Rabbinic Leadership in Two Discussions by R

SHALOM CARMY “The Heart Pained by the Pain of the People”: Rabbinic Leadership in Two Discussions by R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik s far as I know, Maran ha-Rav Joseph Soloveitchik never devoted a discourse to the halakhic or theological question of rabbinic A authority in our time as it applies to subjects outside the bound- aries of Halakhah, narrowly defined. As a spiritual leader, his goal was the teaching of Torah and the cultivation of authentic religious experience. In this connection, he spoke and wrote often, almost obsessively, about the relationship between teacher and student. However, the pre- cise delineation of the authority that can, or should be exercised by pri- mary Torah mentors was probably not an important question from this perspective. It did not contribute, in a significant way, to one’s knowl- edge of Torah, or ability to think independently in studying Torah and confronting life’s challenges. Not infrequently, the Rav told us that the role of a Rebbi is not to tell his disciples what to do, but rather to create the appropriate “frame of reference” for their decisions. By this he SHALOM CARMY teaches Bible, Jewish thought and philosophy at Yeshiva University and is editor of Tradition. Rabbi Carmy has published extensively and is the editor of two volumes in the Orthodox Forum series, most recently Jewish Perspec- tives on the Experience of Suffering. 1 The Torah u-Madda Journal (13/2005) 2 The Torah u-Madda Journal meant not only an introduction to halakhic literature and its analysis, but also a “philosophy,” a way of thinking about, and weighing, the principles underlying the Halakhah, a living sense of religious experience, and a sensitivity to human variety and particular circumstance. There are many anecdotes about the latitude he allowed his students, when they encountered problems in their work, recognizing that each person has his, or her, own individual dispositions that facilitate or hamper their response to specific situations, and urging them to rely on their hard won perceptions of local conditions. This reputation has led many in the community, both lay people and rabbis, to assume that the Rav limited rabbinic authority to the adjudication of halakhic law, that he did not assign the opinions of Gedolim very much weight in determining public and private policy, and that he therefore did not consider consultation with Torah authori- ties an essential, or even an important ingredient in a healthy religious community. People who otherwise exhibit little interest in the Rav’s substantial achievement as a religious thinker and writer contentiously attempt to rehabilitate him as a conventional “authoritarian” gadol. They are countered by equally desperate voices, anxious to save him for modernity. Much of this debate takes place with little or no reference to the Rav’s own published record. Let us examine the Rav’s most pertinent written remarks on the subject. The subject is that of momentous matters concerning Jewish destiny, not trivial decisions or very particular choices facing individuals in their secular lives. These documents are separated by an interval of two very eventful decades. For that reason it is not implausible that dif- ferences in emphasis and even in doctrine are due to a change of mind. Instead of pre-judging the issue, however, we will analyze the proposi- tions arising from both texts, and compare them to the famous doctrine of rabbinic authority found in the work of R. Eliyahu Dessler. I believe that the Rav says both more and less, at several points, than many of us may recall. Eulogy for a Gadol R. H. ayyim Ozer Grodzinski of Vilna, venerable sage of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah, was the recognized authority, in matters of public policy, for Agudath Israel, and in particular for the Lithuanian Torah world. He died, of natural causes, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. R. Soloveitchik, at the time, was vice president of Agudah in Shalom Carmy 3 America. In that capacity, he delivered a eulogy, part of which was later published as “Bearers of the Z. iz. and the H. oshen,” referring to the head- band and breastplate worn by the High Priest.1 In the Rav’s homiletic elaboration, the Z. iz. symbolizes the purely intellectual, halakhic aspect of Torah leadership, while the H. oshen rep- resents the guidance provided by Torah authority on public questions. The Z. iz. , which atones for impurity, was placed on the priest’s forehead, the locus of intellect. The H. oshen, covering the heart, ruled on an entirely different sort of problem. In Bible and Talmud, the standard examples of such consultation have to do with war. The Rav offers contemporary examples: the advisability of public protest against a threat- ening regime (a question of great import in the 1930’s); attitudes towards various phenomena of modernity; Jewish responses to social conditions. These challenges require engagement of the heart: “the heart pained by the pain of its people, the heart sensitive to the trouble of the nation, the heart that sorrows with Israel” (192). For thousands of years of exile and wandering, continues the Rav, the same authority that decided halakhic questions also exercised leadership in the public arena. The “priest” who responded to technical halakhic inquiries was also the leader who addressed the questions of war and peace, hope and despair, Jewish attitudes towards the nations of the world. He contrasts this time-honored practice with a recent tendency to separate the two roles. Those who adopt this modernist approach con- fine Gedolei Yisrael to the “private domain,” while new leaders, “distant from God’s Torah, have donned the H. oshen and tried to instruct the people about the proper path” (193). The Rav cites a rabbinic dictum: “Any priest who does not speak with the divine spirit (ruah. ha-kodesh) should not be consulted [as bearer of the urim ve-tummim].” He con- cludes: “it is impossible for the heart to be suffused with love of Israel unless the intellect is consecrated to God.” R. H. ayyim Ozer’s outstanding virtue, according to this eulogy, was his insistence on the unity of the two roles. He recognized that if “mod- ern leaders, who reject Torah and tradition, take hold of the H. oshen ha- Mishpat, they will misdirect the people” (193-4). Experience demon- strates that such leaders, “partially assimilated” in form and content, given to flattery and obsequiousness, are prone to error in their political life as much as in their religious orientation. R. H. ayyim Ozer’s testament, then, is “conquer the H. oshen, for the fate of the Z. iz. depends on it.” Overall this text appears to provide aid and comfort to supporters of da‘at Torah. It is hard to imagine advocates of lay authority reading it 4 The Torah u-Madda Journal without cringing. Yet before moving on we should note that the Rav does not argue here for the existence of a contemporary institution embody- ing da‘at Torah, a central authoritative body, operating in our time, on the model of the Sanhedrin, whose pronouncements Jews are obligated to follow. He does not, in other words, use the opportunity of the hesped to endorse the hard line ideology that something like Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah ought to serve as the final clearinghouse for practical political policy. Instead he delineates an ideal of Torah scholarship, piety and political leadership that is not tied to a specific political alignment, and that is exemplified in the charismatic personality of R. H. ayyim Ozer. It is worth noting that the Rav’s father, R. Moshe Soloveichik, judged Agudah harshly because it treated rabbinic leaders too much as if they were instruments of the political apparatus. R. Moshe maintained pub- licly, and strenuously, that his father, R. H. ayyim Brisker, had associated with Agudah for only a brief period, at the time of its founding, but had soon become disillusioned with the political atmosphere that, in his opinion, usurped the place of genuine Torah authority in the movement.2 Later, in the 1960’s, after becoming spiritual leader of the Mizrachi, the Rav was attacked for statements deviating from his party’s position and lending potential support to its electoral rivals. In a letter of complaint to S. Z. Shragai, the Rav allowed himself some choice words about being expected to toe the party line and being abused like a renegade when he failed to conform. If it was honor that he wanted, he says, he could have done better to join an unnamed party of “zealots” who “demand nothing of their followers (not diligence at the gates of Torah, nor unadulterated fear of Heaven, nor dispersal of funds for charity, nor punctilious obser- vance of miz. vot) except expressions of vilification and scorn regarding our movement.” In other words, it was precisely the politicization of Torah that had displeased him in the unnamed movement antagonistic to Mizrachi.3 The Rav’s later reactions could be ascribed to hindsight, but it is impossible to dismiss the weight that his father’s opinion must have carried for him, even during his Agudah phase. Why are Torah sages better qualified to offer worldly guidance to the Jewish people than the new secular leadership? Though he does not mount a discursive argument, the Rav indicates several reasons. He takes it for granted that unified leadership is hallowed by the tradition of millennia. At several points he refers to the ignorance of the new leaders and to their distance from authentic Judaism. His eulogy, however, is built around the image of the two priestly vestments and the complementary functions of head and heart.

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