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The)ournalo/)ewish Thought and Philosophy, Vol. 7, pp, \01-138 © 1997 Reprints available directly from the publisher Photocopying permitted by licence only

A Musar Response to : Yehezkel Sarna'sLe'teshuva Ule'tekuma of 4 December 1944*

Gershon Greenberg Department of Philosophy and Religion, The American University, Washington, D.C. 20016, USA

The Scene

Wartime Musar thinkers constituted a distinctive reaction to the Holocaust - separate even from the Agudat rabbinical or- ganization with which many of them associated themselves. Eliezer Schweid's analysis of the thought of Eliahu Dessler (1891-1954) in England and Marc Shapiro's ofYehiel Weinberg (1885-1966) have pioneered research in the area.1 Here I will focus on the

* I am grateful to the staffs of the Maimon Library, Mosad Ha'rav Kook; the Hebraica Section, Library of Congress; and to Naomi Altmann of Haifa University Library for providing materials. The students of my 1994 graduate seminar i,n historiosophy and Holocaust in the Department at University, and of Dalia Ofer's 1994 graduate seminar on the Yishuv and the Holocaust at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University, as well as the respondents at the Christian Scholars Group Colloquium at St. Paul's College of Catholic University (October 1994), all provided important insights. Haggai Dagan of the Tel Aviv University Depart- ment of Jewish Philosophy provided explanations of parts of Sarna's text, and Haim Weiser identified several rabbinic sources. Research support was provided by the Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar Han University. 1 See Eliezer Schweid, "Hatsdakat Ha'elohim Be'torat Ha'musar shel R. Eliahu Dessler", Ben Hurban Le'yeshua: Teguvot she! Hagut Haredit Le'shoa Be'ze- mana (Tel Aviv: Ha'kibuts Hame'uhad, 1994), pp. 155-192 and "An Ethical- Theological Response to the Holocaust as it was Evolving," Henoch 17 (1995),

101 102 Gershon Greenberg movement in the , as centered around the address of Yehezkel Sarna (1889-1969) on 4 December 1944.2 By bringing this material to light, I hope that others will follow with studies into other wartime Musar developments and the relationship of wartime thought to earlier Musar ideology. On 8 November 1944, Musar dignitaries met in to plan a response to the Nazi murder of , who died in sanctification of God's name (at Kiddush Hashem), and to the destruction of centers. The meeting included Isser Zalman Meltser (1870-1953), Head of Ets Hayim in Jerusalem since 1924; Eliezer Yehuda Finkel (1877/78-1965), son of the Slobodka Yeshiva founder (in 1882) Natan Tsevi Finkel ("Saba of Slobodka", 1849-1927) and Head of in Jerusalem; Yitshak Eysig Sher (1880/81-1952), Head of Keneset Israel- Slobodka Yeshiva in Bene Berak and Sarna, disciple of N atan Tsevi Finkel and successor to Moshe Mordekhai Epstein (1866- 1933) as Head of Keneset Israel-Slobodka (Hevron) Yeshiva in Jerusalem. 3 They issued a statement, that since the 70 AD Temple destruc- tion no such shocking disaster, of such satanic machination, had taken place - including the Crusades of 1096 and the Chmielnitsky pogroms of 1648/49. Jews were left paralyzed, and response

pp. 171-196. Marc B. Shapiro, "Between East and West: The Life and Works of Yehiel Weinberg" (Harvard University, Ph.D dissertation, 1995). 2 Shraga Firstman, "Ha'hashkafa Ha'yeshivatit: De'otehem U'tegu- votehem al Ha'sovev Ume'orot Ha'yamin shel Ishe Ha'yeshivot Halita' iyot- Musarniot Ba'arets, Shanim 1925-1972" (Haifa University, MA thesis, 1974) provides a comprehensive description of wartime Musar activity and thought in . I am indebted to Tamar Ross for leading me to this study. 3 On Sarna see Ya'akov Hayim Sarna, "Hakarat Tova", in Zikaron Keneset Yehezkel Le'rabenu Ha'gadol Ha'gaon He'adir Maran Rabi Yehezkel Sarna Ztsvek"l: She'shemesh Ke'rosh Ha'yeshiva De'yeshivat Hevron Keneset Israel, Karov Le'yuval Shanim, Niftar Le'bet Olamo 15 August 1969, ed. Y. Goldschmidt and N. Zikhovski (Bene Berak: Hit'ahdut Hanikhe Yeshivat Hevron, 1970/71), pp. 197-201. Cf. Ahar He'asef Me'asef Zikhron Le'rabi Yehezkel Sarna (Jerusalem: Ha'sekhel, 1970/71). Of his relationship to Natan Tsevi Finkel, Sarna wrote: Everything is from him. Without him, I would have been blind and deaf. Solely because of him was I worthy, with God's help, for my eyes to be opened a little, and for my ears to be opened a little. Sarna, "Ha'iyunim", in Hayim Luzzatto, Mesilat Yesharim (Jerusalem: Ha'sekhel, 1956/57), p. 13n.