In Memory of Yoram Taharlev, of Blessed Memory (Column 442)
With God’s help
Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.
Four days ago, Yoram Taharlev passed away at the age of 83. A poet and lyricist, playwright, author, and translator—a true polymath. Almost until his very last day he was still on stage. He is responsible for several classics of Hebrew song, and those who know his work know how wide-ranging he was.
I met him once, before an interview we had on Channel 20 (in its early days), and we chatted about this and that. A very pleasant man, an eternal optimist, with a wonderful sense of humor, candid and honest, kind and generous, quick-witted and, of course, a virtuoso master of words. He was very interested in Judaism and even wrote about it, mainly on the cultural-folkloric plane (though I must say: not my cup of tea). I received a suggestion and readily agreed that it would be appropriate to dedicate a column to his memory. I don’t see a point in writing a eulogy here; instead I’ll suffice with some of his own words. He does it far better than I could.
I’ll begin with a maqāma that was sent to me this morning, which he wrote for the last event and did not live to read. One can, of course, read it as a ballad for the Lithuanian Asperger (see columns 142 and 218, where I’ve now attached it in the comments). My loyal readers will easily understand why I open with this one. I certainly couldn’t have phrased it any better:
| Today, in our crazy country, which swaps one elite for another every year,
go try to explain to the average citizen what Lithuanian Judaism means. That superb Judaism, which truly was the elite of the elite, the authority of the authority, the Judaism that ignited and thrilled, that you could not buy with anything material— not with a villa and not with a suite, not with Lolita and not with Aphrodite, but with one small word: “ve-hagita!” (“and you shall study”). An excellent Judaism the likes of which you have not seen from then until now, the Judaism of the intellect, Lithuanian Judaism. And if you try to explain this to Israelis—woe to you, for as the Lithuanians used to say: Ale yevonim di zelbe ponim All the Greeks have the same faces— today the cheeky Israeli will tell you: “All the Poles have the same face!” And if you try to explain how Lithuanians differ from Poles, Galicians from Romanians, Hungarians from Germans, he will look at you, my son, as if you had fallen from a Goldfaden opera into the Mediterranean Song Festival. For what does the Israeli know about his roots? If, for example, you ask someone on the street what he knows about the GRA, he’ll say it’s a street at the old central bus station, a street of nut shops, cassettes, cold drinks, and a few massage parlors for foreign workers. And if you seriously intend to explain who the GRA is, it will be better, for the sake of domestic peace, if you kindly avoid the elitist expression “the Gaon of Vilna.” Because a “genius” in Israel today—one can say this with confidence— is either a soccer genius, a financial genius, or Yehoram Gaon. Therefore, when we come this evening to praise and extol our roots, we must know in advance that we’re speaking only to ourselves! We, the children of the Lithuanians, must reveal the secret to our children and grandchildren— who their forefathers were and who our forefathers were— not to cultivate in them the sin of pride, but precisely “see entry: love,” so they will not feel guilty for being so restrained, measured, and sometimes cold, while their friends, the rest of Israel, rejoice and exult, dance and sing, party and gamble. So that our children understand that this restraint is not tied to their personal character—it’s a genetic anthropological matter; they belong to a breed of realistic, logical people, people who are all thinkers in potentia, the top decile of intelligence. Let’s put it on the table: The people of Israel, always and forever, divide into two—and this is almost scientific: the heirs of the Hasidic mind and the heirs of the Lithuanian mind. While the heirs of the Hasidim—who have almost always been the overwhelming majority— dance and exult as if life were a celebration, the descendants of the Lithuanians chart their path from worry to worry. When the heirs of the Hasidim say “eat and drink,” for the Messiah is arriving any minute now, the Lithuanians lock themselves away in inner rooms and examine themselves by Hovot Ha-Levavot and Mesilat Yesharim. But our descendants must also know this: even if they inherited the hard and tormented Lithuanian temperament, they must not forget that it gave us the Musar movement, founded the Tarbut schools, theaters, and youth movements, and fashioned a diligent, active people who learn not for honor and not for a degree. It is the breed that produced a vast religious and secular literature, the breed that invented the wise and wondrous Jewish humor, and of course established the illustrious chain of yeshivot—may their dispatch never cease— yeshivot in which, in Israel today, even Shas avrekhim study— these are the Lithuanians, wise, learned people whom, for example, you won’t succeed in convincing that what will save you in life is a tzaddik’s blessing on some amulet. A breed of serious people, who don’t catch the bug of Kabbalah, messianism, and mysticism, but check the peshat, the logic, and even the statistics. This is us, the descendants of Lithuanian Jewry; you won’t get us to pour water on the hands of some elderly kabbalist, shlit”a, not to be the Messiah’s donkey nor Balaam’s ass, not to follow with eyes closed after men set above the people. We don’t rely on miracles, not on the lotto, not on the horoscope. We are the salt that the people of Israel lack today— a sound head—a gezunten kop. |
I’ll conclude with another maqāma, mainly for those of the third age, called 60 Seconds about 61 Years:
| Forty-seven: debates at the U.N.,
Moshe Sharett delivers a speech, coffee during the break. Russia supports partition. Forty-eight—the hour has come, Ben-Gurion declares, the crowd cheers, a bus ablaze, shots outside, and we begin to run. Forty-nine—everything’s shut, we’ve finished the War of Independence, absorbing waves of immigration, a shack, a bed, a primus stove, we won’t forget the Altalena, Dov Yosef declares austerity, an explosion in Ramat Rachel, and we keep on running. We haven’t even caught our breath— oh, the Red Rock! Oil flows in Hulikat, bravo to Unit 101! Hey, we dried the Hula, there’s sugar in the city of Afula, reparations—one billion marks, in Jaffa the Luna Park rises! Fifty-five, fifty-six, reprisal raids, the Kadesh operation, industry in Lachish, Stelmach—what a header! A Shavit missile flies to the sky, Eichmann comes from Argentina, and my heart will rejoice and sing, there are secrets in the city of Dimona. |
The sixties—have some faith:
this isn’t a crisis, it’s just a recession. Lines already form at the consulates, the last one out turns off the lights. And suddenly—the Six-Day War, the whole country recovers, the world teems with sympathy, a settlement in Tel-Sebastia, the queen—in the bathtub. That’s the power of democracy. They’re already renovating the Kotel, and we keep on running. Yom Kippur came and went, we learned nothing at all, a right-wing upheaval, who can understand life? And suddenly—by heaven’s name— Sadat visits Yad Vashem, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, it too will pass, and quickly. Oh our land, oh our land, Lebanon right at our backs. Eighty-eight—Intifada, an expressway to nada, in Oslo a new page opens, the prime minister is assassinated. Arafat returns to Ramallah, in his stead Hezbollah rises, Hamas seizes Gaza, again you’re first, ya kaza. Thus our days pass, between “oy vey” and our enemies, between falafel and sushi, between the jeep and the Mitsubishi, oh my country, don’t be jealous of me— Olmert, or Barak, or Bibi, life here, my friend, Survivor on a Caribbean island. |
Alas for those who are lost. May his memory be a blessing!
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Congratulations to Rabbi Dr. for the moving words, a warm Lithuanian heart.
“Warm Lithuanian Heart” – At least two oxymorons
Only one. Unless you think a heart is not necessarily warm, then the claim that a Lithuanian has no heart and a Lithuanian is not warm are two independent claims.
Speaking of heart temperature, I once thought that the use of ”warmth” (and specifically a warm heart) in teaching friendship and sympathy is late, but I don't know for sure. Maybe from the language of Chazal? Maybe a translation in its form from other languages? I will weep.
Because in the Bible it seems that although fire in the mouth and nose symbolizes impetuosity and anger, a warm heart is a great desire to put something into practice. In Psalms I said, I will guard it according to a barrier, I will be silent, etc. [But finally: ] My heart is hot within me, in my meditation a fire burns, I speak with my tongue. In Jeremiah I said, I will not remember him, nor speak any more in his name; and it was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones. In Hosea, all are adulterers like an oven, etc. They came near like an oven to their hearts all night long, and in the morning it burns like a blazing fire (and not like the fourth day of the month).
[And this is a slight question to be resolved, because for Abba Shaul, who gathers his yevamat not for the sake of a mitzvah but for the sake of adornment, etc., he is likened to a violator of modesty. And it is difficult that in the bloodsucker it is written, “lest the bloodsucker pursue the murderer, for his heart will be hot, and they will overtake him, because the way is long, and he will be slain.” That is, the bloodsucker’s heart is boiling, and his anger is burning in him, and in his great anger he kills the murderer, and it means that this is permissible for the bloodsucker. And why does Abba Shaul not say that the bloodsucker for the sake of revenge is like a shed bloodsucker, and not as is explicitly stated in the verse. Although it is possible to easily excuse it anyway, it is also clear that a warm heart does not mean a burning heat, but only a zeal to do a certain thing, and you should never have the zeal for the sake of a mitzvah.
A Jewish heart must be warm, it is necessary in Tractate Shabbat, Chapter Rabbi Akiva, "A Jewish seed in a foreigner's intestines"? Did it not say that the bodies of Gentiles are not as warm as those of Jews? After all, Jews are fishermen in the commandments and the interpreters of the name are fishermen in the commandments - to keep the commandments and the Haredim in the matter and out of concern they become warm, as it is written (Psalms 39): "My heart is warm within me."
Big
Where did she become famous?
I don't know. I received it on WhatsApp.
A dear and talented man, and of course also one of the most non-Asperger's songwriters there is.
I also met him once at a conference, he, who was early, was forced to listen to a lesson in agga that I gave. And I stayed to listen to his rhyming and charming performance, in which he recited, among other things, the maqamah that you brought here. After which we talked a little. The man was one of the builders and designers of secular Zionist Jewish culture, creating it and into it, and pouring into it old and new. It is interesting that, unlike Hanuch Levin (not to mention – Bialik), he is not a datla”sh, he does not have a dinkuta version, and it can be assumed that what he learned from the Jewish sources, he learned through effort and choice. Really, it is a shame for Davdin.
[He criticizes those who do not know who the Vilna Gaon was and what his genius was. I do not know the man and his conversation except for a few poems that were published, but I would venture to guess that he did not really understand this genius either. Did he use to study issues and read the words of the Gra there? The difference between not knowing who Einstein was and knowing that he was a "genius Jewish physicist who invented the theory of relativity" without knowing anything about the content he dealt with and created, is not great at all. Indeed, a magical grandeur hangs over Lithuania and its sages, but to see it you need the glasses of the field in which they dealt, namely the study of the Gemara (I at least got a taste of it). ]
True.
And it should be added, according to what we learned from Rabbi Mikhi, that if this is a genetic matter, as it is written in the maqama, what is there here that is worthy of appreciation?
It's a principle in itself “know your roots” (perhaps only as a means of understanding the individual self, I didn't fully understand it from the text). But not necessarily genetic and perhaps it's more cultural-social. Intellectual talent is genetic but its design and expression are greatly influenced by society.
Character is not a matter of evaluation at all. But here it is culture and not necessarily character.
The mentioned Makama can be seen on the Lithuanian Jewish Ode website
http://taharlev.com/makama_id_5.html
"I'll start with the maqamah they sent me this morning, which he wrote for the last event and didn't get to read." I didn't understand, what event?
He probably had an event planned.
I wish the aforementioned (ultra-Orthodox) Lithuanians existed; Lithuanians today have adopted the habits of mysticism ('You won't get us by pouring water on the hands of some old man who is a Kabbalist', amusing), healthy thought patterns have been blurred, and all this is still under the ennobled 'Lithuanianism'. It's a shame they are lost and not forgotten.