On Meaning and Purpose in Haredi Ideological Discourse (Column 321)

Wow, what a column. You could unpack it in so, so many ways. And just one more point that people miss, and it’s connected to Haredi dramatization – there are quite a few people in the Haredi public who do put their fingers on various malfunctions, but there’s this terrible fear [with a grain of truth in it, and a lot of social pressure] that if this falls, all of Haredi society will fall – the slippery slope of all slippery slopes… (the fear isn’t always clearly defined, but that’s often how it is). If, say, we say that someone who is really having a very hard time should do such-and-such, will “the whole public” understand? And maybe not everyone will understand, and so on. Enough said.

With God’s help, 24 Tammuz 5722

The picture presented by Prof. Nadav Shnerb represents part of the Lithuanian stream, which speaks of total opposition to Zionism together with pragmatic cooperation with state institutions.

As for the Haredi world as a whole, the picture is far more complex. כדאי לעיין במאמרו של פרופ’ בנימין בראון ‘היהדות החרדית והמדינה’, באתר ‘המכון הישראלי לדמוקרטיה’ (קישור אליו: בויקיפדיה, ערך ‘יחס החרדים לציונות’).

And “give to a wise man and he will become wiser still.”

Regards, S”Tz

I recall reading in my youth an article by a Belz Hasid (if I remember correctly) arguing that the state is neither “redemption” nor even “the beginning of redemption,” but that it does contain “deliverance and rescue” for the people of Israel

(and on its face this is identical in principle to the view of Rabbi Reines and Rabbi Soloveitchik regarding Zionism and the state), and the source requires searching.

Even in defining the Haredi-Lithuanian outlook, Shnerb’s words are inaccurate. The pragmatic system of considerations does not require only the narrow interest of the Haredi public, but also the good of the public as a whole.

For example, they say that the members of the local council in Bnei Brak asked the Hazon Ish whether to operate the traffic lights on Shabbat, since those driving on Shabbat are thereby violating religion. The Hazon Ish answered that the traffic lights should be operated on Shabbat, since the children being driven on Shabbat by their parents did not sin, and for their sake one must care about traffic safety.

Or for example, the tendency of the Haredim in general, and the Lithuanians in particular, to adopt a moderate diplomatic line in the direction of “territories for peace,” in order to prevent wars and soldiers being harmed as a result of them, even though most of the soldiers whose safety they care about are not part of the Haredi public. More than that: there is concern even for the just interests of non-Jews. Thus, for example, Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Steinman opposed retroactively legalizing communities built on privately owned Arab land, out of caution also regarding “the theft of a gentile.”

In short: rejecting Zionism on the principled level does not contradict concern for justice and for the welfare of the public as a whole.

Regards, S”Tz

I don’t understand – how is it that the dissonance between a logical, orderly Talmudic method, at least in the Lithuanian yeshivot, doesn’t touch life outside the study hall?
How do the scholars accept the meaningless sermon of the mashgiach in the synagogue?
My friends from yeshiva took the Brisker method with them, and many of them found themselves in mathematics or law studies.
After all, after years of staring at the Brisker method, the Brisker method starts staring back.

With God’s help, 23 Tammuz 5780

To Yishai – greetings,

The gap between the Torah, which is pure divine intellect, and what happens in life, where human beings act in a whirlpool of conflicting logics, emotions, and impulses – is unavoidable. Order is not chaos, and chaos is not order.

However, understanding the order and pure logic within the Torah helps us try to bring a bit more order into the chaos of life, in two respects:

First and foremost, the Torah gives us an accurate “compass” that enables us to know what we should aspire to and what means we are permitted to use in order to realize our aspirations. The Torah defines for us the goal and the boundaries.

But the analytic study that enables us to deeply analyze the Torah’s view in all its complexity also gives us tools to understand the views of people who think differently from us.

When one honestly analyzes the view of the person standing opposite us, one can define both the complex logical foundations of his position and the emotional sides that drive him. When we try to understand the “other,” and not see every way of thinking different from our own as “meaningless gibberish,” we can move forward in life toward mutual appreciation, understandings, and even certain agreements.

In short:
Study of Torah gives us a compass that defines what to aspire to and what is permitted to do, and it also gives us tools to analyze different outlooks out of an understanding of their complexity.

Regards, S”Tz

By the way, law and mathematics aren’t exactly identical with life either, and still it’s impossible without them 🙂

Beloved Shatz”l
Prof. Shnerb cuts corners badly on these matters, and this is clearly visible.
An extremely superficial view, again, on these matters.

And our master Michi has already noted how difficult it is to derive a coherent conclusion and a doctrine from homiletic discourse.
After all, our Sages already spoke in this way.

A short anecdote as a window into the world of the Hazon Ish appears in the memoirs of Rabbi Rafael Halperin (founder of the well-known Optica Halperin chain). Halperin recounts something that happened at his bar mitzvah celebration, at which the Hazon Ish was present. Halperin says that a certain rabbi got up to deliver a Torah discourse and explained that God chose King David over Saul because of Saul’s sin. Halperin says that the Hazon Ish immediately rose up sharply and angrily and shouted: “Nicht emes! Nicht emes! The Gemara says he did not sin!” That certain rabbi insisted and tried to bring proofs for his words, and again the Hazon Ish shouted: “They’re lying, they’re lying! Falsehood, falsehood! He never tasted sin, that’s what it says in the Gemara!”
Of course, that certain man was right, and the Hazon Ish was defending a completely absurd interpretation. Mountains of evidence can be brought from the plain meaning of Scripture for the reasoning of that certain rabbi. This is a small example, but from it and from the rest of the Hazon Ish’s writings a fairly clear picture emerges: the Hazon Ish was psychologically incapable of accepting a reality in which the words of the Sages in the Talmud and Midrashim are not true.
It seems likely to me that the Hazon Ish truly and sincerely believed his own answer about two thousand years of Torah. His honesty is irrelevant. True, the answer is indeed absurd, but that does not undermine the Hazon Ish’s honesty, so long as he believed in his answer with inner sincerity. His high intelligence is also irrelevant; it mainly testifies to his ability to easily understand the moves of a complex sugya.
What is interesting to me in this whole story is the very uncontrollable impulse to think that the Hazon Ish did not believe his own answers, just because the answer is absurd. Where does this impulse come from? And why specifically the Hazon Ish? What about hundreds and thousands of rabbis and Torah greats, in the past and in our time, whose answers on all sorts of subjects are scandalously absurd? A not very long look at the Torah thoughts I find in synagogue pamphlets fills me with horror. The Torah thoughts, the answers, and the arguments that people write there are genuinely horrifying. Do they all not believe their own answers? Or do they believe them, in which case their intelligence is low? Or perhaps they lack intellectual honesty and are lying to themselves?
No, gentlemen. In practice, human beings hold completely absurd views, and if those views come as a defense of the foundations of a person’s faith, then all the more so the critical sense is entirely blunted. The Hazon Ish is not exceptional in this case.

With God’s help, 23 Tammuz 5780

And to Yosef [Shveik] I say –

It is difficult to discuss oral remarks transmitted a long time later from the listener’s memory, since a small change in a word can reverse the meaning of the statement.

It should be noted that the Gemara does not say that Saul did not sin, but rather that he “never tasted the taste of sin,” and it may be that the meaning is that his sin in not wiping out Amalek did not stem from “tasting the taste of sin,” that is, from lustful desire. On the contrary, Saul’s sin was out of a sense of justice that prevented him from carrying out the command, which did not fit his moral feeling.

Perhaps the Hazon Ish’s reservation was toward the preacher’s claim that Saul was replaced by David because he sinned, and to this the Hazon Ish objected that Saul sinned less than David, for the Gemara says, “Saul with one and it counted against him; David with two and it did not count against him.” So David sinned more than Saul, and nevertheless did not lose his kingship.

Rabbi Ohad Krakover (rabbi of Kochav HaShachar) regularly explains in his lessons that Saul (like Joseph) is the figure of the “complete righteous man,” who preserves himself with complete stability so as not to fall into sin. David, by contrast (like Judah), represents the figure of the “penitent,” who indeed falls into sin, but also knows how to rise from his falls, admit his sin, and repair it.

The path of the “completely righteous” is the path of “select individuals,” of whom it is said, “Happy is he who has not sinned,” but most of the people are not in that condition and are liable to fall. Therefore the leader fit for the generations is דווקא David, who can teach the people the way of the “penitent,” who knows how to rise and be elevated from his falls.

Regards, S”Tz

It should further be noted that what the Gemara says, that Saul “had not tasted the taste of sin,” is expounded on the verse: “Saul was like a year old when he began to reign,” and one could say that this was said about the beginning of his kingship – that when he entered the kingship he was clean of sin like a one-year-old, but later in his reign he sinned “once, and it counted against him,” to remove him from his kingship.

Regards, S”Tz

Y

That commenter who was quoted, Hani Gergel, is the daughter of Rabbi David Bloch – who was the head of the Midrasha in Pardes Hanna and one of the founders of the Haredi Nahal.

I wasn’t his student, but I happened to hear a very interesting lesson of his, and friends of mine who studied with him at the Midrasha said he was a special person, very Haredi, but very unusual.

(This isn’t some kind of secret, so I allowed myself to post it here.)

I participated in the discussion there on Nadav’s post – he returned again and again to irrelevant claims and ignored many responses in which it was rightly said that beyond the quality of the quotations he cited (which was what the dispute between him and R. Menachem Navot revolved around), he forgot that there are also middle positions – like those of Rabbi Kahaneman or R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, and that even clearly anti-Zionist rabbis like Rabbi Shach did indeed speak about “provoking the nations,” but explicitly wrote that their main issue against Zionism was the secularism in it.

Continued-

and not Satmar’s issue of the Three Weeks.

With God’s help, 23 Tammuz 5780

I do not understand the arguments of Prof. Shnerb and Ms. Gergamel about the alleged insincerity of the Haredim, who oppose Zionism yet maintain pragmatic ties with the state authorities.

Have these distinguished arguers never heard of an ambivalent attitude toward a reality composed of affirmation and negation? Have they never encountered situations of a gap between the ideal and the real, between a situation of lechatchila and a state that can only be accepted bediavad?

They should take into account the fact that according to Beit Hillel, “it would have been preferable for man not to have been created,” and all human life in this world is bediavad, and nevertheless Beit Hillel deals with this bediavad condition with patience and “ways of pleasantness” (and perhaps precisely Beit Shammai, who see human existence in this world as lechatchila – perhaps for that reason they are more demanding?).

Regards, S”Tz

As usual, a fine column. Clearly formulated. And it conveys the message sharply.
I’d note a point or two.
1. As someone who doesn’t know Haredi society at all, except from reading books, articles, news, and the like, I’ll accept your description and Navot’s of the pragmatism and non-ideological nature of this public. In this context, isn’t this something universal regarding every society? At least usually, that’s what it seems to me. There are always the great ideological “men of spirit” – the writers, leaders of movements, and so on – who are always steeped in ideology, and every move they make at least purports or tries to be connected to some ideological rationale. And then there are the ordinary folk, the average people in society, who are usually more flexible and more likely to preserve a few points here and there and fight over certain things that matter to them without needing to derive it all from books and justify every single point. Isn’t it also this way in the religious-Zionist public? To what extent does the simple householder, the yeshiva student, the schoolteacher, the preacher in the synagogue, and so on, really feel a need to justify every step they take, every move in their lives, every educational statement, from the writings of Rav Kook, Rabbi Reines, or Rabbi Goren? Whenever there is a dilemma about how to relate, in the most banal examples, to a family member, brother, or son who has gone off the religious path, will the simple householder remember Rav Kook’s words about the “spark of holiness” in secularism? Will the average person in that public, when going to study law, psychology, or teaching, seriously examine the issues of neglecting Torah study, Torah versus work, and the like before making a decision? Will the average preacher or average educator, when there is some public uproar over some marginal “price tag” incident or statement against various populations, condemn it only after seriously studying the writings of Rabbi Herzog, Rav Kook, and Rabbi Reines on the issue of the state’s attitude toward minorities? Or will he simply condemn it out of common sense, a desire to convey a clear educational message that one does not do such a thing, or even because it is worthwhile to serve as a “defender” of religion from hostile attacks, without spending too much time examining the sources? (Of course in such cases there are people like Rabbi Benny Lau, for example, who like to call for tolerance and condemn violence only after clarifying and emphasizing that all this supposedly comes only from the Torah of Israel and not, Heaven forbid, from instinct or basic logical thinking unrelated to Torah or halakhah. With all due respect to him, this often creates tremendous absurdity, and rightly so.) Of course there is the phenomenon of “the line,” where every step and every decision is justified through preplanned messianic ideological thinking, and parallel phenomena on the other side such as Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah and the Hartman Institute, who justify every step through religious-liberal ideological thinking (or synthetic thinking?).
But is not most of the public, across most yeshivot, populations, and varieties of the religious-Zionist sector, as I have described?

Of course, Shnerb’s post speaks, and rightly so, about the ideology of Haredi society, which naturally is expressed in books and in the words of leaders, and not in the opinion of some average person from the street. But my point is: isn’t the gap between the pragmatism and flexibility of most of the public and the ideology, consistency, and ordered doctrine of more limited parts of the public not something that applies to every public?

A friend of mine. Indeed a special person.

By the way, the rabbi should note that the difference between the two types of Haredim is isomorphic to the difference between the two types of leftists: the extreme communist left (once the communists, today Meretz and Labor) versus the pragmatic left (once Mapai and the Labor Party, today Blue and White and Yesh Atid). Leftists and Haredim are two sides of the same coin: both are non-Zionist (communism rejects nationalism, just like Haredism, which is exilic Judaism). Both are moralistic – conservative moralism among the Haredim and liberal moralism (which, Rabbi – please truly forgive me – you too suffer from to no small extent). Both cling to their religion (among the Haredim – the Haredi religion, not the Torah) in a way that violates common sense (also among the pragmatists, of course; even among the Haredim, their pragmatism does not prevent their infantilism, and likewise with today’s pragmatic left [Yesh Atid and Blue and White], for whom the High Court is like the Great Sanhedrin, and whom the rabbi has already noted are lacking in intelligence, and who believe in “gatekeepers” as secular god-anointed figures and in the “anti-Bibi” messiah). And just as among the Haredim, so too on the left today, there are increasing numbers of non-draftees on the one hand, as well as all sorts of artists and singers and people engaged in unproductive airy occupations (journalists, media people, lawyers, etc., as opposed to farmers, who are for the most part pragmatic leftists). That is, the more leftist one is, the less productive and useful one is (not that art is not creation, but leftist, moralistic art [bash Israel / howl over the tears of the oppressed and win a prize at Cannes] is creation on a low and childish level).

And regarding religious Zionism: in my humble opinion, the rabbi is mistaken in comparing it to the Haredim. Let him not forget that unlike the pragmatic Haredim, it does military service and pays taxes even more than the general public.

If the Haredi public related to the words of the gedolim as a wink, it would long ago have left the kollel, gone to study and work, and even enlisted.

This is probably a general pattern and is connected to fanatical adherence to ideology without applying common sense and criticism, and not specifically to Haredism and leftism. That is, it is connected to ideology that becomes a religion. In such a case there is no nationhood and no common sense and nothing else. Anyone who declares the credo (the declaration of faith) of the ideology and is baptized belongs to it, and not the other wicked heretics. Only it are we meant to serve, and there is no need for an army except the army of the ideology (“the army of God”), and no need to work; rather, all the other donkeys, who are not part of the believers in the religion, are meant to work for the believers and spreaders of the gospel. In our case, we are simply dealing with two general ideologies – the ideology of conservatism (Haredism) and the ideology of anti-conservatism – anarchism – liberalism (leftism). These are the right and left sides of the same coin.

And of course, rejecting ideology is also an ideology, and round and round we go, heaven forfend 🙂

With blessings of song, joy, and gladness, the humble Pancho Villa

First, even if the public doesn’t understand this, the claim is that this is indeed so. Because the implications of what is said are not really intended by the speaker.
Second, it seems to me that quite a few people understand that these are winks on the ideological plane, and along with that they understand the goals and act accordingly (as I mentioned in my remarks). For example, the goal is to keep everyone in kollel; the rationale: everyone must study and work is a Torah prohibition. That is of course nonsense, but the goal is correct and people act accordingly and do not leave the kollel.

On the matter of esotericism, it is interesting to add that many make the same claim about rhetoric in the Arab world. When their leaders declare that they want to destroy Israel, the US, or whatever else, it is only to achieve a result, and they do not mean a word of it. Nasser too in ’67 did not want to destroy Israel, and Israel simply went to war against him for no reason. Opens an interesting comparison..

When have you ever seen active Haredi efforts to destroy the state?

Of course not! You didn’t understand me; I meant the comparison only in the style of speaking.

An interesting and fine column; a few brief comments.
A. As a Haredi who knows the entire Haredi world well in all its shades, it is clear to me that Shnerb is very wrong here. It may be that in the past, when Haredism was under heavy siege, those Haredi statements did to some extent reflect the Haredi outlook. But today, even if those statements are repeated, it is only as lip service. Broadly speaking, Haredim today (except for those self-appointed guardians of “hashkafah”) tend more and more to support the existence of the state in a total way, and many of them are more nationalist than secular people (they are just happy to enjoy the privilege of dodging certain civic obligations). This very process reveals that Navot is right: the extreme statements did not necessarily reflect an ideological truth for the listeners, but rather educational outcomes.

B. Aside from Navot’s distinction, one should pay attention to the slang: Haredi linguistic style is incendiary. When a Haredi shouts treife chazir, he does not mean that it is literally like pork, and not only because of Navot’s distinction, but because this is slang of extreme expressions. So many times what stands behind the expressions is not only a lack of coherent thought, but no intention at all of what they imply.

C. Regarding the Hazon Ish, I do not share your opinion. The Hazon Ish was very calculated and tried to be systematic to a certain degree, and his statements generally expressed what he believed.
You are a devotee of the Hazon Ish, and therefore you are certain that he had intellectual integrity, and because of that his words must be interpreted this way. But I am not a devotee of anyone, and in my opinion he did not have intellectual integrity. This is proven by his extreme statements about aggadic sayings of Hazal, which no one with intellectual integrity can accept; likewise by his extreme expressions regarding the state, and by some of his halakhic remarks in several places (the issue of legal measures, where in several places his words become laughable; and apparently also the issue of the dateline; and perhaps also the issue of building with electricity on Shabbat).
The Hazon Ish really is a difficult figure to contain: on the one hand, an almost angelic person, controlling his body totally, devoted to God and to people in an inhuman way, balanced, moderate, and rational, exceptionally wise. And on the other hand, his lack of intellectual honesty, in addition to unrealistic extreme religious positions, constituted the ideological infrastructure for the whole Haredi style that developed in the Land of Israel, a style that has much in it to despise.

Reuven, you are repeating exactly what I said about the Hazon Ish, just in a more critical connotation. That is exactly what I said about him.

Indeed. Apparently perhaps this is the highest level of abstraction: Haredism represents “ideology” (as such), and that is the right; and leftism represents the “anti-ideology” of that ideology (as such), and that is the left. And they will fight forever until we all perish. Or until the messiah comes, who is the middle.

It’s like a derush, a kind of florid phrase for something you wanted to do anyway. Of course it won’t make anyone from the outside believe it.

If Reuven is Haredi, then I’m the messiah, what is this…

R. Shalom Shwadron tells about himself that he was at the funeral of the Hazon Ish, and someone there spoke disrespectfully about the Hazon Ish, and on the spot he was stung by a scorpion and taken to the hospital. Anyone who is truly Haredi (aside from Chabadniks) would never dare speak like the above-mentioned Chaimovitz.

All this discourse about Haredi statements strongly resembles autistic discourse about the forms of human emotional expression.
An autistic person has to learn the emotional meaning of a situation in which the mouth widens and the eyes narrow (what is called a smile), that in such-and-such a situation it means this and that, etc. etc.
And of course the autistic person never really understands what is meant in one situation or another; it is always adjacent, always approximate. Even if it can be brilliant and very sophisticated, it usually doesn’t really hit the mark.
The difference between Shnerb and Navot is the willingness to admit that there is something beyond the words. Shnerb is an autistic person unwilling to learn, and Navot (and the rabbi-author) is an autistic person willing to try and learn.
In general, this is the state of any person who comes from another society and tries to study a society with which he is not identified or in which he did not grow up.
(By the way, we probably do not understand the Arab discourse around us to the same degree.)
Despite all the above, it seems to me that with all the misunderstanding represented by Shnerb, he himself does not believe what he writes.
Does he have a problem with a Haredi person with a Haredi outlook serving in intelligence or writing software in a sensitive security field?
Obviously not; everyone knows at least a few such people from close by, Haredim in sensitive security roles…. And more than that, I’m sure he also has no problem with a Satmar Hasid in a sensitive security field (I personally knew one such person, who was involved in building a very sensitive system while remaining Satmar-Haredi before, during, and after the job).
How can that be? After all, they have an ideology like that of the Arab parties?!
Rather, even for Shnerb, words are one thing and truth is another, just as for the Haredim, words are one thing and truth is another.
Everyone knows (Haredim and non-Haredim alike) exactly what the Haredi Jew believes: he certainly cares for the welfare of the state like every Jew.
In short, words, words.

But that is precisely the problem (which Nadav pointed out). What kind of people are these who do not mean what they say? Or who do not speak in some defined language? If it is impossible to communicate with Haredim unless you were born Haredi yourself, then you always have to remain conscious that he is lying to you. Because he has no consistent and systematic language (at least relatively speaking). You can never know what he means. And against the backdrop of the awareness of concern for one’s own people and institutions, you always have to be careful and suspect that he will try to deceive you somewhere.

Thank you for the discussion and the response. I wrote a comment. It relates, admittedly, to a continuation that is peripheral to the main discussion here, but it is important regarding the questions that were asked.

https://www.facebook.com/mn.neemane/posts/2904053063055228?comment_id=2904065149720686&notif_id=1595144041540486&notif_t=feed_comment

I’ll copy my comment here for the benefit of those who don’t have access to Facebook.

Not long ago Nadav Shnerb wrote a post in which he speaks about classical Haredi ideology, even in its moderate version, which in his view is an ideology no less extreme than that of Satmar Hasidism in its attitude toward the state, with the only difference being in the practical or pragmatic question. After various quotations that he brought, he wrote that Haredim, in the final analysis, broadly speaking, are interested in the destruction of the State of Israel if only they could. I responded to his remarks and wrote that in my view his words are first and foremost a complete mistake and a misunderstanding of Haredi reality, and secondly I argued that his words embody a completely mistaken understanding of the concept of language and the way it is expressed in Haredi society. The language of “hashkafah” in Haredi society is not a language that seeks to fit things logically, precisely, and meticulously to their content. Rather, it is a language whose basic role is different. It is not an ideological role but an educational role. The language therefore works through its rhetorical means; its “truth” does not lie in the logic it indicates but in the mode of being it presents. That is why it often tends toward inflation, pomposity, turning every small thing into an event of monstrous dimensions, etc. This style is therefore the “pathological side” of that character. The absence of any stable logical anchor and a tendency toward wild exaggeration that in the end becomes unbelievable, but also becomes ideological dances of folly. The discussion rolled on to the difference between religious Zionism and Haredism on this issue, and in my opinion these things are fundamental for understanding several stylistic differences between the two societies. Rabbi Michael Abraham quoted this whole controversy on his site and wrote an article on the topic, and regarding the description of the language in Haredi society he tended to agree with me, and also elaborated in his own language on the matter. (In the first comment I’ll upload a link to Rabbi Michael Abraham’s article for anyone who wants to follow the whole discussion; it’s all quoted there.)

In the end, both Nadav and Rabbi Michael Abraham raised the same criticism of my remarks: if these things are true, then there is no way at all to identify what is serious and what is not serious in this discourse, what is true and what is not true, and from there there is also no way to debate, no way at all to discuss anything in the Haredi worldview. I argued that there is a subtext that those who understand such things can identify, but it is not explicit, and still there is no “objective” way to debate. I tend to agree with this criticism, though not entirely, because I think one can understand what is “between the lines” if one sharpens one’s hearing, but I agree that serious discussions are somewhat difficult in such an atmosphere. And again, if we are talking about a problematic feature that stems from here, then yes, this is a good example.

But in my view this is an opportunity to discuss the next stage. Even if I identify all these “pathologies,” my words were still written in a certain sense as a defense of this discourse. Rabbi Michael Abraham wrote that my defense of this type of discourse may be identical to my sympathy for continental philosophy as opposed to analytic philosophy. And I quite agree. In his eyes that is of course a disadvantage, but in my eyes it is an advantage. I will nevertheless try to explain what there is in the Haredi “mode of being” that I sympathize with and defend.

Let me again preface that I am aware of all the “analytic” problems here, all the “pathologies” I noted above, those very “pathologies” that create a kind of textual nihilism, and I agree with that too. My remarks below do not in the least blur the criticism from that direction. What I want is to emphasize another dimension to which many are blind, and I can even say personally: this is the thing that causes me to sympathize with the Haredi approach despite all the criticism.

There is a world of articles of faith, like the Christian “credo.” This world is the popular one in our environment, both religious and secular. It is a world of declarations, of statements, and of outlooks. We declare whose side we are on, what we believe in, and we are very precise in order to understand exactly who is on the “bad” side and who is on the “good” side. In this sense there is great importance to declarations, positions, assumptions, the precise formulation of outlooks, and declarations about them. This also leads to analytically accessible literature, in which even literary or poetic texts may come under the violent millstone of ideological mobilization, into analytic formulation, into precise outlining – the kind that neutralizes all the excess spirit in the text, that turns a poem into a “position paper.”

Such a world is also a world that produces distance and alienation. This distance is expressed in the fact that people find the meaning of life in the ideological question and the ideological formulation they offer. It is the ideological formulation that corners the excess spirit. We are asked for endless accessibility, clarification, illumination, and sharp cutting of concepts, and thus in effect the poetic, living sting is plucked from the text.

Neither philosophy nor religions were originally like this. Both of them (and strange as this sounds to many, yes, philosophy too) are not originally analytic movements but movements of the soul. The philosopher is a “lover of wisdom.” Socrates moved out of longing, out of eros, out of attachment to wisdom, and it was precisely this longing that led him to point out his lack of knowledge. It was precisely the crowd, the non-philosopher, that seemed to him to be the one who knows, the one who never longs, the one who formulates “position papers,” “ethical codes.” The philosopher is the one who surrenders to his lack of knowledge, that is, to his infinite longing, to the gap between himself and knowledge. That gap arouses longing; it arouses movement of the soul toward wisdom. The philosopher is not necessarily the one who formulates alienated analytic texts, but the one who enters the human storm, goes out to the agora, the city square, full of longing, full of attachment, and tries to realize what can never be fully realized. This is a description we must understand as a description of longing. Desire between two lovers remains only when the beloved has not been folded into the totality of the self, when something in him has “still” not been understood, when a certain otherness rooted in him escapes my grasp, as Levinas explains. This otherness arouses in me the desire to know more, it arouses in me fire, a wish for attachment, a wish to conquer something. When the image of the beloved has become one rubbed smooth by analytic, technical definitions, it has become an anemic, one-dimensional figure, a scientific datum that arouses neither longing nor attachment nor eros.

Just like philosophy, so too religions. Religions always sought attachment. This attachment refuses the reduction of the world, of being, to definition. In the Middle Ages there were endless scholastic discussions about defining God. Did they contribute anything to emotional connection or attachment? I doubt it. If they did so for individuals, it was because those individuals were moved through longing toward wisdom, which led them to such serious engagement with definitions and with describing the metaphysical world. Whoever reads the canonical literature of religions, and in our case the Bible and the literature of Hazal, will not find there many analytic definitions. What he will find there is emotional storm. Spiritual storm, intense longing for God, for the infinite, for the wondrous.

Torah and religion are meant to be understood existentially, not analytically. Reducing religion to analyticity is to remove all its sting. Analytic descriptions of religion may often be thin and boring, because the sting is not there. Lately I see many discussions of this sort, precisely from this side: people ask, for example, whether “prayer works” or not. What is problematic in questions of this type? Not the positions surrounding it, but the sterilization of prayer from all its meaning. Turning a practice that is meant to be a practice of attachment, of storm of soul, of spirit and excess spirit, into a mechanical question, as if we were discussing an ATM. What remains of prayer after all the sting has been taken out of it? Nothing. Only the plumbing question. Exactly what remains of a great poem after asking, “How much money does it bring in?”

The problem is not analytic philosophy as such, but its pretension to take over being. Analyticity is an excellent quality; I would be the last to oppose it. It is what allows us to do things at a high level, and above all to avoid nonsense. But its pretension to “cover” everything is a destructive pretension. More than once I have encountered religious analytic philosophers who explain to me how their religious faith is not at all influenced by their thought. Their religious faith is childish, primitive, banal (by their own testimony). Their entire analytic-philosophical occupation does not touch at all upon the question of their religiosity. The great occupation of their lives remains nothing in relation to what is supposed to be the storm of their religious soul. Like a scientist occupied with physics who afterward goes to synagogue. Of course I am not generalizing, and it is not correct at all to generalize on this issue. I am speaking about the pitfall of turning mathematics, logic, and physics into the whole show. The spiritual barrenness of logical positivism and its offshoots. The attempt to conquer all excess spirit through engagement with those questions. The attempt to listen to Schubert through the question of the mathematical formula in him.

I return to the internal religious discussion. What is there in Haredism, as a movement, that is emphasized in an exceptional way, more than anywhere else? According to my distinction, not a grand ideology, not a complex or extraordinary worldview, not one or another “more” or “less” rational position, but primarily longing and attachment. The word attachment is the most important thing here. That is the psychic activity. The serious relation to holiness. A religious movement done out of longing, out of powerful connection, out of emotional storm. In Haredi society, even the most sophisticated and cynical person would not dare joke about God or holy things as though God were his buddy. It is embedded in the soul; the relation to holiness is courageous, deep. It is not kitsch. True, it tends toward kitsch the moment it has to formulate itself in pamphlets and pashkevilim, but the Torah scholar engaged in the discussions of Abaye and Rava is occupied with “the thing itself,” exactly like the description in the Gemara of Rava occupied in his learning, his finger placed beneath his thigh and bleeding, and in his great longing and fervor he did not notice at all, while the heretic beside him mocked him, mocked his attachment. In his eyes it appeared childish, an ignoring of reality, irresponsible. But Rava quoted the verse, “the innocence of the upright will guide them.”

The Torah scholar who is the ideal in the Haredi cultural world is not the one who knows how to formulate well the “role” of Torah in the world, nor the one who knows how to define analytically and accessibly what is “Torah of exile” and what is “Torah of redemption.” None of that interests him because he is in the Torah itself; he is “there.” He does not speak about the Torah; he speaks Torah. He studies; he does not talk about studying.

I know it is very popular to think that yeshivot need “studies of faith.” I always thought this was foolish. Why? Because to study seriously things that touch on faith, one must have a broad soul, or be an intellectual. Not every mind can bear it. What does the popularity of these “studies” produce? Kitsch. Narrowness of spirit and horizons. People speak of a “genius in faith.” They quote meaningful quotations of Rav Kook as though they were religious dogma, an article of faith that one must discuss, whereas Rav Kook spoke to the soul. Faith is “a subtle inclination born of the soul’s refinement,” in the language of the Hazon Ish. It is not a position one declares in a “position paper.” Of course I do not think one should be an ignoramus. One cannot be a whole Jew without studying Tanakh, without knowing the history of Jewish thought, and without knowing Jewish history in general. And in that sense my arrows of criticism toward Haredi education are very great (not that elsewhere, where such things are studied but the thinking is “mobilized” from the outset, is any better – perhaps it is even worse). But trying to substitute these things for the question of faith causes both the subjection of faith to kitsch and the turning of this study into thin and poor study (because only what can be “our position” will be studied, and all the texts are ideologically and systematically recruited toward “the position” we must adopt. We listen much less and declare much more).

I have a very great criticism of Haredi society and of the way it educates. I think it has a troubling lack of analyticity regarding questions of outlook and ideology. I think it has social evils. I think its lack of ability to think itself through logically also prevents it from criticizing itself. I think it does not think enough about its role, about the role of religion, about its moral role. All that is true. But I will never take from it what belongs to it. In my eyes this is the society that today preserves, more than any other society, and by an enormous margin, attachment, the “song” of Torah, the courageous, sincere, deep relationship with Torah and holiness. The excess spirit, the fervor and longing around wisdom, around the sugya. This is a society that enables, more than any other society, involvement in a Talmudic or halakhic sugya to the point of blood until the small hours of the night, without rest, “forgetting the world,” only because of attachment and longing. All this is a “version of childhood,” it is the most important thing in religious education. Everything else can be learned later. But a seven- or eight-year-old child who goes to study with an intense longing to finish the entire Talmud – this is a thoroughly unpopular phenomenon, especially in our materialistic age. All this, the “analytic” among us, often miss. The Haredi “language” is therefore the language that is entirely mobilized to preserve that thing at all costs. That is why I defend it despite its great maladies. The “between the lines” is this thing. Elsewhere, the arrows of criticism are immediately redirected: what is the value of Torah that is not halakhah in practice? What is the value of Torah that does not come to expression in formulating a concrete moral position? What is the point of finishing the Talmud? What does all this lead to? This whole desire for the “bottom line” of everything expresses precisely the fading of the excess spirit from our districts, the translation of everything into the practical question, “What does this give me?” or in our materialistic world: “Bottom line, how much money does this bring in?”

The main difference between the left and the Haredim in this context is that the socialist left founded the state; it did not fall in line with it after the fact. To say that the left is not Zionist because the philosophy from which it stems opposes nationalism is theoretical nonsense that shatters against all the manifestations of a national left – and in our specific context, a Zionist one, not at all pragmatic, but from the outset.

As usual, very well written and highly intelligent. Somewhat surprisingly (or maybe not), I agree with almost every word, but not with the conclusion. I’ll present this through two comments (which are connected):
1. I think that in the more modern public there is developing a no less powerful connection to Torah, but it is done in a somewhat different way. At least the melody is different. There the Torah is perceived as something broader, and still this is not only analyticity and accessibility. And I’m not talking about hardalniks (who are Haredi in every respect relevant here), but modern religious people, in the style of the rabbis of the Lichtenstein family, the Gush rabbis, and their circles. This itself is proof for what I say in section 2.
2. As in learning Gemara, so in every kind of learning, in my opinion, we should try to conceptualize things. Indeed the logical positivists are mistaken in thinking that logic is the whole story, and I, insignificant as I am, who lean strongly toward analytic thought and conceptualization, have criticized them quite a bit on this. But the alternative is not to abandon analyticity, but to recognize its limits. Analyticity is a very important framework for discussion, and in fact without it there is no discussion (there may perhaps be reading poetry). Intellectual activity is always conducted within an analytic framework (and here I assume Rabbi Navot and I will not agree), even if those engaged in it are aware of its incompleteness (that is, that it does not capture all the nuances, implications, and meanings). I think quite a bit of my own writing deals with this very issue (syntheticity, which I try to capture analytically. To speak about syntheticity synthetically would be a declaration or poetry, not discussion).
A Haredi learner (mainly Lithuanian) who deals with a Talmudic sugya is an almost complete analyst. There too he assumes that in order to understand, it is not enough to listen to the melody of the words; there is a need for precise analytic dissection and conceptualization. True, a good learner knows that after the analysis one must also listen to the melody, but not instead of the analysis – as an additional level built on top of it. Without the initial analysis, this is not learning but reading poetry (as above). But for some reason, in the realm of thought and ideology, this dimension is almost absent from Haredi discourse, and on that my criticism focuses (and part of Nadav’s as well). It seems to me that in this Rabbi Navot agrees with me.
So where exactly is the disagreement between us? I will try to sharpen it (I hope I understood correctly).
I accept that in the Haredi world a deep identification and immersion in Torah is created beyond conceptualizations and arguments, but in order to create this they give up discourse and study and focus on reading poetry and performing chants and reciting mantras. That was the criticism (mine). If Rabbi Navot, who to my understanding shares this criticism, thinks that this is a necessary price in order to create the identification in question, here I disagree with him (see section 1 for evidence for my claim). It is important to understand that I am not speaking about the masses, who in any case are shallow and do not engage in philosophical conceptualization and analysis, but as I emphasized in my remarks, I am focused on the intellectual segment, the spiritual-rabbinic leadership, and their discourse. For the shallowness and emptiness of the discourse of those layers, I see no justification. There it is not inability but stupidity. My criticism concerns them. I also do not accept that they do this only in order not to confuse the masses. They themselves are not skilled in philosophical thinking and are not really aware of the problematic nature of the slogans they throw around, and that is what troubles me so much.
Therefore, in the bottom line, although I agree with almost everything Rabbi Navot wrote, I do not agree that this amounts to a defense that answers Nadav’s arguments and mine.

Let’s say that most Haredi gedolim speak harshly against the State of Israel.

Who says they represent the Haredi position?

The Haredi public is a very broad public, with traditional characteristics, as Rabbi Navot has already noted. As in a traditional public, there is a certain gap between the public itself and its leaders. This gap is fundamentally healthy, and should exist in every public.

Rav Kook formulated this wonderfully in his passage in Orot HaKodesh that begins, “The intelligentsia thinks it can separate itself from the masses.” There he explains the need of the spiritual leadership in the nation for a people that will bring it down to reality, and the need of the people for spiritual leadership:

“It also does not know how to stand in the bonds of war, when recognitions and feelings are at war within, or in the world without. For this it needs the help of the great men of resource, who straighten before it the paths of its world.
But just as they influence it with counsel and resource, so it influences them with healthy life.”

That is, the leaders do not see it as their duty to express the average opinion of the public, but to pull it in a certain direction, a direction of correction. Since the natural feeling of a Haredi Jew (like almost any Jew) is empathetic toward the state, the leaders see for themselves a balancing and guarding role: to create a barrier and separation between the public and the state.
The “truth” of the public is somewhere in the middle, and certainly cannot be derived from the statements of the leading sages alone.

I am Haredi, and I dwell among my people from birth, and believe me, I’m reading these three posts and I have no idea what they are talking about, when they are praising us, when they are criticizing us. It reminds me a bit of jungle researchers coming to study the environment of our monkey tribe. The main thing is that I am the subject that everyone is always talking about, at every moment and all the time. Apparently we are something very interesting. No wonder the TV channels are constantly courting us to make ratings programs about us of all kinds without end. I didn’t know I was so interesting. The main thing is that everyone is satisfied. In any event, a real Haredi who is deeply rooted in the study hall will never get to the chatter and the many programs about him. He delights all the time; why should he care what this one thinks about him or what so-and-so will say about him? As long as he is connected to the oxygen of these pleasurable lives, it is good for him and good for the world.

I assume it’s clear to you that if the Haredim had a state of their own, the extent of preoccupation with Haredism and Haredim in that state would be negligible. Do I really need to tell you the ship parable?

If the Haredim had a state, then even so they would be a byword and a mockery among all the surrounding nations.

I don’t know of peaceful neighboring countries that occupy themselves with comparisons and belittling. And even if the Haredim had a state, it would more or less be like any other state, and therefore it would not become an object of mockery.

If you meant the parable of the sinking ship – then yes.

It amuses me that until today this parable was used by the Haredim against the secular, and today they are throwing it back at us and saying, “each man in his place may bore a hole in his own ship.”

With God’s help, 28 Tammuz 5780

They say that Arabs once came to R. Amram Blau, one of the leaders of Neturei Karta, and proposed cooperating with him, saying: after all, both we and you oppose the Zionist state – so why shouldn’t we cooperate?

R. Amram answered them: our opposition is the opposite of your opposition. You oppose the state because it is Jewish, while we oppose the state because it is not Jewish enough, because it does not behave properly for a Jewish state.

The Arab haters of the state want to throw all the Jews out of here, whereas the Haredi opponents of the state want all the Jews to keep Torah and commandments and be worthy to dwell in the “King’s palace.”

Long live the abyssal difference!

Regards, Shimshon Hirsch

Hi, I didn’t read all the comments, but I want to raise two points that came to me from reading:
A. From reading Nadav’s post, I feel that he ignores (perhaps deliberately) one point: the negative attitude and the “tune” in which his claim is heard. Maybe he didn’t mean this, but posts like these create not only deep discussion but also (mainly) belligerence and negative feelings around the Haredi public. Maybe on the intellectual plane he is right, but the feelings he creates are negative and the discourse becomes murky. In my opinion, here he uses the same rhetoric that Haredi moral preachers use: they give you a quotation in order to arouse feelings in you without creating a complex and deep understanding of reality. Maybe he didn’t intend to criticize the Haredi public, but the way he presents reality definitely creates very specific feelings around the issue. I hope the point is clear; apologies if not.
B. As for deeds: I don’t really know the Hazon Ish, but from the stories I’ve read about him (mainly from the Haggadah of Pesach according to the Hazon Ish), he is described as a person of great sensitivity and empathy. Presenting him in a very specific light bothered me a little, and this returns to the previous point (and Navot’s point) about the inability to create nuanced thinking about a public when one speaks about it.

Tuvik, if you had seen the very harsh accusations written about R. Chaim Kanievsky regarding corona, you would no longer get worked up over respect shown to one great rabbi or another and how things roll along. As was said, “He who sits in heaven laughs.” Only this Saturday night, on the main news with Dana Weiss, Professor Ran Balicer, candidate for director-general of the Health Ministry, and other world experts supported his position regarding the young from 0 to 18. The problem is that everyone jumped before they got a bit of data on the disease, and today they are wise after the fact. After it turned out that he was right, no one bothered to say, “I was wrong.” But we have already gotten used to being apathetic and waiting to see how matters will fall out.

Maybe Haredim who were alarmed by the childish story you brought from R. Shulem. In recent years there has been a growing Haredi group that is fed up with this style.
N., prepare for the coming of the messiah.

R. Eichenbrunner, you’re talking nonsense as is your holy custom.
I was a lad… even the greatest “shtayging” enthusiasts in Ponevezh sat with us to discuss what “they say about us” after seder gimmel.
There are some who are detached, but not in percentages greater than in any group of people detached from what goes on outside their four cubits.

False idealization of some reality is unconvincing.
Aside from pity for those trying to imagine it, it convinces very few.

The claim against R. Chaim did not stem from the wisdom or foolishness of what he said, but from the rashness and the decision based on a short question presented without proper background.

*who are detached in every society

P.S. Believe me, series dealing with Haredim such as Shtisel, Shababnikim, and the like have masses of viewers from among teenagers sociologically belonging to the Haredi public.
Just like the series Malchuyot Shel Mata, which was even screened in the hall of Beit Malka.

Exactly – that is our dispute with you, and over this we are weeping.

Who is “you”?

Those who do not understand what it means that the Holy Spirit rests upon the gedolei hador, and that all their “he said” is da’at Torah, and that matters are entrusted to them, and as they rule below so they are obligated above. Among us this is something understood and we imbibed it; among you it arouses ridicule at best. Therefore there is no one to talk to: “Just as it is a mitzvah to say something that will be heard…”

I imbibed it until it made me nauseous.
Imbibing is too weak an excuse. This whole nonsense about the Holy Spirit belongs in stories about the Baal Shem Tov, not among rational Lithuanians.

I’m also Lithuanian. Rashi at the beginning of Parashat Chukat speaks about a Lithuanian like you.

With God’s help, 29 Tammuz 5780

The harsh attitude toward the state found reinforcement in the 1950s, when the state authorities systematically acted to secularize the masses of immigrants from Eastern countries. Thus they shaved the sidelocks of immigrants under the pretext of fighting “ringworm,” and forced immigrants to send their children to secular education under threat that they would not receive work – facts that were exposed by a commission of inquiry that included also decent people from government circles such as Judge Fromkin and MK Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (later President of the State).

The aim of the authorities was to create among the immigrants a “melting pot” that would free them from the “chains of exilic religiosity” in order to create the “new,” “free” Israeli. To a great extent, today’s secular people are already “not into that.” They are more on the defensive out of real fear of another wave of repentance that will sweep away their children. Therefore it is hard for us to imagine those days when the sparse religious and Haredi Judaism that existed here after the Holocaust saw itself as genuinely threatened.

Paradoxically, the great fear of the Haredim of what the secular government might do to them also led to a cautious and moderate attitude toward it. Thus, for example, the Hazon Ish ruled that one may not register as a yeshiva student someone who works, saying that deferment of military service for yeshiva students “stands on chicken legs,” and if they catch that this deferment is being exploited by someone for whom “Torah is not his profession,” the deferment may be canceled (these remarks are brought in Kuntras Darkei Ish, conduct of the Hazon Ish recorded by his student Rabbi Aharon Yeshaya Rotter, at the beginning of his book Shaarei Aharon on Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim).

The caution against confrontation with the authorities is also illustrated by the story about Rabbi Yitzchak Zev of Brisk, who said of participants in violent demonstrations against the authorities that they are really “Zionists,” believing deep down that the police are their merciful brothers, and therefore are not afraid to confront them. Distrust of the good intentions of those in power requires one not to enter mortal danger in violent confrontation with them.

Thus it turns out that a negative attitude may also be a consideration leading to cautious and moderate behavior.

Regards, S”Tz

What I brought in the last paragraph in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak Zev, that one must beware of violent confrontation with the state authorities, reminded me of what is told about Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski of Vilna, who opposed the Zionists’ policy of imposing a boycott on Nazi Germany because such a boycott might intensify Nazi harassment of the Jews of their land. But when Rabbi Chaim Ozer was asked why he did not publicly voice his opposition to the policy of the Zionists, he answered that just as we are warned “not to rebel against the nations,” so too we are warned “not to rebel against the Jewish nation” (brought in the introduction to Responsa Bnei Banim, in the name of his grandfather Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin).

Regards, S”Tz

I was mistaken about the parashah, but it doesn’t matter.

With God’s help, 29 Tammuz 5780

In fact, Rabbi David Bloch is actually a return to the “Haredism of old,” of the 1950s, when a “working Haredi” was not something unusual. After all, he grew up in the Haredi moshav Yesodot. The “Haredi Nahal” also existed in the 1960s and 1970s under the command of the Gur Hasid R. Moshe Chaim Sheinfeld and the guidance of Rabbi Binyamin Mendelson, rabbi of the Haredi moshav Komemiyut.

The creation of a “society of learners” numbering tens of thousands of yeshiva students became possible only after the Likud came to power in 1977, when the restrictions on the number of yeshiva students entitled to draft deferment were removed, and government support for Torah institutions was significantly increased. So Rabbi David Bloch is simply restoring the Haredi reality of the 1950s and 1960s in which he grew up in his youth.

Regards, S”Tz

A nursing baby is sweet; seeing an adult nursing arouses revulsion.
And people have already said before that the Haredim have become a group of overgrown babies…

With God’s help, ערב ראש חודש אב 5780

One of the 48 ways of acquiring Torah is “faith in the sages,” and this is what brings a person to toil and delve into the words of his teachers until he merits understanding them. And about words of Torah it is said, “Let her breasts satisfy you at all times” – just as every time an infant nurses from the breast he finds taste in it, so too with words of Torah: the more a person studies them, the more deeply he descends into them and finds new flavors in them.

And thus Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin explains the Mishnah, “and be dusted in the dust of their feet,” that mit’abek is a term of “struggle,” that a student must argue with his teachers and challenge them if their words do not seem right to him. But the “struggle” must be “in the dust of their feet,” out of recognition of their immense greatness, a recognition that brings one to great effort to penetrate the depth of their understanding and not dismiss their words like straw.

With blessings for a good month, S”Tz

Rabbi Shatz”l, from where do you know that this is speaking about matters in which the rabbi has not the faintest clue?

By the way, from where do you get the absurd statement that “just as they rule in the earthly court, so they rule in the heavenly court”
for matters that are not Torah matters and where there is no ruling of a court?
Just an empty slogan, in the best tradition of slogans from the Haredi factory.

With God’s help, 29 Tammuz 5780

To Meshav”b – greetings,

In matters requiring professional expertise, all the more so there is an advantage to the great rabbis, who usually have connections with the leading experts in the field, far beyond the ordinary person nourished by rumors and the internet or by a junior doctor in a health fund and the like.

Also, life experience of dozens of years spent answering the questions of thousands greatly helps in “challenging” the professional expert with questions and lines of thought that had not occurred to him. The professional knowledge of the expert, combined with the rabbi’s analytical ability and rich life experience, helps both of them arrive at the right decision.

Regards, S”Tz

Experience like:
Rebbe, the state wants to close the yeshivas because of a plague.
A: Heaven forbid.
Packed with information sources and deliberation.

With God’s help, 29 Tammuz 5780

To Meshav”b – greetings,

Obviously, in an instructional video for the public they keep to a brief presentation of the question and answer so that the message will be absorbed. That is not the place to elaborate on reasoning and arguments.

Especially since the rationale was simple. At that time the entire economy was still open. Shops and offices were operating as usual with certain restrictions, and there was no reason to impose a sweeping closure specifically on the yeshivas.

The restrictions by which the entire economy then operated were imposed by Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein on the yeshivas and Talmud Torah schools: “keeping space between flock and flock,” ventilating the place of study, appointing people responsible for overseeing hygiene, and preventing the sick and those required to isolate from entering the study hall.

Also from a health perspective it was preferable to keep children and youths in supervised frameworks, rather than crowd them all into packed homes, a clear recipe for losing control of the situation.

Regards, S”Tz

Close to their instruction not to cancel study in the yeshivas, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein drafted detailed health guidelines:

‘… And in every place, danger is more severe than prohibition, and all of us must strive greatly in all matters requiring caution.

For example: to divide the learners and leave space between flock and flock. Also to ensure that the study rooms and study halls are properly ventilated, and to appoint supervisors who will maintain the cleanliness required by health necessity.

And anyone who has even a double doubt of illness, either in himself or in his family, even if he merely requires isolation according to the instructions – should refrain from the study hall and not bring guilt upon others. And the roshei yeshiva and the directors of the Talmud Torah schools shall stand guard.’

(See the report: “The Great Sages of Israel in a Special Letter: These Are the Things in Which We Must Strengthen Ourselves,” dated 8 Adar 5780)

Among you, it seems to me the 613 commandments are 613 slogans. And how do you know that regarding Torah matters it is like that?

Among you, it seems to me…
Even regarding Torah matters, this saying is not mentioned directly but only indirectly, by implication from the sugya of the Oven of Akhnai.

For the instructions of Dr. Meshulam Hart, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky’s personal physician, see the report: “How Does One Cope with Corona? The Recommendations of Dr. Meshulam Hart” (Kikar HaShabbat, 26 Adar 5780).

About a week later Rabbi Gershon Edelstein wrote a particularly strong letter at Dr. Hart’s request about the obligation to be careful with all the guidelines for dealing with the coronavirus. See the report: “Rabbi Gershon Edelstein Issued a Particularly Strong Letter” (Kikar HaShabbat, 2 Nisan 5780).

Regards, S”Tz

There was once a Hasid who said of his rabbi that he was in the category of “the righteous decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills.” A Kotzk Hasid who heard him replied: “And my rabbi is in the category of: the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees, and the righteous fulfills” 🙂

Regards, S”Tz

Rabbanit Dr. Chana Katan told a remarkable story about a righteous man’s prayer being answered after the passing of the gaon R. Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l. A question had been brought before him concerning a pregnant woman whose ultrasound scans showed that the fetus was destined to be born with a severe defect.

Rabbi Lichtenstein ruled stringently, in accordance with his view that one may not abort unless the mother’s life is in danger. But he asked for the name of the pregnant woman and her mother’s name in order to pray for her and her fetus. At the end of the nine months of pregnancy, the child was born completely healthy…

That would imply that in your view this is not a futile prayer, like “if his wife was already pregnant and he said, ‘May it be Your will that my wife bear a male.’”

And already the scoffers of the generation have gone in this direction: Jacob said, “I lived with Laban and kept the 613 commandments,” and that is difficult, for example, regarding the commandment to show honor to the descendants of Aaron and give them precedence in every matter of holiness, as it says, “and you shall sanctify him” – how did he fulfill that? (And in positive commandments, compulsion is not considered as if one acted, and it seems the same would apply when the commandment cannot possibly be realized in the world at all.) Rather, the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the sons: keeping commandments is merely a slogan, and in practice it is enough to preserve tradition (circumcision and kashrut, meaning the sciatic nerve).

With God’s help, 2 Av 5780

To D – greetings,

This is how they explained the statement that every person must complete his rectification by fulfilling all 613 commandments, even though he cannot fulfill them all in practice – that whatever he cannot fulfill in practice is considered fulfilled through studying their laws, and likewise through attaching oneself in love to the community of Israel, one becomes a partner in everyone’s commandments.

And both reasons existed in Jacob: his great toil in Torah in the academy of Shem and Ever, and his devotion to raising his children (“who redeemed Abraham from the pain of raising children”), by which he laid the firm foundation for all Israel and its individuals for generations.

Regards, S”Tz

And regarding Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein’s prayer – a prayer for healing is not a futile prayer…

Thank you, Shatz. The source for this “statement” about “completing rectifications” by fulfilling commandments feels to me very late indeed. And what is the relevance of “attaching oneself in love to the community of Israel,” that one thereby becomes a partner? If there is such a connection of partnership in commandments as a collective, then it is something that exists anyway, so why should it be affected by a feeling of attachment? In any case, it is indeed clear that Hazal and Rashi did not think our father Jacob fulfilled commandments like eating the leftovers of meal-offerings, and one must interpret that the meaning is: I was careful and scrupulous in all 613 insofar as it was in my power. Still, for mockery, there remains room to ridicule “lite” or traditional people who consider themselves religious, and I would be surprised if they have thirteen commandments in hand.
As for the healing, you are right. The distinction still needs a bit of polishing, but indeed as you say.

With God’s help, 2 Av 5780

To D – abundant greetings,

Indeed, when people ridicule “traditionalists” and “lites,” who perhaps do not merit a share in all the commandments through studying the halakhot and through love of Israel – they end up granting them merit through the principle established by the author of Chovot HaLevavot: that when one speaks evil speech about a person, all the merits of the speaker pass to the one spoken about (and vice versa – the liabilities of the one spoken about pass to the speaker).

It seems to me we would do well to focus on improving ourselves, and not on casting aspersions on others, whom we should judge favorably that they were not properly taught, and are in the category of “ignorant people whose intentional sins are treated as unintentional,” as explained at the end of the chapter Elu Metziot, and as Rabbi Gershon Edelstein said in the name of the Hazon Ish, that bnei Torah are held to a higher standard than those who were not educated at the knees of Torah.

May it be His will that Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin’s blessing be fulfilled in us: “All who pursue Yah shall overtake Him in the straits.”

Regards, S”Tz

In the name of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook it was said that although he did not like everyone who was not fit for it adopting kabbalistic practices of “select individuals,” he upheld the saying of leshem yichud before performing commandments as a practice for the many because its conclusion emphasizes that the commandment is done “in the name of all Israel.”

The fact that the community of Israel is one organism, whose individuals are “limbs” in the complete organism, is explained already in the words of the Jerusalem Talmud on “you shall not take vengeance and you shall not bear a grudge”: if one hand harmed the other, it would not occur to the injured hand to harm the other in return. And this continues in the words of the author of the Tanya, chapter 32, that all Israel are “one soul in divided bodies.”

Regards, S”Tz

The principle of Chovot HaLevavot, to trade in the reward of one’s fellow, nullifies the whole idea of commandment and transgression, aside from the fact that heaven did not ascend and bring it down to us. I will judge him favorably that his intention was merely to arouse awareness of the severity of the sin. Be that as it may, we have not heard that this can be used to challenge the homily. As for the community of Israel, there is no problem with the matter except for the added claim that partnership in commandments depends on “attachment in love to the community of Israel.” [Though according to this, it would seem one should also say that in the communal sin-offering for an erroneous ruling, in order to participate in ownership of the bull one must attach oneself in love to the entire tribe, and thus a difficult matter will be explained: after all, Avishai ben Tzeruyah was equal to most of the Sanhedrin, and he erred in the finest shades regarding anger when he wanted to kill Shimei ben Gera, and it implies there that all David’s servants were with him in that view; so most of Israel, who were not liable for death (for one who rebels against the monarchy is liable for death and is cut off from the count of the tribe), sinned in anger, and whoever is angry is as if he worships idols, so why did they not bring a communal sin-offering? Now it is easily explained: they wanted to bring it, but the people were not attached in love to all Israel, for they were in civil war, and therefore they could not bring the bull – and all is well.]

With God’s help, 2 Av 5780

To D – greetings,

Indeed, even an individual’s participation in a communal sacrifice requires an act by the individual – the giving of the half-shekel. And nowadays, when in practice there is no half-shekel, the consciousness in a person’s heart that he is only “half of the complete whole” is counted for him as actual giving of the half-shekel.

Regards, S”Tz

The source of the words of the author of Chovot HaLevavot requires clarification, but presumably he had a source in the words of Hazal. We may assume that the early authorities did not “pull things out of their sleeve.”

There is something similar regarding one who rejoices at his fellow’s downfall, where it is explained in Proverbs that this turns away God’s anger from him, and the anger passes to the one rejoicing, as explained by the commentators on the words of Shmuel HaKatan in Avot.

And I will yet say [but now is not the time to elaborate] 🙂

Regards, Guy Shlufan

It may be possible to explain the words of the author of Chovot HaLevavot as follows: when a person looks with a “magnifying glass” at the flaws of another, then measure for measure, the Holy One, blessed be He, also looks at the detractor with a “magnifying glass,” and then he may be found worse than the one he disparaged.

Something like this was written by the Malbim (Proverbs 24:18) on the verse “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see and it be evil in His eyes”: by seeing your cruelty and vengeful character, He compares His deed with your deeds, and your deeds become more evil in His eyes, until the other becomes righteous compared to you, “and He turns His anger away from him” – onto you.

And in the positive measure, Hazal said: “You judged me favorably – may the Omnipresent judge you favorably.”

Regards, S”Tz

To the kindly and indefatigable Shatz. Accepted. And may your reward be full from heaven.

The idea of a magnifying glass does not appeal to me. It reminds me of a mysterious Gemara: it says, “May the Lord show favor to you,” and the ministering angels objected, “But it is written that He does not show favor,” and the Holy One answered that they are strict beyond the letter of the law even down to an olive’s bulk, and therefore God also waives strict law. This is puzzling: let them receive the reward for their scrupulousness down to an olive’s bulk, and no more. As a matter of definition, one cannot justify favoritism.
Also, the verses in Proverbs are very strange. “Do not let your heart rejoice when he stumbles” – why? Because it is not nice? Not at all. “Lest the Lord see and it be evil in His eyes, and He turn His anger away from him.” “Cast your bread upon the waters” – why? Because charity etc.? Not at all. “For after many days you will find it.” “If your enemy is hungry, feed him bread” – why? Because charity and compassion? Not at all. “For you will heap coals on his head.” And I do not have the patience right now to open up commentaries, etc.

Regarding the source of the words of the author of Chovot HaLevavot and their parameters – see the answer by R. Hillel Meirs, “Does One Who Speaks Evil Speech Lose All His Merits?” on the Hidabroot site.

Regards, S”Tz

And to D –
Why shouldn’t I be kind? You are giving me the opportunity to clarify these subjects, and I am the main beneficiary of that clarification.

There he refers to Midrash Shocher Tov on Psalms [52], where it says about the leper: if you spoke evil speech about your fellow, the little Torah you have in your hand you lose. And who was this? Doeg, etc. Whoever looks will see that their meaning is that he becomes leprous and cannot study Torah (because he is exiled from a place of Torah and is also troubled and groans all day like Job), and therefore he forgets the chapter headings he knew. This seems to me clearly the intention of the Midrash – see there. In any case, it is halakhah I want and masters of Gemara I seek; and if there is pleasure for the palate in Midrash study, there certainly is no nourishment for the intestines.
http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/vl/midrashshohertov/midrashshohertov02.pdf

With God’s help, 2 Av 5780

To D – greetings,

We began our thread with the statement of a Kotzk Hasid, but it is important to know that not everyone is a “Kotzker,” and therefore the verses and sayings of Hazal that arouse a person to good qualities must also use utilitarian considerations, which are very helpful in moving a person toward the good.

And regarding “for you will heap coals on his head,” lower your gaze to the end of the verse: “and the Lord will reward you,” which Hazal expounded as “and the Lord will make peace for you with him.” When the enemy sees that the object of his hatred benefits him, he realizes that all his hatred was a great mistake, and this is a terrible feeling, truly like “coals on his head.” But the end of the “shower” is the restoration of peaceful and pleasant relations: the “coals” cool the heat of the quarrel, and “find love in the end.”

Regards, S”Tz

Y

R. Shatz, I cannot now go through the whole book of Proverbs to verify my view, and it may be that I am mistaken, but it seems to me that this book is characterized by blunt utilitarianism. It carefully justifies everything in terms of joys and pleasures and honor and wealth and riches in one’s house, and lofty principles get no notice. I just opened at random with a bit of flipping to chapter 25 to demonstrate the point. “Do not glorify yourself before a king, and do not stand in the place of great men.” Why? Surely preachers are not lacking to expound it. But King Solomon did not think so. He explains: “For it is better that it be said to you, ‘Come up here,’ than that you be put lower in the presence of the nobleman whom your eyes have seen” (that is, if you are level 8, present yourself as level 7, then they will warmly advance you to 8 when they recognize your quality, rather than if you present yourself as 9 and they angrily demote you to 8 or less when they recognize your quality). The next verse: “Do not go out hastily to quarrel.” Why? Perhaps because it is a bad character trait? Not at all. “Lest what will you do in the end, when your fellow puts you to shame.” The next verse: “Argue your case with your fellow, and do not reveal another’s secret.” Why? Because it is unseemly? Not at all. “Lest he who hears it disgrace you, and your bad report not return.” And there are many such cases. Give to a wise man and he will become wiser still; instruct a righteous man and he will increase in learning.

Your explanation regarding the coals fled from the lion and met the bear, because you said that through the bread the enemy will feel such a terrible feeling (and that is itself the point, for otherwise what are the coals doing here), and there is no forgiveness here, no pardon, but rather kicking a man when he is down and rejoicing at his downfall like a kettle. And what you added, that in the end they will make peace between them – do all enemies want to make peace with each other? I am astonished. And why didn’t they do so already? What kind of advice is this? You go make peace with him.

It seems there is no fear of being hurt by the bear when doing good to one’s rival, for two reasons: (a) bears like honey, and have nothing to look for when one gives a rival “bread and water”; (b) one could say we are speaking of winter, when the bear is asleep, and in winter coals are warming and pleasant 🙂

On a more serious note: every change of consciousness is initially accompanied by a bad feeling, when a person realizes that all his life he has lived and acted in error. But the Kotzker already said: “He who increases knowledge – even though he increases pain.” The initial pain in being exposed to truth passes and fades over time, whereas the joy in truth and peace is eternal.

Regards, S”Tz

I remain with my own view, and my thoughts wander here. Therefore I hereby make my mouth an agent to connect everything in perfect unity, to cleave the wife of one’s youth to her beloved without parable and without riddle. And of this homily it was said, “In His quiver He hid me” – see there.
For behold, this enemy upon whose head coals are to be heaped – one should ask first of all how he became an enemy, for “you shall love your fellow as yourself” is written. Rather, plainly this is an enemy who does not act as “yourself,” and “those who hate You, O Lord, I shall hate.” Therefore it is permitted to speak evil speech about him, namely “broom-tree coals” – see there. And that is what the verse says: “If your enemy is hungry,” that is, an enemy of the Omnipresent. Then it is a sign from heaven that this is a time of wrath from God, and therefore it is a commandment to hasten to speak evil speech about him and prosecute him at every moment until the moment of God’s wrath comes exactly and fury and indignation and distress befall him. And because that speaker of evil speech became attached to this noble matter, surely the Lord will repay him in full. Thus the verse is as clear as clay, and all the wrinkles are smoothed out, and the words of the earlier ones have also stood and been established, though I had turned away from them; and though their rising has no permanence, still they were not denied a temporary standing. And in any case the owner of the vineyard will come and destroy my thorns, and who will gather them beyond the rivers of Cush, my entreaties, daughter of my scattered ones?

And the Meiri (in his commentary on Proverbs) also explained this by way of parable: if your enemy, the evil inclination, is hungry and thirsty for desires – feed it bread and water, namely the Torah, which is likened to bread and water, as it says, “Come, eat of my bread,” and “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.”

The Torah on the one hand breaks and “heaps coals” on the head of the evil inclination, and on the other hand satisfies a person with wisdom and upright values. And when one eats healthy and nourishing spiritual food, the need for junk food disappears.

Regards, S”Tz

Nice. But it is precisely for this reason that I set on the potter’s wheel the claim that the book of Proverbs does not tie itself much to abstractions, but to sticks like our sticks, with which they bind and strike, and carrots like our carrots, which come at the meal; so that whenever advice comes into the world, a stick or a carrot comes in its hand. And if we come to expound the whole book as parables for one single matter, in the manner of the Ralbag [who throughout the book, whenever a verse appears and offers its own opinion, immediately silences it with a rebuke: now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say; and all the verses are to him like a flock of obedient sheep that came up from the washing, for the Levite exposed them to scorn] – then surely it would be much, much better for us to take a book like Shaarei Teshuvah or Orchot Tzaddikim, which state the matters on their own. Why should we waste time hanging on verses what they neither commanded nor ever intended?

And if that is little, I will add more examples still. For instance from chapter 23 and onward:
* “Do not toil to become rich.” Why? Perhaps because one should invest one’s time in Torah study? No. Because wealth surely grows wings.
* “Do not eat the bread of one who is stingy.” Why? Perhaps because hearts might grow close like with the bread of an idolater? No. Because as he calculates within himself – and the morsel you ate you will vomit up.
* “Do not move an ancient boundary, and do not enter the fields of orphans.” Why? Because you should be ashamed? No. Because their redeemer is strong; he will plead their case against you.
* “Let not your heart envy sinners.” Why? Perhaps because they missed the right and the good? No. Because surely there is a future, and your hope shall not be cut off.
* “Do not be among drunkards of wine, among gluttonous eaters of meat.” Why? Perhaps because this is not the way of holiness in Israel? No. Because the drunkard and glutton shall become poor.
* “Rescue those being taken to death.” And if I shut my eyes and evade the commandment? Ho ho – “If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not He who weighs hearts understand? And He who guards your soul, does He not know? And will He not render to man according to his work?”
* “Do not lie in wait, wicked one, against the dwelling of the righteous.” Why? Because what kind of thing is that? No. Because the righteous falls seven times and rises.
* “Do not fret because of evildoers.” Why? Because there will be no future for the evil man; the lamp of the wicked shall be extinguished.
* “Fear the Lord, my son, and the king; do not mix with rebels.” Why? Because suddenly their calamity will arise.
* “He who says to the wicked, ‘You are righteous’” – what is wrong with that? “Peoples will curse him, nations will denounce him.”
And many, many more; whoever stretches out his hand receives some.

After all, the entire Bible is full of exhortation to do good not only because it is good, but also because it pays off.

Words of moral instruction are needed first and foremost for someone who has a desire for evil, and the path of his correction begins with simple fear, fear of punishment, and only at the peak of his path can a person reach awe of exaltedness and service out of love.

And regarding the parables in Proverbs, its very name testifies that it contains parables. So why are you so up in arms?

Regards, S”Tz

The novelty is that the book should be interpreted in a natural and ordinary way, in the way of the world, with the general idea that there is a Master of the palace, Father of orphans and Judge of widows, and that is all. Not moral improvement, not Torah study, not delighting in the radiance of the Shekhinah, but building a spacious house with upper chambers, paneled in cedar and painted with vermilion in this world, and just so. As for the parables (you surely sensed that I hinted at this myself; the problem is not the fact of parable, but “parable for one thing”), it needs no elaboration that the whole book is parables. For example: “A thorn that goes up into the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of fools.” The proverb comes to teach content, but the fool grasps only the proverb itself, like a person who came to gather a rose and ended up with only thorns and brambles that cover the rose. Thus the proverb is likened to a thorn, the meaning to a rose, and the fool to the gatherer. The commentators who took too much freedom for themselves lost the whole book (to my taste), because it says nothing except the thoughts of their own heart. Instead of gathering the rose, they went to their own garden and planted there the flowers they found in the book’s garden.

With God’s help, 2 Av 5780

To D – greetings,

I did not merit to understand your words. At the beginning you claimed that Proverbs contains nothing but physical matters “and no more,” while later you said that of course there is also an allegorical meaning. The beginning contradicts the end.

If a book declares of itself that it is “parable,” then it leaves it to the hearers to interpret the parable as they understand it, whether on the basis of close reading of the biblical language or out of familiarity with the spiritual world of the writers.

Thus, for example, the Meiri based his allegorical explanation on the verses “Come, eat of my bread” and “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” which are certainly intended allegorically regarding the word of God. Interpretation by way of allegory is anchored in the verses.

Regards, S”Tz

Rabbi Shatz, my champion and intimate,

There is no difficulty. For of course “you will heap coals on his head” is a metaphor and not literal. And the whole book is full of such metaphors: “As a bag of stones in a sling, so is one who gives honor to a fool.” “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” There is no bag and no sling and no honeycomb and nothing sweet at all; these are metaphors. And so too the metaphor of proverb and meaning as thorn and rose. But the intended meaning is always simple and natural, and does not deal with exalted spirituality. And the commentators (I do not know the Meiri; I know the Ralbag, and I sniff from your quotation that there is a strong common denominator between them – and if not, then my words are not directed against him in general) who turned the whole book toward specifically Jewish spiritual matters created for themselves a figurative meaning of their own, and one has to do archaeological digging, layer after layer, to rescue the book from that forced interpretation.

Of course I do not object to explicit metaphors for the word of God. Anything that appears in the Bible can also be used as a metaphor for something else. If you find in the Bible the idea that there is an “evil inclination” called an “enemy,” and that in order to overcome it one must study Torah and that this is like feeding the evil inclination, then there would be room to interpret Proverbs that way too (still with enormous difficulty). But that is precisely the point: the book says what it wants in a way that can be understood. If it speaks of feeding an enemy bread, then it means feeding an enemy bread, not overcoming the evil inclination through Torah study. The homiletic quip can keep quipping to itself in its appointed hour between Friday Mincha and Shabbat Ma’ariv, while the preacher sings lullabies and the congregation dozes off. And when Isaiah (much later than Solomon and the ancient Egyptian Proverbs) says, “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” and concludes, “Incline your ear and come to Me; hear, and your soul shall live,” the matter is clear: by hearing, their soul shall live like the soul of the thirsty man who found a well in a weary land. They are not speaking in riddles open to entirely different decipherments.

You dragged us into this whole discussion about Proverbs [only] because you proposed the verse about “and He turned away His anger from him” as though the commandments and sins of one person pass over to another like movable property, as a companion to the words of Chovot HaLevavot that one who speaks evil speech transfers merits (and therefore the evil speech in which I stumbled above is a merit for those who seriously say, “What’s wrong with you? I’m super religious,” while they have not opened any book, including a siddur, since bar mitzvah, and all their religiosity consists of circumcision, kashrut, and not lighting a fire on Shabbat. That type disgusts me, and I imagine, as if, as if, as if, as if, Jacob comes with circumcision and the sciatic nerve and says confidently, “I kept the 613 commandments”).
Well then, so far no source has been found in Hazal (not even in aggadah) for the words of Chovot HaLevavot. The Midrash, as stated, did not mean at all what that rabbi on Hidabroot interpreted into it, but speaks of evil speech that brings leprosy, which brings loss of “a little Torah.” That is: one loses specifically because of the leprosy, and specifically Torah, not commandments. And I explained that the leper sits alone and therefore forgets (and I used the phrase “exiled from a place of Torah” to allude to the story of R. Elazar ben Arakh, that even he, when alone, forgot his learning).
And the verse in Proverbs also never intended any such thing. And therefore you drew us into this whole matter of Proverbs, and I argued that it itself always speaks in visible, concrete matters, while only some commentators created for themselves 310 worlds and constructed in them bridges and bathhouses out of their own minds. Therefore I personally do not accept this idea that the commandments and sins of So-and-so pass to Someone Else as though “like one man with one heart,” and I suggest that if there are innovations on this matter, let us focus on that. Because to conduct a real discussion about biblical interpretation and the commentators – their methods and justifications, etc. – that is beyond my strength; and also, what I do have in my satchel would presumably not please you, and I doubt we would reach common ground on this before the heavens are no more and they no longer awake or are roused from their sleep.

With God’s help, 3 Av 5780

To D – greetings,

Regarding the words of the author of Chovot HaLevavot (in Sha’ar HaKeni’ah, chapter 7, in the name of “one of the righteous”) about the transfer of the merits of one who speaks evil speech to the injured party, or the transfer of the liabilities of the injured party to the one who harmed him:

It occurred to me to explain that this is in the category of “damages compensation.” Just as one who damages his fellow’s property must compensate him by transferring his “best money” to the injured party, so too one who harms his fellow’s honor and good name is obligated to compensate him in the heavenly court with the “best of his honor.” A person’s true “property” is the reward for his commandments, and from this “property” the heavenly court exacts compensation for the one harmed by him.

Regards, S”Tz

To my mind, the reasoning would be attractive if the very idea of transferable merits were known from the words of Hazal. And even on its own terms there is a great difference between honor here, which is a means to enjoyment, and honor there, which is an end in itself.

With God’s help, 3 Av 5780

To D – greetings,

Seemingly, even without an example from Hazal of transfer of merits and liabilities from one person to another, there is room for the reasoning that since in the eternal world a person’s only “property” is the recompense for his deeds, only from this “property” can compensation be exacted for one who harmed his fellow’s honor and good name, harm for which the laws of the Torah do not provide monetary compensation in human courts.

But there are two examples in the Torah and in the words of Hazal of a person being credited or charged because of another’s deeds. A person has responsibility for the sins of another by virtue of “all Israel are guarantors for one another,” and on the other hand there is the case of “a son brings merit to the father” (Sanhedrin 104; Sotah 10).

In both cases one can say that the person is liable by virtue of responsibility, and merits through the good deeds of his son, because to some extent he caused the failure of the other by not rebuking him,

and similarly the father, through his education, encouragement, and personal example, is also the cause of the good deeds done by the son. And sometimes even if the father failed and sinned, the son identifies the father’s unrealized will and succeeds in correcting where the father did not succeed.

In this way one may also speak of the slanderer, who has a “contributory guilt” in the failings and shortcomings of the person whom he disparaged. For had he, instead of honoring himself through his fellow’s disgrace, rebuked him with love and gentleness, there would have been a chance that his rebuke would be accepted. So there is reason to say that his choice of the path of disparagement and disqualification is what brought about the failure to use the path of corrective influence.

This we learned from the teaching involving the ignoramus whom Rabbi Yannai disparaged for his ignorance by saying: “The dog has eaten Yannai’s bread.” To this the ignoramus replied: “Have I inherited from you? For it does not say ‘the inheritance of Yannai’s congregation,’ but ‘the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.’ If you had cared to teach me Torah, I would not today be in the state of an ignoramus.”

Regards, S”Tz

With God’s help, on Friday eve, “May the Lord add to you” 5780

In explaining the words of the author of Chovot HaLevavot (Sha’ar HaKeni’ah, chapter 7, in the name of “one of the righteous”) that there is a situation in which the merits of one who tells slander pass to the injured party, or the sins of the injured party pass to the one who harmed him.

I first brought a similar (though not identical) matter: that one who rejoices at his fellow’s downfall is punished for his joy and for honoring himself through his fellow’s disgrace, and in parallel causes a mitigation of the injured party’s sins, as it is written, “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls… lest the Lord see and it be evil in His eyes” – and thereby the one rejoicing is punished, while in parallel “He turns His anger away from him,” meaning mitigation of the injured party’s judgment.

Rabbi Hillel Meirs, in his answer on the Hidabroot site, likewise brought a source in Midrash Tehillim, Psalm 52, that one who tells slander loses the merit of the Torah in his possession, but there too it is not said that the merit taken from the offender is transferred to the injured party.

I therefore proposed that the transfer of merits or sins is effected as compensation for the injury to the honor and good name of another. Just as one who injures his fellow’s body or property is liable in human courts to pay the injured party from “the best of his money,” so one who injures his fellow’s honor pays in the heavenly court from his “eternal property,” giving him as compensation some of his merits or taking from him, as compensation, some of his liabilities.

I added that perhaps there is here another factor: the slanderer has a kind of “contributory guilt” for the sins and failings of the person he disparaged, for had he, instead of disparaging him and honoring himself through his disgrace, rebuked him by pleasant ways, there is a reasonable chance that his rebuke would have been accepted and his fellow’s sins or failings would have been corrected. Therefore one may say that the offender “honestly acquired” his fellow’s sins.

As examples of transfer of merits and liabilities I brought the law of mutual responsibility and “a son brings merit to the father,” where in both cases one can say that the guarantor is punished for not rebuking the sinner, and conversely the father receives reward because through his education and encouragement he was a cause of the good deeds of his son.

May these words be a memorial candle for the soul of my father and teacher, Prof. David Shmuel Lewinger z”l, whose fortieth yahrzeit falls today, and may it be His will that I merit to increase in learning from the breadth of his mind, his generosity, and his patience.

With blessings for a good Shabbat, S”Tz

You are right that I was imprecise in describing what you brought from the verse in Proverbs. Everything else is mistaken. The psalm in Tehillim is Psalm 52, not 42. I corrected it in the earlier messages and put a link. Meirs, who apparently did not open the text itself, erred in understanding it, so why keep bringing him up? “Counsel was taken and was frustrated.” “Will you revive the stones from the heaps of dust?” Concerning the best of my power and not gold, my word has already been spoken. An instrumental value is nothing when compared to a goal. Chovot HaLevavot explicitly deals with someone who lies, not with evil speech. So there is nothing there to rebuke gently. And even in evil speech there is no point, because contributory guilt exists in knowledge, not in speech. It is an additional sin, not a conversion. And it is relevant only in a narrow portion, those who could have corrected and their arrows missed the mark. “All Israel are guarantors” is something else entirely: partly a halakhic matter and partly a matter of punishment from heaven. The halakhic aspect certainly does not touch our case. As for heavenly punishment, the collective is judged too. Therefore “they shall stumble one over another for his brother’s iniquity” – for ill or for good. This is part of the metaphysical mechanism and these are the appointed orders, not occasional transfer between individuals, or else the punishment is for responsibility and not the sin itself – meaning there is no transfer of guilt at all. “A son brings merit to the father” is something else. And if others explained otherwise, I do not know or do not recall. First, in the Gemara it is speaking about honor. Second, it is a mechanism whereby the father is the cause of the son, and therefore the cause of his commandments. They detached reward from the choice, but did not detach it from deed and causation. Third, an addition to So-and-so is different from transfer between two like movable property. And the conclusion is that for every source there is a seasoned rejection. Search through the leaves and be agitated, O broken city. And if it is deleted, let it be deleted. And in an unknown aggadic Midrash it says: what is the meaning of the verse, “which I command you today shall be upon your heart”? I might think two hearts, one heart here and another there. Scripture therefore says, “your heart, your heart” – your own heart. And no man shall crowd his brother; each shall walk in his own path… and peace.