Disputes — Lesson 9

Hello. We’re at the last session on dispute, and last time, toward the end, I began the final section in the series, which is the question of disputes in the social sense. Meaning: how to conduct disagreement and arguments. And basically, the bottom line of what I said was that “a dispute for the sake of Heaven will endure, and a dispute not for the sake of Heaven will not endure,” as the Mishnah in Avot says—that is not determined by the standard of manners and etiquette. Meaning, whether you behave politely and respectfully toward the other person or not—I think, at least, that’s not the criterion. In my view, a dispute for the sake of Heaven is a dispute conducted substantively. Now, “substantively” does not mean not stormy, not intense, not sharp, not sarcastic. And maybe one could say it’s not effective to do that, because the other side won’t accept your arguments—fine, those are technical arguments, I’m not talking on that level right now. I’m speaking on the principled level: whether it is improper, say, in a moral sense, or whether such a dispute is somehow wrong, not for the sake of Heaven. My answer is no. In my view, a dispute carried out for substantive reasons, because you genuinely think the other person is wrong, is a dispute for the sake of Heaven. If you raise substantive arguments, then it is a dispute for the sake of Heaven—even if you tear into him brutally and do it very sharply and slander him, I don’t know what, depending on how severe you think his position is. But conduct is one thing—manners are one thing—and the essence is another. I think the confusion between these two things happens a lot. By the way, also in Torah commentary literature. Many times people move immediately from the question of a dispute for the sake of Heaven to the question of manners and respecting the other and all kinds of things like that. In my opinion there’s no connection at all. I don’t think there is any connection between those two things. And again, I’m saying: that doesn’t mean it’s recommended or right to speak harshly and so on, even though I do it from time to time. But that’s another question. It’s a tactical question, or maybe a question of not hurting the other person, fine, that can also be right. But as far as the quality of the argument, or how to judge the argument itself, I don’t think it has anything to do with it.

Now in that context, there was some fellow, a ba’al teshuvah, whom I accompanied, and it started in an interesting way. My wife Dafna worked, when we were in Yeruham, at this kind of pluralistic study house called Bamidbar—that was the name of the place. And one day some guy walked in with a backpack, wandering around hiking in the South. He started asking, “Do people study Judaism here?” So they told him, “Come have breakfast with my husband,” and since then we… by now he’s Haredi in Ma’alot, I don’t know exactly where. Anyway, at one stage in his development he asked me—he was very troubled by fights between rabbis. Rabbi Ovadia and this one and that one, people fighting and tearing into each other, politics, different Hasidic groups of course, all kinds of things like that. So he asked me: why is it that specifically in this world there are so many ugly things, ugly phenomena, quarrels? By way of that well-known witticism, they say Torah scholars increase peace in the world. That’s about like saying Yasser Arafat is the greatest expert on peace—because if every week he breaks the agreement and a new peace agreement is needed, then he’s the world champion of peace agreements. And in this context too, Torah scholars don’t exactly seem to increase peace in the world.

I told him that precisely in my eyes this is actually a beautiful phenomenon. A beautiful phenomenon—even though, again, it’s also annoying sometimes, okay, I understand. But all in all it’s a very beautiful phenomenon. And it shows that they care. Now, if you’re talking about fights over honor, appointments, money—I’m not talking about that. I’m talking now about ideological battles, between those who say these are heretics and those who say those are heretics, it doesn’t matter—the principled fights, not who gets the money. And maybe even who gets the money, by the way, is a reflection of that too, because I want to promote my direction, so I also need the money—not money for my pocket, but money for the path, for institutions, whatever, to advance my way. I think that’s very beautiful. It’s beautiful because people really believe in what they say, and it matters to them, and they’re prepared to fight for it. And they don’t bother prettifying themselves and playing games, but rather they fight for what they believe in.

And very often, someone who is very enlightened and polite and doesn’t fight and respects everyone—it’s simply because he doesn’t really care. Like: okay, I say this, you say that, be well, what do I care? Meaning, what I’m saying isn’t really important to me, and what you’re saying also isn’t really important to me, so do whatever you want. Now again, this doesn’t mean that everything they do over there is proper and nice and how things ought to be. But we’re all human beings, and overall, as a phenomenon, in my view it’s much more… I wouldn’t want to live in a society where this didn’t exist. What would that mean, that it didn’t exist? It would be such a boring society—not only boring in the sense that yes, that too, it’s just boring, it’s asleep. But not only in the self-interested sense that I like things to be interesting. Really, it would be a society to which things don’t matter. Meaning, people don’t fight over them.

Now when you fight, we are human beings, and human beings sometimes fight in non-kosher ways—they throw punches below the belt, okay—but you don’t want to live in a place where there’s nothing worth dying for, as the poet says. “Imagine” by the Beatles. Right. There are Hebrew translations too. Nothing to die for. There’s such a song. So Leibowitz succeeded. There’s “Someone Is Lying on My Back” by Ariel Zilber. “Nothing to die for.” Yes. I’m saying Leibowitz succeeded—he managed to infuriate everyone. Right? No, I think Leibowitz deserves a great deal of appreciation, beyond the question of whether you agree with his positions or not, because he fought for his positions. He was willing to pay prices. He lost the Israel Prize over it; in the end he gave it up, made fools of everyone. Came out like a real man—what can I tell you—not in the street-fight sense of a duel. Something mattered to him, and he fought for it, and he didn’t bend before all the fools over there who have no idea what they’re talking about. And I have a lot of respect for someone like that. I think it’s a shame there weren’t more people like that.

With the university letter he sent them, that he… What? When they wanted to open the pool at the Hebrew University on the Sabbath, he wrote them a letter saying he was resigning from the university. Oh really? Resigning from the senate. From the university senate. I assume that was at an earlier stage. Did they back down? Yes, but I assume that toward the end of his life he wouldn’t have done that. He was active—he was a religious politician, a representative of HaPoel HaMizrachi in the Histadrut. Meaning, he was a full-fledged religious politician with a party label. It’s hard to believe when you look at his later phases.

Anyway, the point is that places where people don’t fight are places where it doesn’t matter to you. And in certain respects, even though all kinds of contemporary militant tendencies really annoy me—also from religious directions that I answer, and also from liberal directions and I don’t know what—just this morning I was speaking with someone who teaches at some secular school, and I told him: listen, you can’t talk to people. They have some religion, and you can’t talk about anything except the gay-lesbian issue. Nothing but that gets through the screen; you can’t talk about anything except that. It’s just liberal madness. It doesn’t even let you—not only express other positions in the gay-lesbian sphere—just try to talk about something else. No. Every single thing they’ll insert that issue into, and it’ll come in here, and exclusion, and all that nonsense. In short, that’s one side. But on the other hand, listen, there are things that matter to people, and they fight for them. In that sense it’s actually an optimistic way of looking at it. Meaning, it’s terribly annoying, but at least… it’s like they always say: indifference is worse than combative opposition. Because indifference means there’s no one to talk to. You can’t talk to him.

And that reminds me—today I’m a little in a social-thought mood, so my speech has drifted. Tzvi Inbal, who’s this activist and well-known lecturer at Arachim, was one of the members of the League Against Religious Coercion. Right? And Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda too, I think, was also once a member of the League Against Religious Coercion. At some stage, though, he decided it was a league in favor of secular coercion, and left. I think that’s how I once heard it. I know he was a member, but I heard that was the reason he left. Because the people who oppose are people to whom the matter is important, and therefore there is someone to talk to. Meaning, it’s like what I said one of the previous times: I think that all kinds of radical statements I make, it’s much easier for me to say them in Bnei Brak than in a synagogue of “Mizrachnikim,” excuse the expression. Why? Because in Bnei Brak these are people who know how to learn. I bring them ideas, I have arguments—they may disagree with me, they may say it’s harmful, but we are engaged in a give-and-take. We know… there are rules to the give-and-take, there are arguments, there is evidence. That doesn’t mean they’ll do tomorrow what I say, or that I’ll persuade them—that’s a different issue—but there is someone to talk to. They understand that this method has grounds to rely on. They don’t agree with it, but they understand that okay, there’s a coherent approach here.

There are people who aren’t used to halakhic give-and-take and don’t understand it; no arguments will help. There’s no one to talk to. It doesn’t fit their framework, and they’re not interested—there’s no one to talk to. You can’t conduct a debate. I remind you that here in the synagogue there was one Simchat Torah when they came to ask me whether it was permissible to bring the Torah scroll to the women on Simchat Torah. Since then, I understand, a bit of water has flowed down the Jordan. But I said: what’s the problem? Obviously yes—what’s the question? Then afterward I heard that there were all kinds of arguments: what do you mean, how can one do such things, what kind of heresy is this. There’s some Rema who says that a menstruant woman—in Krakow they had a custom, I don’t know—that she shouldn’t touch a Torah scroll. Fine, so in Krakow they had that custom. So what? It has no basis. What are these things? But I’m saying: in Bnei Brak you can talk about this. It won’t be implemented. Meaning, it won’t be implemented, that I understand. But everyone there will understand that what I’m saying is reasonable and makes sense and is perfectly fine. We won’t do it because our tradition is not like that. Okay, I have no problem with that, because you can talk to them. In that sense, when there is discourse, when there is some kind of debate, that’s sometimes better than someone for whom you simply don’t matter, or who is not willing to talk to you for other reasons, or cannot talk to you for other reasons.

In any case, that’s what I told him: that these arguments indicate that in a world where—and we talked about this once, and it’s true here too—a kosher restaurant, mathematically speaking, will always be less tasty than a non-kosher restaurant. Because if there is a kosher food item that is tastier, then the non-kosher restaurant will adopt it. And if there is a non-kosher food item that is tastier, the kosher restaurant cannot adopt it. Therefore it’s greater than or equal; it’s a lower bound. Meaning, a non-kosher restaurant will never be less tasty than a kosher restaurant. Or cheaper—because that’s also of course a product of price, quality, and kashrut, where kashrut is fixed.

Logically that’s not true. Why not? Why? I’ll tell you why. Suppose there’s a certain type of fish that isn’t kosher and it’s tasty, but there’s another kind of meat, yes, that is kosher and also tasty, and that restaurant sells both fish and meat. So bring the kosher meat dish, bring the non-kosher fish dish—but it’s a non-kosher restaurant, you can’t eat there. Right, because you can’t distinguish. So why does that mean that by definition a kosher restaurant is… Because it will be tastier than the kosher restaurant. The kosher restaurant can’t bring that dish. Because it has that too, yes, of course. Anything tasty, the non-kosher restaurant can take, because there’s no problem eating kosher. But the kosher restaurant can’t use non-kosher food. There are jokes about this, but it’s not a joke—it’s a theorem. It’s simple logic; it can’t be otherwise. Unless, again, there are trade-offs in price, fine. Unless he decides he’s also open on the Sabbath, and then the restaurant is non-kosher. No, you’re talking about the point of kashrut, not practicality. Not employing a kashrut supervisor—that won’t change this balance, it has nothing to do with it. He’ll open on the Sabbath, but that won’t make him less kosher or less tasty because of it. You won’t be able to combine… If there are ten kosher things and a hundred non-kosher things, then this holds. That’s the end of it. What are you arguing about?

So I’m saying, also in this context: why are there more quarrels in the religious world? Because in the religious world there are more things that matter to people. That’s a fact; it’s not open to debate. It’s not even some sort of curiosity. Factually it is certainly true. There are more values, or more commandments, or more things that matter to people in the religious world than in the secular world. That’s all. And therefore of course there are more fights there. Often it also matters more to them—the thing that matters is also more important—but not always. Sometimes it’s not like that. And therefore of course there are more fights there. So in my view, maybe the fights look bad and I don’t know—I don’t like them so much, or others don’t like them—but in a certain sense they express something very, very positive. And of course, when there are many fights and many things matter to you, then you also go below the belt and do ugly things. Fine, okay, that’s part of it. But still, you’re fighting over something important to you.

Also, there’s more time to fight. Huh? On the other side there’s more time to fight. That I don’t know. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes quarrels are a product of boredom; that I agree with. But it’s not always like that. Okay.

Why is there more time? Why don’t you agree? Let’s go once to a kollel in Beit Shemesh and you’ll see how much time… Anyway, there’s a letter by the Chazon Ish that I wanted to read, a famous letter, just a moment. And he’s really talking a bit about this very issue. A letter about extremism, a fairly well-known letter of his. If you have enough time, you can take a look. “Just as simplicity and truth are synonymous, so too extremism and greatness are synonymous.” The first sentence, by the way, is interesting. Simplicity and truth are synonymous. I assume he means Ockham’s razor. What is simpler is apparently also truer, right? “So too extremism and greatness are synonymous.” Meaning, to be a great person and to be an extremist are synonymous. Meaning, it’s the same thing. “Extremism is the perfection of the matter,” meaning, it is the appearance of the matter in its full completeness. That is called extremism. “One who advocates mediocrity and despises extremism—his portion is with the falsifiers or with those devoid of understanding.” Meaning, someone who opposes extremism—what he calls mediocrity, and mediocrity here is not in the sense we speak about it today; he’ll get to that—but at the moment the term “mediocrity” here means lack of extremism. Something more moderate, I don’t know what to call it. Politically correct. Yes. So he says that mediocrity in this sense—whoever adopts it, his portion is with the falsifiers or with those devoid of understanding. “Devoid of understanding” means he has no position. If he has no position, then he doesn’t oppose and he doesn’t fight for his positions and he isn’t extremist and he’s willing to accept everything. Or else he is a falsifier. Meaning, if he’s a falsifier, he’s basically saying: look, I believe in something; I am not devoid of understanding. Intellectually I know what the truth is. But I don’t have the strength; I don’t want to pay prices for it. Meaning, I’m not willing to pay the price of a tough struggle, an extremist struggle, for my truth.

And therefore, basically, he says that mediocrity is not a virtue but a deficiency. And extremism is a virtue. That’s his claim. And fine, we can qualify it, but let’s continue. “If there is no extremism, there is no wholeness. And if there is no wholeness…” because one who is whole goes all the way with his truth. He is not willing to compromise or to observe only some things; he goes all the way. Including convincing others, of course, of his truth. Everything, not only himself. Part of completeness is also causing other people to behave properly. “And if there is no wholeness, there is no beginning.” What does that mean? “The beginning is in constant difficulties and refutations.” That’s an interesting sentence, by the way. Because extremism means things matter to you. If things matter to you, then you will not ignore difficulties and refutations, even though that seems, on the face of it, contrary to extremism. Because extremism is supposed to be fanaticism—to not ask questions, but just go with your truth and not put it to the test. So the Chazon Ish says: not so. The Chazon Ish says that extremism—on the contrary—will lead a person to ask questions. Like what we said earlier, that someone who belongs to the League Against Religious Coercion is likely to become religious, because he asks questions and things matter to him and he investigates, and it may be that in the end he’ll be persuaded that it’s not correct—and then the opposite.

I have doubts about the correct and realistic understanding of that statement. Why? Because I think it’s true. What? That people like that really would become religious? Yes, certainly. Extreme people become religious more than moderate people. Based on what? I have very clear statistics. I knew hundreds of ba’alei teshuvah. In yeshiva, in many places. No question. Again, extremism doesn’t necessarily mean they… it depends in which direction. These are people who care, people who investigate, people to whom things matter. Otherwise a person stays where he is—what does he care, everyone can do what they want. He’ll never become religious that way. How would he get there? It has to matter. He can be modern religious, but he made an extreme move in going from secularity to religion; that itself is extreme. Extreme in the sense that what matters to him—really matters to him. What it is that matters to him is another question. For one person it may be liberalism, for another conservatism, for another feminism, for another anti-feminism—fine, it doesn’t matter. All of these are extremists, meaning extremists in the sense that they care and they fight for what they care about.

So here, the point is that “constant difficulties and refutations”—we also spoke about this once—it keeps standing in the background of this whole conception. Tolerance, openness, pluralism—that is of course here in the background, and we already discussed it, so I won’t return to it now. But I remember once reading an article in Haaretz by Tamar Rotem, I think—a probably ex-Hardal woman. She wrote—what? Daughter of some writer? Yes. So she wrote about Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel after he died. And she wrote this kind of obituary-like piece in Haaretz—not exactly an obituary, but she wrote about him, about the man, who he was, because the public didn’t know him. And among the things she wrote, she was very astonished by the contradictions in his personality. And it’s really true: everyone who knew him knows this. On the one hand he was super fanatical and extreme. Super. Meaning, he fought against everything, and against Zionism too, and against many things, even though he doesn’t seem that way at first glance. And on the other hand he was open to everything, read everything, spoke with people, argued, read books of all kinds, studied all kinds of subjects and all kinds of things. So how do openness and fanaticism fit together?

And when I read her article, I think that’s what made the penny drop for me regarding the article I wrote on openness and tolerance and pluralism, because suddenly I realized there’s no contradiction at all. On the contrary. If someone is open and examined different options and arrived at a certain conclusion, then obviously he’ll be more fanatical. Because he’s more certain he’s right. He knows the alternatives, and he fights them because he has concluded that they are wrong. But a person who didn’t examine the other possibilities—and also cares, because otherwise he wouldn’t examine them. Exactly. So someone who didn’t examine them—on what basis would he be fanatical? It’s just stupidity to be fanatical. How do you know maybe the other person is right? Did you examine it? Did you hear his arguments? Did you look? Therefore I really don’t think there’s any contradiction here. There is fanaticism of one kind, and there is another kind of fanaticism, perhaps…

And this is also the Chazon Ish. The relation between this letter and… There are books by Chaim Grade, yes, Tzemach Atlas and The Battle of the Inclination. He was a Yiddish writer, a Yiddish prose writer and poet, was even nominated for the Nobel Prize, and was angry at Bashevis Singer for taking the Nobel Prize from him—but never mind. Anyway, when he was a young man he grew up in a Novardok yeshiva. The Novardok yeshivot—the Alter of Novardok, who was also no small savage himself—sent all his fellows from the yeshiva, many many young men, to establish yeshivot in all kinds of villages. Because of the Haskalah and the fear of losing the youth and the young people, he sent his fellows, pushed them: each one should go to some village, establish a yeshiva there, teach the local boys from the area, and that’s it. And thus many, many Novardok yeshivot sprang up throughout Eastern Europe.

And Chaim Grade, as a boy, studied in one of those yeshivot. And the village is called Volkenik, some literary village—I don’t know if that’s the real name of the village, but that’s the name. And there he describes Chaimke—that’s himself, it’s obvious it’s himself—and the head of the yeshiva is Tzemach Atlas. That’s his name, the literary name he chose. By the way, there’s an article by Chavelin, the bibliographer, that librarian fellow, where he tries to identify who Tzemach Atlas is, or what the model for the figure was, and to identify him with certainty. What? They identified him with certainty. Ah, I don’t know if with certainty. I know there were various attempts. There were claims that it was the son-in-law of the Kaminetzer, I think, called Rabbi Reuven Grozovsky. There were such claims. I don’t know. He later established a yeshiva in France too, also with young men. Yes, right. I also heard that identification. I’m not sure it’s correct.

There was a film, the famous film, I think… The Power of the Will? Exactly. About Chaim Grade, who after the Holocaust met him in France… In Canada, sorry. In Canada he met him. In the story it’s in France? In the story… no, he met him in Canada, and that Jew—I think he was from France. The Jew he met in Canada. And there there’s a theological argument around the Holocaust. A powerful film.

Anyway, this Tzemach Atlas is a Novardoker, twenty years old or whatever, a second-year student who went to establish a yeshiva and became the head of a yeshiva of twelve-year-old boys. That’s how it was there. Now, they grew up under him as wild men in a completely wild yeshiva. And Novardok is a yeshiva with no restraints—really. Their ideology is not to care what anyone thinks, and all the famous stories—not to be impressed by what other people think of you. And when boys raised in such an education become heads of yeshiva, you understand that this is a recipe for tremendous damage to children. Truly. It’s simply disastrous.

And there he describes this head of yeshiva, this Tzemach Atlas, who of course is a literary figure, as someone eaten up by drives and doubts and unable to live with them internally. He describes what is happening in his soul inwardly. But outwardly—ultra-fanatic. Meaning, he fights, he persecutes anyone who voices some opinion or asks some illegitimate question or has desires—not to mention, there’s no room for that. Total war. Jihad. Against that he describes there what he calls “Ba’al HaMachazeh Avraham,” the literary name for the Chazon Ish—because it’s known that the Chazon Ish would come there for vacation at that period, to live there in the summer. He would always come there from time to time for vacation, for some month or two or three, I don’t know, for part of the year. And one time, when Chaim was expelled from the yeshiva because of one of Tzemach Atlas’s blowups, he went to live with the Chazon Ish in his home—and that really happened. He lived in his house for years. And he calls him “HaMachazeh Avraham,” that’s the literary name.

And the book, much of the book, is really a contrast between the two figures. Tzemach Atlas is a stormy type, eaten up by drives and all that, and outwardly fights against every trace of heresy or desire or sexual immorality, all kinds of things, forbidden thoughts and things like that: “do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes.” And the Chazon Ish is portrayed as someone completely whole, harmonious, simple, everything clear. Anything you want you can ask him—again, regarding difficulties and refutations—whatever you want you can ask him. Tzemach Atlas doesn’t allow questions. The Chazon Ish is not portrayed like that. The Chazon Ish is portrayed as quite fanatical, again, not fanatical in the sense of throwing stones, but in terms of worldview he is very, very closed; he is not willing to accept deviations. Conservatism is non-negotiable. One has to remember all his public directives. And he answers him every question, sits with him, everything is fine, everything is wonderful. On the one hand, inwardly he is completely calm, whole, harmonious with himself. He is not eaten up by all the drives that consume Tzemach Atlas. And on the other hand he behaves not fanatically, even though he is very whole with himself, whereas the other one is torn.

So it’s not despite that—it’s because of that. The claim is that this sort of Tzemach Atlas is of course fighting with himself, not with his surroundings. He doesn’t know what to do with the doubts, drives, and difficulties he has. What does one do with that? He is consumed by it. It’s obvious to him that it’s not okay, but what can he do? It’s there. So instead of sitting down and clarifying the issue for yourself and examining it, and taking the risk that maybe it will turn out that you’re not necessarily right and that the questions really are good questions, or drives, whatever, some other risk—you don’t want to take the risk. You don’t fight it inwardly, so you fight against everybody else. That’s what in psychology is called projection. You project onto them everything that is inside you, and you fight yourself as you appear through them. Okay?

And then the Chazon Ish, who doesn’t have all these inner tensions, doesn’t fight anyone. The Chazon Ish has that famous well-known letter in which he says—and by the way, full disclosure, I am one of the great admirers of the Chazon Ish—he has a very famous letter: it is not my way to enter into arguments; whichever way you look at it, no one gets persuaded. And if you think differently, then do differently—so what. I know that Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel—and this I heard, I think, from Rabbi Yogel—who was Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel’s study partner, and every week they would go to the Chazon Ish to ask him questions about what they had studied that week. Rabbi Yogel was then a student. And one time Rabbi Gedaliah had a difficulty on the Chazon Ish, something written in one of the Chazon Ish’s books. So he told him, “Gedaliah, listen, if you don’t agree with me, then do what you think. What’s the problem? What do you want from me?” Apparently he explained it once, he didn’t accept it, so no—so what happened? You think this way, I think that way, everything is fine, do what you think.

Isn’t that a contradiction to the letter? Huh? Isn’t that a contradiction to the letter? To what? That if extremism… Wait, that’s why I’m bringing it. I’m saying this too—both the Chazon Ish and Tzemach Atlas are the Chazon Ish. When he portrays “HaMachazeh Avraham” there—you know, in my eyes this book is an amazing ethical work, because it’s a book not written by… Chaim Grade was… In the beginning maybe not, when talking about Tzemach Atlas and his pettiness, whatever, but the book is powerful, and the Chazon Ish in it seems to me an authentic description. He lived in his house for several years. He wasn’t nourished from posters. He saw him, how he behaved every moment. And he has no interest in flattering him, because by the time he wrote it he was already completely outside all religious frameworks.

There are all sorts of legends in Bnei Brak that he wanted to become religious again and had set a time with the Chazon Ish that he would come—one of those legends they also tell about Maimonides—that he was supposed to come, and the Chazon Ish died just then and didn’t manage to meet him, and therefore he remained secular until the end of his life. Fine. In any case, the claim is that it’s all the Chazon Ish, and this is interesting against the background of this letter of his, this serenity, this non-extremism, this acceptance of other opinions. But here one really has to distinguish between several things.

Extremism does not always mean you have to quarrel with someone if there is no chance you’ll persuade him. That’s not extremism; that’s stupidity. I don’t think the Chazon Ish is speaking about extremism in that sense. If you won’t persuade him, then why argue with him? That’s just a matter of common sense. There is no point in fighting with someone when the fight will bring no benefit. That’s one point.

Second, there is of course some radius—we spoke about tolerance versus pluralism—so I said that one of the things distinguishing them is that tolerance has a radius, while substantive pluralism has no radius. The radius is basically this: there is a certain range of things that, although they are not true—because tolerance is based on a monistic notion of one truth—still there is a certain range of opinions that in my view are not true, but are legitimate error. And outside that radius are things that are not true and also not legitimate. Now, when you speak about extremism too, you have to distinguish between these two zones. In the zone of truth—or rather, legitimate error—fine, it’s legitimate. That’s what you think.

More than that: the Chazon Ish also very much upheld the value of autonomy, meaning that a person should do what he thinks. He himself did that and wrote that. I once mentioned that people always quote the Chazon Ish as the one who basically gave the Mishnah Berurah its status. How did the Mishnah Berurah receive its halakhic authority? The Chazon Ish did that. The Chazon Ish basically said that the words of the Mishnah Berurah are as if delivered from the Chamber of Hewn Stone. And therefore the Chazon Ish is a rebellious elder, obviously, because he disagreed with the Mishnah Berurah in many places. There are even editions of the Mishnah Berurah with notes from the Chazon Ish on every place he disagrees. So what is that? What does “Chamber of Hewn Stone” mean? It means: this is a halakhic book you can rely on. That’s what it means.

In any case, if you can rely on it, you can also disagree. Right. And not only can—you should. Meaning, if you think otherwise, do otherwise. If you’re not of that caliber and you can’t issue a halakhic ruling, take what is written in the Mishnah Berurah. If you do that, that’s fine, because it’s a good book. He was no ignoramus. He knew how to learn, he knew how to rule. You can rely on him; he is an authority. That doesn’t mean I agree with him on everything. Those are two different things.

The Chazon Ish indeed was—as I said, there are two kinds of Chazon-Ishniks: those who do everything written in the Chazon Ish’s books, and those who do what they themselves think, just as the Chazon Ish did what he thought. And in this matter he was a Chazon-Ishnik of the second type. In the truest sense, I’m saying, these are the real Chazon-Ishniks. Sorry, but that’s really so.

So how does this fit with this hymn of praise to extremism that the Chazon Ish writes here? As I said before, the question is this: when you’re speaking about people outside, then indeed you have to wage a total war and extremism and condemn and not accept and not contain and none of that. And even there, I say, of course common sense and reason must also operate there. There’s no point in fighting wars over something that won’t help. But I think common sense is something even an extremist should exercise. An extremist is not supposed to be an idiot. An extremist is supposed to be someone who fights for things important to him, willing to pay prices for them—but willing to pay the prices in order to achieve results. Someone who pays prices without achieving results—that is Tzemach Atlas. He is an extremist of the unenlightened type. Not an extremist acting from a lucid decision because it truly matters to him, but an extremist because he is fighting with things inside himself; or because he is just some fanatic who is afraid to think, and therefore is unwilling to hear someone raise questions or the possibility of thinking differently or anything like that. That is a different kind of fanatic, and I don’t think this hymn of praise is about them.

“And innocence is the sharp answerer that establishes every matter in its proper place and truth.” That too is an interesting point. What does innocence mean? Here innocence is not mediocrity. Innocence is apparently the trait of the extremist. If I understand him correctly—the language is a bit difficult—but innocence here first of all, in literal translation, means completeness. Right? “Tamim” means whole, like an unblemished offering, a whole lamb. So here too he says that extremism and greatness are almost synonymous, and extremism is the perfection of the matter. Innocence is connected to extremism; innocence means completeness. And what does that mean? “Innocence is the sharp answerer that establishes every matter in its proper place and truth.” You deal with the difficulties, as he said earlier, and innocence, completeness, means finding answers to all the difficulties—not ignoring them, but pursuing them in an extremist total war. When you read it that way, suddenly you see that Tzemach Atlas doesn’t contradict this hymn of praise to extremism at all, because he isn’t talking about extremism of the Tzemach Atlas sort. He is speaking about extremism like his own—because he too was an extremist. The Chazon Ish was an extremely extreme figure. Extremely extreme. But not in his human conduct. In his human conduct he was completely whole. But he was unequivocal: forbidden is forbidden, permitted is permitted, there is no room for argument.

For example, when he sent that letter about the international date line—there was that dispute—he sent a very harsh letter there to Japan and said: you will conduct yourselves on this day, and that’s that, without listening to anyone else. I say this is the way, and this is what you will do. I’m not willing to hear anyone else. But the extremism—and this returns to the distinction I made earlier—the extremism he is talking about does not mean verbal storminess; it does not mean harsh speech. That’s not the point at all. Harsh speech or not, do or don’t do—those are broad tactical questions, and not important here at all. Extremism here means a conception. Meaning: if you really believe in what you believe, then you are willing to fight for it, to argue for it, to pay prices for it, and not say: okay, you’re right and I’m right and she’s right and everyone is right. That’s what he calls one who advocates mediocrity and despises extremism—the falsifiers and the understanding-deficient.

“We are accustomed to hearing in certain circles”—no need to point out which circles—“people declaring about themselves that they have no share among the extremists, while still reserving for themselves the status of a faithful Jew, sufficiently committed in faith to the Torah and words of Torah.” Meaning, they still regard themselves as faithful to Torah even though they are good, moderate, not extremist, opposed to extremism, and so on. “And we permit ourselves to say, from a juridical standpoint…” Just read all the Torah portions around Pinchas, all the pages, it doesn’t matter till the last one. It makes no difference what page you read—you’ll always read the same thing. It’s all in condemnation of anti-extremism, and this is supposedly reserved only for select individuals, while really one is supposed to be moderate. It’s all over the Torah. Yes, all woven in between vacations and hotels and trips. There are a few written sections, yes, those parts…

In any case, his claim is: “we permit ourselves to say from a juridical standpoint that just as lovers of wisdom do not love a little wisdom and hate an abundance of wisdom”—one who loves wisdom does not love stupidity; with all due respect, he may take the fool into account, but he doesn’t love foolishness—“so too lovers of Torah and commandment do not love moderation and hate extremism.” And that’s very interesting. For the righteous there, wisdom is like fire: a little of it helps warm you, and a lot of it burns countries and causes damage. Okay, so is that a result of the extremism he’s speaking of here? No, the opposite. Extremism can indeed burn countries—but that is a result of wisdom, he says. Otherwise you are among those devoid of understanding. That’s the teaching on Parashat Pinchas. Those who say: no no, it’s dangerous and not nice and not moral, Heaven forbid to quarrel, one must receive every person with a pleasant countenance and respect every opinion and all that stuff. In any case, the claim is: yes, if it matters to you, then what do you mean you accept someone who says otherwise and thinks otherwise? He’s wrong! He’s wrong, and harmful, and everything—what does it mean to accept that?

“All the foundations of faith, the thirteen principles and their branches, are always in active tension with the easy assumptions and the flow of life that develops under the sun. And their clear, well-answered recognition, and the one that reaches forth in stronger attachment to their faith—that is the sweetness of extremism.” When you know the principles well and believe in them and internalize them and they matter to you because you are truly religious and not toy-religious—then how can you not be extreme? How can you accept someone drilling a hole in the boat you are sitting in, if you truly think that’s what he’s doing? Therefore he says that one who accepts all opinions is basically saying that his own opinion is not important enough to him, or that he has no opinion. Either a falsifier or devoid of understanding, as he said above. “That is the sweetness of extremism.”

“And those who testify about themselves that they have not tasted the sweetness of extremism are thereby testifying that they are lacking faith in the principles of religion, according to the strength of their intellectual contemplation and emotional feeling. They are connected to it only by the cords of pedigree. And the extremists, in the depths of their souls, with all their mightiest desire for compassion toward those devoid of the edge”—that is, those who are not extreme—“will not acquire honor and esteem for those opponents of theirs, and the abyss that separates them, when encountered in concrete actions that naturally and inevitably generate disputes and quarrels, will increase the breach beyond healing.” Here I’m not entirely sure what he means. I think he means those “devoid of the edge,” who don’t want to enter this and object because extremism creates ruptures, and so on. Meaning, I think he brings that sentence as something he himself does not identify with. Rather, he is saying this is the mediocrity he rejects. He’s saying: when extremists meet non-extremists, a breach will arise between them with no cure—and he does not say this as a reservation. For him it’s perfectly fine. There will be a breach, because it matters to me. And someone who says: no no, a breach will arise, because one mustn’t do that because the unity of the people is terribly important—right? That’s what he’s talking about, that moderate person.

“The mediocrity that has a right to exist is the trait of mediocre people who love extremism and aspire to it with all the burden of their soul.” In retrospect, it is permitted to be mediocre. What kind of mediocre? Someone who understands he is mediocre and that it’s not right and he lacks the strength, but his ideal model, his utopia, is the extremist utopia. He’s just not strong enough to be there. The cheerleaders. Exactly. The cheerleaders, or at least inwardly encouraging. So that kind of mediocrity has a right to exist. Meaning, someone who says: this matters to me, I don’t have enough strength, I don’t have enough self-sacrifice for this issue, but I do encourage or identify with what the extremists are doing.

By the way, part of what’s going on here really appears in many forms in our world. And I think part of the extremist phenomena we are experiencing now in the religious world—women in shawls and that whole phenomenon in the Haredi world, or the hilltop youth in the Religious Zionist world—stem from a very similar phenomenon, I think. It’s a situation in which people are basically saying: we are willing to pay prices and go all the way with what we believe. And they have a critique of the religious or Haredi establishment or mainstream, each in his own camp, that they are really compromisers. They are not willing to take the conclusions all the way and pay prices and indeed cover themselves fully. You educated me that modesty means modesty, and the very best is to be as modest as possible. Fine. You are willing to accept compromises, but you understand that this is the ideal, right? So what are you telling me now—that what I’m doing is wrong? That I’m covering myself completely? They don’t believe those rebukes. Why don’t they believe them? Out of that very same conception. Meaning, if you educated us this way, then what do you mean? The required result is that we too should act accordingly, and pay prices for it, and be prepared.

And since they also think or estimate that the rabbis who rebuke them inwardly actually identify with them too, but cannot allow themselves—or dare—to do it, therefore the rebuke has no effect. Because they understand that they are actually doing what the rabbis would want them to do. That’s why it’s strange. With all that great fear of Heaven, I would have expected them to listen to the rabbinic leaders of their group—whether Haredi or Religious Zionist. They don’t listen. It’s a completely undisciplined public. Great rabbis can speak out against it and it won’t help at all. Why won’t it help? Because from their perspective they are convinced that the rabbis rebuking them inwardly really want them to do this, only they can’t allow the whole public to be like that. But the torchbearers, the avant-garde, should indeed do it to the end, and they deserve tremendous appreciation. And by the way, in a certain sense that’s true. Meaning, although I don’t agree with the path itself, I very much appreciate the willingness to pay prices and do things when you believe in them. I think that is worthy of appreciation.

“But how wretched is the mediocrity that pours contempt on extremism.” Meaning, there are mediocre people who turn mediocrity into an ideology, not just a weakness. They say: we’re weak, what can we do. Fine, that kind of mediocrity one can live with after the fact. But there are mediocre people who make it into an ideology. That is wretched, yes, “that pours contempt on extremism.”

“Indeed, the boiling spirit in the heart of youth will not refrain from issuing boiling judgment on the private personalities of the offenders, with a measure of exaggeration. Yet the development of youth…” Again, I think—and it’s not always fully clear to me what he means—I think he means that educating toward extremism is dangerous when you speak with young people, because young people will take extremist decisions, like hilltop youth. They’ll simply do what you educate them to do, God forbid. Take into account that when you educate someone, it may be that he will actually do what you educate him to do. One has to be very careful.

Just today I said to that fellow I was driving with, the teacher, that we usually educate the generation of our students’ students. That is the role of an educator. Because our student will rebel against us and do the opposite, and his student will rebel against him and do what I told him to do. We are actually educating our students’ students. So the claim is that it’s dangerous to educate for extremism, because youth and people who are not mature enough and do not know how to critique their own behavior may do things that are not right and not proper to do. And again we see that extremism does not mean not weighing things on the scales of common sense as to how one ought to act. These are two different things. Extremism in conception, extremism in willingness to pay prices—but the question of how to behave is a different question.

And nevertheless he says it is worth paying the price. Despite the danger, it is worth paying the price and still educating even the youth toward extremism. Why? “The development of youth to the true love of Torah, which requires emotional inspiration and heavenly sweetness”—meaning, identifying with the religious world you want to educate them into—“does not allow us to place restraints on the path of life that leads those who dwell in crowns and enjoy the radiance.” We cannot deprive them of authentic service of God just because of those concerns. We must educate them to authentic religiosity. Fine, there will be problems; we’ll try to deal with them.

This somewhat reminds me of the rebukes after Rabin’s assassination, when people always said, “See what comes out of religious fanaticism”—that was the secular claim. So what do you want—that I shouldn’t believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, because he killed Rabin? What does that have to do with anything? I believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, because I think He exists. What do you mean, what should I do? I don’t subordinate my beliefs to practical consequences. You can say, look, because you believe in things in such a fanatical way, make sure problematic consequences don’t result. That criticism I absolutely accept. But this subordinating of the beliefs themselves to problematic consequences is a very problematic claim. Sometimes on the margins there is room for that—it’s the polemic of noble lies—but in principle, why in the world? You should educate properly, and if it creates problems, try to make sure that doesn’t happen, try to moderate it. But you don’t give up proper education because of that.

I think for the rabbi, extremism is across the full width. And when people take phenomena like modest dress and hilltop youth, that’s a very particular kind of extremism, not across the full width. They’re not extreme like that in Grace after Meals. I’m not sure. At least the ones I know—regarding modest dress and all the Taliban-type stuff, from what I know—I’m telling you, it may be extremism, but not some fanaticism in Grace after Meals, and when they have to shove in line at the supermarket then the fear of Heaven is less impressive. But in that phenomenon there aren’t so many Torah scholars. I can… usually it’s the opposite: when there isn’t enough intelligence, people go to the edge. There’s extremism—I think there are two separate phenomena. There is extremism of the Tzemach Atlas type, that’s what you’re describing. Meaning, it’s not really… He is talking about another kind of extremism. About him I agree, because he was across the full width. He treated people properly and recited Grace after Meals properly. No, behavior isn’t the proof. He was an extreme Torah scholar. And that’s exactly what I argued before: behavior is not the proof. No, not bad behavior—I accept the general description. I’m only saying that extreme behavior can come from a genuine place. Extreme behavior in the sense that you trample a million values for one extreme value—that isn’t called extremism. Sometimes you trample values because you make a calculation that it’s worth trampling them for the sake of this, and sometimes you don’t think you’re trampling values. That too can happen. These phenomena are complicated, but the generalization isn’t always right. Still, such types and such types do exist. That’s enough for me.

Do you know what happened in Beit Shemesh with the burning of the garbage dumpsters? What? How did they explain in Beit Shemesh the burning of the garbage bins? Well? They told them: guys, that’s meat and milk, you’re violating “do not cook.” Don’t get confused. Really? True story? I’m telling you, in Beit Shemesh a missile fell on Independence Day near some guys saying Psalms—a Grad missile. And they made puns that day, on Psalms and on missiles. I’m telling you, it’s unbelievable. Just so it won’t turn into some halakhic issue, I mean. First of all, you don’t have to burn it. It’s not logical as food. It’s forbidden for it to be meat and milk. Ah, those are other discussions. Like people accept… If it wasn’t cooked, it’s not called mixed. Here—you come hear the arguments. No, the point is it was thrown in the garbage; it’s already no longer fit to eat, so it’s no longer meat and milk. Why not? There are people who take things out of the garbage.

Anyway, he says one also has to educate for this. Not only is it positive—not to give it up. “But those who establish average educational institutions have not succeeded because of the falseness in mediocrity.” Why doesn’t Religious Zionist education succeed—let me translate this into our language—because there is some falseness in this mediocrity. They don’t educate them to fanaticism of a different kind, says the Chazon Ish; that I would respect. But rather they educate them to something that is basically against fanaticism as such. In many places that is practically a banner: we are against fanaticism, we are not extreme. Not that we hold different positions; not that we are moderate because we make this or that set of calculations. No, no—we are against extremism as a value in itself. Okay? So he says that because of that, it doesn’t succeed. That’s his claim.

“And an intelligent heart goes and abandons the falseness.” By the way, to a large extent I think he’s right. As a general fact—it isn’t a correct generalization for every place, and of course it varies from place to place and also with time. Today it’s somewhat different from what it was, at least partially. But there is something real here; it’s not nonsense. “And an intelligent heart goes and abandons the falseness.” Yes—these students, those who leave religious education in that kind of framework, they are precisely the more… “in this God they do not believe,” meaning: their education gives the student justification to turn his back on the laws imposed on him against his will and the beliefs that weigh upon his heart. “And the secret of extremism was stolen from him, and parent and teacher abused him in this too.” Meaning, the parents and teachers, who ought to encourage fear of Heaven, are the very ones educating him not to have fear of Heaven. That is basically the claim.

Now what is really standing here? Why does it bother me to read this? Why is it incomplete? What is missing from this analysis? A partial analysis, of course. Why? Because clearly there is also a value of tolerance as a value. Not only as compromise. Because he ignores that option in a very extreme way. He ignores an option that absolutely exists on the map. And again I return to what we spoke about here regarding tolerance and pluralism. He is talking about pluralism. He is really talking about multiple truths, where I have no truth of my own, where I don’t truly stand behind my own truth—I’m just this way, and you’re another way, and everything is fine. But there is also tolerance. Tolerance comes out of monism: I truly believe in my truth, but I think you too should act according to what you think, and I think there is room for dialogue between us. And as I said, there too—someone who says, in the name of tolerance, not to come persuade or not to come argue—that really does point to mediocrity, not tolerance. Tolerance, on the contrary: I want to persuade you because you’re wrong. I care about you, and I care about the correct position I believe in, and therefore I’ll try to persuade you. If there’s no point because I won’t succeed, then maybe I won’t do it for reasons of common sense—but there’s nothing wrong with it.

As for actual coercion, I also said that that has a place in certain cases. On the other hand, there is also a value of autonomy, and therefore perhaps I won’t use coercion because I believe in the value of autonomy, not because I’m unwilling to pay prices. If I do it because I’m unwilling to pay prices, then that’s not tolerance, it’s just self-interest.

But the value missing here, in my opinion, isn’t only tolerance. The value missing, I think, is what we always learned about the middle path, “loving peace and pursuing peace.” There can be, within Judaism itself, a kind of middle path that is not extremism. But that’s what I said earlier regarding other opinions that fall within the domain of legitimate error. There indeed we say, “These and those are the words of the living God.” You know, that has in principle been the halakhic tradition from time immemorial. Again, not that it’s always implemented, but in principle that is certainly the basic approach. He is talking about conceptions that are simply incorrect. He is talking about attitudes toward secular Jews. After all, what is the dispute with the “Mizrachnikim” if not over their attitude toward secular Jews? For him that is not another legitimate approach within the circle; it is outside the fence, heresy, whatever. And since that is so, then here there is no room for the middle path or the golden mean and so on. The middle path and the golden mean are between two extremes, both of which are not prohibitions but modes of conduct. Between them you choose the golden mean. There is no golden mean with a prohibition. I’ll commit only half a prohibition? Like the famous stories about the fellow who came to the rabbi and asked: I always eat kosher from Rosh Chodesh Elul onward. The question is whether to start from the first day of Rosh Chodesh or from the second day of Rosh Chodesh. Yes, what exactly is the rabbi supposed to answer him on that? Wow, that’s really a practical messianic question. What do you mean? Was there on the first… no, I thought there was… sorry, I got confused.

And there’s also the issue of self-criticism—that you need to… Right. Here there is another important point, because what you are talking about is certainty. And the Chazon Ish also ignores another point, not only the value of tolerance. And that is the question: to what extent am I really certain of my path? He presents a conception—I don’t know if this was really true inside him—but that’s what is written here. He presents a conception according to which one is supposed to be completely sure that one is right. I can’t accept such a thing. A person cannot be completely sure he is right, and in that sense it does somewhat affect accepting other positions. It is true that I oppose postmodernism, those who take it all the way and accept everything and say no one is more right or less right. But listen: if there is a possibility that I am wrong—and I cannot be certain; I’m a human being, human beings can err—then I cannot go out on jihad against someone who says otherwise. Maybe he’s right. That is a possibility. So I will try to persuade him, I will try to clarify, I may act against him. I won’t kill him, but… the degree of certainty—what?

And everything he says here is because he thinks he is right. Yes. Therefore—no, I also think I’m right. But he is sure he is right, therefore he is willing to be extreme. He is sure he is right, not just thinks he is right. Those are two different things. No, that’s exactly what I’m saying. And that too is another point missing from the picture he presents here. First, the value of tolerance—not the tolerance of mediocrity, of pluralism, but the value of tolerance. And second, really, the measure of doubt that every lucid person should have. And let’s say: I have serious doubts whether even for him this was not the case. No, I think even for him it was. He was a man of thought.

If you think that this is the path, if you are sure that this is what you should do, then fight for it to the end. If you’re sure. But how can you be sure? After all, in almost no matter are we sure. I’m not sure about anything. Except that all extremists are right—other than that, there’s no such thing; other than that, nothing is certain. That’s the only thing I’m sure of. Curses. Excessive pluralism. What do you mean “there is no”… A person can always be wrong. What, does nothing exist? No, there are things I believe in, but I’m not sure. Couldn’t I be mistaken? I was often mistaken in the past, and therefore it could be that in the future too it will turn out I was mistaken. What guarantee do I have? Some axiom, something personal, something… No, again, don’t confuse this with saying I don’t believe in the values I believe in. I do believe in them, and I will act according to them. But that doesn’t mean I’m certain—that it couldn’t turn out I’m mistaken.

Aren’t there things you would fight for? I do fight for them—but that’s extremism. Depends how far, depends how far. Many times after I say this, people ask me: tell me, what if you had to give your life? After all, you’re not one hundred percent sure it’s right. Giving one’s life is after all a step whose price is not simple. Right. It doesn’t matter, but Jewish law in certain cases requires self-sacrifice over the three severe transgressions and so on. I say honestly: I don’t know. I don’t know if I would stand up to it. Nobody knows. I don’t know if even at the level of consciousness—I’m not even talking about whether I’d fail to meet the standard. I’m not sure it would be the standard for me. Because there is always some… I say this genuinely: I don’t know what to do with it, but… if it’s not one hundred percent, I can’t help but factor the certain doubt I have into the obligation to sacrifice my life. What can I do? That’s the rational result of the assumption.

Fine, but if this is a situation we’re not fully settled about, I’m saying it depends on the situation and how the parameters appear. Soldiers in the army are willing to risk their lives, and I don’t think they all believe one hundred percent that we are right and there is no chance we are wrong. How many go into the army ready to die in total certainty? No, not completely. Everyone has his one-in-a-million hope that he’ll come out alive and be a great hero. Fine, but that one in a million is still self-sacrifice together with the other nine hundred ninety-nine thousand out of a million, and that too is called self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is not always suicide. Self-sacrifice means placing one’s life at substantial risk. And I’m saying that even at that level I don’t know.

Where you are in doubt, you don’t know. After all, the Chasid Yaavetz wrote—there’s this myth in Bnei Brak, not a myth, he really wrote it—the Chasid Yaavetz, from the exiles of Spain, wrote praise of ordinary householders, the common people, and criticism of Torah scholars. He said that those who revealed true self-sacrifice were the simple people, not the Torah scholars. And why? In my opinion that’s not a song of praise. It only means they simply understood less that there are other options, and that sometimes you’ll also twist things because you’re clever and know how to play with the rules. Exactly. But I don’t see great value in innocence—even if with all that it may sometimes lead you to sacrifice your life and I won’t sacrifice mine, even though I might think I should and I won’t stand up to it—I still don’t turn stupidity and innocence into an ideology. I’m not willing to pay the… What, stupidity means not being a Torah scholar is stupid? Not being a Torah scholar, not knowing Jewish law from its sources, that’s stupid in a very real sense, not just in IQ. The Chazon Ish speaks about innocence—he means innocence in the sense of completeness. Ah, so the rabbi understands them as completeness? But completeness isn’t always wise. Are you whole? No, you resolve difficulties—what? The innocence here, he brought it as sharply resolving difficulties. And like the rabbi said about the Haredi women, that because they study less, then there are no “wise-guy” calculations. Right. What you said here—you can’t argue with someone who doesn’t know Jewish law. It becomes something absolute, as if it were a law given to Moses at Sinai—you can’t talk with him, there’s no one to talk to.

When I came home the first time from high school yeshiva, I said to my mother: wait, why don’t we tithe produce at home? Why don’t we separate terumot and ma’asrot? She said: I don’t know, in Hungary they didn’t do that in our house, so they didn’t do it, and if they didn’t do it, she doesn’t do it. I told her: fine, in Hungary you didn’t have to, but here you do. In the end she accepted it, but it took me a long time to persuade her. But the rabbi knows—you certainly get to speak with many kinds of Haredi people, and it doesn’t matter how strong your arguments are, it doesn’t matter how right you are. What they’ll do in the end is another matter. But they don’t ultimately act because they were convinced. I feel it’s easier to argue with them and more comfortable to argue with them. I understand—they won’t do what you say even though you’re right. In the end they’ll throw out some argument that drives you crazy, but there is someone to talk to. Certainly there is someone to talk to, because it’s enjoyable to talk with them in terms of the arguments and all that, because they answer substantively. It may be that in the end they still won’t do it, but they’ll answer more substantively than what I said—because they are people of learning. Yes, right. And that’s exactly the point.

Maybe just two examples that I still want to get to. This claim that one must respect such-and-such opinions—as I said before, it is very important to understand whether these opinions lie within the circle of legitimate error, the radius of tolerance, or in the outer circle. I’ll give two examples in which, many times, again, people raise claims against extremism and against paternalism and condescension and so forth, and I do not accept those claims.

For example, I’ll start with a distant example. In nineteenth-century France—and this spilled over later into the twentieth century too, really beginning from the French Revolution and going through various developments—the Orthodox rabbinic leadership of France, or part of it, decided that once civil marriage had been created there—in other words, in France the non-Jews until then had lived in a very Catholic state, a Christian state, and then with the separation of religion and state following the Revolution, civil marriage came into being. There were marriages in court or city hall or whatever, and divorce as well, of course. Now the Jews, obviously, until that period—there is fascinating historical research on this—the Jews in France were very opposed to divorce, even though in the Jewish world divorce is perfectly acceptable. They viewed divorce as something forbidden because in the Catholic culture that prevailed before the Revolution, that was the norm.

Now after the Revolution, suddenly divorce became something entirely legitimate, also among Jews, because there too they began to divorce, since it was no longer Catholic. People were still Catholic, but they behaved… there was a very interesting blend there. Even Catholics did things civilly. There was a very interesting confusion there. In any case, at some stage the rabbis went one step further and announced that a divorce in civil court was halakhically valid. Non-Jews, in a gentile court—meaning, if they divorce you according to the judicial procedure in force in France at that time, then no get is needed.

Now the rabbinate—the chief rabbis, leading rabbis in France, chief rabbis of central cities, I don’t know exactly what, because there was some disagreement—ruled this in Jewish law, and that’s what they did. Now all of Europe was in an uproar, at least the Europe I know of, maybe elsewhere too. In Eastern Europe there were extremely harsh letters. It reached all the way to Rabbi Chaim Ozer. Meaning, this entered the twentieth century too. There were many developments, and there’s a pamphlet called There Is No Condition in Marriage, published by Hotza’at Bnei Torah, for those who know it.

In what period was this? I’m saying: it started in the nineteenth century and continued for about a hundred years through different phases. Were there great Torah scholars there? I don’t know; I don’t know the members of that religious court. But they were the rabbis of French Jewry. I don’t know how great they were exactly. One of them came out with the pamphlet against it and aroused all the decisors of Eastern Europe, and they all came out against it and so on. They based it on a halakhic source too. They also raised absurd arguments; I read the pamphlet. What does the rabbi mean—for example, about the marriages they established there, or about a general issue not related? No no no—the claim that at some stage civil divorce is a legitimate substitute. “The law of the kingdom is the law”—all kinds of arguments of that sort. But that applies to monetary law. In short, arguments absurd in halakhic terms. But the rabbis said it, the local halakhic authorities. So what do you do now? Respect it because a rabbi, a Torah scholar, said it? He is the leader of French Jewry. With all due respect, they chose him as their leader; he is an Orthodox rabbi, meaning he’s inside the camp—he’s talking nonsense. So what are you going to do, not come out against him sharply? I’m in favor of coming out sharply in such a case. Again, if it will help, that’s a practical consideration. But on the level of principle—so what? The man is an Orthodox rabbi talking nonsense. He’s making a problematic error. Why do I care who he is? I’m discussing the idea, not the person. And if a Reform rabbi raises a substantive argument, even if I think it’s mistaken, I can respect it entirely. So what if he’s Reform? We need to discuss the arguments, not the arguers.

That’s an example of something where, if it happened today, everyone would immediately say: what do you mean, he’s also a rabbi, you don’t have a monopoly on truth, how can you disqualify him like that? He’s talking nonsense, so I disqualify it, with all due respect. Who determines that he’s talking nonsense? I do. I think he’s talking nonsense. He thinks he’s speaking correctly. Right—I think he’s talking nonsense. Who disqualifies him? I do, on my own authority. And if the opposite? If he’s talking nonsense in halakhic extremism—meaning he keeps becoming more stringent and more extreme? Same thing. Nonsense is nonsense. Not only when it’s for the sake of leniency in Jewish law. Of course. I said: nonsense is nonsense. And that’s one example. An example of a case where people will always raise claims like: wait, how can you—don’t you have a monopoly on… how do you fail to respect this, when he too is a Torah scholar and he too is a rabbi? Fine, so in my opinion at least he’s talking nonsense. So I don’t think one needs here to preserve all the niceties of respect and so forth. Again, if possible, then yes. But if necessary, and if reason says this is what has to be done, then it is complete justice, and that’s all.

Another example, which is more problematic and closer to us, is the example of conversion. Namely, all the conversions of the state conversion system, against which people came out very sharply—after Rabbi Sherman’s ruling, and all the Haredi decisors and so on came out very sharply against it. And here these are people who, yes, at least some of them really are Torah scholars and committed to Jewish law. This isn’t the rabbi from France. Meaning, I too agree—I’m completely with the Haredim in this confrontation. Maybe not completely, but regarding the attitude toward conversion—not regarding disqualifying it retroactively. There too I completely understand the harsh rhetoric. I understand it because there it’s not just a halakhic dispute: you think this way, I think that way, that’s a legitimate error, “these and those are the words of the living God.” What do you mean “these and those are the words of the living God”? When you declare him a Jew, now his daughter will marry my son. It has implications for the whole public. So how can you take standards that are not agreed upon, standards that you hold, and they are pretty far-reaching standards with all due respect relative to the opinions of other decisors, and that’s it—you sit at the gate of the Jewish people and convert people according to your own standards?

I wrote an article about this that caused a lot of controversy, and I said it was “violence with good intentions.” That’s what I called the article. I argued that Rabbi Druckman is a violent man acting with good intentions. He has good intentions, I’m sure. I’m sure he believes in what he is doing. But he is a violent man. He is violent because he imposes norms not accepted by an overwhelming majority of decisors and converts people. Now, converting people is a public decision. It’s not like you decide that your daughter will marry him—do whatever you want. But when you convert a person, he becomes part of us, and no one afterward will check how he converted; it’s impossible to check. So this has to be done by some consensus, through public decisions.

So in a case like that, I completely understand the sharpness with which they opposed him. Completely understand. There is no principled problem with that. It illustrates the point. And here these are indeed—not only Rabbi Druckman. Rabbi Druckman, I don’t know what… there are Torah scholars there. The question is how you relate to another Torah scholar. I don’t know—I’m not relating to him, I’m relating to what he said. And what he said is nonsense, and I don’t agree with it, and I will come out sharply against it if necessary, if it will help.

And therefore this exaggerated pursuit of peace really does, in that sense—and here I return to the Chazon Ish—very often reflect some kind of statement of “I don’t really care that much,” and not that “I’m so enlightened and tolerant and believe in the value of tolerance.” Sometimes that’s the case, and sometimes it isn’t. And in these examples, for instance, my feeling is that very often all those who preach tolerance are people to whom it simply doesn’t matter all that much, and that’s why they are so supportive of tolerance.

All right, we’ll stop here today. This was kind of a…