SHEVAT 5730 /JANUARY 1970 VOLUME VI, NUMBER 5 THE EWISH FIFTY CENTS

Graphic by Siegmund Forst Questions ... Questions ... And No Answers THE JEWISH QBSERVER

In this issue ...

QuEsTioNs ... QuESTIONs ... AND No ANSWERS, Siegmund Forst ...... 3

THE EDITOR TAKES LEAVE ...... 11

THE JEWISH OBSERVER is published EXPERIENCING ERETZ YrsROH, Yaakov Jacobs ...... 13 monthly, except July and Aug~st, by the Agudath Israel of Amenc:i, 5 Beekman Street, New York, New York 10038. Second class THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN AGUDAH IDEOLOGY AND postage paid at New York, N. Y. Subscription: $5.00 per year; Two AMERICAN REALITY, A SYMPOSIUM: years, $8.50; Three years, $12.00; outside of the United States, $6.00 per year. Single copy, fifty cents. INTRODUCTION, Leo Levi ...... 17 Printed in the U.S.A. THE THEME IN PERSPECTIVE, Yaakov Weinberg...... 18 RABBI YAAKOV JACOBS Editor THE NEXT STAGE, Nathan Bulman ...... 21 Editorial Board DR. ERNEST L. BODENHEIMER SELF-PROTECTION ..• OR ENCOUNTER?, Yechiel Perr 22 Chairman RABBI NATHAN BULMAN UNDERSTANDING JEWISH HISTORY, Murray Friedman...... 24 RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS JOSEPH FRIEDENSON RABBI MOSHE SHERER CHASSIDUS AND "SCHOLARSHIP", Yaakov Jacobs...... 27

THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not assume responsibility for the SECOND LOOKS AT THE JEWISH SCENE: Kashrus of any product or service advertised in its pages. ON JEWISH GOBLINS ...... 29

JAN. 1970 VoL. Vl, No. 5 Siegmund For.Jt Questions ... Questions ... And No Answers

We believe that the following article is among the this here to the best of our ability; but because of the most significant we have been privileged to publish in complex issues discussed, we urge the reader to read these pages. Mr. Forst ranges over a broad canvas: carefully, and to re-read-an experience which we the major intellectual and theological concerns which feel certain will be amply rewarded. Mr. Forst is a perplex the entire world; the upheaval in art and litera­ free-lance artist and writer. He has contributed signi­ ture which mirrors contemporary concerns; the rela­ ficant papers to various volumes of The Jewish Library, tionship of Orthodox Jewry to non-Orthodox institu­ a pioneering effort in the expression of Torah ideology, tions; and the role of Israel upon the world scene today. edited by Rabbi Leo Jung, and soon to be re-issued by It is an editor's responsibility to present each article the Soncino Press of London. To our pages, Mr. Forst in such a manner that the reader l1'ill have the least contributed: "Who's Afraid-Me?" (April '65); and difficulty in reading and understanding, hoping that the "Biographical Fragments and Aspects of the Life of reader lVill meet the author part way. We have done · Michael B. Weissmandl" (June '65).

Things have happened and continue to happen in our time for which there is no precedent in the history of mankind; and they have radically and irrevocably changed the condition of man. The ever-shortening intervals between successive major happenings bring to mind the increasing acceleration of a falling object. Since Hiroshima, the age of explosions has set in. We speak of the Population Explosion, the Sex Explosion, the Freedom Explosion, and the Space Explosion, as if these phenomena in their inherent destructiveness were terms of reference in the relation between man and world. The utter absurdity of man's condition today can be seen in a baffling contradiction between the physical and the spiritual and the simultaneity of opposing phenomena. There is on the one hand, the technological materialism which has conditioned Western man since the time of the Industrial Revolution and is now spreading over the whole globe; and there is on the other hand, a constantly growing manifestation of its absolute rejection. Technology as reason geared to practicability, unfolds itself in a functionality with no reasonable motive and purpose outside itself. That self-propelled dynamic functionalism expanding over the globe and beyond, appears simultaneously with a vehemently rebellious withdrawal which amounts to a revulsion against the Western self and an alteration of consciousness. Simultaneously with the expansion of the world goes the painful awareness of its closing in on us, to use a metaphor of C. P. Snow.

The Jewish Observer I January, 1970 3 The mood of a generation is not expressed in its "silent majority." Static masses do not create ideas and revolutions. It is rather the 20% of college students in the United States who use drugs who are motivated-and not the others--to rebel against a curriculum irrelevant to the realities of life. An educational system concerned with how to make a living instead of how to live, cannot make sense in a time when life itself cowers under a huge questionmark.

The epistomological problem of education has become thus a moral issue and has led to questioning the entire premise of understanding by means of description, and of truth as synonymous with a scientific reality whose validation lies in its function as operative practicality. All this must be a bloody absurdity because it is just those practical people who now drag man into apparently inevitable doom. The Freedom Explosion-seen in this light-which has moved Western society on a way towards the abyss of a fantastic moral collapse is the spiritual equivalent of physical destruction which looms over our days. In one case it is the smashing of the atom by freeing it from the power which held it together; in the second case it is the dissolution of a culture by freeing it from its inherent contents. People are instinctively aware that the continuous increase in nuclear armaments and the progressive sophistication of weapons of destruction are endangering their physical existence on a global scale. One has only to read the Proceedings of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute to learn by facts and figures the incessant preparations of the two super powers to a point from where there is no return. The notion of a "Balance of Terror" appears to be antiquated; negotiations to be exercises in futility; and there is just the drive to be the first to strike the one decisive blow. The average man cannot understand why things must take that course, dictated by a few, with such apparent inevitability. The educational outlook of youth had been geared to a stability of order, and change was only its medium; now change, per se has become the overriding purpose and disorder is the medium to survive the order. Change does therefore not mean the substitution of one order by another, but it means essentially, destruction of forms with pseudo-contents of dangerous nonsense. Forms must be destroyed by a manifestation of non-sense against pseudo-sense and an outrageous display of irreality against an illusory reality. Destruction of forms means freedom from everything and before it

4 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 is completely and radically achieved, the drug secures at least freedom from one's own tortured self and-in Kafka's phrase-the "horror of life." The precarious balance of man's physical being and non-being is mirrored in art and literature in expressions aimed at profound nothingness. Samuel Beckett, one of the most significant writers of our time, bearing its stigmata, (he recently was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature) has come closest to the fundamentals of the issue in his Endgame and Waiting for Godot. "Beckett has gone to the root of Nihilism in our time, to the question of Being and Nothingness, of Death, and has imagined the ineluctable form of dissolution. He touches the deepest aspirations of the age by touching on its darkest dread." (Ihab Hassen in The Literature of Silence). Beckett's work has been described as an attempt "to talk himself and the whole of human culture into a nothingness" and "the ambition of putting a stop to the whole history of human thought hitherto, which he sees as a long train of error." One sees it in the asymetrical forms in music and the dissolution of harmony into a tortured shrillness of unrelated sounds, preventing predictability and aiming at the existential "sound of the moment." Also of significance in this respect is the great interest in exotic rhythm which leads nowhere but repeats itself in space with no progression. The dissolution of form in painting has been started in a spectacular way by the systematic distortions by Picasso and led over the spilled-paint canvasses of Pollock to the black pictures of Reinhardt who represents in painting a striking equivalent of Beckett in literature. It is "the choice of non-being, to escape the anxiety of being," as the theologian Tillich has put it. The attempts to create a new optical and tonal vocabulary are highly significant absurdities of existence and a rebellion against the "tyranny of things seen" and heard. It is a shock treatment to which art subjects itself and man, in order to obliterate the distinction between normalcy and abnormalcy. It is a desperate attempt to reject reality by changing it, just as use of LSD is a way to distort normal vision by distorting man's senses. These are documents perceived through the eye or the ear, containing a message of a sudden change of man vis-a-vis his world; they are memoranda of a revolution of the spirit. This totality of reaction corresponds to a totality of a global situation.

The lelt>ish Observer I January, 1970 5 Political, economic, social and spiritual forces have become mutually genetic and race simultaneously towards their peak. Modern man, wherever he finds himself, is growing out of isolated patterns of individual consciousness and he is conscious of himself now in terms of this Western Civilization which in its totality is approaching its moment of truth. All this is a situation of eschatological significance. It is the contradictory and the absurd as the sum total of man's condition today, as the foremost theme which can be summarized like this: "I'm interested in the absurd and the non-intelligible because it is absurd. Because it is absurd, I accept it, just as I see life which I don't understand in its absurdity. Therefore I give absurdity status." The remainder is just a gigantic garbage heap, the fall-out of the cultural explosion from which today's life evolves, and it cannot be shrugged off with moral indignation just as the atomic threat cannot be indignantly dismissed. Both phenomena are intimately related to each other and both are end-points of spiritual and physical existence. History is a flux of unceasing changes but never has change meant the transition from BEING to NON-BEING. The point of discontinuity at the immediate vicinity of our prospects has no precedence in human history.

JEWISH EXISTENCE also stands at a point which has no precedence in its history, not only because it is part of the situation of man in toto, but also, because its confrontation with that situation has never been as direct and compelling as it is today. Jewish existence has always conceived itself as in a different dimension of time and history­ how is it to relate to the dynamics of change in the world today? This is a question apart from the alternative of participating to a degree in an alien culture, or negating it-a problem which has been the theme of Jewish survival through the ages and a point of ideological preoccupation. This is not a problem of evaluating something outside of our own realm and then, accepting or rejecting it. Our confrontation with the world around us is not an intellectual challenge which would require us to define our spiritual self in terms of a prevailing intellectual climate. It is not the substance of our ideas which is at issue, it is rather our gestalt in its totality, which presupposes a cognition by factors outside of it, which is the problem. Our tangible presence within the extent constellation requires an awareness, if not a definition of its

6 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 ultimate meaning within our own spiritual realm. We do not know the answers to the questions which stir mankind today and neither does mankind know. Any attempt to "validate" our spiritual substance through an "involvement" on a scientific, political or even moral plane would transpose it to an alien dimension. It is told that the old Rebbe of Belz once said "Men tor nit zugehen zu der Toire mit fremde hakdomes." This is a cardinal point. But the problem we are discussing here is one which asks for a position in intellectual terms peculiar to oursell'es and it is therefore an eminently religious problem. Even if Jewish existence, in the most literab sense of the word, were not involved, how does it spiritually relate to a world which is its ultimate concern and now sways between being and non-being? And within the sphere of religious thinking, one could even go one step further and ask: What did we do or what did we not do, and what shall we do with ourselves to find the point of our deviation? Are we to maintain a smug righteousness and a serves-them-right-attitude towards mankind in agony? Perhaps we are now pulled into its very midst in order to awake us from the lethargy of a routine existence which is missing something most vital and crucially important for ourselves and therefore for the entire world. We find ourselves in a position which brings to mind that of the prophet Jonah who tried to run away from responsibility. We do not know what to do, we only see the unmistakable signs of being systematically forced to a confrontation which leaves us no option of a modus-vivendi withdrawal into the shtetl. We have been shifted from the periphery right into the center of the socio-political and moral dangers of a world in crisis and there is no escape. The idea that the Jew with his individual act and the Jewish people collectively are responsible for the fate of the world, may sound like an absurd arrogance to the others and to the religiously illiterate among our own, but it is the very essence of our conceptual thinking about ourselves. Everything is moving now to the foreground and two phenomena are of telling importance. There are the imminent forces which were vibrating in the structure of Western culture and are now breaking through its facade and violently shaking its foundations. And there is at the same time, Jewish existence which has moved into the center of world events and taken on a form of

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 7 actuality which might tip the scale of the existential balance with incalculable efficacy. The idea that the fate of the world is mysteriously related to the Jew has moved from metaphysical immanence to a manifest evidence. We are an eminently historical people and we are used to seeing Jewish existence as an extension of one cosmic point reaching toward another, walking under the spell of our past and our face is turned towards the point from where we came. But suddenly we discover ourselves as not lonely anymore in etherical heights but on an eruptive globe in the midst of perplexed mankind and we, too, should be perplexed as we cannot think of any generation in our history less equipped than ours to cope with problems of a magnitude like ours. We have not even learned from our most recent cataclysmic experience and we have forgotten nothing. In the struggle to maintain our identity, we have paid a price which we are not fully conscious of. The partisan quality of our public life has acquired for us a myopic factionalism which is profoundly evident in a lack of charity towards others. It has become our habit to look with disdain upon our brethren who find themselves on the periphery of Jewish authenticity as if it were they who bear the burden of the inequities of our total.*

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8 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 It does not enter our minds that we-as the tiny nucleus of Jewish continuity-might be the subject of metaphysical computation. We certainly have to tend to our fences, but our trouble is that while we are busily engaged in it, our garden withers. We are too busy with our polemics and the delineation of our borders, pointing with disdain to the deviations of others, and it does not enter our minds that the deviators might be products of our own sickness. And our position towards individuals and groups corresponds to that vis-a-vis the world around us. At the present stage, it seems inconceivable that the fundamental isolation which is at the root of Jewish existence is meant as an arrogant negation of the dilemma of an agonized world. Our self-indulgent philistine existence has become invulnerable to the eternal sting of self-doubt and unrest of the soul, and our wisdom has become donnish and clever erudition. It is almost a matter of religious conviction for us that our shortcomings must not find place in our consciousness and if they dawn upon us we shift the blame of our faults upon our adversaries who have made us into what we are. Our self-pity has thus developed into a deep-rooted defense mechanism which does not admit the thought that our historical misfortunes might be inflicted on us because the nations expect something from us which we have failed to give them. There is one aspect of Jewish existence in the Galus which cannot satisfactorily be explained by the simple idea of a collective atonement of generations for the gift of their forefathers. Although this idea has its place in the whole complex of thought and inspired tradition, it seems nevertheless that the Galus is a dimension ipso facto of Jewish existence, which equally takes into account the world around it, as being acted upon by Jewish existence. The atonement-idea as the sole key to understand the meaning of the

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The Je~:ifh JYf>server / January, 1970 9 Galus, would leave out the Jewish impact upon the world and treat it as a secondary effect and not as of primary importance, fateful for mankind, which is equally subject to direct divine providence. Let us not suppress within ourselves the truth that there is an innermost correlation between the Jew and the world: that we are a universal people not only in time and duration in the sense of vertical thinking, but also to bear the responsibility for the entire world in a way of horizontal thinking.-The world is not expanding, it is closing in-also for us. What are we supposed to do? Who knows? These are uncomfortable and disturbing thoughts, but perhaps all that we are required to do at this juncture is to ask the questions and be disturbed by our own ineptitude. There is one day in the year when our tefilla openly and explicitly includes the fate of nations and the entire world and that is Rosh Hashonah. Let us keep at least in mind that now, every day that dawns upon us, bears the charge of portentous fatefulness and a deep awareness of it might relieve us from the trivialities of our days and cleanse our hearts-it is the heart of the world.

*... The emperor has sent a message to you, the lone individual ... just to you has the emperor sent a message, he felt the message so important that he made the man repeat it into his own ear. The messenger set off at once ... he forces his way through the crowd, when he finds obstacles, he points to the sign of the sun on his breast, he gets through easily as no one else could, yet the throng is so numerous, there is no end to the dwelling places, even if he did, he would be no better off, he would have to fight his way down the stairs ... if he only had a free field before him, how he would run and soon enough you would hear the glorious tattoo of his fists on your door, but instead of that, how vain are his efforts ... he is still forcing his way to the end of the palace but he will never get to the end, he would still have to get through the courtyards, the second palace enclosing the first, and more stairways and more palaces ... and so on for thousands of years-and when he finally dashes through the outer gate ... but never would that happen, he would still have the capital of the world before him overflowing with the dregs of humanity ... But you sit by the window and dream it all through when the evening falls. 0

* Franz Kafka: The Emperor's Message.

The ]elvish Observer I January, 1970 10 The Editor Takes Leave

WITH THIS ISSUE, I TAKE LEAVE as editor of The have shared with me their reactions to our work; Jewish Observer. For almost a decade, I have been their criticism and encourage1nent have 'been most privileged to work in the field of Torah journalism, helpful. following a decade in the rabbinate. Both experiences Words of gratitude come relatively easily; words of were personally rewarding, yet given the choice, I farewell are more difficult to find. This difficulty is would have liked to spend the rest of my years in here compounded. Having just experienced Eretz journa1ism. But an accumu1ation of persona] and Yisroel-having lived in Yerushalayim even for only professional pressures now 1nake it impossible for me two weeks, makes it all the more difficult to take to continue, and I must leave it to others to carry on. leave-but unfortunately no less imperative.

The past six years with The Jewish Observer have THE PAST SIX YEARS have been an exciting and given me the opportunity to bring to fruition some of stimulating experience. The constant pressures of my dreams for Torah Journalism. For this I am deadlines were rewarded with the pungent aroma of deeply indebted to Agudath Israel of America printers ink as the sheets roll off the press and yet which sponsors our publication. Agudath Israel has a another issue becomes a permanent record of the rich tradition of journalism going back to pre-War tribulations and the concerns of Torah Jewry in Europe. Agudath Israel in America continues to be America. Franz Kafka wrote in his Diary that for a rallying-point for an independent Orthodoxy with him "writing is prayer." When I first read those words, no compromising alliances. But this leaves Aguda they seemed to be highly subjective-peculiar to his without many of the resources available to other own life situation. But over the years, they have Orthodox bodies which enable them to function with become a living reality. 11111? nw~ ,,~, -~' ,~,~~ cix?. larger facilities and professional staffs. It is a tribute "L'odom ma'archei le iv"-the posuk tells us that to Agudath Israel of America that they alone have all sorts of thoughts arrange themselves in the heart shown the daring to publish an Orthodox monthly of man; "u'mei'Hashem nia'ane loshon"-but the in spite of the heavy financial burden such an capacity to express them derives from the Creator. enterprise entails. It is further to their credit that To write of Torah in the garbled babel which is the they have made it possible for me to devote myself English language today is an awesome challenge. exclusively to The Jewish Observer, without burdening To suggest that one speaks from a "Torah perspective" me with other organizational responsibilities. Whatever is a chutzpah that can only be tempered by the success we have achieved would not otherwise have constant prayer that the Creator will guide us in so been possible. arranging our thoughts that they come close to what we earnestly wish to say-to what He wants More significantly, Agudath Israel has not fallen prey us to say. to the understandable temptation of producing a house organ which beats the organizational drums and Some of our objectives in publishing The Jewish engages in self-aggrandizement. (If that sentence Observer have in some measure been attained; the sounds like self-aggrandizement, surely our readers bulk remain unfinished, perhaps reflecting 1'he will forgive it---<:oming from a departing editor.) unfinished state of the Torah community in America. J should also like to express in print the gratitude I Jn The Journals of Opinion and Reportage: An have so often expressed verbally to the many Assessment, published by the Magazine Publishers contributors to our pages who have collectively Association, John H. Schacht writes that: "It is demonstrated Orthodoxy's capacity to address itself almost a truism in the world of communications that to the issues of the day in Torah categories. I am the journals of opinion and reportage . . . exert also indebted to my many friends and readers who an influence greater than their circulations . . . seem

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 11 to justify." We believe that this is true of The and it has fallen to our lot to speak these beliefs Observer, particularly as Mr. Schacht defines his -and speak we must. subject: -Entering Our Third Year /December, 1965 A journal of opinion [has as] its purpose ... to shape the course of events it report' and In the vast outpouring of the printed word comments on ... such a purpose is hinged to produced by the American Jewish community, a well-defined ... concept ... to which the there is little real recognition of [the] role of journal hopes to make public practice approach Torah in understanding Jewish affairs and and ultimately conform ... The attitude of such resolving Jewish problems. It is the purpose of journals is commonly moralistic and idealistic, '[he .Tewish Observer to serve as a corrective, and as a result the tone is common1y intense; offering a forum to current thought on issues of they tend ... to "agonize" over the issues of the day, as seen from the perspective of their primary interest. commitment to the Eternal Truths of Judaism. -"A Little Too Serious ...",/March, 1969 The Observer has succeeded in this direction; we OUR PURPOSES remain the same--our goals become know this from the warm praise of those who strongly more pressing with each passing day. But we need differ with us. as well as from reports of those greater support from our readers. I recently spoke to who agree. a prominent rabbi who has been reading us from the beginning and frequently has important observations Over the years, we have engaged in self-evaluation to 1nake. After a very warm and positive comment on these pages. As The Observer enters a new about a recent issue, he remarked casually, "/ really phase when new and fresh energies will be brought should subscribe to your magazine." When I expressed to bear, it is appropriate to look back at some of amazement that he was not a subscriber, he these observations. explained he'd been reading us at a library.

The Jewish Observer is not a newspaper coldly A while ago I walked into the Seward Park Library reporting the facts. We are not objective; we on Manhattan's Lower East Side and saw a copy are a journal of opinion. Most periodicals, even of The Observer on the periodical racks: it had been those which give the widest latitude to their charged out over twenty times and the pages were writers, confine themselves to a clearly-defined worn thin-I' havdil-like an old siddur. Many large editorial consensus. A left-wing journal is not public and university libraries offer The Observer likely to open its columns to right-wing thinkers. to their patrons. All of this adds up to a large and Even a middle-of-the-road journal will not significant readership and it makes us happy-but veer too sharply from the middle of the road. it is not reflected in our annual financial report which What is our editorial frame of reference? We continues to reflect a "deficit" or "further investment" believe that the Almighty revealed His Torah -depending on how you look at it. to the Jewish people who were chosen to carry G-d's light to the world. We believe that As a departing editor, I take the liberty I have the Torah scholars of each generation, imbued not in the past of personally appealing to our many with knowledge of Torah and love for Torah, friends to do all that you can to build our circulation are the sole arbiters of authentic Jewish thinking and distribution. (Write us and we'll let you know on all matters relating to religious practice and how you can help in your community.) religious thinking. I HOPE TO CONTINUE to contribute to these pages in We claim no special privileges for living in whatever way time will permit and trust the many accordance with this belief; we do feel privileged relationships I have established will continue. I to have survived as believing Jews in a world pray that you will all enjoy good health and success, which grows ever more hostile to traditional and I solicit your blessings for the same in my beliefs. To some this smacks of snobbishness or new work. even conceit. We, however, feel most humble in our belief and hardly adequate to be the May we all merit the coming of Moshiach speedily, spokesman for this belief. But believe we do and in our day. YAAKOV JACOBS

12 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 Yaakov Jacobs Experiencing Eretz Yisroel

These words are being written within hours after look down at the Har Habayis-the site of the Bei£ returning from my first visit to Eretz Yisroel. The Hamikdosh-and your mind is overcome by touch of the Kosel Ma'aravi is still fresh on my thoughts of the glory of old, but your eyes are dazzled fingers and I still feel the anxiety which I briefly by the rays of the sun striking the golden dome of shared with our brothers in Israel who are fighting to the Mosque piercing the eyes and the mind and stay alive in a world divided between those who the heart?-But you must speak . . . and you must want to kill them and those who would be willing write. to see them die. Arriving in Eretz Yisroel, you feel confused about On the flight to Tel Aviv, my mind was filled with time. First off, you attribute it to having crossed a thoughts of those of our brothers who have over the number of time zones; but then you realize it isn't centuries made the same journey, often at the that at all. The Netzach Yisrocl, the Eternity of risk of their lives. Arriving in a modern airport, and Israel, the Timelessness of our People-the passing through the necessary entry procedures Einmaligkeit of Kial Yisroel: these are no longer somewhat blunts the impact of setting foot on holy slogans: they have passed from rhetoric to reality. soil. Yet I was to find throughout my short stay You are no longer living in the Present-you have that no experience-however blunting it might be for passed from Time ... into Eternity.-Not because the moment-could not be overcome with the the Land is old; not because you see ancient ruins-· glorious thought: "I'm in Eretz Yisroel. I'm home­ there are ancient ruins in Athens, l'havdil. You not to stay; but I'm home. And soon I will gather have left Time because you are now in the Land the courage to come here to live and to await the whose credentials bear the signature and endorsement coming of Moshiach ... here where it all be11an." of the Eternal-a Land which He has chosen for the People He has chosen. You are in Yerushalayim: I had resolved that during my visit, I would try to the City which He has chosen to be the center of overcome my addiction to words; that I would the Land; and you quickly realize that you are really make no effort to react verbally; not to debase feelings standing in the center of G-d's world. The limitations and emotions by reducing them to writing. of time, the limitations of space fade away. And (Thoughts are "reduced" when they are written. We with all the sophistication of a modern who knows speak of "committing'' something to writing: that there really is no "up" and there is no "down," writing diminishes the thought; it limits your freedom you know that Yerushalayim Shel Ma' aloh, the by committing you to that small part of your feeling Heavenly counterpart of Yerushalayim, is directly that has permitted itse]f to be "committed." One above you. And the measure of timelessncss- gains here some insight into why the Torah She'bal me' en Olam Ha'Bo-which in the Golab we may Peh was not to be committed to writing.) sense only on the day of Shabbos, is here apparent Standing before the Kosel words seem especially ou a rainy Tuesday afternoon. inadequate. How do you tell the Ribbono Shel Olam, as you experience His Presence in a degree you On our first day in Israel (the plural here is not never have before, that you are overjoyed to see the editorial: I was fortunate enough to share the visit Kosel, but wouldn't He please restore the entire with my wife), we went to Kever A vos: to the Beis Hamikdosh? And what do you say, or even M'oras HtiMachpelah to visit the graves of Avraham, think, when you are suddenly jarred out of your Yitzchok, and Yaakov, of Soroh, Rivkah and Leah; thoughts by the cry of the muezzin blaring from then to the Kever of Rochel. From there, we went a loud-speaker atop a mosque close by the Kosel? to the Kosel Ha'Maaravi, traveling in a period of And what do you say when you climb to the rooftop hours through the birth of our People to the destruction of an Arab girls school near the Kosel and you of the Beis Ha'Mikdosh. As we walked up a ramp

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 13 leading to the M'oras Ha'Machpelah, our good we drove through the entire length of the West friend, Reuven Gross, who drove us there, told us Bank, an area filled with reminders of Arab occupation that a hand grenade had been tbrown at that spot -and Arab defeat. It was hard to think of the one day when it was crowded with people and no glorious countryside as a political pa\vn-is it, or is one had been killed. The area of Hebron is hostile not ncgotiable?-it's Eretz Yisroel, and every inch and we were made aware of it by the unfriendly of soil is filled with memories of our Fathers. of looks of the local Arabs, and the presence of the Prophets, of the Jewish kings who ruled the heavily-armed Israeli troops. At 11 :30 A.M. an Land as servants of G-d-and of those who didn't Israeli sergeant, looking ferocious with his Uzzi and brought destruction to the Land. strapped over his shoulder, asked us with a smile to leave the M' ora in accordance with an agreement We passed the bomb shelters and the bunkers, and providing for periods of Moslem prayer. We sensed our guide pointed to the Lebanese hills which had so strongly then-as we were to many times-the been battered by Israeli jets twenty-four hours earlier. feeling that unlike the invaders, the Golus has not We passed settlements which were under constant yet been driven from the Land. shelling alert, and we sensed over and over again the tenacity of the people, and the Divine Protection In America, "pikuach nefesh" is a momentary which has blessed their courage. We made what thing: a serious illness-Chas v'sholom-a passing could only be a brief stop in Safed, a city whose circumstance. Here it is a constant of daily life. You inhabitants believe that Moshiach will come first to feel it every time you see a young soldier with a rifle their city. Our guide was a young North African or an Uzzi on his shoulder~ whenever you pass a Jew who had come to Israel a numebr of years ago. trash basket that may contain a terrorist bomb. But He was somewhat bewildered when I asked him to it was not until we traveled out of Yerushalayim wait while I davened Mincha at the Ari Shul-he up north that it really came home. The government had been told he \Vas escorting "an American press office provided us with a car and a guide and journalist."

Mothers in Israel Mourn Their Fallen Sons

14 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 A sixtecnth·centul')' n1ap of the lvorld.

"You quickly realize that you are standing in the center of G-d's world."

During our stay the country was bubbling over with constant Arab threats; the constant hostility of the excitement over the five French gun-boats. When Soviet Union: all proclaim-and you feel it more we met a high-level Israeli intelligence official. and strongly in Eretz Yisroel-that we have nowhere to my wife complimented him on their well-earned turn but to Avinu She'bashomayim, to our Father reputation, he smiled modestly and said "Wait a few in Heaven. We are wont to speak of Hester Panifn, days and you'll hear an even better story." He was of G-d hiding His Presence in our time; hut every of course referring to the capture of the Russian-built Jew who walks on holy soil, and every child who Egyptian radar installation which had been brought studies Torah and every hen-yeshiva who dedicates back in two helicopters. We need not compromise his days to Limud ha'Torah, and every military the skill involved in these operations, but at the .action which is blessed with success, all testify that very same time, one sees so c1ear1y the Divine Hand: the Shomer Yisroel watches over every J cw-even the nations are at best indifferent to our survival, over those who would deny Him. but the Ribbono Shel Olom wants us to live and His will prevails. The French arms boycott directed During our visit, we met many old friends walking against Israel; the rc-cn1ergence of the anti-Sen1itic the streets of Y erushalayim, or at the Kosel. The bureaucrats in our own State Department, who country was fu11 of American tourists comparing had been stifled under previous administrations; the notes about what they had seen. There is so much

The Jell'ish Observer / January, 1970 15 to see-too much for a two-week visit; but more How could he avenge their deaths?-by fighting important than seeing is feeling. The heart is constantly harder to bnild a Jewish state. feeling and I felt myself constantly drawn to the Kosel-forgive the clich6: it was like a huge magnet How I pray I could convince him that he is wrong, drawing me from the busy New-York-like streets but deep in bis sub-conscious he believes that his of Tel Aviv; from the glorious panorama overlooking father's way was repudiated; that his way was upheld. the port of Haifa; and even from the beautiful They are dead-he lives . . . surely he was right streets of the New City of Ycrusbalayim. Shabbos all along. It is as though the heavens opened up and morning at the Kosel, I wandered almost in a daze Jews took the Torah and handed it back to the rninyan to minyan-1 never said "Kedusha'' from Ribbono Shel Olom-"Here ... take it back; we've so many times in one day. found a better way." But giving it back we give away our Peoplehood, and we give away our Land. "DON'T SEE ANYTHING UNPLEASANT," the heart argues with the mind. "Don't be a journalist-close your I don't want to polemicize-it won't help. I don't eyes; feel ... like a Jew ... feel only the kedusha," mean to argue. I want only to speak the pain in my the hearts crys out. And you feel the holiness. And heart that my cousin, whom I love deeply, stands how wonderful it is to experience unadulterated apart from me. I don't think he would want me to holiness, for who can defile or even compromise come over to the other side. (Another cousin said what the Almighty has sanctified! And one gets the to me: "I like to enjoy life; I like a good meal and sense of Shabbos throughout the Land that is not a good bottle of wine. After all, you've got religion, duplicated anywhere else. Not only in Meah but what have I got to live for?") But can he feel Sheorim, not only at the Kosel. We drove in a cab in his heart the same pain for inc, as I feel for on Friday from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim to spend him? Yet there must be a way. In the heat of passion one more Shabbos under the spell of the Kosel. which I still feel, I cannot list even the obvious On the road you see a sight that is not listed in any ways. But when we want something very much, guide-books; none of the guided tours include it in there is a Jewish response which we might phrase their itinerary. For miles and miles you see it: as a question: "Have we asked it of the Ribbono Shel the bold little Army, the fighting men of Israel are Olom?" In our personal Jives, what we lack we going home for Shabbos. pray for. Even Yiras Shomayim, which the Almighty allocates to our own Free Will. also needs a dash Yet the gnawing questions con1e back. How account of Siyata d'Shmaya, even though we cannot be for a secular state on Admas Kodesh? How can content with simply asking for it. But surely we can "they" not see the Hand of G-d; not know that it ask for our brothers. Surely, we can pray that whatever is "Torah tzivah lonu Moshe" which makes us a efforts arc being made to bring Jews together People-not "Tav yoter im Koka Kola." I gained be blessed; and surely, we can ask of the Almighty some insight into these questions in speaking to a that He grant us the wisdom, and the love to do cousin. His story is not untypical. more. And surely our prayers for the well-being of our brothers in Eretz Yisroel, our prayers that they be protected froin the evil designs of our enemies­ WHEN HE WAS SIXTEEN, he decided to leave the little surely these prayers must bind us closer to them. town in Czechoslovakia where he lived with his Indeed there are signs that this closeness is attainable. family. He had heard from Jabotinsky that "if Jews The kibbutz of Ein Harod, not kindly disposed to would not destroy the Golus, the Golus would Torah in the past, recently dispatched a cheek for destroy them." He pleaded with bis father to take one hundred pounds collected from its members to his family to Eretz Yisroel, but to no avail. He aid in the construction of Yeshivas Hagra in Haifa. arrived on holy soil in a bathing-suit, swimming It is told that during one of the sieges of Yerushalayim ashore from an '"illegal" immigrant ship. He worked someone said, "Yidden: m'ken zich nit farlozen of by day and fought in the underground by night, nissim-m'darf zogen Tehilim." We can't wait for and for several years rotted in a British jail. And Ein Harod to send its next cheek to the yeshiva; we then he heard; and then he knew: his father, mother, want them to send their sons. And for this, we brothers and sisters-all but one- had been murdered. cannot "rely on miracles"-for this we must pray.

16 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 A Symposium The Encounter Between Agudah Ideology and American Jewish Reality

.

The 47th NaJional Convention of Agudath Israel to transcribe. the re1narks o.f the various partrct­ of America was the largest and-according to pants and we believe the following extracts will .;,any veteran observers-the most exciting and be of special interest to our readers in offering stimulating convention ever. a deeper understanding of the ideology of Agu­ One of the 1nost significant sessions was de­ dath Israel, and the projection of A gudah activity voted to a Symposium on "The Encounter Be­ on the A1nerican scene. Beyond that, the dis­ tween Agudah Ideology and American Jewish cussion has broader implications for all of Or­ Realities." We have been fortunate in being able thodox Jewry in the crucial days ahead.

DR. LEO LEVI, past President and Chairman of ANOTHER OPINION is best illustrated by a recent ex­ the Board of the Association of Orthodox Jewish perience of mine. At a meeting of our branch in Scientists of America, and a frequent contributor Washington Heights, where we discussed the fact that to these pages, served as moderator of the sym­ our young people know very little of Agudah ideology, posium and the following is a transcript of his one of our most active and dedicated young baalebatim remarks. spoke up. "What is there to Agudah ideology? Learning Torah is the most important thing; you should learn I would like to open this session with a warning. Our more-that is all there is to Agudah ideology." He thus subject for the evening is a Cheshbon Hanefesh, self­ expressed a second opinion on the purpose of Agudath examination-and se1f-examinations can be very pain­ Israel: it is the public relations arm for the yeshiva ful. Indeed, I would say that if they are not painful, world. Roshei Yeshivah who would never think of they are not likely to be effective. So let us hope that joining Agudath Israel, are happy to use it as a plat­ this will be a painful session. form for reaching the Jewish public. And it is only proper that they should be able to do this. Agudath In my opinion, what is wrong with Agudath Israel Israel should act as the public relations arm of the is-that not enough of our members are non-observant yeshivas. But this, too, does not exhaust our purpose. and Jewishly uneducated. Since this statement may be the opposite of what you expected, let me explain. A THIRD OPINION holds that Agudath Israel is a political If someone were to ask here "What is the purpose party in M' dinath Yisroel whose purpose is to impose of Agudath Israel?" we could expect a number of religious observance on an unwilling public and to different opinions. A review of these can bTing us to provide jobs for members. Now. this opinion would the real purpose for which Agudath Israel was founded. be held only by non-members-members know better. But, though the first part of this opinion is a serious A COMMON OPINION is that Agudath Israel is primarily distortion of the truth and the second part is, in essence, a private club for "yeshiva drop-outs," a "yeshiva drop­ totally false, even it may have a grain of truth in it. out" being any hen-yeshiva who has become a postal In any event, all three of these functions do not exhaust employee, a doctor, or a rabbi-anything but a Rosh the purpose of Agudath Israel. Yeshiva. There are many such people, and they de­ serve an organization which will provide a place for TO UNDERSTAND what Agudath Israel was really created them to feel at home. It is only proper that Agudath for, we must view our situation historically. When the Israel should provide that home. But we must not Jewish nation went into Galuth, there was, at first, still make the mistake to think that this exhausts the purpose a national organization. There was still a supreme of Agudath Israel, lest we falsify the meaning of our court and a governor. But, as the Jewish people became organization. more and more scattered, this system broke down

The Jewish Observer I January, 1970 17 and soon Jewish nationhood had to be established on koloth, the grapes, the fruit, are the Talmidey Chakha­ a local level. The individual K'hilloth became Jewish mim. The leaves are the amey ha'aretz. All of these governments-in-exile, with Rav, Beth Din, and Shiv' ah together must function as a unit if there is to be a Tuvey Ha'lr. This went on for many centuries until viable organism. Perhaps even more appropriate here communication facilities improved and these K'hilloth is the G'marah which declares, in the name of Rav could be organized into "federated K'hilloth": all the Shim'on heChasid: "Kol ta'anith sh'en bah miposh'ey K'hilloth in one country were organized as a unit; this Yisrael, eyn sh'mah ta'anith." "Any fast convocation in unit would then serve as the Jewish government-in­ which non-observant Jews do not participate, can not exile. be called a fast convocation. How do we know this? At the beginning of the present century, the G'dolci Though chelb'na is an evil-smelling substance, yet the Yisroel felt that the time had come when K'lal Yisrael Torah counted it among the ingredients of the incense must be organized in an international, world-wide or­ (which was offered in the Beth Hamikdash)." The ganization, a kind of "super-K'hillah," uniting all the chelb'na, evil-smelling though it is, dare not be omitted local K'hilloth. There should be a united government­ from the k'toreth, lest the Kohen offering it be liable in-exile for K'Jal Yisroel. This was the purpose of the to !he death penalty. This is how essential every mem­ founding of Agudath Israel.* ber is to the Jewish nation as a unit, and. therefore, What are the consequences of these historical facts? how essential he must be to Agudath Israel. We must A nation can not say "You can join," "You can't join," recognize as a brother any fellow-Jew who wants to "You should feel at home here," "You can't feel at join us, who sees himself at least in principle, if not home here." Anyone who is a national belongs to the in action, t.is a member of the Jewish nation organized nation and must have his place in it. lf Agudath Israel under the banner and rule of Torah. We must see in is to be the Jewish government-in-exile, then everyone him a brother and make him feel at home with us and must be welcomed into it, and it is the duty of the help him accept Jewish nationality in action, also. government to see to it that everyone has his place. Perhaps even more relevant to us, in the above Tal­ Rav Shim'on ben Lakish put it this way: "Umah zu mudic passage is Abaye's derivation of the importance /agefen nimsh'lah-tbis nation is compared to a vine." of posh'ey Yisrae1-participation. Abaye bases this on The body of the vine arc the ba'aley battim-they the verse "V'agudatho 'al eretz y'sodathah," which make up the substance of the Jewish nation. The esh- Rashi explains as follows: "Agudatho: that is to say, when they arc all together-then it is firmly established "' Tlih is what the very nanie "Agudath Israel" in1plies. The outline of the program adopted at the foundin1t convention on the earth." Agudah means a union which must of our organization at Kattowitz also hears this out. It included combine all parts of the Jewish nation; only if Agudath five poh11s. (/) Strengthening Torah-study; (2) social action; Israel becomes true to its name in that sense, can (3) Eretz Yisrael settlen1ent; (4) puhlications and public re­ lations; (5) defense against attacks on Torah. we hope to be firmly established. 0

• The Theme lll Perspective

RABBI YAAKOV WEINBERG, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel helpful to engage in self-criticism, in order to learn the in .Toronto, Canada, lvas asked to present the Torah lessons of the past and to more adequately cope with and Halachic perspective on the theme. Rabbi Wein­ the future, I shall here like to think with you of the berg has made major contributions to the articulation future alone. of basic Torah concepts in the light of the troubled and First, we must recognize that when we speak of an confused tilnes in which rve live; and is rvidely sought Agudah ideology, we must be talking about something after to address acade1nic and intellectual audiences. that is not only Torah ideology.-Torah ideology does His "Waiting for Moshiach" appeared in our issue of not belong to Agudah; Torah ideology belongs to Kial September 1969. Yisroel-to those who accept it, and-to our misfortune -to those who do not. Torah is Morosho Kehilas Ya­ When we discuss the clash between the ideology of akov, the common inheritance of every Jew. Whether Agudath Israel and American Jewish reality, we seek he realizes it or not, it is his inheritance, his obligation, to' determine the extent to which Agudah ideology has his responsibility. Of course Agudah ideology must have shaped this reality in the past, the better to serve the a great deal to do with Torah ideology, both as its needs of Agudah in the future. While it is undoubtedly guide and in setting its goals. Torah ideo!O(,'Y guides

18 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 Agudah; Torah ideology forms the ultimate purpose of Yisroel, and there was the Am Yisroel to follow this Agudah. Torah is at once the guide and the goal; the guidance. Under such circumstances a holding opera­ means and the purpose; the road to travel, and the tion made sense-it was the only possible way. end towards which we travel. And Agudah ideology Avrohom Ovinu spent his whole life in proclaiming must have much to do with Kial Yisroel. Agudah was the name of G-d. He literally sacrificed his body and formed to serve not Toras Yisroel but Kial Yisroel. soul for each wandering Bedouin, to bring him the Kial Yisroel can only be served when Toras YisroeI is Rebono shel Olom: that He is One; that He is Emes. a means, and Kial Yisroel can only be served if Toras Yet this same A vrohom Ovinu who gave to every Yisroel is the ultimate goal. This being the case it may wandering Arab his time, his labors, his life-this same be worthwhile to examine in what sense Agudah was Avrohom Ovinu took his own son, his own Yishmoel, formed to serve Kial Yisroel; in the process we may and sent him out with a small flask of water and said: discover a need-perhaps an urgent and desperate Go, you have nothing more to do with me. The same need-to change Agudah ideology, to shift its thrust Avrohom Ovinu who gave to every stranger everything and to give new meaning to its purpose of being. he had, could offer nothing more than a little flask of water and a piece of bread to his own son. To an un­ A Defensive Effort knowing heathen he committed bis soul and his body; I do not think that Agudah was formed to give a with Yishmoel who learned . . . who knew . . . who government to Kial Yisroel. I think Agudah was formed understood ... and rejected ... A vrohom could have -as a defensive effort-to help fend off the incredible no relationship. This is a principal which holds true danger which Kial Yisroel then faced; that Agudah to this day. That Jew who is a tinok she'nishba, who was formed as a way to protect Kial Yisroe! from the was not aware and never understood and wasn't given heresy of the Haskoloh, which proved to be a force the opportunity to learn Torah and to know the Truth that deprived Kial Yisroel of many of its finest minds, of Torah-to him we must commit everything: our and decimated our ranks. And if Agudath Israel was souls, our bodies, our self-sacrificing labors. To the born as a defensive tactic, then we must be ready 7xi111' ~11110 who knows and rejects; wh;, willfully chooses to change the whole thrust of Agudah ... because the wrong; who says to the Rebono shel Olom: I am not defense failed. We have iu fact lost J'l~1 J'll.l ~,, of Kial Yours-him we let go. Yisroel. Hitler took its quality; Hitler took its quantity; When Agudath Israel began we were dealing with and we volunteered additional Korbonos of quantity. those who had rejected. And because they had rejected The majority of Kial Yisroel today do not know of we had to say to them: We must go our way: the way Taras Yisroel, are not aware of Toras Yisrocl-I am of Torah, the way of Truth; and you go your way­ not saying they do not keep Taras Yisroel-they are unless you do teshuvoh. But with those of our brothers not aware of Taras Yisroel. They simply do not know in Kial Yisroel who were never given the opportunity that Kial Yisroel and Toras Yisroel are one. In this to kno\v, who never came to understand the Truth of light Agudath Israel can no longer assume a defensive Torah, who never came to understand the reality of posture: today Agudah must be aggressive and must G-d's existence; who never came to know that Kial find the methodology not only to protect the remnants, Yisroel has no other purpose than to testify to the the shearis hapleitoh, but to win back those who have Oneness of G-d-to these we cannot say: you go your been lost. way and we will go our way. We have a sacred duty to bring them back; to go to them. to learn with them, The Problem-and Some Solutions to teach them. This we mnst do not only as Yiras Let us now examine the halaehie approach to th~ Sho111ayiln aJone, but as an imperative of Halochoh problems we face. and to possible solutions !o these as well. The Rambam maintains that Lhnud Ha'_Torah problems. If at one time Agudah was able to say: We has two aspects that are really one: 11.l7'ii 11.l7'i to the will stand as a wall of steel and we will not permit the Rambam arc not two separate positive commands. It heretics to bring into Kial Yisroel the poison with is not one obligation to learn Torah and yet another which they destroyed Yiddishe neslwmos by the hun­ to teach Torah: 11.l?'i includes 11.l?'ii. To learn Torah dreds and thousands, it was because two conditions means to learn in order to transmit; and the obligation existed. First there was a Kial Yisroel; there was a of learning Torah is complete only when the Torah People, an '1 C\I. We numbered in the tens of thousands that I have learned will in fact be transmitted to other. the Torah institutions; the shtieblaeh; the baalebatim (Some say these arc two separate Mitzvos, but the who learned Torah day and night; the chadarim in Rambam, and most other authorities rule that it is one.) which every Jewish child had a place to learn Torah If it is not transmitted, it is not just that I haven't taught and mitzvos, and Yiras Shomayim-to learn the Torah, but that my learning is not the fulfillment of meaning of Ha'Kodosh Baruch Hu. And out of this that mitzvoh of the Torah. It is a haloehoh inherent in great reservoir there arose in each time the Gedo!ei the mitzvoh of learning Torah itself: 1~7'1-transmit-

The ]elvish Observer I January, 1970 19 ting to others. The Rambam rules: l'M iii;, il'M1V 1'~'m who keep Truth; bnt we have to work with those who ;iim imM )'1~':>~-A talmid who is not worthy, who is don't-not make them a part of us--0ur homes and going in perverse ways (as he himself defines "not our lives have to be with those to whom Torah is life. worthy") ;iim ii~?? iicM, you may not teach him But we can bring them into our homes to share with Torah. What should we then do, the Rambam asks? them-work with them, deal with them with Love ~:iim iniM pi~?~ i: im;i ~tii~; um; pi'Tn~­ and with Truth: not condescendingly and not in order you must first train him, and work with him, and to do a mitzvoh, but because they are G-d's People, persuade him, and cry over him, and laugh with him and we owe it to them; because our heart bleeds for -until you have brought him back---and then you them; because we know that for every Jew who is not may learn Torah with him. This means that my own with us, we are missing a limb, and maybe a vita] organ. learning of Torah demands that when there is a ta/mid When we speak of contemporary American Jewish who is going in the wrong way that I bring him back, reality, we are speaking of two factors which must and see to it that he becomes worthy, and then teach necessarily affect what Agudah is. The one that we him Torah-that is my obligation of Limud Ha'Torah. have just discussed: that we now Jive in an age and The same halochoh that requires me to learn Torah, in a place where the majority of Jews don't know, requires of me that I bring this ta/mid back and make aren't aware, and were never given to understand the of him a proper Jew, so that I can then teach him. essence of Torah. The other factor we must be keenly There is something lacking in the Torah that we learn aware of, that must have a profound and intense effect -in the Torah of every member of Agudah, and in on what Agudah is and what Agudah must do, is the presence of tremendous obstacles for Torah in our the Torah of Agudah as a whole if it is not m~ ?y time that never existed before. The spirit of heresy, the ii~?';> and that ,,~.,., 11l~ ';oy means ~tii~':> iniM )'i'Tn~ problems engendered by science, are not new to the :iim imM pi~?~i. history of Kial YisroeL Challenges to our ideology, Does this mean that we lower the barriers and bring challenges to the teachings of Torah, we have had in into our midst and work together with ':>Mi1V' >yivio?­ age after age after age. And these challenges are easier it does not. The Rambam clearly states that it is the to meet. We have ways that have evolved, even though nature of man that he follows and conforms to the there may be some differences of opinion and judgment ways of those among whom he Jives: if they are evil on which of these methods are most proper today. But he will become evil; and if they are good, he will learn the challenge that is unprecedented, the challenge that to do what is good. Therefore, says the Rambam. one is unprecedented in the whole history of mankind, may not live in a place among those who do evil, and is the challenge that goes beyond affluence to hedonism: if he does, he must leave that place. And if for any the notion that we should use the unprecedented wealth reason, says the Rambam, he is unable to leave, then lVith lVhich the Almighty has blessed us, our generation, he must sit by himself, separate from the people among for fulfilling every passion, every lust, every base need whom he lives-his own life completely divorced from of the human body. This lust, this hedonism-imposed all those about him, in order that he not learn from on us in the very air we move in, the newspapers, the them. And the Rambam warns: Don't think, I am so radio, G-d help us! the television-is a challenge that good and so strong and so powerful and so stubborn, never before in the history of Klal Yisroel have we had and such a great lamdan, and so wise that I can live to confront. And this is a challenge we cannot meet there and not conform-a11 men, whoever they arc, with learning of Torah alone; this is a challenge we will ultimate1y conform. Therefore we must have our cannot meet with oratory and ideology; this is a chal­ own enclaves; we must form our own society; we must lenge that can only be met by creating such a flame, live only with those who are C'l'~M~ and ;iiin ,,~,!V such a fervor, such a tremendous emotional com1nit­ and know the meaning of C'~iV t1N1' and i1"1iil~ illi1JN:: ment to Torah and Yiras Shomayim that the force of this is the only way in which we can be the ,, '1~W our own commitments, the fire that comes out of each who alone are the hope of an 'i Cl7. one of us in Agudah, engulfs and burns away the '1M~itl that is in the hearts of most every Jew today. Conflictin!? Halochos? It means that Agudah cannot possibly be satisfied with But how do we reconcile these two halochos: the teaching alone: Agudah must find the means of pas­ halochoh of Jiving separately and the halochoh of ,~.,, sionately involving every Jew in his Yiddishkeit; of and being ~tli~? i'Tn~? The solution is quite apparent: evoking an intense emotional commitment and response We must live with our own, but we must work with to the Truth of Torah. This and this alone is the only those that we have to be ~tli~':> i'Tn~. To bring them possible way to meet the challenge of the filth which back to our ranks, to share our organization with them fills the streets-this nM~itl can only be burned away is impossible; we cannot say, become members of Agu­ -there is no teaching it away. dah. We have to live with those who know Truth and This is the greatest of all challenges that Agudah

20 The Jew;sh Observer / January, 1970 faces, and it cannot meet it with platitudes; it cannot as he goes about his business, as he learns Torah, as meet the challenge by symposia and theoretical discus­ he visits with friends and neighbors, as he teaches his ~ions. It can only express itself by an action-program children, as he relaxes with his children; as he teaches which will involve every member of Agudah in his his friends and as he relaxes with his friends. Nothing daily-actual daily-life; in his minute-to-minute life less can meet this challenge. D

The Next Stage: From Idea to Community

RABBI NATHAN BULMAN has a well-earned reputation Yaakov Rosenheim had in mind, really help? There jor his ability to address himself to the unique circum­ were many who believed it wouldn't work. stances of American Orthodoxy in the spoken and the I had the z'chus of meeting the late Dr. Jonas Simon written word. He now serves as Rabbi of Young Israel only a few months before he died this year. He was the of Far Rockaway and Dean of Studies of Sarah Sche­ 1ast surviving participant of the great conference in nirer Teachers Seminary. Rabbi Bulman has served Kattowitz. I will never forget this meeting: he told me as a member of the Editorial Board and has con­ many things; he had visited R' Chaim-he visited many tributed numerous articles to .The Jewish Observer. At Gedolei Yisroel of that generation-and R' Chaim the symposium, he addressed himself to "The Next expressed serious doubts that institutional means of any Stage in American Agudism: From Idea to Community." sort would be capable of stemming that tide. There were great tzadikim who doubted it. Did the effort This is the largest American gathering, we have been succeed? In part it did. In Poland we did not reverse told, in Agudist history. Is it a mark of our vitality? the tide; but we stemmed it. For a generation before Is it a mark of how alive we are as a movement? Or Agudath Israel and its beginnings, young yeshivaleit is it a mark of a desire to spend some time together came home to find their sisters and wives engrossed with good friends and listen to some droshos? in the culture of a Polish pianist or a Polish novelist, I have been asked to discuss the translation of the and they looked down with scorn at their husbands idea of Agudath Israel into community. WeII ... don't and brothers. Agudath Israel built Bais Yaakov and we have communities? Aren't there hundreds of or­ changed that. It will be told to the end of time what ganized communities? Aren't there hundreds of Torah that reversaJ of trend 1neant to our sons and daughters. institutions? Aren't there hundreds of Botei Midroshim Polish Jewry was destroyed-but Bais Yaakov lives! and Shtieblach-Shuls and Kollelim?-What's missing? ONE OF THE KEYS to building Yiddishkeit and building kehilos is the creation of a genuine and dignified litera­ AGUDATH ISRAEL was organized not only for the sake ture-not the yellow Orthodox journalism of the sort of defense; not only to protect Yiddishkeit of individ­ that should make us flush with shame. In Polish Jewry uals, but for the sake of the defense of the Torah there \Vas dignity, and such literature was produced. character of Klal Yisroel. It is important to recall that They took young men from shtieblach and taught them there were many great Jews-even in that generation the ineaning of verbal and written communication. and of R' Chaim Ozer and the Gerer Rebbe--who had they taught it to them without sending them off to doubts about an organization, and not because they college. They didn't study Polish formally; and they thought that Agudah was a little too modern. There didn't study Lashon Ha'Kodesh formally; and they were Gedolei Yisroel and major Kehilos who stayed didn't study Yiddish formally; but they had a mouth out of Agudath Israel because they suspected that the and they had a pen, and the tide was at least partially illness could no longer be healed by institutional means. stemmed. When the neshomoh is sick, when the "generator" is In Germany, the movement of Rabbi Samson Ra­ sick, and the Yeshiva doesn't help, and the Rebbe phael Hirsch enabled a sector of German Jewry to doesn't help, and the Rosh Yeshiva .doesn't help­ stand firm against an overwhelming assimilatory process could a governmental organization of the sort that R' which had torn away hundreds of thousands of young

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 21 Jews. Great-grandchildren of those first eleven Jews with outstretched hands; and we doom our rising Torah who joined Hirsch founded a kehila in America which institutions to become dependent and subservient. The today numbers close to 1500 families. There were Gaon of Vilna once said that a rusty nail in a Bais major victories. Mcdrosh can destroy the Bais Medrosh. How many rusty plaques arc there in our Botei Medroshim today? THE SAD CONDITION of Torah Jewry in America today We can't build this way. We must return to the source. is the result of one fact: we have no kehilos. There are We cannot content ourselves with building Shtieblach a thousand rabbonim and congregations-and I mean here and a Yeshiva or a Rais Y aakov there. Orthodox rabbonim-who are almost lost to what we What happened to the yeshivaleit for whom we call the Torah camp. We have given away the instru­ waited so long? We drive them to the Conservative mentality of the Rav and the congregation. Tzedakah Talmud Torahs, in a desperate search for parnasa. has been turned over to the federations and welfare What a mighty army we would have today if we had funds. They raise 250 million Jewish dollars a year, succeeded in educating these few thousands to an un­ a large percentage from Torah Jews, and they'll give derstanding: "Don't get lost in the shuffle! Build! Don't us an occasional camp for our poor children from build a Yeshiva here and a Mikva there. Build Kehilos!" Crown Heights. And if we protest some more, they'll Ten Jews join together to build a Rais Medrosh or a give us a few more camps. But is this the way of our Shtiebel, and they are oblivious to their responsibility fathers? They built kehilos; they maintained them, to Kial Yisroel. They forget that they must have and they supported them themselves. rabbonim-not just rabhis and mashgichim and roshei Jewish kehilos, and Jewish kehilos alone will provide yeshivos and executive directors. the "generator," the source of power for the soul of If we want to begin to do what Agudath Israel had Kial Yisroel. lf we relinquish to others this source of intended to do, we must build a tzibur for Kial Yisroel. power, then all of our efforts are doomed to failure. As long as we content ourselves with being a public If we do not build kehilos for our Torah institutions, relations department for the Almighty, I am afraid we doom our Roshei Y eshivos to stand like paupers that our words will be lost in the wind. [J

The Yeshiva World and Orthodoxy: Self-Protection ... Or Encounter?

RABBI YECHIEL PERR discussed "The yeshiva world and in the number of students now learning in and American Orthodoxy: Self-protection ... Or En­ yeshivas. counter?" He contributed "Reb Yisroel-Who Was The Chazal tell us that when Y aakov A vinu left He?" to the June 1969 issue of The Jewish Observer. his home he actually went to Charan. But when he He is Rosh Yeshiva of the newly organized Yeshiva got there he thought: "Can I have passed by the very of Far Rockaway. place where my fathers prayed, without having myself stopped to pray?" He turned back to that place and It is one of those sad statistics of American Jewish life it was there that the Almighty blessed him. And Ge­ that of the estimated three million Jewish children in dolim have said that had he not returned he would America, more than two million do not have even one not have been blessed. hour a week of any sort of religious instruction.-This American Jewry ha"l also arrived ... in "Charan." is an unbearable tragedy: over two million Jewish But in our breathless haste to build Torah in America children cannot recognize the shape of the letter Aleph! -to rebuild all that was lost in the churban of Europe I have been asked to discuss that small group who -we forgot something along the way: we rushed right are students of the yeshivas, and this seemingly has by a place where our fathers prayed. little to do with the totally deprived Jewish children. The Yeshiva with a dormitory is unique in Jewish In the yeshivas we see a bright picture: Baruch experience; it is a modern-day phenomenon. In the Ha'Shem there has been a phenomenal growth in the past the Yeshiva Bochur away from home ate "Teg." numher of yeshivas established in the last few years, What did it mean for a bochur to eat "Teg?" It meant

22 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 sitting at the table of a local balebos and crying into was not teaching Torah-Reb Chiya was teaching your soup because you were sensitive. But it also Jewish childTen how to teach Torah: While his goal meant experiencing a Jewish home, being part of a was that Torah not be forgotten by Kial Yisroel, his Jewish community; it also meant seeing at first hand method was to teach others how to teach-how to the problems of a Jewish home and the problems of recognize their responsibility to other Jewish children. a Jewish community. But today's Bnai Torah are Only the teaching of responsibility for others can growing up in the hot-house environment of a yeshiva guarantee that Torah will not be forgotten by Kial dormitory. Certainly a yeshiva dormitory is a fine Yisroel. place, a proper home for a Ben Torah. Yet there is One of the root causes of the breakdown in relations nothing in the dormitory to give the Ben Torah an among men is the failure to comprehend that the awareness of Kial Yisroel and its problems, and this human personality is a bundle of contradictions. Take is a serious loss in the total chinuch situation: a Joss Hillel's well known dictum: "Im ain ani Ii-mi Ii?" to the Ben Torah and a loss to Kial Yisroel. ("If I am not for myself-who is for me?") It often When Reb Chanina and Reb Chiya would disagree takes a lifetime to understand this. No one is for you. on a Halacha-the Gemmorah tells us-Reb Chanina Not father. Not mother. Not wife. Not ckildren.-No would say, "How can you argue with me?-If, chas one. And so, if I am not concerned for myself, who will v'sholom, the Torah were to be forgotten, I could be concerned for me? But Hillel continues, "Uch'she­ Testore the entire Torah with my power of Pilpul." ani l'atzmi-moh ani?" ("When I am only for myself And Reb Chiya would reply, "How can you argue -what am I?") The person whose horizons are only with me?-I have seen to it that Torah will never be as wide as himself; whose main interest in life is to forgotten." The Gemmorah explains that Reb Chiya advance himself; who understands "Lil' mod U'le'lamed" would plant and harvest flax which he spinned and as an obligation to teach others for his own personal wove into nets, with which he would capture some growth: such a person is incomplete; he has not been deer. He gave the flesh to the poor, and on the hides fully developed. His indifference to others comprises he wrote the Five Books of the Chumash. He would even his own fulfillment. then go to a town, teach a different book of Chumash each to five youngsters; and teach a different seider THE GEMMORAH TELLS us that because of Sinas Chinom of the Mishnah to each of six others. "Until I return," -unwarranted hatred-the Bais Ha'Mikdosh was de­ he instructed them, "each of you must teach what you stroyed.-What of the many Tzedukim and Biryonim have learned to the others." This is how Reb Chiya Jn Yerushalayim?-why did Chazal single out Sinas saw to it that Kial Yisrael would never forget the Chinom as the root cause of the Churban? Torah. The Tzedukim and Biryonim were symptoms of the disease: a manifestation of the process of Sinas Chinom NOW HOW DOES THIS ASSURE that Torah will not be which ultimately destroyed the Bais Ha'Mikdosh. And forgotten by Kial Yisroel?-And why couldn't Reb how far is indifference from Sinas Chinom? Chiya have taught all of the Chumash and all of the "Self-protection ... Or ... Encounter?"-Do we Mishnah to all of the children-and not entrust their really have a choice? Is one possible without the other? learning to those less capable than he? ... Reb Chiya D

A STATEMENT BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Editorial Board has announced the appoint­ youngsters, and ranging from kindergarten through ment of Rabbi Nissan Wolpin to succeed Rabbi senior high school. Yaakov Jacobs as Editor of The Jewish Observer. Rabbi Wolpin has been Editor of Olomeinu, Rabbi Wolpin studied at the Mesivta Torah Torah U'Mesorah's children's magazine, for the Vodaath and the Beis Medrosh Elyon. From 1958 past ten years. For many years he has "observed" to the present, Rabbi Wolpin has been principal the American Jewish scene in Seattle (his home of the Yeshiva and Mesivta Ohr Yisroel in Forest town, Los Angeles, Scranton, Baltimore and Mon­ Hills, New York, which has grown in that time sey. Rabbi Wolpin will assume his duties as from a fledgeling four-grade institution to a vast Editor in July of this year. Jn the interim, duties of Torah-chinuch complex serving hundreds of the editor will be assumed by the Editorial Board .

.The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 23 Murray Friedman Understanding Jewish History

RABBI MURRAY FRIEDMAN has dedicated himself to the with all its dire consequences proved to be the most development of a Torah-committed Jewish historiog­ awesome example of a foretelling confirmed. raphy. Among other articles he has contributed to these Jn exile prophets arose among lsraael to carry on the task of admonition begun by Moshe. While they in­ pages are: "The Patterns of Jewish History"" (Feb. habited the earth, their exhortations and warnings of '68); and "The Faith of Our Fathers" (Jan. '69). The disaster carried the word of G-d to the People. Their following is an expression of some of the principles utterances made it perfectly clear that the evils which which he has set down, and an application of these befell the Jews were not the result of chance, but the operation of Divine will. As their worst forebodings principles to a specific period in Jewish history. were realized, so were the calming forecast~ of subse­ quent redemption and return to the Land. If we compare a seed with a ripe fruit, the two appear Prophecy eventually ceased in Israel; no longer was to have very little in common. Yet we know that the G-d's will made known through human speech. Hester­ design hy which the fruit was produced was set from panim--concealment of G-d's visage-prevailed. When the moment of germination by the structure of the seed. Israel sins, G-d turns away from them in anger and Imaginatively speaking, we may say that the seed leaves the masses in confusion. Although G-d still contains the fruit, although if we examine the seed guides our destiny, His ways are complex and full of itself, we may find nothing that remotely resembles mystery. Yet he makes His presence known to those any portion of the fruit. who seek Him. Supplanting the vision of our divincly­ The world at the time of Creation may be likened to inspired seers was the enlightened perception of our a seed. When it first emerged from nothingness, the later Sages. Jn the historical configuration of their times, world already contained the grand design for the they were able to discern the pattern of G-d's involve­ future course of mankind and, in particular, the des­ ment with the fate of His people. tiny of Israel. We know, for example, that the primeval universe contained an inherent pattern for Israel's en­ AS TIME GOES BY, Israel's devotion to G-d appears to counter with four great powers that figure significantly diminish. G-d reveals himself in a correspondingly in our history: Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. stnaHcr measure to mortals on earth. His conduct be­ In the same fashion, the emergence of Biblical per­ comes more secret. Cataclysmic events rock the sup­ sonages was aJso presaged from the moment of the ports of Jewish life with no apparent explanation. Long­ universe's birth. As the leaves of history are turned, established communities are uprooted overnight and G-d's original plan unfolds and becomes manifest be­ even destroyed-and nobody can say why. In these fore the eyes of mankind. circumstances, a careful examination of Jewish history brings us reassurance that G-d still rules the world in History Reveals the Work of Providence the interest of His people; that His love is undiminished; History may also be read as record of G-d's unin­ that His concern over our fate increases as our exist­ terrupted custody of Israel. G-d blesses or reprimands ence becomes increasingly precarious. His people in accordance with their deeds, but at all times, He maintains His status as sovereign and father. History Binds Israel and the Torah Retribution as well as reward reflect G-d's Jove and His intense desire to bring us into the kingdom of Man has a body and a soul. He may suffer physical heaven on earth. Furthermore, all the predictions of death through the destruction of his body or spiritual the Torah, to the very last letter, were fulfilled when death by the loss of his soul. This analysis applies Israel lived in the Holy Land. The tide of events demon­ equally well to the Jewish people collectively. To sns­ strated repeatedly that obedience to G-d's will was an tain us physically, G-d gave us a land of our own indispensable condition for Israel's tranquility. Begin­ flowing with milk and honey; to sustain us spiritually, ning with Joshua's earliest conquests, the fortunes of he gave us the Torah. Our physical existence after war and peace were clearly influenced by the nation's almost two thousand years of wandering over the face moral conduct. Eventually, Israel's exile from the Land of the earth is incontrovertible testimony of G-d's bene-

24 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 ficience towards His people. He preserves us in ways had issued his edict permitting the Jews in exile to that would defy human belief were they not real. return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Beis Ha'Mikdosh. Indeed, the abject condition in which Israel survives Three decades earlier the construction had been com­ at times is a magnificent testament to the power of pleted. Political sovereignty, however, remained in the the Almighty. hands of the foreign conquerors who had taken the Holy Land after defeat of the Babylonian kingdom. ISRAEL'S SOUL DERIVES its sustenance from the Torah. Who were these Persians? Where did they come Torah is called a "tree of life," and it manifests many from?-and how did it come about that they held do­ characteristics ordinari1y associated with Jiving things. minion over the people and the land of Israel? One characteristic of life is adaptation: the ability to adjust to changing conditions. Torah, too, possesses Authorities on ancient history have suggested a nmn­ the aptitude of adjusting to the changing needs of the ber of causes for the phenomenal growth of Persia Jewish people. In its progress from one era to the next, which, in the brief space of a single generation, was hi~tory registers recurrent periods of spiritual crisis. transformed from an obscure tribe to mastery over the As there were times when Israel stood in danger of great territories of the Orient. Theories devised on the physical extinction, there were also times in which the basis of available evidence consider such factors as spiritual lifeblood of the people appeared to be threat­ the superior personality of Cyrus as general and ad­ ened by depletion. Miraculously, as it were, Israel's ministrator; the healthy climate of the country which survival was secured by the emergence of Torah in produced a sturdy peasantry; and the skill possessed a guise especially suited to meet the exigency of that by the Persians in the arts of war-particularly in the particular juncture in history. effective use of mobile cavalry and skilled bowmen. Torah has a history of its own, moreover. From the Persians are also described as a pliable people, ready time that Moshe received the Torah from Sinai down to adopt the customs of countries which they conquered. through the most violent and turbulent periods of the By absorbing the cultures of their vanquished foes, the past, and to this very day, Torah has been transmitted victors were able to live in harmony with foreign popu­ from master to disciple in an unbroken chain. Jn each lations while maintaining military and political control. generation, select individuals emerge who are the To the rational, unprejudiced mind, none of the standard-bearers for the Torah legions of Israel. A generally accepted causes are able to account for the study of this vital process by which the continuity of lightning rise to power achieved by Cyrus and his suc­ Torah is maintained without interruption strengthens cessors. Secu1ar historians exclude from the very outset the realization that Israel today still carries on a living the influence of Providence in the affairs of mankind; con1n1unication with Moshe Rabbeinu, our first teacher. they restrict themselves to natural interpretations only. Regardless of how strongly the plain facts in a situation History Interprets Retrospectively imply the workings of Divine wiJI, historians who do not possess faith in a supernatural force will search for History is considerably more than the chronological the most remote and unconnected causes rather than arrangement of important events. Events are truly sig­ relinquish a purely natural explanation. Data which do nificant only when they are ordered in a meaningful not conform with their shaky and elaborate theories pattern according to valid perspectives. Fortunately, and discounted or simply ignored. Jn utilizing the history itself often provides the necessary clues for its finding of experts, therefore, the student of Jewish own interpretation. Events that cause bewilderment history must be conscious at all times of an inherent when they occur, often are clarified in the light of later bias that is present in the perception and interpretation developments. Particularly in recent times, when swiftly of humanist scholars who believe that the human in­ moving events have brought in their wake a multiplicity tellect reigns supreme in our universe. of questions and doubts, we must often wait for the answers that the future will surely bring. Ultimately, Cyrus' meteroic elevation to glory was in fact an we must expect, the final and definitive interpretation imperative ordained by G-d's plan for Israel. Jeremiah of Jewish history and the illumination of the many had prophesied that seventy years after the destruction shadows that fill its pages will come about with the of the first Beis Ha'Mikdosh, the Jewish exiles in advent of Moshiach, may he come speedily in our Babylonia would return to their land. Persia had been tiine. Let us here examine one aspect of Jewish history chosen as the kingdom that would bring this prophecy in this perspective. to fulfillment. Cyrus' swift conquest of powerful Asiatic kingdoms was part of the scheme that was set in opera­ IN THE YEAR 3438, Israel was under the rule of King tion in order to bring about the conditions necessary Artaxerxes of Persia. Almost half a century has passed for the return to the Holy Land. Thus we find the since Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, following verses at the very beginning of Ezra:

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 25 And in the first year of Cyrus goods, and with beasts, beside the king of Persia-that the word of freewill offering for the house of G-d from the mouth of Jeremiah G-d which is Jerusalem. might be fulfilled-G-d stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia; To the secular historians, Cyrus' edict is an unsoluable and he made pass a proclamation riddle. Why should this relentless potentate who wor­ throughout his kingdom and also in shipped his Persian god display such magnanimity to writing, saying: a weak people with alien ways? What motive could Thus says Cyrus, King of Persia: have prompted such an unprecedented and seemingly all the kingdoms of the earth has the irrational deed? Some authorities cite Cyrus' generous Lord, G-d of heavens, given to me; policies towards other conquered nationalities as indica­ and he has charged me to build for tive of his liberal nature. Others impute to Cyrus a Him a house in Jerusalem which is lesser motive and allege that he was desirous of having in Judah. the Jews returned to their land so that he would derive large sums of tribute from the flourishing econ­ Whosoever there is among you of omy which they would create. Either explanation is all His people-may his G-d be flimsy and certainly does not approach in directness with him-let him go up to J erusa­ and simplicity the words in Ezra which state that G-d lem which is in Judah and build stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. But this the house of the Lord, the G-d of is one kind of determination which a humanist analysis Israel, He is the G-d who is in cannot allow and by its very nature is rendered un­ Jerusalem. acceptable. And whosoever remains, from any place that he sojourns there, let the IT MUST BE STRESSED, however, that while history men of his place laden him with demonstrates, it does not reveal His presence to us silver, and with gold, and >1··ith unless we first believe in Him firmly as an act of faith. To the believer, G-d's presence pervades every locus of the universe; His will is apparent throughout the story of mankind. But that is because he believes! To the one who does not possess this faith, the identical panorama of events which may lead a man of faith into an ecstatic realization of G-d's majesty will lead fwotv~ the secular scholar into some grotesque hyoothesis which is consistent only in its conformity to his pre­ • x_rrus zicur \'.j'ratitude conceived judgment that G-d's influence is not felt 15'1 witli a upon earth. Even miracles, open evidence of G-d's handiwork, SCFOLL do not prove conclusively that G-d rules the world. &.'! No matter how marvelous these happenings may be, there always remains the possibility--obviously quite ~nT,8'QnOLL ,8'TQDIO~ remote-that these wonders may have been produced by natural causes. Why this must be so is easily un­ l6~ 'f'lftfi Jfwnue, !.'.W'"' .Y"rk derstood. Man's highest exercise of his freedom to 'f,f'l""" 9&9-"1114 choose between right and wrong is in the matter of faith. Once man has witnessed an absolute proof of G-d's presence, belief, turns into knowledge. If man were to possess this knowledge, he would lose his freedom to choose. He would be like the angels and not like other human beings. The skeptic puts his entire trust in the perception of his senses and his intellectual prowess, while the re1igious conviction of the man of faith makes mani­ fest the fulfillment of G-d's. Briefly: to the skeptic, to see is to believe; to the faithful, to believe is to see. D

26 The Jewfrh Observer / January, 1970 Some Recent Jewish Books Chassidus and "Scholarship"

In our November, 1968 issue, we discussed the prob­ Weiner's book will be lured into the belief that they lem of "The Book Industry and Orthodox Judaism." are indeed being introduced to "the primal light"­ The following observations are an up-dating of that particularly when they pick up the book in a shop and discussion in relation to some recently published books read the blurbs on the dust jacket: " ... Weiner ranks of specifically Jewish interest. with Martin Buber and Gershon Scholem as a most profound (and also delightful) exponent of his spiritual Chassidus continues to be a popular subject on current tradition . .. ."-ALAN WATTS; "I warmly recommend book lists. Yet to this day-apart from some English­ ... 9Y2 Mystics ... it is rich in information . ..."­ language publications of Lubavitch-there has not ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL; "91'.6 Mystics is an outstanding yet appeared a popular work on the subject in the addition to modern religious literature, treating a pro­ English language that can claim authenticity. foundly important and difficult subject. ..."-MAU­ RICE SAMUEL. Just to cite one example of Weiner's It is told of one of the Chassidic Rebbes that he scholarship: "Halacha comes from the Hebrew k'lal, overheard some of his Chassidim discussing a scholar meaning generalization or principle."-We asked our who was said to be "an outstanding authority" on nine-year old daughter-just to be sure-"What's the Chassidus. "The man knows nothing about Chassidus," shoresh of Halacha?" She twisted her nose and thought the Rebbe said. When one of the Chassidim asked if for a moment: "Isn't it like Holech?" Perhaps Weiner the Rebbe would explain-since the man was widely should indeed have left Chassidus to the scholars, or recognized as an authority-he offered an exan1p1e. better still to "authentic Kabbalists." If he is really "If a man is an authority on the city of Paris; kno\vs searching-as he very well may be-he would do all its streets and boulevards, and where they intersect; better not to use his search for personal gain. Buber knows every place of interest; knows its shops and accuses Scholem of making a "science of Kabbala." museums-but he had learned it all from books, and Buber turned Chassidus into literature-"theology" at had never been to Paris-would you say he was "an best. Weiner has lumped it all together as journalism. authority" on Paris? Many people write books about And Weiner's readers, like himself, will not be blinded Chassidus-but they have never been there." by the "primal Iight"-they will remain in total dark­ ness until someone comes along who has really "been Herbert Weiner, has written 91'.6 Mystics (Holt, there.'' Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1969), a work on Chassidus sub-titled "The Kabhala Today." Weiner Ideas and Ideals of the Hassidim (Citadel Press, New is a Reform rabbi from New Jersey, and he is a very York, l 969) is a survey of "Hassidic thought through special case: He thinks he has been there. Weiner writes the centuries, showing how it reflects and amplifies of his visits with chassidim and leaders of Lubavitch the universal teachings of Judaism." The author, Dr. and Bratzlav; he writes of his visits with Gershom Milton Aron, has "been thcre"-he served as a chap­ Scholem, retired Professor of Jewish Mysticism of the lain in the United States Air Force, and as a Hillel Hebrew University. He describes Scholem as "the director in Detroit. The book's publisher describes him accountant" of Kabbalai and cites Buber's com1nent as "a wide-ranging scholar in the various disciplines of that "Scholem is a great scholar; he has made a science Judaica"-apparently including Chassidus. Aron's wide­ out of the Kabbala." Jn his preface Weiner expresses ranging scholarship is immediately manifest, even to his "anxiety as an outsider venturing into an area the uninitiated reader. A glance at a small sampling of usually reserved for professional scholars of authentic pages where "hassidic thought" is expounded shows Kabhalists." "That my presentation," he continues, the following source references: "A Treasury of Jew­ "has resulted in some distortions both of the subject ish Quotations"; "Buber: Tales of the Hasidim, Early matter and of the personalities described, I do not Masters"; "So1omon Schechter: Studies in Judaism, Vol. doubt. For this I am sorry ...." But-typical of his I"; "J. S. Minkin: Romance of Hasidism"; and "New­ approach-he explains his errors by "a favorite image man: Hassidic Anthology." Of course, Dr. Aron also of the Kahbalists. The primal light, they say, is simply gives credit to the founder of "Hassidism"-Rabbi too bright for finite eyes to behold." Yet readers of Israel Baal Shem Tov.

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 27 ANOTHER ENTRY in the field of Hassidus is Legends of utterly inexcusable: a newly-published work titled, to the Hasidim (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago use a fictitious example, "How to Organize a Ping-Pong and London, 1968) by Jerome R. Mintz. While we League in Your Jewish Center" is listed under "Re­ have frequently noted that works on Orthodox Jews ligion"--or even worse: "Religion, Jewish." and Chassidim (the latter is of course a sub-set of the former), often have an anthropological ring about In Princeton University Press' first volume in its them, this work is indeed an anthropological study. The "Religion in American Life" series, The Shaping of author is an associate professor at the Folklore Institute American Religion, the essay on "Judaism in the United of Indiana University. He professes no expertise on States" is written by Oscar Handlin, the famed . . . Chassidus-not even in "Judaica." The publisher here social historian. Almost as if to justify his being chosen, assures us that the book will "be particularly reward­ Handlin opens his essay with tbe words: "In modern ing to students of anthropology, folk-lore and Jewish times, Judaism has involved less a system of ideas or a culture"-in descending order, one assumes. formulated creed than a way of life." Mintz has gathered Chassidic tales in informal in­ Jn his brief survey of American Judaism, Handlin terviews with various Chassidim in New York City. practically ignores what has happened in the last few These tales have been categorized and catalogued in decades in American Orthodoxy, and feels free to accord with what we assume to be proper anthropolo­ note that: "Although the formal differences . . . re­ gical methods. Like Weiner, Mintz visited various mained as prominent as ever ... the actual substantive Chassidic centers, but he notes in his introduction that differences among them tended to diminish. All were he "did not pretend to be an Orthodox Jew. Although subject to the same intellectual and social forces and I always wore a hat, I did not grow a beard or wear within Jimited terms \Vere able to cooperate in the a kaftan." He admits to having said a prayer or two­ Synagogue Council of America." and danced with the chassidim; but he balked at putting After a passing reference to some growth in Ortho­ on tefilin in order not to practice "deceit." doxy's self-confidence and assertiveness," Handlin con­ In cataloguing the tales he collected, the author has cludes: meticulously assigned to each a motif and type num­ ber in accordance with Stith Thompson's Motif Index of Folk Literature which he records following each Nonetheless ... the main body of Orthodoxy was story, making it possible for other scholars to note . . . approaching a norm common to the other similarities to folk-talcs of other anthropological sub­ branches of American Judaisn1. Some rabbis were jects. indeed anxious to shed the desi!(nation Orthodox and to be known as Traditional. 1"hey e1nphasized The result of this effort is a series of stories which the necessity of integration into the larger A1neri­ ,have a most primitive ring-not always due to Mintz' can com1nunity and explained that the forms and efforts-and present a distorted picture of the ultimate rituals of the past were not fossils to be pre­ significance of Chassidus. In his acknowledgements, served vvithout contact with the environment, but Mintz lists the "many Hasidim without whose help this living grovvths to be nurtured in new ways hy the book could not have been written but whom I may not new soil of the United States to which they had name for fear of causing them some embarrassment." been transpianted. "Take the beard off the rabbi The book is not without value: it contains some beauti­ and put him into a sports coat," urged an Or­ ful photographs of Chassidim, and may offer some thodox spokesman in 1959. While genuine dif­ insights to the reader who can brush aside the anthro­ ferences remained, these conceptions tended to pology. But alas!-Chassidus still remains a closed narrow the distance between Orthodox and non­ book to the English reader, and a proper book on the Orthodox Jews. subject has yet to be published. In a footnote on the Jewish attitude to the New Testa­ THERE Is A PATTERN that often repeats itself in scholarly ment, Handlin advises his readers: "In general, see treatment of Judaism in published works. We saw it also Sholem Asch, One Destiny: An Epistle to the first in the Fifties, when the University of Chicago Christians ... and his novels." Press published a series on the three major faiths in America. The work on Catholicism was written by a This "scholarly work"-it grieves us to repeat-will Jesuit priest; Protestantism was assigned to a minister; be read by university students-Jews and non-Jews and the volume on Judaism was written by . . . a -as an authoritative work. But worse, it will be sociologist. Perhaps the scholars of religion have taken read by other scholars wbo will cite it in their scholarly too seriously the contention that Judaism is "a way works. And those works will be read by other scholars of life" and not a "religion." But the reverse seems who wiH cite. . . . YAAKOV JACOBS

28 The Jewish Observer I January. 1970 On Jewish Goblins

Last Friday night, October 31st, asked if they knew what they were, during our Shabbos meal at home, they knew. They were good Jewish the door bell rang. One of our chil­ goblins. dren, in a burst of prophetic vision, They didn't want to sit down but KOSHER shouted, "It's trick or treat." we did offer them a treat: some ge­ Which it was-except that we, filte fish. They politely refused. -but strictly! not the visitors tried to do the trick. Wine? No thanks. Chicken? Nope. We invited the three Halloween visi­ Some freshly baked challah? Uh-uh. tors into the house and to our Shab­ (A II they really wanted was some bos table. It was, after all. a true Halloween candy, and here was this Hallowed Evening: Shabbos. rabbi offering them Shabbos food! They looked at each other as if to I don't know who they were, for say, "How did we get into THIS­ they were well-costumed: two gob­ let's get OUT of here!") lins and a cowboy. But when I pointed to our Shabbos candles and "Well," I said (I hope gently),

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The Jewish Observer I January, .1970 29 "you know tonight is Shabbos so create Shabbos and Torah-oriented we didn't really prepare for Hallo­ Jews out of Halloween-oriented 'o o, ween and we have no treats." Jewish goblins. "Oh, that's all right," said the -RABBI EMANUEL FELDMAN, cowboy, looking at the door. "We ~ writing in the News Letter of have to go now." They said good­ Congregation Beth Jacob, UNITED'~ night and they ran ofj to continue Atlanta, Georgia. their quest for treats at houses Chevra Kadisha where Halloween would be more r D'chasidim • Hor Hamnuchot scrupulously observed. Yours for Founded 1856 I KEEP THINKING ABOUT THOSE Jew­ ish children, innocently ringing door­ the asking ' BURIAL IN JERUSALEM bells on Halloween/Shabbos night. Delicious GLATT KOSHER Break­ I think how easily ·they have been AND ALL CEMETERIES IN ISRAEL fast, Lunch, Dinner served to you able to slide into the prevailing cul­ by most Airlines at no extra cost. ture of society: the witches, the When arranging for your next air 1nasks, the pumpkins, the attitudes. trip be sure, request "Schreiber ;maal1n sako~esh And I wonder if they are equally Kosher Air Meals." Available in SOCl€tY at ease with Shabbos, with Jewish over 50 cities. attitudes, lvith Jewish values. 44 CANAL ST. Prepared under Rabbinical super· 'ij\ Those Friday night goblins were vision of the Union of Orthodox '=" NEW YORK CITY 10002 Jewish Congregations. U. S. Govern· probably no 1nore than nine years ment Jn~pected. Nr. E. Broadway Sta. "F" Train old, and I wish them and their ~- ~-.... - .....-=--- .....~ families well. But I keep thinking about them and about what they Da~' & ~ite Phone symbolize for an authentic Jewish WA 5-2277 life in the coming years. And they depress me. In Canada: They typify the great problems of living in two cultures, with the easy Chevra Kadisha adjustment to one and the uneasy of United Jewish Congregations adjustment to the other. And they Montreal Tel.: 273-3211 underscore the herculean efforts that are necessary if we are to

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30 The Jewish Observer / January, .1970 ZEIREI AGUDATH ISRAEL NIXON THANKS AGUDATH it "to evolve into an anti-administration forum, and its program will not incJude HOLDS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ISRAEL FOR SUPPORT ON expressions that are not consonant with Jn the aftermath of the inspiring Na· VIETNAM traditional Torah teachings." Agudath tional Convention of Agudath Israel, President Richard Nixon informed Israel, on ideological grounds, is not a steps have been taken to revitalize the Agudath Israel of America that he ap­ me1nber of the Presidents' Conference, youth organization, Zeirei Agudath Israel preciates the resolution adopted at the and participated in the Washington gath­ of America. A series of meetings were 47th National Convention of the or­ ering in order to express the solidarity of held in recent weeks, and an interim ganization supporting his "intensive ef­ all American Jews with the precarious executive board was established to plan forts to achieve peace in Vietnam." security position of Israel. The Agudah the organization's activities and func· "Your encouragement will strengthen delee:ation was headed by Presidium­ tions. The reactivated Zeirei Agudath our pursuit of the just and lasting peace inen'lber Rabbi Chaskel Besser. Israel will be launched at an impressive that all of us desire," the President wrote National Assembly which wiJI take place Agudath Israel. on Sunday ever.ing, March 1st. POST-CONVENTION AGUDAH ACTIVITIES IN FULL SWING BORO PARK DEDICATES AGUDATH ISRAEL TO NEW BUILDING MARCH 8th Strongly encouraged by the enthusiasm MOBILIZE ORTHODOX engendered at the 47th National Conven­ The Boro Park branch of Agudath tion of Agudath Israel, which reached a PARTICIPATION INN. Y. C. Israel will mark the dedication of its peak of spiritual quality and was marked SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS new three-story building at 4511-14th by a record participation over the Con­ A venue with a series of festivities be­ vention weekend of thousands of dele­ Agudath Israel's Commission on Legis· ginning Friday night, March 6th and gates and guests, the new administration 1ative and Civic Affairs, headed by Rabbi culminating with a gala Chanukas Ha­ of the organization has begun its ac­ Menachem Shayowich, has undertaken bayis Dinner Sunday evening, March tivities with new vigor. Well-atiended to mobilize Orthodox Jews throughout 8th, it was. announced by Abraham meetings of the newly-elected bodies New York City to participate in the Plotzker. president. The new large edi­ have planned an expanded program of local decentralized community school fice includes facilities for Zeirei and activities, and chairmen for all the board elections which will take place on Pirchei Agudath Israel, and will serve standing committees have been elected. March 19th. Agudah activists have point­ as one of the dynan1ic centers for Torah With the backing of the distinguished ed out that the new local school boards action in New York. Torah authorities in the nation, Agudath will have a major voice in dispensing Israel has entered the new decade with federal and state funds and services that AGUDATH ISRAEL an ambitious program to conquer new the Yeshivos should be receiving in each spiritual territory for its aims of es­ neighborhood, TELSHE YESHIVA ROCKEFELLER URGED NOT policy towards Israel's security situation, held in Washington, D.C., on January will hold TO DELAY AID TO NON­ 25-26. after receiving assurances that PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN the Conference of Presidents of Major ENTRANCE Jewish Organizations, which had con­ "Children attending non-public schools vened the gathering, would not perm it EXAMINATIONS should not be compeJJed to wait to obtain their sorely-needed state education aid for new students until the time-consuming machinery to repeal the 'Blaine Amendment' is set into A limited number of copies of from the New York City area motion," Governor Rockefeller was told in a message from Rabbi Moshe Sherer, THE JEWISH at the Park-Sheraton Hotel executive president of Agudath Israel of America. The New York Governor, in POCKET BOOKS 7th Avenue & 56th St. his opening message to the State Legis­ now available at lature, caJJed for the repeal of the on Sunday and Monday only 39€ each "Blaine Amendment" in order to enable March 8 & 9 the state to help children nttending pri­ Entire set of 12 only $3.95 vate schools. Agudath Israel, after many months of extensive research and work­ (attrnctive hookstand free) Parents should contact the ing with noted constitutional lawyers, Write for descriptive brochure, has in collaboration with other interested Yeshiva for an appointment. groups helped shape a new bill which ot send check or money order to: was presented to New York's legislature TELSHE YESHIVA that would provide substantial help to Traditional Educational 28400 Euclid A venue children attending Yeshivos and other Association non-public schools. This bill follows the Wickliffe. Ohio 44092 spirit of the recent Supreme Court de­ II West 42nd Street cision which declared that any programs New York, N. Y. 10036 Tel. (216) 943-5300 primarily directed to aid for the children do not violate the "Blaine Amendment."

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 31 FUNDAMENTALS OF JUDAISM PROCEEDINGS OF THE New Books from Feldheim Edited by Jacob Breuer. 0 A cross. ASSOCIATION OF ORTHODOX section of selections from Hirsch's most JEWISH SCIENTISTS signifiacnt works. D (reprint). $6.00 Just published: vol. II. O 200 pages. $3.50 A HEBREW CLASSIC THE HIRSCH SIDDUR The order of prayers for the whole STORIES OF ELIYAHU HANAVI Translated Info English year. D 760 pages. $9.7.5 By Israel Klapholz. 0 A collection of stories and traditions gathered from the for The first Time CHAPTERS OF THE FATHERS Babylonian and Palestinian Tahnuds, Midrashim and books of early and later Pirke Aboth. $2.95 ORCHOT TZADDIKIM sages. D 248 pages. $5.00 THE WAYS OF THE THE PSALMS YOSHKO THE DUMBELL 7 ' ol. I ---- B1;1oks 1·2. $9.75 A new and delightful story book by RIGHTEOUS VoL II - Books 3-5. $9.75 the 'vell-known author, scholar, and This Hebre\V classic has now been trans· spinner of Jewish folk.tales, Dr. Gershon lated into English for the first time by SEFER HAZIKARON Kranzler. Seventeen fascinating stories Rabbi Seymour J. Cohen of Chicago. O of Jewish Life after the holocaust. O Jn memory o{ Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov 136 pages. $2.95 Newly prepared according to the first \Veinberg, head o[ the Hildesheimer edition -- t•omplete with vowel marking Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. D With and source references. A very attractive thirty·one contributions by foremost rah· ZECHOR YEMOS OLAM volume in the series of "The Torah h-inh·al and scholarly authoritiet". D (In Stories of Jewish J_,ife, Customs and Classics Library." 0 644 pages. $10.00 Hebrew). $6.00 Folklore with many illustrations. O 176 pages. $4.00 THE WORKS OF SABBATH SHIURIM By Rabbi M. Miller, Vice Principal PHILIPP FELDHEIM, Inc. RABBI SAMSON RAPHAEL of Jewish Teacher;;' Training College, HIRSCH Gateshead. O Profound and Thought· "The House of the Jewish Book" Provoking Essays on a1l the Portions In English Translation of the 'veek, based on the teachings of 96 EAST BROADWAY Rav E. L. l)essler who was the spiritual NEW YORK, N. Y. 10002 TIMELESS TORAH father of the renowned Je·wish Teachers' An anthology of the \'tritings of Rabbi Training College of Gateshead. The Telephone: WA 5-3180 Samson R. IIirsch, edited by Jacob author quotes extensively from Rav FELDHEIM PUBLISHERS Ltd. Breuer. D 540 pages. 0 (reprint). Dessler's Michtav Me'Eliyahu. O 358 $8.95 pages. $5.50 39 Tachkemoni, Jerusalem, Israel

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