Q&A: About Mr. Shoshani
About Mr. Shoshani
Question
There is a fascinating and stirring piece on Kan 11 about “Mr. Shoshani,” who knew 40 languages, was a genius in Torah, and a “Jewish Socrates.”
He did not leave behind a single written word.
And people find it hard even to reconstruct his insights. (Apparently there is no Jewish Plato for him.)
In interviews with religious professors of philosophy, it seems like they have his world of ideas, and maybe even writings of his,
but they refuse to release them.
As someone in the field, do you know the circumstances? Have you heard about him? Does the Rabbi have any enlightening insight from him?
Answer
This is not an article but a film. I’ll post here a message I received this morning from a WhatsApp discussion, which links to my column 301 where I critique one idea of Shoshani’s. And I’ll attach what I wrote this morning in response.
So at long last, this evening Michael Greenspan’s film “The Shoshani Riddle” was uploaded online. Ever since I first heard of him—with the countless sayings, attempts at decipherment, anecdotes, and bizarre stories—I wanted to find an actual statement of his; that is what seems relevant to me for us, but I still haven’t found one. I once read in Shalom Rosenberg that Shoshani taught them that the principle of testimony that cannot be refuted by rendering it false is similar to Popper’s principle of falsifiability, which is a rather simplistic and obvious observation that I already knew. I made the effort and sat over his notebooks that were uploaded online, but as expected, it is impossible to understand anything. His students honestly admit that you can’t quote anything from him. In light of what they say, I once thought of the image that maybe he is more Socrates than Plato, and then I saw that Shalom Rosenberg indeed raises such an image. Later he claims that books published under other people’s names actually contain Shoshani’s ideas, but apparently he cannot reveal even one of them. Even the few statements that Greenspan managed to extract from his many notebooks are fairly disappointing. I read a lot of material by Moshe Nachmani and others who tried to decipher the man’s character; I was pretty convinced by their arguments that he was Hillel Perlman, but I admit that Greenspan, who offers a different solution, managed to confuse me, even though his argument is not conclusive. But in any case, the facts are less important; it is always good to watch material like this, and it’s not bad to sit a bit and enjoy a documentary film with magnificent execution. Enjoy.
Discussion on Answer
And this is my response:
I had completely forgotten this column.
I saw the film in the cinema and there was also a talk with the director.
For years I’ve been wrestling with the questions you raised. I have great respect for Shalom Rosenberg, and I accept his testimony about Shoshani, but as for the substance itself I have seen nothing from him.
Seemingly, the obvious conclusion is that the mystery made the man here. Various ignoramuses are easily impressed by a person’s Torah greatness and intellectual stature if he expresses himself nicely, or raises very moral ideas (even if they are not original). That is how Leibowitz became, in many people’s eyes, a thinker and even a Torah scholar. In my view he is a not-very-impressive thinker, rather shallow and childish, and certainly not a Torah scholar. So maybe Shoshani was like that too. Admittedly, Rosenberg’s testimony requires examination, because he was both.
There is also Rabbi Heshel, from whom only crumbs remain through his students (Chanukat HaTorah and the commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh). From them one can get some impression of his greatness.
I just keep telling myself that there are people of the oral Torah, and when you read their written words you really won’t be impressed. I know several examples of this. And maybe Shoshani was one of them.
If that is the case, there is no point in investing effort in deciphering his writings.
Michi,
why do you have such great respect for Shalom Rosenberg?
Because he is a wise man with a tremendous amount of knowledge.
What is your respect based on?
I was his student; his ideas were confused. A knowledgeable man, but not an intelligent one.
On hearing him and reading him. His speech indeed was not organized.
What are the other examples of “people of the oral Torah”?
Michi, you wrote: “His speech indeed was not organized”; if so, how did you conclude from his speech that he is “a wise man”?
Here is an example of a “man of the oral Torah”
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%A8%D7%92%27%D7%99%D7%95_%D7%A6%27%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%91%D7%99%D7%93%D7%90%D7%A7%D7%94#%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%97%D7%99%D7%99%D7%95
and here is another example of such a person
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%94_%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%9C#%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%95
Rabbi Michi, you wrote, “I just keep telling myself that there are people of the oral Torah, and when you read their written words you really won’t be impressed; I know several examples of this.” I’d like to suggest another explanation, based on a few examples that I know:
There are prodigies who, because of the sheer amount of knowledge and the connections they have between different subjects, find it very hard to say what is true, and mainly know how to say what is not true. They are not creative enough (or self-confident enough) to find a way to reconcile all the things they know, but they have enough knowledge and understanding to explain to you why what you said cannot be right. It’s a talent of a rather depressing kind, but one cannot ignore their claims, which are well grounded.
Maybe Shoshani was like that.
Okay, briefly, to wrap this up. I got a lot of responses. Let me sharpen one point. Out of the hundreds of thousands of words in Shoshani’s notebooks, diligent people managed to find a few relatively understandable gems. Those who invested the effort and tried to decipher and interpret deserve appreciation. Dr. @+972 50-865-5776 directed me to an interesting article of his (and others) around an idea of Shoshani’s (https://did.li/Tjyrl). Already in 2011 I was exposed to the figure of Shoshani in a thread opened on the Otzar HaChochma forum, where people began discussing the rumors and matters concerning him; that thread also included Greenspan and Yael Levine and other scholars who worked on and wrote about him (https://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5740), and there too you’ll find attempts to decipher his innovations. People also wrote to me about a series by Hodaya Samet-Har Shefi, and I managed to find a lecture by her on YouTube.
But I suggest a simple test. Take all these gems and present them to people under the name of some known rabbi or scholar. I can’t guarantee it, but my impression is that you won’t see a sparkle in their eyes, but rather boredom and a polite nod. That is, the big story here is the mystery, the challenge, the detective work, and the aura. In order to prop up the excitement a bit, you also need some conceptual material, and so people are “prepared” to accept any fragment of a statement from him. See also what Michi Abraham wrote on the subject (https://mikyab.net/posts/70387/). I believe Rosenberg and Levinas that he was a phenomenon, but unfortunately they are not succeeding in passing his Torah on to others. I also do not belittle any effort to trace the man and his Torah, but I think things need to be taken in proportion.
If you like, psychological analyses have also been written about the human need to believe in some all-knowing genius, quite similar to the familiar need to believe in wonder-working rabbis or witch doctors, etc. (See in our context a post by Menachem Navot: https://did.li/5Lbx5). It seems to me that one can move on, unless you bring something that would refute the conclusions of my test.