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Marc B. Shapiro – Forgery and the Halakhic Process

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Forgery and the Halakhic Process
by Marc B. Shapiro


What is the role of academic learning in the determination of halakhah? In particular, I am referring to knowledge which is not available to the posek and which would affect his halakhic decision. This is, of course, a wide-ranging issue of which I will only discuss one aspect here, that relating to forgery. However, since the issue of the Mosaic text and R. Moshe Feinstein is relevant here, and I mentioned both of them in my last posting, let me make a few brief preliminary comments on this.


In The Limits of Orthodox Theology I quoted the following comment of R. Bezalel Naor, who was quoting his teacher, the Gaon R. Shlomo Fisher of Jerusalem: “The truth, known to Torah scholars, is that Maimonides’ formulation of the tenets of Jewish belief is far from universally accepted.” For those who don’t know, R. Fisher is one of the gedolim of our time, and you can see many of his shiurim on yeshiva.org.il. Many of these shiurim focus on Talmud (and he has published the great rabbinic work, Beit Yishai), but R. Fisher is also the only one of our gedolim who is an expert in Jewish philosophy. This explains why his Derashot Beit Yishai are very different than other collections of derashot. Professor Zev Harvey told me that from R. Fisher’s edition of Crescas’ Or ha-Shem, it is clear that he used Wolfson’s Hebrew text found in Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle.[1]

Someone I know currently attends R. Fisher’s weekly shiur on Avnei Miluim, the last half-hour of which is devoted to issues of hashkafah. Interestingly enough, he reported to me that a few weeks ago R. Fisher declared that he believes the Rambam abandoned his system of 13 Principles, the proof being that they are never mentioned as a unit in the Mishneh Torah.[2] In my book, I noted that R. Shlomo Goren held the same view. R. Goren also makes another interesting point, that while in the Commentary on the Mishnah Maimonides requires one to actually believe in certain principles, in the Mishneh Torah he only requires you not to deny any principles. One who has never heard of a principle obviously does not believe in it, which makes him a heretic according to the Commentary on the Mishnah. But according to the Mishneh Torah, since this person does not actually deny the principle, he is not regarded as a heretic.


Getting back to R. Moshe, as is well known, he ruled that the Commentary of R. Yehudah he-Hasid was a forgery, as he could not imagine that a rishon would acknowledge that there were some post-Mosaic passages in the Torah.[3] Only after my book appeared did Rabbi Naor tell me that the comment I quoted above in the name of R. Fisher was stated precisely with reference to R. Moshe’s positon on this issue. After R. Moshe banned R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s Commentary, R. Fisher commented that R. Moshe assumes that R. Yehudah he-Hasid has to accept the Rambam’s Principles, but in truth there were many disagreements with the Rambam, and R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s position on Mosaic authorship is one of them.

Along these lines, I read a recent shiur by R. Moshe Zuriel, a well-known baal machashavah in which he affirmed that all must accept the Thirteen Principles. I wrote to him asking what he would say about those who accepted the views of sages who disagreed with the Rambam, and I specifically referred to Ibn Ezra’s (exoteric) position that the last twelve verses were written by Joshua, which is a rejection of Maimonides’ insistence in the Eighth Principle that the entire Torah is Mosaic. He replied (emphasis added):

ודאי אני מודה שהסומך על ראב”ע (או אברבנאל וכיו”ב) ביחס לפסוקים הנוספים, איננו
נחשב לכופר, והוא נחשב ישראל . . . וכן כל דבר שיש מחלוקת ראשונים
In fact, in addition to the sources I cited in my book, Ralbag also says something interesting in this regard. Joshua 24:6 states:
ויכתב יהושע את הדברים האלה בספר תורת א-להים
Regarding this verse, the Talmud records a view that the reference is to the last eight verses of the Torah. But Ralbag explains it as referring to different verses:

ויכרת יהושע ברית לעם: על זה להיותם עובדים את ה’ ולהשאיר זכר לזה המעשה למען יבושו ישראל אם יסורו מאחרי ה’ כתב יהושע את הדברים האלה בספר תורת הא-להים

Another relevant source, which I also recently found, is R. Solomon David Sassoon, who wrote as follows (Natan Hokhmah li-Shelomo, p. 106; emphasis in original):

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

According to R. Sassoon, one who believes that parts of the Torah were written by a post-Mosaic prophet is not a heretic. (In another post I might speak more about the great R. Sassoon and his unique family.)

One of the strange passages in R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s Commentary is his assertion that the Hallel ha-Gadol (Psalm 136) was originally part of the Pentateuch and was later removed by David and placed in the Book of Psalms. In my book I note that this idea is also found in both R. Avigdor Katz (a rishon) and R. Menahem Zioni. I wrote: “Apparently, there was some tradition regarding this verse, the source and nature of which is unknown.” After my book appeared, R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer published his Hadar Yaakov, vol. 1. On page 39, he notes that in two works of R. Eleazer ben Judah of Worms (the Rokeah), he mentions that Hallel ha-Gadol was recited by the Israelites at the Red Sea, a notion that is not found in extant rabbinic literature. (In Pesahim 117a it states that they recited the regular Hallel.) In R. Eleazar’s Siddur, p. 214, he cites Seder Olam as the source for this tradition. The editors refer the reader to Seder Olam Rabbah, yet nothing relevant appears there. Either R. Eleazar had a different version or he was referring to another book with this title. What is important for our purposes is that this tradition ties in with what is quoted by R. Yehudah he-Hasid and R. Avigdor Katz, even though the Rokeah doesn’t mention anything about this section being removed by David. Hopefully, more research into the writings of Ashkenazic rishonim will further illuminate matters.

Let me now speak of another issue, not of falsely ascribing forgery where there is none, but accepting as authentic that which is actually a forgery. The classic example is, of course, Besamim Rosh. There is no doubt that the volume is a forgery. There are those who have believed that at least some of the responsa are authentic, but it is more likely that the non-controversial material is a smokescreen for the controversial responsa. I plan to write an article about Besamim Rosh so I will not now reveal an internal proof, arrived at by use of a computer, that the book is a forgery. In an earlier article, I called attention to the fact that the Besamim Rosh assumes that a suicide has no share in the world to come, which is a popular 18th century conception, but not found among Ashkenazic or Sephardic rishonim.[4]

There is a talmid hakham, Rabbi Reuven Amar, who republished the Besamim Rosh and argues in his introduction that Saul Berlin was one of the gedolim. For all of his talmudic learning, Amar is very ignorant in this matter. He knows nothing about the history of Berlin and his haskalah ties. If he did, he would not have wanted to defend him. Yet Amar did know that many halakhic authorities quoted the Besamim Rosh, and he therefore wanted to turn it into a kosher book.

The problem Amar was faced with is what concerns me. What is one supposed to do with pesakim that rely on the Besamim Rosh? Fortunately, there can’t be many. In fact, offhand, I don’t know of any responsum in which a decision is based entirely, or even heavily, on Besamim Rosh, so that if you took this work away the decision would fall.

However, this is not the case with another forgery, as here the forgery is cited by all halakhic authorities of the last 140 years. I am referring to the Sefer ha-Eshkol, attributed to Rabbi Abraham ben Isaac. It was published by Rabbi Zvi Benjamin Auerbach (1808-1878), one of the leading German rabbis of his time. He was also the most prominent member of the famous Auerbach rabbinic family, which together with the Bamberger and Carlebach families (the ABCs, as they were known) were the most prominent rabbinic families in Germany.

According to Auerbach, his Sefer ha-Eshkol came from a Spanish manuscript. The work quickly became popular among scholars and was adorned with Auerbach’s commentary Nahal Eshkol, which is a mine of rabbinic knowledge. It came as quite a shock when in 1909, many years after Auerbach had died, the great scholar R. Shalom Albeck accused him of having invented the story of the Spanish manuscript in order to enable him to forge the work. This accusation aroused a great storm and four of the leading Orthodox scholars – David Zvi Hoffmann, Abraham Berliner, Jacob Schor, and Hanokh Ehrentreau – rushed to defend Auerbach, publishing the booklet Tzidkat ha-Tzadik (Berlin, 1910).

It is obvious that Auerbach’s defenders never gave Albeck’s charge any serious consideration. In their eyes, the fact that Auerbach was universally regarded as a tzadik, as well as one of the gedolim of Germany, rendered the accusation invalid from the start. There was no way they could impartially consider the evidence. In their mind they knew that for a pious Jew, some things are just impossible. Albeck responded to Tzidkat ha-Tzadik with the booklet Kofer ha-Eshkol (Warsaw, 1911), which explains how Albeck knew that the work is a forgery. In discussing the dispute between the four scholars on one side, and Albeck on the other, R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin[5] showed which side he was on.


אחד מול ארבעה – וההרגשה היא, שהנצחון לצדו של האחד

As far as I know, every academic scholar who has examined the evidence has concluded that Albeck is correct, and Auerbach’s Sefer ha-Eshkol is a forgery. This is so despite the defense of Auerbach by Issachar Dov (Bernard) Bergman in his essay in the Joshua Finkel Festschrift (New York, 1974;[6] it also appears in Sefer ha-Eshkol, vol. 4 [Jerusalem, 1986]).[7]

Needless to say, the supposed Spanish manuscript has never been found. In the words of Prof. Haym Soloveitchik, “Auerbach’s Eshkol appears as a clear forgery, incorporating arguments found in sixteenth, seventeenth, and even eightennth-century writings. . . . [The work] should not be used for historical purposes.[8] For this reason, I criticized Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar for citing Auerbach’s Eshkol in their Giyur u-Zehut Yehudit.[9] R. Bezalel Naor writes:
I was told the following anecdote by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein. Licthenstein’s father-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Baer Soloveitchik (of Boston) expressed to Rabbi [Hayyim] Heller his amazement that the same obscure opinion of Mordecai in Niddah was to be found in the Eshkol, to which his mentor Hayyim Heller responded: “That is all?! You can find in Auerbach’s Eshkol a peckel Peri Megadims.” (Yiddish, a pack of Peri Megadim). . . . Prof. S.Z. Leiman informs me he found other irregularities in Auerbach’s historical works.”[10]
The late Prof. Israel M. Ta-Shma assumed that Auerbach’s Eshkol is a fourteenth-century forgery that he innocently published.[11] In discussing the issue, Ta-Shma makes the following incredible statement:

לדעתי עשה זאת משה די ליאון, וכך שמעתי גם מפי חברי פרופ’ י. זוסמן

De Leon is commonly said to have died in 1305, so unless the forgery was done at the very end of his life, we would be dealing with a 13th century forgery. In his Ha-Nigleh she-ba-Nistar, p. 144 n. 203, Ta Shma indeed writes

ויש רגליים לדבר כי זיופו, במגמה לקרבו לספר הזהר ותכניו, נעשה כבר במאה הי”ג

Yet Ta-Shma’s assumption doesn’t take into account that Auerbach’s Eshkol almost certainly contains material from later centuries. Furthermore, Ta-Shma ignored the well-founded assumption Auerbach forged other documents. According to Moshe Samet, some of Auerbach’s forgeries were actually designed to further a Neo-Orthodox agenda.[12] (It is well known that people who forge rarely do so once. Rather, seeing that they got away with it, they continue in this path, getting some sort of perverse pleasure from fooling the world.)

In Mordechai Breuer’s Modernity Within Tradition, p. 202, in discussing Orthodox scholarship and how it was often not rated highly by others because of its binding preconceptions, he writes:

One such example was the attempt of some scholars, especially R. Kirchheim in Frankfurt and Schalom Albeck in Poland, to expose the chief scholarly work of the late Rabbi B.H. Auerbach of Halberstadt (Ha-Eshkol, with commentary and notes, Nahal Eshkol, Halberstadt, 1861), as a plagiarism and a forgery. In spite of certain discrepancies in Auerbach’s work, this attempt failed after his defenders could prove that the attacks had not been free of prejudice.

In Between The Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 77 n. 8, I responded to this as follows:

Breuer seems to be mistaken in pointing to the dispute over the authenticity of B. H. Auerbach’s edition of the Eshkol as an example of this phenomenon [i.e., Orthodox scholarship being looked down on]. To begin with, the main assault on Auerbach was led by Shalom Albeck (1858-1920), himself an Orthodox Jew. Secondly, this dispute had nothing to do with dogma interfering with scholarship, but was simply a question of whether Auerbach had forged the text. Finally, it is not so clear that Albeck’s attempt failed, as Breuer would have it. On the contrary, the authenticity of Auerbach’s edition is still highly questionable.
When I wrote this paragraph I didn’t want to appear disrespectful to Prof. Breuer, which is why I used soft language. In truth, as far as scholars of medieval halakhic literature are concerned, Albeck was entirely successful. As I note above, the attack of Albeck on Auerbach had nothing to do with the sort of “Orthodox scholarship” Breuer was referrring to, and which was subject to criticism by non-Orthodox scholars. Albeck wasn’t attacking Auerbach because of his supposed Orthodox close-mindedness.

Yet the point Breuer makes actually has relevance to another aspect of this dispute, and here I refer to the defense of Auerbach by the four scholars. Here we do find dogma of a sort, since they make it clear in their defense that the whole accusation is ipso facto invalid, and they even cite the Rambam, Commentary to Avot 1:6, that if you see a tzaddik do something that looks like a sin, you must assume that there is a reasonable explanation, even if it is very far-fetched.

Albeck’s response to this is that the Rambam is referring to a tzaddik who commits a sin between him and God, but not someone who


מתעה את לבות גדולי ישראל מורי ההלכה ודורשי החכמה, ודאי מצוה וחובה על כל איש המכיר בו, להוציא את בלעו מפיו, למען יהיה לאות לבני מרי, ולא יוסיפו לחלל ש”ש ולזייף את התורה

The issue mentioned by Albeck, that of the poskim being misled by a forgery, is what I would now like to raise. What is one to do if one sees that a posek has decided a halakhah based on the forged Eshkol? Is this person obligated to reject the pesak, or can he rely on the authority of the posek, even though the posek himself was misled. This obviously has implications for the use of the Zohar in pesak as well, as the poskim regard it as a tannaitic work. Yet I think everyone outside of the haredi community who has studied the issue assumes that it is a medieval work.

Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg raised a similar concern with regard to the Shulhan Arukh. There are certain halakhot which are based on false readings. He wondered if in a case like this we have to establish a new halakhah, or since we have accepted the Shulhan Arukh’s ruling we don’t change the halakhah but rather find a different justification for it.

Some might also see some connection with another position of R. Weinberg. As I noted in my book. R. Tam’s states that sex with a Gentile does not cause a woman to become forbidden to her husband. R. Weinberg had ethical problems with the reason R. Tam gives, and I don’t think it goes too far to say that he thought that, from our modern perspective, R. Tam’s justification is to be regarded as immoral.[13] Yet I also note that in seeking to find a heter for a woman who committed adultery with a non-Jew to return to her husband he is prepared to make use of R. Tam’s position.[14] I don’t think this raises any problems, since at the end of the day, R. Tam’s position is part of the halakhic tradition. If it can be used to to reach a lenient decision, then it serves a purpose, even if the contemporary posek doesn’t agree with the underlying assumptions of R. Tam’s pesak (Parallel to this is the widely accepted view that there is nothing wrong with using information derived from Nazi experiments on humans if it can help people. Obviously, everyone agrees that the experiments should never have been carried out, but once they were, the information can be used) As I said, I don’t see this as problematic, but I mention it since some might see it as an inconsistency in R. Weinberg.

An example which is more directly relevant is the following. In June of this year Prof. David Berger gave a presentation at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah on Jewish views of Christianity (as well as how to relate to Chabad). In his discussion of Christianity he explained the concept of shittuf, first mentioned by the Tosafists, and how in its original meaning it did not mean that non-Jews are permitted to believe in one God divided into different parts. Those who want the details on this can see Katz’ discussion in Exclusiveness and Tolerance. Katz was the first academic scholar to point to what he regarded as the common misinterpretation of the Tosafot. In addition, a number of poskim have concluded similarly, most notably the son of the Noda bi-Yehudah, whose responsum was published in his father’s work.

In my response to Berger I asked the following question (addressing myself to him):

You are certain that the common understanding of Tosafot is mistaken. Yet this understanding became the standard for poskim in Western Europe. It is also shared by the Rama. Do you feel that there is anything wrong with someone who agrees with you as to the historical truth nevertheless relying on those poskim who misinterpreted the Tosafot? In other words, do the decisions of the poskim based on Tosafot have independent validity even if their interpretation of Tosafot is incorrect?[15a]
Prof. Berger replied that he did not regard as illegitimate to rely on a pesak even if from the standpoint of historical scholarship, the pesak is incorrect. In the case we were discussing, one could legitimately rely on heterim which are based on the notion that according to Tosafot Gentiles are not obligated in shittuf, even though from a historical, i.e., factual perspective, Tosafot never said this. Historical truth and halakhic pesak thus occupy different realms.

While I understand Berger’s point, I think some reading this might be very uncomfortable with such a notion, namely, that one can have a historical truth and a halakhic truth, with the two being at odds with each other; or to put it another way, that a halakhic truth can be based on a historical error and yet still have validity. This brings us dangerously close to the old Latin Averroist notion of “double truth.” [15b]


Returning to Auerbach’s Eshkol, I am aware of only one posek who has refused to grant it any validity, and I daresay that the overwhelming majority of poskim are not even aware that it has been subject to controversy. The posek I am referring to is Rabbi Yitzhak Ratsaby. For those who don’t know, R. Ratsaby is one of the leading – if not the leadiing – Yemenite posek in Israel. He is an incredible scholar whose many works are particularly valuable as he records a variety of Yemenite practices and quotes from relatively unknown Yemenite writings, including from manuscript. He comes from the Kabbalah-friendly Yemenites, as uses the appellation of אחר in referring to R. Joseph Kafih. [16] Reflecting the typical haredi outlook, when he needs to refer to R. Kook, he writes “הרא”ק.” Doing so denies R. Kook the rabbinic titles given other great rabbis, and also spares haredi eyes from even seeing the name “Kook” in print.[17] Most haredi readers won’t even recognize who he is referring to. This is particularly unfortunate as it was R. Kook who stood together with many of the great Yemenite rabbis in opposing R. Yihye Kafih’s anti-Kabbalah stand. In Emunat ha-Shem, the volume published against R. Yihye Kafih, R. Kook’s two letters appear at the beginning. R. Kook is referred to as

רבנו הכהן הגדול נר ישראל וקדושו גדול הדור ונזרו מרן

R. Ratsaby is an example of how Ashkenazic haredi extremism and close-mindedness has also influenced those who do not come from this tradition.

Despite this flaw, there are many very interesting things in his works. Because my last post dealt with issues of dogma, let me refer to what R. Ratsaby states in Olat Yitzhak vol. 2 no. 259. He refers to the list of 24 heretics with no share in the world to come, enumerated by Rambam in Hilkhot Teshuvah, ch. 3. Among those are people who say there is no God, or there is more than one god – in other words, classic heretics. But according to R. Ratsaby, even though these people are heretics with no share in the world to come, that doesn’t mean that they can’t fulfill someone else’s religious obligation. As R. Ratsaby puts it

אפילו אותן עשרים וארבעה והנוספים עליהם שברור ומוסכם שאין להן חלק לעוה”ב, לא שמענו שאינן מוציאין אחרים ידי חובתן בברכות וכיוצא בזה, דסוף סוף הוא מחוייב בדבר וכל המחוייב מוציא יד”ח

R. Ratsaby is not referring to allowing such a person to daven for the amud, for which someone must be a proper Jew. Rather, he is speaking of the halakhah per se, i.e., if a heretic can be motzi someone else. I think the instinctive response of people would be that, of course, someone who is a heretic cannot be motzi someone else, and R. Moshe Feinstein states so explicitly. R. Ratsaby removes the issue from one of belief, and instead focuses on the obligation.which all Jews share.

In this same teshuvah, R. Ratsaby also points out something else quite interesting. Following the list of the twenty four who have no share in the world to come, Rambam gives a list of another group who, if they persist in certain evil actions (e.g., embarrassing someone in public, shaming scholars, etc.) also have no share in the world to come. He quotes R. Avraham ben ha-Rambam (hiddushim at the beginning of Ma’aseh Rakah) who cites his father as explaining that the way this works is that someone who is accustomed to do such bad things things will, almost of necessity, not be inclined to do what needs to be done to achieve immortality. In fact, it is much more likely that he will be led to those sins that really do deprive you of the world to come. But one should not take what Rambam writes literally, namely, that these sins by themselves cause one to lose his share in the world to come.


Returning to the Eshkol, many years ago I was studying R. Ratsaby’s Olat Yitzhak, vol. 1, and on page 410 I came across the following:

לענ”ד אין לחוש לדברים מחודשים שבספר זה שהוא בחשש גדול של זיוף, ואין להכחיש מה שהלב מרגיש

I found this quite amazing, since I knew of no other posek that recognized what modern scholars had determined. I was curious if he came to this on his own or had read Albeck’s pamphlet. He replied to me on 13 Iyar 5750


חשד הזיוף אצלי הוא מתוך העיון בדברים החדשים שם בקרב הראשונים ולקוחים מדברי אחרים (מה שראיתי דר”כ [=דרך כלל] היה לקוח מהבית יוסף) וגם הסגנון, שחנני השי”ת להכיר כזאת בטביעות-עין והלואי שאני טועה, אבל רחוק בעיניי מלצרפו עכ”פ לענין הלכה. ספר כופר האשכול לא בא לידי


I wrote back to him asking why, if he regards Auerbach as a forger, does he cite the Nahal Eshkol. He replied

נחל אשכול שאני מביא על אף החשד שלי נגד ספר האשכול גופו משום שאין לפסול גוף הדברים אם הם ניתנים להאמר מצד עצמם, רק לא לסמוך על ספר האשכול כמשקל בהכרעה בהלכה

R. Ovadiah Yosef offers the same justification in his haskamah to Amar’s 1983 edition of Besamim Rosh

חרף הביקורת שנמתחה על הספר “בשמים ראש”, במילי מעלייתא דאית ביה דרשינן

The last words come from Sanhedrin 100b, where R. Joseph says about the book of Ben Sira, “we may expound the good things it contains.” It would seem that using this logic, there can be no objection to studying the talmudic commentaries and halakhic writings of non-Orthodox rabbis, since one might find there a good argument or explanation of the sources. After all, Saul Berlin, the forger of Besamim Rosh, was a subversive, trying to destroy traditional Judaism from within. This makes him much worse than the typical Reform rabbi who has nothing to do with the Orthodox.


The summer is fast coming to an end, and with it, my free time to write things like this. But I have a number of other examples of forgery which I might post here, if people are interested (I am saving my examples of censorship for the book which I am hard at work on). Many people have told me that they like my “derekh agavs,” so I threw a lot of them in here, and I apologize to those who don’t like the many tangents.


Appendix


Since I don’t know when I will have a chance to write a new introduction to my book, and it is once again in the news with Rabbi Leff’s review, let me quote the following passages from R. Kook’s Shemonah Kevatzim 1:30-31 (I hope that R. Kook is still an acceptable authority for Jewish Action). Two important things stand out. First, while not condoning orthopraxy, R. Kook states that one who is observant, despite the fact that he denies ikkarim, is to be regarded as an erring Jew, not as a heretic. R. Kook’s position is a complete rejection of the idea that people who are shomrei Torah u-mitzvot can be read out of the fold and be regarded as heretics because of their incorrect beliefs. The second important point is that he rejects the Rambam’s entire theological conception of Principles of Faith and alligns himself with the Ra’avad, showing once again that the Rambam’s position has not attained unanimity.

אף על פי שהטעות בדברים האלהיים הוא דבר מזיק עד מאוד, מכל מקום אין עיקר ההיזק הנמשך מהמושגים המשובשים יוצא אל הפועל, עד כדי להמית את בעליו מיתת נשמה, רק כשהוא מתגלם במעשים, או לפחות כשהוא יורד לתוך דעות ורגשות כאלה שסופן מוכרח להתגלות במעשים. אבל כל זמן שהדבר עומד בצורתו המופשטת, אין כאן עקירה עקרית
ובזה הננו קרובים לסברת הראב”ד, שהשיג על הרמב”ם במה שקרא למי שמאמין ההגשמה באלהות מין. ונוכל להסכים, שכל זמן שאותו המגשם לא יעשה לו פסל ותמונה, הרי לא גמר את מחשבתו, ונשארה היא עדיין בחוג הרוח שלא תוכל להיות נכללת בשם עקירה ויציאה מן הדת

In a wide-ranging article which deals among other things with R. Kook’s view of heresy, the important scholar R Yoel Bin Nun[19] explains why R. Kook rejected the Rambam’s approach to heresy. R. Bin Nun also states that if you take what the Rambam says seriously, the Rambam himself, if he were alive today and saw how Aristotelian science has been overthrown, would not regard people who disagreed with his principles as heretics. In R. Bin Nun’s words (emphasis added):[19]

שיטת הרמב”ם ברורה: יסוד שתלוי באמונה, ואין בו הוכחה שכלית, וכל החכמים מתווכים עליו, אי אפשר להגדיר את מי שאינו מאמין בו כ”כופר” או כ”מין”. עצם העובדה שהדבר נתון בוויכוח שכלי בין החכמים מאפשר ומחייב לבנות על עולם האמונה, אך אינו מאפשר לשפוט ולדון את הכופרים. רק ודאות שכלית מוחלטת מאפשרת לדון אדם כמזיד בשאלות של אמונה וידיעה

In other words, according to R. Bin Nun there is no justification today for calling people heretics because they reject one (or more) of the Thirteen Principles.[20] (when he refers to hakhamim disputing matters, he is not referring to Torah scholars, but the general scientific-intellectual world). Whether R. Bin Nun is correct in his analysis of Rambam is not my purpose at present; I only wish to show that this outstanding rabbinic figure has a very tolerant view, one which rejects the Thriteen Principles as determining who is a heretic.

Notes:
A future post will deal with other issues of this controversy, and at that time S. Z. Havlin’s article on the issue in Yeshurun vol. 13 will be discussed.

[1] Professor Isadore Twersky once mentioned in class that although this book’s title should have mentioned Maimonides, in 1929 Harvard University Press would not publish a book with such a title. In this regard, he also called attention to the title of Sarah Heller Wilensky’s doctoral dissertation, “The Teaching of Issac Arama in the Framework of Philonic Philosophy.” This, too, is a false title, and the subject of the dissertation is seen more clearly by the title of the Hebrew book: R. Yitzhak Arama u-Mishnato. As Twersky explained, Harvard’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations did not want a dissertation on a Spanish Jewish thinker unless it was given a more universal theme, hence the “Philonic Philosophy,” an allusion to Wolfson’s theory of philosophy, but this was put in just for show. Incidentally, Fisher’s edition of Or ha-Shem is responsible for my taking credit as being the only student ever to have made Prof. Twersky laugh in class. It was the 1990-1991 year and we were studying Crescas in his seminar. Twersky would often ask me to read, during the course of which he would often correct my pronounciation. When Fisher’s edition of Crescas appeared I immediately bought it and brought it to class. When Twersky called upon me to read, I replied that this time he wa not going to be able to correct my pronounciation. He asked, “why not?” to which I replied, holding up my new book, that I just purchased a new edition of Or ha-Shem, and it is “menikid.” This was too much for even the eternally staid Twersky, and he too was brought to a chuckle. (From inyana de-yoma, someone asked me if Noah Feldman studied with Prof. Twersky. He was not in any of Twersky’s seminars that year. He was, however, in Prof. Septimus’ seminar as well as that of Prof. Leiman, who was at Harvard in fall 1989 as a visiting scholar. In those years, long before he became famous [now, notorious] I would often tell people that one of my fellow students, an undergraduate taking graduate classes, was perhaps the most brilliant person I knew – a much better head than mine – and I have known many intellectual heavyweights. Yet I have read some people, who certainly don’t know him, describing Feldman as an expert in Shas and poskim. This is laughable. He has a great mind, and can grasp a Tosafot quicker than almost anyone, but he never spent any serious time in limudei kodesh after high school. I think my father best summed matters up after reading his article. He said: “Feldman may be very smart, but he isn’t very wise.”).

[2] R. Fisher has also expressed his support for the position of those rishonim – in opposition to the Rambam and R. Chaim Soloveitchik – who believe that one who, through no fault of his own, holds a heretical view is not to be regarded as a heretic.

[3] R. Moshe also detected a forgery in that R. Yehudah he-Hasid asks why homosexuality is forbidden, and then explains that the prohibition is to ensure that men procreate. According to R. Moshe, even asking such a question, and offering such a weak explanation, is a sign that the passage was not written by R. Yehudah he-Hasid but by a gay-friendly subversive. Yet as R. Chaim Rapoport points out, R. Yehudah he-Hasid is also quoted saying the same thing in the medieval Moshav Zekeinim al ha-Torah. Furthermore, the explanation he offers is also found in Ramban, Sefer ha-Hinnukh and Radbaz. See Rapoport, Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View (London, 2004), pp. 155-156.

[4] See my “Suicide and the World to Come,” AJS Review 18.2 (1993): 257 n. 54. Perhaps Prof. Shlomo Zalman Havlin will also use a computer to prove the forgery, much like he used a computer to show that R. Joseph Hayyim also wrote the book Torah li-Shma (link).

[5] Soferim u-Sefarim (Tel Aviv, 1959), p. 107.

[6] See also D. Simonsen, “Ueber die Vorlage des Sefer ha-Eshkol,” in Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Related Subjects in Memory of Abraham Solomon Freidus (New York, 1929), pp. 290-291.

[7] Israel M. Ta-Shma writes, concerning this defense (falsely attributing it to the editors of Sefer ha-Eshkol, vol. 4, rather than Bergman):

אולם לא מפיהם אנו חיים, ואילו זקוק היה הרב אויערבך להגנתם זו היה לוקה בכפלים

See Rabbi Zerahyah ha-Levi Ba’al ha-Meor u-Venei Hugo (Jerusalem, 1992), p. 40 n. 27.

[8] Haym Soloveitchik, “Review of Olam ke-Minhago Noheg, by Yishaq (Eric) Zimmer,” AJS Review 23.2 (1998): 227-228.

[9] See my “Review of Circles of Jewish Identity: A Study in Halakhic Literature by Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar,” AJS Review 27.1 (2003): 120-122.

[10] Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (Spring Valley, 1999), p. 209.

[11] Rabbi Zerahyah ha-Levi Ba’al ha-Meor u-Venei Hugo, pp. 40-41.

[12] He-Hadash Asur min ha-Torah (Jersualem, 2005), pp. 69-70, 152 n. 255.

[13] Regarding judging positions of rishonim as immoral, R. Shlomo Aviner writes (Am ve-Arzto (Jerusalem, 2002), vol. 2 pp. 436-437):

וברור שבהלכה פנים לכאן ולכאן. לכן כיוון שנתיבים אלה הם נתיבים מוסריים יותר, עלינו להכריע על פיהם. לפעמים ההלכה מוכרעת, בגלל שעת הדחק, ולפעמים ההלכה מוכרעת כי כך המנהג. אם כן, בימינו ‘המנהג’ הוא להיות מוסרי . . . שאלה: האם ראשונים אחרים, שלא סוברים כרש”י הם מוסריים פחות? תשובה: כולם מוסריים בתכלית המוסריות, אך יש גם מושגים מוסריים המשתנים על פי המציאות. אב הסוטר לבנו הקטן, אינו דומה לאב הסוטר לבנו בן השמונה עשרה. האם סטירת לחי לבנו היא מעשה מוסרי או לא מוסרי? תלוי בנסיבות. לא כל הכרעות הפוסקים הן הכרעות נצחיות. לכן מזכירים במשנה גם דעת יחיד כדי לסמוך עליה בעתיד (עדויות א, ה). במצבנו כיום ישנם שיקולים מוסריים שמצטרפים להכרעותינו ההלכתיות דוד המלך היה מודד אנשים בחבל, ובוודאי הוא ראה כורח מוסרי לנהוג כן. מרן הרב קוק מסביר, שלא היתה אז דרך אחרת להרתיע את הרשעים (איגרות א, ק). יתכן שבנסיבות שלנו, דוד לא היה נוהג כן

[14] Kitvei R. Weinberg, vol. 1, p. 58.

[15a] One should not assume that this is a verbatim transcription of my remarks, as they were not written out at the time.

[15b] Prof. Berger recently noted to Menachem Butler the following point: “At the same time, those realms [i.e., history and halakhah] are not so distinct that someone weighing the question of which position to adopt must, or even should, ignore his judgment about historical truth. Thus, I personally do not regard the pesak that Christianity is not avodah zarah for Gentiles as one I should adopt, even though it has desirable consequences. I do, however, grant legitimacy to an opinion affirmed by major authorities and do not quarrel with those who rely on it.”

[16] Olat Yitzhak, vol. 2, p. 51.

[17] See ibid., p. 440.

[18] See his biography at http://www.ykd.co.il/hebrew/hebrew.htm.

[19] “’Kahal Shogeg’ Hiloniyim ve-Hiloniyut be-Halakhah,” Akdamut 10 (2000), p. 263.

[20] For those who don’t have access to the article, I should note that when he refers to hakhamim disputing matters, he is not referring to Torah scholars, but the general scientific-intellectual world.



Prof. Marc B. Shapiro response to Rabbi Chaim Rapoport

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In response to Rabbi Chaim Rapoport’s recent response to Prof. Marc B. Shapiro’s response to Rabbi Zev Leff (see original review), Prof. Marc B. Shapiro has shared with the Seforim blog his original response to Rabbi Chaim Rapoport from several years ago.

ועש”ק פרשת בא תשס”ד

לכבוד ידידי אהובי הרה”ג החסיד המפואר, איש חמודות ונדיב לב, אוצר בלום לתורה ולחכמה, מוה”ר חיים ראפפורט שליט”א, אב”ד דק”ק אילפורד יע”א
אחדשה”ט באהבה נאמנה

תחילה אני מודה למע”כ על טירחתו לכתוב לי ולהעיר על דבריי הפעוטים . . . וכעת אבא לעיקר הנידן במכתבו, וטרם אתייחס לטענתו במישרין, הנני מצהיר שדבריי בזה הם כיהודה ועוד לקרא, שהרי רבנו הגר”א, אשר כל רז לא אניס ליה, כתב בפירוש שהרמב”ם מכחיש את הקמיעות והשמות, ואנן מה נענה אבתריה. וכל הנידון אינו אלא האם אפשר למצוא את זה במפורש בדברי הרמב”ם. ויאמין לי ידידי, כי אני זהיר מאד בכל לשונותי, ולפני שאני כותב דבר בשם הנשר הגדול יושב אני שבעה נקיים, ורק אח”כ הנני מעלה את הדיו על הנייר. וכמובן, מוכן אני להודות שטעיתי, כי אין אדם תחת השמש שיכול לומר שלא שגה, ולא אפונה כי יש בספרי דברים הצריכים תיקון, ושגיאות מי יבין, כל קבל דנא מחזיקנא טיבותא לך אם יעמידני על האמת, ואת הצריך תיקון אשוב ואתקן, אבל בנידון דידן, אינני חושב שטעיתי.

כתב האג”מ שהרמב”ם מודה שאיכא שמירה בשמות מלאכים ושמות קדושים ופסוקים, ובפירושו לסוטה ז, ד כתב הרמב”ם נגד אלה הטפשים שכותבים קמיעות ושמים בתוכם שמות קדושים ושמותיהם של מלאכים. זה פירושו של קמיע. וכשהאג”מ כותב “שמות קדושים” כוונתו לאלו השמות שנזכרים ע”י גדולי אשכנז, ולפי דעת הרמב”ם הכל הבל ואלו הכותבים קמיעות טפשים הם כי בדו מלבם כל השמות הללו, שמות ה’ ושמות מלאכים, ורבים הם וא”א לפורטן. ובספרי כתבתי שהרמב”ם שלל את כחם של שמות המלאכים ושמות קדושים (או “קדושים”) ואכן בפיהמ”ש ובמו”נ ברור מללו, וראה גם בפירושו של הרב קאפח להלכות מזוזה פרק ה אות יד.

נכון, כמו שכתב כת”ר, שהרמב”ם אינו שולל בפירוש את סגולת השמירה של שם המפורש או א’ משמות ה’ הנמצאים בתורה. אולם. כל מי שמכיר את דרכו של הרמב”ם יודע שמושג זה ממנו והלאה, וע”כ במבט לשעבר הנני מודה שכדאי היה לי להאריך קצת ולכתוב שאע”פ שהרמב”ם אינו שולל בפירוש את כח השמירה של שם המפורש, בכ”ז לפי הפילוסופיה שלו והשקפת עולמו אין מקום לרעיונות כאלו, כמו שהבין הגר”א ובעל שומר אמונים (א, יג) וכל אלו שהעמיקו בדברי הרמב”ם בלי יוצא מן הכלל, וע”כ תמהתי על האג”מ.

והנני בזה ידידו מוקירו דושה”ט באהבה, מודה ומכיר טובה על ענותנותו וטוב לבו לעיין ולהעיר בדברי.

מלך שפירא



Rabbi Chaim Rapoport on Prof. Marc B. Shapiro and Rabbi Zev Leff

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In response to Prof. Marc B. Shapiro’s recent response to Rabbi Zev Leff (see original review), Rabbi Chaim Rapoport has submitted the following letter exclusively posted at the Seforim blog.

בס”ד. שלהי חודש תמוז ה’תשס”ז
לכבוד הרבנים מנהלי ‘בלוג הספרים’, וכל העוסקים במלחמתה של תורה לשם שמים, ה’ עליהם יחיו ויחיינו מיומים

בקשר להמחלוקת שפרצה מחדש בין המשפתים, בענין שיטת הרמב”ם ע”ד פעולת השמות הקדושים והטהורים, אף שאינני רוצה להכניס ראשי בין הרים גדולים[1], אבל הנני בזה כמעיר ובא לפני חכמים, להביא לכללות שיטת פרופ. שפירא סמוכין, מדברי הגאון יעב”ץ בספרו ‘לחם שמים’.
בפירושו ‘לחם שמים’ עמ”ס סוטה פרק שביעי כתב היעב”ץ על דברי הרמב”ם בפיהמ”ש שם משנה ד[2] בזה”ל: “לכאורה יראה מלשונו זה, שהי’ [הרמב”ם] מהביל כתיבת קמיעות לגמרי, ואם כן נגע ח”ו בכבוד חכמי התלמוד. ועיין מה שכתבתי ב’עקיצת עקרב’, משם תראה קצת התנצלות על מה שכתב גם בספר מורה נבוכים מענין זה כדומה לזה. אך מה שהפריז על המדה בענין באור שם המפורש, עם שהאמת אתו בזה שכן קורין חז”ל לשם הוי”ה ב”ה, אבל ניקודו ודאי צריך למסורת עכ”פ כמו שנראה בבירור בכמה מקומות בתלמוד, ביחוד ביומא ובפ”ד דקידושין וזולת. דוק ותשכח . . . וכמדומה שהי’ חושב גם כן משתגע למי שעוסק בידיעת צרופי שמות וכן שם בן ע”ב וכ”ב (והמה מוזכרים בתלמוד שהפליגו חז”ל בשבח היודעם וזהיר בהם) והדומים הידועים ומקובלים ליחידי סגולה, והנם אצלו נחשבים מהבילים ומשוגעים חלילה. אבל מחשבה כזאת היא חסרון ידיעה מסתרי תורה ודאי והעדר קבלה שלא זכה אלי’, היא שגרמה לו לשום במלאכי ה’ תהלה, שרי לי’ מרי’ וימציא לו מחילה. ופעולת השמות אמנם מפורש במקרא [3] מאז בעלי המגדל ידעו מזה כמ”ש (פ’ נח יא, ד) ‘ונעשה לנו שם’ (אלא שרצו להשתמש בו לפנייה חיצונית, לכן לא עלתה בידם, ע”י בלבול שפתם נתבטלה, לולי זאת היתה מחשבתם מתקיימת, כי חכמים גדולים היו כמ”ש בס”ה) בסוד ‘ויעש דוד שם’ (שמואל-ב ח, יג), המ”י [=המשכיל יבין]”. עכ”ל היעב”ץ.
מלשון היעב”ץ וסגנונו נראה בעליל, שהרמב”ם לא האמין בכח השמות וביטלו כליל, וזאת בגלל שהי’ לו חסרון מסורה, העדר הידיעה בחכמת האמת וסודות התורה.

[על דבר “העדר הקבלה” של הרמב”ם – ראה גם מ”ש היעב”ץ בספרו ‘מטפחת ספרים’ פי”ד המדבר “במעשיו הגדולים של הר”מ ז”ל ומדותיו האלקיות, כן הודיע גם בספר צדה לדרך בהקדמתו. גם האר”י ז”ל גלה עמוקות בסוד אחיזת נשמתו כי גבהה מאד, יעוין ספר הגלגולים. לכן חובה ודאי להפך בזכותו, ולא לתלות בי’ בוקי סריקי דספר מורה נבוכים[4], כי אמנם זולת זה כל חבוריו בתורה ובאמונה, ממנו יתד ממנו פנה. כולם נכונים למבין וישרים ליודעי בינה. חוץ איזה פרטים ומעטים, שלא יפלא אם שגה בהם מחסרון קבלה[5], ושכל אנושי עלול לחטוא, גם מבחר מין האנושי טעה איזה פעמים, לכן לא יחסר ממעלתו דבר. בפרט דרחמנא לבא בעי, וכל כוונתו ז”ל היתה לטובה, וכל מגמתו לחזק מוסדי הדת”].
בכבוד ובברכה לכל העוסקים בפרפראות לחכמה, יישר חילכם לאורייתא – הן הן גופי תורה, עלי ה’בלוג’ לא יבולו, ותורה יבקשו מפיהו
הרב חיים רפופורט
לונדון, אנגלי’.
נ. ב. לתועלת הרבים הנני בזה להעתיק קטע ממכתבי ששלחתי בשעתו לפרופ. שפירא כצורתו וכצלמו:
ב”ה. ג’ שבט ה’תשס”ד
שלום לרחוק בגשם וקרוב ברוח,
ידידי ורעי, ברכה על ראשו תנוח,
חוקר חריף ובקי, משנתו קב ונקי,
מפענח צפונות ופותר תעלומות,
קנה לו חבר, עט סופר מהיר,
הרב דר. מלך שפירא שליט”א
. . . ספרך על קצה הגבול של התיאלוגיה (האורטדוקסית), בו הבקיאות והחריפות משמשים בעירבוביא, קנה שביתה על שולחני, באמת – אוצר בלום של תורה ומחקר מדעי. וכבר הודעתי לחברים מקשיבים לעצתי, שעליהם לקנות את הספר היסודי, – גם זקנים שכבר קנו חכמה, גם מתחילים שיודעים לדבר בדברי תורה. ובעז”ה אם ירשה הזמן אכתוב דברי סקירה וביקורת כפי מסת ידי, אבל עכשיו באתי לפרש שיחתי, לבאר ביתר פירוט את שאלתי. ובהקדם:
בשו”ת אגרות משה (יו”ד ח”ב סימן קמא, ענף ג, עמוד רלט) כתב לאמר “שגם הרמב”ם מודה שאיכא שמירה בשמות מלאכים ושמות קדושים ופסוקים, ולכן פשוט שגם פרשיות דמזוזה לא גריעי משאר פסוקים ושמות ששייך לכותבם בקמיע לשמירה, ורק מה שסוברין שהנחת המזוזה בפתח הבית היא לשמירה גשמית דהנאת עצמן הוא בטול המצוה, ולכן שלא במקום המצוה אף ששם נכתבו לשמירה דקמיע אין בזה גרעון וחסרון לכתיבת הפרשיות והנחתן בפתח הבית למצוה, כדחזינן דפסוקים ושמות הם דברים שיש בהן ענין שמירה אף להרמב”ם ממה שכותבין בצד השני, שא”כ יש להבין מזה שגם הפרשיות יש בהו ענין שמירה אף שלא מצד המצוה, ומ”מ מודה הרמב”ם שאין בזה בטול וגריעותא להמצוה דאף דאיכא בה גם שמירה עכ”פ הוא מניחן בפתח למצוה ולא לקמיע, א”כ גם כשכותב אחד את הפרשיות לקמיע מה בכך הא כן הוא האמת שאיכא בהו ענין שמירה. ולכן אין למילף שהרמב”ם יאסור שם לכתוב פסוקי הפרשיות לקמיע כשמניחים במקום שלא שייך ענין מצות מזוזה, דאין ראי’ שסובר דאסור להאמין שכתיבת פסוקים ושמות יועילו לשמירה בכלל ואף לא שפסוקי הפרשיות יועילו, היפוך מה שמפורש בגמרא בשבת דף סא שהיו כותבין קמיעין מענינות הרבה ויש בהן משום קדושה ואיפסק כן ברמב”ם פ”י מס”ת ה”ה [הקמיעין שיש בהם ענינים של כתבי הקודש אין נכנסין בהן לבית הכסא אלא אם כן היו מחופות עור], וגם בכאן אינו כותב שהן טפשין שמאמינים בדבר שאין להאמין, אלא כתב שהן טפשין במה שמבטלין המצוה שעושין מצוה גדולה שהיא יחוד השם כאילו הוא קמיע שזהו הטפשות וגם איסור גדול לדעתו”.

ובספרך אשר כתבת (עמוד 157 בשולי הגליון) ציינת, לדברי האג”מ הנ”ל כ”דוגמא מדהימה”, לאי-ידיעתו של הגרמ”פ זצ”ל בספרי החקירה, של הנשר הגדול בעל משנה תורה. כתבת שהרמב”ם שולל בפירוש את כוחן של השמות הקדושים, לשמור מפגעים רעים ושאר מרעין בישין. (1) בפיהמ”ש סוטה פ”ז מ”ב ו(2)במו”נ ח”א פס”א.
והנה, כפי שכבר אמרתי: לית דין צריך בושש, שאם באנו להביא ראיות ואותות, לאשר דברנו ולקבעם במסמרות, מוכרחים אנו לתוקף של יתד בל תמוט. אמת נכון הדבר, שלפי השקפת עולמו ה’רציונליסטית’ של הרב המורה, קשה למצוא ‘מקום’ בהגיון, לפעולה על-טבעית של שמות העליון. גם מצינו בספריו דברי ביקורת חריפים, דברים כדרבונות כחיצים יורים, כנגד בעלי הקמיעות למיניהם, ביד החזקה הל’ מזוזה ובספריו הנ”ל שציינת אליהם.
אבל הנידון עלי’ עמדתי היתה, האם שלל הרמב”ם בפירוש את השיטה, המייחסת כח שמירה נסי לשמות ופסוקים, וע”ז טענתי שבמקומות שהזכרת אין הדברים מפורשים. ניתי ספר ונחזי:
בפיהמ”ש שם קאי על מה ששנינו בסוטה, “במקדש אומרים את השם ככתבו”, וע”ז כתב: “וכתבו [=השם ככתבו] הוא מה שנהגה מן יוד הא ואו הא, וזהו שם המפורש המרומם, דע זה, ואל תטריד את מחשבתך במה שהוזים כותבי הקמיעות וטפשי בני אדם”. וכוונתו במ”ש [“ואל תטריד את מחשבתך וכו'”] פשוטה, דכנגד הטפשים דיבר המורה, כלפי שאמרו בעלי הקמיעות, שהשם המפורש מרובה באותיות. לפי דבריהם שם בן ד’ קדושתו פחותה, משמות המרובים באותיות שחיברו לשמירה, “השם ככתבו” הינו שם ארוך בכמות, ולא שם הוי’ שאין בו אלא ארבע אותיות. וע”ז כתב הרמב”ם – להד”ם, אל תשגיחו בדברים חסירי טעם, את שם המפורש המירו הטפשים, בשמות שבדו להם הוזים בכוכבים. גם הרמב”ם מודה שישנן שמות קדושים לבורא, וכמ”ש בהלכות יסודי התורה; “השם ככתבו” דהיינו שם בן ארבע המורה על עצמו, בנוסף לשאר שמות ותוארים המורים על פעלו, שבעה שמות הם הקדושים במעלה, ושם המפורש העולה על כולנה.
איפה מצאת בדברי הרמב”ם בפירוש המשנה, ביטול דעת האומרים שהשמות האמיתיים כחן יפה, לשמור את האדם בשמירה מעולה, הלא מזה לא דיבר הרמב”ם מאומה?!
שמא תאמר הלא קרא לכותבי הקמיעות “טפשים”, ועל כרחך שלל מכל וכל את ערכן של הקמיעות והמחברים, לזה אני אומר המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה, וכבר אמרו דברי תורה עניים במקום זה ועשירים במקום אחר. הלא עוד יצא כברק חצו במורה הנבוכים, לתקן הדיעות וליישר המעקשים, לא חס על הקמיעות וה’מכשפים’, הטועים ומתעים את העם בדברים מסולפים. שם (פס”א) נטה ידו לבאר החילוק בין שאר שמותיו שהם “שמות הנגזרים מן הפעולות . . . שהם כולם שמות הונחו לפי הפעולות הנמצאות בעולם” לשם המפורש המתייחס להבורא עצמו, “לא יהיה לו שם נגזר בשום פנים, אבל שם אחד מיוחד להורות על עצמו, ואין אצלנו שם בלתי נגזר אלא זה והוא יו”ד ה”א וא”ו ה”א אשר הוא שם המפורש גמור, לא תחשוב זולת זה”. ובהמשך לזה כתב: “ולא יעלה במחשבתך שגעון כותבי הקמיעות, ומה שתשמעהו מהם או תמצאהו בספריהם המשונים, ומשמות חברום, לא יורו על ענין בשום פנים, ויקראו אותן שמות, ויחשבו שהם צריכים קדושה וטהרה, ושהם יעשו נפלאות, כל אלה הדברים לא יאות לאדם שלם לשמעם, כל שכן שיאמינם, ואינו נקרא שם המפורש כלל זולת זה השם בן ארבע אותיות הנכתב אשר לא יקרא כפי אותיותיו”. עוד מתח עליהם את שבט הביקורת בסוף פרק סב: “וכאשר מצאו האנשים הרעים הפתאים אלו הדברים התרחב להם הכזב, והמאמר שיקבצו אי זה אותיות שירצו ויאמר שזה הוא שם יעשה ויפעל כשיכתב או כשיאמר על תאר כך, ואחר כך נכתבו הכזבים ההם אשר בדאום הפתאים הראשונים, ונעתקו הספרים ההם לידי הטובים רכי הלב הסכלים אשר אין אצלם מאזנים ידעו בהם האמת מן השקר, והסתירום ונמצאו בעזבונותם ונחשב בהם שהם אמת”.

שתים רעות עשו אלו, בעלי הקמיעות – במעלם אשר מעלו, על כן בצדק קרא להם הרמב”ם טפשים, גם לפי דעת האג”מ שאינו חולק על כחן של השמות הקדושים. (א) בדו להם שמות אשר “לא יורו על ענין בשום פנים”, והטעו את “רכי הלב הסכלים אשר אין אצלם מאזנים”, (ב) את השם המפורש המירו ברעתם, באותיות פורחות באוויר לעומתם.
ועוד בה שלישיה, מ”ש הרמב”ם בהלכות מזוזה, שהכותב שמות בפנים המזוזה עבודתו פסולה, ואם קבעה בדלת ביטל את המצוה. ואת רובע עשו האוילים, מוכרי הקמיעות והאלילים, במקום מצוות לאו ליהנות, החליפו ועשו ונתנו ‘סגולות’.
מקום הניח להגרמ”פ לבא ולטעון, שהרמב”ם לא חלק על הנסיון, וכפי שהעיד לנו בעצמו, בהלכות שבת אשר כתב ידו בחיבורו: “יוצאין בקמיע מומחה, ואי זה הוא קמיע מומחה זה שריפא לשלשה בני אדם או שעשהו אדם שריפא שלשה בני אדם בקמיעין אחרים, ואם יצא בקמיע שאינו מומחה פטור, מפני שהוציאו דרך מלבוש” (הלכות שבת פי”ט הי”ד).
הלא הוא הדבר אשר דברתי בתחלה, שאני הקטן לא מצאתי להדיא, בפירוש המשנה או במורה, ביד החזקה – משנה תורה, שלילת הדברים שכתב הגאון רבי משה. כולי עלמא מודים, ששמות בדויים אינם עוזרים, פיסול המזוזה ה”ה עון פלילי, הלא הגמרא (שבת לב, ב) אומרת שע”י ביטול מזוזה ימות ערירי.
הרואה באג”ם יווכח לדעת, שלא הצדיק ר’ משה את כותבי הקמיעות, במעלם אשר מעלו להמיר ולהחליף, ולעשות ככל העולה על דעתם הכוזב. אלו השמות לא יועילו, ואת כח השמירה לא יכילו, לא דיבר הגרמ”פ אלא מפסוקים הכתובים בתורה, ומשמות שנכתבו בקדושה ובטהרה.

בוודאי לא יקפיד כת”ר על המעורר, הלא כך הוא הדרך – זה בונה וזה סותר, נא אל תשיבני ריקם מלפניך, תורה היא וללמוד אני צריך ממך.
אסיים מעין הפתיחה, בכבוד ובברכה לכת”ר ולכל המשפחה, המקום ירחם עליהם ועל כל הנמצאים מאמיתת המצאו, ברוך עדי עד שם תהלתו
ידידו דושה”ט בלונ”ח תכה”י
חיים רפופורט.

Notes:
[1]
ה”ה הרה”ג ר’ זאב לעפ שליט”א ממושב מתתיהו באה”ק תובב”א והרב פרופ. מלך שפירא שליט”א מארה”ב יצ”ו.
[2]
וזה לשונו שם (לפי מהדורת קאפח): “. . . ואל תטריד את מחשבתך במה שהוזים כותבי הקמיעות וטפשי בני אדם”.
[3]
ראה גם מ”ש היעב”ץ – ע”ד פעולת השמות – בספרו ‘בירת מגדל עוז’ חלק ‘אוצר הטוב’ אות יו”ד: “. . . ההוא יקרא מעשה בראשית כשיושג ענין היצירה בעצם ובסבותיו, באופן שיגיע האדם לתכליתו ויוכל להמציא ג”כ יצירה חדשה מעיקרה, כענין ר”ח ור”א דעסקי בס’ יצירה ומיברי להו עיגלא, להורות יכות וחכמת הממציא העליון אשר חלק מחכמתו ליראיו, וגלה להם סודו לפרסם כח שמותיו הקדושים, ולידע שחולק לאוהביו מכבודו להשתמש בשרביטו שיתדמו לבוראם להוציא הוייות חדשות, ונתן כח בידם לברוא עולמות בכח צירוף השמות המתבאר בספר יצירה למי שיודעו, זוהי חכמת עצמת מעשה בראשית שהפליגו חז”ל בשבחה והעלימוה מאד, (כי אמנם עוונותינו הבדילו בינינו לבין אלקינו, וחטאתינו מנעו הטוב הגמור ממנו עד שאין אתנו יודע עד מה, ולא אחד בדור שראוי וכדאי להבין אותה חכמה), ועלי’ צוו חכמים במשנה (חגיגה רפ”ב) ‘אין דורשין במעשה בראשית בשנים’, לא על ידיעת שמות חומר וצורה ולידע שכל הגופים השפלים מורכבים מארבע יסודות ארמ”ע ושחומר הגלגל הוא גשם חמישי בלתי מושג ומנין גלגלים המדומה שבזה נכללו שני פרקים גדולים מהלכות יסוד התורה באריכות גדול ואין בהם עומק כלל ורובן סברות קלות והשערות מבני אדם חכמי העכו”ם אשר חכמת מה להם, אינן מקנות שלמות לא באמונה ולא בשכל ולא אפילו חידוד”.
[4]
השווה מ”ש על דבר הרמב”ם ב’אגרת בקורת’ ו, רע”ב: “חלילה לתלות בוקי סריקי ברבן של ישראל [!] ולהעמיס בלשונו הצך מה שאין במשמעו ושלא עלה על דעתו ז”ל”.
[5]
להעיר ממ”ש היעב”ץ בספרו ‘בירת מגדל עוז’ (הנ”ל הערה 3) על דברי הרמב”ם בהל’ יסוה”ת פ”ג ע”ד הגלגלים, וז”ל היעב”ץ שם: “כל הגלגלים אינן לא קלים ולא כבדים כו’, לא אוכל לדעת מניין לו דברים הללו, מי עלה שמים וירד ויגידה לנו גבהי שמים, מי ידע מה טבעם . . . אכן באמת הוא נטוי’ מדעת התורה ששמה מים מעל לרקיע, ואין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו, ואיני יודע מה בא הרב ללמדנו בכך, וכי כבוד הבורא תלוי בכך אם הגלגלים כבדים או קלים”.
ועל דבר מי שמאמין בפירוש הרמב”ם להמושגים מעשה מרכבה ומעשה בראשית –פשוטו כמשמעו, כתב היעב”ץ בספר ‘מטפחת ספרים’: “תכלית הדברים, כל המעלה בדעתו שהבלי הפלוסופים הם מעשה בראשית ומעשה מרכבה, הוא ודאי אפיקורוס. כופר לא לבד בדברי חכמים, כי גם בתורת משה, שריבוי השמות והכינויים, ופעולות הנראות גשמיות ומסורות יתרות וחסרות, ותיבות ולשונות זרות, ואותיות מלופפות ונזורות ונוספות, ונקודות ותגים ופרשיות, ומאמרים המתנכרים ומשקלות מורכבות והנקראים אצל בעלי הפשט זרים, הלא כל אלה צווחות ואומרות, דע כי לא דבר רק הוא, ואם הוא, מכם הוא. ואולם ודאי שחכמת הטבע תתכן להקרא מעשה בראשית ביחס אל מדרגת פשט המקרא. וכמו שלא יכול הפשטנים לתת טעם וסבה לזרים הנמצאים בו לרוב, וככה בטבע ימצאו זרים למהלך הטבעי, לא ידעו הטבעי, לא ידעו הטבעיים עלתם. אמנם חכמת הטבע של אנשי העולם, היא מלבוש הגס העב למעשה בראשית, שהוא הפרי הגנוז ועצם הענין במהותו, וחכמת מה היא הטבעית של פלוסופים, שעוסקים בקליפות החיצונות הנזרקות, שאינן למאכל ולא נחמדים להשכיל, כי אין להם השגה רק במקרים, ככל מעשה החושים החיצונים”. ואכ”מ להאריך בכ”ז.


Marc B. Shapiro — Response to Rabbi Zev Leff

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Response to Rabbi Zev Leff
by Marc B. Shapiro

Rabbi Zev Leff (of Moshav Matityahu) reviewed my book, The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised, in the most recent issue of Jewish Action [see review]. I don’t feel that he gave the readers a correct sense of what the book is about. To rectify that, I can only ask people to read for themselves and determine if his portrayal is accurate. For now, I would like to challenge him on the specific points he makes.

1. He writes “The Chatam Sofer in his responsa (Yoreh Deah 356) cites a source even older than Rambam who refers to Thirteen Principles of Faith.” As I noted in the book (p. 36 n. 176) the Hatam Sofer was mistaken about this. The source he refers to was actually composed by R. Yom Tov Lipmann Muelhausen (14th-15th cent.) and has recently been published. (I also point out that in another responsum, Even ha-Ezer II, no. 148, Hatam Sofer himself realizes that the source we are talking about has nothing to do with the Thirteen Principles which, he acknowledges, originate with Rambam.) The fact that R. Leff could include such a sentence, even though I showed it to be incorrect, leaves me with some doubts as to how closely he read my book.

2. He writes: “Today the [Thirteen] Principles are universally accepted.” I do not believe this to be the case, and whenever I hear prayers or selihot directed towards angels (a violation of the fifth principle), I am reassured of the correctness of my belief. If one is simply using the Thirteen Principles as a loose term to define traditional Jewish belief, then yes, R. Leff is correct. The purpose of my book was to show that, despite the widespread acceptance, there has nevertheless been a great deal of dispute regarding the Principles throughout Jewish history.

3. He writes: “One who denies any of them is outside the pale of the faith community of Torah Judaism.” Yet this sentence is followed by another sentence which contradicts it: “The Sages [1] do not agree whether to deem one a heretic for harboring this belief.” Which is it? Is one who believes in a corporeal God a heretic or simply an ignorant person who must be enlightened? As I discuss in my book, our sages have disputed this very point, with no less a figure than R. Arele Roth rejecting the Rambam’s view that such a belief turns a person into a heretic.

4. R. Leff then says that I misunderstand “so many Torah sources.” The first one he refers to Rashbam to Numbers 22:1. I referred to Rashbam as an example of one who believed that certain small parts of the Torah are post-Mosaic. Rabbi Leff writes that Rashbam “does not even intimate when this section was written. Rather, Rashbam simply explains that ‘beyond the Jordan’ was written to reflect what would be in the future.” Here are Rashbam’s exact words, as found in Martin Lockshin’s translation:

“The phrase ‘across the Jordan’ is appropriately written after they [i.e. the Israelites] had crossed [to the west side of] the Jordan. From their point of view the plains of Moab [on the east side of the Jordan] are called ‘across the Jordan’”

I assume that R. Leff’s understanding of Rashbam is based on David Rosin’s text (or one of the other editions or CD-Roms that use this text). Rosin’s edition removes anything radical from Rashbam. But as Lockshin has written, Rosin’s “reading is based on a conjectural emendation… I am convinced that Rosin’s emendation is based on his desire to make Rashbam’s comment here seem less heterodox.”

In my book, I also noted that according to a medieval Tosafist collection of Torah commentaries, Rashbam also identified Gen. 36:31-39 as post-Mosaic; yet R. Leff does not mention this.

5. I quoted sources that indicate that the notion of tikkun soferim is to be taken literally. Among these sources are Midrash Tanhuma and Yalkut ha-Makhiri (as well as the Arukh and a number of other texts which R. Leff does not mention, leaving the reader with the wrong impression).

He writes: “What Dr. Shapiro fails to mention is that those portions of the Tanchuma and Yalkut are not found in most early editions.” Let’s assume that this is correct (although to prove this one would need to actually examine the manuscripts, not simply refer to two apologetic comments found in the standard rabbinic commentary to Tanhuma). This would make perfect sense, as later copyists would be inclined to leave out that which they regarded as controversial or even heretical. What then does this prove?

Furthermore, the sources R. Leff mentions are only referring to Tanhuma. Neither of them mention anything about Yalkut ha-Makhiri. Of course, I am sure that he will also assert that this text is a forgery, or was written by a “mistaken student,” and will do the same with any other text that presents an alternate understanding of tikkun soferim.

6. The next section of his review concerns how to understand a passage in R. Nissim and the Midrash. In presenting this, I wrote that it was hard to see how the approach of these sources can be brought into line with Rambam’s understanding of revelation of the entire 5 books of Moses. Nothing that R. Leff writes has changed my mind in this respect. The reader should note, however, that before discussing this I stated that these views “seem to contradict Maimonides’ Principle” (emphasis added). I was well aware that the matter was not completely certain, for exactly the reasons that Rabbi Leff sets out.

7. R. Leff completely misunderstands my view about Principles of Faith and halakhah, so let me try to clear it up. I have said, and I repeat now, that no rishonim that I am aware of, and certainly not Rambam, believed that Principles of Faith can be decided in a halakhic fashion. Hatam Sofer says that they can. According to the Hatam Sofer, Principles of Faith can change in accordance with the halakhic decisions of the times; what used to be an obligatory belief can cease being so, and what is now an obligatory belief need not have been so in the past.

Yet nothing could be more at odds with the Rambam’s understanding. According to the Rambam, Principles of Faith are eternal truths. They define the essence of what Judaism was, is, and forever will be. If the majority of poskim determine that God has a body, this will not change the fact that it is still a basic principle of the Jewish faith to assert the opposite. For the Rambam, Principles of Faith don’t depend on the majority, be they right or wrong, for they are part of the essence of Torah. Principles of Faith have not, and indeed can never, change. Unlike the Hatam Sofer’s pan-halakhic approach, in the Rambam’s conception, one doesn’t need a halakhic decision for the Principles to be binding. As Menachem Kellner has put it, “Dogmas, it must be recalled, are beliefs taught as true by the Torah; is the truth taught by the Torah historically conditioned?”[2]

We can see that the rishonim held this view by how they dispute with the Rambam. When they want to show that one of his Principles is mistaken, they cite a talmudic passage to show that one of the tannaim or amoraim disagreed with him. Thus, to give an example which I only saw after my book was completed, R. Isaiah ben Elijah of Trani’s proof that belief in God’s incorporeality is not a Principle, denial of which is heresy, is that there were sages of the Talmud who held this belief![3]

אבל אם יחשוב אדם שהקדוש ברוך הוא בעל תמונה, לא הקפידה תורה בכך, וכמה היו מחכמי התלמוד הקדושים, שמהם תצא תורה לישראל, שלא נתנו לבם להתבונן בענין האלהות, אלא הבינו המקראות כפשוטם, ולפי תומם חשבו כי הקדוש ברוך הוא בעל גוף והתמונה, וחלילה שנקראו מינים לאשר נאמר עליהם לקדושים אשר בארץ המה

R. Isaiah doesn’t assume, or even raise as a possibility, that it used to be permitted to believe this, but now, since the halakhah has been decided, it is forbidden. On the contrary, he asserts, based on the fact that some talmudic sages believed in a physical God and they are not, Heaven forbid, to be regarded as heretics, that God’s incorporeality cannot be a Principle. This, to him, is the greatest proof that the Rambam is wrong in declaring that all who deny his third Principle are heretics. In other words, R. Isaiah also believes that for something to be a Principle of Faith, it has to be eternally true.

Thus, R. Leff is incorrect (with regard to the Rambam and other rishonim) when he writes that “faith and belief are mitzvot like all other mitzvot. Hence, the halakhic decision-making process applies to matters of faith in the way it does to other mitzvot.” In my book I acknowledge that this was the Hatam Sofer’s opinion, but it was not the Rambam’s view. In fact, the Rambam could not be more opposed to Rabbi Leff’s statement, as it means that his own Principles of Faith can be “voted out.” I can only wonder, after explaining my position, why Rabbi Leff sees this as “yet another example of Dr. Shapiro’s misunderstanding of Torah sources.”

Incidentally, R. Leff quotes from my book (p. 142 n. 15) that R. Abraham Isaac Kook also held the Hatam Sofer’s opinion. But in that note, I also call attention to other sources from R. Kook that have a different approach. Why does Rabbi Leff ignore them?

6. Finally, R. Leff claims that I “make a brazen attack on Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.” I am not sure why a valid criticism of R. Moshe qualifies as a brazen attack, but let’s move onto substance. (Anyone who has heard my lectures on R. Moshe at TorahInMotion.org, can have no doubt as to my great esteem for him.)

R. Moshe stated that the Rambam believed in the protective power of holy names and the names of angels, as used in amulets. R. Leff, in his criticism of me, states that in Hilkhot Mezuzah 5:4 “Rambam rules that God’s name ‘Shakai’ should be placed on the outside of the mezuzah, indicating his belief that the Shem does have protective powers.”

Yet the Rambam never says that the name of God “should be placed” there; rather, he permits people, in accordance with the widespread custom, to do so if they want to, as this action has no relevance to the mitzvah per se and does not violate any halakhic prohibition. But to say, as R. Leff does, that the Rambam believes that a name of God can protect you (and R. Moshe even says this about names of angels) is a complete distortion of Rambam’s philosophy. Relevant in this regard are R. Kafih’s short remarks in his commentary to Mezuzah 5:4, which could also be seen as a reply to R. Leff.

והדברים תמוהים מי זוטר תפקידה של המזוזה דתנטריה לבעל הבית בצאתו לרה”ר מלשגות בהרהורים, מי זוטר מה שמזכירה לאדם בצאתו למרחב את יחוד ה’ ואהבתו ולא יבוא לידי חטא אפילו במחשבה

In his commentary to Mezuzah 6:13 he writes:

ואין כוונת חז”ל לדעת רבנו שהמזוזה מהנה בעניני העולם הזה, אלא שבזהירות במזוזה ישווה ה’ לנגדו תמיד, ובכך תהיה השגחת ה’ עליו גדולה

Two hundred years ago, the great R. Wolf Boskowitz wrote:[4]

אלא ודאי מוכח מזה דרבינו ז”ל סובר דמצות מזוזה אין בו תועלת השמירה כלל בטבעה ובסגולתה, רק כי היא כמו אחת מכל מצוות ה’ אשר צוה אשר אין בהם תועלת לעניני עולם הזה רק לעשות רצון קונו יתברך אשר צוה על כך וקבלת פרס בעולם הבא, שתי אלה הם תכלית כל המצוות, ותכלית תכליתן היא קרבת אלקים כי זה חפצו יתברך וזה הוא גם כן תכלית מצות המזוזה ואפס זולתו

In his Commentary to Sotah 7:4, the Rambam speaks strongly against those who write amulets. These people put various holy names and names of angels in the amulets. In fact, this is the definition of a Jewish amulet. When R. Moshe speaks of holy names he is referring to the names of God that are mentioned in medieval works (such as כוזו במוכסז כוזו ). Yet according to the Rambam, this is all nonsense.

The Vilna Gaon recognized this.[5] Although he notes that the Talmud has stories of special powers associated with holy names, he also states that according to the Rambam .הכל הוא שקר R. Joseph Ergas wrote:[6]

הרמב”ם ז”ל, כיחש בזה, ולגלג הרבה על המאמין שיש כח בשמות לעשות שום פעולה

In my book, I assumed that R. Moshe’s position could be explained by the fact that he, like so many other poskim, did not immerse himself in philosophy. The fact that R. Leff could also assert this leaves me speechless. What is at issue is not the meaning of a citation of the Rambam from here or there, but a proper understanding of his entire philosophical worldview.

Sources:
[1] According to the scholarly convention, the word “sages” is only capitalized when referring to the Sages of the Talmud.
[2] See his review of my book (“Returning the Crown to its Ancient Glory: Marc Shapiro’s The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised”) in The Edah Journal 4:1 (2004): 6.
[3] Sanhedrei Gedolah le-Masekhet Sanhedrin (Jerusalem, 1972), volume 5, section 2, p. 118. On the previous page, in direct contradiction to Rambam, he writes:

מי שיטעה בכך ולא ירד לעמקו של דבר, ומבין המקראות כפשוטן וסבור שהקדוש ברוך הוא בעל תמונה, לא נקרא מין, שאם כן הוא הדבר, איך לא פרסמה תורה על דבר זה ולא גילו חכמי התלמוד להודיע דבר זה בגלוי, ולהזהיר נשים ועמי הארץ שלא יהוא מינים ויאבדו עולמן. הלא כמה איסורים קלים כגון איסור מוקצה וכיוצא בו, חיברו חכמים כמה הלכות והרבו כמה דקדוקין להעמיד כל דבר על מכונו, ועל דבר זה שכל האמונה תלויה בו ויש בו כרת בעולם הזה ובעולם הבא, איך לא הורו חכמים על דבר זה בגלוי. אלא ודאי לא הקפידו לכך, אלא יאמין אדם [את] הייחוד כפי שכלו, ואפילו הנשים כפי מיעוט שכלן . . . שלא צותה תורה להורות על אלה הדברים

[4] Seder Mishneh, ad loc. (p. 197).
[5] See Beur ha-Gra, Yoreh Deah 179:13.
[6] Shomer Emunim 1:13.



Marc B. Shapiro: Obituary for Prof. Mordechai Breuer zt”l

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Obituary: Professor Mordechai Breuer zt”l
By Marc B. Shapiro
Professsor Mordechai Breuer passed away on the twelfth of Sivan, 5767. It is a great loss for the world of Jewish scholarship as well as that of Orthodox Jewry. Breuer, born in Frankfurt in 1918, was the great-grandson of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, the grandson of R. Shlomo Zalman Breuer, who succeeded Hirsch as Rav of the Frankfurt separatist community, and the son of Dr. Isaac Breuer, the leading theoretician of the Agudah (although the latter’s philosophy would later diverge from what came to be known as the Agudah Daas Torah).

Breuer came to the world of academic Jewish studies rather late, earning his PhD in 1967 for a study of the Ashkenazic yeshiva in the late Middle Ages. (He had previously earned an MA at the Hebrew University, writing on David Gans.) At that time, he was principal of the Horeb school in Jerusalem. He later became professor of Jewish history at Bar Ilan. It is more than a little ironic that a great-grandson of Hirsch would devote himself academic Jewish studies.[1]

Returning to Prof. Breuer, it is hard to do justice to such a productive scholar in a short post. One can be sure that the next issue of Ha-Maayan, with which Breuer was associated since its founding, will have an important obituary.

As one who has worked a great deal in the field of German Orthodoxy, I can state that my work would be much the poorer if not for Breuer’s many writings. His classic Modernity Within Tradition is a marvelous study of the German Orthodox community and a model for how to write the history of American Orthodoxy. For those who read German, I recommend the original version, published by the Leo Baeck Institute. While containing the same text as the English, the German version has additional information in the footnotes.

For those interested in the full range of his scholarship (up until eight years ago) the volume Asif (Jerusalem, 1999) contains a number of his best articles, including his classic study of Hirsch’s Torah im Derekh Eretz principle. (This article was translated into English and published as a booklet, but has been out of print for many years.) The volume also contains a bibliography of his many writings.[2]

Of particular interest to readers of this blog is his final work, Oholei Torah, on the history of the yeshivot.[3] The only criticism I can give of this work is that it tries to do too much, and throws too much information at the reader. Yet it is an enormously helpful volume. I leave aside for now his contributions in a number of other areas of Jewish studies, as well as in general German Jewish history.

As I was in touch with him for many years, allow me to offer some personal comments, and excerpts from letters and e-mails I received, as I think they will be of interest to the readers.

My first contact with Breuer was actually not the most pleasant for me. I was a graduate student and had just published an article in Ha-Maayan (Tishrei, 5754), in which I included a strong attack on R. Esriel Hildesheimer’s Eisenstadt yeshiva by an anonymous nineteenth-century critic.[4] Breuer wrote to me expressing his unhappiness that I had chosen to publicize what, in his mind, were the ignorant ravings of a benighted yeshiva bachur. I thought then, and still think, that — to paraphrase someone else — while ignorant ravings remain ignorant ravings, the history they illuminate is scholarship. The editor, the late, lamented Yonah Emanuel, took my side in this dispute, and I was happy to have his support when confronted by the man who had become one of my idols in scholarship. (Emanuel actually censored my article, taking out a reference to an attack on the Ketav Sofer, an attack that was already in print and which I found helpful in illuminating the dispute taking place in Hungary. The Ketav Sofer was actually a great friend of Hildesheimer, and even invited him to come to Pressburg to serve with him in the rabbinate.)

Following this, our relationship improved, and I often turned to him with my questions. This became much easier when he too acquired e-mail access. Two months ago, in what was one of my last e-mails to him, I wrote:

I take this opportunity to encourage you to think about writing your autobiography. Your great father did so, and all of kelal Yisrael benefited from it. The same would apply to you.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. Already I feel a great loss at not having someone to turn to with all my questions. He was a veritable Urim ve-Tumim when it came to anything dealing with the lost, wonderful world of German Orthodoxy.

A couple of months ago, someone contacted me and wanted information about Hirsch’s visits to the opera. I looked around the internet a bit, and apparently it is “common knowledge” that Hirsch attended the opera. There have even been online discussions about what the halakhic justification of this was. Despite my extensive reading in German Orthodox literature, I had never heard that Hirsch went to the opera. Therefore, I was very skeptical of this piece of “common knowledge.” I was also aware that very often “common knowledge” turns out to be incorrect. But rather than offer my opinion, I did what I always did at times like this. I turned to Professor Breuer, the man who had read everything written by and about Hirsch, and who had painstakingly gone through every page of the German Orthodox newspapers and magazines of the nineteenth century. I also asked him about the general German Orthodox practice of going to the opera.

He replied:

Here and there you can find hints in German printed sermons disapproving going to the opera. When I went to the opera as a boy of 13-14 years my father did not express his dissatisfaction. I don’t know if Hirsch was an opera lover, but I know that he went to concerts when he was at a holiday resort.

All I can say is that if Breuer had never heard that Hirsch went to the opera, how is it that others seem to know this as a fact, and if asked for a source, will reply that it is “common knowledge”?

In another e-mail he wrote similarly:

I know of no Orthodox rabbi in Germany who regularly visited the opera. This applies also to Rav S.R. Hirsch. Very musical as he was, he sometimes visited a concert, especially while on holidays, but never, to the best of my knowledge, the opera.

I also asked Breuer, who attended the Hirschian school in Frankfurt, what the situation was with regard to boys covering their heads (we all know the teshuvah of R. David Zvi Hoffmann testifying as to how they did not do so in the nineteenth century). He replied:

None of the pupils covered their heads all day. I know there were nominally orthodox homes where heads were covered only for prayers and the like. One such case is documented not in Frankfurt, but in Munich. See Adolph Fraenkel’s biography of his father Sigmund Fraenkel, one of the leading members of Bavarian Orthodoxy.

He also pointed out to me that when Hirsch was Chief Rabbi of Moravia, he protested against a rule that Jewish children were forbidden to cover their heads during class. In other words, only in Germany, where that was the common practice, did children sit with uncovered heads. It was not a “shitah” of Hirsch that they do so.

I told Breuer that some people understand Hoffmann’s teshuvah as referring to him taking off his hat when he went into Hirsch’s office, but still having a kippah underneath. He replied that Hoffmann

is obviously dealing with cases which, when the hat was removed, left the head without any cover. Carrying a kippah underneath the hat was very unusual in Germany. If that had been the case, Hoffmann would certainly have mentioned it. By the way, I remember that the principal of the school had his head always covered with a kippah, as did other teachers who carried the title of rabbi.

In another e-mail he wrote:

I left the Hirsch school in Frankfurt in 1934. The rule of uncovered heads while studying “secular” subjects (a concept which should not have actually been used at a school adhering to the principle of Torah im Derech Eretz) was enforced without exception (it was not enforced upon teachers who served as rabbis in one of the local synagogues). However, during the last years of the school’s functioning, when the impact of the Nazi regime became increasingly palpable, pupils and teachers reacted by covering their heads in “secular” subjects as well.

I wrote to Breuer:

In Binyamin Shlomo Hamburger’s new biography of Rabbi Merzbach, pp. 17-18,[5] he says that German rabbis were obligated by law to receive a university degree. As a blanket statement this is false. Yet I believe that there were some times and places when the government did require this. Do you know any particulars about this, i.e., where and when this was required? Also, was Hirsch’s school co-educational (i.e., boys and girls). If so, were the classes mixed or only the school?

He replied:

There was certainly no German law requiring rabbis to have a university degree. In mattters of religion the many German states (“Laender”) were autonomous. At the beginning of emancipation there were states which passed administrative rules concerning the qualifications of rabbis. There were no such regulations anywhere in the Weimar period.There were no mixed classes in S.R. Hirsch’s school except in the very first years when enrol which is present [!] and also in the very last years when students and teachers were continually disappearing. However, throughout its existence the girls’ school (“Lyceum”) and the boys’ school were in separate wings under one roof and one principal and adminstration. Co-education was very rare in Germany before WWI.

I asked him about congregational singing in Germany. He replied:

There was some congregational singing in Orthodox synagogues, but usually the choir sang those portions, with the congregation singing or humming with the choir.

I asked him if his great father was a rabbi (since he is usually referred to as Dr.). He replied:

My father z.l. had two semichot morenu. In Germany no one was titled “Rabbi” unless he was an officiating rabbi, which my father was not. Here in Israel the title of rabbi, gaon, etc. has undergone a process of inflation and my father is regularly referred to as rabbi, which in his case is more justified than in many others.

On another occasion he wrote a bit more about the Hirschian school in Frankfurt and the relationship between his grandfather and Rabbi Marcus Horovitz:

I cannot vouch that my grandfather never accidentally found himself in the presence of Rabbi Horovitz. He certainly tried hard to avoid this. The social rift in Frankfurt between the two orthodox congregations was proverbial. It existed even between different branches of the same family. There were quite a few members of the IRG, even such that were not also members of the other community, who transgressed the tabu [against entering the Gemeinde synagogue] and their number probably increased after World War I. There was no Austritt indoctrination in the IRG school, probably out of consideration for the students whose parents were non-members. There were also members of the faculty who were less than enthusiastic Austritt fanatics.

After reading my dissertation he wrote to me:

Leaving aside your study a certain affinity occurred to me between Rav Weinberg and R. Jacob Emden.

To what you write about R. Weinberg’s responsum about co-education in the Yeshurun organization, I might add that in the late fifties I wrote to R. Weinberg asking him whether his p’sak was applicable to the Esra movement in Israel in which I was active. He never replied, but sent word by a messenger encouraging me to continue my educational activity without swerving to the right After his death I discovered that he had asked two of his students in Montreux to draft a response to my letter. The drafts are in my possession. They contradict each other. One of the two authors now teaches at a yeshiva in Bene Berak.

In his German volume on the history of German Orthodoxy, Breuer mentions that in R. Seligman Baer Bamberger’s synagogue there was no Frauengitter. I assumed that this meant that there was no mehitzah in the famed Wuerzberger Rav’s shul, and I wrote to him to inquire. He replied:

The “Frauengitter” mentioned in my note on p. 375 is the common German translation of mechitzah. It signifies some sort of lattice which was put on top of the parapet which surrounded the women’s gallery (or balcony). The parapet was low enough to allow the women to watch what was going on in the men’s hall downstairs. The lattice (“Gitter”) did not quite conceal the women from the men’s eyes; its significance was mainly symbolical. The lack of this lattice was one of the compromises made here and there with the Reform synagogues where women sat on the balcony, yet in full view of the men since there was no lattice.

This was very helpful to me since in the next issue of Milin Havivin I am publishing something relating to the great controversy in Frankfurt over who would succeed Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Breuer as rabbi of the Hirschian kehillah. Prof. Breuer’s uncle, Rabbi Raphael Breuer, was the rabbi of Aschaffenburg, and the family obviously wanted him to step into his father’s position. However, the members of the community refused to give him their support. One of the issues brought up against Rabbi Raphael was that his synagogue did not a proper mehitzah. I was unable to find any description of exactly what the problem was. Prof. Breuer could not recall either, although as a child he had been to the synagogue on a couple of occasions. He did, however, remind me that his uncle’s predecessor was R. Simcha Bamberger, a son of the Wuerzburger Rav. I therefore assume that the “problem” with the Aschaffenburg mehitzah was the lack of latticework on top of the partition.

After gaining so much from Professor Breuer, I was happy that I was able to give him a present — a copy of a manuscript letter from Hirsch. I didn’t even know what it said, as I found it impossible to read the old handwriting. He wrote to me as follows:

The letter is quite important. R. Hirsch was asked about the relative significance of the Sabbath in Jewish law. I guess the question arose through some discussion with German authorities. They compared the Sabbath to the Christian Sunday. R. Hirsch showed by citing biblical and rabbinical sources that in Jewish law and practice the Sabbath ranked much higher than any other day of rest or festival.

I had hoped that Breuer would be able to publish the letter himself, complete with an introduction. But alas, it was not meant to be. Beli neder, I shall do so.
Despite his age, Prof. Breuer was always prompt in answering all of my questions, and I will be forever grateful. I am also in his debt for another reason. No doubt realizing that he would not be able to write about everything in his files, he offered to give me unpublished material relating to the controversy over the talmudic commentaries of R. Joseph Zvi Duenner, chief rabbi of Amsterdam. Needless to say, I was thrilled, and I thank my friend, Aharon Wexler, who went to his house, picked up the material, and mailed it to me. I hope to be able to publish it before too long.

For those who don’t know, Duenner’s approach anticipated that of Halivni in some respects, primarily in the assumption that the answers given by the amoraim, while binding for halakhic purposes, are not necessarily the best explanation of the Mishnah. Duenner also pointed to a couple of passages in the Talmud — both of which are in the current daf yomi tractate — which he believed are interpolations from the heretics, intended to mock the rabbis. He claimed that the rabbis would never have discussed the case of one who falls off a roof and while landing on a woman has sex with her (a highly improbable scenario, to put it mildly), or that a holy sage would come into a new town and announce that he was looking for a wife for the night (Yevamot 37b, 54a). According to Duenner, these texts are the product of those intending to mock the rabbis, and were unfortunately taken by later scholars as authentic.

Breuer’s grandfather, Rabbi S. Z. Breuer, was one of the leading opponents of Duenner, going so far as to threaten to place him into herem if he didn’t stop publishing his hiddushim, and put the ones already in print into genizah. Duenner refused, and the threat of a herem was never carried out. His hiddushim were later reprinted by Mossad ha-Rav Kook, and some unpublished material was also included in this new edition.

Dr. Marc B. Shapiro holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Scranton. He is the author of Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966 (London: Littman Library, 1999) previous posts at the Seforim blog include “Uncensored Books” and an obituary for Rabbi Yosef Buxbaum zt”l, founder and publisher of Machon Yerushalayim.

Notes:
[1] It is even more ironic that the bête noire of Hirsch and S. Z. Breuer, R. Mordechai Horovitz (the Matteh Levi), has a descendant, R. Baruch Horovitz, who runs the fairly haredi Dvar Yerushalayim Yeshiva. In fact, when Rabbi Horovitz reprinted the Matteh Levi in 1979, he received a haskamah from R. Yitzhak Yaakov Weiss, Av Beit Din of the Edah Haredit and a man far removed from the cultured and tolerant Orthodoxy of the Matteh Levi. (Of course, what some would call “tolerant Orthodoxy,” Hirsch and S.Z. Breuer regarded as fraudelent Orthodoxy.)

[2] See Mordechai Breuer, The “Torah-im-derekh-eretz” of Samson Raphael Hirsch (Jerusalem, New York, Feldheim, 1970)
[3] See Mordechai Breuer, Oholei Torah: The Yeshiva, Its Structure and History (Merkaz Zalman Shazar 2003)
[4] See my “A Letter of Criticism Directed Against the Yeshivah of Eisenstadt,” Ha-Maayan 34 (Tishrei, 5754 [1993]), 15-25 (in Hebrew).
[5] Ha-Rav Yonah Merzbach: Pirkei Hayyim, Darko U-Fe’alav (Bnei Brak, 2004)


Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dunner (1913-2007), the final surviving musmakh of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary

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Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dunner (1913-2007):
The Final Surviving Musmakh of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary
by Menachem Butler

HaRav Yosef Tzvi Dunner, who recently passed away in London at the age of 94, was the scion of a prominent European rabbinical family and father and grandfather of noted British Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Abba Dunner and Rabbi Pini Dunner, respectively. In a recent email correspondence with Professor Marc B. Shapiro, author of the landmark biographical study of Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg[1] and several articles related to the leaders of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary,[2] he informed me that Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dunner was the final surviving musmakh of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary (Orthodox).

In the April 12, 2007 edition of Hamodia: The Newspaper of Torah Jewry, there is a very nice obituary for Rabbi Dunner, (see PDF); however, it is interesting to note how they neglected to make mention of Rabbi Dunner’s studies at Berlin Rabbinical Seminary as they write:

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

Professor Shapiro further noted that

This appears to be the first time that the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary has been referred to as the Beis Medrash of R. Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (with all that this implies). Next time they don’t want to mention that someone received semichah at RIETS, they can say he studied in the Beis Medrash of (supply the name).

For additional biographical information on Rabbi Dunner zt”l, see here and here.

Sources:
[1] Marc B. Shapiro, Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884-1966 (London: Littman Library, 1999); For a brief discussion of the founding of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin in 1873, see ibid., page 76. See also Michael Meyer, “The Establishment of Rabbinical Schools in Germany – A comparative Analysis” [Hebrew], in Immanuel Etkes, ed., Yeshivot and Battei Midrash (The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History and The Ben-Zion Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 2006), pp. 199-207.
[2] For an assortment of Shapiro’s article/reviews on leaders of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin, see “Letters of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg [Hebrew],” Ha-Ma’ayan 32 (Tammuz, 5752 [1992]): 6-20; Review of “David Ellenson, Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy,” Tradition 26 (Spring, 1992): 104-107; “The Autobiography of Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer [Hebrew],” Alei Sefer 17 (1993): 149-150; “Letters of Rabbi David Zevi Hoffmann, Rabbi Moses Feinstein, and Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg [Hebrew],” Ha-Ma’ayan 34 (Tevet, 5754 [1994]): 9-20; “Rabbi David Zevi Hoffmann on Torah and Wissenschaft,” Torah u-Madda Journal 6 (1995-1996): 129-137; “Scholars and Friends: Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and Professor Samuel Atlas,” Torah u-Madda Journal 7 (1997): 105-121; “Responsa and Letters of Rabbi David Zevi Hoffmann [Hebrew],” Ha-Ma’ayan 37 (Tammuz, 5757 [1997]): 1-14; “On Targum and Tradition: J. J. Weinberg, Paul Kahle and Exodus 4:22,” Henoch 19 (1997): 215-232; “Rabbi David Tsevi Hoffmann on Orthodox Involvement with the Hebrew University,” Tradition 33 (Spring, 1999): 88-93; “Understanding the Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg,” Algemeiner Journal (June 6, 2000); “Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer’s Program of Torah u-Madda,” Torah u-Madda Journal 9 (2000): 76-86; “R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg on the Limits of Halakhic Development,” Edah Journal 2:2 (2002; online at www.edah.org); “Thirteen Additional Letters by Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg [Hebrew],” Ha-Ma’ayan 45 (Tevet, 5765 [2005]): 1-17.