Chazal Made Them Evil

For those of you who take issue with a supposed "fault-finding school" in Biblical interpretation, here's one for the other side - a "merit-finding" post for people whom Chazal uniformly portray as evil. So I won't disagree with Chazal, but I don't understand them, either.

So what is it with Chazal and various non-chosen people in the Torah? Esav, Bilaam – both are painted by the text in very different terms than they are painted by Chazal. The text makes them out to be neutral or even mostly good, but Chazal turn them into the embodiments of true evil.

Esav, for instance comes across as a simple guy, very straightforward, not a bearer of grudges, not vengeful. Yaakov treats him as if he were these things, because Yaakov’s whole being is infused with deception and guile, so he is convinced that everyone around him must be the same (and Lavan’s example, and his mother’s, do tend to support that belief). But we are also given the text, which tells a very different story.

What do we know of Esav?

1) Born first, hairy and red.

2) Lives in the moment – sells his birthright for a snack.

3) Lives a life of Kibud Ov – honors his father, does what his father wants, and his father loves him for it.

4) Is a “mighty hunter” like his ancestor Nimrod.

5) On doing his father’s bidding in return for a blessing, has that blessing stolen by deceitful Yaakov and Rivkah; contemplates revenge.

6) Follows his father’s advice in choosing a wife

7) The next time we see him, Yaakov treats him as if he bears grudges, because we all know Yaakov himself would.

8) Esav himself is “Hey, Jack, long time no see! Is this your family? Glad to see you’re doing so well! I’ve done well too!” And that’s it. None of the revenge that Yaakov dreaded for 22 years. No “Hey, forget about that blessing business – you can see I’ve been blessed too.” The whole thing is gone. Esav just lives in the moment.

9) Esav and Yaakov bury Yitzchak together. Again, honoring his father.

But Chazal treat Esav like the root of all evil. Esav becomes a stand-in for Rome, which really was the source of all evil in the times of Chazal, pagan, democratic, conquering, destroying the Temple and Jerusalem, reducing Beitar and the rest of the North, and by the time of the Amoraim, adopting that religion that started as a Jewish heresy, that has at its core, Judenhass for the Christ-killers. This is the ultimate bearing of a grudge – against the Jews for allegedly killing their god, we are their victims for all time.

Rome, Christian Rome, is so much not like Esav it’s not funny, but for some reason, Chazal use Edom and Esav as a stand-in for Rome in their literature. Is it only that they’re a closely-related sect that no longer exists, so they’re free to reuse the name Edom? But then they cast all their hatred for Rome back onto Esav the character. Why not use Moav, another nation with common ancestry that had by then ceased to exist, and which had actively opposed Israel during the Exodus? Edom just said “go away, go around”, while Moav hired Bilaam to curse Israel, and actually fought them.

Bilaam, too, seems to get a bum rap.

He repeatedly warns Balak “I can only do what God wants.” Balak hires him anyway. When he does what God wants, he’s scolded and punished for it. Here’s a non-Jew with real mesiras nefesh for God, but what do we get in the Talmud? He’s the anti-Moshe, he’s the great Rasha each of whose blessings reflects a curse he intended to hurl at the Jews, his curses mostly came true except for his alleged curse of Israel’s batei midrash and synagogues. See Sanhedrin 105a.

OK, the donkey incident somehow displays God’s displeasure with Bilaam, but it’s hard to understand – God told him to go with the men, he did what God told him to, then God gets angry and tries to stop him. Why is God portrayed as fickle and moody? At any rate, Bilaam learns his lesson, and from then on only does what God wants. God has no more criticism of him.

Whatever God’s motivations, Bilaam is portrayed textually as the great prophet of God, who doesn’t even argue with God as much as Moshe does. But Chazal bring him out as this great embodiment of evil.

Sleeping like a Baby

My brother Mitch and his lovely wife Jocelyn had a baby girl, their first, on Monday, 23 June, or 20 Sivan. 6 lbs 8 oz, everyone healthy. They not being particularly religious, and not wanting to get involved in some synagogue they don't go to (and thus don't know a lot of people in), we organized a Simhat Bat for them last Wednesday, at which

Winifred Celia Baker got her Hebrew name, צביה בת מלך ברוך.

It was held in my parents' apartment, right there in the living room where my brother & I had our brisses. Mom was all excited to clear off the desk on which Mitch and I had had the surgery, despite my reminding her that there's no surgery here, it's not a bris-parallel, etc.

But she's very excited, as this is her first genetic grandchild. Well, you see, my sister is from Dad's first marriage, and she has two kids (one just out of the army, one just out of Tel Aviv University), and Jocelyn came into the relationship with a daughter, Zoe. So it's my parents' fourth grandchild, but the first that is genetically descended from both of them [rather than 0 or 1 of them].

I put together a service using the resources linked from JOFA's web site, particularly the narrative of Joseph Kaplan's semachot bat, and the prayers and suggestions on R' Seth Farber's Itim.org site. You can find the service here, in PDF.

Winifred is from an aunt, Winifred L. Wisan, an academic, who studied Galileo. She had great battles with the eminence grise of Galileo studies, Stillman Drake, in the footnotes of her papers. Took us for long hikes over the local mountains in Oneonta. Inspired both of us in our academic endeavors - I minored in history of science because of the interest she helped kindle. She passed away 17 years ago last Pesach.

Celia is our mother's mother, Celia Cohen Wisan, much loved, very American (born on the Lower East Side, grew up in Bed Stuy and Crown Heights, attended Adelphi College when it was in Brooklyn), married Grandpa on Lag Ba'Omer 1926, long life raising Mom & Uncle Dick, and volunteering at Vacation Camp for the Blind. Endlessly busy with her roses and rock garden, when they had the country house. Great hostess for yom tov, went sometimes to Spanish/Portuguese, as it was around the corner and her sister was a member. Very close with her sisters, life of the party, amateur painter and sculptor. Full of life, until a few years before her passing in 1989.

Tzivia as a name does double duty - it's Grandma Wisan's name above, but Grandpa was also Tzvi Hirsh, so Tzivia encompasses both grandparents, husband and wife.

May she grow into a life filled with joy, learning, love, and good deeds.

Reading like the Netziv

A fascinating video of a lecture by R' Dr. Gil Perl. Best viewed as streaming video, the download is 339 MB. Hat tip: Areivim List.

Summary and one critique below:

R’ Dr. Gil Perl:

What was the Rosh Yeshiva Reading?

Netziv R’ Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, the last Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin – went as a child to Volozhin, spent entire life (1830-1892) there as student and RY. His commentaries exhibit broad knowledge. How was it gained?

A story in Mekor Boruch (by the Torah Temimah, parts of which eventually became “My Uncle the Netziv”). Joseph Steinberg, maskil, grammarian, asks how did the Netziv learn grammar? He responds with a parable about merchants – one gets belts for free with expensive fabric, one has to pay for belts alone – grammar comes with Torah learning, vs grammar being learned with difficulty on its own.

Is the story true? Probably not, not as written.

There is an early commentary on Sifri by the Netziv, never completed, published only 50 years after his death, where he cites sources for things. Now we can know what he read.

1. Kuzari and Otzar Nechmad – O”N was by R’ Israel Zamosc, an early Maskil.
2. Grammar of Eshkol haKofer – a 12^th-century Karaite. Now we know how the Netziv learned grammar, the same as the Maskil – by learning grammatical works.
3. Intro to Chumash BES”V and T”A – T”A is Targum Onkelos usually, but BESV if you slightly redraw the Beit as a Dalet, becomes Dessau, and Targum Ashkenaz – the Mendelssohn Chumash. And the issue being talked about here is in fact what Mendelssohn talks about in the intro. The descendents probably euphemized it to BESV; Perl found ms. in possession of family, but family only allowed him to read page by page, because they didn’t want him to see questionable stuff. He had to ask for something a bit earlier, so as to hit the right page without tipping them off, and in fact it was DESV, underlined in pink (probably indicating a change to be made in printing).
4. Elijah Levita (Bachur) Mesoret haMesoret – suggests that vowels and trup were in fact a later addition.
5. Azariah de Rosse, Me’or Einayim. Mishmosh. Jewish history non-traditional. Refers to aggadic literature, narratives, as not necessarily intended to be taken literally, but as teaching of Truths based on their then understanding of the world. This got him into cherem, works banned by the Mechaber. Maharal spends pages denouncing de Rossi. Netziv tells us to read the absolute worst areas in the book (by that standard). E.g.,
1. Netziv talks about different types of exegesis, midrash. He cites parenthetically, (See M”E IV[II]:9) à where de Rossi suggests that the midrash uses verses as a support or mnemonic for story, not story as interpretation of verse. We don’t have to take everything literally.
2. same section in De Rossi – aggadot mere conjecture on the part of their inventor – this idea was regarded as heretical, if the stories are not based in Mesorah. This is what Netziv wanted us to see.
3. another midrash: “let us go up to conquer Israel” means that Israel must be higher than all other lands. Netziv comments – this seems to be against geography, so see de Rossi. De Rossi says don’t take it literally.
4. another midrash: “Kartignin place”. Netziv: Carthage, that Josephus has made famous, also see de Rossi, who says it’s in Africa. How did de Rossi know? Because “Jerome, who was also wise, translates this ref in Ezekiel as Carthage”.
5. Text of cherem against Slifkin compares Slifkin’s writings to Me’or Einayim, which was banished by Maharal: “Cursed be the day that such things were brought to our vision; How could one who can’t understand the words of our sages at all, talk about the sages as if they were his own friends, criticizing them like his own colleagues?” – still controversial today.

Next question – what brought him to read such heretical things? Turns out he wasn’t alone.

1. The Maggid of Slonim, RYL Edel, “Afikei Yehuda”, cites Meor Einayim.
2. R’ Avraham ben haGra cites Meor Einayim, as a great collection of Jewish and non-Jewish sources.
3. RaDa”L – David Luria, of Obichov, Lita. Comments on Midrash Rabbah, referring to scientific literature, describing change in salinity of ocean at the Pillars of Hercules between Atlantic and Mediterranean.
4. Kenaf Renanim, by Hanoch Zundel Luria, Maggid of Novardok: cites [German] Letters of Mendelssohn [reads out Moshe ben Maimon – maybe he really meant Rambam?] – read his German works on philosophy.
5. Yoel Dovber haKohen in Volozhin: Commentary on Yalkut Shimoni. Less-known, that he translated the French political work “Adventures of Telemachus” and the “Fables of Aesop.”
6. Yitzchak Eliyahu Landau, Maggid of Vilna: “Even if we were all wise and learned in the law” – understood as “Even if we were all scientists, masters of biology and astronomy”

So what happened? Why did the Netziv not cite them in his later Torah commentary? Times change. Reform reached Eastern Europe by the middle of the 19^th century. Haskalah and Reform and Mendelssohn become equated, so the RY of Volozhin is not going to tell a student to read De Rossi.

Kenaf Renanim: Later printings remove references to [Moshe ben Maimon].

What does this mean for today? I’ll leave that to you.

Q&A:

• Q. Where did they have access to this literature? A. Coincides with boom in E. European boom in Hebrew printing. Lots of stuff available. Glut in traditional texts, so new printers want to go find other texts that hadn’t been printed in centuries. Get copies right off the press.
• Q Did the Netziv know that these texts were put into cherem? A. Can’t say for sure, but cites Maharal elsewhere, albeit not a big Maharal fan, so probably knew. Certainly he would have known how people reacted to Mendelssohn.
• Q. Maharal and others also talk about exaggerations in midrashim? A. How dare you go beyond what was already identified as non-literal?
• Q. Self-censorship? A. ha-Amek Davar has a bit of it, also the fact that he never published the commentary on Sifri. Different to self-censor than for others to censor.
• Q. Hatam Sofer denounced Mendelssohn, A. Pressburg and Lita were very different. Pressburg had no reform movement, but Hatam Sofer comes from Germany so he feels he must oppose Reform.
• Q. Lita was more liberal towards Haskalah? A. Developed differently in E. Europe, because no Reform movement ever developed out of it.
• Q. Did it flourish in Volozhin? A. No, just some were reading it. Maybe it was flourishing more in Vilna.
• Q. Dating of these things? A. He started reading them in his late twenties. The commentary was repeatedly edited and changed throughout his life, but these marginalia were only in the earliest stratum, age 25-30.
• Q. What do I think of the situation today with all the current controversies? A. As my advisor said, it’s great to be a historian because people are dead and can’t talk back, so I will not speculate.
• Q. Have the relatives of the Netziv ever read my thesis? A. No, but my relations with them soured, and I can’t go back to look at the mss.
• Q. Wasn’t the Torah Temimah his brother-in-law? A. Some of the family connections: Netziv’s first wife was the daughter of R’ Itzele of Volozhin, he was 14, she 12. Born 1816, became RY in 1853. Torah Temimah’s mother was Netziv’s sister. Netziv remarries a sister of the Torah Temimah, his own niece, so Netziv was TT’s uncle and brother-in-law. From first marriage came R’ Chaim Berlin, and from 2^nd marriage comes R’ Meir Bar-Ilan. Two different people going in two very different directions.

(Applause).

My one issue with this is his citation of Kenaf Renanim, as noted above. He read out in Hebrew, “Moshe ben Maimon”. But Mendelssohn was “Moshe ben Menachem Mendel”, sometimes abbreviated as “Rambeman” to distinguish him from Rambam. What did Kenaf Renanim say? Rambam? “Moshe ben Maimon”? Rambeman? If the issue were Rambam, that puts an entirely different spin on the relationship to philosophy. It wouldn’t be the philosophy of the Enlightenment, but the metaphysical system based in Aristotle which had also lost favor, more significantly foreshadowing today’s Slifkin debate – were these ideas OK for the medievals but not for us?

Thinking Like the Rambam

Dixie Yid recently posted an article purporting to demonstrate that the Rambam agrees with the Baal Shem Tov on the nature of Hashgacha Pratit (individual providence). I’ve looked over his sources, and it seems to me impossible to read the Rambam to say what he wants.

Rambam is not like other Jewish thinkers. His ideas are not the standard Kabbalah-based ones that have dominated Jewish theology since. Moshe Idel and Menachem Kellner would argue that, in fact, Zoharic Kabbalah developed as a response to Rambam’s philosophic theology, but that’s another post (or three). Be that as it may, to read Rambam accurately, you have to read him on his own terms, not as a source of quotes to prove someone else’s point.

If “academics” are the only ones to read Rambam on his own terms, rather than through the filter of Kabbalistic Judaism, then so be it. Our LOR, who is also an academic philosopher, has been teaching Hilchot Teshuvah and Hilchot Melachim in his weekly shiur for the past couple of years, and it is almost like pulling teeth to get most of us to take off our Kabbalah/East-European folk religion glasses, and read the Rambam on his own terms. I won’t say that my understanding is based on his, since we didn’t cover these chapters, but I do try to separate the Rambam from our cultural filters.

To the substance of my critique:

I submit that Reb Yid has taken the Rambam out of context, repeatedly, selectively quoting opinions that the Rambam himself rejects, if read in context.

From Hilchot Teshuvah 6:2 (Yemenite paragraph numbering): "When one person or the people of a nation sin, the sinner sins of his own will, and as I have said, it is appropriate for him to be punished. And Hashem knows how to punish [him]."

Reb Yid takes this to mean that God’s Providence lies upon that individual or that nation directly. What the passage says, however, is that while individuals or nations can sin, God knows how they will be punished. This is talking about reward and punishment, not about Providence. We must distinguish between three things: Providence, Knowledge, and Consequences.

· Providence is necessarily first – it is God’s will that something should happen, and the application of His Will to make it happen.

· Knowledge is, or is about, the happening itself. As Rambam says, God is the Knower, the Knowledge and the Known – the purest infinite Intellect. He knows that something will happen, He knows that it is happening, He is the Happening itself. But Knowledge is not Direction. For instance, my parents know, that absent changes in circumstances beyond our control, that we will be in Parsippany this weekend. (changes could include illness, God forbid, or my sister-in-law giving birth, IY”H, etc. – God is not limited by these circumstances, He Knows what will happen). But that doesn’t mean that my parents are exerting their Will to ensure that I will be in Parsippany. Knowledge, even foreknowledge, is not Direction, is not Causation.

· Consequences are what happens as a result of one’s actions. For our purposes, Reward and Punishment.

We should note that in his 13 Foundational Principles, the Rambam states as axioms of the Torah system, that God Knows all (10^th Principle) and that God dispenses reward and punishment as appropriate (11^th Principle). The Rambam does not regard it as a necessary belief that God directs every action in the world.

So all this statement says is an affirmation of the 10^th and 11^th Principles – that God knows what individuals or nations do in this world, and punishes or rewards them appropriately. It says nothing about God’s direction of action in this world.

This would clearly fall outside the scope of the superficial meaning of what he said in Moreh Nevuchim.

As shown above, not at all. It says nothing to contradict what the Rambam said in the Guide. Knowledge of sin, and Consequences of sin, are not Divine Direction to sin.

Reb Yid then gives the example of God imposing His Will upon Paroh, in impeding Paroh’s ability to do teshuvah, as an example of Rambam admitting to individual Divine Providence upon a non-Jew. This is in fact exactly the opposite of what the Rambam is demonstrating. Rambam says: "Since [Par'oh] sinned on his own first and harmed the Jewish people... Hashem judged him by withholding Teshuva from him." It was solely as a Consequence of Paroh’s individual Action that Hashem imposed a punishment on him, to prevent him from repenting. It was solely because Paroh willed to sin, that Hashem then imposed a greater punishment on him. But make no mistake – for Rambam, Paroh, not God, initiated the sequence of events.

Actually, Rambam himself openly states that Hashgacha Pratis (Divine Providence) applies to every detail of creation! In laying out the contradiction between Divine knowledge and the existance of free will, the Rambam says "You should know that everything is done according to [Hashem's] will, and nevertheless our actions are in our hands." (Rambam Hilchos Teshuva 5:7) The Rambam identifies the source of the apparant Knowledge/Choice contradiction in terms of nothing happening except through His will one one hand, and our free choice on the other hand.

No, that’s only one side of the paradox, that’s not his final word on how things are. One way to resolve it is to say that it is His Will that we have free will. He created us with free will, and thus anything we do is by His Will, but not directly. It’s like a teacher, who says “you can write your term paper on any subject you choose within the subject matter of the class.” The teacher didn’t will that Zev should write about the origins of the steam engine, but Zev’s choice to write about the origins of the steam engine is a consequence of, and consonant with, the teacher’s will.

Further, Reb Yid says, the doctrine of individual guidance of every blade of grass follows from the Rambam’s continuation of that paragraph. In fact, that’s not the case. He states the paradox, but does not solve it.

Reb Yid notes that there are several solutions to the apparent stira between the Rambam and himself, or between the Rambam and the Baal Shem Tov. One such solution, that he does not note, is to read the Rambam on his own terms, rather than as a source of quotes to support your predetermined conclusion.

For the proposed solutions:

1) I don’t have a Mei haShiloach to see what the Izbitzer says in context, so I can’t speak to it.

2) The late Lubavitcher Rebbe leaves it a paradox – of course the Besht is true, but we can’t dismiss the Rambam, so we live with the paradox. Paradox is central to Chabad theology (see Rachel Elior’s The Paradoxical Ascent to the Divine), so this works for him.

3) Reb Yid’s rebbe simply denies the Rambam’s own position, and replaces it with the Besht’s, then adding a third type of Providence to the equation.

The Rambam, in the Guide III:17-18, talks about Divine Providence. He explicitly rejects the “every blade of grass has its angel” theory in III:17. Now, there is a whole academic literature on “secrets of the Guide”, where the Rambam says one thing but secretly means another, in accord with his introduction that states that there are hidden things in the Guide. But where the same idea is backed up by the Mishneh Torah? It seems pretty clear that Rambam rejects total providence in the Guide as “absurdity”, says nothing about Providence in the 13 Foundations, and nowhere in the MT states the theory of total providence as a necessity, only as a question that the non-enlightened would ask.

In essence, Reb Yid begs the question. He presumes his answer, that “everyone believes in the Beshtian view of Hashgacha Pratit”, and then has to k’neitch the Rambam, by pulling quotes out of context, by reading them through a filter of “of course Kabbalah is true”, to force the Rambam to agree. In this, he joins a long tradition of Kabbalists who, not wanting to leave the Rambam out in the cold as the greatest mind of the Rishonim, finds ways to pretend the Rambam accepted Kabbalah. In fact, though, the Rambam had his own intellectual mysticism, totally unrelated to the neo-Platonic sephirotic emanationism of the [then proto-]Kabbalah. His concept of Divine Providence flows from that, while the Besht’s flows from Kabbalistic antecedents.

R Hirsch and the Zohar

R Samson b. Raphael Hirsch is not the first name that springs to mind when the subject of Kabbalah comes up. In fact, in his Nineteen Letters #18, he bemoans his lack of initiation into the Kabbalistic mysteries, and remarks upon the danger of Kabbalah, far from the possibility of its informing Mitzvah observance with soul, rather changing mitzvah observance into a "magical mechanism".

However, his entire approach of symbolism, is in essence the same route as kabbalah. His path makes mitzvah observance symbolize ethical and thelogical truths, rather than theosophic and cosmogonic truths, as things which are "shaveh lechol nefesh" - equally approachable by all. Not everyone has a mind to deal with Kabbalah, but every Jew must develop a Torah ethic and approach to God.

Further, it is known that R Hirsch used the Zohar in preparing his monumental Horeb, the philosophy of mitzvot and their symbolism. R' Joseph Breuer wrote of finding a manuscript with notes on the Zohar used for Horeb.

More recent scholarship apparently has started to look into unstated kabbalistic influences on RSRH's writings.

And now R' Hirsch's copy of the Zohar is for sale. It was in his family since his grandfather's day, in the late 18th century (printed Amsterdam 1715, by Proops). It came down to R' Joseph Breuer, then his descendants, and is now for some reason for sale at the upcoming Kestenbaum auction (#40, on 26 June 2008). It was given to RSRH by his father, R' Raphael Hirsch, as a wedding present. The catalogue description doesn't mention any marginal notes, though.

Sources:
Kestenbaum Catalogue #40, p. 41
Dayan Grunfeld's introduction to Hirsch' Horeb, pp. cxx-cxxix.

Clue by four

So I was leining Ruth the other day in shul, and the same question occurred to me that does every year, and every year I forget the various good answers that people offer - so maybe they don't impress me so much.

I asked D___ my lovely wife, who has also learned it in depth, and she came up with a good answer.

The problem is, what was so great about Boaz and Ruth in the barn?

I mean, they get to Bethlehem, and Ruth goes out to glean barley in the fields. Naomi already thinks Boaz would be a good guy for her, in both the field-redemption and husband categories, but doesn't say anything, although she does let him know through the rumor-mill.

Ruth goes out gathering, and meets Boaz, and they hit it off right away.

Naomi tells her "OK, now you have to force him to marry you - sneak into the barn under cover of darkness, and fall asleep on his legs [family jewels? I don't know if that was a biblical usage]."

She does so, Boaz wakes up to find this nice girl in his lap, then gives her instructions how things will be arranged so they can get married. Which they do.

So why does Ruth have to force him to redeem the field and marry her, if they hit it off anyway? Is it a class thing? She puts him in a deliberately embarrassing situation - yichud, isolation together for more than 20 minutes, forcing him to marry her, although he takes care to make sure she isn't seen leaving (Wake up little Ruthie!)

D__'s answer: because some guys, even if they like you, you have to hit them over the head with a two-by-four to get them to do something about it. As it was with us. And even more extremely with her Uncle Charlie and Aunt Rose - they had been dating, but he hadn't done anything towards marriage, so she arranged the wedding and sent him an invitation. And out of that family came several children, including two rabbis, most of whom had good marriages themselves.

So Ruth/Naomi had to hit Boaz over the head with a clue-by-four to convince him to actually marry Ruth and redeem the field and increase in both happiness and wealth.

Chaz Celebrates Goldfarb

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
Rabbi Goldfarb: Cantor/Composer

What do the melodies for "V'neemar" (Alenu), "Sholom Aleichem" (the version that just about everyone sings) and the Blessings for the Chanukah Candles have in common? They were all composed by Rabbi-Cantor Israel Goldfarb (1879-1956), who was the rabbi of the Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn from 1905-1956. In 1920 he was appointed to the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary as an instructor in liturgical Music, a post he held until 1942. Rabbi Goldfarb was the first officially designated teacher of synagogue music of any institution in New York. His classes were the predecessors to the Cantorial Institute founded by the seminary in 1952.

Together with his brother Samuel, many popular melodies for Zemirot and the synagogue were composed and widely disseminated. Rabbi Goldfarb's greatest claim to fame, of course, is his "Sholom Aleichem" (c. 1917), which is still sung in almost every home in America today. I know that this will come as a surprise to all of you who were certain that your European great-grandfather always sang this melody!

Daven well and sing along!

Note:

The Goldfarbs are my great-aunt's family. Samuel and Israel had a brother Joseph, who was my great-uncle, who I think died before I was born. Joseph was a cantor in Cong. Kol Israel in Prospect Heights, which still exists but has a more Lubavitch influence under R' Ari Kirschenbaum; Samuel went out West, where he had a major influence on Reform liturgical music (aside from composing "I Have a Little Dreidl"); and Israel, as noted above, taught generations of Conservative cantors.

Israel was also a member of the last rabbinic class at the Seminary under more-or-less Orthodox auspices, in 1902, along with classmate (and fellow JTS faculty member) Mordechai Kaplan. They went rather different ways, religiously, even if part of the same institutions.

I went to my cousin's bar-mitzvah recently, and Jo-Mack seems to have inherited some of his great-grandfather Joseph's liturgical ability - he leined and led part of the service quite comfortably and ably.

Jonathan[book]

Just History or Living History

Haven't written in a while, fiendishly busy with Pesach and the shul dinner, but this story about a woman whose experience goes agaisnt the common opinion of historians about goings-on at Auschwitz, caught my wife's eye, and mine.

My comment thereto as well, about a family member's experience in a death camp (as part of the US Army) that goes against the common wisdom, and the wishes of deniers that it not have happened.

campaign elitism flap

So which is more elitist:

an urban activist candidate, Harvard educated, noting that rural folks are embittered because of the loss of jobs, and take comfort in the comfortable, which is fed to them by the government.

or

a 20-year First Lady and high-powered corporate lawyer candidate, Yale educated, telling rural folks that they don't know how to feel - they should feel offended at the first candidate's remarks?

Most of the responses from rural Pennsylvania and other depressed-small-town areas to Obama's remark seem to be "yes, that's an accurate assessment, we are pretty bitter over loss of jobs and government's inaction other than to feed us comfort food for guns and religion." But the other candidates, desperate to find something, anything to use against the first candidate, jump on this, and the Yale lawyer and the scion of the Navy dynasty tell the rural people that they don't know enough how they feel, that they should feel offended so as to serve their ends.

Who are the real elitists?

R' Wieder Factlet II

The mishnah is wrong.

Or at least, the Vilna Shas’ version has problems.

I’ve occasionally tried to learn Ketuvot on my own, and tend to get bogged down by the middle of the first page which already has me branching out into this that and the other, even unto Shev Shmatetha (Shmaitza?) to explain Sfeik Sfeika.

I found some notes from R’ Wieder’s fall 2002 shiur on Ketuvot at SwapNotes.com (the successor to YUMesorah), which cleared up something that had always bugged me about that mishnah. The first phrase: “A besulah is married up to the fourth day.” But the subsequent discussion in the Gemara treats it as “is married ON the fourth day”, so that he can run the next morning to Beis Din if he has a claim that she wasn’t a virgin, and wants the marriage annulled for false advertising.

R’ Wieder notes that ALL the Mishnah manuscripts have bayom revi’i, ON the fourth day. Only Tosefta has layom, TO the fourth day. I checked both Yerushalmis I have at home (facsimiles, of course) the Venice and Vilna editions, and both had bayom, contra the reading in the Vilna Bavli.

Bavli (Vilna)

Yerushalmi (Venice)

Although in all honesty, the Venice editio princeps of the Bavli also has layom.

Still, those woodcut initial words are lovely, aren’t they? Makes the mass-produced ornament type for the Vilna shas look cheesy. That sort of ornament is often done with movable lead type just as the words are.

Evidently, Bomberg just recycled the same blocks cut for the Bavli (1521-23) into his Yerushalmi edition of 1523.

An Acceptable Man

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
Shliach Tsibbur Democracy

Did you know that the “democratic process” rules in the selection of a Shliach Tsibbur?

The one who is chosen to lead the service- anytime, at any minyan in the Shul - must be chosen with the approval of all (certainly most) of the members of that minyan. The Shulchan Aruch says clearly that the Chazzan (appointed or voluntary) must be “M’rutseh L’kohol” - he must be “desired by the congregation.”

No one is allowed to conduct any service without the approval of the congregation. This is the strength of the title “Shliach Tsibbur”- “messenger of the congregation.” He must represent his minyan to the degree that they all approve of his serving as their representative before the almighty.

Daven well and sing along!

Rabbi Wieder Factlet I

I’ve been listening to the shiurim of R’ Jeremy Wieder on Brochos, this year’s tractate being studied at RIETS of Yeshiva University. R’ Weider has a somewhat academic approach, which appeals to me – in addition to the traditional lerning of the text through rishonim and acharonim, R’ Wieder encourages his students to do what the Rishonim and Amoraim themselves did – check parallel texts, in Tosefta, Yerushalmi and halachic midrashim, to see how alternate versions of the sugya at hand shed light on the various issues being discussed.

Along the way, he brings up interesting factlets reflecting the academic approach to Talmud, which may not have much to do with the text at hand. Everybody goes off on occasional tangents, no?

Today’s factlet (less connotation of “spurious” than “factoid”) concerns the opening of the Shev Shmateta, a popular book in yeshivos, exploring the origin and meaning of various rabbinic decision principles, such as safek (doubt), rov (majority), chazakah (presumption), etc. Written in the early 19^th century by the author of the Ketzos haChoshen, its attempts to quantify rabbinic principles of doubt-resolution in terms of probability, decades before mathematicians formalized it, are fascinating. Printed alone, it’s one slim volume, but with a good commentary, such as the “Shmateta Mevueret”, it can take up multiple volumes … but I digress.

Apparently, because the Shev Shmateta didn’t have all the texts that we have today, he brings a lot of complicated solutions to the following question:

Rambam postulates that from the Torah’s own perspective, without later Rabbinic accretions, all situations where the nature of the incident, or the ruling to apply to the incident, is in doubt, should be treated leniently, even where the law in question is from the Torah. We have a later idea, a rabbinic principle, that situations of doubt in a Torah law are treated stringency, but that rule is itself a Rabbinic stringency. Treated on its own terms, the bare Torah principle for dealing with situations of doubt, is to rule leniently. Safek deoraita lekula – a doubt in a Torah law is ruled leniently.

With that principle as a groundrule, then, the case of a mamzer (child of incestuous or extramarital birth) whose status is in doubt (perhaps he was from the husband, perhaps from the paramour, we don’t know), should be permitted to marry a regular Jew who is not hirself a mamzer. The Torah law is that a mamzer is not allowed to “enter the congregation of Israel”, marry a regular Jew; in a case of doubtful mamzer status, then, the above principle should tell us that s/he is permitted to marry anyone. Why, then, does the Rambam feel that it’s necessary to prove this case, that a doubtful mamzer may marry anyone, from a verse? If you have a clear rule, you shouldn’t need a verse to prove a specific case.

The Shev Shmateta notes this contradiction, and brings a lot of attempted Rabbinic solutions to solve this conundrum. The most convincing ones, apparently, maintain that Rambam really believed that a doubt in a Torah situation should be ruled stringently, like the usual principle dictates, and that the texts made a mistake in claiming that he believed that from the Torah’s own perspective, doubtful cases should be ruled leniently.

However, the Shev Shmateta didn’t have a lost teshuvah of the Rambam, that clears up the whole conundrum. In a manuscript of the Rashba, discovered after the composition of Shev Shmateta, the Rashba quotes a lost responsum of the Rambam that says that the Rambam’s source for his principle that “from the Torah, safek d’oraita lekula” IS this verse, the one that tells us that a doubtful mamzer is permitted to marry by Torah law. The Rambam really held that the verse proved that from the Torah’s own perspective, doubtful cases should be ruled leniently, because this case is ruled leniently (although in reality, since we follow the Rabbinic principle that safek d’oraita lechumra, a doubt in Torah law is ruled stringently, we don’t actually permit the mamzer to marry).

So the whole conundrum was caused because we didn’t know that the Rambam linked the doubtful mamzer case causally to the principle.

Let’s review:

Rabbinic principle: safek d’oraita lechumra

Rambam:

. For the bare Torah: safek d’oraita lekula.

. Mamzer case: needs a verse to prove the Torah is lekula

Conundrum:

. if the Rambam had the principle, why use the verse?

Solution, from lost Teshuvah:

. The verse proves the leniency in the Mamzer case, which implies that the bare-Torah rule generally is lenient in cases of doubt.

Fascinating, no? I hope you could follow all that.

Reb Nachman Weighs In on Lipa

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov on Secular Music

For those of us who are perplexed by the recent rabbinical ban on concerts of Jewish Music here and in Israel, we can attain a small insight into the general attitude of the "frum" world to music that sounds too much like contemporary popular music, through this excerpt from "Likutei Maharan," the words of this great Chassidic leader who lived in Bratzlav, Ukraine, from 1772-1810: "A holy melody gives strength to the forces of holiness. But the music of the "sitra achra," the "other side," damages these forces and lengthens the exile. It makes people stumble and traps them like birds in a snare. Be very careful never to listen to this kind of music at all. The musicians and singers who produce it have no religious intentions whatsoever. On the contrary, they only want to make money or become famous. Listening to this kind of music can seriously weaken your devotion to G-d. But the melodies played by a truly religious, G-d-fearing musician can be very inspiring. They can strengthen your devotion immensely."

DAVEN WELL AND SING ALONG!

Spirituality - Pfui!

This week’s parsha, Shmini, opens with the dedication of the Kohanim. At the end of the ceremony, two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav & Avihu, in an excess of religious zeal, caught up in the excitement of the moment, brought two shovels-full of burning incense as an offering, and were struck dead by God for the favor.

Why? Seems pretty harsh. And the Torah doesn’t even explain exactly what went wrong until three parshiyot later, in Acharei Mot, where it gives the proper procedure for entering the Holy of Holies – the Yom Kippur Divine Service. If one wants to enter the Holy of Holies, a kohen has to do the whole Yom Kippur service, with 10 washings and immersions and changes of clothing, goats, bulls, confessions, Azazel, the whole shebang. It’s so involved that I doubt anyone ever did it other than on Yom Kippur when it was ordained as proper.

So why wait so long? We noted that the end of the parsha was about kashrut, permitted and forbidden animals, prefaced with instructions how the priests are to eat different types of sacrifices, characterized over and over again as “choq”, arbitrary rules. The whole set of laws dealing with the Temple are basically chuqim, arbitrary. We aren’t expected to understand them, we probably can’t understand their rationales (even if in many cases we can ascribe hermeneutical meanings after-the fact). And in fact, every law in the Torah has an aspect of choq – we are to follow them, even if we don’t personally understand them. God is laying the ground rules for dealing with law and life – you gotta do what you gotta do (to quote Toranga Leela).

The following parshiyot cover a wide range of tumah-taharah issues: childbirth, metzorah (leprosy), metzorah of the house (mildew), zav zavah and niddah (discharges from the organs of generation) –all of which are not just bodily functions that occur in or out of normal time, but also convey tumah, a condition of unfitness to enter the Temple, and the prescribed arbitrary rituals for purification from same, and restoration of taharah, fitness ot enter the Templ.

Only after two parshiyot of all this do we get the third parsha, of Acharei Mot (After the death of these saints, the sons of Aaron). Here we are given the rules for entering the Holy of Holies, id est, the entire Yom Kippur Avodah. Only afterward do we get more rules about sanctity, such as how to shecht (slaughter), which sexual relations are acceptable or not, and finally in the next parsha, Kedoshim, what R’ Ed Feld calls “the Holiness Code”, a set of ethical rules to govern our interpersonal relations, to set us apart socially and ethically from the other nations that do not have the Halacha, the Divine Law. Why the interlude? Why only then can we be given the rules about personal probity?

What was the flaw in Nadav and Avihu’s actions? Lawlessness. They acted out of pure personal will, with no aspect of Divine will. They were swept up by the spirit of the moment, and in an expression of their personal spirituality, they did for themselves what they saw Papa and Uncle Moshe doing, figuring that this was the Right Way to Go. But they had missed a crucial detail: everything Moshe and Aaron did in the dedication of the Kohanim was By The Express Command Of God. Why was this personal expression of spirituality then forbidden, if it was just a copy of what Moshe and Aaron were doing? Why was it answered with death?

We have to reenact the learning process of Bnei Yisrael to get to the answer. Look at the ensuing material. Permitted and forbidden animals (described as tahor and tamei, parallel to fitness for Temple service). Purity and impurity for Temple service. Distinctions between the usable and the unusable. Judaism is all about distinctions. They had to be educated about distinctions in food. They had to be educated about distinctions in fitness and unfitness of their own bodies. Then fitness or unfitness based on outside factors, in the home. Basic bodily processes related to life (childbirth) and potential life and its loss (menstruation and zav/zavah). Only then, once they understood the breadth of distinctions necessary to comprehend the arbitrary distinctions in the Temple, could Bnei Yisrael understand that Religion and Law Walk Hand in Hand. That extensive procedures, based on emphasizing distinctions between sin and righteousness, life and death, exaltation and commonality, were necessary to approach God, the ultimate distinction, between the supernal Unity of God and the multiplicity of the physical universe.

Spirituality, the inchoate yearning for Something Higher, can be a good thing, if it leads to Torah and Mitzvos, which in turn bring us closer to God. But unfettered Spirituality, the inchoate yearning made flesh in totally self-willed acts of trying to get close to God, ultimately denies God and elevates the personal will to a pseudo-Divinity. That is why Nadav and Avihu lost their lives. In their self-willed drive to approach God, they lost sight of the most important thing – that only God can tell us how to approach Him. Without the two-way relationship, we are running into a brick wall, and can lose our way and our lives. It is a cautionary tale, that while all people may approach God, they may only do so in the way He prescribes, through Torah and Mitzvot. Any other path elevates our will above His Will, and misses the mark.

This talk was delivered by my beautiful brilliant wife Debbie Baker to her parsha group here in Flatbush. We worked it out together last night, and she gave it over (this is my understanding; I expect her presentation was somewhat different) this afternoon.

Purim links

The Jewish Week, often good

A Kol Korei against learning Na"ch (hat tip, Tzipiyah.com)

The Jewish Press

Nonsense is nonsense, but the history of nonsense is scholarship (hat tip Saul Lieberman z"l)

Shushan Purim Missive chez Chaz

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin

SHUSHAN PURIM MISSIVE

Today I am writing about the freedom that all of those who lead the daily and Shabbat services really have - here and throughout the Western World. There is truly no necessity to worry about utilizing proper Nusach Hatefillah. After all, if one looks around - according to the dictum of "Minhag Yisroel K'din Hu"- since no one else is doing it, I declare that it is fully legal to disregard the "so-called rules" of davening, regardless of anything I have written previously.

It is therefore also acceptable to throw in any melody that comes to mind into the davening - from Les Miserables to Bon Jovi - as long as the congregation recognizes it and is willing to stand up and call out: "Daven Well and Sing Along" while doing "The Wave." The Wave must however be done from Right to Left as is prescribed in the Holy Book of "Minhagei Chelm V'hoAsoro HaBatlonim". Shachris, Musaf, Yom Tov - what's the difference! "As long as it feels good", is the mantra to follow.

Dikduk, Beiur Tefillah, all that stuff is really unnecessary, as long as when we get up to dance before saying the Amida, the rhythm tickles our toes and gets the feet moving. Kavana is no longer a requirement, since most of us already talk to each other more about Spitzer and Bear-Stearns than we talk to God in the Siddur.

This is the World of Hefkervelt, and if we like it, it will inspire us to come back again and again. What better way to get new members and keep the old ones glued bug-eyed to their seats! And if I don't stop right now, I'll have a hemorrhage!

SHUSHAN PURIM SAMEACH!

And may you go from Splinter to Splinter

In the early part of this century, the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America) was formed as a YU/RIETS alumni rabbinical group, because the European-trained rabbis of Agudas Horabbonim looked down on American musmachim, even though in many cases they themselves had granted that smicha. Today, the RCA, and its affiliates the Orthodox Union (congregational) and Cantorial Council, are the strongest Orthodox groups in America.

But when a group becomes dominant, it can often stagnate, and lose sight of the reasons it was founded. Today, we have a new Modern Orthodox rabbinical school, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. It has a consciously Modern program, ordains its own rabbis, and sends them to pulpits and schools across the country. It has a strong service component, training rabbis for community work rather than simply for Torah’s sake. While this might not be an ideal, it is necessary as fewer Modern Orthodox rabbis have been going into pulpit and school work, weakening the Modern Orthodox movement in America, as the best live up to their Zionist ideals and move to Israel, while the relative paucity of Modern Orthodox teachers and rabbis allows the larger number of Black Hat rabbis to fill schools and pulpits, where they influence the next generation to reject modernity and openness to society.

Just as the Black Hat Torah-Only (see R. E.E. Dessler, Michtav M’Elyahu, III:353) model was less than ideal, but perceived as necessary to rebuild Orthodoxy after the War, so too, Modern Orthodoxy needs to rebuild itself after becoming unwitting victims in a culture war not of its own making.

[From R’ Chaim Brown’s Divrei Chaim blog: R’ Dessler (Michtav vol III p 353) wrote that the Lithuanian yeshivos follow a different path than those of Frankfurt; it is better to sacrifice 999 bachurim who won’t make it through the system in order to produce one gadol b’yisrael through torah-only immersion.]

Just as they fear for (or welcome?) incursions from the Right, RIETS and the RCA have closed ranks against the upstart Chovevei, and have refused membership to rabbis ordained by Chovevei. Too, in the recent conversion controversy, the RCA basically knuckled under to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate (increasingly dominated by Black Hats who themselves are non-Zionist) in limiting the number of Modern courts empowered to do conversions without requiring similar stringent standards from Black Hat conversion mills, both in Israel and abroad.

Therefore, Left Wing Modern Orthodox rabbis from Chovevei, who need a rabbinic support organization for their future work, and more Modern-oriented rabbis from the RCA who want to set up conversion courts not dominated by anti-Modern forces in Israel, are joining forces to create the Rabbinic Fellowship (an unfortunate name; while Chevrah is a good Jewish word, in English it connotes Christian groups). As there have been similar rumblings in Israel about Black Hat domination of local and national official rabbinates, perhaps this group will join up with the more left-leaning Israeli National-Religious rabbinate to create a truly worldwide united Orthodox rabbinate.

The Real El Adon

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
The "Real" Keil Adon Melody

Every Shabbat, during Shacharit, a highlight of the tefilla is the singing of Keil Adon. As your Chazzan, I try to choose appropriate melodies that fit the words, the "mode" (minor), and melodies that tend to "move" - that is, not too slow. However, as you've heard from me previously, before the 20th century we didn't "sing" congregational-type melodies in shul as we do today. The question therefore begs, what did they sing for Keil Adon before 1900?

There is a "nusach", a chant, for Keil Adon that was always recited and is still heard in some Yeshivish/Chassidic shtibels and in synagogues with the "old" tradition. That melody is one our oldest, and can be traced back to the 16th and 17th centuries, and possibly as far back as the 1200s. You may remember your grandfather or great-grandfather singing a very special "Kol Mekadesh Sh'vii" on Friday Night for Zemirot before and during the Shabbat meal. That melody is the tune of the "nusach" of Keil Adon, for as long as anyone can remember. We know that it is very old, because in the oldest existing Judao-German book of folk songs by Boeme, c.16th/17th century, there is a melody called, "Bruder Vietz's Ton," "Brother Weiss's Tune," and this is exactly the same melody that we know of today! It is not a "sing along-type" melody, so, unfortunately, you won't hear it here at LSS or in any "modern" shul. It is now traditional to sing a "niggun" at this point. I do occasionally wonder whether we are actually poorer for its lacking in our service. But then again, I'm always nostalgic about such things!

Daven Well and Sing Along!

Rambam as Failure

I’ve been listening to the tapes of the recent e-Tim conference on Torah and Science. Much focuses on Rambam, esp. as two of the major speakers are R’ Menachem Kellner (Must a Jew Believe Anything?; Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism; many others) and R’ Marc Shapiro (The Limits of Orthodox Theology; Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox; etc.)

Kellner, characterized as the foremost contemporary writer on Maimonides, notes that we should remember that before Europe called him Maimonides, he was the Rambam. Maimonides seems to make him more subjective, as there is Maimonides, Marc’s monides, Twersky’s monides, etc.

Kellner notes that despite his clear intellectual prowess, Rambam tried to create a rationalistic, philosophical Judaism, yet failed. Traces of this program can be found in his writings, particularly the Mishneh Torah (MT).

1) In Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism, Rambam is seen as creating a philosophical interpretation of Judaism, particularly the esoteric parts such as the Matter of Creation and the Matter of the Chariot, in part to undermine and quash the proto-kabbalistic ideas that were beginning to arise in the 12^th century. I haven’t read the book yet, though. Clearly this didn’t work, as the 13^th century saw a tremendous Kabbalistic counter-reformation, culminating in the publicization of the Zohar c. 1290 by R’ Moshe de Leon. Kabbalah has clearly won the day; while there have been others who lean towards philosophy since Maimonides, popular Jewish culture in both Levant and Occident is dominated by Kabbalah. As I like to say, in Judaism, Plato has defeated Aristotle.

2) In the introduction to the Mishneh Torah, Rambam writes famously

For this reason, I, Moshe son of the Rav Maimon the Sephardi, found that the current situation is unbearable; and so, relying on the help of the Rock blessed be He, I intently studied all these books, for I saw fit to write what can be determined from all of these works in regard to what is forbidden and permitted, and unclean and clean, and the other rules of the Torah: Everything in clear language and terse style, so that the whole Oral Law would become thoroughly known to all; without bringing problems and solutions or differences of view, but rather clear, convincing, and correct statements, in accordance with the legal rules drawn from all of these works and commentaries that have appeared from the time of Our Holy Teacher to the present.

This is so that all the rules should be accessible to the small and to the great in the rules of each and every commandment and the rules of the legislations of the Torah scholars and prophets: in short, so that a person should need no other work in the World in the rules of any of the laws of Israel; but that this work might collect the entire Oral Law, including the positive legislations, the customs, and the negative legislations enacted from the time of Moshe Our Teacher until the writing of the Talmud, as the Geonim interpreted it for us in all of the works of commentary they wrote after the Talmud. Thus, I have called this work the [Complete] Restatement of the [Oral] Law (Mishneh Torah), for a person reads the Written Law first and then reads this work, and knows from it the entire Oral Law, without needing to read any other book between them.

Thus, one need not spend all one’s time learning the minutiae of halacha, since one can always look up what one needs to do, in the Mishneh Torah, the Restatement of the Law. Now, in the Hilchot Talmud Torah, the Rambam lays out the standard for a learning program. When one is young, one divides one’s time between Mikra (scripture and its interpretation), Mishnah (settled law, legal texts), and Gemara (the way one idea develops from another, in other words, reasoning and philosophy). When one has learned the Scripture and Settled Law well, one should then devote one’s time to Gemara, to the improvement of the mind. To that end, he wrote this code, so that one need not spend all one’s life on legal matters, leaving more time for the ideal study: philosophy.

Clearly he failed in this program as well. His critics took the idea from the Introduction as arrogance: “He wants to replace the study of Talmud and Torah with his book! Sacrilege!” while really, he only emphasized Torah study. Just, his idea of Torah study. They ignored the connection with the laws of Torah Study, which laid out why he wanted to make more time for Gemara, because Gemara qua Philosophy was for him the ideal.

He makes much the same argument in the Guide, in the critical chapter III:51. He gives his parable of the Castle, where the pinnacle of intellectual achievement is knowledge of God, through metaphysical speculation and intellectual meditation. One studies the regular material and gains closer and closer approach to the inner areas of the castle, but only metaphysical speculation leads to meditation on God, the innermost, highest level of learning.

He alludes to this as well in the Mishnah Commentary, in the introduction to Chelek and the 13 Foundations, where he lays out his concept of the World to Come as a zone of purely intellectual enjoyment (elaborated on in MT Hilchot Teshuvah 8], whose benefits are reached only through selfless dedication to philosophy.

Clearly, then, philosophy as the inner teaching of Judaism was part of his program from beginning to end, and the MT was only a tool to encourage it. But his critics either did not perceive the overall program, or as neoPlatonists, dismissed it.

3) While not necessarily a Straussian numerologist, Kellner notes that the idea expressed at the exact midpoint of the MT is one of universal philosophic bliss. There are 14 volumes in the MT, this is the end of the 7^th section (Shmitta veYovel, which happen every 7 or 7x7 years) of the 7^th book (Seeds, and there are Seven Special Species for which the land of Israel is praised), at the end of the 13^th chapter (13 are the tribes, or Divine attributes, etc.). One would expect something so carefully thematically placed to have special significance.

After describing the reason for Levitical landlessness as its devotion to being the national teachers of Torah, he writes:

13: And not just the tribe of Levi, but any human being (kol ish v’ish mikol ba’ei olam) who has pledges his spirit to God, and understands from his knowledge, to separate himself, to stand before God to serve him, and to worship him, in order to know God, and walks uprightly as God made him, and throws off the yoke of all the calculations that most men make – this one is sanctified as the Holy of Holies, and God will be his portion and inheritance forever and ever; and he shall merit in this world sufficient sustenance, as suffices for the priests and Levites. Behold, it is as David said (Ps 16:5) 5The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.”.

Any human being, who devotes himself to contemplation and knowledge of God, is as the Holy of Holies. And it leads right into the mitzvah to build a Temple, which, as we say on the High Holy Days every year, will be called “a house of prayer for all the nations” – a universal messianic vision.

Such a strong universal message. And yet, through the ages, it has been reinterpreted out of existence. The commentators on the page simply ignore it. Shu”t Minchas Yitzchak limits it to those who engage in a Yissachar-Zvulun relationship. R’ Aharon Kotler limits “all human beings” to “yeshiva bochrim”, according to R’ Kellner. But it is a strong universal message of the possibility of human perfection. And in this too the Rambam failed. Instead, the vision of the Tanya, where non-Jews have naturally inferior souls and thus selves, has won out, perhaps due to centuries of persecution.

In what did the Rambam succeed? In establishing his personal reputation, certainly. In inspiring many moderns, yes. Perhaps he was just ahead of his time. Although, even today, neo-Hasidism and a Kabbalistic renaissance (kosher as well as Bergian) also offer strong enticements for the Jewish soul.

[Super]Natural Messianic Age – Mima Nafshach?*

– due to R’ Moshe Sokol’s shiur after davening, Tetzaveh, 5768, Moshiach according to the Rambam.

Gemara Shabbat 63a

For Samuel said, This world differs from the Messianic era only in respect to servitude of the exiled, for it is said, For the poor shall never cease out of the land.⁶ This supports R. Hiyya b. Abba,⁷ who said, All the prophets prophesied only for the Messianic age, but as for the world to come, the eye hath not seen, O Lord, beside thee [what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him].⁸

6) Deut. XV, 11. This implies that poverty will continue in the Messianic era. Hence the prophets' tidings of a new state of affairs cannot refer to the Messianic era, which will be the same as the present, save in this matter.

7) Sc. the Baraitha which states that weapons of war will cease to exist in the Messianic age.

8) Isa. LXIV, 3. — The conception of the future world is rather vague in the Talmud. In general, it is the opposite of [H], this world. In Ber, I, 5, 'this world' is opposed to the days of the Messiah, and this in turn is differentiated here from the future world. The following quotation from G. Moore, 'Judaism' (Vol. 2, p. 389) is apposite: 'Any attempt to systematize the Jewish notions of the hereafter imposes upon them an order and consistency which does not exist in them'.

The Gemara sets up an opposition between Shmuel’s naturalistic vision of the Messianic Age (political independence) and R’ Yochanan’s supernaturalistic vision (lions lying down with lambs, other changes to the natural order). However, note the following passages in the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah:

First, in Hilchot Teshuvah chapter 7, after laying out his idea of the World to Come as a purely intellectual space, where the intellects of the dead reach their place solely by the set of correct ideas about God they managed to obtain in their lifetimes, contrasts this idea with the prophecies of the Messianic Era:

the first Sages have already made it known that it is beyond one's capabilities to comprehend the goodness of the World To Come at all, and that one cannot know its greatness, beauty and very essence, but it only the Holy One, Blessed Be He, who can understand it. All the goodnesses which the Prophets prophecised to Israel are only physical pleasures from which they will benefit in the days of the Messiah and when monarchy has been returned to Israel. The goodness of the World To Come, however, has no limit or size, and was not discussed by the Prophets so as not [even] to hint that it might have a limit.

Second, in Hilchot Melachim, laws of Kings chapter 12:1

1. One should not entertain the notion that in the Era of Mashiach any element of the natural order will be nullified, or that there will be any innovation in the work of creation. Rather, the world will continue according to its pattern.

What’s going on here? The Rambam always follows the Gemara, yet here, where the Gemara set up an opposition between Shmuel’s naturalistic messianic era, and R’ Yochanan’s supernaturalistic idea, the Rambam quotes one thing in one place, and the opposite idea in another place!

Are we to reconcile the two visions, take the supernatural ideas as metaphors for political and naturalistic ideas, such as the lion and the lamb meaning no more war? Some later commentators have gone there, but R’ Sokol (and I) don’t think that’s really what the Rambam was getting at.

He thinks that the Rambam was following a common Talmudic construct, where a whole Baraita is quoted with two opposing views, just to bring in one of the views. So too here. The Rambam as the prime Aristotelians rationalist, holds similar non-spiritual ideas about the Messianic era and the World to Come. The miracles of R’ Yochanan are just brought in as an aside to be discarded. He quoted the whole passage there simply to justify his purely intellectual view of the World to Come, by disassociating the World to Come idea from the Messianic Era idea, even if that passage attributes supernatural results to the Messianic age. His whole purpose was to demonstrate that Chazal differentiated between the two. On the contrary, while discussing the age of the Messiah itself, he brings Shmuel’s perspective, because it matches his own.

So, even if the Gemara sets them up as opposing one another in terms of the Messianic age, they are used for different purposes by Rambam, hence they are not used in a contradictory way.

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*Note: mima nafshach is an Aramaic expression meaning you can’t have it both ways.