Personal Reminiscences of Rabbis Baruch Ha-Levi Epstein and Aaron Walkin from the Yiddish Republic of Letters

A nay bintl briv: Personal Reminiscences of Rabbis Baruch ha-Levi Epstein and Aaron Walkin from the Yiddish Republic of Letters

A nay bintl briv:

Personal Reminiscences of Rabbis Baruch ha-Levi Epstein and Aaron Walkin

from the Yiddish Republic of Letters

Shaul Seidler-Feller

Editor’s note: The present post is part two of a two-part essay. Part one can be found here.

Second Letter

Approximately eight and a half years after his column on the Hafets Hayyim appeared, Rabbi Aaron B. Shurin penned another essay, entitled “The Mistake of the Austrian Emperor” and about the meaning behind the observance of the Three Weeks, which was published 18 Tammuz 5756 (July 5, 1996), a day after they had begun.[1] In the first line, he quoted Rabbi Baruch ha-Levi Epstein (1860–1941/1942) as citing a story about Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I’s (1830–1916) negative response to a group of Hungarian nationalists who wished to establish a day of mourning for the loss of their independence in 1848, using the Jews’ observance of Tish‘ah be-Av as a model.[2] This prompted Simon Paktor to write in:

SCHENECTADY 9.5.96.

זייער געערטער און חשובער .הרב ר״ אהרון בן ציון שוּרין נ״י

עס איז מיר זייער פארדראסיג וואס כ׳האב ניט בעוויזן צו שרייבן מאמענטאל, און זיך הארציג בעדאנקען פאר .אייער ארטיקל ״פאָרווערטס״ דעם -5טן יולי ה.י

ווי געוויינליך ווען די אידישע צייטונג קומט אן צו מיר, איז עס ביי מיר ווי א גוטער פריינד וואלט געקומען פון דער אלטער אומפארגעסליכער ..פארשניטענער היים… און מיר ריידן א[וי]ף יידיש

איך האב ממש א ציטער געטאן ווען כ׳האב אין אייער ארטיקל וועלכן איך לייען שטענדיג מיט דעם גרעסטן אינטערעס דערזען אין דער ערשטער שוּרה דעם טייערן נאמען ״הרב ר׳ ברוך עפשטיין (מחבר פון פירוש ״תורה תמימה״ אויף חומש) דערציילט אין [3](זיין זכרונות ספר ״מקור ברוּך״ א.א.וו

איך האב געהאט די זכיה צו קענען אט דעם ״אִיש פֶלֶא״ כבין געווען א פריינד פון א פינסק-קארלין משפחה וועלכע האט זיך געיחוס׳ט מיט קרובישאפט. דער פאטער פון דער פאמיליע האט בעת א שבת׳דיגן וויזיט צוגעטראגן צו מיר דעם ספר ״מקור ברוך״ און בעוויזן אז ר׳ ברוך

ווייזט אן אז אין שׁימל פון ברויט ליגט רְפוּאָה ווי PENECiLiN. דער פאטער אלתר סלוּצקי איז געווען א לאַווניק אין שטאט ראַט און די טאכטער האט געארבעט אין דער יידישער אפטיילונג. אזוי ווי פינסק האט געהאט א פנקס פון 800 יאר האט זיך זי געהאט די א מעגליכקייט אויסגעפינען און אנטקעגן קומען ר׳ ברוך עפשטיינס ביטעס אין די ארכיווע אויסצוזוכן. ער פלעגט זיך שטענדיג בעדאנקען צו איר דורך שיקן א ״באָמבאניערקע״ דא הייסט עס א באַקס שאקאלאד)… איך) .מיט טרערן אין די אייגן און מוז א וויילע איבערייסן

ער האט מיר אויסגעלערנט אן אריטמעטיג פארמוּלע. איך דערמאן זיך ווען כ׳האב שבת נאכן דאוונען אין פינסקער גרייסער שוּל אראבגעגאנגען צום ברעג פון אונזער שיינער טייך PiNA און בעמערקט ר׳ ברוך עפשטיין ז”ל זיצט אויף א באַנק כ׳בין צוגעגאנגען צו עם און געזאגט

״גוט שבת ר׳ ברוּך גום ברוך יהיה״

ער האט געענטפערט ״גם אתם״ און צובייגענדיג צו מיר געפרעגט ״אפשר האט איר די פאָלקס צייטונג״ (א בונדיסטישע צייטונג וואס איז ארויס אין ווארשע) (ווען איך האב עס דערציילט א היגן רָב (ניט קיין ראביי האט ער צו מיר געזאגט יעצט זע איך

אז ער איז געווען ״אם לא למעלה מזה״… איך בין יונג געווען און קיין שכל ניט געהאט און ניט פארשטאנען צו צוהערן זיך און פאָלגן וואס אונזערע חכמים האבן געזאגט ״והוי מתאבק בעפר רגליהם״

איך פלעג עם זייער אָפט טרעפן גייענדיג צו (הרב הגאון ר׳ אהרון וואלקין ז״ל השם יקום דמם הרב וואלקין האט עם ר׳ ברוך עפשטיין זייער מְקַרֵב .געווען אין זיין עלנדקייט

איך האב געהאט דעם טרויעריגן זכות זען אט דעם גאון ר׳ אהרון וו. הארט פארן אימה׳דיגן חורבן ווי ער איז געזעסן אין א ווינקל פון א סטאָליאריי אַרטיעל נאכדעם ווי די סאוויעטן האבן עם ארויסגעטריבן פון זיין בית דין שטוב. געזעסן ארומגערינגלט מיט ספרים …בליֵיך ווייס ווי שניי. א ״מַראה כהן״

ווייטער האב איך שוין ניט געווּסט כ׳בין געווען אין די .לאַפּעס פון נ.ק.וו.ד

איך האב זיין ר׳ ברוּך׳ס ספר ״בָרוּך שֶאָמַר״ פירוּש תפילות ישראל. ר׳ ברוך עפשטיין ז״ל איז געשטארבן אין געטא אין הונגער, צער א צוּווייטאגדיגער. און מיין האַרץ ..וויינט אין מיר טאג און נאכט

4 מיין הארציגן דאנק צו אייך פאר דערמאנען אין אייער ארטיקל (דער טעות….) אט דעם טייערן .נאמען

כווינטש אייך געזונט און אריכת ימים ושנים צו שרייבן אזעלכע ״צום האַרצן״ ארטיקלען אין יידיש

מיט דאנקבארקייט און כבוד צו אייך .לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו .שמעון פאקטאר Schenectady NY.

Schenectady 9.5.96

To the highly esteemed and eminent Rabbi Aaron Benzion Shurin, may his light shine,

I am greatly displeased that I did not manage to write immediately to offer my sincere thanks for your column in this year’s July 5th issue of the Forverts.

As is usual when the Yiddish newspaper is delivered, I felt then as if a good friend had arrived from the unforgettable, obliterated old country… and we were having a conversation in Yiddish…

I literally shuddered when I noticed in the first line of your column – which I always read with the greatest interest – the dear name “Rabbi Baruch Epstein (author of theTorah temimah commentary on the Pentateuch) relates in his memoir Mekor barukh,” etc.

I had the good fortune to know that “amazing man.” I was friendly with a family in Pinsk-Karlin that took pride in its kinship with him. The head of the family, during a visit of mine one Sabbath, brought me the book Mekor barukh and showed me that R. Baruch 2 points out that medicine akin to penicillin can be found in moldy bread.[4] The father, Alter Slutzky, was an alderman on the city council, and his daughter worked in its Jewish division.[5] Since Pinsk had a communal register going back 800 years,[6] she had the opportunity to learn of and accommodate R. Baruch Epstein’s requests to search in the archive. He would always thank her by sending a bombonierka (here, we would call it a box of chocolates)…[7] I write this with tears in my eyes and must pause for a moment.

He taught me an arithmetic formula. I remember how one Sabbath, after services in the Great Synagogue of Pinsk,[8] I descended to the banks of our beautiful Pina River and caught sight of R. Baruch Epstein, of blessed memory, sitting on a bench.[9] I approached him and said, “Good Sabbath, R. Baruch – may you, too, be blessed [barukh].”[10] He responded, “The same to you”[11] and, leaning over to me, asked, “Maybe you have a copy of theFolkstsaytung ?” (a Bundist newspaper published in Warsaw). When I recounted this story to a local rov (not some non-Orthodox rabbi),[12] he said to me, “Now I see

3 that he was ‘if not even higher than that’[13]…”[14] I was young and foolish and did not realize that I should really listen to and follow that which our Sages taught: “And sit in the dust of their feet.”[15]

I would very often meet him on his way to thega’on Rabbi Aaron Walkin, of blessed memory (may God avenge their blood). R. Walkin drew quite close to R. Baruch Epstein in his loneliness.

I had the tragic fortune to see that ga’on, R. Aaron W., right before the horrific Holocaust, sitting in a corner of a carpentry workers’ cooperative after the Soviets had banished him from his rabbinic courtroom. He sat surrounded by books, his complexion pale white as snow, like leprosy shown to a priest…[16]

I knew nothing more of him; I was caught in the clutches of the NKVD.

I have R. Baruch’s book Barukh she-amar, a commentary on the Jewish prayers.[17] R. Baruch Epstein, of blessed memory, died in the ghetto a distressed man, starving and suffering. And my heart cries within me day and night…

My sincere thanks to you for mentioning in your column (“The Mistake…”) that precious name.

I wish you health and many long days and years so that you might continue writing such “heartwarming” columns in Yiddish.

With gratitude and esteem, May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year, Simon Paktor Schenectady, NY

Although the author of our letter offers precious few details about himself in the body of the document, we know from other sources that he was born to Moishe and Gittel Paktor on January 18, 1913 in Pinsk (then part of Russia, now in Belarus).[18] At the time, Pinsk was one of the most Jewish (percentage-wise) of the major cities in Eastern Europe, with a Jewish population in 1914 of 28,063 out of 38,686 total residents (approximately 72.5%).[19] Presumably because Paktor was young and politically active, the NKVD (Soviet secret police) arrested him toward the beginning of World War II, when Pinsk was occupied by the Red Army, and sent him eastward to a Siberian labor camp, thereby inadvertently saving his life.[20] When he was released, he traveled to Munich where he met and married his first wife, Helen (1925–2019), and the two of them, together with their young son David Leon (b. 1949), immigrated to the United States in 1952.[21] Sometime thereafter the couple divorced, and in 1973 Simon moved to Schenectady to serve as the Ritual Director at Congregation Agudat Achim, a Conservative synagogue (located at 2117 Union Street).[22] There, in 1976, he married Anne Smuckler (1914–2014), whose own husband had passed away three years prior,[23] and continued serving the shul faithfully until his retirement in 1993.[24]

Paktor’s letter, like Dickman’s before it, transports us back in time, providing rare firsthand testimony that sheds light on several aspects of interwar Eastern European rabbinic culture. It deals primarily with the figure of R. Epstein, a brilliant Talmudist and polymath who decided not to enter the rabbinate but instead to support his family as a banker, all the while composing important Torah works in a non- professional capacity.[25] Perhaps the most eclectic of these is Sefer mekor barukh (Vilna, 1928), a multivolume compilation of his novellae and studies in various fields of Jewish scholarship, as well as personal reminiscences about members of his family. Paktor’s letter briefly discusses this book but also, en passant, and intriguingly, references Epstein’s research in the Pinsk Jewish communal archive; could he have been working there on his never-published bilingual (Hebrew and Yiddish) treatise on the history of Pinsk, written in the aftermath of World War I?[26]

Also interesting is Epstein’s request for a copy of the daily Folkstsaytung, not only on account of the paper’s strictly secular orientation – indeed, it, like the Forverts, was published on Shabbat andyom tov[27] – but also because halakhah, according to a number of interpretations, generally disapproves of reading printed matter like newspapers on Shabbat[28] (some would say during the week as well[29]). In apparently seeing nothing wrong with this practice, Epstein was following the example of his maternal uncle and eventual brother-in-law, Rabbi Naphtali Zevi Judah Berlin (Netsiv; 1816–1893), lastrosh yeshivah of the famous yeshivah in Volozhin (present-day Vałožyn, Belarus), who, by Epstein’s own account, would regularly peruse a newspaper on Shabbat day.[30]

In addition, the letter opens a window onto the relationship between Epstein and Rabbi Aaron Walkin (alternatively spelled Wolkin; 1865–1941/1942).[31] By the period in question, Epstein had suffered a number of tragedies and personal setbacks: his wife Sophia (Sheyne), the daughter of Eleazar Moses ha-Levi Horowitz (Reb Leyzer Pinsker; 1817–1890), former chief rabbi of Pinsk, had passed away due to influenza in 1899 before the age of 40; the Mutual Credit Society, the large private bank at which Epstein had worked as an officer, closed at the beginning of World War I; and three of his four children were no longer in Pinsk.[32] Though his daughter Fania (Feygl) remained in the city,[33] Epstein was lonely and lived in a hotel.[34] Into this void stepped Walkin, who arrived in Pinsk circa 1923,[35] becoming its chief rabbi in 1933[36] and there growing close to Epstein. The two men had much in common: both had studied at the feet of Netsiv in Volozhin, married around the age of 18, endured great misfortune, visited America but decided to return to Europe, and sympathized (at least somewhat) with the Zionist movement.[37] As Paktor testifies, Epstein, who lived (as of 1930) at 89 Dominikańska (present-day Gor’kogo [renamed by the Soviets]) Street,[38] would often visit Walkin at his home at 71 Dominikańska, a claim confirmed by the latter’s son, Rabbi Samuel David (1900–1979),[39] who refers to Epstein on at least one occasion as yedidi ne’eman beitenu (my friend, a confidante of our household).[40]

Finally, the letter touches directly on the last years of Walkin’s and Epstein’s lives. Shortly after Soviet forces entered Pinsk on September 17, 1939, they banned Hebrew language instruction, abolished the traditional Sabbath and Jewish holidays, and converted the Great Synagogue into a theater.[41] We know from Paktor’s letter and other sources that Walkin, who had been imprisoned by the Russians previously,[42] largely escaped persecution at the hands of the Soviets and even managed to continue performing his rabbinic functions, including scholarly writing, in secret.[43] Epstein, by contrast, was evicted from the hotel in which he had been living and was forced to wander, further weakening him in his old age.[44]

With the Nazi advance into Pinsk on July 4, 1941, an already dire situation was made even more terrifying: Jews were wantonly robbed and beaten, forced to wear Stars of David, ordered to provision the German occupiers, forbidden to leave the city, and detained for labor or ransom. About a month later, on August 5–7, the first Aktion took place, in which the Nazis murdered approximately eight thousand Jewish men outside the city. The following May 1, a ghetto meant to concentrate the approximately twenty thousand remaining Jews was established in the poorest and most crowded part of town; this was later almost completely liquidated in the second Aktion of October 29–November 1, 1942.[45]

What became of Walkin and Epstein during this frightful time? Theories about each man’s demise abound. R. Samuel David refers to his father on several occasions with the acronym reserved for martyrs, H[ashem] y[ikkom] d[amo], following his name.[46] Indeed, at least two Pinsk natives have written that R. Aaron perished together with his flock (presumably in one of the two major Aktionen).[47] Others have hazarded guesses dating his passing to around Passover 1941 or to the summer of 1942.[48] Similarly, as surveyed recently in part by Shemaryah Gershuni, hypotheses regarding Epstein’s date of death range from 1940 to 1942 and, regarding the circumstances of his death, from natural to painful to violent.[49]

In his letter, Paktor himself could not say what had happened to Walkin, while with respect to Epstein, he claimed that he had died in the Pinsk ghetto (he, too, addsHashem yikkom damam after mentioning them).[50] However, so far as I have been able to ascertain, and as already pointed out by Gershuni, the only eyewitness testimony to have come down to us – that of a nurse named Mila/Michla Ratnowska (b. 1916) who, together with her mother Zlata (1890–1962) and four others, survived the Nazi occupation of Pinsk in hiding – records that both men died (at home) due to illness in the winter of 1941–1942.[51] This timing is corroborated, if only implicitly, by the absence of Walkin and Epstein from the list of over eighteen thousand Jews living in the Pinsk ghetto, drawn up by the Germans “sometime in 1942.”[52] Until additional evidence surfaces, it would seem prudent to accept this as the most reliable version of the events leading up to the passing of these great men, about whom we can say (with a bit of poetic license) that they were “beloved and cherished in their lifetimes, and they never parted, even in death” (II Sam. 1:23).

Conclusion

Like the giants about whom they wrote, Shurin, Dickman, and Paktor have all passed on (in 2012, 2011,[53] and 2003, respectively). How fortunate we are, though, that their memories are preserved for us in this nay (new) bintl briv! Through these simple documents – penned in an age (not too long ago) when people still took the time to correspond thoughtfully with journalists after reading and reflecting on their essays – we are able to reconstruct, if only partially, the lives and deeds of some of the most prominent leaders of Eastern European Jewry in a prewar world now lost.

* I would like to thank Yehuda Geberer for respectfully commenting that he felt I had made a mistake in the first part of this essay, in which I had identified the Chaim Lieberman who assisted Shurin in landing a job at the Forverts as “the famed historian and bibliophile” who lived 1892–1991 (and who often spelled his name Haim Liberman in English). While Geberer is almost certainly correct that Shurin was actually helped by the man of the same name (1890–1963) who, according to his entry in the Leksikon fun forverts shrayber zint 1897, 42-43, worked as a teacher of Yiddish literature and Forverts Yiddish literary critic, I was influenced (apparently unduly so) in my (mis)identification by Yisroel Besser who, in his Mishpacha article (p. 30), writes as follows: “He went to meet the person he considers the greatest Orthodox writer of the century, Chaim Lieberman. Lieberman was a bibliophile, researcher, and historian, who suggested that young Shurin leave him some writings to peruse.”

I also wish to thank Yehudah Zirkind for kindly bringing to my attention another Yiddish-language memoir about the Hafets Hayyim, in which the author, a Radin native, tells a number of interesting stories about the great sage and also notes that he passed away “before reaching his ninety-fourth birthday”; see Abrashka-Kives Rogovski, “Der khofets-khayim in radin,” Oksforder yidish 3 (1995): 193-200, at col. 200.

[1] Aaron B. Shurin, “Der toes fun estraykhishn keyzer,” Forverts (July 5, 1996): 9, 20. [2] See Baruch ha-Levi Epstein, Sefer mekor barukh, pt. 2 (Vilna: Romm, 1928), 515a-b, citing what he heard from Isaac Hirsch Weiss of Vienna (1815–1905). Epstein refers to the ruler as Franz Joseph II, but in point of fact the relevant Austrian emperor at the time was Franz Joseph I (whose official grand title, interestingly, included the style “King of Jerusalem”). [3] The quotation of the original Yiddish here is not exact but is certainly close enough. [4] I have so far been unable to locate the passage referred to. [5] Jacob-Alter Slutzky was a prominent Orthodox lay leader of the Jewish community of Pinsk who was s/elected to serve on the city council at several points during the interwar period when Pinsk was under Polish rule; see Azriel Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, ed. Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman, trans. Faigie Tropper and Moshe Rosman (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 469-470, 552-556, 559, 580-581. For the original Hebrew, see Wolf Zeev Rabinowitsch (ed.), Pinsk: sefer edut ve-zikkaron li-kehillat pinsk-karlin, vol. 1, pt. 2 (Tel Aviv; Haifa: Irgun Yotse’ei Pinsk-Karlin bi-Medinat Yisra’el, 1977; also available through the New York Public Library Yizkor Book online portal [accessed August 19, 2019]), using the index. See also Slutzky’s mini-bio in Nachman Tamir (Mirski) (ed.), Pinsk: sefer edut ve-zikkaron li-kehillat pinsk-karlin, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Irgun Yotse’ei Pinsk-Karlin bi-Medinat Yisra’el, 1966; also available through the New York Public Library Yizkor Book online portal [accessed August 19, 2019]), 538, where it is noted that Slutzky, like Epstein, was a member of Netsiv’s family (see below) and that he had two daughters, Zhenya and Eve. Based on a daf-ed filed by the former’s sister-in-law, Sonia Goberman (accessed August 19, 2019), it appears that Zhenya was the one who worked in the Jewish division. For Epstein’s endorsement of Slutzky during a campaign season, see Eyn“ goldene keyt fun maysim toyvim,” Unzer pinsker lebn 3,42 (102) (October 16, 1936): 5. [6] An old Pinsker tradition has it that the Jewish community was founded some time in the tenth century; see Benzion Hoffman (ed.), Toyznt yor pinsk (New York: Pinsker Branch 210, Workmen’s Circle, 1941), ix-x (notice the book’s title), and Tamir, Pinsk, 249, 252. Some have averred that an exact date for the start of the community cannot be established at present, given the number of times the Great Synagogue, and any historical documents it may have housed, burned down (on which, see n. 8 below); see, e.g., Saul Mendel ha-Levi Rabinowitsch, “Al pinsk-karlin ve-yosheveihen,” in Judah ha- Levi Levick and Dovberush Yeruchamsohn (eds.),Talpiyyot (me’assef-sifruti) (Berdychiv: Joseph Hayyim Zablinsky, 1895), 7-17, at p. 7. In any event, the current mainstream position holds that it began around 1506, the year in which a privilege issued by Fyodor Ivanovich Yaroslavich, Prince of Pinsk, granted local Jews land for a synagogue and cemetery in perpetuity; see Mordechai Nadav, The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880, ed. Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman, trans. Moshe Rosman and Faigie Tropper (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 13-14. [7] For a similar story, see Hillel Seidman, “Ha-rav r. barukh epstein – pinsk,” in Isaac Lewin (ed.), Elleh ezkerah: osef toledot kedoshei [5]700-[5]705, vol. 1 (New York: Research Institute of Religious Jewry, Inc., 1956), 142-149, at p. 145; reprinted with some variations in Seidman’sIshim she- hikkarti: demuyyot me-avar karov be-mizrah eiropah (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1970), 108-116, at p. 111. Relatedly, see the Rosh Hashanah greetings sent to Epstein by the typesetters and printers of the Pinsker vort 2,40 (86) (September 30, 1932): 1, and of ibid. 3,38 (138) (September 20, 1933): 1. [8] For some of the turbulent history of the Great Synagogue of Pinsk, which fell victim to fires on multiple occasions, see Nadav, The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880, 463-465; Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 217-220, 300-301, 463, 648, 656; and Tamir, Pinsk, 249-252. For photographs of the synagogue, see here and here (accessed August 19, 2019). For a map of Pinsk from 1864 illustrating the location of the Great Synagogue, see Hoffman, Toyznt yor pinsk, 88-89 (in Yiddish), and Nadav, The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880, 498-499 (in English). For later maps of Jewish Pinsk, see Hoffman, Toyznt yor pinsk, 232-233, and Tamir, Pinsk, foldout preceding p. 97. [9] Epstein generally prayed not in the Great Synagogue but in the Pinsker Kloyz, a beit midrash with a firmly mitnaggedic orientation. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch reports that, “in years past, it was said that the walls of the Pinsker Kloyz do not give out in deference to R. Baruch Epstein…” (“Akhsanye shel toyre,” in Tamir, Pinsk, 264). See also Rabinowitsch, Pinsk, 412. [10] See Gen. 27:33. [11] In Yiddish, one appropriate response to a greeting like gut shabes! is gam atem!, using the plural atem even when only one person is being addressed. See Sol Steinmetz, Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), 53. [12] American Yiddish will often distinguish between Orthodox and non-Orthodox (particularly Reform) rabbis by referring to the former as rov/rabonim (singular/plural) and the latter as rabay/rabays (singular/plural). As essentially transliterations from the English, these terms for non- Orthodox rabbis are usually intended somewhat derogatorily in the mouths of frum Yiddish speakers. [13] Oyb nisht nokh hekher or, as the phrase appears here in Hebrew, Im lo le-ma‘lah mi-zeh, is the title of a short story by the famous Yiddish and Hebrew classicist I.L. Peretz (1852–1915) about a Litvak who refuses to believe that the Nemirover Rebbe (a fictional character probably based on Rabbi Nathan Sternharz of Niemirów [1780–1845]) ascends on High during the annual period of selihot, as his Hasidim claim he does, instead of coming to the synagogue. Determined to find out where the Rebbe disappears to, he hides under the Rebbe’s bed one night and is amazed to discover that the Rebbe wakes early in the morning, dresses as a Polish peasant, and goes out to the forest to chop firewood for poor bedridden Jewish widows. He thereupon decides to join the Rebbe’s Hasidim, and from then on whenever anyone claims that the Rebbe flies up to Heaven to petition on behalf of his flock before Rosh Hashanah, this Litvak-turned-Hasid responds, “If not even higher than that.”

The story was first published in Yiddish in 1900 as “Oyb nisht nokh hekher! A khsidishe ertseylung,” Der yud 2,1 (January 11, 1900): 12-13. The following year, it appeared, in the author’s own Hebrew adaptation, as “Im lo le-ma‘lah mi-zeh,”Ha- dor 1,17 (1901): 207-211; for the Hebrew text, see here (accessed August 19, 2019). For editions using modern Yiddish orthography, see here and here (accessed August 19, 2019). For side-by-side Yiddish with English translation, see “Oyb nisht nokh hekher/And Maybe Even Higher,” in Itche Goldberg and Eli Katz (eds.), Selected Stories: Bilingual Edition, trans. Eli Katz (New York: Zhitlowsky Foundation for Jewish Culture, 1991), 270-281. For extensive discussions of the story’s subversive messages, historical sources, and inspirations, see Menashe Unger, “Mekoyrim fun peretses folkstimlekhe geshikhtn,” Yidishe kultur 7,3-4 (March–April 1945): 54-59, at pp. 56-57; Samuel Niger, Y.l. perets: zayn lebn, zayn firndike perzenlekhkeyt, zayne hebreishe un yidishe shriftn, zayn virkung (Buenos Aires: Confederacion pro Cultura Judia, 1952), 286-289; and Nicham Ross, Margalit temunah ba- hol: y.l. perets u-ma‘asiyyot hasidim (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2013), 17-83 (ch. 2).

In our context, the phrase is deployed by Paktor’s rabbinic interlocutor to express his realization that Epstein was even greater than he had originally thought. [14] Paktor apparently also shared this story about Epstein and the Folkstsaytung with Mark Jay Mirsky; see the latter’s introduction to Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, xxix- xxx.

[15] mAvot 1:4. [16] The Hebrew phrase deployed here ismar’eh kohen, a reference to the requirement that those afflicted with biblical tsara‘at must consult with a priest before the healing/atonement process can move forward (see Lev. 13). The expression, as used by Paktor, does double-duty by playing on the title of the well-known piyyut recited on Yom Kippur, which refers to the priest’s (radiant) appearance, not that of the biblical skin disease. [17] Barukh she-amar was the last book Epstein printed before he passed away. It originally appeared in Pinsk in 1939 (publisher: Drukarnia Wolowełskiego), but, according to Aaron Z. Tarshish, Rabbi barukh ha-levi epstein[,] ba‘al “torah temimah” (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1967), 189, even though the work achieved great popularity within the city, it did not spread beyond. Epstein sent a single copy to the famous Strashun Library in Vilna, which then passed it on to YIVO, and the latter institution transferred it to its headquarters in New York (see the online catalog record for this copy here [accessed August 19, 2019]). This, then, was apparently the only exemplar of the book to survive the war, and when it was discovered at YIVO some time thereafter, it was used to print the photo-offset reproduction published in Tel Aviv in three parts: vol. 1 on the haggadah (1965), vol. 2 on Pirkei avot (1965), and vol. 3 on the siddur itself (1968). (For a slightly different account of Barukh she-amar’s original publication and rediscovery after the war, see Seidman, “Ha-rav r. barukh epstein,” 148. Based on a helpful personal communication from Lyudmila Sholokhova, Director of the YIVO Library, it would appear that Tarshish’s version of the story is the more accurate one.)

I assume that Paktor owned a copy of the Tel Aviv reprint, not the original Pinsk edition. [18] See the obituary for Rev. Simon Paktor published in the Albany Times Union (March 2–3, 2003), available here (accessed August 19, 2019).

Franz J. Beranek, in his Das Pinsker Jiddisch und seine Stellung im gesamtjiddischen Sprachraum (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1958), discusses certain distinctive features of the dialect of Yiddish spoken in Pinsk. Upon examination of our letter, we find some of the markers of this litvish (Northeastern Yiddish) dialect reflected in such forms as eygn (eyes; see p. 33, §38, 1), greyser (large; see p. 25, §26), arobgegangen (descended; see p. 53, §48, 2a), em (him; see p. 21, §18, 1), etc. (I suspect that his use of the forms idishe [Jewish/Yiddish], reydn [to speak], and fardrosig/hartsig/shtendig/etc. [displeased/sincerely/always/etc.], instead of the expected yidishe, redn, and fardrosik/harstik/shtendik/etc., is the result of Paktor following common journalistic orthographic conventions and is not reflective of his actual pronunciation of those words.) (For a recent look at Beranek’s relationship with some of his Yiddish scholarly contemporaries, see Kalman Weiser, ‘One“ of Hitler’s Professors’: Max Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum confront Franz Beranek,” Jewish Quarterly Review 108,1 [2018]: 106-124.) [19] See Mordechai Nadav, “Pinsk,” in Shmuel Spector (ed.), Pinkas ha-kehillot: polin, vol. 5 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1990), 276-299, at p. 276 (available in English translation here [accessed August 19, 2019]). See also Dov Levin, Tekufah be-sograyim, 1939–1941: temurot be-hayyei ha- yehudim, ba-ezorim she-suppehu li-berit-ha-mo‘atsot bi- tehillat milhemet ha-olam ha-sheniyyah(Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1980), 26, for a chart comparing the populations of cities in eastern Poland in 1931. [20] See the aforementioned obituary for Paktor published in the Albany Times Union. On NKVD activity in Pinsk during the Soviet occupation, see Pesah Pakacz, “Shilton ha-soviyyetim be-pinsk,” in Tamir, Pinsk, 315-320, at pp. 317-320, and Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 639-650. On NKVD activity among occupied Polish Jewry in general, see Yosef Litvak, Pelitim yehudim mi-polin bi-berit ha-mo‘atsot[,] 1939–1946 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters’ House; Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1988), 118-156. As noted by Eliyana R. Adler, the similar situation of Baltic Jews exiled to the east by the Soviets demonstrates that had they not suffered that fate, they most likely would have fallen victim to the Nazis when the latter invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941; see her “Exile and Survival: Lithuanian Jewish Deportees in the Soviet Union,” in Michal Ben Ya’akov, Gershon Greenberg, and Sigalit Rosmarin (eds.), Ha-kayits ha-nora ha-hu…: 70 shanah le-hashmadat ha- kehillot ha-yehudiyyot be-arei ha-sadeh be-lita: historiyyah, hagut, re’aliyyah (Jerusalem: Efrata College Publications, 2013), xxvii-xlix, at pp. xlv-xlvi. [21] See the Holocaust remembrance seminar announcement published in the Clifton Journal (October 30, 2015), p. 36 (available here [accessed August 19, 2019]; make sure to click “View Details”). The Air Passenger Manifest recording the Paktors’ arrival in New York, available to subscribers through the MyHeritage database (accessed June 20, 2019), is dated May 19, 1952; curiously, it lists Simon’s wife’s name as Sabina. [22] According to Michael C. Duke, “Historian Is CBY Scholar In Residence, Oct. 8–10,” Jewish Herald-Voice (October 7, 2010) (accessed August 19, 2019), Paktor was trained as a rabbi. While I could find no direct corroborating evidence for this claim elsewhere, it is true that he is sometimes referred to in writing with the title “Reverend.” His work at the shul, for which he came to be well loved and respected, included serving as cantor and Torah reader, running the daily minyanim, preparing youth for their bar and bat mitzvahs, and even teaching Yiddish classes; Stephen M. Berk, Year of Crisis, Year of Hope: Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 1881–1882 (Westport, CN; London: Greenwood Press, 1985), xv, credits Paktor with introducing him to the world of Yiddish scholarship. See also the aforementioned obituary in the Albany Times Union and the above article by Duke. I thank Robert Kasman, Stephen M. Berk, and Mendel Siegel for the information they provided me on Paktor’s life and service to the shul in personal communications. [23] See the obituary for Anne Paktor published here (accessed August 19, 2019). [24] Henry Skoburn, The Agudat Achim Chronicle: Commemorating 120 Years[,] 1892–2012 (Schenectady: Congregation Agudat Achim, 2012), 10, 12. [25] The only book-length biography of Epstein is Tarshish’s (above, n. 17), though, as noted by Eitam Henkin, “Perakim be- toledot ba‘al arukh ha-shulhan: mishpahto ve- tse’etsa’av,” Yeshurun 27 (2012): 879-895, at p. 879, this work is in need of a thorough update that takes a scholarly- critical approach and considers the abundant literature on Epstein and his oeuvre that has appeared over the past fifty- plus years. For a shorter essay on Epstein’s life, see Seidman’s “Ha-rav r. barukh epstein” (above, n. 7). And for a famous photograph of Epstein in his younger years, see Hoffman, Toyznt yor pinsk, 335; reproduced (seemingly with modifications) as the frontispiece of Tarshish’s biography and in Zvi Kaplan, “Hiddushim ba-halakhah shel gedolei pinsk ve- karlin,” in Rabinowitsch, Pinsk, 367-406, at p. 393. (I find it hard to believe that the person in the portrait accompanying the Epstein mini-biography printed in Tamir, Pinsk, 489-491, is actually him but would be happy to be corrected.) [26] See Baruch ha-Levi Epstein,Sefer mekor barukh, introduction (Vilna: Romm, 1928), 2 n. 1. [27] The Folkstsaytung (People’s Paper) was the official organ of the General Jewish Workers Union in Poland, also known as the Bund. As such, it espoused a secularist, socialist Weltanschauung and polemicized against Communists, Zionists, and Orthodox Jews, among others. In addition to covering politics and workers’ issues, the paper devoted space to science and technology, sports, culture, and (Jewish and non-Jewish) literature. At its height in 1935, the Folkstsaytung had an approximate circulation of eighteen thousand. See Jacob Shalom Hertz, “‘Folkstsaytung’ 1918–1939,” in David Flinker, Mordechai Tsanin, Shalom Rosenfeld et al. (eds.), Di yidishe prese vos iz geven (Tel Aviv: Veltfarband fun di Yidishe Zhurnalistn, 1975), 151-169, and Boris Kotlerman, “Folks-tsaytung,” trans. I. Michael Aronson, in the digitized YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (accessed August 19, 2019). According to Seidman, “Ha-rav r. barukh epstein,” 144-145:

[Epstein] had an expansive [intellectual] horizon. He was interested in and familiar with all that was happening in the world. He read Russian and German newspapers. He also visited Vienna and Berlin in the ’20s, meeting with scholars and intellectuals there, and maintained an epistolary correspondence with the towering Jewish figures of the generation. When they visited Pinsk, he would host them. In 1914, Rabbi Hayyim Soloveichik visited Pinsk and stayed with Rabbi Baruch Epstein for Shabbat.

In addition to regularly reading the paper, Epstein also contributed to a number of (rabbinic and general Jewish) periodicals, including Havatselet, Yagdil torah, Ha- levanon, Ha-maggid, Ha-melits, and Ha-pardes; see Baruch ha- Levi Epstein, Sefer mekor barukh, pt. 3 (Vilna: Romm, 1928), 701b, and Shemaryah Gershuni, “Rabbi barukh epstein – ba‘al ha-torah temimah: beirur nesibbot petirato,” Yeshurun 29 (2013): 885-892, at pp. 886 n. 13, 889 n. 25. He even wrote a weekly column on the parashah for the Pinsker shtime; see Seidman, “Ha-rav r. barukh epstein,” 145, 148-149. While I have not examined issues of the Pinsker shtime, I know that Epstein’s parashah columns in a different local paper, Pinsker vort, were entitled Fun gebentshtn kval (=Mi-makor barukh); see the announcement in the February 20, 1931 edition, p. 1.

[28] For a summary of some of the halakhic literature on the topic and a defense (in most cases) of the widespread contemporary disregard of this prohibition, see Eitam Henkin, “Keri’at divrei defus be-shabbat be-yameineu le-or din shetarei hedyotot,” Melilot 3 (2010): 49-63 (the pagination in the printed version is slightly different from that of what I presume to be the prepublication copy available on Henkin’s website). [29] Indeed, the Hafets Hayyim was particularly vociferous in his opposition to the practice of many of his contemporaries to regularly read newspapers, not only because of their often- improper content (heresy, scoffing,leshon ha-ra, licentiousness, etc.), but also due to the drain on one’s time involved in their consumption. See, e.g., Israel Meir ha- Kohen, Kunteres zekhor le-miryam (Piotrków: Hanokh Henekh Fallman, 1925), 8b; Aryeh Leib Poupko, Mikhtevei ha-rav hafets hayyim z[ekher] ts[addik] l[i-berakhah]: korot hayyav, derakhav, nimmukav ve-sihotav, 1st ed. (Warsaw: B. Liebeskind, 1937), 96-98 (second pagination; no. 42); ibid., 42-43 (third pagination; par. 82); idem, Mikhtevei ha-rav hafets hayyim z[ekher] ts[addik] l[i-berakhah], ed. S. Artsi, 2 vols. (Bnei Brak: n.p., 1986), 2:157-158. Relatedly, see also idem, Mikhtevei, 1st ed., 27-29 (second pagination; no. 9). It is clear, however, that the Hafets Hayyim was, at times, exposed to periodical literature; for a letter he sent to the Haredi paper Kol ya‘akov, responding to an earlier issue thereof, see idem, Mikhtevei, ed. S. Artsi, 1:297-298 (no. 122). [30] See Baruch ha-Levi Epstein, Sefer mekor barukh, pt. 4 (Vilna: Romm, 1928), 895b, 897b-898a. Epstein’s report about his uncle’s behavior in this connection has aroused a good deal of controversy, as discussed by, e.g., Eliezer Brodt, “The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship,” Seforim Blog, pt. 1 (March 5, 2014) and pt. 2 (April 29, 2015). Like Brodt, Marc B. Shapiro, “Clarifications of Previous Posts,” Seforim Blog (January 16, 2008) (accessed August 19, 2019), believes that one can rely upon this account. On the general question of the historical accuracy of Sefer mekor barukh, see, e.g., Eitam Henkin, “R. yehi’el mikhl epstein ve-ha-‘tsemah tsedek’ ba-adashat ha- sefer ‘mekor barukh’,” Alonei mamre 123 (Winter 2011): 189-215, and Moshe Maimon, “Od be-inyan ba‘al ha-torah temimah u-sefarav,” Kovets ets hayyim 12,1 (2018): 409-420 (among many others). [31] Probably the two most authoritative biographies of Walkin to date are that appended to the beginning of the second volume of the New York, 1951 photo-offset edition of his responsa, Sefer she’elot u-teshuvot zekan aharon, composed by his son, Rabbi Samuel David (on whom, see below), and entitled “Toledot maran ha-ga’on ha-mehabber z[ekher] ts[addik] v[e- ]k[adosh] l[i-berakhah]”; and Hillel Seidman, “Ha-rav r. aharon walkin – pinsk,” in Lewin,Elleh ezkerah, 64-71; reprinted with some variations in Seidman’sIshim she- hikkarti, 20-28. Eliezer Katzman used these two sources in compiling much of his own profile of Walkin – “Ne‘imut ha- torah: ha-g[a’on] r[av] aharon walkin z[ekher] ts[addik] v[e- ]k[adosh] l[i-berakhah,] a[v] b[eit] d[in] pinsk[,] ba‘al beit aharon, zekan aharon v[e-]ku[llei],”Yeshurun 11 (2002): 891-904; 12 (2003): 727-739 – but added some material not found in either. (It seems that unacknowledged verbatim use was made of Seidman’s and/or Katzman’s work in the Walkin biography printed in Daniel Bitton’s editions of Sefer beit aharon on Bava kamma [Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Ma’or, 2003] and of Sefer hoshen aharon [Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-Ma’or, 2005].) For additional appreciations of Walkin’s Torah, see Kaplan, “Hiddushim ba-halakhah,” 399-406, an earlier version of which had appeared as “Ba‘al ha-‘battim’,” Ha-tsofeh 10159 (June 24, 1966): 5, 7; and of his religious persona, see the excerpt from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s letter to R. Samuel David, dated 8 Shevat [5]712 (February 4, 1952) and printed at the foot of the introduction to Aaron Walkin, Sefer beit aharon al massekhet gittin, 2nd ed. (New York: S. Walkin, 1955).

For photographs of Walkin, see Anon., Shlukhim“ fun agudes yisroel shoyn do,” Yidishes tageblat (December 11, 1913): 8; Anon., “Visiting Rabbis Explain International Jewish Union,” The Pittsburg [sic] Press (January 27, 1914): 3; Anon., “Noted European Rabbis Greeted by Orthodox Jews of Greater Boston,” The Boston Post (February 7, 1914): 16; Kaplan, “Hiddushim ba-halakhah,” 399; Moshe Rosman, “Pinsk,” in the digitized YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (accessed August 19, 2019); Marc B. Shapiro, “A Tale of Two Lost Archives,” Seforim Blog (August 12, 2008) (accessed August 19, 2019); the Jewish Pinsk memorial page here (accessed August 19, 2019) (Walkin is leading the Agudah procession); and David Zaretsky, “Rabbah ha-aharon shel pinsk: le-hofa‘ato me-hadash shel ha-sefer sh[e’elot] u- t[eshuvot] ‘zekan aharon’,” in Zikhram li-berakhah: ge’onei ha-dorot ve-ishei segullah (Israel: n.p., 2015?), 33-39. [32] See Jacob Goldman’s obituary for Sophia Epstein, entitled “Allon bakhut,” in Ha-tsefirah 26,60 (March 24, 1899): 293. See also the report issued by Aaron Tänzer, “Von Brest-Litowsk nach Pinsk,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 80,1 (January 7, 1916): 6-10, at p. 9, in which he mentions Epstein’s widowhood and the bank closure. Of Epstein’s four children – Cecilia (Tsile), Meir, Eleazar Moses, and Fania – Tänzer makes specific reference only to the last, suggesting that the other three were no longer in Pinsk by that point. Indeed, we know that Cecilia’s husband Nathan (Nahum) Bakstansky (Bakst) arrived at Ellis Island in 1907 (see his Geni record here [accessed August 19, 2019]); that they and their children Aaron and Jacob were registered voters as of 1924 (see Anon., “List of Registered Voters for the Year 1924: Borough of Brooklyn—Sixteenth Assembly District,” The City Record [October 16, 1924]: 2); and that Cecilia is registered as the copyright holder for the New York, 1928 edition of her father’s Torah temimah (see Anon., Catalogue of Copyright Entries: Part 1, Group 1 […] for the Year 1929 [Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1930], 1825-1826). In addition, according to family records made available to Henkin, Eleazar Moses had moved to Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg, Russia) (see the corrections appended to the online version of his aforementioned article, “Perakim be- toledot”). And if Seidman is correct that one of Epstein’s sons wound up working as a physician in New York (see the Ishim she-hikkarti version of his article, p. 110), that may mean Meir, like Cecilia, made it to America as well. (I find the idea that Meir and Fania died in their youth, as reported on Henkin’s website, difficult to believe, considering that Tänzer makes no mention of this in 1916, based on a visit to Pinsk in November 1915; see also next note. But until additional information becomes available, this will be virtually impossible to definitively reject [or accept].) In this connection, see also Maimon, “Od be-inyan,” 418-419, for an interesting interpretation of a passage in Sefer mekor barukh, pt. 4. [33] Fania was instrumental in founding a Jewish girls’ gymnasium in Pinsk in the fall of 1915, reportedly with her father’s approval. See Tänzer, “Von Brest-Litowsk,” 9, and Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 34, 183, 350-351, 596-597; see also Tamir, Pinsk, 510-512. She apparently passed away during World War II, given that she (like her father) is listed among the martyrs of Pinsk in Tamir, Pinsk, 627. (It is unclear to me whether or not the Meir cited there was R. Baruch’s son.) [34] As of Tänzer’s visit, it seems that Fania attended to the needs of her father’s house (“Von Brest-Litowsk,” 9). Tarshish notes, however, that at a certain point he began living in a local hotel, whose proprietors took care of him honorably and with dedication (Rabbi, 127; though cf. below, n. 38). Seidman adds that he ate his meals at a restaurant in the city while living in the hotel (“Ha-rav r. barukh epstein,” 144). Three hotels, all under Jewish ownership, are named in the “List of Subscribers of the Telephone Network of the Postal and Telegraph Directorate in Wilno in 1939” (select p. 52 from the drop-down menu) (accessed August 19, 2019). I have not been able to ascertain at which of these three Epstein lived. [35] See Kaplan, “Hiddushim ba-halakhah,” 399; see also Ben- Mem, “Ha-ga’on r. aharon walkin z[ekher] ts[addik] l[i- berakhah],” in Tamir, Pinsk, 499-500, who notes that Walkin eulogized Rabbi Jacob Mazeh of Moscow (1859–1924) within the first year of his arrival in the city. Cf. the introduction to Aaron Walkin, Sefer beit aharon al massekhet bava kamma (Vilna: Shraga Feivel Garber, 1923), which the author signed (seemingly in 1923) while living in the Jewish community of Amtshislav (present-day Mscisłaŭ, Belarus). Cf. also Anon., “Horav r. arn wolkin vegn zayn raykher lebns- fargangenheyt,” Unzer grodner ekspres 2,79 (April 2, 1929): 1, the second part of an interview with Walkin, which claims that he emigrated from Russia in 1922; as well as Aaron B. Shurin, “Tsvey shayles utshuves sforim fun letstn pinsker rov,” Forverts (October 14, 1977): 3, 6, at p. 3, who writes that Walkin came to Pinsk in 1924. (On his way from Russia to Poland, he had an extended stopover in Danzig; see M. Lyubart, “Vegn yidishn lebn in danzig,” Pinsker vort 2,11 [57] [March 11, 1932]: 5.) [36] See Anon., “Horav walkin oysgeveylt als rov fun pinsker kehile,” Pinsker vort 3,32 (132) (August 11, 1933): 6, and Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 571. Cf. Ben-Mem, “Ha-ga’on r. aharon walkin,” 500, who gives the date as [5]688 (1927–1928). (His election to the rabbinate of neighboring Karlin had taken place over a year earlier; see Anon., “Horav walkin als karliner rov,” Pinsker vort 2,6 [52] [February 5, 1932]: 6.)

Relatedly, see Dov Rabin (ed.), Grodnah-Grodne (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia of the Jewish Diaspora, 1973; also available through the New York Public Library Yizkor Book online portal [accessed August 19, 2019]), col. 352, on the brief period in 1929 when the Jews of Grodno – then part of Poland but now in Belarus – considered appointing Walkin as the chief rabbi of their community (an episode that deserves fuller historiographic exploration); see also Anon., Kehile-rat“ geg[n] horav wolkin,” Unzer grodner ekspres 2,88 (April 12, 1929): 15. [37] For Epstein, see Tarshish, Rabbi, 70-80 (relationship with Netsiv), 84-89 (marriage at approx. 18), 120-126 (visit to America), 134-135, 148-149 (Zionist sympathies) (all based primarily on passages in Sefer mekor barukh); Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 536 (Zionist sympathies); and Gershuni, “Rabbi barukh epstein,” 890-892 (visit to America). For Walkin, see his undated introduction to Sefer beit aharon al massekhet bava kamma (visit to America); the postscript to his undated introduction to the commentary Saviv li-yere’av, vol. 1 (Pinsk: Drukarnia Wolowełskiego, 1935), and the wishes of nehamah printed in Dos naye pinsker vort 7,51 (356) (December 3, 1937): 6 (personal misfortune); his son’s “Toledot maran ha-ga’on ha-mehabber” (relationship with Netsiv, marriage at approx. 18, visit to America); and Ben- Mem, “Ha-ga’on r. aharon walkin,” 500, and Rabin,Grodnah- Grodne, col. 352 (Zionist sympathies). Relatedly, Walkin’s son Hayyim married the daughter of Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook (1865–1935); see the mazl tov wishes on the occasion of their engagement printed in Do’ar ha-yom 8,182 (April 28, 1926): 1, and in Ha-arets 9,2041 (May 2, 1926): 4.

For a lecture delivered in Yiddish during Walkin’s visit to the United States, undertaken December 1913–February 1914 in order to help establish Agudath Israel in America, see Aaron Walkin, Di printsipen un tsveke fun agudes yisroel: fortrog gehalten fir amerikaner idn (New York: Office of Agudath Israel, n.d.). (During his trip, Walkin visited the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at 156 Henry Street; for his comparison of the yeshivah with that of Volozhin [!], see Anon., “Agudes yisroel shlukhim in yeshives rabeynu yitskhok elkhonen,” Der morgen zhurnal [December 24, 1913]: 4. Cf. Anon., “Horav wolkin begaystert fun idishe anshtalten in amerika,” Der morgen zhurnal [January 13, 1914]: 4.)

Tragically, Epstein and Walkin shared another fate: each printed a sefer in 1939 in Pinsk, only one copy of which survived the war and was later used for photo-offset reprinting. On Epstein’s Barukh she-amar, see above, n. 17, and on Walkin’s Sefer beit aharon al massekhet gittin, see his son’s introduction to the 1955 edition. [38] See the address given for Epstein on the title page of his Sefer tosefet berakhah ha-kolel he‘arot ve-he’arot le- sefer “megillat sefer” al hamesh megillot ha-kodem (Krakow: [Michael Horowicz], 1930) (the same address appears on the title pages of the five parts of Sefer gishmei berakhah that appeared at the same press in the same year). It is unclear to me at what point he moved into the hotel referred to by Tarshish (see above, n. 34), though it seems, based on the aforementioned “List of Subscribers,” that as of 1939 a fellow named Dawid Giler was living at Epstein’s former address on Dominikańska Street. [39] For several biographical sketches of R. Samuel David, the only child of R. Aaron to survive the war, see Samuel David Walkin, Sefer ramat shemu’el al ha-torah: sefer be- reshit (Jerusalem: Walkin Family, 1982), 11-27; the unpaginated introductions to idem,Sefer shevivei or: likkutim, ed. Samuel David Walkin [the grandson], nd2 ed. (Jerusalem: n.p., 2011); and idem, Sparks of Light: Jewels of Wisdom from the Chofetz Chaim ZT”L (New York: Kol Publishers, 2012), 83-86. For descriptions of R. Samuel David’s efforts on behalf of his fellow Pinskers, see Rabinowitsch, Pinsk, 547, and Tamir, Pinsk, 598-599. Unsurprisingly, given the interconnectedness of Lithuanian rabbinic dynasties, R. Samuel David became close with both the Hafets Hayyim and R. Soloveitchik; for photographs of him with the former, see the plates at the end of Sparks of Light, and with the latter, see Marc B. Shapiro, “Assorted Matters,” Seforim Blog (February 17, 2016) (accessed August 19, 2019).

[40] See Samuel David Walkin, Sefer kitvei abba mari: hiddushim u-be’urim al tanakh u-midrashav, ed. Moishe Joel Walkin (Kew Gardens: Yeshiva Beth Aron, 1989), 345; see also pp. 73, 132, 160, 266, 497, 512. For other instances of R. Samuel David quoting Epstein, often preceded by honorifics, see idem, Sefer ramat shemu’el al ha-torah, 108-109, and idem, Sefer kitvei abba mari: hiddushim u-be’urim al massekhtot ha-shas, u- mo‘adei ha-shanah[,] ve-nosaf aleihem derashot ve-he‘arot be- inyanei de-yoma, ed. Moishe Joel Walkin (Kew Gardens: Yeshiva Beth Aron, 1982), 33, 176, 193, 277, 314. For a reproduction of a letter written by Epstein (on his own letterhead) to R. Samuel David on the occasion of the latter’s appointment to the rabbinate of Lukatsh (present-day Lokachi, Ukraine) in 1935, see Tamir, Pinsk, 490. On the relationship between Epstein and R. Aaron, see also Seidman, “Ha-rav r. barukh epstein,” 144, 149. (Seidman, “Ha-rav r. aharon walkin,” 69, notes that Walkin opened his home and heart “to anyone suffering or in pain.” See also Zaretsky, “Rabbah ha-aharon shel pinsk,” 36. For a similar description of R. Samuel David, see Aaron B. Shurin, “Horav hagoen r. shmul wolkin, vitse prezident fun agudes horabonim, iz nifter gevorn,” Forverts [August 29, 1979]: 1, 8, at p. 1.) Another home Epstein visited was that of Yankev Epstein in Minsk; see Devora Gliksman, A Tale of Two Worlds (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, ltd, 2009), 113-114. [41] Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 642, 648; see also Tamir, Pinsk, 319-320. [42] Walkin himself refers to this, en passant, in the introduction to Sefer beit aharon al massekhet bava kamma, saying that he was jailed bi-shevil alilah, hattat ha-kahal hu (on account of libel; it is the sin of the community). R. Samuel David, in “Toledot maran ha-ga’on ha-mehabber,” explains that his father was one of those fighting to defend Jewish tradition against the edicts of the Bolsheviks and was therefore imprisoned for about half a year. Seidman, “Ha-rav r. aharon walkin,” 67, adds (perhaps by logical deduction) that the Yevsektsiya (Jewish section of the Communist Party) was responsible for informing on him to the authorities. [43] For examples of Walkin’s wartime rabbinic activities, see Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 649; Tamir, Pinsk, 320; and Seidman, “Ha-rav r. aharon walkin,” 69, 71. For his commitment especially to Torah study and creativity in this period, see the excerpt from the last letter R. Samuel David received from him printed in “Toledot maran ha-ga’on ha- mehabber,” as well as the excerpt from a letter by Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin (1881–1966) reproduced in the introduction to Aaron Walkin, Sefer beit aharon al massekhet kiddushin, ed. Aaron ben Moishe Joel Walkin (Queens: Aaron Walkin, n.d.). [44] See Tarshish, Rabbi, 127; see also p. 128 on Epstein’s avoidance of the Soviet authorities, even when it meant skipping meals. Zvi Gitelman, “Afterword: Pinsk in Wartime and from 1945 to the Present,” in Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, 652-659, at p. 653, notes that local leaders organized a committee to aid impoverished clergy, including Epstein, during this period. [45] For harrowingly detailed accounts of the fate of Pinsk Jewry during the Nazi onslaught, see Nahum Boneh (Mular), “Ha- sho’ah ve-ha-meri,” in Tamir, Pinsk, 325-388 (a Yiddish translation by Leib Morgenthau appears on pp. 389-458 and an English translation by Ellen Stepak appears online here [accessed August 19, 2019]); Nadav, “Pinsk,” 294-298; Tikva Fatal-Knaani, “The Jews of Pinsk, 1939–1943, Through the Prism of New Documentation,” trans. Naftali Greenwood, Yad Vashem Studies 29 (2001): 149-182; Gitelman, “Afterword,” 652-654; and Katharina von Kellenbach, Nahum Boneh, and Ellen Stepak, “Pinsk,” in Martin Dean with Mel Hecker (eds.), The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, vol. II, pt. B (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2012), 1442-1444. For a map of the Pinsk ghetto, see Tamir, Pinsk, 334 (in Hebrew), and here (in English) (accessed August 19, 2019). For photographs of the memorials set up on the sites of mass murder, see here (accessed August 19, 2019). [46] See, e.g., R. Samuel David’s introductions toSefer she’elot u-teshuvot zekan aharon, vol. 2 (the one entitled “Hakdamat ben ha-mehabber maran ha-ga’on z[ekher] ts[addik] l[i-berakhah]”) and to Sefer beit aharon al massekhet gittin; see also the entries on R. Aaron maintained by Yad Vashem (1, 2, 3, 4) (accessed August 19, 2019). (I am aware that Hy”d is sometimes used even when a person was not literally killed by an enemy but rather died as a[n in]direct result of enemy persecution.) Strangely, Tamir, Pinsk, 636, does not list any members of the Walkin family among the martyrs of Pinsk. [47] See Tamir, Pinsk, 500, and Zaretsky, “Rabbah ha-aharon shel pinsk,” 33, 37. For a relatively recent study of rabbinic leadership during the Holocaust, see Havi Dreifuss (Ben- Sasson), “‘Ka-tson asher ein lo ro‘eh’? rabbanim u-ma‘amadam ba-sho’ah,” in Asaf Yedidya, Nathan Cohen, and Esther Farbstein (eds.), Zikkaron ba-sefer: korot ha-sho’ah ba- mevoʼot la-sifrut ha-rabbanit (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 2008), 143-167. [48] See Aaron B. Shurin, “Ha-rav aharon walkin: rabbah ha- aharon shel pinsk,” in Keshet gibborim: demuyyot ba-ofek ha- yehudi shel dor aharon, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2004), 92-97, at p. 92 (ca. Passover 1941), and Seidman, “Ha- rav r. aharon walkin,” 71 (summer 1942). [49] See Gershuni, “Rabbi barukh epstein,” 887-890. It seems that Tarshish’s version of the events (Rabbi, 128), according to which Epstein died in a Jewish hospital shortly after the Germans’ invasion in July 1941, has gained some traction. See, e.g., N.T. Erline’s epilogue in Baruch ha-Levi Epstein,My Uncle The Netziv, trans. Moshe Dombey, ed. N.T. Erline (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1988), 223; Prof. Meir Bar- Ilan’s family tree (accessed August 19, 2019); and Pnina Meislish, “Epstein, barukh, ben yehi’el mikhl,” Rabbanim she- nispu ba-sho’ah (accessed August 19, 2019). By contrast, Gitelman, “Afterword,” 728 n. 7, claims that “Epstein died a natural death in Pinsk in 1940,” while Ber Schwartz, Sefer artsot ha-hayyim (Brooklyn: B. Schwartz, 1992), 23, writes that Epstein was killed by the Nazis in 1942. Here again, Samuel David Walkin, Sefer ramat shemu’el al ha-torah, 108, refers to Epstein with the acronym Hy”d, suggesting martyrdom; see also the entries on Epstein maintained by Yad Vashem (1, 2, 3) (accessed August 19, 2019). [50] Paktor could not have directly witnessed Epstein passing away in the ghetto, as by the time of its establishment he had long been exiled to Siberia by the Soviets. Interestingly, Aaron B. Shurin, in an article published about six years after Paktor sent this letter, also writes that Epstein died in the ghetto (“Ha-rav barukh epstein: mehabber ‘torah temimah’,” in Keshet gibborim, vol. 3, pp. 38-44, at p. 44). He adds (without citing a source) that Epstein was buried in the Karlin Jewish cemetery next to the grave of Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin (1828–1915). Unfortunately, the Karlin cemetery is no longer extant, making it difficult to verify this claim; see here (accessed November 24, 2019). [51] Ratnowska’s account (committed to writing twenty years after the Holocaust) is cited by Boneh, “Ha-sho’ah ve-ha- meri,” 333. (Pnina Meislish, it should be noted, accepts this timing with respect to Walkin’s passing only; see Walkin,“ aharon, ben yosef tsevi,” Rabbanim she-nispu ba- sho’ah [accessed August 19, 2019].) Cf. Rabinowitsch, Pinsk, 399 n. 3, where he quotes slightly conflicting testimony from Ratnowska, according to which Epstein passed away “suddenly” a few weeks before the establishment of the Pinsk ghetto (which sounds more like springtime than winter). In addition, according to her, Epstein was buried in the cemetery in Pinsk, not in the Karlin cemetery as posited by Shurin (see previous note). For Ratnowska’s description of life in hiding during the war, see Boneh, “Ha-sho’ah ve-ha-meri,” 357.

Interestingly, Irina Yelenskaya places both rabbis’ deaths more specifically in January 1942 in her article on Pinsk for the Shtetl Routes project (accessed November 4, 2019), though I do not know on which of her sources she bases this date. [52] See the description of the Pinsk Ghetto Database available here (accessed August 19, 2019). By contrast, Rachel Walkin (1876–1942?), R. Aaron’s wife, is listed in the Database as living at 35 Polnocna (in German: Nord) Street (the present-day approximate equivalent is Leningradskaya Street). Also listed are Mila Ratnowska and Eve Slutzky (who is presumably to be identified with the daughter of alderman Jacob-Alter bearing the same name). [53] See the May 2, 2011 funeral announcement published in the Chicago Tribune and currently available here (accessed August 19, 2019).

Apostates and More, Part 1

Marc B. Shapiro

Continued from here

1. I am aware of two seforim found on both Otzar haHochma and Hebrewbooks.org which were written by men who later apostatized (there are probably more). There are also two seforim on Hebrewbooks.org which were written by someone afterhe apostatized. I realize that after this post appears it is possible that the books mentioned will be removed from Otzar haHochma and Hebrewbooks.org (as has happened in the past with problematic books that I called attention to). I am therefore providing links so that readers can access the books even if they are removed.

The first book by someone who later apostatized is Solomon Florentin’s Doresh Mishpat, published in Salonika in 1655. As mentioned, appears on both hebrewbooks.org and Otzar haHochma.

Here is the title page. You can view the entire book here here.

Florentin was a follower of Shabbetai Zvi and was one of the group of Salonikan Jews who converted to Islam following Shabbetai Zvi’s own conversion.[1]

The second future apostate whose book appears on Hebrewbooks.org and Otzar haHochma is Aaron Israel Briman. He wrote Avnei Zikaron, which was published in Amsterdam around 1880.[2] Here is the title page. You can view the entire book here here.

Briman, who appears to have been an ordained rabbi, was a real scoundrel. After his apostasy, which seems to have been done completely for monetary reasons, he wrote the infamous anti- Semitic work Der Judenspiegel and assisted the anti-Semite August Rohling in his attacks against the Talmud and Judaism in general.[3] He also abandoned his wife and two small children, leaving his wife an agunah. After becoming a Christian, he engaged in various monetary frauds which landed him in prison. According to the article here in the Jewish Encyclopedia, he studied in the Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin, a point confirmed by Gotthard Deutsch.[4] As for seforim written by someone after he converted, this brings us to Jehiel Zvi Lichtenstein (1827-1912; in his earlier years the last name he used was Hirschensohn, and I don’t know why he changed it). Detailed biographical information about Lichtenstein can be found in a good article by Samuel Leib Zitron included in volume 2 of his Me-Ahorei ha-Pargod: Mumarim, Bogdim, Mitkaḥashim that fortunately is also found online here. There is, however, no scholarly article on the writings of Lichtenstein, and although he was infamous in his day, today he is almost entirely forgotten.[5]

Lichtenstein was born in Bessarabia and was already an accomplished scholar as a young man. He was married at 18 to the daughter of a wealthy man, and he could have entered the rabbinate like so many others in his position. Yet as described by Zitron (and it appears that his description has been livened up, so it is not always clear if the facts are correct), various circumstances led him to divorce his wife, abandon his home, and convert to Christianity and become an enthusiastic missionary. Incredibly, even after converting to Christianity he continued to live as a Jew, moving to the town of Lubavitch where by all outward appearances he was a hasid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Following this he went to Berlin where he was an open missionary. He then returned to Russia where he married the sister of the well-known Jewish-Christian missionary, Joseph Rabinowitz. In 1995 Kai Kjaer-Hansen published the English version of his book on Rabinowitz,[6] referring to him on the book’s cover and title page as the “Herzl of Jewish Christianity.”[7] In 1872, after his apostasy, Lichtenstein published his book Derekh ha-Kodesh. The book was published in Berlin. I don’t know why the title page says it was printed in Russia, though this probably has something to do with taxes or customs for books sent to foreign countries. As you can see, this is the second printing and Lichtenstein gave himself a fancy rabbinic title. I have never seen a copy of the first printing, but Ephraim Deinard states that Lichtenstein’s name did not appear on the title page of this edition.[8]

Zitron tells us that Lichtenstein returned to his hometown where he distributed Derekh ha-Kodesh among the local Hasidim. The book reads like a real rabbinic text, and on the very first page he cites both the Baal Shem Tov and R. Shneur Zalman of Liady, and he continues to cite R. Shneur Zalman constantly in the book. It is obvious from what he writes elsewhere that he pretended to be a Chabad hasid. Thus, in his self-defense published in Ha-Magid [9], when he was still pretending to be a faithful Jew, he mentions that he had lived in the town of Lubavitch. In seeking to defendDerekh ha- Kodesh from the accusation that it had Christian elements, he calls for it to be examined by leading Chabad rabbis to see if there is anything problematic in the book.

ואקרא לשופטי צדק את רבני חב”ד הגדולים אשר ירדו לעמקי הלכה של. הקבלה והחסידות הדבקים באלהים חיים המה יאמרו אם עולתה בו

His call was taken up by Jacob Solomon Alschwang who claimed to have a lot of knowledge in Kabbalah and hasidic thought, “like one of the great Chabad rabbis.”[10] I am sure that this self-judgment contains a good deal of exaggeration, yet Alschwang did come from a Chabad background and received a traditional Chabad education before leaving that world for the world of Haskalah.[11]

Alschwang identifies a number of passages in the book which he thinks are evidence of the author’s Christian sentiments.[12] Experts in Kabbalah and Hasidism can weigh in on whether Alschwang is correct or if the passages he points to can also be supported by classic kabbalistic or hasidic texts.

One of the passages Alschwang points to is on p. 68, which according to Alschwang means that Lichtenstein is speaking of God taking physical form on earth.

וע”ז נא’ עיני ה’ המה משוטטים בכל הארץ (זכריה ד, י) שענין משוטטים היינו שמתפשטים ומתלבשים בכל הארץ, והש”י משגיח בארץ ע”י שמתלבש בהם כי המה הם כלים רוחניים שהאציל וברא להשתמש בהם, והם מתפשטים ומתלבשים בתחתונים, והמה כמו העינים אל [של] האדם שהאדם יביט בהם והשכל מתלבש בהם לראות, וכן הוא הענין באזני ה

So, what do readers think? Does this passage speak of God literally assuming some bodily form? Furthermore, can we find similar passages in standard kabbalistic texts? Alschwang also calls attention to Derekh ha-Kodesh, p. 42, where Lichtenstein states that God will appear to prophets in a physical form. Although Lichtenstein adds that God does not really take physical form, but only appears this way, Alschwang sees this as an example of Lichtenstein is trying to push a Christian notion. I guess the idea would be to first get Jews used to the notion that God can be imagined looking like a human, and the next step is to identify a real flesh and blood human as God. Here are Lichtenstein’s words:

כי העולם הזה בכללו הוא אלהות גמור מצד שאינו נראה לנו, אך לעינינו עשה האלהים על עצמו גילוי וצורה ויתחפש בדמות גשמי (זיך זעלבסט ענטשטעלט) אשר הנבראים ישיגו בחושיהם הגשמיים (אשר גם הם רק לעיניהם) דמות וצורה גשמית ארבע יסודות ומורכביהם, דומם צומח חי מדבר וכו’, אולם לעומת הש”י הכל אלהות גמור ואין פה גילוי ודמות גשמי ומהות כלל

Alschwang also notes that on page 7 Lichtenstein makes use of the famous expression from Matthew 19:24, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,” which is not what one would expect to find in a rabbinic text.

At one time in his strange life, Lichtenstein actually began serving as a hasidic rebbe of sorts, praying for people and handing out amulets. Ephraim Deinard, who knew Lichtenstein from the latter’s missionary days in Berlin in the 1870s,[13] claims that it was he who exposed Lichtenstein as a fraud. He happened to be in Lichtenstein’s town on a business trip in 1879, and that is how the townspeople learned that the supposedly pious rebbe was actually a Christian missionary.[14] Even after being exposed Lichtenstein did not give up, and a few years later he was in Podolia serving as a rabbi![15]

Derekh ha-Kodesh is only found on hebrewbooks.org, not on Otzar haHochma. You can view ithere . The copy on hebrewbooks.org is missing the second half of the book. It appears that not all printings of the book contained the second part which includes a commentary on various biblical passages. (Alschwang mentions that his copy only had 84 pages, which means that it also was missing the second half.). Here is the copy which is found at Harvard, which is almost twice as long as the copy on hebrewbooks.org.[16] Interestingly, in the copy found on hebrewbooks.org (and also in the complete Harvard copy), on the second page, there are corrections applicable to the missing second half of the book. Also of note is at the bottom of this page of corrections it states that the haskamot for the book were published in the first printing. As far as I can determine, no copies of this first printing have survived.

Zitron tells us that in 1882 Lichtenstein came to Odessa with the manuscript of his book,Sheva Hokhmot. He received haskamot for the book from rabbis and maskilim. Here is the title page of the London 1912 edition of Sheva Hokhmot and you can view the book here.[17] This is a very helpful work which in alphabetical fashion discusses all the geographical sites mentioned in the Talmud and Midrash.[18] The book previously appeared in Lemberg in 1883 and can be viewed here. The title page of the Lemberg edition mentions that Lichtenstein wrote the responsa volume Keren ha-Tzvi and the book Megaleh Sod. While Keren ha- Tzvi never appeared, Megaleh Sod, which is a commentary on the Bible, was published in Budapest in 1906 and can be viewed here. It is incredible that an apostate would write such a commentary which on its face looks like any other traditional commentary. (I haven’t read it carefully to see if he also inserts Christian interpretations.) The actual text of both editions of Sheva Hokhmot is the same, but there are some differences between the prefaces of the two volumes. In the first edition the preface is longer, contains some notes, and also includes a list of the rabbis and scholars who prepaid for the book. In the London edition, Lichtenstein included a passage from R. Aaron Hyman’s Toledot Tannaim ve-Amoraim (London, 1910), vol. 1, p. 15, which greatly praises the book and the author, with Hyman saying that Lichtenstein is “wise in the wisdom of the Torah.” Hyman obviously must have been unaware of who Lichtenstein was.

That people did not realize who Lichtenstein was explains how a copy of Derekh ha-Kodesh was bound with regular traditional seforim (including R. Moses Cordovero’s Tomer Devorah), as seen in a recent auction here.[19]

As you can see from the title pages ofDerekh ha- Kodesh and Sheva Hokhmot, both of these books, now found on hebrewbooks.org, came from the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad.[20] You can also see from the title page ofSheva Hokhmot that, before it was acquired by the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, it belonged to the great scholar Jacob Zallel Lauterbach.

With reference to Lichtenstein, Steven J. Zipperstein writes as follows:

His Sheva Hokhmot [The Seven Wisdoms] was introduced by letters of praise from important scholars such as Mattityahu Strashun, Samuel Joseph Fuenn, and others, though the book appeared three years after Lichtenstein was first denounced as a missionary (by the rather mercurial and widely disliked Ephraim Deinard) in the newspaper Ha-Maggid.[21]

Zipperstein’s information about the letters inSheva Hokhmot comes from Zitron, who also claims that these haskamot were forged by Lichtenstein. Yet there are no such haskamot from these figures, forged or otherwise. In the 1883 edition of the book, p. 6, we are given a list of people who wrote haskamot and letters of praise (including R. Joseph Dov Soloveitchik, the Beit ha-Levi), but these were never published, not even in the 1912 edition. I have no reason to doubt that these haskamot and letters of praise were authentic, otherwise how could he have publicly announced in the various authors’ lifetimes that he received letters from them? However, these letters were also written before news of his apostasy was known.

What makes Derekh ha-Kodesh and Sheva Hokhmot so interesting is that they were both written after Lichtenstein had become a Christian, something you would never know from the title pages. I don’t know of any other such books, namely, seforim written in a rabbinic style by someone who had already converted to Christianity.

This is a picture of Lichtenstein that I found on a Messianic Jewish website here.

Here is the title page of Lichtenstein’s Hizuk Emunat Emet bi- Yeshua Mashiah ben ha-Elohim.[22] אבן You can find the entire book here. The author is listed as which is simply the Hebrew translation of the name ,צהר ,צבי הירשנזון is the abbreviation of צהר ,Lichtenstein. Also the birth name of the author.[23]

Lichtenstein also wrote a multi-volume Hebrew commentary on the New Testament, which you can see here. The commentary is preceded by a helpful article on Lichtenstein by Jorge Quiñónez. Lichtenstein’s revised commentary on Matthew can be seen here.[24]

There is an entry on Lichtenstein in Zalmen Reyzen’s Yiddish Lexicon.[25] Yet one of the sources in the bibliography is about Isaac Lichtenstein. This Lichtenstein is often confused with Jehiel Zvi Lichtenstein whom we have been discussing. However, they were two separate people, and Isaac Lichtenstein (1824-1908), who was actually a rabbi, was also a believer in Jesus (although it is reported that he never actually converted to Christianity).

This is his picture taken from here.

The following picture comes from here There was another Chabad hasid, Israel Landau, who converted to Christianity and became the chief Russian censor. In Ruth Bachi-Kolodny’s article about him, entitled “The Chabadnik Who Became Czarist Russia’s Chief Censor for Jewish Writings,” available here, he is even referred to as a rabbi, but this is certainly not correct, and the description of him as a rabbi does not appear in the original Hebrew version of the article here. The article states:

Although he became an apostate Jew, he remained, deep in his heart, a devoutly religious Hasid and continued to look the part with his short trimmed beard, earlocks, skullcap and long, broad kapota ‏(the long black jacket of members of Chabad‏); he would eat only in kosher restaurants. In fact, Landau sent his wife and only daughter, Menuha, to Switzerland so they could live as Jews without any external hindrances.[26]

Ben Zion Dinur, who was from a Chabad family, mentions that it was jokingly said about Landau that even after apostatizing he still kept the holiday of 19 Kislev.[27] As for Landau’s wife and daughter, Ephraim Deinard, who knew Landau, states that they left Russia because they did not want to convert, not because Landau sent them out.[28]

My experience has been that as soon as I publish something, I find more relevant material and wish I could go back in time to include it in the publication. Fortunately, with the Seforim Blog I am able to update my writings. Not long ago I published Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan. On pp. 300-301, R. Meir Mazuz writes that he read in Yated Ne’eman that the apostate Russian censor removed two lines from Bialik’s poem about the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, “In the City of Slaughter,” because he found them heretical and did not want to lose his share in the World to Come! I was not aware of this story but I looked at the poem and immediately identified what these two lines must be. In fact, as I only learned after the book was published, it was actually the following four lines that were deleted, and the censor who was responsible for this was none other than Landau.[29]

סִלְחוּ לִי, עֲלוּבֵי עוֹלָם, אֱלֹהֵיכֶם עָנִי כְמוֹתְכֶם, עָנִי הוּא בְחַיֵּיכֶם וְקַל וָחֹמֶר בְּמוֹתְכֶם –כִּי תָבֹאוּ מָחָר עַל-שְׂכַרְכֶם וּדְפַקְתֶּם עַל-דְּלָתָי !אֶפְתְּחָה לָכֶם, בֹּאוּ וּרְאוּ: יָרַדְתִּי מִנְּכָסָי

Forgive me, beggars of the world, your God is as poor as you, Poor he is in your living and so much more so in your deaths. And if you come tomorrow for your due and knock on my doors— I’ll open for you, come and look: I’ve gone down in the world.[30]

The story of the censorship is told by Benzion Katz in his memoir, in a chapter that deserves to be translated into English.[31] Katz was the founder and editor of the newspaper Ha-Zeman, where Bialik’s poem appeared. If you look in Ha-Zeman you will find that the title of the poem was changed to “Masa Nemirov”, and a note informs the reader of the infamous 1648 massacre in Nemirov. As Katz explains, this new title was suggested by Landau, who was willing to look the other way if Bialik and Katz would pretend that the words were not about the 1903 Kishinev pogrom but about another event 250 years prior.

As for the censorship of the lines mentioned above, Katz writes as follows (p. 135):

כשהיה הכל מוכן נתתי לו לקרוא את השירה. הכל נראה לו כשר, חוץ מנקודות אחדות, שלדעתו התריס שם ביאליק נגד א-לוהים. אין הוא יכול להרשות זאת – אמר הצנזור המומר. – בשביל הממשלה ימצא תמיד תירוץ אבל לא בשביל רבונו של עולם. “אינני צעיר ואצטרך לתת דין ”וחשבון בעולם הבא. אינני רוצה להפסיד את חלקי בעולם הבא

Landau would not permit some lines to appear in the poem as he did not want to lose his share in the World to Come. Bialik wrote to the censor to defend himself and the censor replied as follows (as summarized by Katz, p. 135), pointing out among other things that Bialik had misunderstood the Zohar :

הוא הצעיר, אף על פי שהוא משורר גדול, מביא לי ראיות מן הזוהר הקדוש, שבו יש ביטויים שהם כביכול גם כן עלבון לקדוש ברוך הוא, אבל אלה אינם עלבונות אלא ביטויי צער וזעם. אני בקי בזוהר. אני לומד אותו יותר ממנו. אני הרשיתי להדפיס את הזוהר מה שלא הרשו הצנזורים הקודמים. היו מביאים את הספר בגניבה מחוץ לארץ. נגד א- לוהים אי אפשר לעשות כלום

All this goes to show that while you can take the Jew out of the shtetl, often (even with apostates) you can’t take the shtetl out of the Jew.

To be continued

2. I want to call attention to four recent valuable books. The first is Mitchell First, Roots and Rituals: Insights into Hebrew, Holidays, andHistory. This book is full of interesting chapters on liturgy, history, holidays, and the Hebrew language. If, like me, you have enjoyed First’s posts on the Seforim Blog, then his latest book will be a treat.

The second book is Bezalel Naor’s translation of R. Kook’s Commentary to the Legends of Rabbah bar Hannah. This book only further solidifies Naor’s standing as the leading interpreter of R. Kook in the English language. In addition to extensive notes, Naor also includes 11 appendices which include such topics such as R. Kook’s critique of the Mussar Movement and R. Kook and the Dybbuk in Jaffa.

The third book is a joint effort by the eminent scholars Menachem Kellner and James Diamond. Its title is Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought, published by my favorite press, Littman Library. This is a collection of articles by Kellner and Diamond which focus on various important Torah scholars and their understanding of Maimonides.

Here is the table of contents. Anyone interested in nineteenth- and twentieth-century rabbinic thinkers will find this work of value.

The fourth book is Yitz Greenberg and Modern Orthodoxy: The Road Not Taken, edited by Adam Ferziger, Miri Freud-Kandel, Steven Bayme. This book, which is full of great essays, is available in paperback here, and this is the table of contents.

3. R. Yissachar Dov Hoffman was kind enough to send me this picture of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik and R. Ovadiah Yosef from April 25, 1974.[32] My question to readers is, can anyone identify the three young men standing behind the rabbis?

4. Anyone interested in my summer 2020 trips with Torah in Motion can find details here. 5. For those in the New York area, I will be speaking at Young Israel-Beth El of Boro Park (4802 15thAvenue, Brooklyn) on Saturday night, December 21 at 8pm. The title of my talk is “Judaism and Islam: Some Halakhic and Historical Perspectives”.

[1] See Meir Benayahu,Ha-Tenuah ha-Shabta’it be-Yavan (Jerusalem, 1971-1978), pp. 35-36. [2] Regarding Briman and his book, which is actually a complete plagiarism – the entire book lifted word for word from R. Abraham Wallerstein,Mahazeh Avraham, found in Wallerstein’s Ma’amar Avraham (Fuerth, 1757) – see Shmuel Ashkenazi, Asufah (Jerusalem, 2014), pp 53-55. [3] See Joseph Samuel Bloch, Zikhronot Mimei Hayai, trans. S. Shalom, (Tel Aviv, n. d), vol. 1, pp. 84ff. [4] See his letter in the Jewish Chronicle, June 26, 1914, conveniently posted in On the Main Line here. See also On the Main Line here for a fascinating post dealing with another apostate who appears to have been a rabbi.

For detailed discussions of Briman, see Samuel Leib Zitron’s article from volume 2 of his Me-Ahorei ha-Pargod: Mumarim, Bogdim, Mitkaḥashim, available here; Joseph Samuel Bloch, Zikhronot mimei Hayai (Tel Aviv, n.d.), vol. 1, pp 81ff.; Ha-Melitz, April 24, 1885, cols. 440-441. For numerous contemporary references to Briman, see Jonatan Meir, Literary Hasidism: The Life and Works of Michael Levi Rodkinson, trans. Jeffrey G. Amshalem (Syracuse, 2016), p. 167 n. 201. Unfortunately, Meir, p. 169 n. 214, cites Chaim Bloch – about whom I have a written a good deal on this blog – without realizing that none of the unpublished material Bloch claimed to possess can be assumed to be authentic. Regarding Bloch, see also Tesla Lee’s 2016 honors thesis at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Sigmund Freud and Chajim Bloch: Exploring the Role of the Jewish Joke in European Jewish Identity,” available here. On pp. 5-6, Lee mentions another fabrication by Bloch. Bloch describes how he offered Freud his criticisms of Moses and Monotheism, yet we know that Freud did not begin working on this book until years after Bloch’s supposed conversation with him. For a recent discussion of Bloch and his role in popularizing the Golem story, see Samuel Jacob Spinner, “Jews behind Glass: The Ethnographic Impulse in German-Jewish and Yiddish Literature, 1900-1948” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 2012) pp. 89ff. [5] The biographical information I provide about Lichtenstein comes from Zitron. Here is what theEncyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. Hirschensohn-Lichtenstein, Jehiel Zevi Hermann, writes: Born in Russia, he converted to Christianity in 1855 in Jassy, Rumania, but keeping this secret he spent some time among the Hasidim of Lubavitch and worked on his Derekh ha- Kodesh (“The Way of Holiness,” 1872), which deals with the fundamentals of the Jewish faith, but betrays the authors Christianizing tendencies. From 1868-1878 he worked, under the name of Hermann Lichtenstein, for the Protestant mission in Berlin. He then returned to Russia where, disguised as a hasidic rabbi, he distributed his book. He married in Kishinev, Moldavia, a sister of Joseph Rabinovich, who later, probably under Hirschensohn’s influence, founded the sect called Community of Evangelian Jews. His true character discovered, he had to leave Russia and became lecturer at Franz Delitzsch’s Institutum Judaicaum at Leipzig.

[6] Joseph Rabinowitz and the Messianic Movement (Edinburgh, 1995). [7] This title was earlier given to Rabinowitz by Hugh J. Schonfield, The History of Jewish Christianity p. 5, available here. [8] Zikhronot Bat Ami (St. Louis, 1920), vol. 2, p. 134. [9] Ha-Magid, May 7, 1885, p. 144. [10] Ha-Magid, June 25, 1885, pp. 208-209. [11] See his autobiography in Sefer Zikaron le-Sofrei Yisrael ha-Hayyim Itanu ka-Yom (Warsaw, 1889), pp. 203ff, See Saul .ישביאל available here. He wrote under the pseudonym Chajes, Otzar Beduyei ha-Shem (Vienna, 1933), p. 173. The title of the book mentioned at the beginning of this note is of interest, as it is a “memorial volume” for living writers. Today I think we would only use the words “Sefer Zikaron” for people who are deceased. It is also of interest that in the זכרונו either as ז”ל past there were writers who used for living people. See Tovia זכור לטוב or לברכה Preschel, Ma’amrei Tuvyah, vol. 1, pp. 35, 324-325, vol. 4, p. 418.

In 1878, R. Isaac Moses Abulafia published his Lev Nishbar. Here is the title page.

This book is a defense of his halakhic rulings in his responsa Penei Yitzhak against the blistering criticisms of R. Solomon Moses Gaguine in his Yismah Levav. Of interest at present is Lev Nishbar, no. 3 (p. 12b). R. Abulafia notes that after his name, and he is ז”ל R. Gaguine refers to him with certain that this was not done in accord with the view .can be used even with living people ז”ל mentioned above that Rather, he sees this as an intentional insult, and as he puts .This might mean that he believes that R .כונתו לרעה ,it .after his name, is hoping for his death ז”ל Gaguine, by using והן עתה הביאני חדריו וכתב עלי תיבת ז”ל כנז”ל וה’ יודע ועד עליו אם כונתו לרעה עלי והלב יודע אם לעקל וכו’ ועכ”פ מדקפיד בכל דוכתא ודוכתא אך בחלקות ישית להבדיל בין המתים ובין החיים בתיבת ז”ל ונר”ו כנז”ל ומדשינה עתה הפעם לכתוב עלי ז”ל במקום נר”ו הא ודאי דקפידה הוי וכונתו לרעה ב”מ

See also what R. Abulafia writes in his introduction and the first page of the opening responsum, where you can see that he is not inclined to be generous in his interpretation of R. Gaguine’s intent.

Regarding the dispute between Rabbis Abulafia and Gaguin, see Yaron Haarel, “Hashpa’atam shel ha-Sefarim Penei Yitzhak, Yismah Lev ve-Lev Nishbar al ha-Ma’avak Saviv ha-Rabanut be- Damesek,” Asuput 11 (1998), pp. 211-243. [12] That the book contains hints to Lichtenstein’s belief in Jesus is also stated by Samuel Shraga Feigensohn, Elbonah Shel Torah (Berlin, 1929), p. 28b. [13] Deinard, Zikhronot Bat Ami (New Orleans, 1920), vol. 2, p. 133. [14] Ha-Magid, April 9, 1885, p. 112. See here that in his later years, Lichtenstein’s Christian missionary students would call him “Rebbe”. This source describes Lichtenstein as serving as a hasidic rebbe before adopting Christianity, but that is not correct. [15] Deinard in Ha-Magid, April 9, 1885, p. 112. Deinard, Zikhronot Bat Ami, vol. 2, p. 137, reports that Lichtenstein served as a rabbi in Hungary. InTzelem ba- Heikhal (New Orleans, n.d.), p. 143, Deinard writes that he was a rabbi for a short time in a town in the Austrian empire. Feigensohn, Elbonah Shel Torah, p. 28b, states that he served as the rabbi in a town in Volhynia for eight years, but there is no evidence to support this statement [16] See Jacob Solomon Alschwang, Ha-Magid, June 25, 1885, p. 209, that David Kahana had additional pages from the book which are missing from the Harvard copy. These pages, from a section entitled Even Bohan, are explicitly Christian, as they cite Jesus and Paul, and this is no doubt why they were removed. In what looks like a defense ofEven Bohan, Lichtenstein, Derekh ha-Kodesh, p. 83 in the note, states that this section was written for Christians and Muslims and deals with the Noahide laws. This is, of course, not believable, as Christians and Muslims would not be reading his Hebrew work. [17] Deinard, Zikhronot Bat Ami, vol. 2, p. 137, claims that it was actually printed in Eastern Europe, but R. Mazin in London bought the entire printing and put a new title page on the book. [18] The title “Seven Wisdoms” is strange as it is really not relevant to the subject of the book. Regarding the “Seven Wisdoms,” see Harry Austryn Wolfson, Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion (Cambridge, MA, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 507ff. Abarbanel, Commentary to Exodus, ch. 25, p. 253, writes:

שבעת הנרות שבמנורה רומזים אל שבע החכמות שכלם ימצאו בתורת הא- להים

[19] In my post here, I briefly discussed the apostate Paul Levertoff. I neglected to mention that before he converted, Levertoff, whose Jewish first name was Feivel, was one of the future historian Ben Zion Dinur’s teachers in heder. See Dinur, Be-Olam she-Shaka (Jerusalem, 1958), p. 26. [20] This library has a number of heretical books, and R. Joseph Isaac Schneersohn’s earlier collection also contained books of this sort. R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson stated:

When I came to Leningrad, I was surprised to find various [anti-religious] books in my father-in-law’s library. . . . The reason, obviously, was . . . the library attracted non- religious Jews, and even Gentiles. In the meantime, they saw what Lubavitch was and that it shares knowledge, and were drawn to it as a result. This created the opportunity to speak with non-Jews about justice, honesty, and humanity, the Seven Noahide Laws, etc. The benefit was quite evident. On another occasion, the Rebbe explained that his father-in- law needed such books, for “such things are also necessary for good purposes, as the Mishnah [Avot 2:14] states, ‘Know what to answer a heretic.’” Both of these passages appear in R. Baruch Oberlander’s and R. Elchanan Shmotkin’s beautifully produced work on the Rebbe, Early Years (Brooklyn, 2016), pp. 167, 168.

Ephraim Deinard, Zikhronot Bat Ami, vol. 2, p. 7, reports, as an eye-witness, that R. Shmuel Schneersohn read Haskalah works before he became rebbe of Lubavitch. It is hard to know whether Deinard is to be regarded as reliable in this matter as his antipathy to Chabad is apparent throughout his writings. See especially ibid., p. 16, where among other things he states:

החסידים היותר רעים ומסוכנים לתורת ישראל, המה חסידי חב”ד.

Deinard even falsely claims, ibid., p. 8, that the responsa of R. Menahem Mendel Schneersohn, the Tzemah Tzedek, were really written by R. Hayyim Jacob Widerwitz. In Chabad texts, R. Widerwitz is referred to as the editor of the Tzemah Tzedek’s responsa. See R. Shalom Duber Levin, Toldot Habad be-Artzot ha-Berit (Brooklyn, 1988), p. 3. [21] “Heresy, Apostasy, and the Transformation of Joseph Rabinovich,” in Todd M. Endelman, ed., Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World (New York, 1987), p. 213. Contrary to what Zipperstein states, Sheva Hokhmot was published in 1883, and only in 1885 did Deinard denounce Lichtenstein. This information appears correctly in Zitron. [22] The book can be seen here, along with two other Christian works by Lichtenstein and an obituary of him. [23] See Zitron here. [24] For more on Lichtenstein, see Ephraim Deinard, Ha-Magid, April 9, 1885, p. 112; Isaac Jacob Weissberg, Ha-Melitz, May 11, 1885, pp. 515-516; Deinard, Ha-Melitz, May 29, 1885, cols. 580-581; S. Mandelkern, Ha-Magid, June 11, 1885, pp. 190-192. See also David Assaf, Hetzitz ve-Lo Nifga (Haifa, 2012), pp. 75-76. [25] Leḳsiḳon fun der Yidisher liṭeraṭur, prese un filologye (Vilna, 1927), vol. 2, cols. 151-154, available here. An abridged entry is found in the later edition of Reyzen’s lexicon, and you can see an English translation here. [26] I should note that not everything Bachi-Kolodny cites from Benzion Katz’s memoir, Zikhronot (Tel Aviv, 1963), actually appears there. She also writes: “Interior Minister Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve issued orders that a pogrom be carried out in Kishinev ‏(now Chisinau, Moldova‏) in April 1903, on Passover, to expedite the Jews’ exit.” This is incorrect, as no such orders were ever issued by the unquestionably anti-Semitic Plehve. See Steven J. Zipperstein, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History (New York, 2018), 94ff. [27] Be-Olam she-Shaka, p. 13. Incidentally, Dinur tells us, pp. 17-18, that in his Chabad home in Russia they drank milk that came from non-Jews, rather than halav yisrael. This is what he writes about his father, who was a real Torah scholar.

זכורני, פעם אחת בא הביתה ואמר לאמא: היתה לי היום עגמת נפש מזה שאת משתמשת בחלב של לא-יהודים. תמהה אמא ושאלה: מאין יודעים? אמר אבא: אני סיפרתי את הדבר. התפלאה אמא: מה ראית להודיע ברבים? אמר: פשוט, התקיפו בבית-המדרש את דוד המלמד, שהוא משתמש בחלב נכרים, והלבינו את פניו. קמתי ואמרתי: מה אתם רוצים ממנו, גם אצלי נוהגים כך! ך

This is significant testimony, as it is well known how seriously Chabad hasidim regard this matter. There is even a story about how a big scholar who came to R. Shneur Zalman of Lyady was suffering from religious doubts. R. Shneur Zalman recognized that these doubts came about because the man had inadvertently drunk non-halav Yisrael milk. See R. Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, Sefer ha-Ma’amarim 5701-5705 (Brooklyn, 2012), Hebrew version, pp. 76-77. [28] Deinard, Tzelem ba-Heikhal, p. 169. See also Deinard, Shibolim Bodedot (Jerusalem, 1915), pp. 58ff, for Deinard’s letter to Landau which among other things urges him to return to Judaism. See ibid., pp. 176-177, for Landau’s revealing letter to Deinard. As far as I know, neither of these letters have been mentioned by scholars who have discussed Landau. They are, however, mentionedhere .

Shimon Steinmetz called my attention to a memoir by another former Chabad hasid who became a missionary. See Elieser Bassin, The Modern Hebrew and the Hebrew Christian (London, 1882), available here. [29] A reproduction of the original publication fromHa- Zeman (July-Sep. 1904), is found in Michael Gluzan, Hannan Hever, and Dan Miron, Be-Ir ha-Haregah – Bikur Meuhar (Tel Aviv, 2005), pp. 158-168. [30] Songs from Bialik, translated by Atar Hadari (Syracuse, 2000), p. 5. [31] Zikhronot, ch. 37. [32] R. Aharon Rakeffet provides another picture from this particular visit of R. Ovadiah. See The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, vol. 2, in the pictures that begin after p. 135, available here. I thank R. Yissachar Dov Hoffman for providing this information as well. He also called my attention to the following additional picture of the Rav and R. Ovadiah from this visit, taken from here. Book announcement: Roots and Rituals: Insights into Hebrew, Holidays, and History by Mitchell First

Book announcement: Roots and Rituals: Insights into Hebrew, Holidays, and History

By Eliezer Brodt

The Seforim Blog is proud to announce the publication of our contributor Mitchell First’s newest bookRoots and Rituals: Insighats into Hebrew, Holidays, and History (Kodesh Press, 2018.)

Mitchell First’s 62 short articles address interesting questions about the Hebrew language, liturgy, Jewish history, the calendar and holidays. For example: On Jewish Liturgy: the origin of the Haftarah, the origin of the blessing “Who Has Not Made Me A Woman,” and the origin of our prayer for the government. On Jewish Holidays and Calendar: the origin of the count from creation, the meaning of Yom Teruah, the meaning of “Maccabee,” identifying Achashverosh and Esther in secular sources, and the original three questions in the Mah Nishtannah. On Hebrew Language: the origin of the words brit, boker, hefker, chalom, chatan, kesef, midbar, navi, olam, זכרshe’ol, and seraphim. Also, is there a connection between meaning “memory”? Is there a connection זכר meaning “male” and ?מלחמה and לחם between

He also has articles on words that appear only once in Tanakh, biblical words of Egyptian origin, wordplay in Tanakh, and interesting words in the daily Amidah.

This book also includes two longer articles: “The Meaning of which appeared on the Seforim) ”( )התפלל the Word Hitpallel A Flood of :מבולBlog here) and “The Root of the Word Possibilities (which appeared on the Seforim Bloghere ).” The book can be ordered here.

For some reviews of the book see here, here and here.

Here are the Table of Contents:

Response to the Recent Discussion Relating to the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy

Response to the Recent Discussion Relating to the Emden- Eibeschuetz Controversy

By Shnayer Z. Leiman

Whatever else the world may require, it certainly doesn’t need more bans emanating from the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy. No one is insulted and no apologies are necessary.

איזהו חכם – All sober comments and criticisms are most welcome -I try to learn from everyone. I’m also a card .הלומד מכל אדם ,and I am a teacher ,כל אדםcarrying member of the class of and pray that – at least on occasion – the passage in Pirkei Avos licenses others to learn from me.

Time constraints, and lack of knowledge on my part, make it impossible for me to respond to all the comments, which for the most part addressed everything except the specific focus and his alleged blindness during פני יהושעof my essay: the the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy.

In general, scholars and amateurs have written extensively on R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz and R. Jacob Emden, often without having read all, or even most, of their works. It is commonplace to write on R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz, with great אוריםconfidence, without having read a single word of his Indeed, some of the scholars who have .כרתי ופלתי or ותומים written much about him, were – and are– not capable of Similarly, everyone feels .חידושי תורהreading a word of his free to comment on R. Jacob Emden, never having read a word of ,ספר התאבקות or ,בית יהונתן הסופר or ,ויקם עדות ביעקב his Such selective reading of the primary sources can .מגלת ספר or only lead to a one-dimensional and skewed view of history.

I shall respond directly to only one of the comments. After citing a line from the opening of the essay (which reads: “Emden…surely felt that he should have been appointed to succeed them [i.e., his father and grandfather (szl)] in the rabbinate…”), the commentator raises the following question: “Are we talking about the same R. Yaakov Emden who writes in ”?שלא עשני אב“ד several places of his gratitude to Hashem

Citing a famous passage from the writings of R. Yaakov Emden, the commentator feels comfortable that he has captured Emden’s true feelings about the subject and nothing more needs to be, or can be, said. Unfortunately, the commentator chose not to mention the following: of Emden (אב בית דין) R. Yaakov Emden served as Chief Rabbi .1 from 1728 to 1733. One wonders if he recited the blessing on the day he was informed of, and accepted, his appointment as Chief Rabbi?

2. R. Yaakov Emden was one of the 7 finalists among the many candidates who applied to succeed R. Yechezkel Katznellenbogen (d. 1749) as Chief Rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, Wandsbeck. The finalists who lost were: R. Aryeh Leib b. R. Saul, Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam; R. David Frankel, Chief Rabbi of Berlin; R. David Strauss, Chief Rabbi of Fürth; R. Samuel Helman Heilprin, Chief Rabbi of Mannheim; R. Moshe Segal Polak, Chief Rabbi of Mainz; and R. Yaakov Emden of Altona. The finalist ,Zinzגדולת who won was R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz. See .Piotrkow-Warsaw, 1930), vol. 1, p. 28) יהונתן

3. Addressing the propriety of R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz’ acceptance of the offer to become Chief Rabbi of Altona, בית Hamburg, and Wandsbeck, R. Yaakov Emden had this to say in .Altona, 1763), p. 7a [authored entirely by R) יהונתן הסופר Yaakov Emden, who, as in several volumes authored by him, created an imaginary narrator who speaks in the third person about him]:

ואולם חי אני כי גם מזה אות ומופת על מיעוט יראתו של המי“ן הלז, כי אם היה לו רק איזה רושם של יראת שמים, וכבוד ת“ח, היה לו למנוע מזה, ואפילו אם היו מבקשים אותו ומחלים פניו להיות לרב בג“ק, היה מחויב לסרב מפני כבוד מ“ו .שהוא שוכן שם, ושמו הטוב ומעשיו נודעים בשערים, ויש לו חזקת אבות שלשה דורות, ומובטח שלא תופסק תורה מזרעו

4. Addressing why he was removed from the list of candidates (who would succeed R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz as Chief Rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck) in 1765, R. Yaakov Emden :Warsaw,1897), p. 209) מגלת ספר writes in

שנת תקכ”ה] בשבט התועדו ג”ק על אודות מינוי רב חדש, והיו רבים חפצים להשיבני לנחלת אבותי, וכשעמדו למנין לעשות רשימה מהראוים לאצטלא זו, נעשית מריבה ביניהם על אודותי, וכמעט היה הרוב על צדי, וכך היה בודאי אם היו עושים דבר זה בגלוי, לא היה אדם אחר עולה להתמנות רב בג”ק בפעם הזאת. אכן .התחכמו שלשה מאויבי [פושעי ישראל]…ועשו כן והצליח בידם מה שרצו לסלקני מן מנין הראוים

5. Among the many historians who state specifically that R. Yaakov Emden felt strongly that he should have been appointed to succeed his ancestors as Chief Rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, אבל מתחילה חרה לו ) מאדand Wandsbeck are Yechezkel Duckesz and David (וקנאה ושנאה בוערת בו על שלא בחרו אותו הג“ק לאב“ד גם מספריו נראה שחרה לו על רבינו [ר‘ יהונתן] שישב על) Leib Zinz Both were כסא.( הרבנותק דג“המגיע לו מנחלת אבות a of theמוסמך Duckesz was .תלמידי חכמים distinguished Pressburg Yeshiva and spent 50 years as rabbi of the “Kloiz” in Altona. Zinz was a Galitzianer (חכם צבי founded by the) whose biographies of R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz, R. Jacob Joshua Falk, and R. Nesanel Weil are frequently reprinted. For the Hamburg, 1908), p. 56; for the) חכמי אה“ו Duckesz passage, see .Piotrkow-Warsaw, 1930), vol) גדולת יהונתן Zinz passage, see 1, p. 29.

In sum, the commentator is free to explain away all this evidence (and there is more), dismiss it as irrelevant, and claim that the blessing recited every day by R. Yaakov Emden captures the essence of his belief and – שלא עשני אב“ד – practice throughout his life. What he cannot do is claim that anyone who reads this material differently than he does is creating a second R. Yaakov Emden. There was only one R. Yaakov Emden, and he was far more complex and sophisticated than the commentator makes him out to be.

The Alleged Blindness of R. Jacob Joshua Falk During the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy

The Alleged Blindness of R. Jacob Joshua Falk During the Emden- Eibeschuetz Controversy by Shnayer Z. Leiman

R. Jacob Emden’s animosity toward R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz throughout the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy could easily be explained away on grounds that are not necessarily bound up with an accusation of heresy. Emden, who proudly depicted himself as “a zealot the son of a zealot,” would hardly pass for Mister Nice Guy. In his autobiography, and certainly in his polemical works, Emden often emerges as a misanthropic, tempestuous, cantankerous, chronically-ill, and incessantly whining social misfit and rabbinic genius who did not suffer either fools or rabbinic scholars gladly. Indeed, he hardly had a kind word to say about most of the rabbis who succeeded his father, R. Zvi Ashkenazi, as Chief Rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck, and served during his (Emden’s) lifetime. Emden, whose father and grandfather had served as Chief Rabbis of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck surely felt that he should have been appointed to succeed them in the rabbinate. That he (Emden) had to live in Altona for some 15 years (1750-1764) as a lay Jew in the shadow of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz was simply more than he could bear. And the two rabbis lived virtually around the corner from each other in Altona, then a bedroom community for some 200 Jewish families living outside of Hamburg. Not surprisingly, a long list of historians and apologists would suggest that it was jealousy more than heresy that motivated and drove Emden’s animosity toward Eibeschuetz.[1]

It is far more difficult to explain away R. Jacob Joshua Falk’s animosity toward R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz on grounds other than the accusation of heresy. It is called “the Emden-Eibeschuetz” controversy, and rightly so, for those two rabbis initiated the controversy in 1751, would continue the struggle against each other through 1764 (when Eibeschuetz died), and Emden would continue to denigrate Eibeschuetz’ memory for as long as he lived, i.e., until 1776. But during the key early years of the controversy, from 1751 until 1756, the campaign against Eibeschuetz was directed primarily by R. Jacob Joshua Falk, then serving as Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt am Main, and who had formerly served with distinction as Chief Rabbi of certainly ,גדול הדור Lvov, Berlin, and Metz. He was arguably the and virtually everyone agreed that no other rabbi in the ,זקן הדור the mid-18th century was in a better position to resolve the controversy. He was even-handed, had no axe to grind, and was unrelated to either the first) פני יהושע Emden or Eibeschuetz. Author of the classic work volume appeared in print in Amsterdam, 1739), no one could question either his learning or integrity. In a battle of titans – now Rabbis Falk and Eibeschuetz – that escalated over a five year period, Falk ultimately called for Eibeschuetz to be defrocked. He placed Eibeschuetz under the ban, specifically ruling that he could no longer function as a rabbi, teacher, or preacher either in Altona or anywhere else, until such time that he would appear before a Jewish court of law and his case would be adjudicated . That, of course, never happened. As indicated, defenders of Eibeschuetz could not easily account for Falk’s seemingly acrimonious stance in the Emden- Eibeschuetz controversy.[2]

A possible early mention of Falk’s suffering from blindness appears in an undated letter by R. Nathan Nota Eibeschuetz (circa 1732-1789), son of R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz. The letter was addressed to a rabbinic colleague, an ardent supporter of R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz, and was published surreptitiously by Emden in 1755, during Falk’s lifetime.[3] In it, Nathan Nota Eibeschuetz notes in a postscript that reports have just reached him from a variety of informants that Falk’s [second] wife had died suddenly in Mannheim. Her sudden death had an immediate traumatic effect on Falk, who was overcome with mental confusion and physical pain. Specifically, Eibeschuetz states that Falk “now walks lonely and desolate, depleted of strength, and is no longer able to see.”[4] Although the letter is undated, we know precisely that Falk’s [second] wife died on Monday, October 18, 1751(=

29 Tishre 5512).[5] The letter could only have been written shortly after the event it describes.

It is difficult to assess how much credibility is to be given to such a report. The author of the letter was not an eyewitness to the event he describes. Moreover, he personally viewed Falk as the “enemy,” and could only take delight in describing his mental and physical breakdown.[6] In any event, we know that some four months later Falk obviously recovered, for he remarried on Shushan Purim in 1752,[7] and clearly regained his eyesight (as we will prove below), even if he had lost it temporarily. Doubtless, this report, published in 1755, played a significant role in influencing the later accounts that had much to say about Falk’s blindness during the Emden- Eibeschuetz controversy.

In the 19th century, reports appeared in print that Falk suffered from blindness toward the end of his life. Even if we assume that these reports are accurate accounts of Falk’s state of health in 1756, they speak only of blindness during the last months, weeks, or days of his life.[8] By the 20th century, apologists broadened the period of Falk’s blindness to the entire span of his involvement in the Emden- Eibeschuetz controversy, from 1751 to 1756.[9] Thus, it was claimed that Falk never saw any of the amulets ascribed to Eibeschuetz and never read any of the polemical works published by the Emden forces between 1751 and 1756. He heard only oral reports, and based his rulings upon the misinformation that he was fed. It follows, then, that Falk’s stance in the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy cannot be used as evidence against the integrity of Eibeschuetz. In the 21st century, more radical apologists would claim that all the letters and broadsides allegedly signed and published by Falk were in fact forged by the anti-Eibeschuetz forces.[10]

Here, we shall attempt to set the record straight. It would seem from a variety of sources that Falk could see perfectly well during the key years of the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy. He had no problem reading texts as late as August of 1755, when – some 5 months before he died – he published the very last text he would contribute to the literature of the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy. What follows is a summary list of some key sources, and their dates.

R. Hayyim) חיד”א Wednesday, August 7, 1754 (=19 Av, 5514). The .1 Yosef David Azulai, 1724-1806) met with Falk in Worms. An impostor was s fundraising efforts on behalf of the’חיד”א bankrupting the Jewish community of Hebron. The impostor came with forged papers, claiming he was the true emissary of Hebron. He would reach each town arrived, collect the funds, and חיד”א and city in Europe before the s written’חיד”א s rescue by comparing’חיד”א abscond. Falk came to the credentials against his own collection of rabbinic signatures, and as ”.וירא כי החתימות דידי ודידיה היו לאחדים“ ,diary חיד”א recorded in Falk saw that the signatures on both sets of documents were exactly to be the only authorized emissary from חיד”א the same, and declared Hebron.[11] See here: 2. Monday, April 14, 1755 (=3 Iyar 5515). Falk wrote a letter on behalf of Simon von Geldern (1720-1788), then an itinerant yeshiva student. Falk writes:

“The signature of the Chief Rabbi of Pressburg [on the letter you showed me] is well known to me, and I recognize it at sight. Since he praises you in his letter… I too agree to write a letter on your behalf.”[12] See here:

3. Monday, August 18,1755 (11 Elul, 5515). Falk wrote his final letter of approbation for authors of rabbinic works. He wrote 42 altogether. ספר המצות עם פירוש מרגניתא ’to R. Aryeh Leib Horowitz הסכמה See his Frankfurt, 1756). Falk writes that a copy of R. Aryeh) טבא .(.was placed before his eyes (italics mine, s.z.l מרגניתא טבא Leib’s He examined it two or three times and saw that the comments were wise and true, and agreed to write a letter of approval.[13] See here. 4. Friday, August 29, 1755 (= 22 Elul 5515). In a broadside -Falk published his final salvo in the Emden , חרבות צורים entitled Eibeschuetz controversy.[14] Some 8 weeks earlier, Eibeschuetz had Altona, 1755), his first published book, and the) לוחת עדות published only one which was devoted to a vigorous denial of the charges made against him that he was a closet Sabbatean. In the book, he addressed the amulets that had been ascribed to him, and called to the stand an impressive list of witnesses for the defense, including many of the leading rabbis in Lithuania, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Germany, Italy, Turkey and elsewhere, all of whom attested to his innocence of the was the first חרבות צורים charges levelled against him. Falk’s .and a devastating one at that ,לוחת עדות published book review of

For our purposes, what is significant is that Falk indicates that he read the book upon publication, and indeed cites chapter and verse with precision. He even notes that he compared the printed version of a personal letter that Eibeschuetz had addressed to (לוחת עדות in) him in 1754, to the original copy still in his possession, and noticed subtle, if only minor, differences. Apparently, Falk could see quite well, as late as August 29, 1755, when the broadside was penned by him.[15] He died some 5 months later on January 16, 1756 (= 14 Shevat

5516). See here.

In sum, R. Jacob Joshua Falk was not blind during the key years that he participated in the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy. He may well have suffered from blindness toward the end of his life. If so, this is likely to have occurred sometime after he wrote his final salvo in the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy on August 29, 1755.[16]

Notes

[1] For a scathing rabbinic critique of Emden’s character, and for samples of the negative impact of his character on his writings, see .n. 5-6, pp ,דגלנו in 1922 2 ”לכותבי הסתוריא“ ,R. Meir Dan Plotzki 108-110, and n. 10-11, pp. 191-194; and 3(1923), n. 12, pp. 230-233. For a typical historian and apologist who explains away Emden’s חכמי ,animosity as being grounded largely in jealousy, see E. Duckesz Hamburg, 1908), pp. 55-63. A wide variety of other motivations) אה”ו for Emden’s animosity have been suggested, including economic factors (see, e.g., M.J. Cohen,Jacob Emden: A Man of Controversy ,Philadelphia, 1937); halakhic issues (see, e.g., Rabbi R. , סיבת התנגדותו של רבינו יעקב מעמדין לרבינו יהונתן אייבשיץ ,Margulies Tel-Aviv, 1941); and kabbalistic speculation (see, e.g., Rabbi Y.Y. ,first published in Lemberg, 1858] Jerusalem] נציב מצותיך ,Safrin ,קונטרוס שמרו משפט תנינא ,p. 117, and Rabbi A.Y. Schlesinger ,1983 Jerusalem, 1914, p. 72a). [2] On Falk’s role in the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy, see S.Z. Leiman, “When a Rabbi is Accused of Heresy: The Stance of Rabbi Jacob Joshua Falk in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy,” in D. Frank and M. Goldish, eds., Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics (Detroit, 2008), pp. 435-456. Altona, 1755), pp. 79a-80a (the pagination) ויקם עדות ביעקב ,Emden [3] mistakenly reads: pp. 59a-60a). אף גם הוא כעת הולך ערירי וכוחו סר :Ibid., p. 80. The Hebrew reads [4] .ואור עינו אין אתו

.is less than certain אור עינו אין אתו The plain sense of the phrase Although some are inclined to render it figuratively, e.g, “his eyes lost their sparkle,” in rabbinic literature it is often rendered literally and refers to loss of sight.

,(my eyes lit up) ארו עיני For the figurative sense, see 1 Sam 14:29 ,(my eyes have lost their luster) ואור עיני גם הם אין אתי Psalm 38:17 and cf. M. Yoma 8:6. The figurative sense, then, refers clearly to the restoration or loss of physical and mental well-being. For the sense עין ,loss of sight,” see, e.g., R. Yosef b. Eliyahu Hazzan“ ,Altona) חלי כתם ,Smyrna, 1675), introduction; R. Jacob Emden) יוסף ,(Altona, 1826) אהל יששכר ,p. 22b; R. Yissachar Lichtenstein ,(1775 letter of approbation by R. Michael May of Breslau; R. Abraham Ha- Lvov, 1837), letter of approbation by R. Yaakov) אברהם זכרון ,Levi פארי חכמי ,Orenstein; and R. Yekutiel Yehudah Greenwald (Sighet, 1910), p. 38, entry 13. In these (and in other) מדינתינו is often used אור עינו אין אתו rabbinic passages, the phrase סגי נהור. and ,עיוור, סומא interchangeably with the terms Bilgoraj, 1936), p. 19. Her tombstone) עטרת יהושע ,See D.A.L. Zinz [[5 – moved from the old to the new Jewish cemetery – is preserved to this very day in Mannheim’s New Jewish Cemetery. [6] Nathan Nota Eibeschuetz adds in the postscript that “starting at her funeral, Falk proclaimed that his punishment was due to his opposition to my [i.e., Nathan Nota Eibeschuetz’] Master, Teacher, and Rabbi, my father the Gaon [Jonathan Eibeschuetz]. [7] Zinz, loc. cit. [8] See G. Klemperer, “Rabbi Jonathan Eibenschütz,” in Pascheles’ Sippurim 4(1856), pp. 284-5 [also published as a monograph entitled Rabbi Jonathan Eibenschütz (Prague, 1858), pp. 76-77]. Cf. Y. ,Lyck) אנשי שם in his ”תולדות רבי יהונתן אייבענשיטץ“ ,Gastfreund 1879), p.17, note. None of these sources provide any detail about a progression from partial to total blindness; they simply assume that at some point toward the end of his life Falk suffered from total blindness. .Piotrkow, 1931), p) קונטרס דרך חיים ,See, e.g., H.Y.N. Silberberg [9] 81. יערות דבש השלם in ”הקדמת המו”ל“ ,See, e.g., Y.Y. Vidovsky [10] Jerusalem, 2000), vol.1, p. 45, n. 95, whose claims are based) המנוקד upon an egregious misreading of the evidence he presents. Falk’s יחסה של ההיסטוריוגרפיה“ apologists are not discussed in Y. Barnai’s ,(Jerusalem, 2000) שבתאות: היבטים חברתיים in his ”האורטודוקסית לשבתאות pp.120-141. .Jerusalem, 1934), p. 23) מעגל טוב השלם ,H.Y.D. Azulai [11] .Amsterdam, 1760), p. 4b) כתבי קודש ומליצות ,Simon von Geldern [12] ,Frankfurt) ספר המצות עם פירוש מרגניתא טבא ,A.L. Horowitz [13] :printed immediately following the title page (courtesy הסכמה ,(1756 of Falk’s son on the same הסכמה HebrewBooks.org). See, however, the was dictated by הסכמה page, which raises the possibility that Falk’s him and recorded by his son. Even so, I don’t think this changes the הסכמה. basic facts recorded in Falk’s seems to have survived the חרבות צורים Only one copy of [[14 vicissitudes of time. It is preserved in a private collection, and the owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, has graciously allowed me to publish the full text anew. I plan to do so in the near future. Here I post a scan only of the opening lines and paragraph, which are relevant to the discussion at hand. לוחת It is possible to claim that Falk was already blind when [15] was published on June 27, 1755. When a copy reached Falk in עדות Frankfurt, it was read to him by an amanuensis, who also recorded Falk’s response as it was dictated to him. The response was then ,Such a claim .חרבות צורים published in the broadside entitled however, is meaningless in terms of apologetics, whose ultimate goal is to dismiss Falk’s testimony as uninformed and meaningless. By June 1755, Falk’s role in the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy was basically over. It’s everything he said, wrote, and did before June 1755 –when he certainly could see and read – that established his unique and unequivocal stance in the controversy. Moreover, specifically with every criticism of Eibeschuetz by Falk is ,חרבות צורים regard to Every .לוחת עדות referenced with precision to the appropriate page in criticism is clever, incisive, and right on target – as one would expect from a tried and tested Sabbatean-buster like Falk. None of the criticisms could be dismissed as the uninformed and meaningless testimony of a blind man who could not read and understand the text לוחת עדות. of 16]] Anecdotal evidence (that can neither be authenticated nor dated with precision) preserves a tradition that Falk wore reading glasses in Lvov. If true, it surely suggests that he was able to see at that early stage in his life (and needed glasses only for reading). Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever claimed otherwise. See Zinz, op. cit., pp. 95-6. Elsewhere in the same volume (on p. 25), Zinz writes specifically – without adducing any evidence – that Falk “was blind for several months prior to his death.” This is perfectly consistent with our conclusion