Q&A: The attitude of the Haredi public toward Rabbi Moshe Feinstein
The attitude of the Haredi public toward Rabbi Moshe Feinstein
Question
Hello Rabbi, I remember that once we corresponded about this issue, and you told me that there were Haredi rabbis who were great Torah scholars, but within the Haredi public itself, at least the Bnei Brak one, they were not really treated as such a big deal, and that in the Religious Zionist public people tend to exaggerate their standing in the Haredi world.
You wrote this to me about Rabbi Shlomo Fischer, and even about Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.
(As for the Tzitz Eliezer, for example, you told me that you yourself did not really know him from your Bnei Brak period, and likewise regarding Rabbi Weinberg, the author of Seridei Esh.)
So I wanted to ask: what about Rabbi Moshe Feinstein?
Was he considered important in the Bnei Brak Haredi public? Or did he also receive less standing there than it seems?
I recently read that in the 1960s the Haredi public in the U.S. made his life miserable over his ruling regarding artificial insemination, and that the "zealots" there treated him with terrible contempt, and that there were almost no other figures who lifted a finger for him throughout the whole controversy.
That made me want to ask what the attitude toward him was in the mainstream Haredi public — the one in Bnei Brak, the readers of Yated Ne’eman.
Wishing you a good week,
Amir
Answer
I think he was indeed accepted. That does not mean that all of his rulings were accepted, of course. Beyond that, the fact that zealots fight against someone proves nothing. Zealots also fought against Rabbi Elyashiv, Rabbi Steinman, and others.
Discussion on Answer
P.S. The ones who caused Rabbi Moshe trouble were a few Satmar Hasidim, whose Rebbe himself mocked them by advising that they should not speak with him in learning, because they would be exposed as empty vessels…
The rest of the public paid no attention to the whole matter, neither then nor today.
It is not clear why "the mainstream Haredi public" is equivalent to "the Bnei Brak public that reads Yated Ne’eman." In my estimation, that public makes up around 7-8% of the Haredim in the world…
(There are about two million Haredim worldwide, and the "Lithuanian Bnei Brak" public — including those who live in Kiryat Sefer and elsewhere — most likely numbers no more than 150,000 people.)
It is true that their influence is greater than their share of the population, but that is mainly because they had strong control over the centers of educational and political power. That control is loosening over time, and so is their influence.
In general, the Lithuanian Bnei Brak public mainly esteems its own great rabbis and does not give serious weight to others. But as noted, that does not reflect the attitude of the rest of the public, and therefore anyone looking at books of Jewish law not written by figures from that public will see that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, like Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, has a very central standing in halakhic rulings. In non-Hasidic Judaism in the U.S. (which is larger than the "Bnei Brak" public), Rabbi Moshe's standing is that of a supreme halakhic decisor.