Avodah Mailing List

Volume 03 : Number 053

Sunday, May 16 1999

• R. Meiselman, the Rav and Me
• R. Soloveitchik and Holocaust observance
• Rav as Liberal
• Re: The Need To Institute Commemorations/ the Rav
• Re: An Analysis of Darchei HaLimud
• Chasam Sofer's anti-Reform motto: "Chodosh Ossur Min haTorah"
• Waiting for Mashi'ah
• The Sho'a and looking at Others
• Understanding/Appreciating Gedolim
• Re: The Need To Institute Commemorations
• Re: Understanding/Appreciating Gedolim; the Rav
• Re: R. Soloveitchik and Holocaust observance
• Re: The Need To Institute Commemorations
• Re: Rav as Liberal
• Re: Avodah V3 #51 - Evaluating the Shoah

Moshe Feldman writes:

>See the upcoming edition of Tradition where both Eli Clark (who
>showed me his letter) and Rabbi Blau write letters disagreeing with
>R. Meiselman's characterizations of the Rav.  Eli told me that he
>takes issue with R. Meiselman's suggestion

Not.

R. Moshe Meisleman, for those who do not know, is a nephew of R.
Soloveitchik, a serious talmid hakham and the author of a recent article
purporting to describe the Rav's halakhic approach to issues of public
policy.  By way of authority, R. Meisleman invokes his personal contact
with the Rav as a talmid and family member.

Much of what R. Meiselman writes is true and accords with the picture of
the Rav in other sources.  However, I do not believe his article will be
the last word on the Rav.  In particular, I wrote a letter to Tradition
pointing out that, on two issues, R. Meiselman's account of the Rav's
views seems to contradict what the Rav himself said and wrote.  Those
two issues are the religious value of medinat Yisrael and the primacy of
tefillah be-tzibbur.  (Copies of the letter provided on request.)

Kol tuv and Shabbat shalom,

Eli Clark

It has been suggested that the Rav would have reacted differently to
observances of Yom haShoa nowadays than he did in the '50s.

Why? One possibility, which I would take seriously, is that he would not
advocate defying what people did on their own, once such practice
became established. (The willingness to accept *some* (underline
some) popular initiatives which one wouldn't be enthusiastic about to
begin with appears in his unpublished teshuva about Yom haAtzmaut.)

As late as 1977, however, the Rav vigorously espoused, on the record,
combining observance of the Shoah with traditional taaniyot. The question
came up in his meeting with Premier Begin, and (if I recall correctly) he
alluded to the conversation in an interview in Maariv (Oct or Nov of
1977).

In general, when it comes to assessing what the Rav really held, and how
reliably it is reported, one can do worse than to consult what he actually
put in writing. In deciding which accounts to treat with suspicion, the
suppression or patent misinterpretation of written documents might be a
reliable indication of unreliability in areas where such evidence is
absent.

RZW:
>>maybe we just have to say that the Rav was not the "liberal
Posek" that people in the Modern Orthodox world might like to see.<<

I agree with R. Zvi.  When I went to Ner Yisroel, a classmate went to MTA,  He 
once said besheim the Rav, "They attribute to me  kulos but not my chumros"  IOW
the view of the Rav as a "liberal" was a resul of selectively point out is more 
kuladik shitos while ignoring his more chumradik ones.  (BTW, I think some 
ignored some of R. Moshe's chumros, too.)

The Rav was "modern" wrt to Israel, secualr education, etc.  When it came to 
minhag and halocho he was "mainstream yeshivishe velt".

A lot of liberal YU hashkofo had more to do with Dr. Belkin that with the Rav.  
I think the yeshivishe world confused the two.

Rich Wolpoe

--- "Clark, Eli" <clarke@HUGHESHUBBARD.COM> wrote:
> But
> the
> reason the observant community has not taken any of the steps
> outlined
> by Mr. Feldman is not because of the inaction of the Gedolim.  It
> is
> because our community -- as an organic body -- has not sought such
> an
> outlet for its mourning.  

Most Centrist Orthodox synagogues (including Rabbi Feivel Wagner's
and Rabbi Grunblatt in Forest Hills, where I grew up) have Yom
Hashoah commemorations.

<snip>
> Why?
> 
> This is a much harder question, and I have only a few tentative
> thoughts.  One is the effect of modernity.  
<snip>
> As a result, even
> staunch believers have found that a profound silence is a more
> eloquent
> response than an equivocal or inadequate statement.
> 
It's very hard to categorize silence.  Some, I'm sure, have
"profound" silence.  Others just think about the baseball games they
couldn't attend during Sefirah.  Orthodox Judaism believes (as stated
in Chovot Halevavot) that "acharei ha'peulot nimshachot
ha'levavot"--we do mitzvot and consequently start thinking about
their meaning.  I find that a lot of people, especially those who do
not attend Yom haShoah commemorations (and, again, I am not
advocating those commemorations) simply do not think at all about the
Holocaust.

> Another issue is heroism.  The martyrs of 1096 were glorified as
> knights
> of faith -- mi-nesharim kallu u-me-arayot gaveru.  Yet, the
> kedoshim of
> the Shoah are not perceived as such.  This may be because of the
> humiliating methods of the Nazis.  It may be because the Jewish
> race was
> targeted, as opposed to the Jewish religion.  Or we may simply have
> lost, over time, our fealty to martyrdom as a religious value.
> 
> In any case, I think it is churlish, highly disprespectful and
> wrongheaded  to complain that the Gedolim are somehow at fault for
> failing to institute a formalized commemoration of the Shoah.

I never said anything of the sort.  You know me better than that,
Eli.  All I said is that there was good reason for the Gedolim not
have instituted something in the immediate aftermath of the
Holocaust, and that 50 years later, the situation has changed.  (As
far as I can recall, Eli, in the many hours that we discussed these
sorts of matters, I never gave the Gedolim less respect than you!)

> 
> >Had the Rav been 40 years old today,
> >I have the feeling he would be more proactive with regard to this
> >issue.
> 
> This statement is simply incomprehensible to me.  No person knows
> what
> he would be like had he been born 40 or 50 years later.  How then
> one
> can presume to know what another person would have been like in
> such
> case?

I did nothing of the sort.  I said that I "have the feeling that,"
which is a far cry than "presume to know."

>  And how can one say such a thing about a person you did not
> know?
> 
Eli, considering that you and I are the same age, attended many of
the same institutions (even live in the same city and practice the
same area of the law!), I don't think anything that I've said differs
substantially from things you've said to me in the past.  You have
made your statements based upon your exposure to many of the Rav's
talmidim and I made my statements based upon a similar exposure (with
the exception that I am much closer to Rav Hershel Schachter than you
are; you are closer to Rav Lichtenstein than I am).  No one, not even
his talmidim, truly understood every facet of the Rav.  Everyone
developed a certain aspect of the Rav and tended to understand the
Rav in that light.  At the time of the Rav's petirah, I attended
every hesped I could.  I found amazing how different each hesped was
from the other.  I sat in Dr. Chaim Soloveitchik's apartment for over
2 hours listening to the various stories.  It is only by taking a
composite of all that I heard (and remember, I have been part of the
YU community since the day I was born; my father, Dr. Louis H.
Feldman, has been on the YU faculty since 1955 and since I was a
child he has told me about his interaction with the Rav) that I have
BEGUN to understand what the Rav was about.

Kol tuv and Shabbat Shalom,
Moshe
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On Fri, 14 May 1999, Micha Berger wrote:

> While the article does much to explain the d'rachim, it glosses over a very
> important point -- that they are different d'rachim. Not only are the answers
> different, so are the questions. What people seek to analyze, and what people
> see as the goal of learning, differ between the d'rachim.
> 

Looking forward to your revisions!

YGB

Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer
Cong. Bais Tefila, 3555 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL, 60659
ygb@aishdas.org, http://www.aishdas.org/baistefila

Rich Wolpoe wrote:

<<<
Why do we let the secular monopolize the issue of the Holocaust?  Is
it because some have used it as a "proof" for the non-existence of
Hashem?  Because so many frum people perished?  Because our gedolim
told people to stay in Europe?  The Holocaust is the greatest 
tragedy
to befall the Jewish people since the destruction of the Bet
haMikdash, and the frum community has not come to grips with it.<<

I attirube this to the Chasam Sofer's anti-Reform motto: "Chodosh Ossur Min 
haTorah."
>>>

For years I used to cringe whenever I heard that particular saying of our master, the Light of all the Children of the Exile invoked as a normative statement of halakha and hashkafah.  As I got older and just a tiny bit wiser, I realized that the motto was not necessarily meant to be taken literally, because it is an ironic play on the mahloket Rishonim on whether, after the destruction of the Temple, the prohibition of eating newly harvested grain before the second day of Passover is Biblically or Rabbinically mandated.  [Query to all our b'keim in the t'shuvos etc of the Hatam Sofer, does he anywhere actually discuss the contemporary status of the issur hadash?]  It is also interesting to note that there is even a certain ambiguity concerning the Hatam Sofer's attitude toward Moses Mendelsohn since the instruction in his will goes something like "u-b'sifrei RMM al tishlihu yad."  It is not clear to me whether he meant to instruct his descendants not to read those works, or n!
!
!
ot to burn them (or perhaps both).  I can't believe that he was not aware of the ambiguity in that formulation.  

David Glasner
dglasner@ftc.gov
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               !
!
!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Micha Berger writes:

>To my mind, it really boils down to the meaning of "lachakos". It seems to
>consistantly be the word used for what we're supposed to do. The Rambam
>borrows the pasuk "im tismahmeha, chakei lo" in his description of the 12th
>ikkar. The "ani ma'amin" version turns that reference into "vi'af al pi
>sheyismahmeha, im kol zeh achakeh lo bichol yom sheyavo". The grammar of
>the quote is NOT stressed in any of the melodies for these words that I can
>think of. The "bichol yom" goes on "achakeh lo" (I wait daily), not on
>"sheyavo" (which would be "sheyavo bichol yom" and would mean that moshiach
>would come daily, not "any day now"). In Yigdal, it's "michakei keitz", an
>expression we find elsewhere in tephillah as well.

Methodologically, I think we should focus on Rambam's own formulation,
rather than the simplistic and philosophically crude popularizations of
Rambam's words.  The translation below is D. Blumenthal's:

The twelfth foundation is the days of the Messiah; to wit, the belief
in, and the assertion of, the truth of his coming.  He shall not be a
long time "and if he tarries, wait for him" (Hab. 2:3).  No time for his
coming may be set nor may the verses of Scripture be interpreted to
reveal the time of his coming, as our sages have said, "May the wits of
those who calculate the date of the end be addled" (Sanhedrin 99a-b).
One must believe in him by praising him, loving him and praying for his
coming according to that which has been revealed by all the prophets
from Moses to Malachi.  he who doubts, or treats his command lightly,
says that the Torah, which promised his coming in the [parashah] of
Balaam and Atem Nitzavim, is lying.

I think it is clear where Rambam stood on this issue and clearer still
where we should stand.

Kol tuv and Shabbat shalom,

Eli Clark

> From: Moshe Feldman <moshe_feldman@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Shoah and the Rav
<snip>
> I cannot cite Rav Lichtenstein on the issue of the Holocaust without
> having heard him speak on the subject.  OTOH, I consider Rav
> Lichtenstein to be my rebbe muvhak (since he and Rav Rosensweig--who
> was my mesader kiddushin--are the biggest influences on my derech
> ha'limud) and think that it is obvious to any talmid of both Rav
> Schachter and Rav Lichtenstein that the former is much more
> right-wing than the latter.  In fact, in my posting I deliberately
> listed my rebbeim who were talmidim of the Rav to demonstrate just
> that point.  Also, anybody (and I spoke to a number of "Talmidim
> Muvhakim" of the Rav) who heard the hespedim of the Rav from his
> various talmidim (and I heard as many as I could) was struck at the
> differences between Rav Schachter and most of the others.
===> The response is an apparent misunderstanding of my point.  I do not
feel that it is relevant to cite that R. Schachter is more conservative
that other Talmidei HaRav.  the point is to try to understand the RAV's
philosophy.  In that context, it is "unfair" to imply that R. Schachter
will not accurately convey the Rav's Hashkofo SIMPLY BECAUSE he (R.
Schachter) is [personally] conservative.  If the poster wishes to cite
"evidence" from another "Talmid Muvhak" (and THAT is why I SEPCIFICALLY
suggested R. Lichtenstein SHLITA) that perhaps R. Schachter was not
entirely accurate, that is one matter -- however, to imply that R.
Schachter is not "accurately" describing the Rav's Hashkafa SIMPLY BECAUSE
of R. Schachter's personal POV is wrong and improper.






> 
> If you are saying that I am not entitled to my opinion unless it is
> first validated by an acknowledged posek, that is your right (and you
> must be of the Right).  However, Rav Rosensweig (in my opinion the
> clearest mamshich of the Rav in YU today) personally told me that
> someone at my level of learning has the right to formulate his own
> halachic positions (not paskening for others, just myself).  See his
> article in one of the first two volumes of Torah U'Maddah Journal
> (dealing with personal creativity and halacha).  I do not see any
> difference between the issue of deciding concrete halachic issues and
> making the more fuzzy judgements associated with what the Rav would
> have said had he been alive.

===> There is a VAST difference between making a personal decision FOR
ONE's SELF based upon analysis and makign a determination for SOMEONE
ELSE.  In particular, a person of the Rav's stature and greatness should
(imho) NOT be "categorized" by someone who has not had extensive and
personal contact (and, even in that case, we should be VERY cautious due
to the tremendous complexity of the Rav ZT"L).  I did NOT state that the
poster needed "an acknowledged posek" to validate his opinion.  I *did*
state that he "needs" someone who KNEW the RAV VERY VERY WELL to validate
such an opinion -- otherwise, it seems to be an arrogant exercise of
trying to put words into someone else's mouth -- ESPECIALLY when there was
evidence to the contrary.

--Zvi





> 
> Good Shabbos.
> Moshe

REC
>>The attachment of simplistic labels to individuals, even when 
accurate, is rarely a fruitful endeavor.  In the case of the Rav, 
however, it is not merely pointless, but utterly distorting.  The Rav 
was a complex individual who combined within himself many seemingly 
conflicting and contradictory impulses. <<

I think REC is onto something very big <pun> here.

My Postulations:
1) the ONLY ones who understand a Godol are other Gedolim
2) Gedolim, as a class, have a lot more in common with each other, than with 
their followers.

I will illustrate this with a poor, but useful moshol

Ever see the end of a football game?

The 2 opposing quarterbacks fraternize, so do the coaches.  How can bitter 
enemies be so friendly?

The fact is the enmity is at primarily at the fan level. The 2 QB's are never on
the field of battle at the same time. Execpt for their unifroms, they have 
virtually everything else in common. (Coaches are similar.)

From what little info I have, R. Aaron Kotler and the Rav got along fine in 
private.  Do many of you find the same cordiality amongst thier respective  
followers?

The fact is that R. Aaron, the Lubavicher rebbe, the Rav, R. Moshe, R. Hutner 
etc. all had more in common with each other than with their myriads of devotees.
The differences in shitos and hashkofos notwithstanding, they did not seem 
threatened by differences; they were probably all very secure/confidnet in their
knowledge and realized that issues are indeed complex (as REC noted!).

Instead of saying my gadol is greater than yours, it would be bigger <smile> of 
us perhaps to be MORE like the entire class of gedolim; and to appreicate the 
complexities and the depth of insight that they had.

Rich Wolpoe

clarke@HUGHESHUBBARD.COM writes:
> Another issue is heroism.  The martyrs of 1096 were glorified as knights
> of faith -- mi-nesharim kallu u-me-arayot gaveru.  Yet, the kedoshim of
> the Shoah are not perceived as such.  This may be because of the
> humiliating methods of the Nazis.  It may be because the Jewish race was
> targeted, as opposed to the Jewish religion.  Or we may simply have
> lost, over time, our fealty to martyrdom

I think (and I mention this because IMO there is a serious hashkafic
issue here) it is that so many of the Jews who were murdered did not
have hashkafos and levels of mitzvah observance that we can idealize.
We therefor have the choice of either teaching that secular, Reform,
maskilim, assimilated, etc. still died al kiddush HaShem, or else only
commemorating the memory of the frum Yidden that perished.  Both of
these are problematic (and I have struggled to find the appropriate way
to view this) so we sidestep the issue by downplaying it.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
<daniel@cfd.ame.arizona.edu>
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

--- richard_wolpoe@ibi.com wrote:
> 1) the ONLY ones who understand a Godol are other Gedolim
> 2) Gedolim, as a class, have a lot more in common with each other,
> than with 
> their followers.

<snip>
> Instead of saying my gadol is greater than yours, it would be
> bigger <smile> of 
> us perhaps to be MORE like the entire class of gedolim; and to
> appreicate the 
> complexities and the depth of insight that they had.
> 
Absolutely!  And I assume that that is precisely the purpose of the
list (among other purposes).  <Smiles> and <puns> aside, mere mortals
who are not gedolim have two options (maybe more, but I'm a Brisker):
(1) they can say the gedolim are so great that we can never fathom
them, so we will repeat only what they say but not speculate what
they would have said, or (2) the gedolim are our role models and we
must try to be m'dameh (ma hu af ata) to them as much as we can; to
the extent that we attempt to see the world through their eyes, we
try to figure out what they would have done if they had been in our
position.  

Although I never heard shiurim from the Rav, I consider him
ultimately to be my rebbe as almost all my rebbeim were his talmidim.
 I try to understand the world circa 1999 as he might have, realizing
that world in 1950 was different.

One can ask how I can attempt to derive inspiration from the Rav, if
I was never a talmid.  But the same question can be asked in Israel
with respect to devotees of Rav Kook or in Brisk with respect to the
Rambam.  I completely agree with Rav Lichtenstein's article
(excerpted from by Eli Clark), where he disputes R. Saul Berman's
contention that his Edah views stem directly from the Rav; RL
correctly points out that all SB can say is that the Rav inspired SB
to think as he did (in fact, the Rav made statements clearly contrary
to SB's positions).  Ultimately, other than the Rav himself, all of
us may be guilty to one extent or another of superimposing our views
upon the Rav.  If we take view #2 above, we must take that risk.  The
best way to guard against the risk is consult a wide circle of the
Rav's talmidim in order to get a feel for what the Rav would have
held.

Kol tuv,
Moshe
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--- Shalom Carmy <carmy@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
> It has been suggested that the Rav would have reacted differently
> to
> observances of Yom haShoa nowadays than he did in the '50s.

I'm not sure you're referring to what I wrote.  I, in fact, do not
support Yom HaShoah.

<snip>
> As late as 1977, however, the Rav vigorously espoused, on the
> record,
> combining observance of the Shoah with traditional taaniyot. The
> question
> came up in his meeting with Premier Begin, and (if I recall
> correctly) he
> alluded to the conversation in an interview in Maariv (Oct or Nov
> of
> 1977).

My father is fond of quoting Mordechai Kaplan's statement:
"Philosophy is the immaculate conception of thought not sired by
experience."  Certainly, it was not my purpose to speculate as to
what the Rav ACTUALLY believed.  I leave that to people like R.
Shalom Carmy (who incidentally is the source of much of my
information about the Rav--from his course in intellectual Jewish
history of the 20th century).  My intention is to suggest that 
a "Rav-like" individual growing up say between 1955 and the present,
might have a different response to the Holocaust than did the Rav in
1977 (or for that matter, than the Rav would have had had he been
alive today).  

As to the notion that people would have had different views had they
grown up in different times & places, I'll leave that to another
time.  (One controversy at a time, please.)

> 
> In general, when it comes to assessing what the Rav really held,
> and how
> reliably it is reported, one can do worse than to consult what he
> actually
> put in writing. In deciding which accounts to treat with suspicion,
> the
> suppression or patent misinterpretation of written documents might
> be a
> reliable indication of unreliability in areas where such evidence
> is
> absent.
> 

Kol tuv,
Moshe
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--- Daniel Israel <daniel@pluto.ame.arizona.edu> wrote:
> 
> clarke@HUGHESHUBBARD.COM writes:
> > Another issue is heroism.  The martyrs of 1096 were glorified as
> knights
> > of faith -- mi-nesharim kallu u-me-arayot gaveru.  Yet, the
> kedoshim of
> > the Shoah are not perceived as such.  This may be because of the
> > humiliating methods of the Nazis.  It may be because the Jewish
> race was
> > targeted, as opposed to the Jewish religion.  Or we may simply
> have
> > lost, over time, our fealty to martyrdom
> 
> I think (and I mention this because IMO there is a serious
> hashkafic
> issue here) it is that so many of the Jews who were murdered did
> not
> have hashkafos and levels of mitzvah observance that we can
> idealize.
> We therefor have the choice of either teaching that secular,
> Reform,
> maskilim, assimilated, etc. still died al kiddush HaShem, or else
> only
> commemorating the memory of the frum Yidden that perished.  Both of
> these are problematic (and I have struggled to find the appropriate
> way
> to view this) so we sidestep the issue by downplaying it.
> 

Isn't what R. Schachter wrote in N'fash HaRav relevant here-- the Rav
felt that the Israeli flag (a secular symbol) should be respected
because so many Jews died defending it and it has the din of arkisa
d'misana.  (I haven't looked at this passage for some time, so I may
be quoting it somewhat inaccurately.)  According to that view, I
would think that even non-frum Jews--who were murdered because they
were Jews--should be considered to have died al kiddush haShem.

Kol tuv,
Moshe
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I too agree that the Rav's talmidim tend to stress only parts of his complete
teachings. I think that's not a flaw in them, but a product of his uniqueness
and complexity. (I'd make a similar statement about R' Kook's followers, as
well.)

Broadly speeking, few people are capable of fully appreciating R' YB Soloveichik
qua being a Soloveichik and a product of Brisk and also follow the student of
philosophy. So, you find talmidim who, because of personal kishrinos and netios,
end up connecting to the Brisker lomdus, but don't really repeat the Rav's
machshava statements as often, and visa versa.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger (973) 916-0287          MMG"H for 14-May-99: Shishi, Bamidbar
micha@aishdas.org                                         A"H O"Ch 318:50-56
http://www.aishdas.org                                    Eruvin 80a
For a mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah its light.         Haftorah

>
>Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 17:21:00 -0400
>From: "Clark, Eli" <clarke@HUGHESHUBBARD.COM>
>Subject: Evaluating the Shoah
>
..
..
..
>Sefardic Jewry?  The Sefardim were not threatened at all by the
>Holocaust.  And I detect a strain of ethnocentrism among the Jews who
>feel the Holocaust is unique because of its scale.
>

Historical Correction - not only were Sephardim threatened by the Shoah,
many were its victims.  To wit:

a)  The Greek Jewish community, mostly Sephardi and concentrated in
Salonicki and numbering something around 100,000 was destroyed almost in
its entirety by the Nazis, ym"sh.

b)  The Jewish communities in the Balkan states, especially Yugoslavia had
very large Sephardi components and they were destroyed.

c)  Much of the Dutch community was Sephardi.

d)  As Rommell marched through North Africa, many communities either
escaped or were destroyed by the SS attachments.  And finally the entire
Yishuv, which had a very large Sephardi component, in Brittish Mandatory
Palestine was living in fear of Rommel and were convinced (until Rommel's
defeat in El Allemain) that their end was near.

hg


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