Rabbi Yagel – A Eulogy

With God's help

Petah Tikva Local Weekly

In the wake of the passing of Rabbi Yehoshua Yagel, of blessed memory

On Saturday night of Parashat Vayeshev, a singular and remarkable Jew passed away: Rabbi Yehoshua Yagel, the educational director (what in other places is called the 'rosh yeshiva') of Midrashiyat Noam in Pardes Hanna, at the age of 91. His students and all who knew him remember him as eternally young, although from a fairly early age many of his students called him 'the old man.' Add to this the many dichotomies in his personality, such as Haredi-Zionist, open yet conservative, scholarly yet autodidactic, a man of initiative in various educational directions together with Lithuanian-yeshiva conservatism, and you get a mosaic portrait of a complex and extraordinarily fascinating personality.

The short time that has passed since Rabbi Yagel's death still does not provide the perspective from which one can summarize, analyze, understand, and probe his personality and his influence on religious society, and especially on religious education in Israel. What follows is not the result of biographical research, nor of historical-sociological analysis, nor even of Torah scholarship. This is neither the place nor the time. In these pages I will try to sketch a few lines of his portrait as I saw them through the eyes of a student at the Midrashiya, and in light of many years of connection with Rabbi Yagel of blessed memory from then until the last few years.

The Midrashiya was an early model for the institution that later came to be called a 'yeshiva high school.' At the instruction of the Hazon Ish, the Midrashiya was not called a 'yeshiva.' Rabbi Yagel founded Midrashiyat Noam (= Mizrachi Youth) together with the late Rabbi Yisrael Sadan while still a young man. The first class graduated with the establishment of the State, and Rabbi Yagel was then about 33.

Rabbi Yagel displayed autonomy, courage, and daring throughout his unique path. He encouraged his students at the Midrashiya to break into the nearby Ein Shemer camp, where various activists, under the auspices of state institutions (and 'the party'), were engaged in the 're-education' of Yemenite children. As we heard at the funeral, he refused to hand over Irgun members, and because of this received threats from Haganah members that they would harm him personally and shut down the Midrashiya.

Rabbi Yagel also dared inwardly, within the religious-Haredi world. He dared to develop an institution of a kind that gave legitimacy to a combination that was not accepted at the time (although it had distant precedents). He did so as one who was, and also felt himself to be, part of the Haredi world, close to leading Torah authorities of a Haredi cast (the Hazon Ish of blessed memory, Rabbi Aharon Kotler of blessed memory, and others). At the same time, he was also a law student. He studied together with Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel (a fascinating figure in his own right, who passed away about two years ago), and every weekend they would go to the Hazon Ish to clarify their questions and present before him the results of their study. All these guided him in his various undertakings, but the unique color of his path was given to it by him himself.

Many explained the phenomenon of Rabbi Yagel as a form of Haredi paternalism that sought to rescue religious-Zionist youth from the temptations of the secular world, and saw in the structure of a yeshiva high school a kind of second-best arrangement intended to provide an alternative to ordinary secondary education, and mainly a means of transferring the youth to Haredi yeshivot. But it seems to me that this is too superficial a picture. Rabbi Yagel, at least as I knew him, saw value in every field of knowledge and occupation, despite his fierce love of Torah (which will be described below).

Rabbi Yagel did not engage in ideologies, nor in one definition or another. Many wondered whether he was Haredi or Zionist, whether he was 'black' or 'white,' whether he recited Hallel on Independence Day or not. Some regarded him as a Zionist in the closet, while others regarded him as a Haredi whose supposedly Zionist appearance was merely a tactic for the sake of influencing students. It seems to me that both these and those failed to grasp the depth of the complexity of his character.

As stated, Rabbi Yagel seemed not to be interested in such definitions at all. The only thing that interested him was Torah. He wanted to influence as many students as possible to study Torah seriously, and that they should be men of Torah wherever they might be. He was very proud of his graduates who took up various positions in society, but especially of those who expressed devotion to Torah and the service of God. As far as I could tell, precisely because in my presence he did not hesitate to speak freely, since I was from Bnei Brak and studied in the kollels (advanced Torah-study institutes for married men) there, the color of the skullcap and the clothes was utterly meaningless in his eyes. Rabbi Yagel did not engage in ideologies in his conversations with us as students, nor later as adults. To the best of my impression, he did not engage in this even within himself. He worked for Torah and its dissemination in ways that seemed best to him, and apart from that nothing mattered in his eyes. The yeshivot to which he directed his students were the yeshivot in which he believed they would study in the best possible way. That was his only criterion, and not one political ideology or another.

His love of Torah was legendary. Two friends of mine who were young Talmud instructors at the Midrashiya told me that Rabbi Yagel sat with them every week to prepare the lessons, the Talmudic passages, and the manner of presenting them. One evening, after they had finished studying late, Rabbi Yagel went home and they went to sleep, and suddenly there was a knock on the door of the apartment where they had studied. My friend opened up and saw Rabbi Yagel, who immediately said to him: "Regarding the Rashba, I found the explanation for the difficulty." He understood that Rabbi Yagel had not taken into account at all the possibility that someone might go to sleep while the passage was still not entirely clear to him.

It is well known that when Rabbi Yagel was struggling with a difficult point in a Talmudic passage for which he had found no answer, even in the middle of the night, he would start the car and drive immediately to Bnei Brak to clarify the matter. He could not sleep when he had not completed the clarification of the passage. When he heard that Rabbi Lichtenstein had arrived from the United States to head the Har Etzion hesder yeshiva (joining Rabbi Amital), he drove there and attended his lectures as a student. As I understood it, this was not for a few days, but for a lengthy period.

A well-known story tells of Rabbi Yagel arriving at morning prayers in the Midrashiya with two ties: one thrown backward and the other hanging in front. It turned out that Rabbi Yagel had sat learning at his desk at home during the night, and in the course of the study he had tossed his tie backward. As was his habit, he continued dealing with the passage until the small hours of the night, and apparently fell asleep by the desk. In the morning, when he awoke, he saw that he had no tie, so he tied on another tie for himself, and that is how he came to prayers.

After my marriage (he officiated at the wedding, of course), he would 'drop in' at our house in Bnei Brak, with or without notice (usually of five minutes in advance), ask how things were at home and how the children were, and immediately sit down to study with me. He gave me the feeling that I was contributing to his learning, and that he wanted to clarify the passages together with me. After some time I understood that this was part of the continuation of my educational process (and that he did this with other graduates as well). We spent not a few hours in shared study, which for me was a genuine experience, and we also corresponded on matters of study. Although he was very fond of his many novel ideas, and his confidence in them was certainly decisive, this did not contradict a willingness to listen patiently, to clarify together the different aspects of the passage, and even to accept other opinions. It was a phrase often on his lips: more than from all of them, from my students.

Things reached the point that his love of Torah sometimes overstepped the proper bounds. He approached people and invited them to take positions (sometimes very senior ones) in the Midrashiya solely because he believed they were lovers of Torah, and studied it as it had been studied in the Lithuanian yeshivot. Skills and suitability for the role did not necessarily stand at the top of his list of priorities. For him, Torah eclipsed everything. When I was in twelfth grade, the counselor approached me and told me that I was behaving improperly, because I was relying on the fact that nothing would be done to me since I was about to leave for yeshiva (after twelfth grade), and I was exploiting that to act wildly. In truth, I was not aware of this, and the rowdiness was not calculated, but there was childishness in me, and from that moment I already understood that I was safe. Here love of Torah led to distortion (at least in the short term). This policy was an expression of that same blazing love of Torah that sometimes overstepped the proper bounds.

His way of studying reflects no small measure of autodidacticism. He did not use the accepted scholarly jargon (although his style is certainly traditional-rabbinic), and at times I had the feeling that he studied like an ordinary layman. This was a result of the fact that his formal time in yeshivot was rather short (one term at a very young age in Baranovich with Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, may God avenge his blood; another with his uncle, the brilliant Rabbi Shabtai Yagel, in Slonim; and a longer period in his youth in Kletsk with Rabbi Aharon Kotler). My Talmud lecturer in Bnei Brak told me that this was mainly a question of translation, and indeed to a large extent that was true.

But there was something here beyond questions of style. The yeshiva formulations sound familiar to all of us, and precisely because of that they sometimes cover over vagueness in understanding. It is enough for us to raise a yeshiva-style distinction and all the problems are solved. Rabbi Yagel wanted to understand things with ordinary human reason, and not merely to fit them into ready-made logical and terminological patterns.

I will bring here two examples that come to mind now (out of many others) of this approach in study:[1]

1. Whoever is stronger prevails. There are situations in which Jewish law determines that the judges do not intervene in a monetary dispute, and tell the parties whoever is stronger prevails, that is, "whoever is stronger prevails"—meaning: decide it yourselves (and perhaps even by a measure of force). In the yeshiva world it is customary to investigate whether this is a withdrawal of the judges, a kind of leaving the field without a legal decision, or whether there is in fact a decision here. A central source on this matter is the Rosh in the chapter Hazkat HaBatim, who rules that if Reuven succeeded in seizing the object, that itself is proof that the object is his, since the one who is in the right generally exerts greater effort, and most likely he will be the one who succeeds.

Rabbi Yagel refused to accept a view that allows judges to withdraw from adjudication. He brought proofs that they are obligated to decide in every case, if only for the sake of social order. He proved this precisely from the words of the Rosh himself, since his words in a responsum (where he speaks of withdrawal) apparently contradict his words in his rulings. Rabbi Yagel brought from here proof that even one who speaks of withdrawal does not really mean such a thing in its simple sense. There is a positive ruling here, even though it appears like withdrawal, but in the final analysis its concern is justice and the fulfillment of judicial duty.

1. Disqualification of relatives. Relatives are disqualified from giving testimony and from judging. Yet already in the Talmud it is stated that the disqualification of relatives is not out of concern that they are lying, but rather because of a scriptural decree, and therefore they are disqualified from testifying even to their relative's detriment and not only to his benefit. So too it is ruled in Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh. Yet Rabbi Yagel was not satisfied with this, and he set out to prove that the intention is not a scriptural decree that has no rationale at all. Rather, the Torah teaches us that relatives tend to distort their perception in contexts with which they have a relationship of closeness, and therefore one cannot rely on their testimony. There is no deliberate distortion here, for every person enjoys a presumption of integrity, and we have received the tradition that a person does not sin when no gain accrues to him. But there is a distortion that stems from the bias inherent in closeness, and therefore it can lead both to the relative's benefit and to his detriment.

These two are examples of worn yeshiva investigations that in Rabbi Yagel's hands received a formulation that seemed almost homespun, but in fact expressed a desire to understand, to probe deeply, and to see the logic and reason in everything.

Several times he said to me reproachfully that yeshiva students do not work in an orderly and constructive way. He was prepared to lay out before them everything known in yeshiva topics in an orderly and structured fashion, so that they could continue and advance from there, rather than each of them 'reinventing the wheel' each time anew.

I once heard from a relative of Rabbi Shulman of blessed memory (the rosh yeshiva of Slobodka, one of the leading sages of the previous generation) that he told her that the only true rosh yeshiva he knows in this generation is… Rabbi Yagel. When she asked him why, he said that his love and concern for his students, which reached the point of literal self-sacrifice, reminded him of legendary rosh yeshivas from previous generations. Every student in yeshiva merited his concern as to whether he was managing, whether perhaps something could be improved, or whether he should move to another yeshiva. Rabbi Yagel also took an interest in the condition of the graduates, and did not miss a single wedding or bar mitzvah of a graduate, a graduate's son, or his grandson. In every problem in life one could turn to Rabbi Yagel, and one could be sure that he would activate several of the thousands of graduates in order to solve the problem.

His ties with the graduates were entirely unrelated to each person's identity and occupation. He had ties with various graduates from different fields, though usually around Torah.

His educational leadership too was one of a kind, and despite the outward roughness it was sometimes very sophisticated. Through the eyes of an adult I understood what I could not understand as a student. Today it is clear to me that Rabbi Yagel espoused an educational method of double messages. On the one hand, he made us afraid when we engaged in various activities at the expense of our studies. On the other hand, he gave us all the feeling that it was our duty to devote ourselves to the society around us (and it was clear to us that this too came at the expense of study), and he was very proud of our activities. Slipping out of the Midrashiya to the settlements was another forbidden-permitted act, from the same family.

Over the years, a few friends from our class established a Bnei Akiva branch in Karkur (which had important social and spiritual value beyond that of an ordinary Bnei Akiva branch). Almost every week, over quite a long period, we used to 'make off with' the counselor's bicycle and flee from him on his own bicycle in order to get to our instructional activity at the branch. Sometimes this was done with the assistance of that counselor's wife. In those days we had the clear feeling of great sages who managed each time to outwit the administration. Today, through the eyes of an adult, I understand that this was part of that same policy of double messages. Clearly, that counselor was not such a fool that he fell into the trap week after week without learning a lesson. This was a sophisticated way to increase our motivation to go out to positive activity in the environment, even though it was accompanied by threats and warnings that the framework had to be preserved and that this was not to be done at the expense of study.

It is well known that Rabbi Yagel was not prepared to 'throw out' a student from the Midrashiya, and this apparently was rooted in an instruction he received from his teacher, the Hazon Ish. To be sure, in an article he wrote in Niv HaMidrashiya (reprinted in the book Bimeshokh HaYovel, p. 56) on education according to the Shulchan Arukh, he discusses the various considerations of concern for the individual versus the good of the collective, on the assumption that every student can be corrected. Sometimes there is indeed a need to remove him (but only if he himself is unwilling to work toward correction), yet in practice, as far as I know, this was not implemented. He would resort to all kinds of unusual means in order to avoid the need to remove a student from the Midrashiya.

Rabbi Yagel sometimes behaved as though the Midrashiya were the Volozhin Yeshiva of our generation. This approach always seemed to us extremely naive. He insisted on not relinquishing even a moment of Torah study, and spoke passionately about concepts like 'neglect of Torah study,' although he too knew perfectly well that almost all the students were not really making use of every hour (to put it mildly). It seems to me that this too was part of that same method of double messages: on the one hand, demands that seem detached from reality, and on the other hand, a sober awareness of reality as it is.

One day, childishness overtook me, and following a bet with friends I climbed onto the platform in the study hall in the middle of the evening study session, to the accompaniment of friends' calls. I had to 'hold out' up there for a full minute, while all the teachers cried out and called for me to come down. This was done, of course, when Rabbi Yagel was not in the study hall, because otherwise I would immediately have had a taste of the force of his arm. That night Rabbi Yagel called me to his home, and I will never forget that conversation. He almost cried over the neglect of Torah study that I had caused, and asked me how I had dared to do such a thing. I almost chuckled to myself (had I dared) when I thought that none of us had even thought of studying there. Afterward he asked whether I understood the significance of what had happened, and advised me (but did not command me) to undertake a fast from speech throughout the next day and to study Torah all day. Before the act, the concept of 'neglect of Torah study' had not even crossed my mind, since our attitude was not that of a yeshiva and study during the session 'was not really uppermost in our minds.' After that conversation I received a lesson that I will never forget. Ostensibly, this is a detached approach, speaking with reckless youths about concepts like 'the wasting of the public's Torah study,' but in retrospect this approach leaves its mark for years on everyone who encountered it.

Rabbi Yagel, and the Midrashiya in general, were ahead of their time in a number of areas. Together with the late Rabbi Yisrael Sadan, Rabbi Yagel insisted that the Midrashiya open its doors also to youth from the periphery, and many of those boys owe them their success in various fields. The development of general studies occupied Rabbi Yagel not a little, together with an unceasing concern for the fate of sacred studies. He never let 'ratings' make him betray his principles, and he became very angry about such phenomena when they occurred in the Midrashiya, and in other institutions as well. More than once he complained to me that students leave for vacation on Thursday, and not on Friday. "That is neglect of Torah study," he said. I tried to say that, to the best of my knowledge, most students would not study much Torah, neither on Thursday night nor on Friday morning, especially before leaving for the Sabbath break, and perhaps there was room to let them get some air and be at home with their families. But he was not prepared to accept such 'neglect of Torah study' under any circumstances.

In his final years, when his condition no longer allowed him to participate actively in the management of the Midrashiya, or even in board meetings and its committees, he spared no strength and worked with unbelievable vigor to recruit supporters for his positions in the various disputes that were on the table, tirelessly and with a persistence that in the end usually brought the desired result from his point of view. It was hard to stand against him, beyond his special status as the rabbi of most of the participants in the discussions. I did not always agree with his positions, but I always appreciated very much the fact that, in a condition and at an age when other people occupy themselves mainly with groaning and with caring for themselves, this elderly Jew, this eternal old-young man, was occupied with the Midrashiya, its conduct, and its students with the height of vigor and energy. We all remember him there fighting for his positions like a lioness defending her cubs.

Even after especially bitter arguments, he would approach me after the meeting ended and ask how my wife and children were (by name). These things were not said merely as a formality, and certainly not only to thaw the atmosphere, but out of genuine interest, and with attention to details about each child—where and what he was studying, where my wife worked and how she was, and the like.

I received from him quite a few phone calls, with requests to intervene, to examine and handle different matters, to be more involved, and certainly to come to meetings in order to vote on one 'critical' and 'grave' issue or another (almost everything was such in his eyes). I know for certain that I was not the only one. These matters were in his very soul, and therefore he usually succeeded in carrying his positions.

Rabbanit Yocheved, may she live long, told me during my visit in the last week at Laniado Hospital that a doctor from Beilinson Hospital had come to see him and said that although the situation was very grave (all the systems in his body had already collapsed), he saw in him a vitality that left room for hope, even at his advanced age. And indeed vitality was one of Rabbi Yagel's most striking characteristics. Who does not remember him speeding on a motorcycle throughout the country, and especially in Pardes Hanna, and afterward with the car; chasing after students at night; caring for students in the Midrashiya and outside it (in yeshivot, in cases of running away, in the settlements, and more); taking an interest in and assisting graduates (he would go as far as the Suez Canal to visit graduates. At the funeral we heard that when Rabbi Yagel heard that one of his students was shaving with a razor while on reserve duty on the bank of the canal following the Yom Kippur War, he immediately drove with the car and with an electric shaver to the canal); searching for and recruiting teachers; recruiting and training the Talmud instructors, and making sure that their lessons were prepared and conducted properly; participating in the activities of the governing council and its various committees; and above all, studying and teaching Torah in depth and with self-sacrifice by day and by night, wherever he was. A small part of the result of this tremendous effort is found in the two volumes of Netivot Yehoshua that are in most yeshiva libraries.

Our Sages teach us that whoever teaches his fellow's son Torah, Scripture regards him as though he had fathered him. Rabbi Yagel demonstrated for us the deep meaning of this saying. After seeing him, there is no need for Rashi's commentary. His thousands of students, their sons, and their grandsons were all his children, and I assume that most of them felt this. Their attitude toward him expresses this in the most beautiful way. It is well known that students of the Midrashiya across the generations feel a special fraternity toward one another. It seems that no small part of this stems from our shared 'father.'

Usually, when a great person dies, people say, 'Who can replace him for us?' But Rabbi Yagel taught us not to wait for someone to lead us, or to serve as a replacement and stand-in. He expected us to know how to stand on our own feet, and to continue by ourselves what he tried to instill in us, each in his own way. I am convinced that something of him is present in each of us. That is his replacement; that is what stands in his stead. And with all this, he now returns and presents himself with hands full before his Creator, in the sense of the mission has returned to its sender. Like that designated man who returns to the High Priest after dispatching the scapegoat on Yom Kippur, and says to him: My lord High Priest, I have carried out your mission.

Fortunate are we that we merited to meet, to learn from, and to be inspired by this unique personality. May his memory be blessed.

[1] I saw them in the past in printed mimeographed sheets that he gave me, and also from conversations we held on the two subjects. The first example appears in both his books in the topic of whoever is stronger prevails in chapter 3 of Bava Batra. The second I did not find there (on a cursory search).