Q&A: Rabbi Shaul Alter
Rabbi Shaul Alter
Question
In recent months there’s been a new star among the Haredim: Rabbi Shaul Alter, who split from Gur. I started listening to him a few months ago after I heard very good things about him from Benny Brown (he told me he has known him for a very long time and even actually attended some of his lectures). He speaks very well and is also very practical (in Haredi contexts, of course—strengthening oneself, serving the Holy One, blessed be He, and so on), and in general he talks like a human being, which is rare among Haredi leaders. He’s also very down-to-earth, and generally speaking I fell in love with his personality. In his analytical Talmudic lectures he is a clear representative of plain common sense; what interests him is the truth in the passage, not what everyone says (he is also known to oppose the force of an argument in migo). What is your impression of him?
Answer
I don’t know him. If he opposes the force of an argument in migo, then in my opinion he is mistaken.
Discussion on Answer
Here is a lecture of his (rather simplistic) on the subject of migo
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rVhI3cj_lNQ_cYKqk8wzhKVsFObkkcAa/view
And this is a lecture that was delivered in his yeshiva in the past
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LRqoBNRpdJ5q4wazdcjKCO3Q5GwhaPIW/view
Do you have lectures on the subject of migo, the force of an argument, or credibility? I never really understood what migo as the force of an argument is.
It seems to me that credibility is psychological—whether we believe the person or regard him as a liar. An argument is a legal force; I don’t care whether you’re lying or not, but whether you could have made a good claim and kept the money in your possession. The very fact that you could have made such a claim is a kind of presumption. Since you did not make the better claim (that would have established ownership), it is as though the weaker claim reveals the force of the stronger one.
Unfortunately I still haven’t read Rabbi Michi’s article, but I’ll get to it.
He was the head of the yeshiva in the Gur Hasidic movement.
The background to the split is the argument over the tractate studied in the yeshivot: while in the Hasidic movement they prefer to teach Tractate Makkot, he is accustomed to dealing with Tractate Derekh Eretz.