-Pardes, because in these journals one finds most of the important issues that were part of the American Orthodox experience. Ha-Maor was the more extreme of the two journals, and all sorts of polemics were carried in its pages. But it would also contain all sorts of surprises, and Amsel’s viewpoints were not always predictable. Yet as I mentioned, he didn’t accept what I told him, and changing his mind even in the face of evidence to the contrary was not something he was prepared to do.

Imagine my surprise when after sending Amsel a letter on the topic he published his response in his journal (Jan.-Feb., 1993). Here it is.

I sent him a second letter which he published, together with his response, in the March-April 1993 issue. Notice how he subtly mocks me at the beginning of this reply.


I didn’t take offense at the mocking as this was classic Amsel. Few had such a sharp pen as he, and woe to those he turned it against. To give one example of his many polemics, readers of the journal will never forget how he targeted R. Elya Svei. Yet he wouldn’t mention him by name. Instead, and as a way to show how little he thought of Svei, he referred to him as “the melamed in Philadelphia.”[12]

The March-April 1993 issue of Ha-Maor, in which he responded to me, is of broader interest for another reason. It contains his hesped for R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who had recently passed away. In this hesped he mentions a few things, among them that the Rav told him that he wasn’t really a Zionist, and that while Yeshivat R. Yitzhak Elhanan was not in accord with his family’s philosophy, nevertheless he taught there as it provided intellectual freedom.

In the next issue (June-July, 1993), Amsel printed a letter he received from R. Norman Lamm, thanking Amsel for what he wrote about the Rav, and also criticizing him for mentioning the point about the Rav not feeling connected to RIETS. Note how Lamm specifically asked Amsel not to publish his letter, and Amsel published it anyway.

Also, look at the first paragraph on p. 35, as it shows how the Hungarian extremist Amsel was happy to point out how Lamm was head and shoulders above those in the Lithuanian yeshiva world. (I wonder, where did Amsel get the crazy figure of eight thousand students, that he mentions in the second paragraph? Even if you include the post-graduate schools you won’t get to that number. Did Amsel even realize that non-Jews attend Yeshiva University’s medical and law schools?)


* * *

In my original post on Adon Olam I dealt with Artscroll, so here is as good a time as any for some assorted Artscroll comments.

The custom on Rosh ha-Shanah is to sound additional shofar blasts towards the end of the morning prayers. Most sound these blasts after Musaf of Rosh ha-Shanah, while some sound thirty of them during the silent Amidah. There is no talmudic source for this practice. Why then do we do it? Here is how the Artscroll Machzor explains the matter, citing Eliyahu Kitov’s Sefer ha-Toda’ah as the source:

The source of this custom is the Scriptural narrative of the triumph of Deborah the Prophetess over Sisera, the Canaanite conqueror. In her song of gratitude for the victory, Deborah noted that Sisera’s mother whimpered as she worried over the fate of her dead son. Her friends comforted her that he had surely won a great victory and was apportioning spoils and captive women among his officers and troops (Judges 5:28-30). According to the Midrashic tradition she whimpered and groaned 101 times. Although one cannot help but feel sympathy for a worrying, grieving mother, one must be appalled at the cruelty of a mother who could be calmed by the assurance that her son was busy looting and persecuting innocent victims. The Jewish concept of mercy is diametrically opposed to such barbarism. By sounding the shofar one hundred times, we seek to nullify the forces of cruelty exemplified by Sisera and his mother, and bring God’s compassion upon us. Although she whimpered one time more than a hundred, we do not sound the shofar 101 times, because we, too, feel the pain of a mother who loses a child, even one as loathsome as Sisera.

The first thing to note is that for some reason, the explanation offered by the Taz is ignored. According to the Taz, the reason for the extra blasts is because people might not have properly heard the earlier kolot (Orah Hayyim 596:1). Furthermore, despite what is written, there is no source that speaks of Sisera’s mother whimpering 101 times. What we have is a story in the Arukh s.v. ערב , about Sisera’s mother (אימיה דסיסרא) and her one hundred cries or laments (פועיות This does not mean whimpers! The Arukh cites the story as coming from the Jerusalem Talmud. It is lacking in our versions of the Talmud, but the term “Yerushalmi” was also used for various Midrashim written in the Land of Israel.)

Ashkenazim, therefore, indeed sound the shofar the same amount of times as Sisera’s mother’s cries. Yemenites and Sephardim, on the other hand, blow an extra kol at the end, called Teruah Gedolah,[13] so they actually sound 101 blasts. Many explain that they do this precisely in order to be different than Sisera’s mother.

Here for example is what R. Ovadiah Yosef states, Shiurei Maran ha-Rishon le-Tziyon (Jerusalem, 2008), vol. 1, p. 75:

והנה אם סיסרא פעתה ובכתה מאה בכיות, ואנו תוקעים מאה תקיעות ועוד אחד, כדי לבטל הקטרוגים הנמשכים מהבכיות שלה . . . וזהו “הן אתם מאין ופעלם מאפע.” “מאין” = 101 הן ה100 פעיות של אם סיסרא שבמאה ואחת תקיעות שלנו ה’ מכפר לנו, ומתקנים אנו את הפעיות [“אפע” נוט’ פעיות אם] של אם סיסרא.

The Arukh’s explanation is quoted in a number of medieval sources, Yet what is the logic here? Why would anyone have thought of connecting Sisera’s mother’s cries with how many shofar blasts we sound, as they have nothing to do with each other? Is it really possible that how we blow the shofar has anything to do with what the mother of the wicked Sisera did?

It has been suggested by R. Hayyim Yehudah Ehrenreich[14] and R. Menachem M. Kasher[15] that there is a copyist’s error in the Arukh, and instead of reading it should read אמנו שרה , or something along these lines. This suggestion is made based upon the following passage in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer ch. 32:

When Abraham returned from Mount Moriah in peace, the anger of Samael [Satan] was kindled, for he saw that the desire of his heart to frustrate the offering of our father Abraham had not been realized. What did he do? He went and said to Sarah: “Hast thou not heard what has happened in this world?” She said to him: “No.” He said to her: “Thy husband, Abraham has taken thy son Isaac and slain him and offered him up as a burnt offering upon the altar.” She began to weep and to cry aloud three times corresponding to the three Tekiot, three howlings corresponding to the Teruot. and her soul fled, and she died.

In this text we have a connection made between the cries of Sarah and the blowing of the shofar. Here it states that she cried three times corresponding to the Tekiah and three times corresponding to Teruah. (What we call Shevarim is one possibility for how the Teruah should be sounded.) Alternate versions have Sarah crying aloud six times or ninety times.

We still have the problem: How did the name Sarah become confused with Sisera? It turns out that there is indeed a connection between the mother of Sisera and the shofar. Rosh ha-Shanah 33b states:

The length of the Teruah is equal to the length of three yevavot. But it has been taught that the length of the Teruah is equal to three Shevarim. Abaye said: Here there is really a difference of opinion. It is written, It shall be a day of Teruah unto you [Num. 29:1], and we translate [in Aramaic], a day of yabava, and it is written of the mother of Sisera, Through the window she looked forth [va-teyabav; Judges 5:28]. One authority thought that this means drawing a long sigh, and the other that it means uttering short piercing cries.

We see from here that the Sages, in attempting to figure out how the Teruah should be sounded, looked for evidence in a biblical passage dealing with Sisera’s mother. Since she is thus connected to the Shofar blowing, it is not hard to see how the other passage, which describes how Sarah cried, could have morphed into Sisera’s mother.

The problem with this suggestion, one must acknowledge, is that we have no evidence of a text that has Sarah crying one hundred times. Yet it is certainly possible that this tradition did exist, and is now lost.

Here are some more comments about Artscroll. In the original post I mentioned how in the Artscroll Siddur, p. 870, it mistakenly places R. Elaazar Kalir in the second century. R. Avrohom Lieberman pointed out to me that in the original edition of this Siddur they placed Kalir centuries later. Here is a copy of the page.

The change was obviously made in response to criticism. Yet they should have stuck with the original version, since what appears in the “corrected” edition is mistaken. I assume that Artscroll knows it is mistaken, but leaves it in anyway so as not to antagonize its critics.

Before Lekhah Dodi the Artscroll Siddur writes: “לכה דודי is recited responsively. In most congregations, the chazzan repeats each verse after the congregation. In others the procedure is reversed.” More Artscroll siddurim are sold to Modern Orthodox synagogues than to anywhere else. This is especially the case due to the RCA version of the siddur. So wouldn’t one expect that the instructions would reflect reality? In my entire life I don’t think that I have ever been in a Modern Orthodox synagogue that recites Lekhah Dodi responsively. While in the previous post I wrote how the Artscroll instructions have changed how Modern Orthodox synagogues recite Hallel, as far as I know no synagogue has given up the practice of communal singing for Lekhah Dodi because of this particular instruction. As it stands, this particular instruction is a sign of how little Artscroll respects the customs of the Modern Orthodox world.

Also on Friday night, the Siddur states that each stanza of Shalom Aleikhem is recited three times. Why not mention that there is also a common practice to only recite each stanza one time?

In the Machzor for Sukkot, p. 132, in discussing the different practices when it comes to wearing tefillin on hol ha-moed, it states: “It is not proper for a congregation to follow contradictory customs. Thus, if one whose custom is not to wear tefillin during Chol haMoed prays with a tefillin-wearing minyan, he should don tefillin without a blessing. Conversely, if one whose custom is to wear tefillin prays with a non-tefillin-wearing minyan, he should not wear his tefillin while praying but may don them at home before going to the synagogue.” The source for this ruling is the Mishnah Berurah. Yet with the exception of hasidic synagogues, where I presume everyone does the same thing, this ruling is no longer applicable. In all the synagogues I have ever been in, both Modern Orthodox and non-hasidic haredi, there is no one minhag and everyone does what his family practice is. In other words, the minhag today is for everyone to follow his own personal minhag, and shuls do not have a “custom” in this regard.

Also in the Sukkot Machzor, p. 957 (as well as in the other Machzors), it writes as follows: “It is virtually a universal custom that those whose parents are still living leave the synagogue during Yizkor. This is done to avoid the ‘evil eye,’ i.e., the resentment that might be felt by those without parents toward those whose parents are still living.” Can one conclude from this that Artscroll has a Maimonidean approach to the concept of the “evil eye”?

Quiz

In past posts I have offered a quiz and given out prizes to the ones who answered the questions. People have wondered why I stopped doing this. The answer is simple: I didn’t have anything to give out. But now I have a few items so I can do some more quizzes. For the winner of this one I can give a CD of the music of R. Baruch Myers, rav of Bratislava. Rabbi Myers is a trained classical musician and his music is very different from what you think of when you think hasidic music. Unlike in the past, I will not give the prize to the one who answers the question first. This is unfair as due to the different time zones, some people won’t see the question until it has already been answered. I will give people a couple days and if more than one has answered correctly, I will randomly choose a winner. You will also have to answer two questions, in different genres. Yet even if you only know the answer to one, send it in, for if no one gets both answers, I will give it to a person who got one correct. Send answers to shapirom2 at scranton.edu

Question 1: The word for turkey is תרנגול הדו There is a dagesh in the dalet. Why? Bring a proof for your answer from Berakhot between page 34a and 38a.

Question 2: There is a rabbinic phrase that today is used to praise a Torah scholar, but in talmudic days was used in a negative fashion (at least according to Rashi). What am I referring to?

* * * *

Some people have asked me if I am leading a Jewish history trip to Europe this summer. Actually, I am leading two trips, one to Italy and the other to Central Europe. (The latter is a repeat of the sold-out trip from last summer). Both trips are sponsored by Torah in Motion and details will be available soon.


* * * *

Here is something I think readers will enjoy. It is a picture from Prof. Isadore (Yitzchak) Twersky’s wedding. I thank R. Aharon Rakefet for sharing the picture. According to R. Rakefet, the man second to the left, whose face is obscured by an unknown rabbi, is R. Zev Gold. (R. Rakefet claims that the hair gives it away.) Beginning with Gold, we find Dean Samuel Sar, Isadore Twersky (standing) R. Dovid Lifshitz, R. Eliezer Silver, the Rav, R. Chaim Heller, R. Meshullam Zusia Twersky, Tolner Rebbe of Boston, R. Moshe Zvi Twersky, Tolner Rebbe of Philadelphia.

[1] Authorized Daily Prayer Book, p. 790.

[2] This identification has recently been advocated by Christopher W. Mitchell in his massive work, The Song of Songs (St. Louis, 2003), pp. 130ff.

[3] Medieval commentators, notably Ibn Ezra, put a great deal of effort into explaining the peshat. See also the medieval commentary on Song of Songs written by R. Joseph Ibn Aknin, entitled Hitgalut ha-Sodot ve-Hofa’at ha-Meorot (Jerusalem, 1964). Ibn Aknin provides a three part commentary, with one section focused on peshat, and the other two on derash and sod. From more recent times, see R. Samuel Naftali Hirsch Epstein, Imrei Shefer (Vilna, 1873), and R. Eliyahu Halfon Shir ha-Shirim im Perush Ateret Shlomo (Nof Ayalon, 2003).
[4] “Shir ha-Shirim” Kedushatah shel ha-Megilah u-Farshanutah,” Sinai 100 (1987), p. 475.
[5] Soncino explains: “The comparison is between the well-proportioned nose and the beautiful projecting tower.”
[6] This point was made by R. Isaac Jacob Reines. See R. Judah Leib Maimon, ed., Sefer Rashi (Jerusalem, 1956), vol. 2, pp. 12-13. See also Rashi to Song of Songs 1:2 “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Rashi comments: “In some places they kiss on the back of the hand or on the shoulder, but I desire and wish that he behave toward me as he behaved toward me originally, like a bridegroom with a bride, mouth to mouth.” Artscroll does not mention this Rashi. The Vilna Gaon has an interesting comment on this verse. He notes the plural “kisses,” and explains: כמו שנושק הבעל לחשוקתו א’ על מה שמתחברת עמו והב’ על שאינה מתחברת באחר
[7] Perush Shir ha-Shirim (Jerusalem, 1971), p. 11.
[8] See also Ibn Ezra’s introduction to Song of Songs: וחלילה חלילה להיות שיר השירים בדברי חשק Despite saying this, he still feels it is important to explain the peshat.
[9] See also Rav Pealim, vol. 4, Sod Yesharim no. 11, where R. Joseph Hayyim explains why God’s name does not appear in the Song of Songs.
[10] Since we are speaking of love, I should also mention Elhanan Reiner’s provocative claim, put forward in very stylistic Hebrew, that R. Yair Haim Bachrach’s responsum, Havot Yair, no. 60, is not a real case, but simply a fictional love story that Bacharach inserted into his responsa. See here. For Raphael Binyamin Posen’s response see here, and Reiner responds to Posen here.
[11] Incidentally, the opposition of haredi gedolim to these concerts is often portrayed as if the only issue is tzeniut, and therefore, when men and women sit separately there should be no problem. This is a complete distortion of the issue, for even without tzeniut concerns, the main reason for the opposition, and I know this will be hard for American haredim to stomach, is that the Israeli haredi gedolim are opposed to all musical entertainment, and “fun” in general, when not connected to simchah shel mitzvah, such as Purim, a wedding, etc. Concerts are doubly problematic since these gedolim believe that is forbidden to listen to live music when not connected to a seudat mitzvah. Here is one proclamation that makes this clear (from Hashkafatenu [Bnei Brak, 1985], p. 77).

In R. Yaakov Yisrael Lugasi’s Mar’ot ha-Tzovaot (Jerusalem, 2009), p. 401, he states flatly: “The entire concept of entertainment is pasul. This is a condition of moshav leitzim and throwing off the yoke, and is the culture of the non-Jews and the secularists.” Interestingly, a few pages after this, Lugasi prints the herem against wearing jeans skirts. For those who never saw it, here it is.

[12] It is no secret that R. Svei was a polarizing figure in Orthodoxy, even in haredi circles. This is also seen in the book on R. Ahron Soloveitchik written by his son, R. Yosef. It was uploaded to the internet a few weeks ago and until recently was found here. Since many people downloaded the book when it was up, I think it is worthwhile to make some comments about it. I understand that it is a preliminary version of what will be published in book form. I hope the author takes the necessary time to revise it properly, because as it stands, it is an unfortunate publication. On the positive side, it includes a great deal of Torah from R. Ahron, and shows his strong insistence on honesty when it comes to dealing with non-Jews and the government. There are also wonderful tidbits of historical interest. See p. 5 that R. Baruch Ber Leibowitz used to stand up for R. Ahron when he was a child, since he was, after all, the grandson of the Rebbe (R. Hayyim).

See also p. 404 for the following incredible statement: “Rav Ahron told his son that it is not right to print his brother’s דרשה of יוסף ואחיו about the Mizrachi because his brother regretted saying this דרשה ” This is perhaps the most important derashah the Rav ever delivered and is a basic text of study for religious Zionists. It explains how the Rav could break from his family tradition and become a Zionist. It is also the derashah that R. Shakh attacked, saying that it contained דברים שאסור לשומען וכש”כ להפיצן ברבים (Mikhtavim u-Ma’amarim, vol. 4, no. 320). What are we to make of R. Ahron stating that the Rav regretted this derashah?

Among other passages that caught my eye, see e.g., p. 6, where R. Ahron tells a bubba maisah about a rabbi in Auschwitz who killed some twenty Nazis with a chair. On p. 327 R. Ahron claims that Bible Criticism “paved the road for the Nazi ideology.” On this page he also states that Catholics do not support Bible Criticism. This is incorrect. The Catholic Church accepts Bible Criticism and does not see this as harming the holiness of the Bible. In fact, there are only two religious groups that do not accept the academic approach to the Bible, namely, Christian fundamentalists and (most) Orthodox Jews. (In a future post I will explain why I use the word “most”.

Why do I say that this is an unfortunate publication? Because there is a way to write and a way not to write, and someone who is very upset about how his father was treated is not the best person to review important incidents in his life. I can’t see how anyone could believe that the book brings honor to R. Ahron. I am impressed, however, that despite the harshly polemical tone, the author included documents directed against R. Ahron, as this helps with the historical record.

I have to say that after reading the publication, I think I have a better understanding of why R. Ahron had so many difficulties. In order to be a successful leader, one must, at times, be willing to compromise. One must also recognize when the time for battle is over. R. Ahron was so guided by the truth as he saw it, that he appears to have been unable to do this. For him, it was worth fighting a battle to make a point, even if there was no chance of emerging victorious and it would cost lots of money to do so. (I refer to his attempt to cancel the sale of the Chicago Mizrachi building to Buddhists.)

When publishing the letter of the other faculty members of Hebrew Theological College stating that they do not want R. Ahron in a leadership position, the author would have been wise to explain the different perspectives of the protaganists, rather than heaping abuse on them. The same is true when it comes to how he describes the haredim. There is no question that many of his complaints are justified. This is especially the case when he deals with the support given by the haredi gedolim to Elior Chen, which makes everything else pale in comparison. Yet despite this, the language Soloveichik uses in is really over the top.

I also can’t imagine that the family of the Rav will be happy to see how he too makes appearances in the book. Is it really appropriate to quote the Rav’s harsh comment against a certain Agudah leader? And I have a more fundamental question with regard to this last example. When two people agree to take their dispute to a beit din, not a government beit din but a private beit din, don’t they have an expectation of confidentiality? This is especially the case when one of the disputants is still alive. What gives the author the right to reveal the content of a private dispute brought before a private beit din, even if one of the participants did act in a disgraceful manner?

Apropos of R. Ahron, let me mention two things he told me so as to preserve them for posterity.

1. He stated that because of what R. Moshe Stern wrote about the Rav, one should not quote Stern in halakhic discourse. In truth, as I later learnt, it is not so clear that Stern’s harsh comments (pigul, metuav) are about the Rav. It is possible that he is referring to teaching and study at Yeshiva University. (See David Berger in Tradition 27 [Winter 1993], p. 94.) I will let readers judge for themselves. The text appears in Be’er Moshe, vol. 8, no. 3.

2. R. Ahron told me, halakhah le-ma’aseh, that if you have food in the oven when Shabbat starts, that this food can be returned to the oven on Shabbat morning in order to heat it up. I have heard that the Rav gave the same pesak to NCSY, but I have not confirmed this.

[13] See Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 596:1; Sefer Zikaron Divrei Shelom Hakhamim (Jerusalem, 2003), p. 264.
[14] Otzar ha-Hayyim, Tevet 5695, pp. 87-88.
[15] Ner Maaravi 2 (1925), pp. 227-228; Divrei Menahem, vol. 4, no. 13.