What about all the non-halakhic parts of the Torah
(Genesis, half of Exodus, parts of Numbers and Deuteronomy)?

Is there benefit and meaning in studying them, and if so—what?

I don’t see much benefit in them. Already Rashi’s very first comment on the Pentateuch brings Rabbi Yitzhak’s question: why did the Torah open with “In the beginning” and not suffice with only the halakhic part (from the section beginning “This month shall be for you”). You can see that he assumes that the narrative parts are basically unnecessary or secondary.
True, it is hard to say that someone who studies these parts of the Torah receives no reward as one who studies Torah. But it is a waste of Torah study in quality. In my opinion, one learns nothing from it, for exactly the reasons I listed above.
Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin in Gate 4 of Nefesh HaChaim also addresses this and defines aggadah as being in the category of the word of God, whereas the laws are God’s will (and He and His will are one). Of course, the laws are both His word and His will.

Studying aggadah and thought that brings a person closer to knowing Him who spoke and the world came into being, and to understanding the intellectual approach of Judaism, is not merely a waste of Torah study, but a neglect of a positive commandment from the Prophets, as the prophet Isaiah commanded us in the haftarah of Yitro: “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and be healed.” And it is astonishing regarding the prophets, the Tannaim and Amoraim, the medieval authorities and the later authorities, who wrote so many books on ethics and knowledge of God, contrary to the commandment of the prophet Isaiah 🙂 and this requires great study.

With blessing, Shimshon L"tz

If so, Rabbi Michi, what did the Giver of the Torah see fit to write so many unnecessary and secondary parts in His Torah?
Apparently in God’s eyes it isn’t all that secondary… (seriously, without sarcasm or trying to score points)
Maybe from that itself we can learn what is important in His eyes, or at the very least—not less important?

As I wrote, I cannot rule out the value of the study from the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He. What I wrote is that in my opinion one learns almost nothing from it, and therefore I do not see value in it. Your question remains in place, but it is addressed not to me but to the Holy One, blessed be He. The fact is that one learns nothing from it (and that is a fact, not an opinion), and the question is then why it was written.

A. There is a famous saying that in the Volozhin yeshiva there were two roshei yeshiva: the one who studied and taught the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) was an ardent Zionist, while the one who dealt only in lomdus was sharply anti-Zionist 🙂 Consider that very, very carefully.

An example of things I learned from the Hebrew Bible? (Warning: Merkaz HaRav / Kookist content! My apologies.):
1. Keeping the commandments in the Land: a comprehensive and central purpose in the Torah is the existence of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel while observing all the commandments (and this includes the point that the Land of Israel is not just one more commandment like shaatnez, but an independent purpose, in which the Jewish people live their life of commandments) [it is explicit in many verses that the purpose of the Exodus was arrival in the Land of Israel (beginning of the section of Va'era). The idea as a whole repeats itself very much in Deuteronomy 4–9].
2. From the above also: a national purpose. The Torah’s goal is mainly national—that the Jewish people as a nation should keep God’s commandments. In other words: the commandments are not a private command to me, and incidentally also to you and to all the other Jews, but a will that there should be an entire nation that knows God and keeps His commandments.
3. A universal purpose: the understanding that the people of Israel are meant to illuminate the whole world with the word of God, and to be a beacon of faith and calling in God’s name for all the nations of the world (“And through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”; “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” [priests of whom? of the whole world]; “and it shall be in that day, many nations shall join themselves…” (Zechariah); “and many peoples shall go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord… and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for Torah shall go forth from Zion [to the whole world], and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”).
4. The commandments as a central and binding factor in the relationship between Israel and God. That is, the force and importance of the commandments in God’s eyes, to the point of such severe punishments for failing to observe them. [An idea woven from the book of Deuteronomy through “Remember the Torah of Moses My servant”].
5. God will not replace the Jewish people or violate His covenant with them.
(End of warning)

B. A question about the essence: you wrote above that Hebrew Bible and faith—anything not useful and relevant to the learner—is a waste of Torah study (at least in quality), as opposed to Jewish law, which is always Torah study.
How do you know that the normative has greater quality than the historical?
I understand that the entire value of Torah study is only because it is content that God wants me to study. If so, what difference is there between will and speech? At the end of the day, He wants me to study both.
To put it differently: what difference is there between studying stories about Saul and David, Tosafot’s investigation at the beginning of tractate Gittin into what Ashkelon is, and the dispute between Mahari ben Lev and Ketzot over what a litigant’s admission means? In all of them I am learning concrete content that God wants me to study, whether historical or normative. And how do we know to say that one is preferable to the other?
Thank you.

I considered it very carefully.
The one who taught Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) also taught Talmud and Jewish law, and in the end withdrew from the Zionist movement. But the basic distinction indeed remains in place.
And so as not to leave the page blank, I’ll add another similar distinction. Once I went to the open shelves in the Bar-Ilan library to look for literature dealing with the hermeneutical principles (mainly a fortiori reasoning). The entire shelf was exclusively Religious Zionists (rabbis, not necessarily scholars: Hirschensohn, Amiel, Ostrovsky, the Nazir, and others).

As for the Kookist conclusions you brought, a few connected comments:
1. These lessons are, if anything, the general spirit of the Hebrew Bible. They are not lessons learned from a specific chapter or passage. For that you do not need to study the Hebrew Bible. It is like saying that from the Hebrew Bible you learned that there was a revelation at Sinai, or that God created the world and took us out of Egypt. Nu, fine. My question is what lesson you learn from deeper study of a particular chapter or section in the Hebrew Bible and its details. And my answer is: usually nothing.
2. Even about these conclusions, as is well known, not everyone agrees (there are also a few Jews outside of Kookism). It seems to me that almost every one of the conclusions you brought can be argued with. You accept them because from the outset that is your opinion.
3. I don’t think you will find anyone who thought differently and then, upon reading the Hebrew Bible, was persuaded and changed his view. So even these things are hard to say you learned from the Hebrew Bible.

This is a simple reasoning, as Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin and Rabbi Yitzhak at the beginning of Rashi on the Torah wrote. Beyond that, you assume that study has value only because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. But that is a shallow and incorrect view. Even if He had not commanded Torah study, it would still have value because the Torah is His commands and His will. And as I explained in a video lesson (see link below), in truth the commandment of Torah study is not a regular commandment. According to many opinions, one fulfills one’s obligation with reciting Shema morning and evening, and the rest is left to our decision.
But this is not just a normative statement. When I study God’s will, I feel that I have learned something. If my goal is to study history, I can learn that from other books too (and probably with greater accuracy and efficiency). Why do I care whether Hezekiah went there or fought there? Why is that significant? If it is a decree, we will accept it (“daily religious amusements”), but we have still not escaped the category of a waste of Torah study in quality.

Link to the lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAFe4p7SDrw

Not only the Netziv, who was among the “Lovers of Zion,” dealt with the Hebrew Bible. After all, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who was among the opponents of the “Lovers of Zion,” also dealt with biblical interpretation, and showed in his commentaries on the Torah and Psalms that there is much to learn for our lives from the Bible. Regarding engagement with the Bible and its interpretation in the Haredi public, I brought material in my comments on Elchanan Nir’s article, “A Reward for Withdrawal” (on the “Shabbat Supplement – Makor Rishon” website). Among other things, I cited the words of my great-grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Loewinger, a student of the Hatam Sofer, who writes (in his book Orchot Chaim, Orach Chaim sec. 156) that study of the Hebrew Bible is needed so that fear of Heaven will precede wisdom. I noted there that in the Hungarian yeshivot there was organized study (including weekly tests) of Humash and Rashi, and in some of them also Prophets and Writings. The difference between the Lithuanian and Hungarian yeshivot was that in Lithuania the organized study focused on in-depth Talmud study, and the rest of Torah study remained the personal responsibility of each student. By contrast, in the Hungarian yeshivot they were aware of the need to train not only great Torah scholars, but also aimed to train ordinary householders who were Torah scholars, and therefore there were organized classes in a variety of Torah subjects—in-depth topics; Talmud, commentators, Tosafot, and Maharsha in sequence; Humash and Rashi; Orach Chaim and Yoreh De'ah; and Prophets and Writings or ethical works. And each subject had set times and exams, and study was not left to the learner’s personal initiative.

With blessing, Shatz Loewinger

Shatzl, no one disputes that there were (many) Jews who engaged in the Hebrew Bible (you didn’t have to go so far. In my non-consensus opinion, Rashi and Nachmanides themselves (!) engaged in it). Rabbi Michael Abraham is making a claim on a different plane (and in general he usually objects to proofs in the style of “everyone believes/does this”).

Rabbi, “You assume that study has value only because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it. But that is a shallow and incorrect view. Even if He had not commanded Torah study, it would still have value because the Torah is His commands and His will.” Why is the Hebrew Bible not considered His will? Even if the history in it can be learned elsewhere, surely we would prefer to learn from the best teacher (the Holy One, blessed be He), even if the motives are not clear. Beyond that, you keep quoting Rashi’s first question and “forget” that there is also an answer.

With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do and we will hear,” 5778

I heard, if I remember correctly in a lesson by Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook of blessed memory, that from the statement “we will do and we will hear,” it emerges that “we will hear” is not only preparation for “we will do,” for hearing the laws and the details of the halakhot should have come before the doing; otherwise how would they know what to do? The “we will hear” that comes after “we will do” is already a second hearing that has intrinsic value beyond knowing Jewish law.

This emerges from the plain meaning of the verses in Exodus 24, where it is explained that Moses conveyed the laws before writing them, and the people answered, “All the things that the Lord has spoken we will do”… Then Moses wrote the “Book of the Covenant” and made a covenant with the people, and afterward Moses reads the Book of the Covenant in the ears of the people, and now, after the people have already heard the laws twice! — the people say: “We will do and we will hear”!

After entering a covenant with God, we are not only “obedient subjects” of a king, but His covenantal partners, acting with Him out of responsibility and personal initiative to realize the great ideals that underlie the laws. From now on, it is not enough for us to say “What is my duty, that I may do it”; rather, it is incumbent on us to follow in the ways of the patriarchs and prophets, who initiate and do beyond their obligation in order to elevate the world.

We follow Abraham, who draws the distant near and argues in their favor; Isaac, who seeks to hold fast to the land and bring forth from it “abundant grain and wine”; Jacob, who lays the foundations for a people that walks in God’s ways; Joseph, who influences the center of civilization and tries to reorganize it; and Moses, who rises up against injustice and the enslavement of his people and returns it to its land. These lofty values are embedded also in the commandments, but also in the deeds of the patriarchs and prophets, which are substantive bodies of Torah and its foundations.

With blessing, Shatz Loewinger

Even the law sections of the Torah do not make do with dry Jewish law, but present the value-oriented goal. I will bring a few examples from the weekly portion.
The author of Or HaChaim explains that “she shall not go out as the slaves go out,” said by the Torah regarding a Hebrew maidservant, expresses the Torah’s ideal case: that the maidservant should not remain in that state for six years, but should be designated for marriage to the master or his son. Likewise, the law of “an eye for an eye,” which the Torah itself neutralizes in practice by permitting ransom when it is not a case of murder, is a value statement that it would have been fitting to punish the assailant in his own body, except that he has the possibility of redemption.
And so too the prohibition of “flesh torn in the field” is not only a law in Yoreh De'ah, but an expression of the goal “you shall be holy people to Me,” and the commandment of the Sabbath is not only a religious remembrance of creation, but also a commandment of moral sensitivity: “so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your maidservant and the stranger may be refreshed.”
The laws of the Torah are not merely dry law, but the shaping of the soul of the individual and the people, and educating them toward lofty values.
With blessing, Shatz Loewinger

A. In order to know that it is a waste of Torah study in quality, you first have to study it.
B. Sometimes study of these areas is required so that a person will have understanding and not say nonsense, as sometimes happens (although the case of Rabbi Kalner proves that even someone whose main occupation is in these areas tends to say nonsense).
C. Nachmanides disagrees with Rashi there, and it would be fitting at the very least to take his opinion into account (and so too that seems to be Maimonides’ opinion in positive commandment 1).

And still, it seems that most of these questions arise not regarding the individual person, about whom it is said that a person only learns from the place that his heart desires, but rather from an educational concern to chart a path for the public. And here I would be glad if the Rabbi would devote a few columns to education. I do not expect the Rabbi to establish an educational institution (and the Rabbi has also clarified that he is not interested in that), nor do I think there is only one educational path; in education there is a lot of trial and error. Still, it seems to me that many readers would be glad if the Rabbi would sketch an educational road map, at least regarding a few questions:
1. What may an educator expect, and what may he not expect.
2. What is the place of Torah in the person as opposed to Torah in the object in the educational process.
3. How to balance Torah study with the demands of society (general studies, military/national service, work).
4. What place reason and free inquiry have as against the receptive logic of Torah.
5. What the attitude should be toward those who are defiant in religious and learning terms.
It is clear to me that each reader will adapt the points to the society in which he lives (Haredi, religious, and secular), but still it seems that as a road map this is essential.

6. What place girls have in Torah study and in education toward commandment observance.

A.H.,
Your question is unclear. You asked why the Hebrew Bible is not considered His will. Simply because no wills are expressed there. Only Jewish law is an expression of the Holy One’s will. I did not say that it is not His will that we study the Hebrew Bible, but that the Hebrew Bible is not an expression of wills. The narrative part of the Hebrew Bible is facts, and facts are not wills.
As for the best teacher, I’m not so sure He is the best teacher. If what you are learning is history, I know better teachers and texts. And I don’t see anything else there.
I quote Rabbi Yitzhak’s question to say that even after the answer, it is clear that the stories in the Torah are of lesser importance. What does the answer say? That they too have importance. Indeed, that is a novelty, and one should not extend it beyond its novelty. Beyond that, look at the content of the answer: that if the nations of the world tell us “you are robbers,” we will know what to answer. Fine, I got that already. So now what? I’m already exempt from learning it, no?

Y.D., Rashi’s words were brought only as an illustration. My claim is proven on its own. I argue that there is nothing new one learns from there.
As for essays on education, overall these matters are discussed by me. Should I gather them all into an orderly educational doctrine? I’ll think about it.

With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “These are the ordinances that you shall set before them,” 5778

To Y.D. — greetings,

Your words about a “road map” in education hit the mark, in my humble opinion. If I try to educate from above by presenting my own path as the correct and best one—who says the son or student will buy my “merchandise”? Maybe another path suits his soul better?

One person is suited to rationality, another needs cultivation of the emotional world; one tends to conservatism, and another seeks renewal. And who says that my son or student needs to be like me? Just as I am not a “copy-paste” of my late father, and he was not a “copy-paste” of his late father, so too the next generation need not be a “copy-paste” of me.

If I want the son’s/student’s choice to remain within the bounds of rabbinic Judaism, it would be worthwhile to offer him the broad range of schools and methods within the camp, and to stimulate discussion of the arguments and reasons of each method, with the aim of understanding “what exactly are they disagreeing about?” and on what “everyone agrees.”

When you present a range of methods within Judaism, you discover that “turn it over and turn it over, for everything is in it.” Our sages throughout the generations encountered many outside ideas and cultures and coped with them and with the questions they raise, so that no cultural innovation will be a “shocking revelation” to the younger generation that throws them off balance.

One of the effective ways to see the range is to study the Hebrew Bible, which presents dilemmas of faith and values, and to compare the different interpretations. In that way there takes place a multi-generational and multi-cultural discussion, in which Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Nachmanides, philosophers and kabbalists, Hasidim and people of modern education all argue and discuss—and we too and our students add ideas and questions of our own. That way each person finds the spiritual nourishment suitable for him.

With blessing, Shatz Loewinger

Dear Rabbi, have a good week,
I also brought Nachmanides only as an illustration.

These matters are discussed, but in the end you rely on the tables of others. Yeshivat Har Etzion, Ponevezh, and other places express assumptions different from yours. The place perhaps closest to you is Bar-Ilan University, because of the combination it makes between Torah and science (although for years I looked down on the “both-and” approach prevalent there). However, many Torah preparations on one hand, and scientific and practical preparations on the other, are required before one arrives at the right balance. If the Rabbi could discuss these preparations, it would be a blessing.

I didn’t understand in what sense I rely on the tables of others. By the way, in what way are the assumptions in Ponevezh different from mine? In my opinion, only in this: that they don’t dare say what they think (after all, they too skip aggadah and do not engage in the Hebrew Bible).
And how did Bar-Ilan get in here?
Maybe I didn’t understand what you’re talking about in this message. The topic of the thread is the study of aggadah and the Hebrew Bible. Is that what you were talking about?

With God’s help, 27 Shevat 5778

After all, in Ponevezh there was a fixed period for the study of ethics. And all ethical literature is based on the verses and on aggadah and midrashim of the sages. The mashgichim of Ponevezh were among the greatest deep thinkers in Jewish thought, as can be seen in Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler’s Michtav MeEliyahu, and Rabbi Chaim Friedlander was the faithful disciple of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto and edited his profound books on thought and Kabbalah.

True, in the kollel of married students in Ponevezh there was no fixed period for the study of ethics. In the book KeAyal Ta'arog on Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman (p. 365), it is told that when Rabbi Shteinman was appointed head of the kollel in Ponevezh, the mashgiach Rabbi Yechezkel Levinstein asked him to institute ethics study in the kollel as well, and Rabbi Shteinman answered that had a period for ethics already been customary in the kollel, he would have been able to strengthen and establish it, but he did not have the ability to introduce something new.

In a conversation that developed between them, the mashgiach told him: “You are, after all, students of Rabbi Yitzhak Zev, and the common opinion is that the rabbi was not among the supporters of ethics study etc. But know that when the rabbi founded his son Rabbi Dovid’s yeshiva in Jerusalem, he asked me to join as mashgiach in the yeshiva and that they should study ethics in the yeshiva, and the payment would be that I could discuss learning with Rabbi Yitzhak Zev” (ibid. On ethics study in the Chafetz Chaim yeshiva in Kfar Saba, headed by Rabbi Shteinman before he was invited to serve in Ponevezh—ibid., pp. 715–716).

With blessing, Shatz Loewinger

In the entry on Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman in Wikipedia, it is told that he would give a weekly lesson in his home on Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s Derekh Hashem and on Nefesh HaChaim and Ruach Chaim by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin.

With blessing, Shatz Loewinger

And

Shatzl, as someone who studied a bit in the Ponevezh kollel and knows the area not badly (and not from reading Wikipedia entries), no ethics period and no nothing. And even if there are yeshivot that set aside half an hour for ethics, almost no one actually did it, and it is a highly disrespected time slot (which is why many also canceled it). The proofs from Rabbis Dessler and Friedlander are a bad joke. The fact that mashgichim from Ponevezh wrote works means absolutely nothing about what was practiced in the yeshiva itself, and certainly not about what is practiced there today. They also gave lessons on these subjects, and usually it was for individuals (including Kabbalah lessons, which I too learned with a student of Rabbi Chaim Friedlander who had learned with him), and it certainly does not indicate the general atmosphere. The general atmosphere is that this is a Torah-level waste of Torah study, in quality and quantity, and it’s a shame for the time. And rightly so.
And in general, before you bring proofs from them—go to Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto himself and to the Kuzari, who studied subjects outside Jewish law and Talmudic analysis. So what? Didn’t Nachmanides and Rashi comment on the Torah? What do these proofs say? How do they touch my claims?
And besides, I was speaking here about the study of aggadah and Bible in Ponevezh, and you are steering the discussion to ethics (and as stated, even on that you are mistaken).

By the way, are you sure Rabbi Shteinman gave those lessons in his home? Wasn’t it a general daily lesson in the yeshiva? Yet another story to refute!

I’m sorry, my words came out fragmented and unclear. What I wanted to say was that the Rabbi’s fundamental assumptions are not implemented educationally anywhere. Even if there is overlap between the Rabbi’s path and certain places in some respects, there is no place that includes all the aspects. The Gush fits the Rabbi’s path in terms of openness of thought, but not in terms of attitude toward the Hebrew Bible (and who knows that better than you). Ponevezh fits in terms of Torah in the object as opposed to Torah in the person, but not in terms of openness of thought. There are many more details that I am unable to spell out. What I am asking, and it seems others are asking too, is for an educational road map that will address the different aspects in a way that enables movement between the worlds that exist in the Rabbi’s thought.

And regarding ethics, in my opinion the Mussar movement (which was a great and precious movement) lost its driving force as a result of the dismantling of its intellectual foundations by the Hazon Ish. The Hazon Ish’s move to withdraw into the wildernesses—meaning, the yeshivot—was opposed to the optimistic belief of the Mussar movement that it could cope with modernity through psychological tools. The Hazon Ish’s argument, following Maimonides, about a person being influenced by the people of his place pointed to the superiority of sociology over psychology. That pulled the rug out from under the Mussar movement, which believed in psychology. As a result, the study of ethics lost its persuasive power in a way that led to its practical neglect, as Rabbi Michi noted.

Rabbi, where did Shatzl claim that there was an ethics period in the Ponevezh kollel? On the contrary, he said it did not come into practice.

With God’s help, 28 Shevat 5778

To Y.D. — greetings,

How do you want to reconcile “openness” with contempt for studying the spiritual part of the Torah, beginning with the Hebrew Bible, continuing with aggadah and the midrashim of the sages, and ending with all the ethical and philosophical literature of the medieval and later authorities? Openness to “anything and everything,” but absolute closure to Jewish thought?

And how can one educate on the basis of an internal contradiction—commitment to Jewish law while not accepting its spiritual foundations? Fine, someone who has already grown used to a life of Torah and commandments will not abandon it even if his foundation of faith is shaken—but to educate that way? Who will buy an internal contradiction?

With blessing, Shatz Loewinger

It seems to me that the problem begins when there is no intellectual challenge in the study. Even the study of Jewish law would stop being attractive if everything were clear and agreed upon, like “a paragraph in Chayei Adam.” The challenge of different approaches that are compared with one another, based on the assumption that all of them have a basis in reasoning and in the sources of the sages, and we try to understand the reasoning of each side and how it explained the Talmudic passages—we reach a tremendous richness of ideas, difficulties, and resolutions, and enjoy the attempt to find our way through it.

If we apply that same method of “clarifying the approaches” also to the study of Bible, faith, and values, and see the sea of approaches “struggling” with one another, each bringing proofs from the sources and from reasoning—these studies too will become interesting and intellectually fruitful.

Just as in Jewish law we try to understand both Rashi and Tosafot, both Maimonides and the Raavad, and see all of them as our revered teachers, even when in practical Jewish law we rule differently—so it should be in the world of faith and values as well. We should try to understand the different approaches, their reasons and justifications, and how each aligns with the sources, with the biblical verses, and with the words of the sages.

And then, out of the in-depth discussion and clarification of the different approaches, each person will find the path more suitable for him, the path to which he feels more connected, but will also know how to appreciate the other paths as well.

With blessing, Shatz Loewinger