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Dear Subscriber: All copies of Hakirah
volume 24 were delivered to the post office. If you did not yet receive
your copy you should receive it within a few days. Enjoy the new volume
and please send us your thoughts. Thank you.
Hakirah Volume 24, Spring 2018
This Pesach marks the 25th yahrtzeit
of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l, known to his students and
followers as “the Rav.” He referred to himself as a melamed and,
during his lifetime, trained and influenced thousands of talmidim.
In typical Brisker perfectionist fashion, though, he published only a
small fraction of his hiddushim. The Rav’s work ranged widely,
from novel interpretations and discussions of Talmud and halakhah to
penetrating insights into the most abstract principles of Jewish
thought. Recent interest in a rare essay written by the Rav during his
youth, which came to be known as The Halakhic Mind, has revealed
to philosophers of varied backgrounds the breadth and originality of the
Rav’s thought. In “Rav Soloveitchik’s New World View,” the author
reviews Western philosophy, explaining that it fails to answer
philosophical questions raised by modern mathematics. In a reading of
The Halakhic Mind, he then demonstrates that, from his youth, the
Rav felt that the key to dealing with man’s encounter with the infinite
lies in the dalet ammot shel halakhah.
Because he came to represent Modern Orthodox Jewry and was considered
the leader of American Orthodox Zionism, the Rav and his Torah were, for
a long time, rejected by what came to be called Haredi Jewry. A similar
situation had occurred earlier in Eretz Yisrael, where the spiritual
leader of Religious Zionism, Rav Avraham Y. Kook, zt”l, was
vilified by most of the Haredi world. In
“Historical Revisionism by the
Families of Rav Kook’s Disciples” (Complete Article)—the first of a two-part essay about
the division of Eretz Yisrael’s Orthodox community into two camps—the
author describes how some children of Rav Kook’s students sought to
distance their fathers from their teacher to ensure that their fathers’
works would be accepted in Haredi circles and their reputations would
remain intact. The second part of this article, to be published in
Hakirah 25, will demonstrate how this distancing of the camps
developed and attempt to explain why it came about.
The division in Orthodox Judaism has roots in its 19th century response
to modernity. In a book on the Hazon Ish, represented in this edition
by a newly translated chapter, the author comments that “The rabbis,
seeing that Judaism was in a state of distress, created a response built
on a large-scale, comprehensive policy spanning from ‘The new is
forbidden by the Torah’ and ending with the neo-Orthodox ‘Torah ‘im
Derekh Eretz.’ All these were intended to preserve the character of
tra-ditional Judaism.” Two of the approaches he refers to are
illustrated here by an article entitled “Rav Hildesheimer’s Response to
Ultra-Orthodoxy.” The article analyzes an historical document to
contrast two responses to the then-budding Reform movement: that of a
group which came to be called the Haredi camp, with the more moderate
response of Rav Hildesheimer. In the chapter from the book on the Hazon
Ish, “The Gaon of Vilna, the Hatam Sofer, and the Hazon Ish: Minhag
and the Crisis of Modernity,” the author argues that the Hazon Ish,
considered by many to be the father of the modern Haredi movement, was
not acting in response to modernity, but was motivated merely by a pure
desire to find each law’s intent and to follow the letter of the law.
In the timely article in the Minhag section entitled
“Our Salty
Tears: The History and Significance of an Interpretation of Dipping in
Salt Water at the Seder,” (Complete Article) the author bears out the Hazon Ish’s
skepticism of minhagim, showing how hallowing practices of the
past sometimes distorts the reasoning behind a custom.
Authors of Torah works frequently overcame great adversities in order to
produce their works. Our Jewish History section includes the essay
“Adversity and Authorship as Revealed in the Introductions of Early
Hebrew Books,” which recounts how, in fact, adversity was often the
catalyst for the genesis of these works. In “A Tour of the Osler Library
of the History of Medicine through Jewish Eyes,” we get a glimpse of
great Jewish doctors who, throughout history, dedicated themselves to
curing the ills of all mankind.
In a special section we have entitled Ohr La-Goyim, we engage the
question of what our obligations should be to inject Jewish values into
a society that we see straying from its Judeo-Christian roots. In
“Teaching Musar at the FBI,” a rabbi involved in kiruv explains
how, at the re-quest of the FBI, he helped those employed in the
difficult job of law enforcement by giving them spiritual tools. In the
other article, “Why is there no kosher meat or poultry that is certified
humane?” the issue of our obligation of ve-halakhta bi-derakhav
is raised. This mitzvah, which obligates us to perform acts of hesed,
is also the subject of a detailed Hebrew article on the mitzvah of
bikkur holim.
In the Jewish Law section,
“Parve Cloned Beef Burgers: Health and Halakhic Considerations”
(Complete Article) applies ancient halakhic principles to the
technology of the future, while a letter to S. Y. Agnon from a rabbi,
describing the rabbi’s attitude towards the idea of human possession by
a reincarnated soul, shows how some ancient beliefs resist the advances
of science. In our Talmud Torah section, “In Search of Nimrod: Nimrod
and Esau as Parallel Figures” merges modern methodology with traditional
Biblical sources in an attempt to understand Hazal’s attitude toward
Esau.
Two other essays bring us back to Rav Soloveitchik, zt”l.
“Reinterpretation and Resistance to the Mitzvah of Tefillah” argues
that the mitzvah that the Rav so often expounded upon, and that he said
“was redeemed” by Rambam, was not considered of Biblical origin even by
great Rishonim who followed Rambam. In “Apprehending the Divine through
the Religious Act: Rabbi Yaakov Anatoli’s Introduction to Malmad Ha-Talmidim,”
we see how an almost forgotten medieval scholar from Provence toiled, as
did the Rav many years later, to define a religious philosophy.
The division of the Orthodox into two camps that we spoke of earlier has
had some regrettable ramifications in our own time. The masterful
Shabsai Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah cites thousands of
sefarim to help clarify the words of Rambam, yet it has some
bizarre omissions. It does not cite any commentators from the “Zionist”
camp—neither Rav Kook, nor Rav Yosef Kappah, nor Rav Soloveitchik is
ever mentioned, depriving Torah scholars of valuable insights into
Rambam’s thought. On the other hand, since the Rav’s passing his
talmidim have published a vast body of his hiddushim, and his
Torah has passed into Haredi circles. While in the past the informed
learned and taught his Torah without accreditation, he is now
increasingly quoted by name. The two camps in Orthodoxy share the same
Torah and the same Talmud. Those who study lishmah understand
that ha-omer davar be-shem omro mevi geullah la-‘olam.
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