The Thought of Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel – Reasoning in Halakha – Lecture 1

Table of Contents

• Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel as a lever for questions about Haredism, Jewish law, and Torah
• The myth of the Chazon Ish’s student and the importance of image
• A broad biographical sketch and his role in the Chazon Ish neighborhood
• Torah provocation and lectures on Genesis, evolution, and biblical criticism
• General education, autodidacticism, and Bnei Brak myths
• “Stop Here, We Think” as a phenomenon of students, anonymity, and underground life
• An internal discourse bubble, “A.A.S.,” and halakhic radicalization
• The Haredi society’s reaction: violence, sanctions, and exclusion of children
• Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel as an intellectual innovation and influence on non-Haredi thought
• Haredism, anti-Zionism, and military service: the complexity of identity
• Movements within Haredism and extremism as a response to internal openness
• Chaim Grade, “Tzemach Atlas,” and the Chazon Ish as a moderate temperament
• “Two kinds of Chazon-Ishniks” and halakhic autonomy
• The dangers of autonomy among the young versus halakhic pragmatism
• Tamar Rotem’s Haaretz article: the “but” between openness and zealotry
• Working for a living, “many did so and did not succeed,” and a conceptual reversal
• The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides as a subversive thinker, and the Chazon Ish versus yeshiva-style learning
• Sociological contradictions, the ostracizing of Chazon-Ishniks, and rewriting his image after death
• Rabbi Shilat’s “In the Torah of Rav Gedaliah”: struggle, boycott, and censorship

Summary

General Overview

The speaker presents Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel as a trigger for clarifying fundamental questions about Haredism, Jewish law, Torah, openness, and extremism, and emphasizes that the figure as he is perceived, and the myths surrounding him, are no less important than the historical truth. He describes Nadel as an unusual figure at the heart of the “Chazon Ish neighborhood,” who managed to hold on within the Haredi core mainly because of his pedigree as a student of the Chazon Ish, yet said things no Haredi ear was used to hearing, including references to evolution and biblical criticism, and was blocked because of that. Out of his familiarity with “Stop Here, We Think” and with continuing students, he sketches an ideology of intellectual autonomy and autodidacticism that leads both to complete openness and to wild halakhic and social consequences, and suggests that openness can serve as a foundation for extremism rather than contradict it. Finally, he describes how after Nadel’s death people tried to eulogize him and fit him into conformist molds, and how Rabbi Shilat’s book, “In the Torah of Rav Gedaliah,” sparked a struggle and was boycotted, while his students preserve a more authentic image of him mainly on the margins and under anonymity.

Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel as a lever for questions about Haredism, Jewish law, and Torah

The speaker states that he wants to use Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel as a lever for broader questions about the attitude toward Jewish law, the attitude toward Torah, and Haredism in the essential sense and not only the sociological one. He says that Rav Gedaliah is “just the excuse” for entering these topics, but he begins by focusing on him and pointing out lines for what follows. He notes that Rabbi Gedaliah passed away about ten years ago, that he himself heard lectures from him and met with him before moving from Bnei Brak to Yeruham, and that once he also met Rabbi Shilat there at one of the lectures.

The myth of the Chazon Ish’s student and the importance of image

The speaker explains that it was hard to “throw out” Rabbi Gedaliah from the Haredi core because he was perceived as a student of the Chazon Ish, someone upon whom the Chazon Ish had “laid his hands,” even if this is a dubious myth. He cites an interview in which Benny Brown, who researched the Chazon Ish, is hesitant even about the existence of the relationship itself, and emphasizes that he himself did not investigate historically what happened and what did not. He states that the myth is sometimes more important than the historical truth, because presenting him as a continuator of the Chazon Ish makes it harder to act against him; therefore, for his purposes, the figure as perceived is the main thing.

A broad biographical sketch and his role in the Chazon Ish neighborhood

The speaker describes how Rabbi Gedaliah came to the Land of Israel at a young age, studied in Lomza under Rabbi Shach and in other places, and later fell out with almost everyone. He says that at a certain stage he grew close to the Chazon Ish, and brings one version according to which he studied in chavruta with Rabbi Yogel, and at the end of each week they would go to the Chazon Ish to ask questions that had come up in their learning. He says the Chazon Ish apparently appointed him rabbi of the “Chazon Ish neighborhood” in the Rashbam–Devorah HaNeviah–Lederman area, and that he remained the local rabbi until the end, living beneath Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and in the midst of the Chazon-Ishnik “old guard.”

Torah provocation and lectures on Genesis, evolution, and biblical criticism

The speaker describes Rabbi Gedaliah as a colorful and unusual Jew who said, in the very heart of the Chazon-Ishnik center, things that no Haredi ear was used to hearing. He tells of lectures in the Lederman synagogue, including a Wednesday lecture on the book of Genesis in which he spoke about evolution and biblical criticism and accepted them “in one way or another,” and in the end people did not want the lecture to continue, and he was “thrown out,” or at least not allowed to go on. He uses the story of “Adam the priest” to describe a “real heretic” as someone who prays with devotion before the Holy Ark, and he applies that by analogy to Rabbi Gedaliah as someone who spoke subversively from within the camp itself.

General education, autodidacticism, and Bnei Brak myths

The speaker says that he did not always understand his lectures in tractate Gittin because Nadel would switch to Yiddish, and he describes an argument and a conversation in which physics, philosophy, and mathematics came up. He says his personal impression is that Rabbi Gedaliah’s knowledge and command of these areas are not quite as the myth portrays them, and he criticizes Bnei Brak myths about “greatness in science” as something absurd that one cannot really believe. He does, however, attribute to Rabbi Gedaliah genuine involvement in those subjects, reading and studying English and French in order to read in the original, and he defines him as an autodidact, while stressing that autodidactic knowledge tends to be unsystematic and unstructured, especially when the whole foundation is built alone.

“Stop Here, We Think” as a phenomenon of students, anonymity, and underground life

The speaker describes how some of Rabbi Gedaliah’s students founded the forum “Stop Here, We Think,” an internet forum for discussions about Judaism, philosophy, and ideas, which allows any position to be raised as long as it is argued for, without substantive “boundary lines.” He says he was invited to participate following a discussion of the book “The Two Wagons,” and because he used his real name he ended up having more open conversations and even physical meetings with anonymous participants. He paints a picture behind the scenes of “fairly lively lives,” of groups meeting to learn and exchange ideas, and describes how at first he thought this was a broader phenomenon than it actually was.

An internal discourse bubble, “A.A.S.,” and halakhic radicalization

The speaker argues that in this group autodidacticism becomes an ideology, out of a desire not to be “captives” of disciplinary frameworks, but in practice what forms is a bubble of terminology and codes that is hard to penetrate. He describes a typical response of “A.A.S.” as an acronym for “everything is sociology,” which sorts and dismisses arguments and blocks real conversation. He recounts a meeting with “Rabbi Miller,” described as the rabbi of a group, and a secret meeting in a building in Bnei Brak that illustrates fear of exposure, and he concludes that what emerged was “an entirely new Judaism,” with an outward Haredi identity but a deep reform underneath. He describes people reaching situations of Sabbath desecration and eating forbidden food out of an independent interpretation such as “that isn’t Jewish law” or “Jewish law is the word of God,” and he presents this as a lack of commitment to tradition and to the balancing mechanisms of Jewish law.

The Haredi society’s reaction: violence, sanctions, and exclusion of children

The speaker says there was a war against them “all the way to physical war.” He cites testimony about a person who “got beaten up,” was forced to move house, and whose children were thrown out of the cheder, and connects this to the clash between the group and the Haredi establishment. He also mentions a philosophy book that was written as a PDF file but was never published, among other reasons because it was written “in their internal language” and required an editor who would also be a “translator.”

Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel as an intellectual innovation and influence on non-Haredi thought

The speaker says that the very fact that Rabbi Gedaliah dealt with general subjects and made the statements he made is itself an innovation, even if he has no “philosophical significance in the history of philosophy.” He argues that there are innovations in his worldview, some of which over time became less unusual, and even came closer to a consensus in the newer Jewish thought outside the Haredi world, and he presents Nadel as the “father” of some of these processes. He emphasizes that the figure challenges definitions and ways of thinking, and therefore he wants to use him to clarify concepts such as Haredism, Zionism, modernity, openness, and extremism.

Haredism, anti-Zionism, and military service: the complexity of identity

The speaker asks in what sense Rabbi Gedaliah “was still Haredi,” and describes him as an extreme anti-Zionist who enlisted in the army during the War of Independence out of a sense of obligation to fight in a time of danger, and then left around the time of the Altalena because he did not trust the decision-makers. He adds that he also tried again during the Six-Day War but was rejected because of his age, and he presents a position of participating in war alongside a lack of faith in Zionism and in any holiness attached to state institutions. He distinguishes between anti-Zionism as not seeing the “beginning of redemption” and not seeing holiness in the state, and ordinary civic loyalty, and presents this as a challenge to the accepted definitions of Haredism vis-à-vis Zionism and vis-à-vis modernity.

Movements within Haredism and extremism as a response to internal openness

The speaker argues that there is “a very significant movement” within the Haredi world even on the level of thought, and that Haredi extremism in recent years is a response to openness within Haredism and not a response to secularity. He describes extremist phenomena as an internal struggle of “guardians of the flame” against the fraying of the Haredi fabric, and mentions phenomena such as the “burqa women” and the Sicarii in Jerusalem as examples of radicalization that is in fact directed inward.

Chaim Grade, “Tzemach Atlas,” and the Chazon Ish as a moderate temperament

The speaker brings up Chaim Grade’s books “Tzemach Atlas” and “The Yeshiva,” written in Yiddish and translated, and describes them as among the greatest ethical works he has read, even though they are literature. He says the book portrays the Chazon Ish in the figure of “Machzeh Avraham” authentically and not as hagiography, and sets opposite him Tzemach Atlas / Chaim Kei as a thesis and antithesis against the background of the Novardok yeshivot. He describes Novardok education as stormy, the phenomenon of very young roshei yeshiva, and Tzemach Atlas as a figure who fights outwardly because inwardly he is torn and turbulent, whereas the Chazon Ish holds extreme views but has a moderate temperament and is at peace with himself. He paraphrases the spirit of a letter of the Chazon Ish, according to which it was not his way to enter arguments because someone who will not accept will not accept, and offers a criterion according to which practical extremism and loudness sometimes stem from inner doubt.

“Two kinds of Chazon-Ishniks” and halakhic autonomy

The speaker describes a distinction between a Chazon-Ishnik who does “what is written in the books of the Chazon Ish” and a Chazon-Ishnik who does “what he thinks, the way the Chazon Ish did what he thought,” and he places Rabbi Gedaliah in the second category. He tells a story in which someone challenged the Chazon Ish from the Chazon Ish’s own book, and he replied, “Then do what you think,” presenting this as a Chazon-Ishnik conception of autonomy. He says the Chazon Ish was a revolutionary who made unusual rulings yet remained moderate in personality, and he connects this to the ideology of Nadel’s students: testing truth, consistency, and acting according to what seems right.

The dangers of autonomy among the young versus halakhic pragmatism

The speaker says that the ideology of autonomy and truth can produce “wild growth” among young yeshiva boys, because a revolutionary implementation places a person at a point from which it is hard to return once he grows older and develops proportions. He describes how certain students reach violations of Jewish law out of the claim that Jewish law is their interpretation of what “the Holy One, blessed be He, intends,” while rejecting traditional authority in the absence of the Great Sanhedrin. He compares this to the question of fundamentalism and notes that although the plain meaning of sources can generate extreme conclusions, the halakhic tradition in his eyes is pragmatic rather than ideological, and extreme ideological movements are usually marginal. He gives the example of ideological groups such as Har HaMor, which run every action through an ideological filter but still internalize public balancing mechanisms.

Tamar Rotem’s Haaretz article: the “but” between openness and zealotry

The speaker says that an article by Tamar Rotem in Haaretz after Rabbi Gedaliah’s death stirred him, and he quotes the opening, according to which Nadel listened to classical music, was proficient in philosophy, appreciated art, and was moved by nature, “but” was one of the strict and zealous rabbis in Haredi society. He challenges that “but” and argues that there is no necessary contradiction between openness and extremism; in fact, openness and familiarity with alternatives may be precisely what allows firmness and extremism in an intelligent person who has examined matters and decided. He distinguishes between “strict” in the sense of following one’s position all the way through and “zealous,” and marks out two dimensions in Haredism: anti-Zionism and anti-modernity, which do not have to go together. In his view, Rabbi Gedaliah was anti-Zionist but not anti-modern.

Working for a living, “many did so and did not succeed,” and a conceptual reversal

The speaker describes how Rabbi Gedaliah worked for a living, including in construction and contracting, and did not support himself from kollel, and that his sons also follow this path. He tells of a pashkevil claiming that his wine was “libation wine” because he was considered a heretic, and of his response to the person returning the wine: “According to your own view, you’re performing a commandment, right? So what’s the problem?” He notes that in the eulogies it was said that he was one of the few who succeeded in being a man of Torah and a Torah scholar “despite” the fact that he worked, and he stresses that this turns upside down the Talmudic discussion of “many did so and did not succeed” in the context of the dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, where the original meaning is the failure of those who tried to learn without working.

The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides as a subversive thinker, and the Chazon Ish versus yeshiva-style learning

The speaker says that Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed is basic ABC in the worldview of Rabbi Gedaliah and his students, and that among them there is an assumption that the Guide for the Perplexed does not contradict the Mishneh Torah. He presents Maimonides, in their eyes, as a subversive thinker with far-reaching views hidden behind a halakhic façade, whereas in the yeshiva world people study “Maimonides” as the Mishneh Torah and keep away from the Guide for the Perplexed. He notes that the Chazon Ish himself also wrote that the halakhic decisor must go after what he thinks, and mentions the term “the angel Sakhliel” among Nadel’s students as an internal language that sanctifies intellect. He adds that the Chazon Ish is not studied much in the yeshiva world because of his non-Brisker style, and tells of a remark that the Sema “needs translation” into yeshiva language in order to look like deep learning, and also of the Chazon Ish’s comments against the analysis of Rabbi Chaim HaLevi, while Rabbi Gedaliah admired “Rabbi Chaim on Maimonides.”

Sociological contradictions, the ostracizing of Chazon-Ishniks, and rewriting his image after death

The speaker concludes that the contradictions in Rabbi Gedaliah’s figure are mainly sociological contradictions and not theoretical ones, and that precisely on the essential plane one can see consistency. He argues that certain Chazon-Ishniks too, including Rabbi Aba Greineman, were ostracized in the Bnei Brak of Ponevezh and Rabbi Shach and became an esoteric sect, while the central status of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky creates an ambivalent attitude toward the Chazon-Ishnik legacy. He says that after Rabbi Gedaliah’s death the leading rabbis of Bnei Brak eulogized him, but there was a “rewriting of history” that placed him back into line and presented him as a conformist “gadol,” including from within his own family so that he could become part of the pantheon.

Rabbi Shilat’s “In the Torah of Rav Gedaliah”: struggle, boycott, and censorship

The speaker presents Rabbi Shilat’s book “In the Torah of Rav Gedaliah” as a response to attempts to present Rabbi Gedaliah in a corrected and conformist way, and as a relatively moderate effort to present a more authentic figure. He says the book was boycotted, shelved, and Rabbi Shilat took fierce criticism even from Rabbi Gedaliah’s family, despite the fact that, according to him, he had brought evidence that Rabbi Gedaliah relied on him to publish these things. He says Rabbi Shilat backed down and no longer sells the book; a new edition came out about two years ago, though he is not clear on the extent of the censorship, but the file is online, and to Rabbi Shilat’s credit he allows people to download it. He concludes by saying that his true students try to preserve the figure of Rabbi Gedaliah mainly anonymously and “under the tables,” while in public discourse people draw him inside the accepted molds, even though in Bnei Brak “everything is known, everybody knows everything.”

This year I wanted, or this year, at the beginning of the first part, I wanted to spend a little time on an interesting Jew, Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel, but not necessarily specifically on him, or not only specifically on him, but to use him as a lever or as a trigger to discuss topics that are somehow connected to him as well, and maybe to Haredi society in general—not necessarily in the sociological sense, but more in the essential sense: the attitude toward Jewish law, the attitude toward Torah. So to some extent at least, Rabbi Gedaliah is only the excuse. Meaning, through him I want to get into broader questions too. But today I’ll still deal with him, and I’ll start pointing to issues that maybe later we’ll open up more.

The background is this: Rabbi Gedaliah passed away ten years ago, ten years and about a month. I still managed to hear a few classes from him, to meet him before I moved from Bnei Brak to Yerucham. I even met Rabbi Sheilat there once in one of the classes. He was a very interesting Jew, very unusual, and one of the things that made him unique was that despite the fact that he was interesting, apparently it was pretty hard to throw him out of Haredi society, from the Haredi core—I don’t know what to call it—because he was seen as a student of the Chazon Ish, someone upon whom the Chazon Ish had, so to speak, laid his hands; at least that’s what the myth says. You have to know that myths are dubious things.

And I don’t know—I saw some interview with Benny Brown, who did his doctorate on the Chazon Ish; he published a book about him. Right, so there was some interview with him in Makor Rishon, in the Sabbath supplement. The person who interviewed him was Israel L’ something—Leptovitz, I think—who also writes some interesting things there from time to time. Apparently some kollel fellow, probably Haredi, who’s not exactly Haredi anymore, it’s not clear exactly what his status is. I had various arguments with him online; I don’t know him, I don’t know who he is.

In any case, in that interview he asked him: how do you explain the connections between the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel? So he said that the truth is he doesn’t know whether there were connections—the myth says there were. Meaning, I don’t know whether he said that based on research, that he didn’t find anything, or whether he was just saying, “Listen, I didn’t check, so I can’t say.” In other words, I’m not sure. But he was very laconic and very reserved, and that was interesting.

Huh? You’re saying that Haredi society had a problem with those connections, but they have no interest in creating a myth? The question is, who is “they”? There are students of Rabbi Gedaliah and there are critics of Rabbi Gedaliah. But never mind, at some level he clearly had some connection to the Chazon Ish. But many times the myth is more important than the historical truth. Meaning, if right now he’s presented as the continuation of the Chazon Ish, even if he really wasn’t, say, it’ll be hard to act against him, to hurt him.

So again, I haven’t checked historically; I don’t know exactly what’s true and what isn’t, what of this happened and what didn’t happen. But the figure as he is perceived—that’s really the important figure. What difference does it make what actually happened? So it seems to me I won’t need questions of historical truth. I also don’t know, so I didn’t check and I don’t know.

Okay, briefly: this was a Jew who grew up that way, immigrated to Israel at a young age, studied here in Lomza with Rabbi Shach and in a few other places, with almost all of which he later fell out. And at some stage he grew close to the Chazon Ish. I saw on Wikipedia about him that they say he studied under Rabbi Yogel at Yishuv HeChadash Yeshiva. Under Rabbi Yogel, because Rabbi Yogel taught there, and somehow through him he connected to the Chazon Ish. The story I heard—and again, I no longer remember whether I heard this from Rabbi Yogel himself or whether it was from some other source, I really don’t know, don’t remember—is that they used to learn together during the week, as study partners. And at the end of the week they would go to the Chazon Ish to ask him questions about what had come up over the course of the week. And that’s somehow how he grew close to him.

In the end, the Chazon Ish apparently appointed him rabbi of what was called the Chazon Ish Housing complex—Rashbam Street, Devorah HaNeviah, Lederman and the surrounding area, for those who know, Lederman synagogue. And so he basically remained the rabbi of the place until the end. He lived one floor below Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, right? One floor below Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. That whole area is the old guard, the very core of Chazon-Ishnik Bnei Brak.

And of course there’s a famous maskilic story about Adam HaKohen, that once someone came on the Sabbath looking for Adam HaKohen. So he knocks on the door, his wife opens, and he asks, where is Adam HaKohen? He was one of the maskilim. So she says, he’s at synagogue. What’s he doing at synagogue? No, you know, hanging around outside with the guys. He went to the synagogue, saw the guys standing outside, but he wasn’t among them. So he asks them, tell me, where’s the fellow? They say, he’s inside, go on in and look. He goes in, looks around for the man, can’t find him. He asks people, tell me, where is Adam HaKohen? So they tell him, do you see that one with the prayer shawl over his head, swaying in front of the Holy Ark? That’s him. The guy was completely stunned. So when the prayer service ended, he asked Adam HaKohen, what exactly are you looking for there? What were you doing there? You know, it’s not much of a feat to be an apikores at home and hang around outside. An apikores is someone who prays with devotion in front of the Holy Ark. Meaning, that’s a real apikores.

So it seems to me that in that sense—yes, metaphorically—Rabbi Gedaliah was a real apikores. I’m talking about Gedaliah. Because right in the heart of the Chazon Ish neighborhood, he said all sorts of things that no ear had ever heard before—no Haredi ear had ever heard. And he gave classes in Lederman synagogue during the very period, really the last half year I was in Bnei Brak, and I managed to hear a bit of him.

At the same time there was also, on Wednesdays, a class on the book of Genesis, where apparently he really wreaked havoc in heaven in an exceptional way. It was in Lederman, and in the end they threw him out—or didn’t let him—I didn’t understand exactly what happened there in the end with that class. They didn’t want it to continue because he spoke there about evolution and biblical criticism, and basically accepted them in one way or another, perhaps in some form—in Lederman, the center of Bnei Brak Chazon-Ishnikism, in a class. Meaning, he was actually giving a class on this, not just entertaining forbidden thoughts privately.

So he was a very colorful and interesting figure. I can only say that once, after I heard classes from him on the Talmudic passage in tractate Gittin—and I didn’t always understand everything, because some of it suddenly shifted a bit into Yiddish and I don’t understand Yiddish, but still, here and there—after the class, one time we got into a bit of an argument. He was no small provocateur.

And he heard that I was dealing with physics at the university, and we started talking a bit about philosophy and mathematics and Poincaré and so on. The truth is, my feeling was that his expertise and knowledge were not quite as described in the myth, I have to say. In Bnei Brak, anyone who knows how to read is known as a Nobel Prize laureate. There’s this famous claim that if someone once published some article in a scientific journal, then they say he published an article in an international journal. There’s no such thing as a non-international journal in academia. Meaning, fine, you once published an academic article—that’s the point—but that’s considered roughly equivalent to a Nobel Prize.

So I’ve already heard of quite a few people who basically withdrew after they had, I don’t know, almost achieved all the highest accomplishments in the scientific world and then returned to being kollel fellows. So myths about general education and sophistication in Bnei Brak, in my humble opinion, you can’t believe a word of them. Here I’m not talking about exaggeration; I’m talking about absurdity. Myths are generally exaggerated, that’s true in many places, certainly in closed places and in Bnei Brak and so on. Myths about greatness in science are nonsense. I mean, it’s simply worth nothing—not that it’s exaggerated, nothing.

So maybe one can learn from that that he had some contact with these areas. I’m not saying that’s the case with Gedaliah. I’m only saying how one should relate to Bnei Brak descriptions of various people who mastered all the sciences. What I described now—I said how this should be approached in principle. He did know these things and he dealt with them, which in itself is novel. But I think there’s exaggeration here, from that one impression. I spoke with him once, in a conversation of about an hour or something like that, and it seems to me there’s quite a lot of exaggeration regarding his mastery of those fields and his knowledge and so on.

But was he self-taught? Yes, he was self-taught. He had books by his bed, all kinds of books that he read, and he learned English and French in order to read things in the original. He was a very interesting Jew. He definitely invested time in it. But the way of autodidacts, incidentally, is that the knowledge isn’t organized, it isn’t systematic. Especially if you’re self-taught from scratch. Meaning, you can be self-taught after you already have some basic platform, and then you learn more, gather more, accumulate more and more independently. That’s perfectly fine. Every person, in some sense, has to be self-taught. Someone who remains only with what he learned frontally won’t know much.

But what’s usually called an autodidact is someone whose basic infrastructure was also built alone. And here that’s a very problematic thing. I’ll say—I’ll describe it maybe from a slightly different angle. Some of his students founded the forum called “Stop Here, Think,” which has existed, I don’t know, fifteen years or something like that online. And after a few years, some discussion arose there about my book Two Wagons, so they called me and asked if I wanted to join and participate in the forum, and then I did indeed join some of the discussions and what was going on there.

And in the course of that, since I was almost the only one there who was identified by name—because usually it’s all behind screen names—I had the privilege that people spoke to me more freely than usual. Not in personal conversation; usually in private communication they don’t know who you are. You could be a spy on behalf of the Agency for the Preservation of Haredi Conservatism or things like that, and then the person who is exposed or caught—once they know who stands behind the nickname—loses his kollel, his livelihood, his marriage prospects, and I don’t know what else.

On the other hand, with me they knew who I was because I’m identified by name, so it was a bit easier to get people talking and even to meet them physically. At a certain period I met with groups or with people who participate there behind those nicknames. It was a very interesting experience. And I discovered…

What is the forum? It’s a forum for discussions about Judaism and philosophy and ideas and thought on all kinds of topics. It was founded by several students of Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel, but anyone who wants is invited there, and what makes this forum unique—and I think in that sense it really does continue his path—is that you’re allowed to raise any position there, as long as it’s reasoned. Meaning, you can say anything; there’s no limitation on what you say. There are limits of manners, limits of insults—though even that isn’t always successfully maintained, after all the administrators are volunteers. But there are no boundaries in terms of content.

And because of that, it’s a forum that over the years has managed to house many figures of all kinds of shades—some academics here and there, Reform women rabbis, and all kinds of tones from all kinds of tones—and all sorts of discussions are conducted there on different subjects, some of which were very interesting. What interested me was specifically the Haredi wing that appears there.

Who’s the main administrator? If I were allowed to say, I would say. Not allowed? From which sector? A student of Rabbi Gedaliah. What, Lithuanian? Yes, Lithuanian. He’s the last one who agreed to be exposed; he’s hysterical about preserving anonymity. I only met him not so very long ago.

Anyway, the meetings around this forum are a fascinating anthropological experience, what goes on there behind the scenes. There’s a pretty lively life behind the scenes there, not only on the forum itself. There are groups that meet regularly to exchange ideas, to study together. There were such groups; I assume there still are, I don’t know.

At first I thought this phenomenon was broader than it really is. Because when I was first exposed to it, it was new to me, and suddenly I saw there were quite a few such people. I was sure there were giant underground movements there under the tables in Ponevezh and its offshoots. Apparently it’s not quite that dramatic. I think the phenomenon isn’t as broad as I thought, but there are such people. And among them I discovered people with a great deal of knowledge, say in philosophy, which is a field they’re fond of—but not only that.

One of them wrote a rather impressive book on philosophy, really surveying, in quite some depth, the history of philosophy. Really a book from beginning to end, with a certain prism; he wanted to describe a certain aspect. But again, I got into all this because of that point about autodidacticism. Because you see that the knowledge is born autodidactically; it’s not anchored, you didn’t receive feedback. You can miss terribly basic things because you work alone. How much can a person reinvent the wheel? You need to interact a little with people, get feedback, not shave everything on your own beard, but learn a bit also from what others have gone through and learned.

And when that doesn’t happen in a group, when it doesn’t happen in some framework that develops together—again, it doesn’t have to be a classroom framework, but in interaction, even in corresponding, reading one another, responding and the like—then indeed sometimes pretty wild things come out. And I saw quite a bit of that there.

Wild also in the sense that, in my opinion at least, they miss the real understanding of the philosophy or of the issue they’re dealing with. But wild also in terms of the implications. People go all the way. And many times maturation or ripening brings a certain pragmatism that knows how to take things in a healthier, calmer proportion. Young people, by nature, reach some revolutionary conclusion and immediately think: let’s implement it. What do you mean? You have to be true to yourself. If that’s what you think, then go for it.

Now, people there did things that in my opinion were completely absurd at the level of Jewish law, and they also don’t derive from their ideas, I think. But it was very hard to communicate with them because they managed to build a kind of bubble that includes within it a type of discourse, terminology, modes of thought—they already have these codes. You say something, and they already have, yes, A.A.S.—that’s a common acronym there among some of the people. A.A.S. means: “it’s all sociology.” Meaning, everything is sociology. So then—fine, A.A.S.—they say, next. It’s that kind of thing. They already have instinctive responses to certain types of arguments, and they developed a language that it’s very hard to penetrate and intervene in and criticize, because everything is immediately sorted into some conceptual system that you don’t know what to do with. In my opinion it isn’t always faithful to the ideas themselves. It was a little difficult to converse.

I once met one of their “rebbes”—their “rebbe,” really—there, called Rabbi Miller, who I think is married to a granddaughter of Rabbi Gedaliah, if I remember correctly. He’s a pretty young guy, more or less my age, maybe something like that, and he was sort of the rabbi of a group like that, not a small group of these guys.

And at the first meeting, which was this secret one that I had—it was itself a hair-raising adventure—they gave me an address, and I was optimistic, I thought, surely it’s a villa. I don’t know, an address isn’t enough. So what apartment number? Name? There’s no name. After all, you’re not allowed to say names, otherwise you’re exposed to all kinds of trolls and spies. So I got to the relevant address and didn’t know what to do. It’s a building in Bnei Brak. What do you do? I can’t knock on any apartment, because then I’m giving away that someone is here—am I such-and-such—or is the clandestine meeting of Rabbi Miller’s students taking place here? You can’t ask that. So I was stuck there.

By chance I saw someone arriving there stealthily for that meeting, and I thought, okay, fine, I’ll take the risk and ask him whether he’s also going there, and that’s how I somehow found the relevant door.

So in any case, there I had bitter arguments with this Rabbi Miller, because the feeling really was that this was a kind of wild growth. Meaning, something that grew inside a bubble, not really in interaction with what’s happening outside. They developed a completely new Judaism. Completely. I mean, with sidecurls and long coats down to here. Not some of them—genuine, not dress-up. Because that’s their society; that’s how they are. That’s how they grew up, that’s who they are, that’s their identity. They wear it genuinely. Another part is because they don’t want to be exposed and they continue with the social norms, but in essence they’re no longer there.

And they really reach situations of Sabbath desecration and eating forbidden foods and whatever, because they came to the conclusion that this isn’t forbidden or that is forbidden. The idea of Torah is different. It’s Reform in the deep sense of the word—not Reform in the sense that when you want to denounce someone you say he’s Reform. That often happens. There it’s genuine reform, meaning reform in almost every sense. Reform Jews maybe aren’t so obligated to Jewish law; these people are obligated to Jewish law—but not exactly. The Jewish law to which they’re obligated is entirely in their hands. That is, among some of them there is no commitment whatsoever to tradition, to standards that developed over the years. In short, all the checks and balances that are part of Jewish law.

Now, I too am a bit wild in my halakhic thinking, so it’s somewhat easy for me to identify with that, and I also don’t like the too-many checks and balances in that world. But I don’t know, maybe I’m biased, but it seems to me that I’m still more balanced than what I found there. And I’m also sure that—aren’t they also fought against in Bnei Brak? Of course. What do you mean? To the point of physical war. It’s known, certainly. That fellow who wrote the philosophy book—the one whose house hosted that meeting—said he got beaten, had to move house, his children were thrown out of the cheder.

Did he publish his book? I didn’t know that it had even come out. He wrote a book; there’s a ready PDF file. I don’t think he published it. I mean, he sent me the file. Maybe by now it’s come out. He asked me how to publish it, whom to contact. Now, it’s written in language suitable for a home book. Yes, but it won’t work, because he writes in their internal language. Meaning, you need an editor who isn’t just an editor; he also has to be a translator. That’s a problem. And that’s a disease of many…

What? Rabbi Iluz? Yes, yes. Meaning, his son is married to a granddaughter or his daughter is married to a grandson; I don’t remember exactly how it went. Huh? Was there some huge revolution? I don’t know—not that far. He’s not as wild as people describe, really not. But yes, I think he—let’s say Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel was far from that. Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel really, I think, was more or less…

There’s internet and they’re not so closed? Huh? There’s internet. Yes, although a lot of it—you know, some above the table and some under the table—but there is internet. Why am I saying this?

In any case, as I say, I started from autodidacticism and drifted to all sorts of places, but the autodidacticism of Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel, I think, is present in him himself and of course also in his students, because they learn everything on their own. Incidentally, it became an ideology. They don’t want to study in organized disciplinary places, because then they’re captive to them. They want to study alone, reach their own conclusions, and criticize everything else. And in principle they’re willing to listen—it’s not closedness, it’s absolute openness in the ideological sense—but in the end, since they developed a discourse of their own and are somehow a bit trapped inside it, it actually remains something closed and not open, even though they’re willing to hear everything and there are no limits. But you can’t break through the barriers of language and terminology.

So again, it depends. There is a core—the hard-core society, the hard nucleus of this group—and of course there are peripheries, various shades of this whole matter.

So if I return to Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel: the very fact that he dealt with these topics and spoke about them, regardless now of the question of how much, say, he really has philosophical significance in the history of philosophy—I don’t think so—but he was a very interesting Jew, a wise Jew, a Jew who invested in things that others did not deal with. In his Jewish worldview there are definitely innovations. And maybe from today’s perspective it’s hard to evaluate them, because some of these innovations have now become more in the realm of consensus. Meaning, he’s less unusual than he seemed when he was first presented. But he was, to a large extent, the father of many such things. So one has to understand that we should judge him in the context in which he emerged—in a place and time when such things simply did not come out.

Today, what he says is considered somehow closer to the center of the pendulum in new Jewish thought. But I still think he had an important role in that process. But mainly, as I said earlier, I think this man significantly challenges various ways of thinking and categories, and that’s why I want to use him to deal with them—not necessarily to deal with him.

For example, what is Haredi? Let me already throw out a first question. In what sense was he still Haredi? Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel. So he wore a long coat and sat in Bnei Brak. He was an extreme anti-Zionist who enlisted in the army in the War of Independence. After a few months—it was around the Altalena, I think, or before the War of Independence. It was when the Altalena happened that he left. Because he decided he didn’t trust the people making those decisions. He had no trust whatsoever in the Zionists, so he left the army. On the one hand he thought it was his duty to fight, so he enlisted.

If you look at his students, I think he moderated somewhat in old age, but his students, at exactly those ages, have that same storminess, that same consistency that a young person overall demands of himself—and that’s beautiful. Also in the Six-Day War, I think. Also in the Six-Day War he tried, but they told him, listen, you’re already older. But yes, he thought: in a time of danger one must fight, one must participate and fight.

So he enlisted. So he was anti-Zionist. Anti-Zionist—but in what sense? Anti-Zionist in the sense that he didn’t see this as the beginning of redemption, or that he didn’t see holiness in the institutions of the state. I know a few other Zionists like that, some of them very closely. So these things really challenge the question of what Haredi means as opposed to Zionist—not to mention Haredi as opposed to modernity, where it seems to me it’s much, much more challenging. Because regarding Zionism he really did express himself in sharp terms—but again, the question is, which Zionism? What kind of Zionism are we talking about?

So we’ll discuss that too. But when you said that his positions today reflect something in the middle, that’s not in the Haredi world. No, no. I said in contemporary modern Jewish thought, yes—but religious thought, even in, say, the world of hesder yeshivot, Religious Zionism, modern religiosity, and the like. Not in the Haredi world. There these things are completely standard. Even among the Haredim, incidentally, because there too there is movement. Within Haredi society there is a very significant movement. You don’t always see it and it isn’t always felt; it also depends whether you’re in the center or on the periphery. But there is movement there too, definitely.

And of course in reaction to that movement, the core becomes much more extremely conservative. Incidentally, the extreme phenomena you see in recent years in the Haredi world, in my humble opinion, are a response to the fact that the Haredi world is opening up. It’s not a response to secularity; it’s a response to developments within Haredi society. There are people who see themselves as guardians of the flame, and they cannot tolerate this unraveling of the Haredi framework, the Haredi fabric. So they become much more extreme, while the struggle often appears as though it’s against secularity or against Zionism or things like that. They’re fighting themselves. They’re fighting Haredim. In the end it starts there.

From the women-in-shawls type, who aren’t fighting anyone but still express something terribly, terribly extreme—which once we would not have expected—to all sorts of very unusual phenomena. Yes, in Jerusalem too, all kinds of world wars around the neighborhoods there, Batei Ungarin, all kinds of struggles—the Sikrikim and so on. I think these are all phenomena whose basis is not at all against the outside world. They’re against developments within the Haredi world, because it too is undergoing interesting processes, not just social ones and going out to earn a living and so on. That’s the practical edge. There’s also something in the very mode of thought that seems to me to be changing.

Anyway, perhaps in this context too—once I spoke about it—there are two books by an author named Chaim Grade, a book called Tsemach Atlas, yes, Chaim Grade, who as a young man studied in Novardok yeshivot. Tsemach Atlas, or The Battle of the Inclination. And in a certain period of his life he lived in the house of the Chazon Ish, and in those books he describes that too. There he called him “Mekhazeh Avraham”—that’s the literary name he gives him there. I think I spoke about this once. I said that I think this is one of the greatest books of ethics I ever read, even though it’s literature, published by Am Oved I think—I don’t remember—Am Oved Publishers. It isn’t an ethics book in the accepted sense.

What? Written in Yiddish. Yes, in the original. But with us… Anyway, there’s such an impressive description there of the Chazon Ish by a man who learned and then left. Meaning, at a fairly young age he had already abandoned everything, wasn’t committed to anything. He was on his way to a Nobel Prize; he had great anger at Bashevis Singer and claimed he took his Nobel Prize—never mind. And still he writes. This is not the usual Haredi hagiography that portrays the rabbi being discussed as some kind of angel. Rather, a person is describing what he saw—again, as a young man. One has to take that in proportion, but still he describes in an authentic way the figure he saw, and it’s very impressive. Meaning, he truly saw him that way. It’s not…

Now why did I remember this? First of all, Gedaliah Nadel was a student of the Chazon Ish. But beyond that, there too the two figures standing opposite each other in the book almost never meet—maybe once—but there are Tsemach Atlas and the rosh yeshiva in whose yeshiva he studied, Chaim K., that’s Chaim Grade, and Mekhazeh Avraham. What? Yes, they meet once or something like that. No, but it’s clear that these are the two figures that are basically the thesis and antithesis of the book. I don’t think there’s any synthesis there, but there’s thesis and antithesis.

The background to this is the Novardok yeshivot, the Beit Yosef yeshivot, named after the Saba of Novardok, Rabbi Yosef Yozel—Yosef is him. He saw that there was a sort of falling into the arms of the Enlightenment among children, among youth, so he sent his fellows from the yeshiva, as young men, to establish yeshivot in every village. There was a network of yeshivot, and things came out there that somewhat resemble the phenomena I mentioned earlier, because we’re talking about a young man who may be nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, becoming a rosh yeshiva. He isn’t ripe, he’s not truly… he’s still a stormy youth himself. And in Novardok education, whoever knows it knows that it’s an education for storminess. The education is not to stop that storm of youth, and now he has to start dealing with children. Do you understand what can come out of such things? It’s madness, real madness. In my humble opinion there were very difficult and grave phenomena there. I don’t know how much these things have been researched, but here and there you can read about it.

Among other things, that book describes Tsemach Atlas. He too was a young fellow who established a yeshiva in the village of Volknik, I think that’s what it was called. And he’s stormy there, preaching to the fellows, shouting at them with enthusiasm for holiness, and inwardly of course seething entirely with desires—both “do not stray after your heart” and “after your eyes” as well—with thoughts of heresy and with sexual thoughts, passions, a young man. I don’t even know if he was married; I don’t remember anymore. He was really very young. He gets married there. Okay. I read it many years ago, so I really don’t remember.

But that storminess—the author of course describes everything. We don’t know what’s happening inside, but never mind, he describes the figure very authentically. And I think it’s quite clear that this Tsemach Atlas is stormy not because of the outside environment, but because he’s fighting himself. He isn’t fighting anyone outside. He shouts at others about their immodesty and their heresy and everything, while in fact all of it is somehow an attempt to fight with everything that’s seething inside him. Usually—and I think in that sense the antithesis to Tsemach Atlas is the Chazon Ish. Because the Chazon Ish, who in worldview was quite extreme in many contexts, was personally a very non-extreme personality. His temperament, his personality, was extraordinarily moderate.

Sometimes he writes in one of his letters: “It is not my way to enter into arguments with people; in any case they will not accept. And I did not write in order that they should accept. Whoever accepts, accepts; whoever does not accept, will not accept.” Later with Gedaliah Nadel we’ll also see… This too I don’t remember whether I heard from Rabbi Yogel or not—that you know there are two kinds of Chazon-Ishniks…

I’m a bit associative today, but forgive me, this is the introduction. Once when I was in Bnei Brak I thought there were two kinds of Chazon-Ishniks. There is a Chazon-Ishnik who does everything written in the books of the Chazon Ish, and there is a Chazon-Ishnik who does what he thinks, just as the Chazon Ish did what he thought. Now Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel was the second type of Chazon-Ishnik, and that is the real type. The Chazon Ish himself writes this and said this. And this is the story—I don’t remember if from Rabbi Yogel—that when they came every week to the Chazon Ish and asked him questions, they had objections to what he had written in the book Chazon Ish. Fine, Gedaliah—so do what you think. What’s the problem? So you don’t agree with me—do what you think. That’s called being a Chazon-Ishnik. He doesn’t tell him, so don’t be a Chazon-Ishnik. Rather, that is being a Chazon-Ishnik: do what you think.

Now of course one can debate here why you need permission from the Chazon Ish to do what you think. If you do what you think without permission from the Chazon Ish, are you also a Chazon-Ishnik? That too can be discussed. But still, that autonomous conception—that a person is supposed to do what he thinks—that is completely Chazon-Ishnik. In that sense, the Chazon Ish himself really did what he thought. And he went against accepted conceptions. He was a revolutionary in many, many things. Sometimes stringently, or often stringently, but still he was a great revolutionary. And he did not hesitate to determine things that were very unusual or new.

But he did it in a way that, in terms of personality, his personal temperament was moderate. And I think what emerges from the description in that book is that inwardly the Chazon Ish was simply at peace with himself. He was not a torn, stormy figure. This is what he thought, so this is what he did. He was very innovative, revolutionary, decisive—but not torn, not stormy inside. So someone who isn’t stormy inside doesn’t need to fight what’s outside. And the antithesis, yes—Tsemach Atlas, who fights against the whole world and his wife, is doing so because inwardly he’s fighting with himself. Inside he’s torn over all kinds of things.

And therefore I think that for me this is a measure for many cases we encounter in life too. A person who shouts and rages and is extreme and unwilling to hear and goes out on jihad wars over all kinds of things—very often this stems from the fact that he’s fighting himself. That inwardly he has many doubts about his own path. Precisely people who are extreme in the theoretical sense—meaning they are completely decisive with themselves and know they are right and are convinced of their path—you can see very moderate behavior from such people in the practical sense, in their practical expression, even though in conception they have an extreme conception.

And I think that is exactly the Chazon Ish versus Tsemach Atlas. And in that sense I think Tsemach Atlas is a bit similar to the figures I met. Only the figures I met don’t hide the doubts; they put them on the table with real courage. The fellows—the mavericks, Nadel’s students. Returning to the point. That storminess and so on—that too is of course storminess inside, and there it’s on the table. They really do struggle with a huge number of things; they’re not at peace with everything they grew up with. The measure of truth is tremendously, tremendously strong among them, and that is also in the name of Gedaliah—that a person has to examine everything: is it right or not right, does it seem right to him or not. In everything, you have to do what you think and be consistent with it.

Now again, when you say such a thing to a young fellow, it can lead to a lot of wild growth. Even though I think the statement itself is a correct and good one, one must be a little careful with it. One has to understand that many times a person who takes such actions has already positioned himself in a place such that later, when he matures and ripens a bit and understands in what proportions things should be taken, and he no longer thinks everything he once thought—he can’t go back anymore, he’s no longer there. Meaning, he has already left sociologically, left emotionally, left in many senses. He can no longer return. And therefore this ideology of autonomy—one has to be careful with it.

I identify with it tremendously in principle, but I think it has to be dripped in slowly. Meaning, at an age when a person already knows how to do this in a controlled way, then I think he can be fully exposed to this matter.

When it clashes directly with Jewish law? What is Jewish law? Obviously. What do you mean? It clashes with whatever laws you like—no problem. Sabbath desecration, whatever you want. Why? Because they say: that’s not Jewish law. Jewish law is what they interpret. Jewish law is the word of God; they’re not interested in people. Meaning, if the Holy One, blessed be He, intends that, then that is Jewish law. What do you mean? Why should I care what so-and-so said? Because in religion there is that concept. No, so I’m saying: if there were a Great Court, maybe I would accept that. But there is no Great Court today. And most of the laws in our possession are not laws created by the Great Court. It’s not always clear either what was and what wasn’t created by the Great Court. There are claims that the Talmud has some status of the Great Court, but even that they certainly wouldn’t necessarily accept. And also claims of “who says?” Meaning, some people said it—okay, so they don’t accept it.

And that’s exactly the problem: in a certain sense it’s terribly authentic, courageous, true—a person should do what he thinks. On the other hand, it can lead to terribly wild conclusions, situations, implications.

I always think—recently I’ve been dealing with… What? Also the dispute between Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabban Gamliel? That too, there is something of that dispute in this matter. But I want to believe that Rabbi Yehoshua wasn’t like that either.

There’s something when making, say, comparisons: when we encounter Islamic fundamentalists nowadays—it’s very popular in various places—somehow my feeling is that in the Jewish context this doesn’t appear at such extreme levels. There is more extremism, less extremism, but it’s really not on that scale at all. And the question is why that is. Because if you interpret Torah and the Talmud literally, someone who follows them literally can reach some pretty far-reaching conclusions about what should be done to all sorts of non-believers and things of that sort, and also commandments of conquering the Land of Israel, never mind—in many respects this can happen.

Somehow the feeling is that Jewish law and the Torah worldview are very pragmatic. There’s something very pragmatic in halakhic thinking and very non-ideological—non-ideological. Meaning, someone attached to ideology is someone who goes with his ideology and derives from it every action that he does. That’s a very ideological figure. And I think our tradition, overall, is a very non-ideological tradition. The movements that really were ideological were extreme movements, often short-lived movements. The Mordekhovites were a bit like that, early Hasidism was a bit like that. It didn’t remain. In the end there really are no such things.

And therefore there is something in this pragmatism—I see it as a blessing, I think, even though as a young man I saw it as a flaw. Because what do you mean? You have to be true to yourself, go all the way. Fine, but I don’t know—there is something in the moderation, in this balance, that somehow is more correct in the end. Even though it seems somehow…

Incidentally, look: there are groups that are very ideological also in the Torah world—say, groups like Har Hamor. Maybe also Chabad, though with Chabad I don’t know whether to call it exactly ideology. Har Hamor is really an ideological group, and there indeed every action is measured by the ideological yardstick. Meaning, does it fit, does it not fit—that characterizes an ideological group. They don’t function naturally. You don’t let things flow. You have to check everything—does it fit or not fit? Everything is tested in the crucible of criticism. Either it’s inside the study hall or it’s outside the study hall; a lot of the split there was, among other things, around the question of what belongs inside the study hall and what belongs outside.

And still, there too, despite all my criticism of that camp, there is a kind of behavior that is balanced. Since even the ideology has already internalized some consideration for standards, norms, the public. So they can allow themselves to be ideological all the way, because the ideology itself does not lead them to terribly extreme conclusions. Meaning, the ideology itself is statist, of course—that’s what they call it today—and that’s a code word, among other things, for what I’m saying now: that the ideology itself is already saturated with these balancing mechanisms, which usually come from outside the ideology. Fine. So in the end it somehow doesn’t happen in that camp.

And in that sense I think this—I don’t know—it seems to me more genuine, more correct, even though you need to be a little older to identify with such a thing. As a young man it was hard for me to accept this compromise, this pragmatism.

Okay, so now I want to return a bit to Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel. What basically stirred me to all sorts of thoughts that I wanted to elaborate on this year, or at the beginning of the year, was an article published in Haaretz after Rabbi Gedaliah’s passing, written by Tamar Rotem. Also formerly Haredi, if I remember correctly. A writer. Yes. The daughter of Yehudit Rotem. Ah right, she’s the daughter of Yehudit Rotem, correct. Yehudit Rotem is the writer, right. So Tamar—I also don’t know whether she had already become Haredi or not, I don’t remember exactly—but she has roots like that.

And she wrote an article on Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel, and it was very interesting, and it caught my eye in several respects. I’ll maybe read you a few passages from it. It began like this: “He used to listen to classical music, was well versed in philosophy, appreciated art, and was moved by nature—but he was among the strict and zealous rabbis in Haredi society.” So already that sentence caught my eye. But the word “but” is the key here. Why is it “but”? And why is the feeling somehow—yes, you read it, it sounds like a sensible sentence—but let’s think for a moment: why is it “but”? Meaning, why can’t you be well versed in philosophy…?

As a reality that’s very rare. No, of course. And that itself is a question—why? And that itself is a question—why? But when you look at reality, it’s understandable. You can’t argue with reality; usually it doesn’t go together. No, so I’ll formulate it in more general language. Does being open mean that you are not extreme? That was really the question here. You heard about the classical music and the specific positions—is there a contradiction between openness and extremism?

Look, in Rabbi Gedaliah there was a complete combination of openness and extremism, totally, both of them very strongly. Very extreme in his openness. Yes, that too—but also extreme in his positions against the state, against this. I still remember meeting Rabbi Shach there once in one of the classes. “Well, you and your Amital,” he threw out some remark there—I no longer remember in what context it came up. But he knew what Rabbi Amital said. Meaning, he said it on his own; he knew everything.

In any case, why indeed should there be a contradiction between openness and extremism? Usually, in fact, as was rightly said here earlier, usually they don’t go together. But I’m not at all sure. On the contrary, I tend to think they should go together. They should go together. Because once you are open, then you also know the alternatives. You encountered a world, heard other views, other arguments, other forms of reasoning. You examined, weighed, formed a position—now you can be extreme. But if you’re extreme without having checked anything, then the other person can say to you that you’re talking nonsense, that there is also this and this and this. And if you’re extreme, apparently you went with one view and examined everything only through those eyes.

Maybe—but it could be not. No, truly, I examined. The fact that I’m open doesn’t mean the other person is right. The fact that I’m open means I examine whether he’s right. Reality is complex. That’s an interesting assumption, but I’m not sure it’s always correct. I agree that parts of it are. But when I hear, say, different opinions, there’s some hidden assumption there too that everyone is right in some way. That’s already an additional assumption. I can hear different opinions in order to hear what others who disagree with me are saying and see whether maybe I’m mistaken. And after I checked that and reached the conclusion that I’m not mistaken, rather they are, then now I’ll tell them: friends, you’re talking nonsense; I’m firing at you. But if I didn’t hear them, how can I come out against them decisively and fight them in an extreme way? It’s not serious. You don’t know what he said, you didn’t hear him, you’re not listening to him.

Therefore I think that to a great extent, for an intelligent person, for a genuine person, openness is actually the infrastructure for extremism. It is not the opposite of extremism. I think someone who can permit himself—and here this is a very important point regarding Rabbi Gedaliah; maybe we’ll also discuss this separately—but I’m just putting the pieces on the board. When you are open and you know, then you can come out against what you know. That already makes sense. You examined it and reached the conclusion that it’s harmful, that it’s not correct, that it’s mistaken, that one needs to fight it. But if you didn’t examine anything, what exactly do you have to fight against? It’s not right—you don’t know. Maybe he’s right. How would you know?

But don’t sell me “maybe he’s right.” I checked him. I know—I checked, and he’s wrong. If you always check, you’ll always find in everyone some point of truth, because there’s no person who has some opinion that contains no point of truth. That’s an interesting assumption. But when you examine everything through your own eyes, of course you won’t find it. Openness is the mode of examination. Fine, we can argue, but I don’t agree. I think openness can be examined through my own glasses. Still, I want to know whether there is someone who can teach me something, whether I’m mistaken. That’s all. I won’t necessarily find it. You’re already assuming something about the result of the search. You’re saying that such a search has to proceed from some assumption that I’ll definitely also find something. I don’t know. That’s an additional assumption. I’m not sure about it.

But first of all, do the search. See—you’re not the only wise person. Maybe you’re mistaken about various things. Listen, get to know. Fine? And in this sense, again, his students are the same. They’re tremendously open, they read everything, hear everything, they form positions in a very autonomous, free, open way, they are willing to hear real criticism—it’s a bit hard, because I said, the language and all that—but they are willing to hear criticism. But they are very extreme. And I think this is not the “but”; this erases the “but.” They are extreme because of that. Because they feel they know it. You can’t tell them stories—maybe that one is right, maybe this one. Many times the reason you can’t wage total war against someone is because maybe he is right, who knows, I haven’t checked. If you checked—if you checked, then you can fight him. You can’t tell stories now—maybe he’s right, who knows. No, I checked, and he’s not right.

Sometimes you see on the forum from time to time: “Wow, you’re right, you convinced me.” Yes, yes, there is some of that here and there. I think more than is usual in other places. Incidentally, that forum no longer has all that many people who are students of Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel; they’re barely there anymore, if at all. It’s already gone through many incarnations. I myself no longer go in there much, because it takes time—there simply isn’t time for it anymore.

So that’s the first point. I think just the opening sentence of that article immediately caught my eye—the relationship between openness and extremism. I think: openness, and therefore extremism. Not “but.” That’s one point. Again, I’m placing a piece on the board; we’ll discuss it further.

Second: “among the strict and zealous in Haredi society”—those are two things. Strict in the halakhic sense, but of course strict according to his own approach. A Haredi strict person goes with his own position, with his own interpretation, all the way. What he thinks, that’s what he does. “Strict” does not mean being careful about every single thing written in Mishnah Berurah, Chafetz Chaim, and Kanievsky his neighbor, right? Rather, he really is extreme, careful, faithful to every halakhic detail as he sees it. Genuinely. I’m not saying this critically; it’s descriptive.

And what is zealous? So here too, Haredi society has two aspects. Again, another piece I’m putting on the board and we’ll discuss it. It has two aspects. One aspect is the anti-Zionist aspect, and the second is the anti-modern aspect. And of course there is some connection between them, but they’re not the same thing. Two different things. For example, Samson Raphael Hirsch—well, he himself isn’t so relevant here, but at least his students could be anti-Zionist but not anti-modern. Fine? It doesn’t always go together. It doesn’t have to go together. These are all kinds of social correlations, like openness and extremism.

So anti-Zionism and anti-modernism don’t have to go together. You can be anti-Zionist and modern. Incidentally, there were many such people—the Bund had such people, not only in the Torah world. The Reform were such people, right. To this day there are still some, though today they’ve changed their path a bit, yes, obviously. So you can be anti-Zionist and modern, and you can be anti-modern but not necessarily anti-Zionist. I think examples can be found, but I don’t know—I mentioned earlier Har Hamor and the Hardal world; I think that’s a phenomenon at least in the direction of anti-modernism and Zionism. Fine. So on the theoretical level these things don’t have to go together.

True, in practice there’s an affinity, and that correlation is always interesting—a correlation that occurs in practice even though in theory it didn’t have to be so. So here’s another example, like openness and extremism: anti-Zionism and anti-modernism.

And in that sense, Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel, as far as I knew him at least and understand, was not anti-modern at all. The opposite. Not at all. He was anti-Zionist. Again—and that too has to be defined, I said earlier, because with Zionism too the question is what exactly it means. The relation of holiness to the state, or being a loyal citizen in the state—these are two completely different things. To be a Zionist like Ben-Gurion—yes, we’ll get to that.

So that’s what’s close in his opinions to Satmar and Neturei Karta. I disagree with her on that point. But also a man of labor who in his youth did not refrain from working, even in construction. He worked in construction; for a certain period he was a bit of a contractor. By the way, he always worked for his livelihood. He never lived off kollel and never off Torah work either, and apparently his sons also follow his path.

What? He was supplied by his wife? Yes, of course. That’s one of the stories. There’s an article in Makor Rishon whose headline is “The Rabbi Who Produced Libation Wine.” Because the zealous Bnei Brak types, once they decided he was an apikores, put out some poster in Bnei Brak saying that his wine was forbidden to drink because he was an apikores. So some Jew came and returned the wine for the sanctification of God’s name—crates of wine. He came and returned them to Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel with a sour, angry face. So Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel said to him, “Tell me, why are you angry? According to your own approach, you’re doing a commandment, no? So what’s the problem?” He was an interesting Jew.

In any case, he believed in earning one’s living by the labor of one’s hands, which is not so accepted in the Haredi world, among other things. It even appears there—I think she herself didn’t fully understand what she wrote—that in the eulogies for Rabbi Gedaliah they said he was one of the few who really managed to remain a true Torah scholar, a real Torah scholar, despite the fact that he worked.

Now that’s very interesting, because “many did so and it did not work out for them”—in the original Talmudic source that means exactly the opposite. “Many did so and it did not work out for them” means those who tried to engage only in Torah without working. The dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—Rabbi Yishmael says to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: many did so and it did not work out for them. What did they do? Only Torah, like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and no work, and the Holy One, blessed be He, will send us sustenance. “Many did so and it did not work out for them.”

Now in today’s Haredi conception—and this has become self-evident—people who knew that Talmudic passage perfectly well, it’s not that they didn’t know it, but it’s taken as obvious, nobody even feels there’s any problem in saying that yes, “many did so and it did not work out for them” means trying to engage in work too; really one should only learn. And that is, I think, a fascinating reversal of that Talmudic passage.

So indeed Rabbi Gedaliah was one of those rare individuals for whom it did work out. And at least his descendants were educated in that direction. I don’t know to what extent the later generations are still in that direction. You could ask David Bloch. It’s not important enough to me to do all those checks. In any case, he worked for his livelihood—another dimension not so characteristic of Haredi society, at least not of contemporary Haredi society.

He grew up modestly, far from public position, in an area that preserves historical Bnei Brak, one of the students of the Chazon Ish—and all that I already described. “He combined in his learning Descartes and Spinoza”—that’s true, though in certain proportions. Again, I don’t know; what I heard was from the later period. But yes, from time to time he could toss out some source that one isn’t supposed to mention.

The Guide for the Perplexed of Maimonides is the ABC of his worldview. And in that sense I think his students really do continue this as well. The Guide for the Perplexed is a very fundamental book for them. They also assume that the Guide for the Perplexed does not contradict the Mishneh Torah, unlike assumptions made by some academics, for example. And in that sense I really think the Guide for the Perplexed is a very fundamental book for understanding this whole sect, this whole group of Nadelists. Because Maimonides too—this is how they perceive him, and I think to some extent justifiably—as a subversive figure, with worldviews that go very far. Outwardly, yes, the Mishneh Torah is the most studied book in the yeshivot. There is no halakhic book more central or more important than that. And Rabbi Chaim and all the most extreme Briskers—what do they study? Maimonides. Of course “Maimonides” here means not the man but the book, the Mishneh Torah.

The Guide for the Perplexed—who even mentions it? Forbidden to touch. But Maimonides really, behind that halakhic cloak, held worldviews that in part were quite revolutionary, quite extreme. If he were to say them today, almost no one would touch his halakhic book.

Almost, right. You also mentioned Chabad and the Rogatchover as holding there’s no contradiction. Right. Okay. And they also cling to Maimonides very strongly—the Rogatchover really on the basis of the Guide for the Perplexed, and Chabad converts Maimonides to Hasidism in one way or another. But yes, true. They basically convert everything, and therefore that’s not…

So we really have here a very unusual figure. He was a Chazon-Ishnik, as I said earlier, in the second sense. Meaning, he did what he thought, just as the Chazon Ish did what he thought. The Chazon Ish, incidentally, writes this in his book; it’s not just oral tradition. In section 150 in Yoreh De’ah, and section 3 in Yoreh De’ah in his book, in those two places he writes that a halakhic decisor has to follow what he thinks. “The angel Sakhli’el,” they call it. The intellect, yes, is the angel, because following the Chazon Ish he has some letter, I think, saying that the intellect is the angel that connects between the Holy One, blessed be He, and man. So they turned it now into part of their terminology: yes, the angel Sakhli’el once told me such-and-such. I intellect-ed, I thought. No, they’re not especially strong in wordplay. In any case.

So this figure appears full of contradictions. She says “figure,” yes—fine, never mind—full of contradictions, unorthodox. I don’t think he was full of contradictions. I don’t see any contradiction in the figure as a figure. Again, maybe between two details in something he says. But there’s no contradiction. These contradictions are contradictions in the sociological sense, like the openness/extremism point I mentioned earlier. And I think that’s exactly why it’s challenging: his figure challenges many very broad questions that aren’t specifically about him. What is Zionism? What is Haredi society? What is openness? What is extremism? What are these sorts of concepts, and the relations between them? One can reexamine them in light of this case and see that when you look at it sociologically, you see contradiction; when you look at it philosophically, you see that it’s actually very consistent—or at least can be consistent. It may not be necessary, but it can fit together and doesn’t contradict itself.

He kept very far away from politics, yes. He distanced himself from Rabbi Shach. There was apparently some tension there between him and Rabbi Shach. And at a certain stage all the Chazon-Ishniks in the original sense—even Av Greineman, by the way—were somewhat ostracized in Bnei Brak. Or at least in Bnei Brak. The Bnei Brak of Ponevezh, of Rabbi Shach—that’s the central part of Bnei Brak. So they were ostracized; they became some kind of esoteric sect. But again, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky also somewhat belongs there, or at least comes from there. Because Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky—his father, the Steipler, was the Chazon Ish’s brother-in-law. And Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky too, as a young man, grew up at the feet of the Chazon Ish there in Lederman, on Rashbam and Devorah HaNeviah.

And still, of course, his standing today is very central in the Lithuanian Haredi world. So it’s a very ambivalent relationship. Haredi society relates in a very ambivalent way, incidentally, to the Chazon Ish too. To the Chazon Ish too. Again, part of it has to do with the character of the books, but it’s not unrelated, and we’ll talk about that—about the mode of learning. About the connection between mode of learning and personality, and the figure itself.

The Chazon Ish is not studied so much in the yeshiva world. It’s not a text that is all that studied in the yeshiva world, the book Chazon Ish. Fine? Now, that too is because of the character of the book, I think, because it’s not that Lithuanian analysis that you can teach in a yeshiva and give some general lecture on in yeshiva. It’s more the sort of book of a lay scholar, who writes what seems logical to him, what seems right. He doesn’t build complex analytic structures. And therefore it doesn’t fit so well with Brisker learning, with yeshiva learning. And you know that one’s learning is basically shaped in the yeshiva years. So if you don’t study him in yeshiva, then he’s already lost.

Once I asked my maggid shiur in yeshiva: what about the Sma—did the Sma know how to learn? Sefer Me’irat Einayim, yes, one of the important commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat. So he said, of course he knew how to learn—but it needs translation. Meaning, he writes like some household scholar: here it seems to me this way, here it seems to me less, here more, without those analyses—not Ketzot HaChoshen, right? It’s something more like: it seems logical to me, not logical to me, one can reject this, one can be lenient here, one can be stringent there—a very non-analytic kind of thinking.

And he said, fine, you can translate it into yeshiva language and then you’ll see that he knew how to learn. And I think that’s a very interesting lesson I took from that. Because indeed, many times behind the…

There are notes of the Chazon Ish on Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik’s novellae on Maimonides. And not for nothing are there notes on that, because indeed the Chazon Ish objected to Rabbi Chaim’s mode of analysis. It’s not that he had some specific remarks or arguments with Rabbi Chaim there, but Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel loved Rabbi Chaim’s book very much. He loved Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim HaLevi on Maimonides very much, Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel did. He said: this is a deep and original book, and it’s very important. The Chazon-Ishnik of the second type, as I said. Therefore he is a figure with many…

Returning to Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel: he is a figure with many contradictions, but it seems to me that most of them are on the sociological plane, not on the theoretical and essential plane.

In the end, perhaps to close the circle: after he passed away and all the great figures of Bnei Brak eulogized him—some of them not even with the required love, saying yes, he was terribly great, but this is not a path suitable for the many. But inside there were things not seen outside. Inside he was a good Haredi. As outside, all sorts of “buts” of that kind that often accompany these things.

Once I saw a book—there is a book Shaarei Talmud Torah by Yehuda Levy, the professor from Machon Lev. A friend of mine once drew my attention to this. You can die laughing from this book. He collected sources from medieval authorities, later authorities, and Talmudic passages about the attitude to external wisdom, about the attitude to work, and all sorts of things that are very problematic in the Haredi worldview—and you can see them in the Sages. He’s right. He didn’t take things out of context. Fine—he collected sources, and that’s all, with maybe certain comments of his own, but really sticking entirely to the sources.

He got several approbations there. Read those approbations—they’re instructive. The “buts” there are wonderful. Meaning: yes, he brought and gathered like sheaves to his granary things from the Sages, from medieval authorities and later authorities, a labor of thought and so on—but for our generation this and that, and we received from our rabbis… Those “buts” are always there. And when you say things in your own name, they come out against you as an apikores. When you bring Talmudic passages, medieval authorities, later authorities—what can they do? I mean, that doesn’t always help either. What? Yes, okay.

There’s a book by Meir Shalev about one of the heroes, where there are unrelated “buts.” He knew mathematics, but he wore sandals—really tragic. You know the story that Rabbi Gedaliah put out [things] close to the sources? Okay, I’m not familiar with his writing, so I don’t know.

In any case, in the end after his passing, as I said earlier, there were eulogies from all the great men of Bnei Brak. Altogether, the students of the Chazon Ish occupy very central positions today and did in the past in Bnei Brak. But on the other hand, his image undergoes a certain change when history is written. Meaning, they insert him back into the groove. He became one of the great ones—also he was a great one. That’s how a friend of mine puts it: “he too was a great one.” Meaning, to put him into the accepted molds, because otherwise—and this comes from his own family, by the way—without that he simply won’t be remembered. He won’t be part of the pantheon.

And here I come to the book whose file I sent you, the book by Rabbi Sheilat, In the Torah of Rabbi Gedaliah, which came out there as a response to attempts to present him that way. He tried to present, though in my opinion in a very moderate way, because Rabbi Sheilat is a moderate man, the more authentic Rabbi Gedaliah. And then he was pelted with stones even by Rabbi Gedaliah’s family, although he brings there that Rabbi Gedaliah said he trusted him and that he had to publish the material and so on. There he says that he went over most of the material.

Okay, but his family came out furiously. The book was banned, hidden away; they did terrible things there. In the end Rabbi Sheilat backed down. He no longer sells the book. I bought it back in the day, but he no longer sells it. And he put out a new edition two years ago, I think. I don’t know—apparently censored or something; I don’t know exactly what’s in that new edition. That book exists as a file on the internet, but to Rabbi Sheilat’s credit, he allows it to be downloaded. Meaning, he doesn’t sell it, but he allows it to be downloaded. I sent you that file; you can read it there.

And following Rabbi Gedaliah’s passing, he became one of the great ones—in the negative sense of the word, I mean. They portray his image in a very conformist way, very much within accepted molds. Gedaliah became a great one? Yes, exactly.

So here I’m finishing the presentation of the context—the figure, what happened in the end. Among his true students, his image is preserved and they try to fight for it, but of course it’s all under nicknames and under the table and so on, so in public discourse it appears less here, though in Bnei Brak everything is known, everyone knows everything—everything is known, in short.

Okay, let’s stop here.