With the Passing of Prof. David Halivni Weiss, z”l (Column 485)
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.
This morning (Wednesday) we received the news of the passing of Prof. David Halivni Weiss, one of the most renowned and prominent Talmud scholars of recent generations. Although I did not engage with his thought, and in general I do not engage in academic Talmud research (nor do I hold that field in particularly high esteem), I thought it appropriate to devote a few words to him.
Halivni was born in Carpathian Russia in 1927, studied with his grandfather in Sighet Marmaresh, and was ordained as a rabbi at the age of fifteen. During the Holocaust he was sent to Auschwitz and Mauthausen, and because of a kapo named Weiss he decided after the war to change his name to Halivni. In 1947 he immigrated to the United States, where he studied at Yeshiva Chaim Berlin (under R. Yitzchak Hutner), earned his B.A. and M.A. in philosophy at Brooklyn College and New York University, and completed a doctorate in Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (the Conservative JTS). He was a student-colleague of R. Shaul Lieberman at JTS, and in time succeeded him as head of the seminary and the Conservative beit midrash. In parallel he taught Talmud at various academic institutions in the U.S. and in Israel (Bar-Ilan University and the Hebrew University). In 1983 he resigned from the leadership of the Conservative movement due to a dispute over the ordination of women, and even founded a small movement of his own that failed to take off. He led a congregation in Manhattan, where he also conducted debates over various halakhic innovations (he attempted to circumscribe the calling of women to the Torah). In 2004 he immigrated to Israel; in 2008 he received the Israel Prize for Talmud studies; and, as noted, he passed away here in Israel this morning.
He memorialized his life story, chiefly the period of the Holocaust, in a captivating short book titled A Leaf Not Blown Away. I read it long ago and no longer recall the details, but in my view it is highly recommended. In his book Shvirat HaLuchot (“The Breaking of the Tablets”) he lays out his theological doctrine regarding the Holocaust. There he argues that it is historically unprecedented (that is, its difference from other events is not merely quantitative), that it lacks plausible historical explanations, and he rejects the possibility of viewing it as divine punishment.
His nine principal scholarly volumes are titled Mekorot u-Mesorot (“Sources and Traditions,” on various tractates and orders of the Talmud), and there is an additional book devoted to a general introduction to his method. As far as I know, he is regarded as the one who revived the distinction between Amoraim and Stammaim, and his claim is that the anonymous stratum (stam) of the Babylonian Talmud was written by Stammaim who lived centuries after the Amoraim (in the sixth to eighth centuries, roughly two hundred years after the last Amoraim), and that they were the ones who edited the Talmud (contrary to the dictum in the Talmud itself that “Ravina and Rav Ashi are the end of instruction,” which had commonly been understood to mean that they edited the Talmud. Halivni offers a different interpretation of that dictum).
A Note on His Conservative Stances
As mentioned, in 1983 he decided to resign from the seminary and from the Conservative movement due to a dispute over the ordination of women. I never understood this step, since ordaining women as rabbis is a very moderate move and is not difficult to ground halakhically. Within the Conservative movement there were far more serious problems in its relationship to halakhah, and withdrawing over such a minor disagreement always struck me as puzzling. Perhaps he understood that it was not his place and used that straw to climb down from the tree. I do not know.
I saw on Wikipedia that moderate Orthodox organizations like “The Edah” refused to adopt him and his fellow seceders because they had not voiced opposition to Sabbath driving and had annulled parts of the laws of family status; and precisely on a marginal issue like women’s rabbinic ordination they mounted the barricades. Indeed, it is not clear.
By my impression, there was in him a certain halakhic-traditional rigidity (perhaps a Hungarian legacy from his education in Sighet. A Jew can leave Sighet, but Sighet does not leave the Jew), but it rested more on sociological considerations than on substantive ones. The ordination of women, as noted, is an easy issue on the principled plane. Today there are already Orthodox communities that do this, and in my eyes it is quite trivial. Halivni was well aware of this, but thought the hour had not yet been prepared. That is, the impediment was sociological rather than substantive. In that sense he was very traditional.
One must understand that we are speaking of a person who was thoroughly aware of the theological and meta-halakhic underpinnings of the Jewish and halakhic outlook. He was one of the developers of Conservative conceptions; that is, he was not “traditional” in the conventional sense. He had a detailed and explicit theory of halakhah; this is not a person occupied solely with tradition in its sociological sense. And yet, it seems that sociological considerations outweighed substantive ones for him.
Therefore I must clarify that when I say he was very traditional and very conservative, I mean this pejoratively. This is conservatism in its negative sense, namely the rejection of positions or arguments on extraneous grounds (just because “this is not the way things are done”), even though on the substantive and pertinent level they are indeed correct and proper. I have explained more than once that lack of pertinence is, to my mind, the essence of the defect I see in conservatism (as in novelty-mongering as well).
A Personal Encounter
I had the occasion to meet Halivni personally around 1990 (I do not remember exactly). He was then living in the U.S., and would occasionally visit Israel as a well-known academic. I was then working on my Ph.D. in physics at Bar-Ilan University (in the afternoons; in the mornings I studied in yeshiva in Bnei Brak). One fine day I received a call from him asking if I would meet him for lunch at Bar-Ilan. I asked what this was about, and he said he was preparing his volume of Mekorot u-Mesorot on tractate Bava Kamma (published in 1993), and in the course of his study of the “dayo” sugya (Bava Kamma 25) he had read an article of mine and wished to discuss it. It was one of the first articles I wrote (I believe it was the second), and it dealt with the logic of the kal va-ḥomer rule (it was a preliminary analysis; since then the matter has developed much further). Of course I regarded this as an honor and agreed.
When I arrived at the lunch it turned out he was there with faculty from the Department of History or of Jewish History (I no longer recall) who were hosting him. The two of us sparred, heatedly, over the details of the sugya before their astonished eyes. I remember that Halivni was so immersed in the matter that he did not even notice that we had an audience, and that these were in fact his hosts, with whom he ought to have been speaking if only out of courtesy. I saw in him then a genuine love of Torah. I no longer remember the details we discussed (they are surely recorded in his book on that sugya), but in the discussion it became clear to me that he perceived a problem in that sugya and argued that it could only be solved on the research level (by stratifying the sugya and separating its different components). When he read my article he saw that I was proposing a solution to the same problem that bothered him, without resorting to academic methods (a logical analysis). As a person of intellectual integrity, he felt obliged to examine whether there was indeed a solution to the problem; if so, he would have to forgo his academic solution—and thus we came to our discussion.
As noted, I do not recall the details, but to the best of my understanding my proposal did solve the problem that troubled him. He was not persuaded in the end, and concluded the discussion by saying that a research-critical solution was required. I always thought that this was mere stubbornness, because it is hard for a person to give up his own innovative theses—especially those at the core of his doctrine (the distinctions between strata in the sugya—Stammaim and Amoraim). But it may be that I was the one biased and unwilling to yield for the very same reason. Here I want to record matters to his credit. Beyond the love of Torah that I saw in him, it is worth noting that, although perhaps in the bottom line it was hard for him to concede (or perhaps not), he nevertheless felt obliged to invite an unknown young man who had written a non-academic article on the sugya, in order to clarify the matter and honestly examine whether there was indeed a difficulty and whether his solution was necessary. As stated, one can debate the conclusion (perhaps I will try to reread his book to recall and think anew), but such a step was very impressive in my eyes. I saw in him very impressive expressions of love of Torah, intellectual honesty, and humility. The fact is that all of this has remained with me to this day (in contrast to the difficulty in the sugya, which has remained with me less).
I will now bring another anecdotal facet that touches indirectly on Halivni and reminds me very much of the story I reported above.
A Literary Look at Talmudic Research
In the book by Rabbi Prof. Shlomo Zalman Havlin, Masoret Ha-Torah She-Be‘al Peh, Appendix 2 to Chapter 8 (p. 304), there is an analysis of an episode from Chaim Potok’s The Promise (see his brief article in Daat, here in Appendix 2). This book is a sequel to his The Chosen (or Ha-Dagul in the older Hebrew translation I read in my youth), whose two protagonists are two young men from different backgrounds: Danny Saunders, the son of a rabbi in a very conservative and closed Hasidic community who ultimately becomes a psychiatrist; and his friend Reuven Malter, the son of a well-known Talmud scholar (with a Conservative orientation), who is accepted to a conservative yeshiva and attempts to receive rabbinic ordination from it. One of the climaxes of the book (in Chapter 15) is Reuven Malter’s oral rabbinic ordination exam before a panel of three examiners from the yeshiva’s faculty. I bring here the entire passage (translated from English by Havlin; the speaker is the examinee, Reuven Malter):
| …There were no preliminaries. Rabbi Gershenson smiled into his beard and in a gentle voice asked a question regarding a matter of law in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De‘ah—a sixteenth-century compendium of Jewish law—which I was required to master, together with knowledge of Tractate Chullin and another tractate of my choice, and with the major commentaries on that material. I was required to know it all by heart. No other knowledge was demanded.
I answered Rabbi Gershenson’s question slowly and quietly. It was a simple question, and I answered it simply as required. He asked another question from Yoreh De‘ah, and I replied as before. He nodded and smiled, adding a more complex question from the same book. In my answer I set out the differing views of the authors and commentators and concluded with the halakhic ruling. Thus it continued for about forty minutes: the dean seated in his chair with his fingers tucked into his vest, Rabbi Gershenson asking questions in Yoreh De‘ah, and Rabbi Kalman silent, pensive, and looking gloomy… smoking heavily. Three quarters of an hour later and I was still answering questions in Yoreh De‘ah… Shortly thereafter Rabbi Gershenson finished his portion and fell silent, apparently satisfied with my knowledge of Yoreh De‘ah. After a brief pause Rabbi Kalman began his questions. He asked me to explain a passage in Tractate Chullin. I recognized the passage immediately. It was the one I had been asked to read in class a few months earlier—a difficult passage with problematic words which I had been required to review again and again. I quoted the passage, explained it, and cited several of the commentators on it and expounded them. He returned and asked me to explicate the words themselves, and he had difficulty understanding how the meaning and explanation I proposed applied to those words. I told him that this was how the Rishonim explained it, and he responded irritably, “I know the Rishonim—but are you satisfied with the fit between the meaning and the words?” I answered that I was… Again silence. Rabbi Kalman quoted a passage from one of the Rishonim I had cited earlier, a passage that contained a reference to another tractate, where there is also a word similar to the one under discussion here, and he asked me to explain the passage in the other tractate. It was a tractate I had not selected and that had not been set for the exam. Rabbi Gershenson prepared to respond, and so did the dean, but I had already begun my answer. I was happy for the opportunity to discuss that passage, which I knew well by heart… Many Orthodox Jewish scholars believe that the printed text of the Babylonian Talmud is the perfect and complete embodiment of the Oral Torah tradition, and that its words are identical in time, source, and sanctity to the teachings that emerged from the interpretation of the Torah itself. This is a position my father and I could not accept. There are many textual errors in the Talmud—too many emendations and word substitutions of the text, even against the Talmud’s own statements—for us to believe the text was so “frozen.” We see the Talmud as containing almost millennia of ideas and traditions that were in force; we see the Talmudic text as flowing, living, like a body of running water with streams flowing into and out of it. The mishnah passage to which Rabbi Kalman directed me clearly attested to such a flow. We came to the pièce de résistance, the crushing and astonishing example that Malter planned to use to stun his conservative rabbinic opponents and prove to them the correctness of philological critical research. And so the description on p. 345 (the translation here is mine, a free rendering; I did not check the Hebrew edition of this book): We moved from sugya to sugya in Tractate Sanhedrin until we found ourselves at the mishnah that lists eighteen differences between capital cases and monetary cases. I recited the mishnah by heart, and instead of continuing with the ensuing Talmudic discussion I skipped a few pages to the place where one of the Amoraim wonders about the mishnah’s count, saying that he sees in that mishnah only nine differences. The Gemara resolves the difficulty, but that explanation did not satisfy me. — “The other Amora did not have the same version of the mishnah as the first,” I said, and I waited in silence. The dean’s face turned from pink to a deep red. Rabbi Kalman’s face went pale above the whiteness of his collar, while Rabbi Gershenson narrowed his gaze at me. — “Where is that other mishnah found?” he asked gently. “It is not in the version of the Babylonian Talmud, nor in that of the Jerusalem Talmud.” — “No.” — “Where is it?” — “In a manuscript!” — “In a manuscript?” cried Rabbi Gershenson. — “Have you seen this manuscript?” asked Rabbi Kalman, raising his voice. — “This manuscript appears in the Naples edition of the Mishnah,” I said. — “The Naples edition of the Mishnah,” repeated Rabbi Kalman, looking at me. His entire Torah world met a dangerous challenge. The whole framework of the mental gymnastics by which he had been setting this sugya in place went up in smoke in the face of a textual variant found in a Mishnah edition from the fifteenth century. — “Where did you see this edition of the Mishnah?” the dean suddenly asked, slightly raising his voice. — “In the Seminary’s Frankel Library,” I said. His lips parted; a soft sigh issued from between them. He leaned back and said nothing, but the redness in his face deepened and grew. — Rabbi Gershenson asked, “You discovered this manuscript on your own, Reuven?” — “Yes.” — “You studied the sugya, and it occurred to you to resolve the difficulty by assuming there was a variant mishnah, and you went and found it?” — “Yes!” He shook his head gravely; the smile vanished from his face. He does not fear an emendation based on evidence from outside the sugya, so long as the proof is found and supported somewhere in the Talmud. But to adopt a correction based entirely on a source outside the Talmud—that is dangerous. Such a method endangers the authority of the Talmud, the sources upon which one can base Talmudic jurisprudence. His head moved back and forth. Rabbi Kalman sat rigidly in his chair, his eyes clouded. He looked like someone who did not know how to respond. |
In that scene they ask him about a difficulty in a certain sugya, and he proposes a research-critical solution that, of course, is unacceptable to them. This is, of course, part of the same tension between old and new embodied in the two friends, except that here it appears in the context of methods of study (the academic versus the traditional), with Malter and his father as researchers facing rabbis who employ traditional methods of study and analysis.
R. Z. Havlin analyzes this episode and makes use of his comprehensive and profound encyclopedic knowledge to try to identify which sugya is involved, who the examiners were, and on whom the story’s protagonists are modeled.[1] I have on a few occasions spoken and corresponded with R. Z. Havlin (who would occasionally appear on this site), among other things about this matter. I do not recall whether we wrote or spoke about the analysis of this episode, but he told me—and also sent me written material—that sheds some light.
Potok himself thanks Halivni for consultation on matters of Talmudic research, and from there it is not far-fetched to assume that the scholar Malter, Reuven’s father, is modeled on Halivni’s image. Havlin writes in his article cited above:
In this book, there is an attempt—perhaps a first—to raise for detailed discussion, with accompanying examples, the contrast between these two methods of study, with the aim, of course, of demonstrating the superiority of the scientific method in studying the Talmud.
But he adds:
Alas, the examples brought there, proceeding by way of the simple to the complex, contain clear hints that enable precise identification—and it turns out that none of them holds water, neither from a lamdanic nor from a scientific perspective.
He identifies the yeshiva called in the story “Hirsch Seminary and College” as Yeshiva University in New York, and even identifies the three examiners: Rabbi Gershenson is Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik, Rabbi Kalman is Rabbi Yerucham Gorelick, and the dean is Rabbi Belkin, the university’s president.
And he writes:
The exam becomes a struggle between Rabbi Kalman and the student Malter. First, Malter interprets a sugya and emends it with the aid of parallels in other tractates; afterwards he interprets a sugya by means of a parallel in the Jerusalem Talmud—and specifically in its first printed edition—which is like an external source, though still a Talmud; and finally he decides the discussion by bringing an interpretation of the sugya based on a correction from a manuscript, which is the use of an external source to interpret the Gemara—something intolerable in the eyes of the yeshiva’s heads.
The description of this episode is sufficiently detailed to try to identify which sugya is at issue—and here we return to Halivni.
Havlin’s Critique of Halivni and Identifying the Sugya
As noted, Halivni is the father of the method that distinguishes between Amoraim and Stammaim who edited the Talmud, and he even claims a gap of centuries between them.[2] Havlin emphatically disputes Halivni’s thesis and has written about this in the book cited and in various articles. He argues that the evidentiary basis for this thesis is very weak. As an indication, he writes that in the introduction to Mekorot u-Mesorot on Seder Nashim, Halivni found it necessary to bring a sugya that would demonstrate and prove clearly his view regarding the Stammaim. Well, it is not the sugya I discussed with him in Bava Kamma, but rather the Bavli in Sanhedrin 36b: “R. Abbahu said: There are ten differences between monetary cases and capital cases….” Note that this sugya does not belong to Seder Nashim, the subject of the volume. From this Havlin infers that in all of Seder Nashim Halivni did not find a single clear example for his method, and in fact it seems that in the entire Talmud there is only that example from Sanhedrin.
You will not be surprised to hear that that Sanhedrin sugya is precisely the one on which Reuven Malter is examined (remember, Halivni was the Talmudic consultant for the book). The whole course described above—parallels from other tractates, a parallel from the Jerusalem Talmud in its first printing specifically, and a decision by means of a manuscript correction—indeed appears in Halivni’s argument from that Sanhedrin sugya. Thereafter Havlin himself delves into the matter and demonstrates through various research arguments why that entire move in the Sanhedrin sugya is incorrect (as Talmud scholars Albeck and Epstein also wrote regarding that sugya), meaning that even this sole example of Halivni’s method does not hold water.
So much for the anecdote. May these words be for the elevation of the soul of Prof. Halivni, z”l.
[1] I believe that R. Z. Havlin has a hobby of identifying literary figures. I recall, for example, a similar claim of his regarding Chaim Grade’s novels Tsemakh Atlas and Milhemet Ha-Yetzer (both with an obvious autobiographical basis; therefore there is certainly justification to try to identify the figures who appear in them). He attempts to identify who Tsemakh Atlas is, one of the heroes of those books. There are several proposals in the literature for his identity, and Havlin offers an identification of his own.
[2] See throughout his books and introductions, as well as his article “Studies in the Formation of the Babylonian Talmud,” Sidra 20 (5766).
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Both stories are very beautiful. Thank you!
Although Livni's method of completely separating the Istimaim and the Amoraim has encountered serious difficulties among Talmudic scholars, it would be presumptuous to question the whole of Talmudic research. There are enough proven fruits for research.
I do not doubt Talmudic research at all, and certainly not because of the criticism of Livni (which I myself do not know the details of). In my opinion, the field contains quite a bit of work that is completely unimportant, and even the (few) significant things usually do not speak to me personally. In my opinion, you can get along well without them (the misses will not be great, even if you are not familiar with academic research). There are exceptions, such as the Nasheka, but this is mainly because of the combination it makes with classical scholarship, which is very rare.
In the 1st century BC, Rabbi Gershenzon and Kalman were nicknames.
If Rabbis Gershenzon and Kalman are nicknames, then a Talmud scholar named Zvi Melter, who specialized in reinterpreting the Talmud based on versions of ancient manuscripts, was born.
He was a librarian at the Jewish Scientific Library in Berlin and a student of Moshe Steinschneider. In 1900, he moved to the United States and became a professor at Hebrew Union College and later at Dropsey College, where he taught rabbinical literature. Among other things, he published a scholarly edition of Tractate Taanit of the Babylonian Talmud, which noted the variations in the ancient manuscripts, and based on which new explanations were also offered for the issues. If he had a son named Reuven, I do not know. In ’Wikipedia’ his value has no information about his family…
I am somewhat inclined to doubt the identifications (suggested by Professor Heblin) of the opponents of the interpretation based on manuscript versions with Gerd Soloveitchik and Rabbi Belkin. At the Yeshiva University under their leadership there were also professors who were engaged in Talmud research. They probably did not see the analysis of the versions as a central interpretive tool, but it is difficult to assume that they completely ignored it.
Best regards, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondi
Heblin mentions him as the inspiration for the name of Melter Sr.
Just because they were Talmud scholars at the Yeshiva University does not mean they had a place in the court. Without checking, I assume not.
In Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein's article, The Briske Method of Conceptualization: The Method and Its Future, Nateiim 18, pp. 30-32, Rabbi Lichtenstein refers to the study of the Talmud. He sees great importance in clarifying the exact text by relying on manuscripts and in recognizing the historical background and reality, but opposes the view that sees in these clarifications the appearance of everything, a "magic solution" that renders all the theories of the first and last scholars superfluous, so that the extreme negation of relying on manuscripts does not exist there. If only Rabbi Gershenzon and Rabbi Kalman could be attributed to the circle of the "Chazon Ish"
With greetings, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondi
And the prophet did not completely rule out relying on manuscripts. When Rabbi Avraham Reisner published his edition of the Shaar Ha-Mihaim of the Rishb (which was discovered in manuscripts by the researchers Prof. Levinger and Prof. Marx and identified by them according to the references in the Beit Yosef), the prophet relied on the identification.
Incidentally, at Yeshiva University there was a Talmud scholar named Prof. Avraham Weiss, who preceded Prof. David Weiss-Halvani in identifying layers in Talmudic issues, and insisted that the compilation of the Talmud was a continuous process that began in the period of the Amoraim and continued in the period of the Saborim and the Ge'onim. However, Halvani and his student Prof. Shma Friedman n.e. went further and attributed all the tsarisms to the post-Talmudic period.
Another graduate of Yeshiva University, Prof. Yerachmiel (Robert) Brody, in his extensive introduction to his scientific commentary on Tractate Ketubot in the Babylonian Talmud, which will soon be published by Yad Rav Nissim, disapproves of the trend of attributing all the tsarisms to the period of the Saborim, and bases his statements on evidence. Brody began his academic career as a mathematician who discovered the Brody Law, but he did a professional retraining as a Talmud and Ge'onim scholar.
However, I found that there is a Jewish teacher in Alon named Reuven Melter who markets sophisticated protection and security systems. I wonder if he has any connection to Prof. Zvi Melter or Potok's Reuven Melter 🙂
According to Professor Havlin's assumption that the intended one is Schlissel-Roman, whose characters represent real characters with a change of name, it would be reasonable to suggest that Reuven Melter's friend, the son of the Rebbe who became a psychologist, represents the renowned psychiatrist Professor Avraham Tversky, whose father was a Rebbe. But here Professor Tversky's Rebbe got stuck in his father, who was not at all fanatical and deviant, but was open to modernity, engaged in bringing distant people closer together, and encouraged his sons to study at universities.
And as I think, it is better to say ‘But not from the sound of the word’, and it is more likely that the author built characters who are not identical to concrete characters, and he had no problem taking a certain character trait from a certain person and combining it with the character trait of someone else, and there is no biographical description here with a change of name. The characters represent prototypes’ for ways of dealing with a historical dilemma, and nothing more…
Best regards, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondi
Paragraph 1, line 2
… It could be suggested…
In the 1st of Tammuz, 2nd of February,
Perhaps the inspiration for the character of "Rabbi Gershenzon" (= Ben Gershon), came from the character of Rabbi Yehuda Gershoni, a student of Rabbi Baruch Bar and Rabbi Kook, who headed the "Yeshiva Eretz Yisrael" in New York. Beyond his Lithuanian depth (as he received from Rabbi Baruch Bar), Rabbi Gershoni was known for his great affection for the Torah, which is capable of bringing about practical application of Halacha in a renewed reality, and he himself saw this trend as the "Torat Eretz Yisrael" and several of his books are devoted to clarifying Halacha on current issues that are on the agenda following the political revival of the Jewish people. It is very fitting for him to be satisfied with his student's mastery of the ’Yura De'ah’, rather than finding outlandish versions in ancient prints.
In contrast, ‘Nerav Kalman’ has a tendency to critically examine the methods of the Rishonim, out of a feeling that the interpretations of the Rishonim do not always fit in with the language of the Talmud, and that one should seek the method of the Rishonim that is more consistent with the simplicity of the issue. It seems to me that his image is appropriate for Rabbi Prof.’ Shmuel Kalman Mirsky, a scholar of the literature of the Ge'onim and the editor of a scientific edition of the Q'eilotot, whose teachings of the Ge'onim fulfill his aspiration for an interpretation that comes close to the simplicity of the issues of the Talmud.
With best wishes, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondi
It is worth noting that in the end, despite Reuven ben David Melter's fondness for reinterpreting parashats according to manuscript versions, he ultimately becomes a community rabbi whose bold research innovations do not occupy a central place in his halachic guidance to the community.
The internal process that David Melter's son undergoes also affects David Lebani, who, as a halachic teacher for the community, tends to be conservative, shying away from bold innovations. Rabbi Prof. Benjamin Zeev Benedict, the rabbi of Rabbi Eliyahu Zini and Prof. David Haneska, who on the one hand supported the approach of delayed closure, and on the other hand, in the field of halachic rulings, was firmly rooted in the Hungarian-Yekic tradition.
With greetings, G.G. Gargmal
Even the son of Prof. David Hilbani, the late Rabbi, Dr. Ephraim Bezalel Hilbani, n.y., although he has a lot of experience in the field of the Geniza formulas of the Talmud, which he deals with in his work on the Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, his Talmudic research focuses more on halachic issues that have implications for rulings in practice, such as the rules of halachic rulings in the Talmud. And the distinctions between men and women - and less so in the layered development of the issues
As a member who grew up (partially) in the community of the late Rabbi Benedict, I question this description. Both of his boldness as a researcher and his conservatism as a posek.
Rabbi Benedict's character and path in Halacha, community leadership and research are described in Professor David Haneska's article, "The Death of Rabbi Benjamin Ze'ev Benedict, the late Rabbi." There, Rabbi Benedict's support for the delayed closing method is not mentioned. I remember this from reading many years ago in Rabbi Eliyahu Zini's introduction to one of his books dealing with the contribution of the Saborim to the compilation of the Talmud, and now I fear that my memory is faulty.
With greetings, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondy
In note 25, Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim mentions the assessment of Rabbi Benedict. In Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Glicksberg's article, "Rabbi-Study Centers under the Presidency of the Rishonim of Zion: A Continuity Almost Without Change" (135 times), it is mentioned that Rabbi Nissim wanted to appoint Rabbi Benedict as head of the "Rabbi-Study Center for Rabbis and Judges" that he established in Jerusalem in 1917, but he did not accept the offer.
Rabbi Lichtenstein is proof to the contrary. He acted exactly as I described regarding the Yeshiva University in relation to his son Rabbi Meir, who tried to follow the academic path at the Yeshiva on Mount Etzion.
The white letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And it was a wonder.
The rabbi should write Rabbi David Al-Hilvani even though he is conservative [which in itself should not bother the rabbi] because today I met a friend from Rabbi Shajar's Yeshiva Siah Yitzhak and he told me that he knows an Alevi guy from the Har Etzion Yeshiva who studied with Rabbi Al-Hilvani
and he said that he was a great Tahsin who is strict about minor things as serious as serious things and even complained to my friend before Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. The whole world is noisy and nothing is said about such a great man.
This shortcoming was corrected in the legal website, when Ramda, who refused to comment on the passing of Rakh, wrote an entire column about Prof. Al-Hivni 🙂
With best wishes, G.G. G.G.
And as for Shtzel's typical (even if graceful) demagogy, I did not refuse to write about Rach. I wrote that I had nothing to write about him. I do not hold back from the recycled obituaries that he was a great and constant man with wonderful qualities, etc. (I noted this at the end of my conversation with the lecturer at the MDM from Karnei Shomron, the owner of the blog of the interviews; for some reason I forgot his name). If I do not have something interesting to write, I do not write. What I did find interesting about him was mainly negative, and had already been written about him in the past. There is no place for that after his death.
https://youtu.be/H8K4Jf7o4sI?t=3321
And today, the Ministries of Health and Education have adopted the concept that the economy and the education system should not be stopped.
Best regards, J.G. Gargmal
Interesting note. I'm not sure if a rabbi is not a title for a God-fearing person, but rather for a person who provides instructions in halakhic law to the public and teaches Talmud and halakhic law (not Talmudic archaeology, but Talmud). He had something of the latter, but I have great doubts about the former.
Where does the rabbi doubt his fear of God come from?
Hello Rabbi,
The first thing that Ramada doubts about Professor Levni is how much he excelled as a person who teaches the public and teaches Talmud and Halacha, which is where the title of Rabbi is tested. The second thing is Talmudic archaeology, which is in the separation of the layers in the Sugiya, in which Professor Levni excelled but refrained from applying it in the rulings of Halacha.
In the fear of God Ramada did not doubt the white man's love of Torah, and on the contrary, he praised the love of Torah, the intellectual honesty and humility of a renowned scholar who turns to a young and unknown scholar to reexamine his interpretive approach. Do you have a more definite sign of fear of God than this?
With greetings, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondi
No,
Read my words again. I didn't write that I doubted his faith.
My mistake?
Because I will not reveal, true love is not the same as fear of God.
Two notes. 1. The Revadim system developed at Bar Ilan by Rabbi Dr. Pinchas Hayman develops Professor Hivni's brilliant distinction regarding the layer of the Gemara's sestma. And in general, since this distinction was made, I never know how one can study without it. B. Literary note: The great one (the chosen one, the designated one) contrasts two types of fatherhood. The father who teaches Talmud is a warm and attentive, modern father. Available. In contrast to the Rebbe, Danny's father who raised him in silence (cruelly but with a lot of power) for the role of the next Rebbe, his successor, in order to teach him to feel the pain of the world. It was precisely the modern father who turned his son into a rabbi, and the Hasidic father, with his powerful powers, turned his son into a psychologist, an investigator of the human soul. The book (Potok) honors both fathers. There is no good or bad here.
1. To the best of my knowledge, the layered method is not a Talmudic or research method but a pedagogical technique (coloring each layer in a subject a different color, or something like that). He applies academic research to teaching Talmud in high school. I actually know how to study Talmud without it. I do it every day (regardless of whether it is correct or not).
2. Life is complicated. Regarding good and evil, I also got the impression that Belin exaggerated Potok's tendency, but it is true that his inclination towards Melter is evident.
“Since this distinction came to the world, I don't know how one can study without it”…?
And how do we study according to this distinction’ “Let the words of Torah be burned and not given to women’?
Learning from an intense experience of ‘Aren't such words like fire’
This is an accidental addition that is not found in the Naples edition.
In the layered method, "an incidental addition" is not a word for derogatory or for diminishing importance or value. This division is a tool, like glasses that sharpen vision or provide three-dimensionality. I suppose it doesn't help with the philosophical analysis of the issue but rather with the historical perspective on it, but sometimes this perspective is helpful for understanding. (I'll stop, because the flames are already creeping in here)
In the book of Tammuz, Part 2
To Abraham, life and death,
It is precisely the distinction between the strata in the Talmud that helps us to come to terms with Rabbi Eliezer's harsh statement against teaching Torah to women.
It turns out that the Gemara (in Sota 21) sees the method of Ben Azai, who disagrees with Rabbi Eliezer and obliges the father to teach Torah to his daughter, as the opinion of the Rabbis, and this view implies that most of the Tanais consider Torah study obligatory for women.
One Talmud scholar (whose name has just slipped my mind) wanted to see in Rabbi Yehoshua's words, "He wants a woman in a kev and in prayer, in nine kevs and in celibacy," which is quoted later in Rabbi Eliezer's words: "He who teaches his daughter Torah teaches prayer," an expression of a positive attitude toward Torah study for women, since Rabbi Yehoshua's words originate from the halakha that a wife can hinder her husband from "professional advancement" because this connection would harm the marital relationship. According to that halakha, "prayer" (= strengthening the marital bond) is a positive value.
If Rabbi Eliezer demands that the father refrain from teaching his daughter Torah for fear that it would lead to forbidden relationships with men, Rabbi Yehoshua suggests that the husband share his wife's Torah study, which will strengthen the relationship (‘tephalot’ in the sense of ‘connection’).
With blessings, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondi
Rabbi Eliezer follows his view that even a woman who has slaves and maidservants must occupy herself with spinning wool because ’idleness leads to lewdness’, and interprets the Gam’ that even an intellectual occupation such as a game of chess (‘nardshir’) that prevents ‘boredom– is not appropriate for women according to Rabbi Eliezer, because it may lead to forbidden relationships with men.
Gamliel Gevriahu, etc. – Hello. If it weren't for Demisphina from Auto-de-Pe, I would have quoted from my doctorate from the conversation between R’ Eliezer and the matron in Yerushalmi Sota (There is no wisdom for a woman except in the field) etc. - the issue from which the exemplary statement of ‘Let the words of Torah be burned and not handed down, etc.” was taken.
To her – Shalom Rav,
Two reasons were given in the first for Rabbi Eliezer's prohibition of teaching Torah to boys. According to Rashi in Sota, the fear is of forbidden relationships between men and women, a fear that unfortunately ‘has not been overcome’ even today (see ‘Forum Tekna’ and ’Takhkir Kan’), and certainly existed in the days of Chazal when there were no books and Torah was learned in group discussion in the Beit Midrash…
On the other hand, according to the Maimonides, Rabbi Eliezer's reason is the fear of a misunderstanding of the Torah, due to the impatience and annoyance of the woman whose ‘mind is not directed’ While studying (and according to Maimonides in the Laws of Prayer, a person should not stand to pray unless his mind is directed).
It is possible that Rabbi Eliezer's two statements reflect these two concerns. In his statement, "There is no wisdom for a woman except in the field," Rabbi Eliezer fears that intellectual pursuits will lead a woman into forbidden relationships with men, which is why Rabbi A. requires even a wealthy woman who can occupy herself with chess to weave in the field so that she does not fall into "fornication."
On the other hand, in his statement, "Let the words of the Torah be burned and not given to women," Rabbi Eliezer expresses the fear of a misunderstanding of the Torah, due to the impatience and impatience of most women to invest in study.
With blessings, Gamliel Gevriahu Greengrass-Girondi
Incidentally, the fear of a misunderstanding of the Torah was resolved by the Maimonides in his clear work, "Mishna Torah," in which he states (at the end of Chapter 4 of the Basic Principles of the Torah) that the explanations of the commandments regarding forbidden and permitted knowledge can be known by everyone, "great and small, man and woman, broad-hearted and narrow-minded." In fact, the Maimonides in his commentary also invited women to study his work.
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… Rabbi Eliezer's prohibition of teaching Torah to girls and women. …
Where can I read this?
I am outside the jurisdiction of the Inquisition
Yours sincerely.
At the Bar Ilan Library. At the National Library.
Thanks! What is the title?
Somewhere between mountains and hills there is a site called Wikipedia:
“Chayta Deutsch, the Many-Faced Matrona: Constant and Changing Patterns of Encounters between Sages and Gentile Women in the Midrashim and Talmud, dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2011, supervised by Prof. Hananel Mack”
Also regarding the reading of the Megillah for women, the –Stamma’ presents a position that strongly supports this. The ’Stamma’Sugya at the beginning of its verses clarifies the innovation of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi (Megillah 19) that women are obligated to read the Megillah, in the words of the Mishnah: ‘All are obligated to read the Megillah’, and the ‘Stamma explains: ‘All are for the women’.
This is not how the Tanna Tosefta understood the Megillah, which states: ‘All are obligated to read the Megillah, priests, Levites, Israelites, free converts, and subjects…’ and women are not mentioned! It seems that in the place and time of the Tanna Tosefta – they considered reading the Megillah a positive commandment that the time dictated that women were not obligated to do.
Also from the testimony of the Yerushalmi about Rabbi Haggai and Rabbi Mena who read the Megillah at home to the women of their household, it is implied that even in the fifth generation of the Amoraim, the opinion of the Rabbi did not become the custom of the general public. Women did not come to read the Megillah in the synagogue
This means: The one who definitively determined among the people of Israel that women are obligated to read the Megillah is the author of the ’Stamma’ Be'arkin’!
With blessings, ”G ”G ”G
The method of the author of ‘Hilchot Gedolot’ is known that women are obligated to hear the Megillah and not to read it. And the ’Turi Even’ explained that the obligation of women to read the Megillah is because they were also in the same ” It is a regulation of the Sages, Tannaim, or Amoraim, while the obligation of men is from the words of Kabbalah, from the regulation of Mordechai and Esther and the people of Kanna, and one who is obligated from the rabbinate cannot exempt those who are obligated from the words of Kabbalah.
Regarding the Potok books: It should be added 1) that Potok himself transferred from Yeshiva University to the Rabbinical Seminary and was ordained there as a Conservative rabbi 2) Regarding Gershonson's identification with the late Ger”d, my late brother-in-law told me that Gershon was from the Levi and Achm”l family
In the JTS rabbinical course, young men and women sit together without a dress code or modesty according to Halacha. A woman can sit in such a course in jeans and a tank top and be ordained as a rabbi.
Therefore, it is possible that his sociological considerations were not entirely without substance. He sat among his people.
On the contrary, for learning the ’stsmot’ – there is nothing more appropriate than ‘casual’ clothing 🙂
Best regards, just a little bit
*** Deleted ***
In the Sada, this is the law of the Torah 5722
Torah study, whether for women or men, has a side that –purifies the impure and defiles the pure’. On the one hand, the ‘light’ therein acts on the learner in a direction that attracts him to transcendence even in the observance of the Torah, and in this the Torah is the ‘elixir of life’. On the other hand, study may lead the learner to pride and arrogance. When he sees that he too can raise opinions that have a logical side – he may come to the thought that he too can be ‘a member of the ‘community’ of the Tannaim and the Amoraim and the Sages of the generations.
Therefore, the decision will always be full of hesitations. On the one hand, there are actually female students who come in jeans and tank tops and are unaware of the dignity and sanctity of the Torah - there is a good chance that the study will bring them closer and arouse in them the desire to observe it more and more. A rabbi who teaches Judaism to secular students told me that Rabbi Elyashiv instructed them not to comment on the immodest dress of female students so as not to distance them from studying Torah.
Similarly, Rabbi Meir Dorfman, one of the founders of Hamakon in Tel Aviv, said that the eminent Rabbi Shlomo Fisher warned him not to comment on the dress of the class participants, not to demand a kippah from boys or to demand non-revealing clothing from girls, so that they would come to study "where they are" And there will be those who will come close.
Of course, when it comes to the discussion of ordination for Torah leadership, the problem is much more serious. In the debates about the ordination of the sheikh in the Conservative movement, to my great joy, no one there asks for my opinion 🙂 But the problem also exists in Orthodox Torah scholars, who, as Ramda wrote in other discussions, their level of scholarship is not high, and they are usually not even able to understand that they still have a long way to go before they are considered halakhic arbiters, and therefore are deeply hurt by their exclusion from spiritual leadership..
However, Prof. The white man did not completely rule out the ordination of women to the rabbinate, but believed that this should come about through a long process that would lead to habituation and maturation. However, the seminary leaders adhered to the method of their Chabad neighbors, who believe that ’from the beginning I will be ’ 🙂
With blessings, Yekutiel Shneur Zehavi
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… who teaches Judaism to students.
I have no idea how the women dress there, nor how the men dress, but I highly doubt you're right. But even if that's true, he should have worked to get a dress code and not eliminate the possibility of women serving as rabbis. And finally, in my opinion, Conservative rabbis and rabbis have much more serious shortcomings than their dress code.
Sales. Even if there is some kind of dress code somewhere, it is not actually implemented in the classrooms.
Even the heads of the institution can dress in one way or another.
Even in prayer – a naked woman can also open the hall to carry a Torah scroll, etc. ’.
(By the way, it is a bit reminiscent of the situation in some of the mixed preparatory schools in Israel today, when boys and girls study Gemara together, side by side, even in shorts).
I asked a question, apparently I didn't understand something.
A great rabbi but didn't see a problem with driving on Shabbat?
By a gentile?
By a Jew?
Did he see a problem but just preferred not to protest? (Like many Orthodox, where the reality on the ground is that the public, do what you can and not what you can't?)
Is there even a halakhic opening to discuss the issue? (Even if Rabbi M.A. doesn't agree, there may be something to discuss, for example, permits for a divorced woman to become a priest, even though they are probably not right, there is something to hear)
Or did I not understand something in the column?
I didn't say he didn't see a problem. They accused him of it. I don't know him and I don't know. But what does that have to do with him being a T.A.H.? He can know a lot of Torah and not see a problem with traveling. Either because he doesn't think there is a prohibition, or because he thinks that in those circumstances it is better to remain silent, or because he is just plain evil.
In the words of Rav Sharira Gaon (and this is also stated in the Or and Otzar HaGaonim): ” And how many opinions did they establish in the Gemara, and the sages who followed them, such as Rav Eina and Rav Simona, and we are the first to accept that the Gemara of the beginning of a woman was purchased with money, and we are the words of our rabbis, who believe in the sight of its arrangement and its establishment, and its cheapness as well”.
We see that the Geonim have already established that there are different opinions in the Gemara from different periods – “They established in the Gemara, and the sages who followed them”.
But here the Midrash tells us, in passing, that even among the prophets there are levels:
“Rabbi Simon Bara, the father of Hoshua ben Be'ere, said: These two readings were not enough for a book, and they were taken up with Isaiah”.
Regarding Rabbi Professor Lebni's position on the issue of rabbinical appointments. He explains his position well in the pamphlet
“Ale La Nidaf”. In my understanding, this stemmed not from a love of conservatism but from a hatred of innovation – which our Rabbi Michael Avraham also shares. See there.
Rasha”G speaks of ‘some sabora’ and mentions certain issues that the saboraim have determined, not about all the saboraim in the Talmud!
Greetings, just a quick question