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An Argument from Silence Is No Argument

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An Argument from Silence Is No Argument temporal standards we so arrogantly establish — listened to. For this inner suffering goes beyond the arrogantly, because we think that what we feel is vulgar Nixomanic type of "it's good for the Jews" wrong and right is ipso facto wrong and right. We now afflicting us. It is perhaps a reflection of an apply few standards, tests, measuring rods to our intuition, an echo of an echo, a hint that we who live ethics, save the spirit or ethos of the times in which in a land of freedom are nevertheless ingalut (exile), we happen to live, or certain nice sentiments or temporary sojourners who must pause before singing instincts of our own. But ethics have halakhic norms the song of God in a strange land. They know, as and framework, and this is what the gedolim know. Wyschogrod says, more than they say. They may know that we are in galut, while their critics may A Gadol is not simply one who has studied much and think that we live in freedom. become expert in Torah and Talmud and halakha. A Gadol is not elected to leadership; no one speaks Because of all this it might be circumspect to give for his candidacy; he has no P.R. apparatus to enhance their public silence a hearing before using pejoratives his image. He is acknowledged by a sure and subtle like "insensitive" and "indifferent." They are, after process which knows its leaders and places them in all, more than any of us the dim echoes of our the forefront of a generation, often against the will of ancient tradition, the faint hint of our eternity. the Gadol himself. The genius of k 'lal Yisroel has And they have been so often right. They have always been able to distinguish between a true Gadol implanted, against all logic, Torah in North America. and an ordinary scholar. The Gadol not only knows Before castigating the bearers of halakhah for their Torah; his life is Torah, his every word is Torah, and lack of compassion, let us wait, each in his own way, in a very real sense he is the repository of Torah on for all the precincts to be heard from — lest history earth. And what sets a Gadol apart is not merely his refer to some of us as cruel, indifferent and insensitive piety, saintliness, integrity, and scholarship. Rather, to our present condition. it is his perception, his ability to penetrate beneath the surface, his capacity for the intuitive flash which discovers reality not as it appears to be but as it is: reality in the light of Torah. The Gadol pierces the An argument from silence is no argument veil which obliterates reality and thus makes manifest Henry Siegman to us the way of Torah and halakhah and, ultimately, the way of God. The several writers who take issue with me (Sh'ma That such men are mortal and subject to human 2/36, 2/40, 3/41) base their objections on essentially error no one denies: they do not claim infallibility; three grounds: but that such men can be indifferent to suffering 1) Jews have no responsibility for what happens in or desensitized to the pain of others is preposterous history. Their responsibility is to study Torah and because of the highly tuned instruments which are their mind and heart. Do Siegman and Golub really to raise new generations of Jews. think that only they feel the pain of napalm? Or do 2) Communism is the arch foe of Judaism. It must be they equate compassion with ringing peace pro- opposed and destroyed wherever it rears its head. nouncements in The N.Y. Times? They tend to overlook the compassion of saba yisroel (grandfather 3) The historic memory of Orthodox Jewish leaders Israel) to which the gedolim more than others are prevents them from challenging political authority. attuned — and which knows compassion and suffering They know that we still live in galut. from millenia of familiarity with these twins. Jewish activism is not the issue An intuitive knowledge not to be questioned To begin with the last point, Norman Frimer and And perhaps they know that there is a compassion others argue that the problem is not one of ethical which supersedes all compassion: the compassion insensitivity but of a historically conditioned mistrust towards the Jewish people, through whose life man- of the nations. Similarly, Abraham Besdin writes kind lives — in whose merit mankind exists — through (Sh'ma 3/41): "Our gedolim may be more sensitive to whose being mankind is able to perceive God as the basic insecurity which has always characterized through a glass darkly. And if this compassion for Jewish life in the galut." their own people causes them to resist the temptation I have not doubt that this is an accurate description of to flay the government under whose dominion they how Orthodox leaders generally view chesed leumim live, then perhaps this silent suffering should be (kindness of the nations) — even in the freest of 12 societies. Moreover, I believe they are far more right take strong exception to the classical Weltanschauung than they are wrong in their assessment, although I of the £oZws-minded regarding the gentile world . would insist that there are times when risks must be but that has little to do with primary ethical sensiti- j taken. But this misses the central point, since in my vity," writes Frimer. But my point is exactly the article (Sh'ma 2/36) I did not argue for Orthodox reverse. My argument is not with the classical activism. Indeed, I did not even maintain that there skepticism of the Orthodox when it comes to the is only one moral position regarding Vietnam. I presumed humanitarianism of even the most liberal stated explicitly that "I do not for a moment assume movements. After Auschwitz, only a fool would • that someone who supports President Nixon in South challenge that skepticism. My argument has every- Vietnam is less moral than one who opposes him . thing to do with "primary moral sensitivity." there are morally sensitive people who are convinced Are we merciful or not? that U.S. actions in Southeast Asia are preventing a The strangest position of all is that of Michael far greater evil and far greater suffering." Wyschogrod, who argues that the Jewish people I indicated that the problem with Orthodox leader- are the most compassionate of all people, for Torah ship is that it has given no evidence of working preeminently makes for the development of through the moral issues involved, and that for most ethical sensitivities (Sh'ma 2/36). The only reason of them, "their support of President Nixon's policy is one does not in fact see evidence of this, says ' based solely on the calculation of the advantages of Wyschogrod, is because this same Torah also forbids . this support for Jewish interests; what happens to the us from expressing this compassion, because ulti- Vietnamese never even enters into the moral mately it is only Jewish survival that redeems man- i equation." kind. To invoke the dangers of Jewish activism is to avoid It seems to me that it is patently absurd to suggest the issue. I do not know of a single yeshiva in which that a discipline which obliges its followers to Tehilim (Psalms) were recited for the victims of suppress their natural rachamanut (mercy) — a American bombings. I do not know of one rosh proposition which I do not for a moment accept) yeshiva who told his students that although one may — has nevertheless produced a people who are the not demonstrate publicly, one is obliged to cry for world's greatest rachamanim (merciful ones). If these tragic victims in the privacy of one's room. The the hallmark of J ewishness is rachamanut, it is surely sad fact is that these victims simply do not exist in so because throughout Jewish history Jews practised the consciousness of our roshei yeshiva. Their compassion, and not because they suppressed it. suffering does not seem to matter, and that is the More importantly, 1 reject Wyschogrod's conception heart of the dilemma. of Judaism as historically neutral — "the time of unredeemed history is simply not the time of Frimer writes that he welcomes the public debate Israel." I agree with Berkovits (Sh'ma 3/41) that this generated by my article as long overdue. "Let one is an accurate description of a certain stage of Christian development, but hardly of Judaism. NIPXT -ro you the y Roshei yeshiva: a respectful realism call A TZATMttl Wyschogrod informs us that "it is not permitted \ to love suffering humanity more than Rabbi Moshe Feinstein does, or Rabbi Kaminetsky, or the Lubavitcher Rebbe." These Orthodox leaders, according to Wyschogrod,"know more than they say. Without intending to be cither polemical or dis- respectful, I must say that we have no reason to assume that the roshei yeshiva know more than they say. 1 am a product of the vt'shivot, and it has been my experience that many roshei yeshiva tend to be naive and uninformed, not only about worldly matters, but even about Jewish concerns. It does no service to truth or to faith to pretend otherwise. utl> the yeshiva I attended, both secular and religious x vitve*. c° Zionist leaders were regularly referred to with the epithet yimach shemam vezichram (may their name ha ME! and memory be blotted out). Their struggle for the i establishment of the State of Israel was seen by many roshei yeshiva as the work of the devil.) That Wyschogrod dares to love general culture more than the roshei yeshiva do; that he chose to acquire a university education, and to teach what the roshei yeshiva consider to be the most dangerous kind of apikursus (heresy) to other Jewish students indicates that even he does not believe that the roshei yeshiva know more than they say.
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