Blogging Rav Lichtenstein

BLOGGING RAV LICHTENSTEIN

A JOURNEY THROUGH A GIANT’S WRITINGS

AS THE SERIES ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON TORAHMUSINGS.COM

GIDON ROTHSTEIN

Please note that throughout the text, RA”L, Rav Lichtenstein and R. Lichtenstein all refer to Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l.

Blogging Rav Lichtenstein: A Journey Through a Giant’s Writings

Blogging Rav Lichtenstein

INTRODUCTION AND INVITATION

This past Rosh Chodesh Iyyar, the world of Torah and avodat Hashem lost a giant, mori ve-rabi R. Aharon I in ,ואני בעניי ,Lichtenstein. Many people are taking on important acts and learning projects in his memory my limited capabilities, wanted to join in that.

The idea that came to me was to review R. Lichtenstein z”l’s published volumes. While he wrote more than many realize (here’s the bibliography), there are, as far as I know, thirteen books he wrote or that were based on his talks. Eight of those are notes on shiurim he gave at Yeshivat Har Etzion, one is a collection, Minchat Aviv, of articles he published, and four volumes (By His Light, two volumes of Leaves of Faith, and Varieties of Religious Experience) collect English language talks he gave or articles he wrote.

As I try to review for myself some of the fruit of R. Lichtenstein’s toiling and tilling in the garden of Torah, I hope to share one stimulating idea a week. I make no pretense that I will be comprehensive, will capture all or a representative sample of what is found in those works, only that I can, in a few hundred words, share a thought worth knowing.

The inspiration for the idea, I think, was a current project on Tablet, where poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch writes a once-weekly reaction to the Daf Yomi. Just as he does not summarize the seven folios he studied that week, I will not be attempting to capture what R. Lichtenstein did in these volumes.

that ,ראויים למי שאמרםInstead, in the thirty weeks until his first yahrzeit, I hope to find thirty ideas that are meaningfully reflect the man who said or wrote them, the ways he approached the study of Torah and the kinds of ideas his approach produced.

I plan to devote two weeks to each volume, two volumes of Hebrew writings followed by one of the English ones, to maintain enough variety that we never become too caught up in one topic (even as R. Lichtenstein himself did not, to my knowledge, tire of investigating ideas deeply and thoroughly, not putting them aside until he felt he had taken on their complexities).

That will leave a few weeks at the end to return to those ideas that particularly attract our attention. It is my hope that these weeks will a) be part of reviewing the Torah of a hacham who passed away, part of how we are supposed to commemorate the loss of a teacher of Torah, and b) introduce us or, for those who knew him somewhat, give a fuller picture of the man.

We’ll start next week, God willing, with Minchat Aviv.

Gidon Rothstein

MINCHAT AVIV, WEEK 1: HIKING ON SUKKOT WITHOUT A SUKKAH

Minchat Aviv is a collection of some of the Hebrew articles mori ve-rabi R. Lichtenstein z”l wrote, on an impressive array of topics. (I write the words mori ve-rabi, my teacher and master, hesitantly; many jump to declare themselves the students of great men, basking in the reflected glory of a claimed close connection with the giant. I do not mean to make any such claim.

I had the good fortune to study in his yeshiva, to attend some of his shiurim and sichot, and to have sought and taken his expert and excellent advice on more than one occasion. I did strive to stay in touch from afar over the years, to hear him when I could, to read his writings, and I have no doubt that I have benefitted greatly from learning from him, that he in no small measure shaped my knowledge and understanding of Torah, and my worldview. In those terms, he was my teacher and master, and it is my obligation to refer to him that way.

But please do not infer from there any assertion to have been one of his students in the sense of those who sat at his feet, drank thirstily of his waters, and deserve to be thought of as continuers of his traditions).

I stress that I will not attempt or pretend to capture the entirety of the works I will be discussing, only finding a point that seems to me interesting and enlightening. This week, the choice was easy, because one of the articles in Minchat Aviv was published in Alon Shvut 84 (5742). Alon Shvut is Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush)’s internal Torah periodical, with articles by Roshei Yeshiva, rebbeim, and students. This particular one deals with whether youth groups can plan tiyulim, hikes, on Chol haMoed Sukkot, when they are unsure whether they can have a sukkah.

It has a special place in my heart because 5742 was the year I arrived at Gush (heading into 5743), and I remember reading the article at the time. It was, to the best of my ability to recall, the first written piece of R. Lichtenstein’s I ever read.

At the time, as a new student, I had encountered him in the yeshiva, giving sichot or shiur klali, public talks or lectures, in one of his Friday night “press conferences,” where we gathered in an apartment in the kollel buildings and fired questions at him. Over the years, as I watched these, I marveled at his ability to take the same questions, year after year (give or take), and answer them with the same seriousness and investment as if it were an entirely new issue. Which it was, of course, for the student asking the question.

At that point, it wasn’t as if I could pretend I knew him in any depth. Then I encountered this article. The first five pages are a fairly straightforward discussion of the halachic issues and possibilities, culminating with four conclusions (on page 581 in Minchat Aviv):

1) It is permissible to go on a tiyul during Sukkot even if one knows ahead of time that no sukkah will be available.

2) If, however, hikers reach a point where a sukkah is available, around the time they ordinarily eat or sleep (he explicitly notes that he is leaving the definition of “available” or “around the time” for further clarification), they are obligated to use that sukkah.

3) If they stop for the night at a place where they could build a sukkah, for eating and sleeping, they must. Once again, he refrains from offering a definition of how much effort or expense counts as “could build a sukkah.”

4) If the group is involved in an activity that takes them late into the night, such that they cannot build a sukkah, they need not stop the activity in order to be sure to have a sukkah.

It’s what comes next that I noticed at the time, and that later came to seem to me characteristic of the R. Lichtenstein I knew. After making a brief comparison to tsitsit, another mitzvah that can be circumvented by anyone who wants (by not owning or wearing garments with four corners), he expresses his surprise that a youth movement, interested in educating its members in avodat Hashem and yirat shamayim, service of God and fear of Heaven, is raising the question.

In all his time outside of Israel, he notes, where the challenges of sukkah are equal or greater, he’d never been asked such a question—no religiously concerned businessman, working in the skyscrapers of Manhattan, thought to eat at his desk because a sukkah wasn’t easily at hand. No religious university student, whose campus lacked a sukkah, decided to eat at the cafeteria.

R. Lichtenstein finds it ironic, then, that specifically a movement dedicated to eeducation—and R. Lichtenstein is well aware that they see an educational value in walking the Land of Israel, deepening students’ connection to that Land, and that Chol HaMoed is a particularly felicitous time for such events— should be asking this question. To his mind, the educational value in showing the students a concern with finding ways to keep the mitzvah of sukkah, not circumvent it, is at least as valuable. Just as the organizers appropriately ensure transportation, water, counselors, and security, they need to make clear that observant Jews also care about ensuring an environment that allows for keeping mitzvot, in this case sukkah.

Re-reading it decades later, the article carries much I knew of R. Lichtenstein. His insistence on taking a question on its own terms, investigating it until reaching conclusions on the issue as raised. Then stepping back to challenge the premise, to point out other values neglected in the framing of the question, and calling on those who posed it to recognize those, to strive to achieve both the values they had already seen and the ones he was bringing to their attention.

It was an experience I had with him in many contexts, where his contribution wasn’t only knowing the answers, it was expanding my and others’ awareness of the issues at play in the topic involved. Asked for an answer, he would wonder why that was the question posed, why we had let our possibilities be narrowed to those presented. Why not try for it all, a hike with a sukkah? A life with all the expressions of avodat Hashem we can possibly manage?

Why not, indeed?

MINCHAT AVIV, WEEK 2: THE ROLE OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL

I will not be able to start each of these posts with an anecdote about how I relate to the material, but for this second week, I still can. Early on in my year at Gush (5742-3. 1982-3), R. Lichtenstein hosted at a Friday night oneg at the apartment he stayed in when he was in yeshiva for Shabbat (at the time, he and R. Amital z”l alternated weeks; it was many years later that the Lichtensteins moved to Alon Shvut).

These onegs consisted of brief singing interspersed with asking questions of R. Lichtenstein. Someone (not me) asked about the obligation to live in Israel. In his usual way, he summarized the many views, whether it was obligatory, a mitzvah if one does it but not absolutely incumbent, or meritorious but not at all incumbent. I think that was also the first time I heard him point out that we have to be careful not to be too adamant about the necessity of living in Israel, as there have been many giants of Jewish learning and conduct who did not merit living there; to judge them, even implicitly, as severely lacking would be the kind of hubris R. Lichtenstein decried many times, in various contexts.

All that would have been memorable on its own, his closing line even more so. After going on in that vein for five or ten minutes, he ended by saying, “But the future of the Jewish people is here; why wouldn’t someone come if they had the opportunity?’

I was reminded of that when I noticed that Minchat Aviv has several articles that turn on the significance of the Land of Israel, written over a fifty year span. Let me review some of the ideas he presents in three of those (a fourth, on the share of the Land taken by kohanim and Levi’im, seems to me too technical to include briefly here), as they will give a bit of a picture of how he understood tradition to see the Land of Israel.

Giving Semicha in Israel

The first, chronologically (the book presents the articles in the order of the Gemara; since I’m noticing the recurrence of this topic in his writings, I’m taking them up in the order he published them), is from 5719 (1958-9)’s Beit Yitzchak (the Torah journal of the Yeshiva program at YU). It analyzes the question of giving semicha, which we commonly call ordaining, a rabbi/judge in Israel. (For us, it’s more like a degree; the original semicha declared the recipient a qualified link in the chain of tradition going back to Sinai, and authorized him to be part of courts that could levy various fines and administer other serious punishments).

R. Lichtenstein notes that in Israel, the Jewish people are required to establish courts in every city, whereas outside, it’s only in every region. He suggests that that’s because in Israel, the judges and courts play a more proactive role—outside, they’re there to ensure that people can find justice when they need it, prevent misdeeds from being ignored. Inside Israel, they are additionally to be part of building a positive, Torah-filled society.

It is fundamentally in Israel, then, that the appointment is relevant, because only there does the judge perform all his functions—ruling on litigations and punishing those who need it, yes, but even more so, helping oversee society’s growth towards an ever-greater engagement with Torah and what Hashem wants of us. In this context, he notes a statement in Horayot that also figures prominently elsewhere in his

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 6 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein writings, that the Jews of Israel are considered the kahal, the community; Jews outside Israel are not part of that fundamental community.

That’s why semicha has to occur in Israel. R. Lichtenstein also connected that to why semicha could be given in those parts of Israel that had been conquered when the Jews came out of Egypt but not resettled in the return from Bavel, land that is considered not to have the full sanctity of the Land. Since semicha is about judges who will build Torah society, it is enough for it to occur anywhere that there is a shem Eretz Yisrael, the identification as being the Land of Israel, even if there isn’t kedushat Eretz Yisrael, the full sanctity of the Land (a distinction he notes he’s heard many times from his father in law).

Non-Jews’ Acquisition/Control of Israel

A similar distinction, although he doesn’t frame it the same terms, underlies his discussion of how non- Jewish ownership of land in Israel affects that land’s status. That underpins the heter mechirah, the idea that we can sell Israel to a non-Jew for all of shemittah (like last year) and that will mean that the produce grown there does not count as shemittah produce.

a non-Jew’s purchase of land in Israel ,יש קנין לגוי להפקיע מידי מעשר To get there, we have to first accept that removes the obligation to tithe and give other agricultural gifts from the produce of that piece of land. In an ‘Alon Shvut (in Hebrew, it’s a play on words from the word for tree, alon with an aleph, Alon Shvut being the name of the town where Yeshivat Har Etzion exists, and the word for journal or leaflet, alon with an ‘ayin) from 5752 (1991-2), R. Lichtenstein took up the question of the halachic impact of a non- Jew’s owning land in Israel-- without, however, linking his conclusions to their ramifications for shemittah observance with or without heter mechirah.

In the course of the discussion, he infers that Rambam held that, during shemittah, Jews could not work land sold to non-Jews even though he, Rambam (in Beit Yosef’s reading; Mabit disagreed), did see the fruit as not having shemittah sanctity. The question of working the Land only required that it be the land of Israel, and a non-Jew couldn’t impact that; the fuller obligations of the agricultural laws stemmed from the sanctity invested in the Land by the Jewish people taking hold of it (this is a very similar distinction to the difference between shem Eretz Yisrael and kedushat Eretz Yisrael that we saw above, but he doesn’t use that terminology, he speaks of what it has on its own and what is invested in it by the people). That which the Jewish people gave to the Land could be suspended by its sale to a non-Jew.

By the same logic, since the parts of Israel annexed by the Jewish people, such as the Suria of the time of King David, did not have the baseline sanctity, a Jew there could even work a non-Jew’s land during shemittah.

Once again, the crux issue is that Israel has its own status, and the Jewish people contribute to upping that status, with halachic ramifications.

Tzedakah in Israel and Out

The last article I want to discuss (from a 5760/2000 memorial volume) differentiates charity given in Israel and out. Based on the different expressions of the obligation to help the poor in Vayikra and Devarim, R.

Lichtenstein suggested that charity outside of Israel is solely about helping the individual in need. In Israel, we are additionally responsible for building a society concerned about the needy in its midst.

That might be why, he diffidently suggests, the Torah tells us in that context that there will never cease to be poor among us. That sounds like a harsh sentence for the poor, but it might be part of ensuring that the society of the Jewish people never loses sight of the importance of caring for those others.

It might also be why only that section of the Torah mentions having to give to a poor person multiple times, even if it does not yet succeed at lifting him/her out of poverty, and why the standard of giving articulated is that which the poor person lacks—if the issue is only helping, that’s excessive, but as part of building a certain kind of just society, it’s a meaningful ideal and goal, that we restore those who have fallen on hard times to their former position.

Finally (not in the order of the article, in the order of the pieces of the article I feel able to express briefly), he suggests that this might be an element of the mitzvah Ramban counted, to conquer and settle the Land. For Ramban, it’s not enough to take and even keep possession of the Land, we have to settle and inhabit it. Part of that, R. Lichtenstein suggests, would be to have a fuller view of tzedakah, as making sure people are able to make a go of it in Israel, not just give the impoverished so they don’t starve.

Cropping up repeatedly in his writings (and in a range of halachic topics he took up over his lifetime), in other words, is the certainty that the Jews of Israel are building something we cannot build elsewhere. That needs judges of a certain sort, which is why the original semicha can only be given there, the Jews there invest the Land with an extra sanctity that is lost when a non-Jew purchases it, and they take care of their poor with a broader vision than just avoiding suffering.

To build the Land, his articles remind us, might not be a specific obligation. Over and over, though, it allows Jews to do much more than they can do outside. As he showed himself, with all that he built over the many years he acted on his convictions, living in, building, and striving to build, an ever more perfect Torah society.

TAHAROT WEEK 1: TRANSFERRING IMPURITY OR TRANSFERRING IDENTITY

I really don’t have enough stories to start with one each week, but this time I still do. I heard it several times, possibly once from R. Lichtenstein himself. One year in the mid to late 1960s, R. Soloveitchik was learning Baba Kama with his shiur; a student of his encountered a Rosh Yeshiva from the more haredi world, who expressed his surprise that a man of that age would be taking on such a difficult project.

I think of that here because much of our time in these little essays will be spent on the eight volumes of R. Lichtenstein’s shiurim that were written up and published by his students. The first of those volumes, published in 5757 (1997), are the notes from shiurim that R. Lichtenstein gave in kayitz zeman (the time from after Pesach until Rosh Chodesh Av) of 5756 (1996), when he was turning 63. And what he took on for a summer session—which one could easily treat more lightly than the other two zemanim of the year— was the essential ideas and concepts of ritual purity and impurity, part of whose difficulty stems from how long it has been since most of those issues have applied in practice.

Since I am taking only two weeks for each of the volumes (there are also four volumes of English essays), I want to be clear that I make no claim or attempt to summarize the volume or even to offer the most striking or salient ideas he shares. Each week will be an idea (or small group of ideas) presented in the volume that felt to me particularly insightful or particularly familiar and representative of R. Lichtenstein’s style, approach, and ideas.

For this time, we’ll see his idea of two of the ways to transfer ritual impurity.

Simple Transfer

The most well-known way for ritual purity to pass from a person or item that is impure to another person or item is through contact, in one of three ways (depending on the situation): touch, carrying the impure item/person (tumat masa, carrying), the impure item/person carrying someone/thing else (tumat heset). Here I am only taking room to discuss the first of those.

R. Lichtenstein notes that ritual impurity of touch is certainly sometimes a function of a physical reality. He wonders—because one characteristic element of his approach is to try to anticipate all the theoretical constructs that could explain that idea, and then see which of them are found in the discussion of the issue—whether there might also be a transfer of impurity created by the fact that there was an act that is categorized as an act of touch.

Defining an Act of Touch, Without Physical Contact

It’s not easy to distinguish between those, since an act of touch generally also involves physical touch. One easy example is tumat ohel, where an item of corpse impurity—a whole or parts of a corpse-- is under the same covering (or one is covering the other). The general tendency is to see that as an example of maga, impurity passed by touch. Since there’s clearly no physical touch, R. Lichtenstein sees that as a good example where the definition as an act of touch, without any physical contact, creates impurity.

Another example is tumah retzutzah, an impure item in a tightly enclosed space. Halachically, that impurity rises and descends limitlessly, in a direct line (so that anything directly above or below it, no matter how far, takes on that impurity). Here, too, R. Lichtenstein understands the Talmudic discussion to treat it as an act of touch, having nothing to do with physical reality.

Those are the easier of the possibilities R. Lichtenstein offers. He also discusses an anomaly in how Rambam treated the situation where contact with impurity came through fingernails, teeth, or hair. In Laws of Corpse Impurity 1;3, Rambam said that teeth and nails count as part of one’s body, so if those are what came into contact with the item of impurity, the person is impure. On the other hand, in Laws of Items That Create Impurity by Lying or Sitting 5;11, Rambam says that the impurity created by the fingernails, teeth, or hair of a zav, a man whose impurity is created by certain emissions, is rabbinic, not Biblical.

Why the distinction? R. Lichtenstein suggests that these parts of the body are considered connected to the body but not actually directly part of the body itself. For corpse impurity, where all we need is an act that can be defined as touch, these connected parts count. With a zav, however, the impurity is created by physical contact (because the whole impurity of the zav is created by the physical reality of the emissions, whereas the corpse impurity stems from the state of the corpse, not a physical element coming from it), and these extensions of the body don’t count as actual physical contact.

Creating an Identity

That whole discussion actually comes later in the shiur, which starts off with the interesting possibility that some impurity is transferred by creating an identity. For example, the impurity that can be created by a zav sitting or lying on an item requires only that that be an item whose purpose is to be sat or lain upon. It does not require that it be a keli, one of those items whose materials and construction make it susceptible to impurity in general. Why would that be?

For R. Lichtenstein, the answer is that in those cases, the item isn’t having ritual impurity transferred to it (for which it would need to be susceptible to impurity), it is being redefined, in this case as the seat or bed of a zav. Once it acquires that status, it is impure, regardless of whether it’s an item ordinarily susceptible to impurity.

He also suggests that that might be what happens with a bo’el niddah, a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman whose menstruation has rendered her ritually impure. While the Gemara raises the possibility that such a man will only acquire as many days of impurity as she herself has left—which R. Lichtenstein sees as clearly tilting in the direction of her transferring her impurity to him—that is rejected.

Since this man becomes an av hatum’ah (despite transfer usually involving a diminution of impurity, a lowering of stage), it makes some sense that his impurity comes from his becoming a man who had this kind of forbidden sexual intercourse, not that something from the woman (who was also prohibited from having such relations) has passed along to the man.

We today don’t deal all that often with most of these laws, so they can seem foreign and hard to resonate with. That element itself struck me, the relative seamlessness between R. Lichtenstein’s approach to this

For this time, it established the categories of transfer of ritual impurity by conveying a new status on an item, by directly touching an item, or by having an act occur that is halachically defined as an act of touch, even if it does not involve any literal physical contact.

TAHAROT, WEEK 2: FOLLOWING A POSSIBILITY ALL THE WAY THROUGH

One of the trademarks of R. Lichtenstein’s style of teaching, both in my memory and as it comes through in the volumes of his shiurim that we are dipping into together, is his interest in all the possible ways to construe a Talmudic discussion, his willingness to follow each possibility all the way through, to see what it might teach. One example comes up when he discusses the levels of ritual impurity.

אבי A classic (and not inaccurate) way to express those levels would be to say that a corpse is considered the essential source of ritual impurity, that something that comes in contact (and other items ,אבות הטומאה ,אב הטומאה the Torah designated ritually impure, such as certain dead rodents) with that becomes an loosely, a source of ritual impurity. A person, tool, or container that comes into contact with an av, a source of impurity, becomes a rishon, a first level of impurity; food that comes into contact with a rishon can become a sheni, a second level (liquids susceptible to impurity become a rishon, but that’s a special rabbinic rule regarding liquids); items of terumah (the 1 ½-2 /12% of a harvest given to a kohen) can become a shelishi, a third level (and then can no longer be eaten as terumah, but rather have to be burnt), and kodashim, items of sacrificial service in the Beit HaMikdash can become a revi’i, needing to be burnt even if they came into contact only with a shelishi.

The easiest way to understand that, R. Lichtenstein is aware, is as a slow diminution. As if impurity were some kind of actual substance which, when passing from one source to the next, is diluted or loses some of its intensity. He addresses that possibility throughout the shiur.

But he also raises another possibility, based on an almost casual discussion in the beginning of Baba Kamma. The Mishnah opens with a list of four avot nezikin, four primary categories of damages; following up on that, the Gemara discusses other places where the terminology of avot and toladot applies, primary and secondary categories of whatever topic is under discussion.

Two of those are melachah, prohibited creative activity, on Shabbat, and ritual impurity. One of the characteristics of toladot is that they cannot create further toladot (R. Lichtenstein mentions that Rabbenu Chananel disagreed, but he finds it very extreme, in that it, for example, leads to an extraordinarily long chain of Biblically prohibited activities on Shabbat). If so, that should mean that there’s no ritual impurity beyond a sheni, since the av created the rishon, the first level, and that rishon (which is a toladah, an extension of the av) can create a sheni. But in that model, it should stop there; how do we get to the third and fourth levels of impurity that we see regarding terumah and kodashim (sacrificial items)?

A Digression to Tevul Yom

To lay the groundwork for his suggestion, R. Lichtenstein draws our attention to a tevul yom, a person who has already gone to mikvah. While the immersion removes the impurity, the Torah mandated that s/he would not be fully tahor, fully restored to ritual purity, until evening. During this time, s/he must still avoid contact with terumah or kodashim, because any such contact would render them unacceptable to be eaten and they would have to be burnt.

We might be tempted to see that as saying that this person is at a lower level of impurity, R. Lichtenstein points out that a tevul yom has the same impact on terumah and kodashim. In the ordinary transfer of impurity, terumah is one level up from kodashim, but not in the case of a tevul yom (R. Danny Wolf, who wrote the comments on the bottom to these shiurim, points out that Tosafot in Pesachim 14b cites the view of Ri that terumah rendered a shelishi by a tevul yom would in fact not affect kodesh within which it came into contact).

The tevul yom has an impact on these items that does not seem to fit our usual framework. Similarly, mParah 8;7 notes that in general, anything that invalidates terumah (renders it impure enough to be burnt) makes liquids into a rishon, a first-level tumah, except for tevul yom.

In that exceptional status of the tevul yom, R. Lichtenstein will find room to support the av/toladah view of how ritual impurity moves from one item to another.

Two Aspects to Personal Tumah

he shall be impure, from ,טמא יהיה His starting point is the Gemara’s several times applying the phrase Bamidbar 19;13, to a tevul yom. In what sense is the tevul yom still impure, when the immersion in a mikvah removes it? R. Lichtenstein suggests that halachah views a person both as a legal personality as well as a physical body. Tumah, ritual impurity, can affect either; by coming into contact with it, the person’s body itself acquires tumah and the legal personality becomes a tamei, a ritually impure person. When the verse says tamei yihyeh, s/he shall be impure, that means that for all that immersion in the mikvah removes the physical aspect of the impurity, the legal status remains until evening.

That leaves open the possibility (and I am eliding his discussion of various views in the Gemara, taking only the piece that will then inform the way this could apply to the model of transference he is advancing) that a tevul yom doesn’t transfer impurity to the items with which s/he comes into contact. Rather, the contact with the tevul yom’s person, a person declared tamei by the Torah, renders terumah or kodashim prohibited to be eaten and obligates burning them. (He notes the Gemara’s citing the verse of which speaks of sanctified meat having contact with any impurity—it’s not ,והבשר אשר יגע בכל טמא necessarily that the meat becomes tamei, it’s that the contact has ramifications).

Back to Avot and Toladot

Tevul yom as an example of where contact with ritual impurity has an impact separate from the idea of transfer allows for a similar claim about how a sheni, a second level of impurity, if it’s just the result of contact with a toladah, could nonetheless impact terumah.

Once we know of another halachic area where contact with impurity affects sanctified items such that they have to be burnt, we can offer that as a possibility for sheni as well. While it can’t transfer tumah, since its own impurity came from a toladah without the strength to create further toladot, it might still be true that sanctified items that come into contact with it are affected, and can no longer be used for their sanctified purposes.

At a simple content level, R. Lichtenstein has expanded our understanding of how tumah and taharah might work. Certainly in the case of a tevul yom, the model that that person is as a legal matter tamei despite all the physical impurity having been removed by immersion, the tevul yom’s impacting sanctified

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 13 Gidon Rothstein items by contact not by transference is an enlightening expansion of our understanding (and a tip of the hat to R. Shmuel Hain, who reminded me of this discussion of R. Lichtenstein’s).

His then working to see if that can fit with the question of how a second level impurity creates a third level one, even as he repeatedly admits that there’s a simpler model out there, all based on a discussion I could have imagined dismissing as technical, are part of what made him who he was, a man who worked to embrace the fullness and richness of the Torah in all its possibilities, always wondering which of those hitherto overlooked possibilities might deepen and enhance our understanding of Torah.

BY HIS LIGHT, WEEK 1: THE STRUCTURE OF A GOOD LIFE

The bibliography of R. Lichtenstein’s published writings shows that he wrote a great deal, throughout his life, and yet it was not until 2002 that the Jewish world had the benefit of a volume of his thoughts in English, and that only because of the good offices of R. Reuven Ziegler. That there had earlier appeared some volumes of his shiurim, such as the one on Taharot we studied the past two weeks, was also thanks to dedicated students, who decided to convert notes on the shiurim into a written work.

For reasons I hope to circle back to at the end of this series (planned for close to his first yahrzeit, this coming Iyar), R. Lichtenstein did not produce books. It is our good fortune that others chose to do that for him, in this case, R. Reuven Ziegler, a man with an extensive resume of his own (see some of it here).

His adapting transcribed tapes of talks from the mid-1980s (one is from 1975) for the written word means these are more easily read than the works we have studied together until now, and so I can even more wholeheartedly recommend picking up the actual essays. Their oral origins mean that R. Lichtenstein started off more mindful of speaking in a way listeners could catch without the luxury of going back and rereading passages. In adapting that, R. Ziegler consciously adopted a simpler style, for ease of reading. They are, therefore, a most accessible introduction to linchpins of R. Lichtenstein’s thought.

For today, let’s briefly precis the first two chapters. As the Preface notes, the first four chapters were delivered as a unit to first-year students at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Winter 5747 (1986-87). Their titles alone show us the direction in which R. Lichtenstein was taking the students: “Le-ovdah U-leshomrah: The Universal Duties of Mankind,” “Be-khol Derakhekha Da’ehu: Two Modes of Serving God,” “Va-yetzav Hashem E-lokim al Ha-adam: A Life of Command,” and “Aseh Toratekha Keva: The Centrality of Torah Study.”

The Universal Duties of Mankind

Taking only the main ideas of the first two will take up the space we have for this week, as well as give us an excellent sense of R. Lichtenstein’s view of the overall contours of a well-lived Jewish life (I hope to look at the second two next week). First, the verse he uses to characterize humanity’s responsibilities, le- ovdah u-leshomrah, to work it and to guard it, which is how the Torah describes the purpose of placing Adam in the Garden of Eden (around the same time as he delivered this talk, I heard him use that verse as the basis for a talk on the environmental concerns of caring Jews).

The shemira aspect animated him less. He noted that awareness that we are guarding the world for Hashem reminds us that the world is not ours, that, indeed, even our own bodies are not wholly ours. Along those lines, we sometimes guard to give honor, not to protect (like the guards outside Buckingham Palace and, le-havdil, some aspect of the guarding of the Beit haMikdash by Levi’im and Kohanim). Part of our guarding the world, then, isn’t only to keep it safe and functioning, but to show our respect for Hashem’s Creation.

The Purpose, Necessity, and Value of Work

He was more intent on stressing the importance of le-ovdah, working the world, as encompassing maintaining it (keeping it going takes a great deal of effort) as well as improving it, moving it closer to perfection. In that latter light, work becomes not only a way to avoid boredom and the temptations that come with boredom, but also a way to partner with Hashem in ma’aseh bereshit, in creating the world.

That last leads him to invoke a phrase I have seen frequently in his writings, from Milton’s Sonnet #7, “as ever in my great Taskmaster’s eye.” Part of noting humanity’s need to work, to join with Hashem in perfecting the world, should lead away from a phenomenon R. Lichtenstein noticed back then, which has only increased, that of even benei Torah leading hedonistic lives, taking on material comforts not to make life a bit easier (which he does not oppose), but for their own sake.

His striking example was a man spending his life as a restaurant reviewer, using that expertise to judge even airline meals. As if the distinctions that could be drawn could possibly be worth that level of attention to something as utilitarian as food. That we can enjoy some food more, some less, and that we strive to have enjoyable food to eat was all fine with him. Turning it into a center of our attention, a life’s work and fixation, was astounding.

In All Your Ways

know Him (Hashem) in all your ways, leading ,בכל דרכיך דעהו ,The next talk took as its linchpin Mishlei 3;6 R. Lichtenstein to point out the various areas where that can apply. There is the realm of mitzvah, where the Torah makes specific or general demands upon us. The more general demands, such as Avot’s listing Torah, avodah, and gemillut hasadim as that on which the world stands, can themselves take over a life, necessitating significant choices in constructing that life.

Beyond that, there is what R. Lichtenstein calls devar reshut, by which he means all that which is not specifically mandated by halachah and yet can be turned towards the service of Hashem. As he notes, Rambam in De’ot 3;3 read this same verse as telling us that all our choices in life can be service of Hashem if they are taken with an eye towards improving that service. Going to sleep on time so as to be healthy enough to serve Hashem properly is, in that reading, an act of service of Hashem.

Although we often look only to devar mitzvah as where we serve Hashem, R. Lichtenstein stresses, here and elsewhere, the importance of devar reshut to that picture as well. In particular, in this talk, he urges his listeners to think about their professions in that light. There are many factors involved, and he does not pretend there is one right answer. But in raising factors to consider, he shows how this devar reshut can be part of our service of Hashem.

Questions for Career Choices

Instead of trying to summarize, let me quote, p. 43: “Is a person…driven to a particular career because he thinks that it is necessary and important for society… has a personal contribution to make? Will it bring out the better parts of himself, helping him grow? Is he doing it just for the money or is he doing it out of a sense of mission and commitment? …it is important that a person feel that what he is doing is necessary from the social and collective point of view. This should be a major factor in a person’s career choice.”

We need to see the world as that which we are to guard and guide, to work to improve and to perfect, to see ourselves as constantly, continuously, and consistently responsible for investing ourselves in maintaining and improving. We do that as human beings, not only as Jews; in an appendix to the first piece, he discusses whether the Torah supplanted our ordinary human obligations or built on it. As he was wont, he recognized multiple views, but was clear that his view was that the Torah took us beyond ordinary humanity, obligating us in all that and more.

As Jews, we also and additionally bear the obligations of a life guided by the Torah, in its specifics, in its broader dictates, and in its making us aware of the need to build a life of service generally, where our yearning to serve Hashem shapes many of our choices, including especially (in this talk), those of the profession that takes up the bulk of our hours.

BY HIS LIGHT, WEEK 2: COMMAND AND TORAH STUDY

In his methodical way, R. Lichtenstein structured his four talks to the American students at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Winter 5747 starting from the universal and moving to the particularly Jewish. The two talks whose summaries I’m going to even more briefly discuss here take up two aspects of being Jewish, the centrality of a sense of command and the need to make Torah study central to one’s life.

In each of the essays we saw last time, he started from a verse, as he does for the third (the last, on Torah study, uses ‘aseh Toratekha keva, make your Torah study fixed, which is a Mishnah in Avot, not a verse). For a talk stressing the centrality of commandedness to Jewish experience, he cited “Va-yetzav Hashem E- lokim al Ha-adam, Hashem commanded the man (Bereshit 2:16).

This should surprise us, because he is explicitly discussing “not what is expected of us as humans, but more specifically … as members of Knesset Yisrael,” yet the verse speaks of Hashem’s command to Adam, the first man, a verse Sanhedrin 56b saw as the source of the Noahide laws, binding on all non-Jews! And the conclusion he draws is that “at the center of Jewish existence” lies mitzvah, that a “Jew’s life is defined by being commanded.”

Jewish Assumption of an Originally Universal Responsibility?

To me, it suggests that R. Lichtenstein thought this was originally meant to be a basic human experience that was transferred to Jews with the giving of the Torah (it is, to me, particularly poignant given that one of his children, I think his son R. Moshe Lichtenstein, spoke of his father, after his passing, as having experienced life as a soldier on duty, ready to obey the Commander’s orders).

Commandedness, for R. Lichtenstein, most prominently contrasts with the idea and ideal of self- fulfillment. Even as he recognizes that there can be a noble element to self-fulfillment, he believes that our fundamental purpose or goal should be to respond to what Hashem asks or requires of us, even where that seems not congruent with self-fulfillment.

That is why Chazal ruled that gadol hametzuveh ve-oseh, greater is one who is commanded and fulfills. That explains the odd Jewish locution, “That’s a wonderful thing to do. Go do that, it’s a big command (mitzvah).” “The fact that we talk this way is a reflection of the extent to which in our minds spiritual existence and the sense of responding to a divine demand are intertwined.” (I should add that R. Lichtenstein also often speaks of devar reshut, that which is not specifically commanded—he’s not oblivious to that category, he just believes that we have to be aware of the basic idea of doing that which Hashem demands of us).

This fits well with Avot 2;4, which tells us to nullify our wills before Hashem’s Will. “Even within the realm of avodat Hashem proper, one needs to beware of imposing his own inclinations excessively.” It is possible, in other words, to keep mitzvot and seem a perfectly observant Jew while acting mostly to fulfill one’s own wants and needs. R. Lichtenstein isn’t rejecting the value of this, but he’s saying that’s not what Hashem and the religion is really telling us.

Not Negating Selfhood

On the other hand, he does not mean to go so far as those religious figures (including Martin Luther) who promoted complete self-abnegation, denial of one’s own interests and will. Rather, he is interested in combating the deeply ingrained modern idea that we should be looking only or mostly or centrally to fulfill ourselves, is trying to balance that by saying that we should be striving to identify ourselves with the Divine Will.

He doesn’t say it here, but I think part of what he means is that as we consider ourselves and our role in the world, guiding parts of that should be what we see as what Hashem’s Will wants of us, not only what we want. In a brief comment on career, he asks whether the person looks only for fulfillment, or is responding to some call, a sense of duty (he is in favor of the latter, but not to the extent that the person hates every moment of his or her job—it is a question of seeing oneself honestly and wholly, and asking what it is that Hashem has called that person to do. But that call may not coincide with that which the person might, left to his/her own devices, choose).

Keva as an Amount of Time and an Attitude Towards the Torah Learned

The next and last piece of the discussion builds off of Shammai’s dictum, Avot 1;15, to make our Torah keva, a word whose unpacking will be how R. Lichtenstein reminds his listeners about the Jew’s (not just the rabbi or other Jewish professional) relationship to Torah study. Rashi’s second interpretation (the first one takes longer to discuss) of keva is that the person set aside a certain amount of time every day. While R. Lichtenstein focuses on the time component, I note that Rashi speaks of time to learn four or five chapters a day. Which means that this version of keva is focused on an amount of time to reach a certain level of accomplishment.

That shows up, for R. Lichtenstein, in how Jews use their free time, in two ways. First, granting that people have various responsibilities (including the need for some leisure time, although he doesn’t address that specifically), how do we spend that free time which we do have? Does a person read the paper, watch television, or sit down to learn? Part of keva is ensuring that there is learning time in every one of one’s days.

Second, “if a person says he must work twelve hours a day because he has decided that he absolutely must earn several hundred thousand dollars a year [in 1987 dollars],” that already reflects certain priorities, even if that person then uses leftover time for Torah study. It’s only when a person “sets a reasonable level of need and of necessity,” for R. Lichtenstein, that the question of remaining time comes into play.

Keva means making time for Torah, every day.

Making Torah Keva, as in Primary

Rashi’s first interpretation is that keva means primary—regardless of how much actual time one can give to it, it is the focus of the day, the most important part of it. That means, for example, that when a person gets a chance to return to Torah study, it feels like finally getting back to that which really matters.

It also means a sense of responsibility for making Torah fixed in the world in general, not only in one’s life. For R. Lichtenstein, Ezra teaches us the necessity of doing our share to learn ourselves and teach others, in the name of spreading the idea that Torah study is for all Jews, regardless of education or intellectual achievement.

Primacy also affects the attitude to study, in at least three ways. First, that which is primary is also that which we hope to internalize. That means that when we learn a piece of Torah, we should be hoping to make it a permanent part of ourselves—we don’t learn only because the act is important, we learn also because the knowledge is important. If so, it’s not enough to go to a shiur because it’s valuable to go and/or because it will be entertaining, we have to go with the hope and intent to make that which we learn part of our personae from that moment on.

One last aspect of primacy is the depth in which we attempt to understand it. When we ask Hashem—in the bracha just before Keriyat Shema in the morning—to help us understand and discern (le-havin u- lehaskil), that shows our desire, even the laymen and relatively unlearned among us, to go beyond a superficial knowledge. For each of us to our own extent, the primacy of Torah should motivate us to find the deepest understanding we can.

To close, R. Lichtenstein argues that keviut “means making Torah into one’s framework and planning everything else around that (emphasis added)…This is, of course, a large demand, and what is significant and striking about it is that this demand is made of each and every Jew. One cannot allow his social setting to determine for him…It must be clear that, wherever he ends up, Torah is a central value… something which is inherent in his very being.”

Command and Study

These attitudes towards Torah study sit well with his previous comments about commandedness. Along with last week’s chapters, he lays out a picture (only confirmed and reinforced by the other essays in the book) of a life lived in recognition of Hashem, recognition of our obligation to maintain and build Hashem’s world, to infuse all our lives with the service of Hashem, and to do all that with an understanding, first, that we are commanded to do much of this, that it is not a matter of choosing it for its value, it’s a matter of responding to a command, and that central to all of that must be our study of Torah, central in time given it, central in devotion to it, central in the impact it has on who we are, and central in letting it shape the rest of our lives.

ZEVACHIM, WEEK 1: MAKING MEANING OF SACRIFICE

One of the less recognized elements of the tragedy of Churban, the state of destruction in which Jews still live, is the distance it has created from whole sections of the religion. Almost two years ago, I heard R Mosheh Lichtenstein (R. Aharon zt”l’s son, one of the Roshei Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, whom we’ll see again at the end of this discussion) assert that this was true even for monetary laws, that legal systems only reach their full fruition when applied in practice, that unless it’s being acted upon even the Torah scholars who consider it cannot deal with it fully.

It’s doubly true for zevachim, sacrifices, since no one around us brings animal sacrifices, either, and haven’t in close to two thousand years. The whole framework is so out of our experience that many of us struggle with it as a concept, let alone seeing it happen in practice.

Briskers have refused to be cowed by this challenge, insist on studying all of Torah, and R. Lichtenstein took on Zevachim during kayitz zeman of 5757 (1997), the “summer” session (post-Pesach to the beginning of Av). The introductory shiur is a tour de force, giving a framework for sacrifices that I find enlightening and meaningful.

I won’t have the room to summarize the entire shiur, but I hope to show how R. Lichtenstein offers a coherent framework, a way of understanding the roles and functions of many sacrifices, teaching us some of the language of the Mikdash. Like Zionists of old, who spoke Hebrew before the return to Israel had taken off, we can thank R. Lichtenstein for helping us speak the language of sacrifices, somewhat, even before we have a return of the institution.

Temidim—Maintenance as well as Atonement

The most common sacrifice was the daily one, offered morning and evening by and on behalf of the entirety of the Jewish people. To a great extent, R. Lichtenstein says, this is one among several ways the Torah establishes to set up regular service in the Mikdash, like the candles lit nightly, the lechem hapanim, the showbread on the Shulchan, and the ketoret, the incense.

But there’s more to it. First, the tamid is the only one of these offered outside the Heichal, the Temple building. Too, the Torah mentions it twice, in Shemot 29 and in Bamidbar 28—that latter time in the context of musafim, the additional offerings given on various special days and seen as part of communal atonement, suggesting that the daily sacrifice has a role in that as well.

Finally, Yoma 33b contrasts the tamid to the candles by saying that the former atones. Rashi assumes it is the same atonement as any other olah, burnt offering, which—as we’ll see—in some way rectify the failure to observe an obligation, or a prohibition linked to an obligation.

Our first step in the world of sacrifice, then, is the daily communal sacrifice, largely part of the framework of the Mikdash, but also suggesting some sense of a regular atonement for all of the Jewish people for our failure to fulfill our positive obligations.

The Differing Levels of Atonement

Moving to individual sacrifice, R. Lichtenstein lays out four kinds, which can be distinguished by the role or level of atonement involved in each. Already in the way he’s set up the discussion, he’s showing us that while atonement is perhaps the central element of sacrifice, it is not the only one, and how atonement interacts with other issues shapes the different kinds of offerings we would have made.

The first kind would be a sacrifice that directly responds to sin, whose goal is to atone for it. Chatat is the easiest example, coming to atone for the unwitting commission of a sin whose deliberate transgression would have incurred karet. Sin leading to sacrifice, the model we perhaps assume for all sacrifices. But it’s actually the exception rather than the rule, as we’ll see.

The Asham

The Torah defines another kind of sacrifice, an asham, and some of the kinds of asham—the one brought after brazen theft or me’ilah, using sanctified objects for personal needs, for example—seem to respond directly to sin as well.

R. Lichtenstein notes several Talmudic discussions about the level of similarity between the chatat and the ashem (R. Eliezer, in particular, seems to equate them almost fully, applying the laws of one to the other, based on their both serving as atonement), but that the more similar we find them, the more we wonder why the Torah set up two different sacrifices- why not simply obligate a brazen thief or a mo’el to bring a chatat?

He accepts the answer of Ramban, who saw the sins that impel an asham as more serious than those that lead to a chatat (note that this is despite the chatat’s coming for sins whose deliberate transgression leads to a karet! It is true that asham can come even for deliberate transgressions, which presumably heightens their severity). Ramban identifies asham as related to shemamah, destruction, and says that the asham protects from the complete destruction those sins obligate.

If so, R. Lichtenstein says, the asham aims less at atonement of the sin than atonement for and protection of the sinner. In his second type of sacrifice, the focus is the sinner, not the sin. That fits well, he notes, with an idea his father in law, R. Soloveitchik, suggested to explain the blessing we say in Yom Kippur davening. The bracha closing out the middle section of the amidah speaks of Hashem as a King who is mochel ve-soleach (loosely, wipes away and forgives) our sins and those of all Israel, and pushes aside ashmoteinu, our guilt, every year.

Noting that the latter phrase did not refer to all of Israel, the Rav explained that that was because there is no danger of the Jewish people as a whole being found guilty, being ashemim; the Jewish people as a whole can never face shemamah, destruction. That’s also why communal sacrifices can include a chatat— the people can have sinned as a unit—but never an asham, because the people never need to offer a sacrifice to avoid destruction.

Both types of sacrifices that we’ve seen so far: atoning a sin or a sinner. The next two kinds are less wrapped up in atonement, although they still have some aspect of it.

The Olah

R. Lichtenstein notes that the olah, the burnt offering, is the best example of the third kind of sacrifice, where the declared purpose is not atonement, even as that is present. The Gemara says that an olah atones for the failure to fulfill a positive obligation and also for inappropriate thoughts of various sorts.

To show how its’ atonement differs from the other sacrifices we’ve seen, R. Lichtenstein notes the Zevachim 7b speaks of the atonement happening almost ancillarily, the sacrifice being mostly a gift, the atonement coming along for the ride, as it were. It is for that reason that the Gemara raises the possibility that one olah might proffer atonement for many sins, or for sins committed after the offering had already been set aside.

Ramban’s noting that with an olah, the Torah refers to ritsui, appeasement, rather than kapparah, atonement, helping R. Lichtenstein elucidate the difference. Kapparah connotes a response to the sin, ritsui more a matter of bridging the distance from Hashem created by the sin. It’s not that the sin itself needs atoning in the sense of wiping it away, it’s that the sinner needs rehabilitation (which is also different from the atonement of the asham, where the goal was to remove the stain of sin; here, it’s to restore closeness to Hashem).

Sacrifices that Certify

There are other manifestations of ritsui, but I want to move on to two more kinds of sacrifice, the first being those whose essential goal is as a machshir, allowing a person to return to (or, for a convert, attain) a certain state. The clearest examples are sacrifices brought by mechusarei kapparah, people whose process of reacting to a bodily event culminates in a sacrifice.

These are the zav or zavah, man or woman whose bodies secreted certain liquids the Torah deemed to create this kind of tumah, metzora, someone with tsara’at (commonly and mistakenly translated as leprosy), or a yoledet, a woman who gave birth. Their prior process seems to address whatever issues brought this upon them; the sacrifices they bring have an undercurrent of atonement, but their prominent function is allowing them to again partake of sacrifices.

Another example is a nazir, whose closing sacrifice additionally permits the nazir to return to drinking wine. Or the convert. Like the other mechusarei kapparah, the convert cannot partake of kodashim until bringing these sacrifices. In this case, though, Rambam attributes that inability to the convert’s not yet being fully part of the people. Even more extreme, Shittah Mekubetzet to Ketubbot records a view that a convert cannot marry Jews until having brought these sacrifices.

So: atonement of sin, atonement of sinner, bringing a sinner back to closeness with Hashem, and placing a person back or into a framework in which that person can partake of kodesh. One last category that R. Lichtenstein discusses he attributes to his son, R. Mosheh.

Sacrifices Whose Purpose is Eating

Pride doesn’t always come across in writing, especially if that writing is a student’s summary of a teacher’s lecture, but it does when R. Lichtenstein mentions his son R. Moshe’s having added a category to the sacrifices, those whose focus is the eating.

These are the bechor, the first-born animal, ma’aser, the tithing of animals born in a certain year, and the Pesach, the Paschal sacrifice brought by the entire Jewish people on the fourteenth of Nisan. In each case, the offering on the altar seems more a technical way of arriving at eating, by the kohanim (for a first-born), anyone (for the tithed animals; after they’re given to a kohen and offered, any Jew can partake), or of those who signed up for that animal, in the case of a Pesach.

The common denominator is that it is the experience of eating the meat rather than having offered part of iton the mizbeach that seems the purpose, goal, and intent of the ceremony.

The Role of Sacrifices, the Role of the Mikdash

It’s almost always better to study originals than translations and/or summaries (and this is a summary of a summary, in English instead of the original Hebrew), but that’s especially true of this shiur. I have left out more than one interesting side discussion in the name of brevity and organization.

Even so, I think we can see the order R. Lichtenstein brought to what can seem a meaningless jumble of options. Instead of a bunch of names and laws, he helps us see sacrifice as geared towards the daily functioning of the Mikdash; the atonement of sin; the protection of the sinner from the consequences of the sin; erasing the distance between the sinner and Hashem created by that sin; restoring (or, in the case of the convert, creating) the person’s right to partake of the world of the Mikdash and sacrifices; and, finally, creating an eating experience that has religious value of its own.

That, to me, is a service R. Lichtenstein performed that will last a long time.

ZEVACHIM, WEEK 2: STIMULATED BY AN IDEA OF THE GRIZ

As I noted last week, sacrifices can seem an off-putting topic, too distant from current experience to relate to it. In watching R. Lichtenstein study it, one aspect that jumped out was his repeated reference to, and grappling with, an idea advanced by the Griz, R. Yitzchak Ze’ev Soloveitchik, known as the Brisker Rav (and R. Lichtenstein’s great uncle by marriage). Reviewing a few of the times that R. Lichtenstein dealt with the idea will give some sense of how central he found it to his discussion of sacrifices.

Since the idea relates to the frame of mind when offering a sacrifice, it’s also a reminder of how central that element is to the sacrifice itself. It’s not a ritual that can be almost fully described with technical physical practices, the intentions that go into it are necessarily part of its basic definition. This is in contrast, for example, to many other mitzvot, such as eating matzah on the first night of Pesach, where it’s preferable to have certain thoughts and ideas in mind, but not indispensable. Sacrifices happen in the courtyard of the Temple, but also and as importantly in the thoughts of those offering them.

Lishmah: A Problem of Its Own

The idea of lishmah, that sacrifices need to be offered for their specific purpose, comes up in the first Mishnah in the tractate. Sacrifices offered she-lo lishman, without the right intent-- an olah offered thinking it was a shelamim, etc.—are acceptable after the fact, although the owners do not fulfill their obligation to bring whatever sacrifice it was.

A Pesach and a chatat are the exceptions, in that they are not valid unless offered for their intended purpose (for the Pesach, that’s true only in its right time, which most held was the 14th of Nisan in the afternoon—some included the morning).

The Griz addressed what is going on when we say she-lo lishman creates a problem. We could imagine either an active requirement of lishmah, such that the failure to have such intent invalidates it, or that she- lo lishmah is a pesul, a factor that actively invalidates it. Without a specific she-lo lishmah, in this option, there would have been no problem.

The Griz said that she-lo lishmah is an active pesul, causing the invalidation. He supports this from a Mishnah on Zevachim 36a, which says that the only thoughts that invalidate a sacrifice are planning to eat it beyond its acceptable time, someplace outside the acceptable boundaries, or, for a Pesach or a chatat, offering it for some other purpose.

Rambam makes the connection more conceptual, writing that these thoughts are posel the sacrifice, in Laws of That Which Invalidates the Sanctified 13;1. It’s not that these thoughts crowd out other necessary thoughts, such that we fail to have that which we need, it’s that they themselves render the sacrifice invalid.

Lishmah: A Necessary Element

At the same time (and, at first blush, somewhat contradictorily), Griz recognizes that the Gemara speaks of staman lishman, that there’s a general assumption that sacrifices are offered for the right reasons—we don’t require that the person offering the sacrifice specifically declare its goal.

As R. Lichtenstein notes, that could work three basic ways. We could assume that’s a coded way of saying there is no real need for this kind of intent. Or, we could assume the need, but also that people intend their sacrifices for the right purposes, barring evidence to the contrary.

Finally, the version that R. Lichtenstein understands the Griz to uphold, we could assume the need for intent but also that the offering of the sacrifice brings that kind of intent along with it (it arises on its own, objectively, regardless of the intent of the one offering it).

That seems an odd kind of claim, but it’s one the Griz demonstrates from several sources; I’ll share only the easiest one to communicate briefly. Zevachim 3a has a statement of R. Yehuda in the name of Rav that if someone offers a chatat thinking and intending it to be an olah, it is invalid. If he slaughters that same animal thinking it was an ordinary animal, not a sacrifice, it is still valid.

That’s because of another interesting concept used by rabbinic writers in many halachic areas, de-minah machariv bah, de-lo minah lo machariv bah, that in order for a thought to affect a sacrifice, it has to be in the same realm—to think of a chatat as an olah is to think something relevant and wrong; to think of it as chullin, as an ordinary animal, is irrelevant.

All well and good, but the person slaughtering this animal clearly had no actual thought of its real purpose-- he thought it was an ordinary animal! The Griz says this shows that lishmah is there on its own, as long as the invalid thoughts are not a problem.

The Need for Both

The importance of generally assuming lishmah comes up in another context as well. A Mishnah on 46b lists six types of lishmah (for that sacrifice, for that owner, as an offering to Hashem, on the fire of the altar and not elsewhere, to produce the smell it’s supposed to produce, as an expression of fulfilling Hashem’s command).

While Rambam’s rulings in Laws of Offering Sacrifices 4;10-11 limit the invalidating role of wrong thoughts to thinking of one sacrifice as another or having in mind the wrong owner, he also requires the other kinds of lishmah, just that we assume it in the general case (implying that if we had a case where it was impossible to assume that lishmah, we’d have a problem).

There’s the Griz’s basic idea, that thinking of a chatat as an olah has two issues, the active problem of this wrong thought, plus the issue with the general need for the right thought, which usually is there on its own, without needing our active input.

Applying Thoughts from One Context to Another

Another place where R. Lichtenstein makes use of the idea is in his discussion of mechashvin me-avodah le- avodah, whether wrongful thoughts during one part of the service but directed at another part take effect. If, for example, someone slaughters a sacrifice intending to sprinkle the blood on the altar for a different sacrifice, what is that status of that thought?

On 9b-10a, R. Yochanan and Resh Lakish disagree about that as well as about where the person slaughters the animal planning to later offer its blood to an alien worship. R. Yochanan prohibits the item and Resh Lakish allows it, and the Gemara says the same logic underlies both rulings.

As one of the options for how to explain this debate, R. Lichtenstein notes that it fits the Griz’ idea. If we view wrong thoughts as themselves rendering a sacrifice invalid, R. Yochanan’s position makes sense— for all that this thought occurred during a different point of the service, it is still an active invalidation, and therefore hangs over the whole process (similar to thoughts of pigul, of performing some part of the sacrificial service outside its right time, which more clearly takes effect even if the thoughts need to be transferred from one part of the service to the next). Resh Lakish, he suggests, did not accept that she-lo lishmah was a posel, and therefore did not see such a thought, during one part of the service, as transferring to another.

A Problem with the Idea

Towards the end of that shiur, R. Lichtenstein notes a difference in Rambam’s rulings regarding she-lo lishmah and for the sake of idolatry. In the first (Laws of That Which Invalidates Sacrifices 15;10), Rambam grounds the invalidation of thinking to sprinkle the blood she-lo lishmah while slaughtering a sacrifice in that it becomes as if the person thought that while actually sprinkling the blood. In Laws of Slaughter 2;15, on the other hand, he rules that slaughtering an animal while planning to sprinkle its blood for the sake of a form of alien worship renders the animal unkosher, without speaking of that thought as transferring to the sprinkling, and explicitly relating that to thoughts of pigul, of performing some part of the service beyond its allotted time.

That distinction, R. Lichtenstein then notes, works better if we reject the Griz’ idea, and claim that lo lishmah is not an active posel. If it is, we would have expected Rambam to treat it the same as thoughts of idolatry or pigul. Having noted that, he then suggests we might distinguish within she-lo lishmah, that when the problem is thinking of this as the wrong sacrifice, the Griz’ idea is still in full force. It is only in thinking of the sacrifice as belonging to different owners, another kind of lo lishmah, that Rambam sees it as a lack of the proper intent, and requires that that failure of intent occur at the time of the service in question.

An Idea that Stimulated

R. Lichtenstein comes back to the Griz several more times, which I do not have space to elaborate. On p. 272 of the volume, he notes that his thought process brought him to a distinction that goes against Griz’ view, but four pages later notes that Griz’ view would allow minimizing the degree of dispute between two views in a Mishnah. On 320, when noting that Griz’ idea would help explain another distinction within the thoughts during a sacrifice (in that case, between a thought that was purely lo lishmah, and one that was mixed), he notes how often he has made use of this viewpoint.

Sacrifices, we’re being shown, aren’t a technical set of actions towards a divine reaction. Proper thought during sacrifices is vital, creating the need for halachah to define proper thought in its ideal form, and then wrestle with how the less than ideal does or does not impact the validity of the sacrifice. For R. Lichtenstein, working through some of this was enhanced by one idea of the Griz, and he came back to it repeatedly, seeing where it did and didn’t fit the halachah.

A second aspect of his discussions of Zevachim that struck me and seemed worth sharing.

DINA DE-GARMI, WEEK 1: TWO KINDS OF INTRODUCTIONS

The winter session of 5759 (1998-99), Yeshivat Har Etzion studied Baba Kamma. While they traditionally moved to another tractate after Pesach, R. Lichtenstein zt”l’s students petitioned to spend that time studying Ramban’s Kuntres Dina de-Garmi, a relatively short treatise on a person’s liability for indirect damage. The volume reproduces the treatise, and then the notes from R. Lichtenstein’s shiurim on the topic.

RA”L’s Introductory Apology

Before I share some of the opening issues RA”L (an acronym his students have used for years and to which I am succumbing) raised about the concept of garmi, I want to note his introductory remarks, which differ markedly from the previous volumes. Here, he pauses to discuss lishna de-rabbanan, traditional Rabbinic Hebrew, a language with a centuries-old legacy, and yet not a language spoken in any batei midrash, study halls, whether in Israel or out. All the volumes of his shiurim are written in more modern Hebrew, and he takes time to discuss and defend this.

Lishna de-rabbanan was the language on which he was raised, and raised to preserve, protect, and continue. He tells of R. Hutner z”l (the Rosh Yeshiva of Chaim Berlin, with whom RA”L studied and considered one of his three central rebbeim) speaking of how the Chozeh of Lublin fired a schoolteacher for failing to teach a traditional tune of Torah reading to his students.

Along the way, RA”L compares the differences between these two Hebrews to those between the language of the Renaissance and modern language. The former was more exalted, juicier, more glowing, the latter more flowing and alive. He mentions some sixteenth-century humanists, who used only verbs Cicero himself used, only in the forms and tenses he used. RA”L deems their traditionalism extreme.

When he himself writes, he adds, he presents his Torah thoughts in lishna de-rabbanan. His modern background does affect style and terminology—which, he concedes, might bother some—but the background and spine is in that very traditional mode.

Not to be Too Demanding

When students wanted to put his shiurim into writing, he did not feel comfortable insisting that they translate the language of shiur, the classroom, into lishna de-rabbanan. Too, allowing them to be presented in language more familiar and more comfortable to most readers will give greater access, fulfilling the demand of R. Shimon b. Lakish in Shmot Rabbah to be sure to express words of Torah in a way that will be pleasant to those hearing them.

I spent time on this introduction because, to me, it gives insight into RA”L himself, beyond the content of the volume. Two volumes of his shiurim have come out already, he’s been giving shiur successfully at Yeshivat Har Etzion for almost thirty years when he writes this, yet he’s still bothered by the choice of language for these shiurim. His commitment to the traditional while embracing the appropriate modern, and a continuing struggle and check to be sure that that balance is being properly maintained, went far

A Starting Definition

Garmi refers to a certain standard of connection to damage caused. In hezek, someone causes damage, and then there’s grama, where whatever happened was caused indirectly (in that case, the general assumption is that the person who started the process is not liable for the damage that was caused). In between, there’s garmi, for which R. Meir holds the person who started it liable, and the general hachamim hold that the person is exempt. (For all that we generally go with the majority, in this case, many authorities rule according to R. Meir).

Certainly one question is the basic definition, to which RA”L devotes two shiurim. He points out that while Ramban limits garmi—for example, he held that causing loss to a litigant by refusing to testify is not garmi, since bearing witness is more a kindness than a direct obligation—he (and Rif before him) also expands the category to cover cases the Gemara exempts.

For example, Baba Kamma 26b exempts both participants in a case where one threw breakable items off a roof, intending them to land on cushions below and another person removed the cushions after the items were thrown. The first had no intent to cause damage (and wouldn’t have, if not for the second person); the second person didn’t touch the items in question, and so cannot be seen as having acted upon them.

Rif, however, says that that’s all because Rabbah, the amora whose opinion the Gemara cites, did not obligate in cases of garmi, but we do. According to Rif and Ramban, we would in fact declare liable the person who removed the cushions, because that level of involvement in the damage is garmi, not direct, but it’s not so removed to be dismissed as grama,

Fine or Extending the Definition of Damage

The next question about a law like this is its source, since that will also shape the continuing discussion of the issue. If we understand R. Meir to be asserting a Biblical law, we would need a source; if we see it as Rabbinic, we then have to understand the extent of the legislation (it leaves open more possibilities for distinctions within the law, such as between an action done deliberately and one done without full knowledge of the situation).

Seeing garmi as a Rabbinic legislation makes it pertinent to figure out whether this is a law of its own, a sort of fine for having caused damage indirectly, or an extension of the concept of damage to include this case. RA”L points out that a similar question arises regarding hezek she-eino nikar, damage that has no physical implications (such as rendering terumah impure; the owner must now burn it, but the grain itself shows no physical damage). If we see the obligation to repay as a fine, we might exempt heirs of the one who caused the damage, since heirs are not required to pay back kenasot, fines.

R. Danny Wolff, in the notes, points out a debate as to whether a personal admission can make one liable to repay such indirect damage. Normally, admitting to having acted in a way that incurs a kenas, a fine, does not lead to financial liability. If we see garmi as a kenas, that would seem true as well (that’s how R. Chananel and Rambam rule). Ramban, on the other hand, does obligate the person in that situation, reflecting his view that garmi is a Biblical obligation.

Ritzba as a Foil

While Ramban held that garmi was Biblical, Tosafot in general held that it was Rabbinic and a kenas. Ritzba goes furthest, seeing it as almost the same as hezek she-eino nikar. In both cases, Ritzba held, the Sages were worried people would willfully damage others’ property and get off scot-free. Given his reason, RA”L comments, Ritzba sees little need for a formal definition of garmi: it’s not a category so much as a reaction to problems in the society—whatever it was that people were doing to other people, that’s what was included in garmi.

That’s not the only way to see it, RA”L adds, one could have imagined Chazal fining a certain type of behavior but then taking pains to define that behavior well and exactly. There seems to me more than a hint of discomfort with such looseness, such lack of formal definition. In RA”L’s world, the way to understanding (as his shiurim in general bear out) was to hone the definitions well, the ever-sharpening leading to an enhanced understanding of the phenomenon in question.

Fortunately for him, Ramban (in this case) was doing exactly that, providing good grounding for the shiurim that fill this volume.

DINA DE-GARMI, WEEK 2: RAMBAN AND RITZBA, A LINKED PAIR

At the end of last week’s discussion, we noted RA”L’s mention of Ritzba, one of the Tosafists, taking a contrasting stance on garmi to Ramban’s. There, Ritzba saw garmi as a Rabbinic fine, instituted by Chazal for fear that people would not take enough care of others’ property, while Ramban assumed it was a Biblical rule, defining acts of damage as including these.

Ritzba appears repeatedly throughout the volume. For one example—always remember I am not pretending to do justice to the richness of the shiurim, I am making two comments on each volume, in the hopes of giving the barest taste of RA”L’s thought and way of thinking—RA”L suggested a basic question about garmi, and then suggested that Ramban and Ritzba answered it in the two different possible ways.

Damage or Responsibility for Loss?

As we said last time, garmi refers to some kind of indirect damage; I can’t define it better, because that question itself took RA”L several shiurim to analyze, including separating different ways of arriving at indirect damage-- so, for one example, an ox falling into a pool of water and rendering it unusable because of the dirt and smell is a different kind of indirect damage than causing a bunch of checks to be burned. In the first, the damage was the indirect result of an act, but is clearly damage; in the second case, the damage only happens because the person has lost the evidence of money that was owed him.

Whatever the exact definition, RA”L noted that there’s two ways to think of how one incurs the obligation to repay such damage. One is to extend the definition of an act of damage. Direct damage we understand: one person punches another, breaking the latter’s nose (even there, incidentally, RA”L notes that the shevet portion of that damage, where the perpetrator has to compensate the victim for wages lost, is closer to garmi). Garmi would say, in this view, that even were the damage caused less directly, it would still count as an act of damage.

That’s how he sees Ramban’s view.

A second way to view it, though, is that garmi instituted a new liability, without requiring that it be connected to an act. Even if, for halachic purposes, the perpetrator’s act cannot be seen as the cause of the damage, halachah might hold people liable for certain losses without a specific act.

That’s the way Ritzba sees it.

For example, it seems to be garmi if one person throws a breakable item off a roof, intending for it to land on a couch or cushions that were directly below. After the item is thrown, someone else removes the cushions, such that the item hits the ground and breaks.

We can hold that second person liable for one of two reasons: 1) that garmi tells us that removing the cushions, for all that it in no direct way affected the item, still counts as an act of damage. Or, 2) we can say garmi lets us dispense with seeking a link between the perpetrator and the item, letting us focus instead on who should bear responsibility for a loss that was caused.

An Unusual Epilogue—Framework Building vs. Case by Case Decision-making

Aside from relying on Ritzba to sharpen the discussion, the differences between the two also lead RA”L to append an uncharacteristic acharit davar, a sort of epilogue, to his presentation. In the other volumes, the shiurim continue until he was done, and the volume ends. Here, in the last shiur he gave in this series, he seems to have felt the need for a closing exhortation.

He begins with a few words extolling the qualities of the kuntres, Ramban’s essay, it’s delving into the bases and fundamental principles of the issue at hand. Even for Ramban, only his Torat haAdam is comparable, and that focuses equally on laying out specific halachic rules as on the general analysis. Among rishonim, RA”L says, it’s hard to find parallel works, that take on a topic and analyze it so penetratingly and conceptually.

RA”L knows Ramban doesn’t need his praise (he phrases it beautifully, using a Talmudic metaphor—that one of the cedars of the Lebanon doesn’t need a bush in the wall to give his approbation), but it lays the groundwork for a message he needs to deliver. He therefore goes on a bit more about the qualities of the tract, how well and systematically it addressed the subject, form the source of the obligation to its nature, how it relates to similar ideas and, primarily, its exact definition, which Ramban found by gathering all the sources and cases that relate to it, comparing them, differentiating them, and building a tapestry that answers the desire for a consistent and complete approach to garmi.

All of that is in marked contrast to Ritzba, who held that there was no conceptual distinction between garmi and grama, that all that distinguishes garmi is that Chazal decided there was enough of a concern to assign liability. It’s still Chazal doing it, so it is the perspective of people steeped in Torah and the clear thinking of the Beit Midrash, but there is no guiding principle—garmi, for Ritzba, is a concatenation of cases where Chazal decided that someone had to pay.

R. Lichtenstein, Going In Both Directions

What caught me about this epilogue, and made it irresistible as a choice of what to share from this volume, is the next piece, where RA”L candidly admits to being pulled by both, feeling no need to choose between them. He is moved by and appreciates the intellectual accomplishment of Ramban’s kuntres and resonates with its approach to learning, in general and in this instance.

At the same time, he sees room for Ritzba’s worldview, even if he’s not willing to go as far as Ritzba. Ritzba, after all, claimed that there was no overall conceptual or thematic unity to garmi. We need not go that far, RA”L says, to recognize that garmi and related damages are an area where Ritzba-style institutions might be necessary. We might fully accept Ramban’s view throughout the kuntres (and that seems to me to be RA”L’s strong inclination, both because of his general admiration of Ramban, and of the accomplishment of this essay in particular), and yet recognize that there could easily be the need for a rabbinic body to assign liability beyond what the Talmudic garmi covers.

A learned and clever thief, he points out, could engineer a theft in which he, halachically, had not done anything, doing it all by way of grama (as people do, he notes, for positive reasons in other halachic contexts, such as the Zomet Institute in Alon Shvut). Does it make sense that finding a way to separate himself from the act somehow should free this thief or vandal from liability? It is a significant social

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 32 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein problem, he says, noting the need for halachic decisors to act to prevent or forestall such loopholes—as, in Ritzba’s view, Chazal were doing with all they wrote about garmi. Their doing so would, at the same time, raise the pride of Torah (since it would show itself able to foster a better-working society than might seem at first).

To me, that’s garmi for RA”L in a nutshell: a difficult topic in that the Talmudic indications about it are less than clear, that was taken in hand by Ramban (and later others, such as Shach), given a conceptual framework, a more exact definition, and an overall enlightening discussion. But for all Ramban’s brilliance and contribution, Ritzba’s claim that conceptual is not the proper approach here, that garmi is an expression of the obligation of Chazal to legislate that which society needs to function well, also has an important place in RA”L’s perspective.

Because, in this instance, RA”L recognizes that conceptualization takes us only so far, that we did and will need Rabbinic leaders to watch for and close up loopholes as they appear. Which, I claim, is a broader obligation of rabbinic leadership, although not one that communities are always willing to grant them, the right to see a problem and legislate communal rules to meet it. At least in the case of garmi, Ritzba thought that was the whole story, and RA”L thought it a necessary part of the story, engaging both the conceptual and the practical to protect as many people as possible from being damaged by others and not being able to recover their losses.

LEAVES OF FAITH, WEEK ONE: WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN AND WHY?

In 2003, KTAV published the first volume of Leaves of Faith; the second volume came out the next year. It seems to have been planned as a pair from the start—both volumes have the same dedication, “To Tovah—With Appreciation and Admiration,” only the first has a preface, and in that preface, RA”L z”l thanks the Orthodox Forum for stimulating the writing of several of these pieces when only one of the articles in Volume 1 was written for that annual conference. In fact, RA”L’s last English book, Varieties of Jewish Experience is even more so a collection of pieces written for the Forum, and I’ll leave any comments on that for when we get to that volume.

For all that there’s room to treat them as one, however, I will treat them separately, devoting two essays to each. In part, that’s because they’re very rich, but so are the volumes of the shiurim. More, I think it’s because these volumes address issues that are more directly and obviously of interest to casual readers, and I don’t want to rush past those opportunities too hurriedly.

In that light, it’s perhaps ironic that the articles I’ve chosen for this time make the point that we should not be too quick to follow our inclinations, that sometimes the process of learning should require us to delve into that which doesn’t come quickly, easily, or naturally. The first chapter is entitled “Why Learn Gemara?” published there for the first time. The fifth, “The End of Learning,” a discussion of the value of study of the humanities, was originally a Torah U-Madda lecture delivered at YU in 1986. The two provide convenient bookends for the specifics of the proper intellectual pursuits of a concerned Jew.

Extensive But Not Exhaustive

To start, there’s one line in the preface I want to mention. RA”L notes that “Given the character of the format—and, quite possibly, my own proclivities—none of the pieces presumes to be exhaustive.” It says so much about the man, whose presentations were filled with erudite references, were thoroughly (often thrillingly) perceptively analytic; who, as his students wrote in the introduction to one of the volumes of the shiurim reliably plumbed the depths of an issue and presented it systematically and in a more organized fashion than almost all of us could; that he yet never sensed that he had quite completed the discussion. His shiurim often note possibilities and ancillary issues that it is not, right then, the time to pursue, leaving him with a sense that he had not completed the task, that he had chipped away at it, had perhaps taken off a meaningful piece, but had left much behind still to be done.

It fits well with a comment of RA”L’s I saw cited several times after his passing. He was asked to encapsulate the central lesson he learned from going to graduate school, and he said the complexity of the world. It is that complexity which he seems to me to have spent his life trying to wrangle into an organized whole. He seems to have felt that he did so with the pieces he produced, but never quite exhaustively.

Why Study Gemara? First, Why Study Halachah as the Center of Religious Focus?

The essay opens with a quote from F.H. Bradley’s “Why Should I Be Moral?” (I had to look him up, too, but RA”L quotes him more than once in the English volumes; I note that because one interesting exercise to understand him better would be to track what and whom RA”L quoted from non-Torah sources, ve-od chazon la-mo’ed) to the effect that seeking a reason to be moral, looking for the value it achieves or quality it confers, itself ruins the conversation, that morality is supposed to be the end itself.

There’s some of that in the question of Torah study as well, RA”L says, that Torah’s supposed to be lishmah, a goal of its’ own, but the question can nonetheless be legitimate, from those who accept and seek to understand its’ value better. It can also be asked as a challenge, by those unconvinced of its worth; unfortunately, both in Israel and outside of Israel, there are many students who ask it that way as well. RA”L chooses to start with why the study of halachah in general is important, and then Gemara in particular.

The answer to the first is basically to assert the accuracy of the question, that Judaism and Chazal in fact see halachah as central to the Jew’s relationship with Hashem (and, perhaps, humanity’s—the verse the Gemara uses as the source of the Noahide laws is, on its surface, the simple command to eat only from the permitted trees in the Garden). Commandedness, RA”L stresses (a topic we’ve seen before, reminding us of the consistency of his worldview, from what he said in the late ‘80s to what he wrote in the early 2000s) is how Jews first experience Hashem. While, yes, like other people, we encounter Hashem as “redeemer, benefactor, and judge,” commander is primary (as his son, R. Meir Lichtenstein, noted in his hesped, his father’s self-image was of a soldier standing at his post).

Among other sources to back up this claim, the bulk of the texts read at the Hakhel ceremony-- enacted once every seven years, where the whole people gathered to renew their encounter and relationship with Torah—came from the mitzvah/halachah portion of Devarim.

That’s not the whole story—other areas of study, particularly aggadah, also play a significant religious role, and a footnote at the end of the article points us to another article of his, not in this volume, where he took the somewhat radical position that some high school students might be better served by a Mishnah-focused curriculum. But halachah is the core.

Why Gemara?

For why Gemara specifically, he offers four points I can summarize—too briefly-- by saying that for RA”L, gemara is where the student can enter into the fray of halachic discourse, participate in the analysis and conclusions of halachah, come to know Chazal (different, for RA”L, than rishonim or acharonim, because Chazal were special—he invokes a quote I heard from him several times, that Chazal are the opposite of what Justice Jackson once said about the Supreme Court, that they were infallible because they were final; for RA”L, who remembered the quote as “right” rather than infallible, it was clear that Chazal were final because they were right), and, in so doing, getting to know the Will of Hashem.

Gemara puts us into the thick of the halachic fray that no other text can, actively engages us in the give and take, gives us a better understanding of the giants whose legacies shape our daily lives. There’s more to it, and this is no substitute for reading the original, but I want to spend a bit of time on the other essay as well, “The End of Learning.”

RA”L Being Personal

While the focus of this talk was the value he saw in studying the humanities, RA”L opens with two personal remarks; after we review them and then the main ideas of the talk, I think we’ll see that these comments in fact perfectly fit his reason for studying the humanities. He opens with an expression of gratitude to R. Aaron Soloveitchik, z”l, who had been his rebbe as a teenager, and had, by the time RA”L spoke, suffered a serious stroke. RA”L spoke of him as a “polestar of integrity and a font of inspiration.” (In a beautiful essay in the second volume of Leaves of Faith that I’ll have cause to mention next week, RA”L mentions the three role models of faith in his life, and R. Aaron Soloveitchik is one of them).

Then he moves on to “a word about my slightly anomalous position” in terms of Torah u-madda. Saying that “something funny happened to me on the way to this forum,” he notes he spent his decade on the faculty of RIETS pushing for more Torah study, contributing to rejuvenating the kollel and playing a role, which he categorizes as secondary, in the molding of many YU Roshei Yeshiva. Then he moved to Israel where, at the point of this talk, he had spent seventeen years working on the study and dissemination of Torah.

With all that, he finds himself cast in the eyes of some, including former students, as an “apostle of culture.” His answer is that he does believe in the value of studying humanistic culture, in a context where Torah is primary and all else ancillary. That means that where Torah is being neglected, he would push for that; but where the focus on Torah is elbowing aside any interest in education beyond the vocational, he does believe in standing up for that.

The End of Learning

Part of the reason those opening are so pungent in the context of the talk is the reason he gives for the value of studying the humanities. The main goal (or “end,” as Milton phrased it in the essay that gave this chapter its name) of learning, RA”L agrees with Milton, is knowing Hashem’s world, Hashem’s creation, which is “illuminating and ennobling.” Human beings are at the apex of that world, RA”L asserts and cites sources to support, and it is the humanities as a discipline that give us the most direct insight into the nature of people, their special qualities and characteristics, and lets us see them in as much of their fullness as we can accomplish.

That’s an important claim, that RA”L made elsewhere as well, that we might come to understand human beings and their natures solely from a study of Torah sources, but the easiest, most direct, and surest way of gaining that kind of insight, which can then inform and enrich our understanding of Torah sources, is through the study of the humanities.

For RA”L, in other words, as we try to assign our limited time for study effectively and appropriately, two linchpins are Gemara, because it lets us partake of the process of forming halachah, lets us see the roots of where halachah came from and analyze the applications of halachah in each generation, and because it gives us the most direct encounter with Chazal, the giants of the Torah she-be’Al Peh, an encounter he finds even more valuable than with great Torah scholars of later eras, because of Chazal’s special role in Jewish history.

Knowledge of halachah and Chazal is one way to bring us closer to our Creator, to give us insight into what the Master of the Universe wants of us and, through that, a peek of insight into the Lawgiver Who guided us in those directions. That way of phrasing it shows why the study of humanity is also significant, letting us see more fully the Creator’s best handiwork, human beings, to understand them and their nature and, again, to secure insight, however minimal, into the Master of the Universe.

Torah u-Madda for RA”L, in other words, were complementary avenues towards a similar goal. He was at pains to stress that each had its place, with Torah always being primary, not to overemphasize one at the cost of the other’s rightful focus, and to use both and more in our never-ending search for greater closeness with and understanding of our Father in Heaven.

LEAVES OF FAITH, VOLUME ONE, WEEK 2: RA”L’S RAV

The last chapter of Leaves of Faith is RA”L’s hesped, eulogy, for R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, to which I hope to return when we get to the second volume (after spending two weeks each on the volumes of shiurim on Baba Batra and Baba Metzia). The two previous chapters record a talk about R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik (the Rav) z”l that RA”L z”l gave at the OU Convention on Thanksgiving, 1992, and then the words of hesped he gave after the Rav’s passing.

It is well known that RA”L was both a talmid muvhak, a dedicated student, and a son-in-law of the Rav, and yet I’m not sure that that fully captures the Rav’s impact on RA”L, intellectually and personally. I know that when I had conversations with RA”L in the early 1990s, about a purely personal issue, he recalled the Rav’s perspective on a related issue, as an important piece of information on how to think about the question.

In the volumes of shiurim—these are shiurim RA”L was giving in his mid to late sixties, a mature and accomplished Torah scholar in his own right—he quotes the Rav more, I’m pretty sure, than anyone else. So that his perspective on his father in law is not just that of a son in law, or even of a student; it’s the perspective of someone who spent years imbibing the Rav’s Torah, worldview, the Rav’s way of approaching life. And then did us the favor of sharing it with us.

Let’s start with the “The Rav at Jubilee: An Appreciation,” the word used to describe the talk while the Rav was still alive (although by that time, illness had kept him from being publicly active for about a decade), and then see what RA”L added after the Rav passed away, less than six months later.

Chiddushei Torah—Original and Creative But Not Revolutionary

RA”L opens by noting a tension within the Rav’s presentation in Ish HaHalachah (the famous essay depicting Halachic Man, the title of the English translation). The Rav seems to celebrate both studying halachah as an intellectual ad theoretical activity, an endeavor in which to revel even if those ideas will never be put into practice and then to also insist that halachic man has a deep interest and abiding passion for actualizing halachah, for improving the universe by bringing the theoretical into the real.

Both elements, in some tension with each other, were true of the Rav’s life as well—who could have imagined, RA”L says, when the young Rav spent days and long winter nights in the Khaslavitch beit midrash with his father, that he would one day fight to unionize shochetim in Boston, scrape to meet payroll for teachers at Maimonides, address RCA conventions?

Taking each in turn, in the pure Torah realm, there was the Rav’s halachah and his machshavah, his thought. In the former, RA”L is clear about the Rav’s creativity and contributions—he mentions one idea I had not seen before, that a safek because of a tartei de-satri wasn’t a doubt in which we don’t know enough to rule, it’s a doubt that stems from conflicting elements within a question, and then one that I had

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 38 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein seen, the Rav’s often noting that the action of a mitzvah isn’t always the same as the kiyyum, the true fulfillment of that mitzvah.

Nevertheless, those contributions built within an existing framework, advanced the project of Brisker Torah started by his grandfather R. Hayyim, doing for Orach Chayyim that which he said his grandfather had done for Yoreh De’ah—taking it out of being relegated to the practical and giving it a conceptual framework that laid bare its fuller role within halachic observance. Still and all, it was an addition to what already existed; a well-done addition, but not a new departure.

The Poet Inspires Us

That could not be said of the Rav’s machshavah, as RA”L has it. Aside from the homiletics (at which the Rav excelled, but so had others before him), the Rav’s thought took RA”L and the rest of us in directions we never thought of, expanding our spiritual range and experience.

RA”L writes, “It’s not that we had engaged in the quest of U-Vikashtem mi-Sham [now available in English as “And From There Shall You Seek”] and had faltered. We simply had never thought in those categories.” In the hesped, he adds rhetorical questions about who would have dreamed of attempting a work like The Halachic Mind, which deals with the interaction of halachah and philosophy of science, who would have been capable of analyzing the experiences of the lonely man of faith, or the typology of Halachic Man.

In both essays, by the way, RA”L quotes the Irish poet W. B. Yeats’ remark that one writes rhetoric about his struggles with others, poetry about his struggles with himself. For RA”L, the Rav was a poet, “in the depth, power and precision of his feeling… and not just in talent for expression.” That element of the Rav fueled all of his intellectual work, in the more well-trodden path of halachic analysis, and in the machshavah that set him apart from others. (RA”L notes that R. Kook is the lone figure whose work is similar to the Rav’s, adding that the Rav agreed with much of what R. Kook wrote, but also disagreed with much of it).

The Practical Leader Guides Us

When RA”L turns to the Rav’s practical leadership, he stresses that the Rav had been a vigorous leader in opposition to Conservative and Reform, especially his daring ruling that one should forego hearing shofar on Rosh HaShanah rather than hear it in a synagogue of one of those movements. That was true even as RA”L notes that right wing Conservative rabbis knew they could turn to the Rav for guidance in how to stem the tide of tinkering with halachah, and that the Rav was clear that many in those movements were genuine mevakshei Hashem, seekers of Hashem.

The second realm is interfaith relations, “the Rav’s adamant stand against Jewish-Christian theological dialogue” (an issue that has recently reappeared, in remarkably similar terms to the ones that RA”L used to describe it in 1992, reflecting back on the Rav’s activity in the 50s and 60s). Concerned that a thaw in

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 39 Gidon Rothstein anti-Semitism mandated by the Second Vatican Council would lead to ecumenicism, the idea that there’s nothing special or unique about the Jewish people, the Rav fought against it.

But beyond all that, RA”L sees the Rav as having been a rebbe, a teacher and mentor, both to classroom talmidim and as a Rav HaIr, the rabbi of a city. That, also, both in specific texts and in a concern for the overall religious growth of his students—RA”L notes how the Rav shaped the curriculum, in particular of his public lectures, to topics and issues that would resonate with his audience, and how he also strove to foster a greater overall religiosity (such as one summer teaching Tanya, to try to alleviate the spiritual desiccation he saw in his assembled students).

And, finally, the Rav taught in his sense of failure, his sense that, for all his accomplishments, he had not done what he should have, what he needed to.

Leading Light of Modern Orthodoxy

As befits a hesped, RA”L went on at greater length once his father-in-law had passed away.

[If I might be allowed a personal note: I remember, at the time, being struck by the deep emotion I saw in both RA”L and R. Twersky, z”l at the Rav’s passing, despite the Rav’s having been ill, and reportedly unable to have meaningful interactions, for many years before he passed away. The shock of the loss reflects itself in the way RA”L spoke, just a few months later, when the only change had been that the man he’d spoken about the previous Thanksgiving had gone to the next world. I would also note that at a shloshim event at The Jewish Center, RA”L’s son, R. Mosheh Lichtenstein, noted that his father tended to speak for ninety minutes for hespedim.]

In the hesped, RA”L took the time to note more aspects of the Rav’s life, a prime one his having been the premier support for those who attempted to bridge the gap between the world of Torah and that of secular or general culture. That wasn’t the same as embracing Modern Orthodoxy, a culture the Rav saw as often characterized by “shallow thinking, deficient halachic obligation, or compromising, lukewarm experience.” But on the core issues, links to the secular world, Zionism, the Rav zt”l was “a pillar of cloud and fire for this camp… for those who clung to it and him, the Rav was a mighty oak, a shelter and a fortress…”

The image of shelter, RA”L says, is intended not only as protective, but also as simply enjoyable (as the verse in Shir haShirim says about the delight of the beloved’s sitting in the shade of her beloved); the Rav had a charismatic personality, “an uncommon magnetism…a sense of humor, sharp but also vivacious.” He was also, until later years, completely self-sufficient, uninterested in attendants to serve him, make his bed, answer his phone, or take care of his correspondence.

Blogging RA”L or the Rav?

I could probably have shortened my review of RA”L’s comments on his father in law, but it seemed to me worth it because of what it says about RA”L. While he recognized more than a few mentors, the Rav

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 40 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein clearly was the most significant, in terms of straightforward Torah, in Jewish thought, in practical activity, in communal leadership, in personal character and more.

As we journey through RA”L’s writings together, it seemed to me that knowing his experience of his father in law, his understanding, from the vantage point of years later, of his spiritual and intellectual father, lets us know him himself one more step as well.

BABA METZIA, HASHOEL, WEEK 1: BEING ENTRUSTED WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S PROPERTY

The next volume of RA”L’s shiurim were those he gave during the six week zman that starts at the beginning of Elul and goes until Yom Kippur of 5757-8 (Sept.-Oct. 1997), and was published in 5763 (2002-3). In his preface, RA”L notes that he doesn’t think a daily shiur can cover the breadth or depth of the topic of shomrim, people who take care of others’ property.

He says he does think he’s presented most of the central topics, grappling with the key questions to understanding them. I mention that because it seems to me to capture much of how he saw his lifelong endeavor of teaching students: taking his remarkable erudition, and using it to help students find their way into topics, even as his own breadth and depth of understanding made clear to him that he would have only enough time to lay out the field, not plow that field fully or completely.

In perhaps interesting contrast, the editors’ brief introduction, aside from thanking R. Daniel Wolf for his care in checking and sometimes correcting the notes being presented, comments on an idea they knew, that some acharonim discouraged in-depth Talmud study on Shabbat, seeing the difficulty of analysis as running counter to the oneg, the pleasure we are supposed to experience, and/or because it might be a sort of borer, differentiating good ideas from bad. They add that that’s not true of RA”L’s shiurim, a) because they’re a pleasure to study and b) because there’s no differentiating, RA”L studies all the opinions, and raises all the possibilities.

Suggesting that while RA”L, aware of the wealth of Torah he didn’t have the time to get to in shiur, felt he was only offering first entry into topics, those who experienced the shiurim felt they had been given a thorough exposure to all of it.

Negligence by Shomrim

The Torah lays out the rules for the various types of shomrim fairly clearly (with the exception of a socher, a person who rents an object, whom we’ll get to in a moment), so RA”L instead takes up the question of what produces the obligations of a shomer to pay in various situations. In his read, there are four; the first, mazik, damaging another, takes up much of the shiur.

Tosafot noted that the Mishnah on Baba Metzia 93a said that a shomer chinam, one watching an object without compensation, can resolve any issues that arise, such as its being stolen or lost, by taking an oath that s/he was not at fault. That ignores the case of peshi’ah, negligence; Tosafot’s answer is that that’s because all shomrim are obligated in that, so the Mishnah did not bother to mention it.

A more conceptual approach arises from Rambam’s comment regarding negligence with a slave, that negligence is actually a form of damage. Meaning, if a shomer is negligent with an object under his/her care, that’s not a failure of shemirah, of guarding, it’s close to willful damage. While RA”L is clear that it’s not the same, it is an example of a category that I think he might have come up with on his own, general obligations with particular applications in the world of shomrim. The first was this, that negligence by a

Other examples of the category that RA”L raises are sholeach yad, where the shomer uses the item for his own purposes; in the case of a shomer, that’s a type of gezelah, brazen theft. And falsely claiming an item was stolen is, for a shomer, a type of theft.

In the course of the discussion, RA”L points out that how we define negligence might have financial consequences: if it is an av nezikin, a major type of damage (a discussion in the Gemara that would take us too far afield), the shomer would have to pay with the best of his possessions, whereas if it’s a failure of guarding, he can pay with whatever types of possessions he wants.

Other Avenues to Obligation

The ordinary scenario where a shomer can be obligated is that the shomer failed to live up to the commitment made. That explains why a shomer sachar, a paid guard, is liable for stolen or lost items. Part of accepting pay to watch an item is to take the care that that shouldn’t happen.

Where care was taken, such that the loss of the item has to be considered ones, outside of one’s capability to avoid, a borrower is still held liable. The easiest way to understand that, RA”L says, is that the borrower undertook the obligation to compensate the owner in such situations as a condition of being given the object, much like an insurance company (his example) guarantees to repay losses. In that case, it’s because we pay them ahead of time, pooling the risk among all the insured; with a borrower, it’s because the borrower is getting all the benefit from the transaction.

Rashba has another way of expressing it, yielding a fourth way to explain a shomer’s obligations. The Gemara discusses a shomer who negligently allowed an animal to wander to a marsh, where it died. Rava thinks the shomer should be free of liability, because there’s no reason to think that the negligence led to the animal’s death (Abbaye holds the marsh air might have contributed or led to the death).

To explain why this same logic shouldn’t free a borrower if an animal under his/her care died, Rashba says the borrower sort of acquired the animal for the term of the loan. For Rashba, the borrower is liable if the animal dies because it was his or hers at that time.

The Ease of Becoming a Shomer Chinam

The second shiur in the book takes on a different introductory question, how many types of shomrim the Torah delineates. In one sense, there are clearly four, since there are four names for them, with different permutations of payment and benefit in the act of shemirah—no payment with a shomer chinam and the owner gets all the benefit, a shomer sachar is paid, a socher pays for using the object, and no payment with a sho’el, but the borrower gets all the benefit.

RA”L’s main focus is the socher, whose status is halachically complex, but he notes that the shomer chinam’s getting nothing out of the transaction. That seems to mean (there are rishonim who disagree, but RA”L leans towards those who take the relevant Mishnah at face value) that there’s no need for an act of acquisition to start the period of watching, that it can be instigated by the shomer’s expressing the

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 43 Gidon Rothstein willingness to watch it. If the owner says, “Please watch this,” the shomer says fine, and is then negligent about it, that shomer will be liable, since the verbal acceptance of shemirah suffices. That’s in contrast to the other types of shomrim, where an act is required to initiate the obligations of shemirah.

Another place where that comes up is a person who found a lost object. One opinion has it that the person is a shomer chinam until the object is returned to the owner, the reason being that no formal event delineated this person as a shomer. The default shemirah is shomer chinam.

So, too, a borrower the term of whose loan had ended has an unclear status, one opinion holding that the borrower becomes a shomer chinam. For RA”L, that’s because it’s the status that is most easily achieved, without needing a kind of formal introduction.

The Baffling Socher

The most puzzling type of shomer, whose status affects our understanding of how we categorize shemirah generally, is the renter, the socher. The Gemara records a debate about whether to treat him/her like a shomer chinam (since s/he is not being paid to watch this item), or a shomer sachar, since this shomer, too, benefits (in that s/he gets to use the object).

A somewhat parallel case is that of an uman, a craftsman who’s completed his/her work, but still has the item (a dry cleaner, for example, after the item is cleaned but the owner has yet to pick it up—what level of responsibility does s/he have for the clothing)? Tosafot explains that both the socher and the uman benefit from having it in their possession, even if they’re not compensated financially for that, and therefore count as shomer sachar.

RA”L notes that there could be two ways to understand the side that sees the socher as a shomer chinam nonetheless: 1) Benefit isn’t the same as financial compensation, and only the latter can make one a shomer sachar or, 2) Benefit can count, but a socher doesn’t get any benefit beyond what s/he paid.

To some extent, this depends on whether we see a shomer’s obligations as extending from a personal commitment (in which case benefit seems no different from monetary payment) or from the Torah’s specific definitions, which don’t cover a socher or uman.

We follow the view that a socher has the same obligations as a shomer sachar, as a paid guard, but RA”L points out that that can still be in one of two ways: 1) either we decided that benefit and money are in fact the same (in which case, for all that there are four types of shomrim by name, there are halachically only three, based on their responsibilities), or 2) a socher ends up at the same place as a shomer sachar, but for different reasons. The shomer sachar is obligated by the payment given, the socher by his/her commitment to guarding because of benefits received (which, in this way of seeing it, is not the same).

The Basics of Shomrim

A discussion that leaves us recognizing major questions of a shomer: what creates the obligation? How far does it extend? What kinds of rewards/benefits heighten the shomer’s responsibilities? All in the name of

Next time, we’ll plan to see a sugya that I have never felt I understood, shemirah be-ba’alim, the idea that a borrower is freed from his/her usual obligations if the owner of the item was hired out to the borrower at the time of the borrowing.

BABA METZIA, WEEK 2: TAKING THE OWNER WITH THE OBJECT

Among shomrim, those watching another’s object(s), the laws of the sho’el, the borrower, seem least complicated. Since only the borrower benefits, s/he is responsible for anything that happens, regardless of cause or culpability.

There are two exceptions: if the item dies or breaks down during ordinary use (known as metah machamat melachah), and shemirah be-ba’alim, where the owner is in some sense with the borrower during the loan. It is that latter one that RA”L discusses in the shiur I will review here. While I don’t ordinarily focus on one shiur within a book, this is a topic that has picked at me for years, presenting a convenient opportunity to grapple with it a bit more in-depth.

The Basic Idea and Issues Needing Clarification

Shmot 22;13-14 says if the owner is not with him, the borrower has to pay (implying that the owner’s presence exempts the borrower). RA”L points to two questions to clarify: 1) What is the definition of “with him” for these purposes? 2) When does “with him” have to happen for this halacha to come into play?

Based on a Mishnah on 94a-b, and the Gemara’s discussion on 97a, RA”L notes that we seem to accept both direct labor by the owner for the borrower, or the owner’s filling a communal function that serves the borrower as well, such as teacher, butcher, scribe. Either is sufficient to be considered with the item for the purposes of shemirah be-ba’alim.

Verbal Commitment to Work

There is some question as to how the relationship is initiated. The Gemara says borrowing an item, such as a cow, requires an act, whereas the be-ba’alim component can be accomplished verbally (if the owner says, “I and my cow are on loan to you,” that suffices for the owner to be considered now lent out to the borrower, and to create shemirah be-ba’alim, Rashi explains).

Ra’avad, cited in Shittah Mekubbetzet, wonders how this can be, since elsewhere we find that a work relationship doesn’t start until the worker heads to the job site (the context is level of liability should the worker decide to back out—if s/he only promised to work, the employer has only tar’omet, the halachic right to be upset; once the worker started in some way, there might be financial ramifications to reneging).

Ra’avad gives two answers, either that the owner here, too, performed an act of starting work that the Gemara left unmentioned, or that the requirement of an action was only for a financial ramification. To be considered be-ba’alim, a verbal declaration would be enough.

While RA”L notes two ways to understand Ra’avad’s idea (of course), he notes that Ra’avad’s language, at least in his second answer, pushes towards his having been investigating the standards necessary to be

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 46 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein considered be-ba’alim¸ so that is the one we’ll pursue. Within that, ther are two possibilities: that it can be be-ba’alim already as soon as there would be tar’omet if s/he cancelled, or that be-ba’alim requires a relationship that has monetary implications (where, if the owner who was also going to be the employee backs out, s/he would have to offer financial compensation for having caused a loss).

Preparation as Initiation

Tosafot also have a remarkably early start time for the employee relationship that allows categorizing someone as be-ba’alim. In cases of a communal employee (like a school teacher), Tosafot says that the job starts from when the employee prepares to go to work. Or Zarua goes further, asserting that a verbal commitment is enough for shemirah be-ba’alim and to prohibit his/her backing out.

RA”L wonders how far Or Zarua would take it. If a friend casually agrees to help another friend move, is that an irrevocable commitment that incurs taromet if broken? He finds it more plausible that there would have to have been some formal commitment, such as hareini sha’ul lach, I am now on loan to you. Even with that additional requirement, Or Zarua is still a significant expansion of how easily we can form an employer/employee relationship, thus turning a loan of an object or animal into shemirah be-ba’alim.

How Direct a Relationship?

Earlier, we spoke of a communal teacher or barber or scribe as being on loan to members of the community. Rif takes that literally, so that even if the communal barber is currently cutting A’s hair, he is considered an employee of the entire community, such that if B borrowed something from that barber, it would be shemirah be-ba’alim. Rashi and Rambam seem to require a more direct and personal relationship, that the teacher/barber/scribe is (or, perhaps, plans to be) working for B that day in order for it to be considered be-ba’alim.

Ramach, RA”L notes, theoretically agrees with Rashi and Rambam, but actually ends up agreeing with Rif. That is, he holds that the owner of the borrowed item has to be actually working for the borrower to be considered shemirah be-ba’alim, but argues that when a communal functionary is doing his job, even for someone else, that also serves the purposes of the borrower, since it means that when B might want him/her in the future, s/he will be available. (If B is borrowing something from the town scribe, who is currently writing a document for A, Ramach thinks that’s still shemirah be-ba’alim¸ because the scribe will be free to work for B later, when B actually needs it).

I included this Ramach because it seems to me to capture one of RA”L’s intellectual joys, an opinion that takes the form of aligning with one view but in practice aligns with another. Ramach ratifies the Rashi/Rambam idea of personal connection, but then expands what can be considered a direct connection so much that he ends up really taking on Rif’s view. That twist was, I think, what stimulated RA”L to include him in the discussion (he does not make a practice of citing views of Ramach).

Similar to Rif’s view that being employed by the community is enough, Rabbenu Chananel held that this applies during all the employee’s official hours, even if s/he is not doing any work at that moment. If B

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 47 Gidon Rothstein walks into the scribe’s office and borrows a car during the business day, when the scribe is on call for communal needs, that would be shemirah be-ba’alim even if no one is utilizing the scribe’s services right then.

For Rif and Rabbenu Chananel, the connection that creates be-ba’alim can be purely legal, with no personal element, whereas Rashi and Rambam understand this issue to arise only when the lender is in some direct and personal way an employee of the borrower’s.

For those of you reading along in the original, I note I am skipping a discussion of Shach, who seems to hold that a promise to lend in the future creates an obligation to guard the object until then, and that obligation might suffice to be considered shemirah be-ba’alim.

The Character of Be-Ba’alim

When I was in Gush, someone said RA”L’s shiurim were simple, makor, ofi, hekef, that to understand a topic all you had to know was its source, character, and extent (even if true, calling it simple was deceptive, since RA”L addressed each of those in intellectually rigorous, broad, and deep ways). While we’ve already seen enough shiurim to know that that is not an ironclad rule, in this shiur, the final two topics he addresses are, in fact, ofi and hekef.

RA”L’s first analysis builds off the view of R. Hamnuna, who required that the owner be there and involved in the same activity to qualify as shemirah be-ba’alim. While that is rejected le-halachah (and it is in character for RA”L to draw the conceptual possibilities out of a rejected opinion, and then see which of those might be accepted by the other view as well). Here, it raises the possibility that, 1) a person might acquire rights to an object without responsibilities, and 2) shemirah be-ba’alim might not mean the borrower has no responsibilities, but mean only that the original owner’s responsibilities outweigh the shomer’s (RA”L offers other examples of where such splits could happen).

There is nothing to contradict RA”L’s suggestions, but nothing to support their application to shemirah be- ba’alim. In the name of space, let me move on to views that spoke about shemirah be-ba’alim as we have it. Sforno treats it as converting putative shemirah into a matanah al menat le-hahzir, a gift that had to be returned, without the absolute obligation to return it that normally comes with such gifts.

In Sefer HaChinuch’s phrasing, the owner’s presence absolves the shomer, since we can expect that the owner will watch it more carefully. This allows RA”L to point out a basic question about shemirah be- ba’alim, whether it removes the status of shomer or frees the shomer of the responsibility to pay.

Sforno, at least, sees it as more the former, thus also explaining why the owner’s having been “with” the borrower at the time of the original loan can suffice to exempt the borrower from responsibility (for the other view, emblemized by R. Hamnuna’s rejected opinion in the Gemara, the owner would have to be there at the time of the loss of the object, since it is that presence that will free the shomer of the obligation to pay).

The Extent of Shemirah Be-Ba’alim

For RA”L, the question of whether the borrower counts as a shomer who has been freed from payment, or isn’t a shomer at all, comes into play in three other situations (in each, there are complicating other factors, so the answer isn’t clear): peshi’ah, negligence, where the halachah is clear that a shomer be-ba’alim would not have to pay. Ra’avad understands that to show that the borrower does retain characteristics of a shomer, just one freed of the requirement to pay in certain situations, including negligence.

Rambam had held that negligence is halachically similar to willful damage, which is why a person could be obligated for negligence while watching slaves, deeds, or land. RA”L understands this to mean that negligence, for Rambam, sidesteps the usual exemptions for those watching those kinds of items; they are, legally, shomrim, just that the Torah generally freed them of certain responsibilities. Negligence, a form of damage, obligates them anyway. A shomer be-ba’alim, though, is not a shomer at all (for Rambam, in RA”L’s reading), and is therefore exempt.

Two other issues that relate to this question are shelichut yad, where the borrower takes the item for his own (meaning, uses it as his own, for his own purposes, in a way that wasn’t included in the loan; for a regular shomer, this is an act of theft). RA”L suggests that the obligation of shelichut yad is an extension of gezel to the world of shomrim, and therefore only makes sense if we think of this person as a shomer. To say that shelichut yad in a case of be-ba’alim, where the owner was “with” the borrower, is to say that the borrower is still considered a shomer.

A Shomer Free of Liability, or Not a Shomer?

RA”L closes by noting two paths of shemirah be-ba’alim: where there is a direct connection, such that the owner is in fact with the borrower, such as controlling the plow that his/her ox is pulling, and the more general situation, where the owner is lent or hired to the community, including this borrower. RA”L suggests that in the first case, it would make sense to argue that the borrower never becomes a shomer. Where the connection is more attenuated, the borrower is more logically thought of as a shomer, just with very restricted responsibilities.

The notes of this shiur do not include a summary, but in my experience RA”L always did. In this shiur, he noted that shemirah be-ba’alim lends itself to two interpretations: the borrower never becomes an halachic shomer or that s/he does, just with limited responsibilities.

This basic question can affect when the owner’s presence is necessary to define it as be-ba’alim. The more we think of it as a kind of shemirah, the more the owner’s presence would seem to be a practical necessity, perhaps even up to the moment the item was destroyed or died; the more it’s an alternate path, a way to not be considered a shomer, the less close the connection might need to be. That also might affect the range of situations from which this borrower will be exempt, such as negligence or taking it for him/herself.

Finally, it affects how we understand what is going on, whether the owner’s presence is getting in the way of the borrower ever being considered fully in charge of the item, or whether the owner’s relationship with the borrower means that the passing of this object to the second person never actually becomes a loan at all.

The issues one has to take on to fully understand shemirah be-ba’alim. Next week, Chezkat haBatim.

CHEZKAT HABATIM, WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO CHAZAKA

In Choref Zman of 5761 (post-Sukkot 2000-Nissan 2001), Yeshivat Har Etzion studied the third chapter of Baba Batra, known as Chezkat HaBatim. As the editors note in their introduction, the main topic of the chapter is the chazakah, the presumption of ownership, established by occupying a certain property for three years.

In the simplest case, if one person accuses another of occupying his or her house or field, the person living/squatting there can claim to have purchased it; if s/he can also prove three years’ of residence, that will suffice and no further proof of ownership or acquisition is necessary.

In the first few shiurim in the volume, RA”L takes on basic questions of that scenario: why would three years’ residence serve as proof of ownership, the nature of the residence required, and whether three consecutive years is in fact the required length to allow for such claims.

This week, we’ll review those issues fundamental to a chapter RA”L says is a particular apt example of the Gemara’s characterization of civil law as an ever-flowing fountain, one of the surest gateways to true wisdom, showing the wealth and strength of in-depth analysis of halachic concepts. He expressed trepidation that he had found his way to some truths of the matters at hand; my trepidation at accurately offering his thoughts, third-hand, is that much greater.

What Three Years Proves

The Gemara, after some discussion, ultimately bases three years on the view of Rava, that that is the amount of time people tend to hold on to their deed of purchase. After that, if the former owner denies the sale occurred, the occupant’s lack of documentation does not hurt his claim that s/he had in fact bought this property.

As RA”L notes, that only explains why lack of proof doesn’t count against the occupant—but what gives us reason to think s/he is in fact the owner? One possibility is that the three-year silence of the first owner itself indicates that the land was sold. This is the view of Rashba in a responsum, who supports his claim from, for just one example, the Gemara’s saying (Baba Batra 50b) that if the current occupant changes the land in some egregious way, digging pits, ditches, or caves, the failure of the owner to protest would immediately establish that this new person had acquired it (because owners would never stay silent at such damage being done to their fields).

R. Yehudah and Possession as Immediate Proof

That fits with the opinion of R. Yehuda in the Mishnah, 38a, that three years was an outer limit, since the owner might be on his way to a place that takes a year to get there. Realizing that he’s not coming back, people would spend a year going to tell him he needs to come back and protest the squatting, which would then take another year.

Rashbam reads that as being based on the same principle, the issue is the owner’s silence; he reads 41a’s assertion that if the occupancy occurred when the owner was in the same town, it would take effect right away.

Ramah disagreed; he understood that Gemara to be saying that if the occupancy occurred in the physical presence of the first owner, it would take effect right away. Even according to Ramah, however, the same principle seems to be in effect, that R. Yehudah held that as soon as the owner was aware of someone occupying his/her property, a failure to protest would prove the property had been sold.

Rashba’s taking that to underlie the Sages’ view as well opens two possibilities about the need for three years. They might have agreed that the owner should protest sooner than three years (although we don’t know how long), the three years only being a reflection of how long the purchaser can be expected to hold on to documentation of the sale. Or they might have disagreed, and held that owners sometimes ignore people squatting on their land, for up to three years.

The Original Owner’s Silence

While Ramban says clearly that three years is how long the purchaser holds on to documentation, implying that the silence of the owner counts against him/her earlier than that, the other rishonim speak of that being how long the original owner might stay silent. Rashba holds that it is the original owner’s silence that allows the buyer to dispose of the deed of sale, and Rabbenu Yonah (Rashba’s teacher) held the reverse, that the buyer’s right to dispose of the documents after three years obligates the original owner to protest within that time frame.

For all of them, though, the owner’s silence is what creates the presumption that the current occupant is in fact the new owner. Ritva is the one rishon RA”L cites who seems to say that the occupancy itself establishes a presumption of ownership (similar to how we establish ownership with movable property). For him, three years is solely about documentation.

RA”L suggests that one’s view of that issue will affect one’s view of the amount of time needed to establish occupancy, the level of activity on the property, and (a topic we will not have space for here) whether and how consecutive that occupancy needs to be.

Amount of Time

While property that has not particular living seasons (a primary residence, e.g.) has a three year chazakah period, fields that have a particular growing season might have a different timing of chazakah. R. Yishmael and R. Akiva disagree with each other about the particulars, but agree that as long as the occupant made use of the field for parts of three consecutive growing seasons (the end of the first season, the whole of the next year, and the beginning of next season, acting in ways that demonstrated assumption of ownership of this field and its crops), that sufficed.

They certainly seem to subscribe more to the view that the chazakah is about acting in such a way that if the field didn’t belong to that person, the true owner would come forward. Since s/he didn’t, that supports/establishes the occupant’s claim to ownership.

The Sages there required three full years, although Rav and Shmuel debated what they meant by that. According to Rav, whom Rashbam explains as having been primarily concerned with justifying the absence of a deed of sale, the Sages required three calendrical years.

Activity Required

Rashba understood Rashbam to imply that the Sages didn’t need the occupant to do anything during this time, since the time was about the loss of the deed, not about demonstrating ownership. He objected to that, saying that it’s clear in the Gemara that the occupant has to do something with the field.

RA”L suggests that Rashbam could have answered that Rav, too, required some such acts, just at a lower level of involvement than the other views. For example, R. Acha held that even if the occupant didn’t plant and harvest it for two of the three years, just weeding it and leaving it fallow, that would be enough. That might be how Rashbam saw the Sages’ view as well: since the primary focus of chazakah was how long the buyer had to retain the proof of purchase, a more minimal act of ownership sufficed.

Shmuel, on the other hand, required full participation in three growing seasons. For a biannual crop, that would mean the chazakah could be established more quickly. On the other hand, it requires more significant activity on the part of the occupier—just being a resident wouldn’t be good enough.

Always Room for a Theoretical Possibility

At the close of the shiur, RA”L notes that theoretically we could have established a double avenue to chazakah, where taking either of these paths would be enough. There is no such view, but RA”L is attached to seeing all the logical possibilities, and this would be one of them.

The fundamental question of chazakah, then, is whether it’s to justify the occupant’s lack of proof of the claim that s/he bought it, to stimulate the first owner to protest, or some mix thereof. That affects how long it has to be, whether the original owner has to have been there for some or all of it, and what kinds of acts of ownership the occupant has to perform.

From there, all sorts of issues can arise, as other shiurim in the book demonstrate. For this series, however, I’m going to move in a slightly different direction next week. More than in other volumes of RA”L’s shiurim, this one has several based on stories the Gemara tells to highlight a principle. Next week, I hope to look at a couple of those stories to see what they teach us.

CHEZKAT HABATIM, WEEK 2: STORIES OF CHAZAKA

In what seems to me a quirk of the Bava Batra volume of RA”L’s shiurim, four build off stories in the Gemara (and maybe more, depending how we define “build off stories”). This may reflect a truth about the Gemara itself, that claims around ownership are even more case-based than other areas of halachah, but it gives us another way to approach RA”L’s style of presentation, by taking some of these stories and seeing how he elucidated them.

Rava Bar Sharshom

The first of those is from 32b, the story of Rava b. Sharshom, about whom word spread that he was holding on to and making use of property belonging to orphans. The fuller story is that he had lent money to their now-deceased father. Their agreement had been that he would use the land until the father paid off whatever was left of the loan, discounting whatever value he took in harvest from the loan amount (that’s the way to avoid issues of ribit, interest, but that’s not the Gemara’s concern here).

When the father passed away, Rava b. Sharshom was faced with a problem: if he returned the land, he would have to take an oath to collect his loan (in the time of the Gemara, people treated oaths with such seriousness that they avoided taking even true ones). He would also have had to wait until the heirs reached adulthood, since minors cannot be taken to court for loan collection.

He therefore decided to keep the land, planning to use it until the loan had been paid off, and then return it. At that point, he would have a migo, a claim that is believed since the claimant could have made a more successful claim had he wished to lie. In this case, Rava could have successfully claimed the land was his.

Except that once rumor spread that he was using the orphans’ land, that ruined his migo (for reasons we’ll have to examine), leading Abbaye to rule he had to return the land right then. There are several unclear factors in the story (that the Gemara does not detail), and the various approaches to them among the rishonim take up much of RA”L’s shiur.

Chazakah or No?

Two related early questions are whether the deceased father’s ownership was well-established or based only on this rumor. The Gemara also did not tell us how long Rava had been in possession of the land— had it been three years? If it had, was it while the father was alive, or only after he passed away?

Ramah noted three main options. For two of them—that Rava b. Sharshom had no chazakah, or completed the three years that established a chazakah only after the father’s death (which was Rambam’s version)— we have to assume the father’s ownership wasn’t well established (since if it was, we wouldn’t need a widespread rumor as the precipitating event of returning the field to the orphans).

Ra’avad took the third option, that the father’s ownership had been established, but that Rava b. Sharshom had been in possession of the field for three years during the father’s lifetime, establishing a chazakah.

The Role of the Rumor

To leave space to get to one more of the stories, I am skipping an extended discussion of oaths and how they relate to land. Important as it is, it’s less specifically connected to this case, as opposed to the other piece we will take up here, the impact of the rumor.

Rashbam held the rumor performed the same role as the original owner disputing the occupant’s right to the land. Even if an owner doesn’t make efforts to evict an occupant, his making his claim clear means that the occupant never establishes a chazakah (such that, for example, s/he would have to retain the records of the sale).

Tosafot held that the rumor didn’t affect Rava’s ability to claim the land was his, but did ruin his migo. A migo is based on having been able to make a better possible claim; but when a rumor contradicts that claim, it becomes what’s called a migo de-ha’azah, where making the better claim would have taken acertain brazenness, a willingness to contradict those who had heard and believed the rumors.

If he did so, he would in fact be believed (because rumors don’t have validity in court). But Tosafot in many places held that the possibility of doing so cannot support a migo. Ramban allowed such a migo in monetary issues, but agreed with Tosafot that it could not be used to avoid an oath.

Ramah gave the rumor more halachic force, seeing it as a proof for the orphans’ claim the land was theirs (in his reading, Rava b. Sharshom had not been on the land for three years, but the orphans also didn’t have proof that it was theirs, which would have left the land in his hands. The rumor, widespread and consistent, served as proof enough to force him to support his claim to the land. In the absence of such support, he’d have to return it).

Rava b. Sharshom’s Neglected Claim

The last piece of the shiur notes that Rava b. Sharshom could have demanded repayment of the loan. Since he was in possession of a field he could have claimed was his, he should have had a migo to support his assertion and been able to collect that loan without having to take an oath.

Rabbenu Yonah offers three answers I cannot elaborate fully, but that remind us of some of the complications of migo. He says we don’t say migo le-hotzi, migo cannot be used to extract money, that migo cannot be used to establish a claim about other money (meaning: the ability to claim that the field was his does nothing for his claims about any other monies), and that we don’t allow a migo regarding collateral.

So, our first case study from Chezkat HaBatim lands up being about the nature of proofs available to either side, the role of the widespread word of mouth that the field was the orphans’, and the role of migo in supporting which kinds of claims.

The Relative of R. Idi b. Avin

The next case-study shiur takes up a story from 33a, where a relative of R. Idi b. Avin passes away, leaving a palm tree. Both R. Idi and another man claimed to be the heir. Without proof, courts refused to rule, leaving it to the stronger man to win. In this case, the other man won and used the palm tree for a period of time.

Then, R. Idi found proof he had been a relative of the deceased, leading the court to award him the tree. He also wanted the other man to reimburse him for the fruit taken in the time it had been in his possession. While Rava and Abbaye agreed, R. Chisda held that the man did not need to repay those past fruits.

RA”L points out that there are many relevant details of the case, depending on different versions or interpretations of the text. While our text thinks the other man admitted R. Idi was a relative, other versions had it that two witnesses testified to that fact. Our version makes it seem that the later information was that R. Idi was the closer relative, while other versions thought it established only that he was a relative. Finally, the simplest reading is that the palm tree was inherited after the original owner’s death, but Tosafot and Ramban cite a reading that the owner gave it as a gift to his relative, and the debate was about whom he meant.

Each factor affects our understanding of the case and of the underlying halachic principles.

RA”L Rejecting Rishonim!

The first view RA”L takes up is that of Tosafot, Ramban, and Rashba, who all assumed R. Idi found witnesses he was in fact the closer relative. Since witnesses establish facts, it’s unclear why R. Chisda would think the other man could keep the fruits he’d eaten. Rashba’s answer was that there was no independent evidence he had eaten any fruits; for us to believe his admission that he had eaten fruits, we should also have to believe they were his.

RA”L understands this to be a migo; since he could have said he hadn’t eaten anything, we believe him that they were his. Except that that construction of it makes it a migo be-makom edim, a migo when there are witnesses to counteract his claim.

Tosafot say that yes, R. Chisda holds that we accept a migo even if there are witnesses to the contrary (RA”L notes that that’s surprising, since we don’t generally think that). Rashba finds a less extreme, but perhaps more surprising, way to say it. He says the migo allows us to interpret the relative’s claim in such a way that he would have the right to the fruits he had eaten. In this case, Rashba says, we would assume he meant that R. Idi had sold him those fruits.

In reviewing RA”L’s shiurim, I have noticed his willingness to comment on the plausibility of ideas he finds in rishonim (always respectfully, but without hesitation). This is a prime example; he says clearly

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 56 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein that he finds problematic the idea that a court would reconstruct the claim of one of two litigants, to allow him to win a court case.

The ramifications of such a view were too far-reaching for RA”L to feel comfortable, almost frightening [the notes quote him as saying that]. For that reason, he prefers to find another reading of the Gemara. As we follow him, I want to be sure that we all notice that RA”L just said that he found the views of Tosafot, Ramban, and Rashba so unpalatable that he looked to other readings of the sugya!

The Impact of a Litigant’s Concession

His first stop is Rashbam, who built off the version of our printed Gemaras, that the other relative himself admitted R. Idi had the rights to the tree. That would seem to include the right to the fruit already eaten, as Rava and Abbaye claimed. Rashbam wrote that, according to R. Chisda, his admission was as if he were giving the tree to R. Idi (sort of like a gift).

RA”L notes that that’s an odd claim, since he’s making a statement about ownership. He suggests Rashbam might have constructed the disagreement between Rava and Abbaye on the one hand and R. Chisda on the other as being along the lines of a later dispute as to the nature of hoda’at ba’al din, what happens when a litigant admits something in court.

Mahari b. Lev had said that it was a sort of hitchayvut, a way for that litigant to impose an obligation on himself. In that reading, the man can obligate himself in one part of the case—having to give the tree to R. Idi—and not the other. In the next section of the shiur, RA”L offers another, very similar, way of saying that, that the admission of a litigant is a sort of histalkut, removing himself from the case; that, too, can be done for one part of a case and not the other. Mahari b. Lev matches R. Chisda well.

Ketzot HaChoshen, who cited this view, disagreed, and said that admissions of litigants are accepted as having a high degree of ne’emanut, of believability. The other man’s admission that the tree should have gone to R. Idi established the facts [until and unless other evidence comes to light]. If so, that should apply to the fruits as much as to the tree, the view of Abbaye and Rava.

Certainty and Doubt

One last way to read the case is that there were two witnesses, but they only testified that R. Idi was a relative, not that he was closer than the other man (who had no proof he was a relative at all). If so, the debate would be about the principle of ein safek motsi midei vadai, that someone with a possible claim cannot trump someone with a certain claim.

Everyone accepts that the tree goes to R. Idi, since we know he’s a relative. RA”L suggests that Rava and Abbaye saw the principle of ein safek as a birur, as establishing the truth of the situation as far as we can currently tell. From what we know now, only R. Idi has a claim to the tree, so the other man has to repay the fruit wrongly eaten.

R. Chisda would say that the principle of ein safek is a machri’a, tells us how to rule without making specific factual claims. If so, the man who had had the tree until now has a migo (and now, it’s not a migo against the testimony of witnesses, since they didn’t testify that the tree necessarily belongs to R. Idi), and therefore can keep the fruit already eaten.

As the Kohen Gadol used to say on Yom Kippur, much more than I have had the chance to present is written in this volume. But this time, at least, we got to see RA”L grappling with cases of conflicting claims of ownership, based on chazakah and not, and how witnesses’ testimony, litigants’ claims, and other forms of proof or admission, can affect our ability to know who has the right to which money.

Next week, Gd willing, Leaves of Faith, Volume Two.

LEAVES OF FAITH, VOLUME TWO: RA”L’S OTHER MODELS

As I mentioned, I am going to combine RA”L’s view of R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach from Volume One with the short last essay in volume two (“The Source of Faith Is Faith Itself”). Together, they present a picture of people other than his father in law who served as role models for RA”L. Watching what impressed him in these men teaches us about what he valued.

R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, z”l

He opens his portrait of RSZ (R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach) by noting that he was relatively unknown for his lifelong avoidance of confrontational issues, but that the Jewish public needed to know him better. He was, in RA”L’s view, in many ways an Israeli R. Moshe Feinstein, in that both headed yeshivot for decades but were better known as poskim, halachic decisors. Both fused humility and authority, seeking to promote harmony and diminish confrontation. Their psak dealt with “the cutting edge of modern issues, particularly… medicine and technology… animated by sensitivity to human concerns as well as fidelity to Halakhah.”

Moving to qualities particular to RSZ, RA”L spoke of his encyclopedic knowledge, held at his fingertips (meaning: not only did he know an amazing amount, he could access it on a moment’s notice); his temperament (“remarkably judicious”)--deferential to others’ views while also genuinely self-confident, even while innovations were neither forced or improvised. And “he had a sharply honed sense of balance—of general principle as distinct from detail,” and in when he applied his innovative thought or went along with existing tradition.

His profound human sensitivity (for all that he wasn’t among the most radically lenient decisors) was related to his “remarkably integrated life.” He had temimut both in the sense of a bit of naivete (such as his amazement at news that observant Jews could cut corners regarding income tax), although that was balanced with an astuteness in judging people. He was also a tamim in the sense of being whole in his relationship with Hashem.

Finally, he was accessible—he received anyone with a question at his modest apartment, a line forming around two every afternoon, treating every question and every person with respect. He could, in RA”L’s experience or assessment, “realize and acknowledge the worth of those who were cut from different cloth.” That led him to respect for “the whole gamut of the religious spectrum,” including Religious Zionists, and to his concern, even anguish, at what he saw as negative developments in that world.

RSZ, and the Sha’arei Hesed neighborhood of Jerusalem where he lived, were (for RA”L) “marked by the very best features of harediyut—intensive commitment to Torah learning and halakhic observance, and a deep awareness of tradition,” without taking on the negative features of denigrating work or hate- mongering.

Broad, deep and insightful knowledge of Torah, applied judiciously, with openness and a sensitivity to human needs, were the markings of greatness that RA”L saw in R. Shlomo Zalman.

R. Hutner

The last essay in Volume Two of Leaves of Faith is brief (the editors grouped it with four others in one chapter on belief issues), but one I remember vividly from when it first appeared in Jewish Action (1992, in a symposium on faith) because of how impactful I found it. The question posed the participants was to lay out the sources of their faith in Hashem.

RA”L’s answer (with his usual caveats, in this case about how this might not be helpful to others) was that key people had set him on the path—his parents, and then three rebbeim whom he singled out for mention.

The first was R. Hutner, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, which RA”L attended for his high school years (and with whom he maintained a relationship after). My recollection is that RA”L spoke of R. Hutner on limited occasions, but reading through the English volumes of his essays shows that R. Hutner left an impact particularly in his hashkafic approach, and seems to me to have been part of giving RA”L a lasting familiarity with the ideas of Maharal.

In any case, in this essay, he spoke of him briefly but memorably as the Rosh Yeshiva (noting that that’s how his students invariably referred to him), calling him “gavra d’mistafina minei par excellence,” the man before him RA”L himself would always tremble. He overwhelmed, in RAL’s words, whereas the Rav overawed, leaving RA”L with “no rational illusions about attaining their status or stature.”

R. Ahron Soloveitchik

Those two giants’ impact on RA”L, he seems to have felt, was clear enough that more need not be said. About R. Ahron Soloveitchik, z”l, he felt the need to say more. (In an essay in By His Light, he started a speech at YU in the 1980s by acknowledging R. Ahron’s presence, with moving and heartfelt words about what it meant to him to have his rebbe there to hear him).

I can do no better than to quote his words: “Reb Ahron, while an inspiring vision, yet somehow seemed within reach, and truly presented a model. It wasn’t so much what he said or did. I was simply enthralled by what he was—a remarkable fusion of mastery and simplicity, of vigor and humility and, above all, a pillar of radical integrity.”

[I apologize if this is an inappropriate parallel, but I remember once hearing Jerry Seinfeld refer to Robert Klein as the first comedian he could imagine being like, who was enough like him that he really felt he could do it. RA”L, in an obviously much more important, lofty, and sanctified realm, is saying something similar about R. Ahron, z”l.]

R. Chaim Brisker

It was not only immediate rebbeim who gave RA”L this kind of supportive model. He also recalls a time in his late teens when he was troubled by “certain ethical questions concerning Amalek, ir ha-nidahat, etc.” He remembered having read that R. Chaim Brisker (the Rav’s grandfather) would wake up every night to see if someone had left a foundling on his doorstep [which is an interesting insight into Jewish communities of Eastern Europe before WWI, but that’s not our topic].

RA”L knew that he, himself, wasn’t engaging in such kindnesses, and decided that if someone like that could cope with these “problematic” halachot, so could he.

Hashem

Had the essay stopped there, it would have been powerful, moving, and inspiring. But the kicker was yet to come, because RA”L wrote, a few paragraphs from the end “The greatest source of faith, however, has been the Ribbono shel Olam Himself.” He goes on to note that this isn’t a philosophically meaningful position [invoking Anselm and Feuerbach, as we obviously all would in this connection]. “Existentially, however, nothing has been more authentic than the encounter with Avinu Malkeinu, the source and ground of all being.”

It’s an encounter, he goes on to say, that happened primarily through Torah study, but also prayer and performance of mitzvot—“or, if you will, by the halakhic regimen in its totality.” By living a life in relationship with Hashem, Hashem revealed Himself [not prophetically, but in “moments of illumination”].

He closes with some words of encouragement and advice for those “struggling to develop faith,” (as the symposium’s editors had asked), but for our goals in these essays, I find his discussions of all of these figures [other than Hashem, Who can never be grouped with others, in any way] revelatory about who RA”L himself was—someone concerned with comprehensive knowledge of Torah that could be applied to life, for whom people of Torah were model and inspiration, and who saw himself as struggling to follow in the footsteps of the greats who came before him, and was encouraged on that path by those who could make it seem doable and achievable.

A self-picture, I note in closing, that speaks of his own deep humility, his sometimes not realizing how much closer he may have ended up to the Rav and R. Hutner than he realized.

LEAVES OF FAITH, VOLUME 2, WEEK TWO: A PRACTICAL RA”L DISCUSSES ABORTION

In these discussions of RA”L’s writings and teachings, I’ve tried to capture characteristic elements. Granted that I was going to write only two essays on each volume, I’ve been seeking topics that could be defended as in some way broader than the issues themselves, presenting some identifiable piece of a larger whole.

Here, I’m going to go in the other direction. Most of the articles in the second volume of Leaves of Faith fit RA”L’s usual mode of laying out a field broadly and deeply, giving general perspectives that would then greatly illuminate one’s approach to a specific problem. There are discussions of “Religion and State: The Case for Interaction,” “Does Judaism Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakhah?” “The Parameters of Tolerance” and several essays on “The State of…” Centrist Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy in general, the condition of Jewish belief, and so on.

These all are RA”L at his most familiar: taking a topic that seems well-trodden and, in outlining how to look at the issue, bringing to bear factors that add unexpected nuance to our own. For all that he seemed to me often difficult to pin down to an exact answer—since he was always so aware of countervailing factors to weigh, such that he was ready to see wrong answers, but often was also ready to see more than one right or acceptable answer—his broad brush discussions were still enlightening and, often, life changing.

One article in the volume cuts so much against that that I found it irresistible. Soon after RA”L made aliyah, when he was only about forty, he testified before the Knesset about a law regarding abortion (his views were originally published in Hebrew in 1974). We’ll see his characteristic setting of parameters, but the occasion called for more specificity. Here we’ll see RA”L giving practical answers to a practical question (while leaving room for case by case exceptions).

He starts with the categorical assumption that there are situations where the Torah prohibits abortion. His basic reason for this certainty is that the consensus of decisors holds that non-Jews may not perform abortions (for them, it’s like murder), and we have what RA”L calls “the great halakhic principle” (which I think bears remembering in other contexts as well) that the Torah does not permit Jews to do that which is prohibited to non-Jews. [I note that last year Tradition published a special volume dedicated to RA”L’s thought; there, my longtime friend and former chavruta Dr. Alan Jotkowitz wrote about RA”L’s views on abortion as well; among other points he makes, he questions whether the consensus of poskim agrees that we apply this concept in practice, using it to establish prohibitions for Jews. Here, I am only summarizing RA”L’s ideas, not putting it in the broader framework Dr. Jotkowitz sought].

The Most Serious Prohibition

Beyond that problem, RA”L raises several other issues that might disallow abortion. He has to deal with each, because each might apply, with leniencies or stringencies, to different situations. Aside from murder (and, as we’ll see, he is only confident that it counts as murder when the fetus can live outside the womb; that means that before that, the reason to prohibit abortion will depend on one of the other factors).

Abortion might also be seen as ancillary to homicide. Even where it’s not actual murder, it’s “part of a network of strictures revolving around the prohibition…extending beyond it.” This would make it similar to what are known as abizrahu, acts that are similar enough to other prohibitions, such as idolatry or sexual immorality, that they are themselves prohibited.

Even if it’s in no way murder, it might be habbalah, causing physical damage to another Jew (the mother or the fetus), which is generally prohibited, often even if the person being damaged consents [self-injury is not allowed in halachah, for this reason among others].

More positively, for all that the fetus isn’t recognized as a full life, there might still be an obligation to protect and save it [such as violating Shabbat to keep a pregnancy going], which would then disallow acting to end its life.

RA”L takes for granted that Noahides are only considered murderers if the fetus has reached the point of independent viability (that is, that if we removed the fetus through a Ceasarean instead of aborting it, it could live). [If I may pause for a moment of contemporary thought: over ninety percent of abortions in the US occur during the first trimester, and viability doesn’t come until almost or the actual end of the second trimester—the Wikipedia entry on Fetal Viability, citing studies, said that at 23 weeks, only 20-35 percent of babies born survive; it jumps to 50-70% at 24-25 weeks. If so, it seems clear that RA”L did not see Noahides who perform such abortions as violating this prohibition; viability as a criterion was previously raised by Minchat Chinuch, Mitzvah 34, as I noted here].

Stages of Pregnancy

His reference to viability leads him to note that the different reasonings for prohibiting abortion might come into play at different stages of the pregnancy. If abortion is an adjunct to murder, that seems to him already true at the forty-day mark, a stage the Gemara mentions as when the fetus becomes more than maya be-alma (“mere liquid”) and a miscarriage counts as a birth.

If the question is physical damage being done, if it’s the damage to the fetus we’re concerned about, that, too, would seem to come into play at the forty-day mark. If it’s the damage to the mother, forty days might be the mark at which the damage is serious enough to be prohibited, but RA”L can also imagine allowing it up until the end of the first trimester, the point at which the Gemara speaks of the pregnancy becoming recognizable (which has ramifications for other halachot, such as what she does or does not have to think about in terms of niddah issues).

As to the possible affirmative obligation to save a fetus’ life, RA”L notes a debate about when we can violate Shabbat to save a pregnancy. He mentions three opinions: we can violate Shabbat to save any conceived fetus, because we “violate one Shabbat so that (the fetus) could later keep many Shabbatot;” forty days, since that’s when it has the status of a living soul; or, we cannot ever violate Shabbat to save a fetus, since it’s not yet alive [In practice, I think it’s usually true that a woman who is miscarrying is likely in some danger, and we’d violate Shabbat to secure her health; this discussion is helpful for us here, though, in laying out the views of the fetus].

For the view that we can violate Shabbat from the moment of conception, it makes great sense to say we could not willfully terminate such a fetus. For the other views, RA”L notes that not being allowed to violate Shabbat to save a fetus does not necessarily translate into permissibility to terminate it; taking deliberate action to destroy life or potential life is a further step, running counter enough to the general obligation to save life that it is likely not allowed earlier than when Shabbat violation is permitted.

Mitigating Factors to Allow an Abortion

The source, reason, and timing of a prohibition of abortion also helps us understand what factors might override those. Murder is only set aside for actual danger to the mother [the Gemara explicitly allows terminating a pregnancy to save the mother], RA”L notes. He does note poskim who include spiritual or psychological danger in the general category of danger, but that they did so when allowing violating Shabbat or kosher laws, not when another life is at stake. The farthest RA”L was willing to go was to say that if having the baby would lead to actual insanity—which he differentiates from “a sense of frustration, perplexity, bad nerves, or some neurosis or psychosis”—he could see that qualifying as sufficient danger. He urges applying such reasoning only in the most extreme cases, since the fetus’ life hangs in the balance.

Even in the case of physical danger to the mother, he assumes we would have to use a stricter standard than we do in the cases of Shabbat violation, for example. We violate Shabbat for dangers to life that might be statistically small, but RA”L doubts we could do so when another viable life hangs in the balance, and says it would have to be carefully weighed.

The other reasons to prohibit abortion, which come into play at an earlier stage, allow for more factors to affect the calculus. Noting that a nursing mother is allowed to use contraception to prevent a further pregnancy (which was seen as dangerous to the existing baby), RA”L infers that halachah is allowing putting aside certain values [the ones that ordinarily oppose contraception] to allow for normal family relations.

That being true, issues like human dignity, domestic peace (meaning: keeping marriages happy), and pain all carry halachic weight, and could be relevant here as well. He does not have any evidence or clear- cut argument that can define when to be lenient in this area; it would have to be case by case, but he’s made it clear that there are circumstances where he could see such issues being significant enough to allow an abortion.

Injury to the mother also allows for many leniencies, since we allow such injury in other cases (such as elective surgeries of various sorts). He mentions the mother’s health, even if not life threatening and then, much more hesitantly, the damage that might come from having a seriously crippled child, given the social and familial stigma that might ensue. If the issue is injury caused the fetus, none of this would come into play.

For those who saw abortion as being in opposition to our general obligation to save lives, RA”L notes that that obligation might be based on positive requirements, such as va-hay bahem, you shall live by them (the mitzvot) or a kind of hashavat avedah, returning of lost objects; or it might be a ramification of the prohibition against standing by and watching someone die or be killed. If the latter, RA”L sees less room to allow an abortion.

But if it’s the former, many situations override an obligation to fulfill a positive commandment or ideal. Here, significant physical or psychological cost to the parents (even if not as far as insanity, bankruptcy, or the like) could be a relevant factor. In addition, if the concern is the life of the fetus itself, RA”L sees the possibility that there is no obligation to do so if the fetus is going to lead a life filled with suffering. While we are not allowed to end lives, even those filled with intolerable suffering, we are in certain circumstances allowed to abstain from acting to prevent such a person’s death. RA”L thinks that logic applies even more easily to a life that has not yet come into being.

If It’s All Rabbinic

There is a minority view that these prohibitions as rabbinic. While RA”L firmly rejected that for third trimester abortions, he was willing to entertain it for the other issues he’d raised. Once a rule is rabbinic, there are many other routes to leniency, since rabbinic rules often take account of various kinds of “great need.”

RA”L adds three caveats: the lenient position is a minority view, “great need” is too loose a term, making it difficult to apply with any consistency, and these respondents were speaking to specific and exceptional cases, not laying out general policy.

Conclusions

Based on the above, RA”L sees little room to allow abortions after the forty day mark for psychological- social reasons. He stresses that this is not out of a lack of sensitivity to those suffering distress by virtue of their pregnancy, but because of how seriously halachah takes feticide.

He then reviews the reasons it is so serious: 1) abortion after forty days possibly transgresses biblical commands and prohibitions; 2) Even if rabbinic, there is rarely a real danger of insanity or physical deterioration, and who can be sure the fetus’ life will end up being purely detrimental, such that we can push aside these prohibitions, 3) There are other ways to deal with many of the issues around a pregnancy, such as psychological counseling, monetary support, and so on. Even where those aren’t

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 65 Gidon Rothstein available, the fact that they present a viable alternative means, to RA”L, that we shouldn’t allow a general policy of permitting abortions.

Flexibility and Stringency

RA”L closes with two general points. First, he has left some areas of the discussion not fully determined. This was not out of any hesitation to come to conclusions, but because he thinks psak cannot be broad- brush [which is why he was always, in public conversation, insistent on laying out parameters, not giving firm answers]; the flexibility in the sources means the same decisor might in one case prohibit an abortion but in another case, with significant enough other factors, allow it. He wrote as he did to leave that room for human input into decisions, which is how halachah is supposed to work.

All that being said, he recognizes that his views will be seen as very stringent (since it was a time when abortion was seen as a woman’s right; as Dr. Jotkowitz points out, over a decade later, in a talk later published in By His Light, RA”L was still struck by the modern insistence on a woman’s right to her body, and how much it ran counter to halachah’s view).

Without apologizing, he does note that the “liberal” view on this issue comes at the expense of the humanity of the fetus. In order to allow the mother to do what she feels right, the “liberal” view had to ignore or dismiss the concerns and humanity of the fetus.

In arguing that the decision often had to go the other way, RA”L closes by reminding his listeners and readers that this isn’t only out of obedience to the Will of God, but is also an expression of halachah’s concern with human dignity and welfare, which “rises up in indignation against the torrent of abortions.” This might create some burden for specific families, which will have to have a child that will cause them real difficulties (which RA”L stresses we should neither deny nor ignore), this is a cost that has to be borne in the name of remembering the humanity of all life, including that of the fetus.

He closes, as will I (in a phrase Dr. Jotkowitz took as the title of his essay), by “paraphrasing the famous words of Shakespeare, that Halakhah loved not the parents less, but the child more.”

GITTIN, WEEK ONE: WHAT IS JEWISH DIVORCE?

I have been following a more or less chronological scheme in taking up RA”L’s published volumes (other than taking Minchat Aviv first, and interspersing English volumes among the Hebrew ones), but the next volume published recorded shiurim on Pesachim, delivered in 5763 (2002-3), and published in 5765. Since those shiurim bear more relevance to Pesach, still over two months away, I am going to leave that volume for the beginning of Nissan, when we’ll all have Pesach more in mind.

Gittin stands out from the other volumes in a few immediate ways. For all that the volume has a publication date (5769; RA”L’s introduction is dated to Elul 5768), I could not find these volumes’ usual reference to when the shiurim were delivered. The next volume in the series, Horayot, is of shiurim given in the summer session of 5765 (post-Pesach 2005), leading me to assume that these were given in between.

RA”L’s introduction refers to his hopes for continued health in a way that’s not true in other volumes. He also, here, puts aside the locution he had used in each of the previous volumes, that he was blessed to have his work done by others in putting his ideas in print. Here, he simply thanks the students and colleagues who worked on this. These changes make me wonder whether this was a time when his health had become even more of an issue than it had been, and I thought I’d mention it.

Educational Issues in Teaching Tractate Gittin

In the substantive part of the introduction, RA”L defends having started his shiurim from 17a, instead of the beginning of the tractate. He is aware of those who would see it as more than a little arrogant of him to pretend he can decide the better and worse areas to study. Those critics argue that one must start at the beginning, because that’s how Chazal set up the tractate.

RA”L concedes the power of the claim, but reminds us that while some tractates start at the beginning of a topic, others start with a specific, relatively ancillary detail (in the case of Gittin, that was the rules for a messenger bringing a get from someplace where we’re not sure it was written properly). Chazal clearly had their reasons for this, but we a) don’t always know them, and b) educational factors militate in favor of starting elsewhere.

That’s particularly true in yeshivot, both charedi and Zionistic (an interesting way of classifying higher- level yeshivot) where a shiur will cover 15-20 dapim in a zman (which he finds a problem of its’ own). That leaves him, and anyone delivering regular shiurim to a group of students, to consider whether and how those students will encounter the fundamental concepts of bills of Jewish divorce within those fifteen to twenty folios. Whatever one’s choice, RA”L wants to be clear that this is a disagreement about educational philosophy, not attitudes towards Chazal.

I note this for two reasons. First, we saw before an introduction that was an apology; in that case, it was for using modern language, in addition to the traditional lishna de-rabanan. It’s a reminder that even as he

Second, I had a similar experience as a much younger educator, when I suggested choosing sections of Chumash to teach based on an awareness that classes at that high school would cover, at most, sixty chapters of Chumash over four years. One of the more traditional teachers attacked the idea along the lines of the critics RA”L strives to answer, that it was inappropriate to assign some sections of the Torah more importance than others. To watch RA”L defend a similar position regarding his choice was familiar and comforting to me.

A Little Bit of Gittin

But let’s turn to Gittin itself. The first shiur opens by noting that the Torah describes Jewish divorce as a two-stage process, the writing of a get and the sending away of the woman. RA”L wants to know which of those parts of the process is the more essential one. To form a basis of comparison, he turns to non- Jewish divorce. Since the Torah’s view of non-Jews’ behavior includes a prohibition on adultery, there has to be a mechanism for divorce as well.

Yerushalmi Kiddushin offers two options: there is no formal divorce process (a couple just splits) or there is a process, but either partner can initiate it. While the Yerushalmi leans towards the former, in RA”L’s reading, Rambam seems to have both: he speaks of the husband expelling the woman from his house, or of her leaving of her own volition. For RA”L, the first seems similar to Jewish divorce, the second a different process [which, while he doesn’t note it, has always seemed to me worthy of greater consideration: why would the Torah allow non-Jewish women to initiate divorce and not Jewish women? The answer to that question, I believe, must be part of any attempt to explain the Torah’s giving the right of divorce solely to men].

Jewish Divorce

When we turn to Jewish divorce, we have to wonder how similar or different it is. The centrality of a document [the get] makes it seem like an acquisition, as if the man is returning to the women full rights over herself through this bill of divorce. Alternatively, we could see Jewish divorce as fundamentally similar to non-Jewish divorce, the women being sent out of the man’s home, just that it’s brought about with a get.

Which of those views we take affects our view of the document itself. If divorce is basically a way of sending the woman away, this document differs from other shtarot, halachic deeds and documents, and its’ laws might therefore differ as well. If we see get as basically a shtar, it pushes more in the direction of seeing the husband as transferring rights to the woman.

Definitely Sending

For the rest of the shiur, RA”L focuses on halachot the push in the direction of seeing divorce as not a matter of acquisition (for all that the first Mishnah in Kiddushin speaks of a woman reacquiring herself through divorce; that may be true, but the process seems to be one of the husband sending her away.) I note that now, because the notes make clear that he kept raising the other option anyway—I certainly wasn’t there to know, but it feels like RA”L was attracted to the acquisition idea, and kept looking for places where it might show itself.

First, halachah rules that a shotah, a woman who has lost her mind, cannot be divorced; in this context, the key factor in defining her insanity is that she cannot understand that her marriage has ended. Since the verse refers to ve-shilechah mi-beto, he shall send her from his house, Yevamot 113b infers that a woman who keeps returning (because she is too far gone to understand that this is no longer her house) cannot be divorced. (It’s not that it’s wrong to divorce her, although it might be, it’s ineffective— the Torah is telling us divorce can only occur when the woman understands that the husband’s house is no longer their joint place of residence).

A second halachah that shows that divorce has an element of sending to it is that the get is phrased differently from most shtarot. When witnesses give testimony in an ordinary shtar, they start with words such as “we testify that.” A get, in contrast, starts with “Behold, you are now permitted to marry any man.” In this sense, the document is about telling her she’s no longer married, not creating some sort of acquisition.

Lastly, of the ideas from the shiur for which we have space, there’s the status of the get itself. Rambam held, for example, that all other shtarot are de-rabbanan, are a Rabbinic institution to make various transactions easier. Among those who disagreed, Ramban pointed to get as clearly Biblical.

RA”L notes that Ramban seems to have assumed that a get is similar enough to other shtarot for that to have been a relevant argument. For Rambam, get would be so dissimilar—since it’s about sending the woman away, not acquisition—that it’s not part of the same topic. So, too, Rambam defends the need for witnesses on a get in a completely different way than the reasoning would have gone for other shtarot; R. Soloveitchik explained, in the name of his father, that that’s because of get’s being about sending the woman away, different from other shtarot.

One Option Winning Out

For all that RA”L always liked having two sides to investigate, the weight of the topic here pulls him in the direction of seeing the get as unique to divorce, as aimed at removing the woman from her husband’s household rather than returning her independence to her (although it does that as a corollary). That means that investigating get throughout the rest of the volume will always have a delicate relationship to other halachic deeds and documents, since it shares some factors but not all, in that it has the same form and shape as those, but a different purpose.

The ramifications of which RA”L investigated throughout the rest of the shiurim. For us, for next time, I hope to move in a slightly different direction, to notice RA”L’s willingness to make clear that he found the logic in a rishon’s position problematic or even unbelievable. For a man as traditional, respectful, and humble as he was, I think we will all gain from seeing him take on his predecessors willingly and fearlessly, when he felt it was warranted.

GITTIN, WEEK 2: THE INDEPENDENT-MINDED R. LICHTENSTEIN

As I studied the shiurim on Gittin, one of the aspects that jumped out at me was RA”L’s readiness, more frequently than I recalled either from personal experience or from the earlier volumes, to go his own way, in two ways. He was willing, on occasion, to note difficulties in views of the rishonim, even sometimes to say that a view in the rishonim was hard to accept. These were Torah scholars whose priority and authority RA”L always made clear; to see him note that a particular view was problematic or didn’t hold water was, to me, no little surprise.

Other times, more with acharonim, he was willing to suggest an idea of his own, even when there was no obvious problem with their idea. It signals his sense of intellectual freedom and independence, that the world of Torah was open to new ideas and suggestions, even when there was nothing wrong with the existing ones.

A Tentative Messenger Appointment of a Messenger

A topic that comes up several times in the volume is whether and when a messenger can appoint another messenger to fulfill his assigned task. In one of those discussions, RA”L dealt with two views of Ramban’s, in his comments on Ra’avad’s Sefer haZechut (A brief historical reminder: in the tenth century, Rif had revolutionized Torah learning by rewriting the Gemara, basically, but including only the halachic parts of it, and offering brief conclusions, telling us how we rule on issues. In the twelfth century, Ra’avad glossed Rif’s work, arguing with some of the points he made; about a century later, Ramban wrote a defense of Rif, as he did for Ba’al HaMa’or’s glosses as well).

Ramban’s first claim was that a messenger can only appoint another messenger where the owner explicitly gave that power. This is as opposed to Tosafot, who thought the power to appoint a second messenger is implicit in the original appointment, unless the owner explicitly excludes it.

Ramban’s view seems to see the ability to appoint another messenger as a separate right from the appointment to carry out whatever act constitutes the messengership. If so, where the owner does explicitly give that right, it would seem obvious he has the ability to do so. That’s a problem, because Kiddushin 41a derived that right from a verse.

RA”L leaves that as a question, but does not seem troubled by it. He is more open about the problem he sees in Ramban’s second view. Ramban suggests that in fact the messenger has the right to appoint another messenger unless the owner explicitly objects. Concerned that this unclear state would lead to problems, Chazal told messengers not to appoint other messengers, unless the first messenger took ill. There, the assumption was that the husband would clearly want the get delivered, and so the first messenger could appoint another one.

That means, RA”L notes, that if a messenger nonetheless appointed another one, even where the owner hadn’t said s/he should and even where the first messenger had not taken ill, we could not be certain it would be invalid (if the husband objected it would be, but if not, not).

RA”L concludes the discussion by saying this is a truly novel view, and other rishonim do not sound that way. In his gentle way, he was calling out Ramban as having offered an extreme and otherwise unaccepted view.

Gr”a Answered, But It Also Makes Sense to Answer

There are other examples of that, but in the name of space let’s turn to where RA”L offered his own ideas even when revered predecessors had already dealt with an issue (and without there being any clear problem in the way those predecessors dealt with it). For one example, on p. 293, he was discussing a get lost and then found. The question is whether the husband could assume this was the same get as the one he lost, and still use it to divorce his wife.

The discussion in Gittin offers two factors that might affect the case, whether shayyarot metzuyot, literally “caravans are found,” meaning whether there is something akin to interstate traffic in that place (such that someone might have come from somewhere else with a similar get) and/or whether it was known that there were other people in that town with the same name.

A somewhat similar question arose in Yevamot. In that case, a man who had what seems to me a distinctive name, Yitzchak Reish Galuta, had been travelling, and reports reached his wife that Yitzchak Reish Galuta had passed away. The question was whether she could assume it was her husband (and mourn him and then, at a proper time, remarry), or had to make room for the possibility that it was a different man with the same name.

Rava there had ruled that unless we know of another man of that name, she could accept that it was her husband. Since the rishonim there read the Gemara as dealing with a well-trafficked road, it would seem that Yevamot is requiring both factors—traffic and a known other person with this name—before we have to worry about it (that is the view of Rabbah in Gittin).

Problematically, in the Gittin case Rif rules that the husband could only use the get if it had fallen in a place without interstate traffic, regardless of whether we know of another couple with the same names. This seems at odds with Yevamot, where two factors were required before we had to take account of that possibility.

Ramban’s view was that Rif was applying a different Talmudic principle, kan nimtza kan hayah, the person already here is the one who shows up again. Since we knew of a Yitzchak Reish Galuta who left, we can assume that’s the same one as who now showed up deceased.

The problem with that is that a discussion in Ketubbot seems to reject this principle. Gr”a’s answered that that was in monetary cases, whereas Yitzchak Reish Galuta was a case of issur ve-heter, what’s prohibited or not, i.e. whether the wife can remarry.

RA”L records that without comment or quibble, then notes another way to solve the problem. Ketubbot taught us, he suggests, that “kan nimtza, kan hayah” does not let us resolve a doubt. In the Yitzchak Reish Galuta case, though, it’s telling us the doubt doesn’t arise. Our confidence that the man we know is the man who shows up again means, for Ramban’s reading of Rif (RA”L is saying), that we don’t even entertain the possibility that there might be another one.

The difference between resolving a doubt and deciding that it never arose comes up in other cases as well. The example RA”L offers is a case of grapes found close to or in a vineyard (of orlah, so that if these grapes are from there, they cannot be used). If they’re close to the vineyard, we have a doubt we have to resolve, and we apply the various halachic principles of doubt resolution. If they’re in the vineyard, it’s so clear that they’re from the vineyard that the doubt never arises.

Gr”a gave a serviceable answer. RA”L saw another answer, so he decided to explore it as well.

Gra”ch Thinks, But We Could Also Say

The same happens with R. Chaim Soloveitchik (the Rov’s grandfather, credited with innovating the “Brisker derech”), starting with a strange ruling of Rambam’s about a minor’s ability to appoint a messenger to accept her get. In the Gemara, remember, a girl’s father could marry her off even as a child (this was seen as a benefit to her, assuring her future; already in the Gemara, though, R. Yehuda said in the name of Rav—others say R. Elazar—that the father may not do so, to give her a chance to grow up and declare her own wishes on the matter).

Rambam says the girl cannot appoint a messenger to accept her get, because we only appoint such messengers before witnesses, and we cannot have witnesses to the acts of a minor. Ra’avad wondered why Rambam reached for that idea, when there’s a much simpler reason: minors do not have the halachic ability to appoint messengers.

R. Chaim suggested that Rambam was discussing a case where she wouldn’t have had to appoint a messenger, because the divorce was obviously to her benefit. In cases of clear benefit, others can become messengers even without a specific appointment (such as to receive a gift on someone’s behalf). That’s why Rambam had to go with the technical problem, that a messenger to receive a get needs to be appointed with witnesses, which cannot happen for minors.

RA”L records that answer, then offers one of his own. Tosafot haRosh to Kiddushin 41a wondered why the Gemara needs separate verses for the husband and wife’s ability to appoint messengers to perform their role in the get process. His answer is that we might have thought the wife’s role was so passive (by Torah law, a husband could give a get against her will) that she has no rights that are amenable to transfer to another.

The premise of RA”L’s answer is that even once the verse establishes that she can appoint a messenger, this idea might still impact our view of this messenger. I pause to note that this is a very characteristic RA”L move, to investigate whether a rejected option was fully rejected, or whether the idea still left some residue in the conclusion. I may be completely off base, but it has felt to me like some ideas were so appealing to RA”L that he couldn’t always easily accept that they had been completely tossed out.

In our case, he suggests that the messenger to receive the get is still more passive than the one to deliver it. Delivery of the get enacts a power of the husband; reception, since it could even be against her will, is passive. When the wife appoints a messenger for that, she is more delineating an address for delivery (like a mailbox, RA”L says), than endowing rights or powers.

That being so, it might be that Rambam held even a minor could do that, and had to point out a different issue that would prevent her from doing so.

A Probing Interest in Truth

As we mourn this gadol, I do not pretend to be able to capture all or a meaningful sample of RA”L’s teachings. This time around, what jumped out was something that perhaps has not always been clear, his intellectual independence, his readiness to critically analyze all who come before, and to study new possibilities previously unnoted.

It’s one more piece of a puzzle, even as we know that it will stay incomplete once we’re done.

HORAYOT, WEEK ONE: THE NATURE OF THE SANHEDRIN, THE NATURE OF THE PEOPLE

RA”L’s shiurim on Massechet Horayot, delivered in the post-Pesach zman of 5765/2005, largely deal with the remarkable circumstance that underlies the beginning of the tractate: the Sanhedrin rules erroneously on an issue of great significance, and the majority of the Jewish people follow that ruling. Instead of each of those people having to bring a sacrifice (once the error is realized), the Sanhedrin brings one sacrifice, for them and for the people, a par he’elem davar shel tzibbur, a bull brought when a matter is hidden from the community.

The topic—and this volume of shiurim—is particularly meaningful for me, for a few reasons. Two worth sharing here are: 1) This was the volume of RA”L’s writings I happened to be studying when the terribly sad news of his passing reached me, and gave me the idea for this series, and 2) the Torah’s premise in prescribing such a sacrifice is that the highest body in the land could err, and err in a matter of the highest import (how to keep or not keep Shabbat, what counts as idolatry, what sexual relationships are or are not permitted). Yet that possibility does not affect their still being the highest body of law in the land.

To me, that has continuing contemporary resonance, as the Jewish people moves (slowly or astonishingly quickly, depending on your perspective) to rebuild the institutions of old. While some focus on the failings of the human beings taking up various leadership roles (including rabbinic leadership), this massechet—and, willy-nilly, these shiurim—are, among much else, reminders that halachah never assumed Torah was given to angels or robots, who would observe and uphold it, error and stumble free.

It was given to human beings, tasked with doing their best to fulfill it in the way Hashem gave and commanded it, with full recognition that that might sometimes go wrong, even with the best of intentions. When it does, that doesn’t call into question the institution, it reminds we human beings to redouble our efforts to do better.

One Sanhedrin or Many

To arrive at a situation where a court has to bring an atoning par, bull, three conditions are necessary: a certain court must rule erroneously and the people must follow that ruling. We can analyze each of those: aspects of the court that rules, the nature of the ruling, and the people who followed that ruling. This time, we’ll take up the first and last of those, and next time we’ll hope to analyze the kinds of rulings that can lead to the need for the sacrifice.

Regarding the Sanhedrin, the two aspects of RA”L’s discussion that struck me both exhibit a characteristic I mentioned briefly last time, his interest in seeing where rejected opinions might still have some halachic relevance. The first example is the definition of which court we mean when we speak of a court ruling. Tosafot reads it as the Great Sanhedrin, but RA”L notes that the view of R. Yehudah in a

Mishnah on 5a is that even a tribal Sanhedrin could be obligated in this sacrifice, should the majority of that tribe follow their ruling.

We don’t accept R. Yehudah’s view. RA”L points out that there are two ways to take that: either the tribal Sanhedrin has no special status—rejecting R. Yehudah’s view completely—or it does, just not to the level of qualifying to bring that sacrifice. Ramban on the Torah takes the second approach, citing R. Yehudah’s view to explain the Torah’s reference (Devarim 16;18) to establishing judges according to tribes.

RA”L understands Ramban to mean that despite their not being a sufficiently authoritative Sanhedrin that their erroneous rulings, if followed, would obligate such a par, these tribal Sanhedrins did have authority over the tribe, especially for special ordinances or decrees a court can make in order to strengthen or protect observance.

Aside from being a perfect example of RA”L’s alertness to the continuing role of even opinions not accepted in their original form, it reminds us of the diversity of halachic viewpoints and practices Chazal saw as reasonable and acceptable. If each tribe had its own Sanhedrin, whose rulings were authoritative for that tribe (and especially in making special decrees to address particular needs), Torah observance would not have looked the same for all Jews, even in that halcyon time when the tribes were all residing in their places, and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was fully functioning.

Whatever the parameters, there would be matters on which tribal Sanhedrins would rule, that would shape each tribe’s practice differently from the others’, where the Great Sanhedrin would see no need to interfere or get involved.

The Two Roles of the Sanhedrin

The other rejected view that occupies RA”L’s time is that of R. Yonatan, who said that if a hundred judges were sitting as a Sanhedrin, their erroneous ruling could not obligate this special par (bull) until and unless it had been unanimous. That view is rejected in the Gemara, which says that a par could be brought even if only the majority supported the ruling (that itself is a problematic claim, since RA”L elsewhere in the volume notes a Tosefta that refers to rulings as having to be unanimous, and a Torat Kohanim that says that if one of the judges told the others they were in error, that would be enough to mean that no par he’elem davar would be brought. We’ll have to leave that aspect of it for another time).

R. Yonatan’s idea had two parts, though, that there could be a hundred judges, and the need for unanimity. Even once the second is rejected, the first remains an issue. A Mishnah in Sanhedrin had spoken of adding judges when a court couldn’t come to a decision, but had capped that at seventy-one, as had Rambam in Laws of Sanhedrin 9;3.

Mishneh Le-Melech suggested R. Yonatan was discussing a case where the Sanhedrin wrongly convened with a hundred judges. Despite it having been wrong, R. Yonatan held the extra judges became part of the court, such that their agreement was necessary before the rulings could be seen as an error of the entire community. [Mishneh Le-Melech casually assumes that the highest court in the land might make the

RA”L spends much of the rest of the shiur reviewing a suggestion of R. Soloveitchik’s, z”l, but we only have space to lay out the one ramification for our current discussion. The Rav pointed out that the Sanhedrin performs two different functions: 1) Governmental/ceremonial ones, as representatives of the Jewish people, such as adding another month of Adar when necessary, expanding the courtyard of the Temple, appointing a king, and going out to war. 2) Ensuring the transmission of the Oral Law, making halachic rulings for the entire people.

We generally assume both tasks are functions of the same court, but the Rav suggested (in a yahrzeit shiur, written up in the second volume of Shiurim Le-Zekher Abba Mari Z”l, as R. Daniel Wolf points out in his notes to the Horayot volume) that there might be differences between the two courts. For our case, he suggested that the limit to seventy-one applied to the governmental/ceremonial functions of the Sanhedrin, but not the Torah/halachah one. Perhaps in that one, more than seventy-one judges could sit.

Displaying the independent-mindedness I wrote about last time, RA”L notes that despite the brilliance of the suggestion (there are many other applications where it fits interestingly and well), it does not seem to fit Rambam’s view. In another context, Rambam discussed how one Sanhedrin could be larger than another (one of the requirements for that later Sanhedrin being able to rule differently than an earlier one). He ruled, in Hilchot Mamrim (Laws of Rebellious Elders) 2;2 that that cannot be a matter of actual judges, since all such Sanhedrins have seventy-one. And the context is the Torah/halachah function the Rav identified.

RA”L then offers a way to partially apply the idea, that in their Torah/halachah function, the Sanhedrin could have more than seventy-one judges for the discussion phase. While we rule that they wouldn’t vote, R. Yonatan had thought they voted and had to be unanimous.

There is, as always, much more to be said on this issue, but so far, RA”L has shown us that the Sanhedrin was both national and tribal, and (as the Rav taught us) that it served a governmental/ ceremonial function as well as a Torah/halachah function.

The Jewish People That Counts

There are fewer complications when it comes to defining who counts as the Jewish people (to say that the majority of the people followed the Sanhedrin’s ruling, triggering the halachot of bringing the par he’elem davar shel tzibbur).

On Horayot 3a, R. Yose had noted (without opposing views) that I Melachim 8;65 referred to “all of Israel, a great congregation” and then gave the borders whence they came. As R. Yose noted, their geographic origins don’t seem important; he deduces that that tells us that these are who are considered the kahal, the congregation of Israel.

This is a comment of his we saw before, since it appeared in an article in Minchat Aviv, the first volume we discussed in this series. (Showing that this was a Gemara RA”L focused on both early in his career and late, suggesting it reverberated frequently in his mind).

Two ramifications of that fact were that semicha, the original ordination that qualified a judge to rule on all sorts of halachic cases (not the more limited set of cases that are amenable to judging in today’s batei din, halachic courts) had to be conferred in Israel, and the new month generally had to be declared in Israel (before we had to switch to a fixed calendar).

In that last context, he quoted a responsum of Avnei Nezer, who explains the need to declare the new month in Israel as a function of Israel’s being where the Jewish people are united as one person (an idea Avnei Nezer sources to Maharal, who had said that that was why the Jewish people did not become responsible for enforcing public observance until after they crossed the Jordan—it was their being in the Land of Israel proper that united them as a people and made them responsible for each other). Only once they are united in that way could the Sanhedrin—representatives of the nation—perform this function.

Lastly, RA”L comments on the fact that halachah nowhere clearly defines how permanent a residence in Israel counts to be included in the people for this question. The references to “people of the Land of Israel,” “inhabitants of the Land of Israel,” etc. show that it does not include those who happen to be there, but does not get more specific than that. Whatever the full answer, to be considered part of the community of Israel (for this issue, anyway) must include a connection to the Land more substantive than presence.

It’s a mix of a court making an error and a specific people following it. The kinds of rulings that can lead to this are what I hope to consider next time.

HORAYOT, WEEK 2: DEFINING A HORA’AH, A COURT RULING

As we noted last week, RA”L several times highlighted the first words of the first Mishnah in Horayot, Horu Beit Din, the court gave a ruling. Last time, we spoke a bit about the court; this time, let’s see some of what RA”L understood about what constituted a ruling, a hora’ah.

General or Specific

One question is how practical a ruling has to be. RA”L notes (repeatedly, but I won’t point it out each time), that the definition of what constitutes a ruling applies to other areas as well, such as the halachah that a student may not allowed rule on halachah in close proximity to his teacher (it’s a lack of respect), unless the teacher gives him permission, that a person who has drunk alcohol cannot issue halachic rulings, and that a rebellious elder has to rule against the Sanhedrin before he’d be liable for the death penalty.

Is the definition the same for all those, or do different cases have different definitions? This kind of question, by the way, is both typical of RA”L and crucial to Torah study (and, maybe, to thinking about life): what issues are similar enough to treat the same, and what have to be treated differently? In the answer to that deceptively simple question lies a wealth of knowledge and understanding.

A Practical Ruling

Shmuel and R. Dimi of Nehardea disagree about the definition, on Horayot 2a. Shmuel held that a court only had to announce (erroneously) that an item was permitted. R. Dimi held they had to go a step further, to say explicitly that people could and should act on this ruling (mutarim atem la’asot, you are allowed to do this).

The Gemara offers two proofs for R. Dimi’s position. Just saying, “I think the Sanhedrin is wrong,” would not qualify an elder as rebellious, he’d have to say, “they’re wrong, and here’s what you can/should do.” Yevamot 87b also insists on rulings stated with the intent of being enacted, saying that a woman whose husband disappeared does not have permission to remarry until the court clarifies that it is ruling in practice.

The proofs come from other areas of halachah, leading Tosafot to understand that this is a general rule, rulings are only considered rulings when issued to be carried out in practice. Tosafot applies that to a student whose teacher makes an halachic comment—the student may only act on it if the teacher says explicitly that he is ruling in practice. [I know stories of R. Soloveitchik zt”l complaining about students misunderstanding that what was said in shiur—in the stories I heard, le-chumra, a more stringent view— was not the same as practice].

Much as the tenor of the discussion seems to see rulings as defined the same across the range of areas, RA”L thinks there still might be areas where a statement could qualify as a hora’ah, a ruling, even if the

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 79 Gidon Rothstein person did not translate it to the practical. His example is a shatui yayin, someone who’s drunk alcohol. Since the prohibition there is a matter of the person’s mind having been clouded by the alcohol, RA”L thinks it plausible that such a person could not rule even without saying “go do it.”

[Had I been in the shiur, I think I’d have wondered why we’d assume that—if it’s not considered a ruling without the teacher or court expressing it as a practical directive, then it would seem that the person who’s had alcohol isn’t ruling when he says something with halachic ramifications, as long as he does not signal that he intends his ruling to be acted upon. Since listeners may not act on his words until he gives that signal, perhaps there’s no problem with his talking theoretically.]

Topic Areas for a Hora’ah That Obligates a Par He’elem

A later Mishnah in Horayot points out that the Sanhedrin can only be liable for this par if it rules on a matter whose willful transgression incurred karet. RA”L emphasizes how much this limits the possibilities of such a par, with mishnayot in the second chapter adding other conditions, too.

[True as far as that goes, RA”L does not seem to have addressed Rambam’s ruling, Mamrim 4;2, that a par can stem from any ruling that could lead to a karet. In one of Rambam’s examples, monetary rulings can lead to a man using money to betroth a woman that doesn’t actually belong to him, making her not actually married, and therefore related or not related to various people. (If, e.g., a court ruled, let’s suppose erroneously, that buying a ring with Bitcoins does not work, and a man nonetheless used Bitcoins to buy the ring and betroth her, and then she had an affair—the Sanhedrin’s ruling would say that she’s done nothing wrong, since the ring wasn’t his, when in fact, it was). That expands the areas in which their rulings matter enormously.]

Rulings on Jewish Thought and Belief

Another topic area where RA”L limits the reach of this kind of sacrifice is in the area of thought and belief. No source leads him to discuss it, and he seems to bring it up to assert the importance of rulings on these kinds of issues (what a Jew does or doesn’t have to believe). In terms of a par he’elem davar, though, he falls back to accepting the Gemara’s ruling that such a par can only be incurred by a ruling relating to a matter that is punished by karet.

[Here again, had I been in the shiur, I would have wondered at his certainty that matters of belief and Jewish thought don’t rise to that level. Given Rambam’s extension to anything that leads to a karet, it seems clear that the definition of a nonbeliever then matters for many areas of halachah, including whether we are allowed to violate Shabbat to save that person’s life, a karet issue. If, e.g., the Sanhedrin erroneously decided that belief x does not render one a nonbeliever, and the majority of the Jewish people then violated Shabbat to save the lives of such people—all right, a little unrealistic— and then the Sanhedrin realized that it does, I wonder why RA”L wouldn’t see that as a matter for a par he’elem davar.]

RA”L wasn’t quite done with the question of whether Jewish thought and ethics were amenable to court rulings. He noted Ramban’s reaction to the first Rashi on the Torah [Rashi seems to assume that Torah is

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 80 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein only about law; I don’t have space to discuss that here], and took it as Ramban’s certainty that Torah is about more than just law. If so, there could be a meaningful ruling on such topics even if—in RA”L’s reading—they might never obligate a par.

It’s a side point in the kind of shiur most of us would likely not have encountered had it not been published, one with important ramifications for the broader public. As R. Daniel Wolf points out in his notes, some question whether there can be an halachic ruling regarding issues of Jewish thought, but RA”L here seems comfortable saying there could be. Were we to once again have a Sanhedrin, he seems to say, the highest court in the Jewish nation would likely in fact decide that x belief was not acceptable and y belief was. Should they be in error, that might never lead to a par for technical reasons, but it would be no less an hora’ah, as far as RA”L seems to see it.

How the Tzedukim Would Have Understood the Torah

We have space for RA”L’s discussion of one more limitation on the kinds of rulings that might lead to a par. On 4a, R. Yehuda quotes Shmuel as saying that a par can only happen regarding issues the Tzedukim (Sadducees) wouldn’t accept. The implication of the reference to what Sadducees accept is that it’s explicit in the Torah, since they seem to have rejected Rabbinic inferences but accepted the plain sense of the text.

That being true, any Jew should have known it as well [the principle the Gemara invokes is zil karei bei rav hu, that a child in his rebbe’s house would know it. This has long seemed to me too-little noticed by Jews today- the Gemara’s assumption was that all male Jews would know the plain text of the Torah; in contrast, in our times, many people who consider themselves very learned are not, in fact, so acquainted with the Torah itself].

RA”L raises this issue in connection to one in the Mishnah, that the Sanhedrin cannot have ruled to uproot an entire area of the Torah. If the Sanhedrin says we don’t have to keep Shabbat, e.g. ,(and, possibly, if they say we don’t have to keep any particular one of the 39 melachot), that’s not going to lead to a par.

RA”L raises and rejects the possibility that these are the same, that a Sanhedrin’s dismissing an entire area of Torah is like denying something even Sadducees accepted. One of the ways he distinguishes them is that the issue of oker kol ha-guf, uprooting an entire area of Torah, doesn’t seem to be a matter of its’ not being a hora’ah, it seems like a technical detail, that if the Sanhedrin went that far, people should have known not to follow it.

But ruling against an obvious and explicit verse in the Torah (RA”L will have more to say on that in a second) is not even a hora’ah, not even a ruling. To support that, RA”L refers to a fascinating halachah in Sanhedrin 33b, regarding someone convicted of a capital crime. The whole way to the execution, efforts are made to be sure the ruling was correct, and people are invited to offer new exculpatory evidence.

If the accused had been acquitted, however, the court does not accept incriminating evidence (like double jeopardy in US law). With the significant exception that if the new evidence stems from a verse that had been overlooked, but whose reading the Sadducees would have accepted, the case is reopened, because zil karei bei rav hu, an elementary school child knows that. An error about the plain text of Torah isn’t even an error, it’s an overlooking.

The Blurry Line of “Explicit” and “Inferred”

This discussion brings RA”L to note a complication, that the line between peshat and derash, “plain meaning” and “inferred through Rabbinic hermeneutics” isn’t always so clear. This sometimes has other halachic impact as well. Ran understands a Gemara in Nedarim 8a, which says that one cannot take a valid oath to fulfill a mitzvah (since all Jews already swore at Sinai to do so) to refer only to that which is explicit in the text. If it’s inferred, that’s removed enough that an oath can take effect.

So, too, there’s a rule that we don’t warn people about to transgress the Torah unwittingly, if we’re sure they will not listen (mutav she-yihyu shogegin, it’s better they do it without realizing it, leaving them at a lower status of sinner). Rashba makes an exception of that which is written explicitly in the Torah. (Since they’re supposed to know it, it doesn’t count as unwitting).

For RA”L, there are two kinds of inferences, those close to the simple sense of the text [which Rashi might have called peshat, actually], and those that are more distant from it. Chavot Yair, for example, held that the rule of not pointing out a halachah to someone who won’t listen applies even to the 39 categories of prohibited labor, since they’re not explicit in the text.

RA”L says one could disagree, since the Torah prohibits all the actions that were done in the Mishkan, and the building of the Mishkan is explicit. The connection between the laws of Shabbat and the building of the Mishkan, however, is a matter of Rabbinic inference, albeit one that RA”L sees as very close to the plain sense of the text. He is so attached to the distinction between drashot that he suggests that a mistake about an explicit verse might be a non-hora’ah, but that a mistake about a drasha that’s very close to the text’s simple meaning would still be a big enough mistake that it could not obligate a par he’elem davar.

To summarize, a hora’ah, a ruling, has to be given with the stated intent that people should follow it. To possibly lead to a communal sacrifice of a par he’elem davar, it has to be about a matter of sufficient significance, and about an halachah that is not completely obvious. In contrast to the written Torah itself, which was supposed to be obvious and known to all.

VARIETIES OF JEWISH EXPERIENCE, WEEK 1: REFLECTIONS OF THE RA”L

The last English volume of RA”L’s writings is Varieties of Jewish Experience, published in 2011, containing eleven essays, eight of which were written in conjunction with RA”L’s participation in YU’s Orthodox Forum.

At this annual conference of rabbis, academics, and other interested parties, RA”L came regularly, contributing a paper each year. That fact alone obligates us all to express thanks to the Orthodox Forum; reading through RA”L’s volumes this year (and consulting the bibliography of his writings), it’s become clear to me that writing was not RA”L’s preferred métier. It’s not that he couldn’t do it, or evinced any trouble producing excellence in written form; it’s that he seems to have done it only when occasion called him to do it.

Shiurim, sichot, and lectures spilled out of him, almost, ke-yad Hashem hatovah alav, as an overflow of the spirit of Hashem within him. He wrote, it seems to me, when he thought it important or necessary. Without the Orthodox Forum giving him cause to believe these topics were important and necessary to address in writing, we might not have had these articles. So thank you, Orthodox Forum.

Four of the essays in the book are labeled “Reflections” in one way or other (ironically, given what I just wrote, two of those were not written for the Orthodox Forum). Looking at the four will give us a first sense of what RA”L meant when he reflected on something.

Reflections Regarding Relations with Non-Orthodox Jews

This essay, for a Forum, starts with RA”L noting there had been a similar Forum some twenty years earlier, but that one focused more on how to deal with Jews of different practices, and this one more on belief. He spends several paragraphs reviewing and asserting the importance of belief as part of a Torah experience (I mention that because, sadly, people today do not always see it that way).

Even as it’s necessary to delineate lines and to be clear as to what beliefs are within and without the pale of Orthodoxy, RA”L insists it be done with a sense of sorrow and hope, sorrow for any times we have to separate ourselves from brethren, and hope that we’ll find a way to reunite (he tells stories to that effect, particularly of R. Kook’s having convinced a nonobservant kibbutz to keep kosher, mostly by expressing his wish that they would be able to eat together the next time he visited).

“Lest anyone jump to fallacious conclusions,” RA”L then writes, “let me clarify. I am not in favor of untrammeled cooperation, let alone consolidation, merging, or agglomeration.” (How could I not quote a sentence that uses “fallacious,” “untrammeled” and “agglomeration”?) Still, he spends the next several pages emphasizing that we have to hope for all Jews, indeed all humanity, to come to a realization of Hashem. To get there, he lists seven variables to be weighed in approaching others, having to do with

Not Spiritual Fodder, But Not to Be Abandoned

He cautions here, as elsewhere, against seeing other Jews as tools in our striving for that messianic world, to see them instead as brethren. He cites sources that point out a continuing debate over whether Hashem resides only with those Jews who strive to serve Hashem or with all Jews, regardless of observance. He mentions his feeling that when we start off Yom Kippur by speaking of the entire nation being forgiven, he thinks that that includes Shulamit Aloni (the reference might be dated—he means even opponents of observance, whom we might have thought of as le-hach’is, rebelling against Hashem).

It is a long essay, and I don’t have the space to do it justice. Its overall point, though, is that we can and should note the comments in Chazal that speak negatively of those who have abandoned observance and, especially, who do it ideologically. He is aware of dangers and misimpressions that can come from too- great openness to other movements (so that, for example, having joint learning programs, where speakers from all denominations are featured, also exposes Orthodox Jews to ideas that may be disputable or harmful to their faith).

His concern and feeling, though, is that we have to be careful not to go too far that way, and he gives the distinct impression that he believes many segments of the Orthodox world in fact have done so. He tells of a rabbi consulting with him about whether to partake of a community-wide observance, incorporating Conservative and Reform Jews and leaders; it became clear that the issue was a Yom HaShoah observance, and RA”L writes that he noted to the rabbi that he didn’t think the Nazis had differentiated; why should we?

The essay closes with a postscript, in which RA”L mentions that his original title was “An Overview Regarding Relationships with Non-Observant Jews.” He describes the more ambitious (he says pretentious) project he had intended to take on, including an historical retrospective and analysis. Having had to forego it—and also not having had room to discuss the situation in Israel at all—he changed the name. He closes with ve-od chazon la-mo’ed, a rabbinic way of saying there’s more to be said on this topic, to express the hope a time will come when he can return to it and give it more of its due. Which is itself characteristic of the RA”L I knew, struggling to say something while painfully aware of how much more he should be saying.

Reflections on Birchot Ha-Torah

The ninth chapter of the book is an essay originally published in Alei Etzion, an English-language Torah journal published by Yeshivat Har Etzion. RA”L briefly mentions Ramban and Rambam’s differing approaches to whether these blessings are mi-deoraita (Ramban counts it as a separate one of the 613 mitzvot; Rambam leaves it out, RA”L assumes because he sees it as Rabbinically commanded).

He then quotes R. Haym Soloveitchik’s view [the originator of what’s called the Brisker derecho] that these blessings are not birchot ha-mitzvah, blessings recited before performing a mitzvah, they’re recited in thanks for Hashem having given us the Torah at all. RA”L approves of the idea despite noting that none the proofs offered for it are inronclad.

For his part, RA”L notes that both Talmuds discuss birchot haTorah in the context of birchot hanehenin and birkat hamazon, blessings on enjoyment of various sorts (primarily food) and the Grace After Meals. Like those berachot, the implication is that birchot haTorah are being said on something.

That’s especially true given the Sephardic version of the blessing, al divrei Torah, over Torah matters. The Ashkenazic version, la’asok be-divrei Torah, speaks of the necessity of being involved in Torah study. Making this point more generally, Sifra Behukkotai (quoted by Rashi) understands behukkotai telechu, go in My statutes, as referring to toiling in Torah.

The first two blessings—Tosafot understood the second blessing to start ve-ha’arev na, and make pleasant, turning the two into one blessing—speak of obligation and then enjoyment in the study of Torah RA”L takes that as a felicitous example of the intertwining of the two elements of our service of Hashem generally and study of Torah specifically. It is obligatory, and we must do it for that reason, but it is also supposed to be fulfilling, sustaining, and overall enjoyable.

Skipping to save space, I’ll jump to where he notes sources that ascribe an unusual power to these berachot. The amora Rav, in Nedarim 81a, understood a verse that speaks of the Jewish people abandoning Hashem’s Torah as meaning they did not say birchot haTorah before study. To RA”L, not making the berachot means the study misses the essence of what study’s for.

Maharal said that learning Torah without making the berachot beforehand can lead to what he understood the situation to be in the time of the First Temple, that Jews would study Torah and yet also commit idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality. How could that be? Because without the berachot people fail to study with the proper awe, the proper sense of what Torah is supposed to be in their lives, how it is to shape their lives.

To Double Business Bound

This essay, chapter ten in the volume, originally appeared in the Yeshivat Har Etzion Jubilee Volume. It opens with a quote from Act III of Hamlet, where Claudius speaks of himself as a man to double business bound. It’s a chance for me to point out that I have glided over RA”L’s consistent and continual citations of secular sources.

I’ll have two “blogging R. Lichtenstein”’s after Pesach before his first yahrzeit; my hope is that one of them will address that question, try to develop a sense of what his knowledge of general literature, philosophy, and other wisdoms meant to him, as revealed in these books.

In this essay, he then quotes the Yerushalmi’s attribution to R. Shim’on b. Yochai of the wish to have had two mouths, one for mundane matters and one for Torah ones. He immediately differentiates them, the one being put in the mouth of a man whom Hamlet characterized as an “incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,” the other “fervent spirituality of the saintly avatar of mystical avodat Hashem.” But both do raise the struggle with how we combine and deal with the different areas of our lives.

Turning Two Into One

Although Rashbi desires to keep them separate, the essay is a laying out of different pulls to which we have to respond—the easiest is the pull to activities that are demonstrably religious (like Torah study) and those that are more mundane (like earning a living, building a house). Without pretending I am capturing the richness of the discussion, RA”L pushes the conclusion towards those who came to see those endeavors as unified, as not quite “double business bound.”

He gives the example of R. Avraham Eliyahu Kaplan, who headed up the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary and worked to revamp religious education by focusing on teacher training. That forced him to plunge into all the practicalities of establishing an institution—fund-raising, finding a building, setting up a curriculum, attracting students. Reflecting on this in a letter to his wife, he expressed longing for his yeshiva days, when he could focus solely on Torah study, but concludes that giving that up for what he was doing now was itself also a commitment to Torah.

This attitude of seeing it all as working together was one that RA”L says he learned from his main role models (as we’ve seen before), the Rav, R. Ahron Soloveitchik, and the Rosh Yeshivah, R. Hutner. The latter, who was greatly influenced by R. Kaplan in his youth, once wrote to a student differentiating between a “double life,” which he rejected, and a “broad life,” one that incorporated more than others’ lives. That was an option he could support.

RA”L is careful not to say that that’s the only viable way. “Who would have wanted to alter one iota of that luminous fusion of lomdut, zidkut, sensitivity and insight which marked R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, zt”l…?” His next sentence, though, notes Chazal’s requiring (or, perhaps, preferring) that those who sit on the Great Sanhedrin know seventy languages, which a footnote understands to be “a thumbnail figure for the range of nations, cultures, and languages.”

There’s room for those who focus singularly, but RA”L’s legacy, learning, and leaning is toward a life of double-business bound, striving to bring it all together such that it works together for that one great goal, proper service of Hashem.

These are some of what RA”L reflected upon in writing. There is one last “Reflections” essay in the volume, on Diaspora Religious Zionism, but with all my ruthless cutting, my chopping out chunks of valuable comments RA”L made, I have run out of space. Ve-od chazon la-mo’ed.

SPECIAL PURIM EDITION: RA”L ON PURIM

This span of reviewing RA”L’s published volumes is meant to take us to his first yahrzeit (second day of Rosh Chodesh Iyyar). We have one more week of Varieties of Jewish Experience, and two weeks on the volume of RA”L’s shiurim on Pesachim, but five weeks until Pesach. It gives us an opportunity to take a week here to review some of what RA”L had to say about Purim (we’ll have a week to do the same for Pesach).

I had intended to find those sichot through the bibliography of RA”L’s writings, but last week I was given a copy of Doresh Tov Le-Amo, a small pamphlet put out by Yeshivat Har Etzion (its date of publication is Adar Bet 5776, so it’s hot off the presses). It contains pieces of Purim sichot by the various Roshei Yeshiva (RA”L as well as R. Amital zt”l, along with the current Roshei Yeshiva, yib”l, R. Ya’akov Medan, R. Baruch Gigi, and R. Mosheh Lichtenstein), along with a Megillat Esther.

The volume is in memory of R. Ya’akov Don, hy”d, a graduate of the Yeshiva, resident of Alon Shvut, and beloved educator, who was killed by a terrorist just outside Alon Shvut (in an attack better known in the U.S. for having been the one in which Ezra Schwartz, hy”d, was killed).

We can hope that our review of these ideas will both be part of our involving ourselves in RA”L’s Torah during this year as well as a merit to the soul of R. Ya’akov Don, hy”d.

Esther: Passive Beginnings

The first of his sichot summarized is the one I remembered. RA”L starts by noting that the book is called Megillat Esther because she is the main player in the crucial events (she goes to the king’s court, runs the two dinner parties, makes the plea for the Jewish people, and more). That’s in surprising contrast to the Esther we meet earlier in the story.

Earlier, she doesn’t say what nation she’s from, because Mordechai told her not to, and the Megillah makes a point of the fact that even after she becomes queen, she still obeys Mordechai. (The pamphlet doesn’t mention it, but my memory is that RA”L also pointed out that she didn’t ask for anything when preparing for her night with Achashverosh, passively accepting whatever Hegai said she needed).

When Haman’s decree is promulgated, and Mordechai is distraught, Esther is more focused on what he’s wearing. To his demand that she rush to the king to plead for the Jews, she’s caught up in court procedure, the rules of when she may or may not go.

The Turning Point

Mordechai’s answer shakes Esther and all of us to the core (at least those of us who heard RA”L point it out so vividly). He accuses her of being more concerned with herself than her people, of having fallen for the illusion that her position in the palace makes her safe, and that she therefore doesn’t need to feel the crisis as personally as other Jews.

That’s the error he calls her on. It is, right then, the moment for her to demonstrate her sense of connection to the people, her realization that her fate is inextricably linked to theirs. [I don’t know if this is me overlaying my thoughts on his, but I seem to remember that he noted that Mordechai’s urgency is a little strange, since tradition has it that this was happening just before Pesach, leaving eleven months to petition to change the decree. Mordechai was saying, either I think or RA”L said, that Esther had to feel the crisis right then, in the fullness of how worrying it was, as part of feeling part of the Jewish people].

It worked for Esther, magnificently, to her credit and to our good fortune. But RA”L didn’t leave it there, he turned it on all of us. He wondered whether we hear and feel Jews’ trouble, when a time of crisis demands that we step out of our usual lives and throw our lot in with our fellow Jews, even at risk to our current positions. Obviously, that’s not something we (or Esther) do every day, but the question has remained with me ever since. Do we care enough? When we’re called to account, will we be able to say we did all that we could?

Proper Revenge Takes Study

The next of RA”L’s sichot builds off Rav’s view (Megillah 30a) that if Purim is a Friday, we read Parshat Zachor the previous Shabbat [we might have thought we could read Zachor the day after Purim, since it’s close enough to be part of the Purim observances]. Rav says that that’s because zechirah, remembering, has to precede asiyah, doing.

RA”L understands that the “doing” here is wiping out Amalek, an example of which we read about and celebrate in the Megillah. To understand why zechirah has to come first, he notes that Berachot 33a says revenge is appropriate be-milta, in proper proportion to the cause. This tells us that a delicate moral endeavor such as revenge, punishing others, can be proper and well done, but it’s not simple to do so. It’s easy, once the gates of violence have been opened, to overdo it, to let our egos and other negative impulses take over.

To guard against that requires preparation and study. We read Zachor first, RA”L says, so that it educate us as to what it is we are supposed to do, why, and how to be sure we do only that which is right, good, and proper. And while that’s true here, RA”L closes by saying it’s often true more broadly, that to be sure we are building a good and moral world, we need zechirah, we need to think about and understand what we are doing, and then to go and do it.

Mordechai’s Personality

The third sicha notes three of Mordechai’s characteristics. First, we see his deep caring, at first for Esther. He takes her in as an orphan, and cares for her beyond, once she’s taken from his house. While she’s being prepared for her appointment with Achashverosh, the verse tells us he was mithalech in the courtyard, a word R. Soloveitchik zt”l understood to indicate intensive involvement.

Once she’s ensconced as queen, he still sits in the courtyard [RA”L assumes this hadn’t been his practice beforehand; he did it now, to keep track of her and of events]. Vashti’s reign hadn’t ended well, and Mordechai wanted to be as ready as possible for any dangers that came Esther’s way.

Another prominent trait is his insistence on his national identity and holding to its mores. He refuses to bow to Haman, despite there likely having been an halachically permissible way to do so. Lest we think it was a personal power struggle with Haman, the verse tells us that Mordechai let everyone know he was a Jew, that he was acting this way in line with the calls of his national legacy.

RA”L notes that we can, retrospectively, wonder whether it was worth putting a whole people in jeopardy—might it not have been smarter to find the halachic way to allow bowing, do so, and avoid Haman’s ire? His answer is that, in the moment, Mordechai was determined to represent his people, a people that resists bowing to anyone other than Hashem.

Once Haman threatens the Jewish people, Mordechai again demonstrates his caring and sense of responsibility. While he likely could have found a way to save himself, he instead joins the people, leading them in fasting and prayer, stressing to Esther [as we saw] the necessity of feeling the nation’s dangers as personal ones.

He closes by noting not a characteristic but a choice. Tradition read the final verse’s reference to Mordechai being liked by most of his brethren as saying that some of the Sanhedrin opposed his continuing in a political position after the crisis passed. They thought he should return to the study and mastery of Torah that had characterized him before [in the excerpt here, that’s as far as RA”L goes, but it obviously raises questions of contemporary concern as well, when Torah scholars should invest the bulk of their time and energy in study and teaching, and when circumstances should lead them to function in broader frameworks. The sichah isn’t dated, but it’s a particularly interesting question since R. Amital zt”l, RA”L’s co-Rosh Yeshiva, did leave the Yeshiva for a time to serve in the Knesset and the Cabinet].

Joining Achashverosh’s Party

The last of RA”L’s sichot in the pamphlet has RA”L’s consideration of the view of the students of R. Shimon b. Yochai that what brought the threat of destruction upon the Jews was their having participated in Achashverosh’s feast. To understand why that deserved such a serious reaction, RA”L contrasts the culture of Shushan with that of farmers and agriculture. The latter are rooted to the land, follow a tradition of planting and harvesting that keeps them locked in a path of productivity and contribution to the world.

Shushan is a cosmopolitan place, caught up in the latest rage, the newest toy, the current fad. It is a culture that does not feel itself obligated to the past, assumes that the truths that it finds right then are as good as those that have been known for hundreds or thousands of years [the contemporary overtones are clear to me; I assume they’re intentional, but I wasn’t there, so I cannot be sure]. By participating in that feast, the Jews showed they were willing if not enthusiastic participants in that culture of the evanescent

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 89 Gidon Rothstein and ephemeral, a culture that had abandoned the search for and commitment to ultimate truths [and was, in that way, running counter to much of what Torah stands for].

Making it worse, the expression of their involvement in that culture was their joining a 180 day party (more than half a year on the lunar calendar). How does one put life aside for six months, to eat, drink, and enjoy purely physical pleasures? How did they support themselves? How did they allow themselves to be completely unproductive for all that time? The answer is that this was a culture that did not see any need to be productive, did not think of humanity as having a job, a task, a role to play in furthering Hashem’s world.

It was their ability to be part of that that R. Shimon b. Yochai’s students were identifying as the problem. We train ourselves to not make that mistake again, RA”L says, both by fasting on Ta’anit Esther and by eating the Purim se’udah the next day. The fast reminds us that food and enjoyment need to be for a valuable purpose, not an end of its own—and we then put it into action the next day, by engaging in a feast, with all the same pleasure as Achashverosh’s, but one that is for the goal of celebrating Hashem’s salvation, one example of what lets us indulge our physical sides, by being sure that it’s in the cause of enhancing our spiritual sides as well.

RA”L’s Purim

I didn’t pick these sichot, Gush did, but they do seem to me to capture how RA”L approached Purim. It was a day of great joy, even levity, of indulgence, physical and emotional. What allowed for that, what made it not only acceptable but important, was putting it in the framework of the lessons it taught.

In reminding us of the need to feel responsibility for others; to be sure that we do all we can to improve the world; to be sure that we declare our connection to the Jewish people forthrightly and confidently; to be sure that when we are required to do that which is usually morally problematic (such as revenge), that we are sure to do it only as necessary; and to be sure that we always align ourselves with lasting values and goals, not getting caught up in the temporary spirit of the day; in doing all that, we foster a Purim of true joy and celebration, as we remember a time when Mordechai and Esther and the Jews who followed them accomplished all that, bequeathing us this wonderfully happy day. Happy Purim.

VARIETIES OF JEWISH EXPERIENCE, WEEK TWO: LAW, SPIRITUALITY, AND YIRAT SHAMAYIM (FEAR OF HEAVEN)

Two of the essays in Varieties of Experience take on such central topics of religiosity that they seemed to me indispensable to any dip into RA”L’s ideas and thought. The first of the two, “Law and Spirituality, Defining the Terms,” starts with RA”L defining the term spiritual. The third meaning he gives is the spirituality of “sensibility and expression,” where the relationship with Hashem is a matter of feeling and emotion, of inwardness and spirit. It is this one that he will focus on as raising some concerns for how well it fits with a commitment to halachah.

Tension Between the Spiritual and the Formal

Before laying out the problems that can arise from a focus on that kind of spirituality, RA”L adduces רחמנא לבא some statements that show that it certainly has a place within a religious life. Statements such as to purify people ,לצרף את הבריות Hashem wants the heart (Sanhedrin 106b), or that the Torah was given ,בעי happiness, in the service ,שמחה Bereshit Rabbah 44;1), and Rambam’s affirmation (Laws of Lulav 8;15) that) of God must be a true emotion, whose expression takes on a spiritual cast rather than a physical one, all show that the call for bringing the spirit and emotion into service is not new or in any way antithetical to tradition. It is David dancing before God as he ushers the Ark to Jerusalem, with little concern for his personal honor or how he looks to others, that expresses this kind of spirituality.

It may have good sources, but it can nonetheless stand in tension with the more formal, material, and intellectual strands of the religion (a footnote concedes that there can be an intellectual spirituality as well). Two particular examples are the mitzvah of Torah study and the importance of shiurim, of minimal and/or maximal amounts in performing mitzvot. The focus on studying, knowing, categorizing, specifying, and enumerating seems not only to tell us the minimum we have to do, but can also so weigh us down with details that we fail to see the heights to which the spirit can rise.

And Also From This Rest Not Your Hand

RA”L’s reaction, characteristically, is to reaffirm a commitment to both. Torah, mitzvot, and halachah are not only essential, but desirably so. “A Jew certainly experiences the Ribbono shel Olam as Creator and Redeemer…but, first and foremost, he encounters Him as ultimate Commander.”

is the “alpha and omega” of religious existence. We are ,בטל רצונך מפני רצונו For RA”L, Avot 2;4’s adjuration sons to Hashem, true, but also servants, whose job is obedience.

At the same time, spirituality “ennobles and purifies human personality,” and brings a person closer to Hashem. Enhancing spirituality sensitizes us to the Divine Presence in the world, bringing us closer to I place God before me constantly, which Rema calls a major principle of ,שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד Tehillim 16;8’s the Torah in his first comment on Shulchan Aruch.

Beyond balance, RA”L adds that we should be looking for “mutual, genuinely reciprocal, fructification [a word I first heard from RA”L, in one of his earliest talks to first year Americans when I was a new student in the yeshiva].”

Spirituality can enrich halachic experience, in at least two ways: first, the more spiritual we are in general, the more sensitive we will be to religious experience. Second—the aspect RA”L discusses at greater length—bringing the spiritual into our religiosity helps avoid it turning into rote observances. The need a fixed quality, in our prayers is one example of many where spirituality helps rigorous ,קבע to resist halachic observance avoid the pitfall of caring only about keeping all the various laws as laid out in the codes.

Halachah Assisting Spirituality

On the other hand, mandated procedures free people from having to flesh out a ritual each time they encounter it, leaving room to pour all of one’s spiritual energies into the experience proper. As one of his examples, he notes how much energy would be wasted if Jews had to improvise a Seder’s structure and content each year, even if done in advance. In this and other rituals, having a fixed form lets us put our attention on the spiritual.

Then RA”L notes a second way in which halachah aids the spiritual, and this in a viewpoint that was characteristic of Briskers. Since halachah is devar Hashem, the word of God, regular encounter with halachah is itself a regular encounter with Hashem and will broaden and deepen the observant Jew’s spirituality. That, at least, was the ideal as R. Soloveitchik expressed it in Ish Ha-Halachah.

At the time he wrote it, the Rav seemed to have understood that the focus on pure halachah should come first, followed by a turn to the spiritual side. RA”L worries that adhering to that order strictly only works for an elite (people who can wait for the spiritual, without damage to their religious personae, while they spend years on the technical). He reports that the Rav himself came to see the difficulties in that path as a way to a heightened closeness with Hashem.

The Dangers of Spirituality

Excessive spirituality can lead to a devaluing of “mere” observance or “pure” Torah study, since they don’t seem to carry the spiritual within them. Valuing only the spiritual can result in taking on “alternative modes of religious experience and expression which, if insufficiently integrated, may rival normative categories’ [i.e., might lead to working only or largely on the alternative modes, not the actually legislated obligations]. And it can make religion “tinged with superstition or vestigial magic.”

Lastly, caring only about the spiritual might slip us into otherworldliness, the problems of this world coming to matter to us less than they should. Since, in fact, we are enjoined (as a spiritual matter) to emulate Hashem, Who is described as very involved with this world, in particular with those who are suffering and downtrodden.

Both Sides of the Coin

None of that is meant to take away from the value of spirituality, only to say that it has to be nurtured and honed carefully. RA”L points out that he’d been on record for two decades as approving of attempts to be sure that our observance had real ruach to it (because, implicitly, he thought that was the greater practical danger, that observance would be pallid and emotionless).

Having said that, he still has reservations the other way. He emphasizes that we must not allow enthusiasm to be confused with or limited to external expressions. We also cannot let spirituality devolve into a personal expression of whatever one is feeling at that moment. He gives the example of a “spiritual” yeshivat hesder where everyone burst into dance in the middle of Yom Kippur davening; to explain, they said that they dance on Simchat Torah, why differentiate?

A reasoning RA”L found as or more bothersome than the act itself, because it showed that what dictated their mood was their mood, not the day itself (which should have been too awesome to allow for the kind of dancing appropriate to Simchat Torah).

Another concern is the possible effect on Torah study itself. He notes others who seek hidden and lofty meanings in the areas of Torah that seem most mundane, thinking or hoping that they can show how elevated that topic truly is. To RA”L and those “trained to deal with halakhic realia in their own terms,” these are problematic misinterpretations, to some extent falsifying Torah.

Holding on to Yirah

The final problem, perhaps the most troublesome for RA”L, is that those who seek greater spirituality sometimes or often stress the value of ahavah, love, to the exclusion of yirah, fear or awe. He cites R.Shagar, who says that his belief in halachah and in the wisdom of Chazal stems from his choice of himself, his sense of identification with Judaism in general and those aspects in particular. RA”L reacts more harshly than he tended to, “And to think that this exercise in narcissism is to be equated with kabbalat ol malkhut shamayim!”

His conclusion to that essay is similar to his conclusion in the next one, so we’ll leave it for our conclusion. The next essay in the book, “Contemporary Impediments to Yirat Shamayim” led RA”L to define yirat shamayim, fear of Heaven, briefly. While it’s a mitzvah plain and simple, known from specific verses and codified by Rambam, RA”L will focus here more on its role as the motivation behind one’s service of Hashem generally, the path to a life of “faith, service, and obedience, actualized in accordance with divine will.”

Among the sources he cites in support of this idea is a responsum in which Rambam says that all of people’s actions are either fulfillments of the obligation of yirat shamayim or failures to do so, since we either act in conscious search for fulfilling the Divine Will or not. That puts yirat shamayim into play at every moment of a human life.

Ageless Challenges to Yirat Shamayim

To seek those impediments to that in the contemporary era implies there is something special and new in struggling to achieve yirat shamayim. We should not exaggerate that, RA”L cautions. A verse such as ve-lo taturu acharei levavchem ve-acharei eineichem, you shall not stray after your hearts and eyes, which Rambam counts as a Biblical prohibition, shows that the Torah already (and Chazal in its wake), were aware of a world that calls us to do other than Hashem tells us.

Rashi read the reference to hearts and eyes as sequential, the eyes seeing an item of sin and then the heart wanting it. Berachot 12b, however, read them as two different types of sin, the “heart” sin being heresy,

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 93 Gidon Rothstein and the “eyes” sin being that which we might lust after. RA”L takes that second category broadly, as anything we might want, including power, opulence, or leisure.

And In Our Times

These are also the basic impediments today. The advances of the modern world have made both material and intellectual worlds more challenging to yirat shamayim. While science has done much good, it has reduced our sense of dependence on Hashem, fundamental to yirat shamayim. For one example, to the extent that people assume that medicine alone solves our health issues, a sense of connection to and reliance upon the Creator is diminished. That’s not to deny or regret the advances of science, RA”L stresses, but to note a downside.

The same is true of the greater wealth of modernity—the easier it is to provide for our needs, the less we feel that we depend upon Hashem for those gifts. Centuries ago, the Canterbury Tales and Sir Philip Sydney of the Elizabethan era wrote of much frivolity and emphasis on the physical and sensual, yet those works and writers still saw themselves as needing God’s grace. “Modern counterparts would strike a very different note.”

Empiricism and Anthropocentrism

Science also fosters a kind of empiricism, a demand for proof, that runs counter to faith. While we’re not supposed to accept everything we’re told, fear of Heaven always involves an element of being open to and accepting that which we cannot see, touch, prove, or even understand. For that very reason, the insistence on skeptical inquiry that underlay the Englightenment and humanistic culture poses a danger to people’s ability to cultivate fear of Heaven. Even when the process does not lead to heresy or agnosticism, it can sap our spiritual connection—since we remain somewhat skeptical always.

Returning to a theme he raised earlier, RA”L writes about the “homocentric character of much modern culture—even of its religious component.” Many assume that what makes people happy and gives them what they want is the ultimate good; human beings are the arbiters of moral and theological truth as well. Whereas fear of Heaven means that people have to accept dogma and commitment, even when it does not lead to that which they already know to be true, even when it asks of them that which does not immediately make them happier or give them what they want.

And Yet Again, Both

I don’t have the space to take on the whole rest of the essay. RA”L notes that some of these modern elements are ones we have to contend with as we try to inculcate yirat shamayaim. Meaning, we cannot always reject that which is negative in modern culture and expect students to go along; often, we have to work to foster at least some of the kind of joy and enjoyment they expect and insist upon.

Sum total, though, RA”L stands firm that we have to make yirah part of our spiritual picture. That said, we also have to be careful to experience it correctly; in his tradition, that was a yirah that still allowed for taking the best of the modern world, and a yirah that was not fear so much as an awe that suffused a personality and could combine with other, happier feelings as well. One of the last quotations in the essay is of a song that R. Hutner used to sing on Purim, that only by Jews were joy and yirah intertwined; R.

Avraham Eliyah Kaplan likened yirah to the feelings of concern a father has for his son’s safety even as he plays with him.

It is that yirah RA”L was focused on cultivating, whose threats he wanted to lay out, so that we could all find our way to a more complete yirah, and from there a more complete service of Hashem generally.

Leaving us with two essays that end up in a familiar place for students of RA”L: aware of competing claims, the advantages and disadvantages in each, and calling for striving to incorporate as much of each as possible, taking the good, leaving the bad, and striving, always, to maximize our service of God.

PESACHIM, WEEK ONE: CHECKING FOR CHAMETZ

The volume of shiurim on Pesachim covers much ground, but for our purposes the two major units are on bedikat and bittul chametz, the searching for and removing of food that is or contains leavened grain as well as the declaration of one’s non-ownership of any such material. We’ll take each idea a week at a time.

The Role of Bedikah

RA”L starts by analyzing what it is that bedikah, checking for chametz, accomplishes. He raises two possible ways we might have seen bedikah as utilitarian, a way to rid ourselves of chametz to avoid transgressing the Torah, with no specific mitzvah content. He rejects both, because we make a berachah, showing it has some mitzvah content, even if it’s Rabbinic rather than Biblical.

Once it’s a mitzvah, he wonders what mitzvah it is. It might be a fulfillment of the obligation of tashbitu, the Torah’s call to remove all chametz before Pesach. The problem there, as RA”L shows, is that R. Chaim (Soloveitchik, founder of the Brisker way of halachic analysis) understood tashbitu to be an issur aseh, a prohibition stated in positive terms. We only get rid of chametz to avoid transgressing the obligation not to have any in our homes; if we had none to begin with, we would not have to do anything to fulfill tashbitu.

Among the ramifications of that view is that it’s only if we have chametz and dispose of it that we actively fulfill tashbitu. Checking would be at most a Rabbinic obligation, not Biblical.

Protection From Liability

Another possibility is that checking for chametz absolves us of liability should there be chametz left on our premises. In that sense, bedikah would be a way to forestall the prohibition of bal yera’eh u-bal yimatzeh, that we may not have chametz on our premises.

That might be because checking is the most we can do. If checked as well as we could and later found chametz, it’s an involuntary transgression (but is still a transgression). This would be similar to Tosafot Yevamot 35b, which discusses the case of a man who passes away without children. After waiting three months to be sure the widow was not pregnant, one of the brothers fulfills the mitzvah of yibum by marrying her, only for the couple to find out that she was in fact already pregnant by her late husband.

Clearly, the couple has engaged in forbidden relations, since a surviving brother may not marry his widowed sister in law except where she had had no children with her husband. But Tosafot assumes they qualify as anusim, as having been trapped by events beyond their control, because pregnant women generally give evidence of the pregnancy within three months. Having waited that amount of time, they are blameless in acting on the information they had at hand.

So, too, Ran looks at chametz found over Pesach as an example of a transgression out of our control. But RA”L notes that Rabbenu David to Pesachim (whom Ran often quotes) says it more starkly, that the checking for chametz exempts a person from transgression, because the Torah wasn’t given to angels. In his view, bedikah is an act of mitzvah after which the person cannot have violated bal yera’eh.

The Reason for Bedikah

A detail of this discussion is when and whether the person has been mevatel the chametz, has declared disinterest in ownership of chametz. We do that after our checking, but it can happen beforehand as well. If it did, the obligation to check is clearly Rabbinic, since the person no longer fully owns the chametz (as we’ll discuss next time). Why not just do bittul, then?

Ran suggested that Chazal were worried a person would not mean the bittul fully, such that s/he would still own the chametz and violate the Torah (were people to declare their wish to divest themselves of chametz worth thousands of dollars, would they mean it? If someone decided to take that chametz, would the original owner watch with equanimity? If not, s/he has not really been mevattel, has not broken the ownership connection, and then could transgress bal yera’eh).

Tosafot held that bedikah dealt with another problem, the worry that a person would see a nice piece of chametz over Pesach and eat it. To explain why Chazal would institute checking for this prohibited item but not other equally prohibited ones, Tosafot offer two ideas: 1) since we eat chametz all year, we are not sufficiently alert to the prohibition on Pesach, or 2) the Torah treats chametz more seriously, in that we cannot even possess such items, leading Chazal to understand that extra care was necessary.

But Not Notar

The first idea applies to notar as well, a sacrifice whose acceptable time of eating has passed. Why did Chazal not institute a bedikah, a checking, for notar? RA”L offers three answers, but only the third adds insight into chametz, so we’ll stick with that one.

Based on a discussion about kashering items for Pesach, RA”L notes that Ramban thinks we have to treat the absorbed taste of chametz as prohibited matter, even before Pesach (Tosafot disagrees, says that we can treat it as hetera bala, as having absorbed permissible material, which makes it easier to kasher). For Ramban, chametz before Pesach already has its status as chametz.

That explains why we’d check for chametz but not for notar; before the sacrifice’s time has passed, there is no notar, whereas it can be meaningful to speak of chametz even before Pesach. (The book doesn’t say it, but it seems clear to me he meant this could be true even for Tosafot, that chametz even before Pesach has some halachic status, whereas there’s no sense in which a sacrifice is notar before the time has passed when it can no longer be eaten).

This idea of chametz having its status earlier is one to which RA”L returns several times. One example is RA”L’s suggesting that when the Gemara wondered why bedikah is on the night of the fourteenth instead of right before midday (when the chametz becomes prohibited), one possibility is that the Gemara meant we should wait until chametz was a relevant halachic category before doing the checking. It’s an idea that resonated with him, and he brought it up in various contexts, testing to see where and if it worked.

Other Forms of Chametz

The extent to which checking for chametz as a way to avoid bal yera’eh is connected to the prohibition of eating chametz also affects the kinds of chametz for which we have to search. The two main examples are chametz nuksheh and ta’arovet chametz, chametz degraded to the point that it’s not readily edible and

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 97 Gidon Rothstein mixtures of chametz. For the degraded chametz, the Gemara concludes that there is a prohibition to eat, but not a karet punishment for those who do so.

Rashi holds that these kinds of chametz fall under the rubric of bal yera’eh, such that we would have to get rid of them. Rabbenu Tam disagreed, and RA”L offers two options for why: either Rabbenu Tam held that eating and owning chametz had different standards (although he doesn’t then explain why nuksheh and ta’arovet should be the dividing line), or that the Torah’s use of a special word in the case of eating, machmetzet, signaled a more expansive definition. Elsewhere, only full-fledged chametz would be included.

RA”L pointed out that there could be room to differentiate between nuksheh and ta’arovet as well, since chametz in a mixture is perfectly good chametz, it just has other materials that make it inaccessible to a full act of eating. We might therefore have thought that nuksheh doesn’t have a problem of bal yera’eh, but mixture does. We don’t, but it’s an interesting speculation.

In the end, Tosafot do hold that there is only a prohibition of eating such items, not owning. That could have led us to assume there’s also no requirement to check for them, a conclusion Rosh in fact draws. Tosafot themselves, based on other discussions in the Gemara, do include these forms of chametz in the obligation to check for and get rid of chametz. RA”L doesn’t stress it again, but this brings us back closer to seeing the checking as linked to eating, not ownership.

Timing the Checking

RA”L also has a brief discussion of when we check for chametz. The Mishnah sets the evening of the 14th as the time, and the Gemara spends most of its time on why evening was chosen. We, RA”L says, first have to discuss the more basic question, the date of checking [note the subtle reminder that the Gemara does not always proceed in the order we would have; we have to both follow the Gemara for its interests as well as step back and be sure we achieve meaningful understanding of our own].

While the simplest view would be that the fourteenth was chosen because it was the last time before the chametz becomes prohibited, that’s not necessarily so; it could be that there was some special meaning to the fourteenth that made it the right time to check.

A Special Status for the Fourteenth

That can explain a debate about a person who’s leaving the house within thirty days of Pesach. Everyone agrees that person much check for chametz, the debate among rishonim being whether to recite a beracha. The simplest reading would be that those who see the fourteenth as just a happenstance choice would say that for this person, the day they leave is their best time to check, and they should therefore make a beracha. But those who see the fourteenth as having some special status could say that the beracha only applies then.

To support the possibility that there’s a reason the fourteenth was chosen, RA”L notes that the Yerushalmi seems to hold that the obligation to get rid of chametz exists on the whole day of the fourteenth. Rambam, who held that tashbitu started from midday (when the Pesach could have been offered), seems to follow that Yerushalmi in the sense of seeing the fourteenth as implicated in the need to dispense with our

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 98 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein chametz. Even in the Bavli, a rejected opinion thought the Pesach sacrifice [which cannot be offered while owning chametz] might be relevant on the morning of the fourteenth.

For all these views, the fourteenth does have a special status that could explain its having been chosen as the time to get rid of chametz. To get there, RA”L had to invoke a Yerushalmi we don’t accept, a Rambam that is largely a lone opinion, and a rejected view in the Bavli.

[I note that because it is one more example of RA”L teasing out options, his continuing interest in logical possibilities, for which he then finds some sourcing. To me, what he’s really shown is that the simplest way to read it is that the fourteenth was chosen because it’s the last chance, and people whose last chance comes earlier don’t make a beracha for the reason he said, that the beracha was tied to when the majority of Jews are checking for chametz].

Before Thirty Days

Based on the view of Rava in the Gemara, halachah requires anyone who leaves the house within thirty days of Pesach with no intent to return to check for chametz. Those who intend to return to the house just before or on Pesach must check whenever they leave, even if it’s Rosh HaShanah. RA”L agrees with Ritva’s statement that even those rishonim who allowed a beracha on an early checking would only do so for a checking within thirty days.

That’s because, Pesachim 6a says, thirty days before Pesach is already related to the holiday, in the idea that’s the time to begin studying and involving ourselves in the laws of the holiday (for Rashbag, who held that it was only two weeks before that we start studying the laws, RA”L suggests that the beracha would also only be said for those leaving within two weeks of Pesach).

Having checked only some of what RA”L taught his shiur about bedikat chametz, we see issues of whether this is a Biblical obligation, whether it’s an obligated act or a utilitarian means to be sure we are not in possession of chametz over Pesach, whether the chametz must already have some halachic standing as such before it makes sense to check for it, and other such issues.

All part of our proper preparation for Pesach, of being sure we enter the holiday with only that which Hashem allows.

PESACHIM, WEEK TWO: BITTUL CHAMETZ, HOW IT WORKS AND WHAT IT DOES

The starting point of RA”L’s discussions of bittul, nullifying, chametz is the Gemara’s certainty that a declaration of one’s disinterest in owning chametz suffices to avoid the prohibition of bal yera’eh and bal yimatzeh, to neither own or be in possession of chametz on Pesach.

How Bittul Works

Rashi assumes bittul fulfills the requirement of tashbitu, where the verse tells us to be rid of chametz before Pesach. For Rashi, this is a hashbatah ba-lev, a verbal and mental ridding.

Tosafot take it more practically, seeing it as a kind of hefker, of declaring these items ownerless. The simpler way to understand Tosafot’s view is that making it hefker breaks the owner’s connection to the chametz, but that the food is still full chametz. Rambam’s version mentions the idea of its becoming like dirt, but still stresses the owner’s breaking his/her relationship to these items, not the status of the items themselves.

However, RA”L is intrigued by another possibility, that making it hefker affects the food itself. He notes the Vilna Gaon’s view that the prohibition of possessing chametz applies even to others’ chametz; that we are allowed to ignore a non-Jew’s chametz (if we bear no responsibility for it) is an exception, limited to a non-Jew. A Jew in possession of another Jew’s chametz, even without any responsibility for it, would still transgress bal yera’eh. If so, bittul would seem to have to affect the chametz itself in some way, to make it no longer chametz, so that the Jew in possession of it not transgress.

Rabbenu Manoach offers a reading close to that, focused on the Jew’s announcing that this chametz is like the dirt of the earth. He says the prohibition did not apply to chametz that is now like dirt (a phrasing that stresses the status of the chametz, not the owner’s relationship to it). Taking that a logical step further, Ba’al HaMichtam suggested a reading of the Gemara that would allow eating such chametz, once it’s been nullified. Clearly, for Ba’al HaMichtam, the chametz itself has been changed by the bittul.

Ramban’s Lack of Concern

Ramban takes a view somewhere between Rashi and Tosafot, and RA”L struggles with exactly what he means. Ramban starts by noting R. Elazar’s statement, on Pesachim 6b and other places, that the Torah assigned people responsibility for two items that do not belong to them, a ditch dug in a public place and the chametz one owned before Pesach. If so, Ramban says, bittul cannot be about making sure one does not own one’s chametz, because that happens anyway.

Bittul must be about the Jew breaking his or her connection to that chametz, such that the Torah will no longer see that person as responsible for that chametz. RA”L notes that Ramban could have said that a declaration of disinterest was enough, that one does not violate the prohibition unless one is interested in a connection. In fact, though, Rambam focuses on the monetary—that since the owner won’t own it once Pesach starts, the declaration ahead of time sunders the connection fully.

That is complicated by a proof Ramban offers. On 6b, a baraita says that when an owner no longer cares about figs or grapes that he owns, there’s no prohibition of stealing them nor is there any longer an obligation of tithing. Noda Bi-Yehuda understood that to mean that the owner has rendered them hefker.

Avnei Miluim (written by R. Aryeh Leib Heller, author of Ketzot) disagreed, because that would mean that the owner would have to retake possession of all those items if s/he ever wanted to own them again, which he finds unconvincing [RA”L doesn’t note it, but if so, that would seem to mean that Tosafot would require all Jews after Pesach to retake possession of all their chametz]. Avnei Miluim suggests it’s more like a gift; RA”L takes it in a slightly different direction, saying that we could understand the owner’s disinterest as a removal of any objection to others’ taking and using it.

If that’s true, Ramban could apply that to chametz; it’s not that the bittul ends ownership, it’s that bittul makes clear the owner’s unconcern with what happens to the chametz. Which, for Ramban, would be enough to avoid the prohibition of bal yera’eh.

Conditional Obligations

Turning back to the hefker theory of Tosafot, while all rishonim agree that that avoids the prohibition of bal yera’eh, it’s not clear that making the chametz hefker would fulfill tashbitu, the obligation to get rid of chametz. While Minchat Chinuch suggested tashbitu only involved not having chametz—so there is no reason to seek out opportunities to get rid of chametz-- Tosafot 4b seemed to require an act of ridding oneself of chametz. If so, making chametz hefker seems to avoid the problems of tashbitu but does not fulfill it.

Several mitzvot are like that, obligatory only under certain conditions, leading Rambam to call them domot ki-reshut, almost voluntary. We only need tzitzit on a four-cornered garment, for one example, and only must build a ma’akeh if we have a roof that needs fencing.

RA”L points out that some such mitzvot are of the type that we should try to arrange to be obligated (such as tzitzit). Others, such as sending away the mother bird, only become a value should we encounter a nest and want the chicks [RA”L here casually ignores the view bandied about today that finds a kabbalistic importance to seeking out and sending away mother birds; as an halachic matter, shiluach ha-ken only applies if we come across a nest and want the chicks].

What about tashbitu? Or Zarua tells of Ritzba’s practice to hold on to a piece of chametz until the hour of burning, to actively fulfill tashbitu. Most rishonim did not require that. As long as one did not have any chametz, they saw no problem. Ramban again took a middle ground, offering three levels of the fulfillment of tashbitu, the highest being burning or destroying the chametz, the next being bittul, and the last being hefker (which the Yerushalmi allowed).

[R. Daniel Wolf, in the notes, points out that Ramban seems to assume an active obligation of tashbitu, because if it’s only about not having chametz, there’s no reason to discuss levels of fulfillment. RA”L, I think, would have understood Ramban to be saying there are levels of having gotten rid of chametz. Even if tashbitu is only about making sure not to have any around, chametz that is hefker, for all that it suffices to avoid bal yera’eh and therefore fulfills tashbitu, is still more around than destroyed chametz].

Thinking of Bittul

The Gemara is clear that thought is enough to nullify chametz, which is a problem for those who agree with Tosafot that bittul is a form of hefker. Hefker, generally, requires a court of three people before whom the owner makes the formal declaration. To explain, Meiri says there are three types of hefker: 1) When there’s no context that made us already expect that an owner wanted to be rid of this item—that needs to be announced in front of three people. 2) Where there is a clear reason to want this to be hefker—that can be done verbally, alone; and 3) chametz, where it can even be done internally, because of the seriousness of the situation.

As support, Meiri points out another situation of an assumed hefker. The background to the case is that Beit Shammai held people’s items cannot violate Shabbat, not just the Jew or his/her animals. That makes it a problem to have lit candles or a burning furnace in a Jewish home. To explain how Beit Shammai could allow those, the Gemara says they would make them hefker before Shabbat.

By bringing that here, Meiri is saying that there is a hefker that does not involve any formal declaration; since everyone knows we would not want to own an item violating Shabbat, that serves the place of the court of three before whom we’d ordinarily have to declare our intentions. So, too, since everyone knows that Jews do not wish to own chametz on Pesach, bittul can happen even internally.

Negligence and Loss of Ownership

RA”L suggests another option, that perhaps in some situations, events make an item hefker, no need for the owner to do it. For example, avedah mida’at is where an owner neglects his property such that it gets lost (s/he leaves a cow unfenced, knowingly drops money in a public place and left it there, and the like). Rambam thought that the owner’s actions absolved others of the obligation to return the lost item, but did not affect the ownership status.

Tur disagreed. He held that the owner’s lack of care makes those items hefker and available to all. In another case (RA”L notes that Rambam may have agreed in other cases, although we don’t know), Rosh held that if a person throws one of his/her possessions off a roof, with the expectation that it will break, the item becomes hefker (so anyone who catches it can keep it).

All of these show that there are circumstances where an owner can remove him/herself from the ownership picture, at least enough to not violate bal yera’eh and to either fulfill or avoid the need to fulfill tashbitu, actively getting rid of chametz.

Bittul works, but how and why it works, and what it actually fulfills, those were some of the issues RA”L addressed in his shiurim on the beginning of Pesachim.

SICHOT FOR PESACH

As we did for Purim, and because we’ve completed our summaries of RA”L’s published volumes (the two post-Pesach posts before RA”L’s first yahrzeit will be review pieces), we are pausing here to review some of his sichot, written up after the fact by various students (some checked by RA”L, some not).

Interestingly—perhaps because the yeshiva was always closed on Pesach—there are fewer sichot about Pesach listed in RA”L’s bibliography than most topics. Indeed, the ones I found were delivered on Shabbatot when the Torah reading was from the early parts of Shemot, where the Torah was telling the story of the Exodus.

From Servitude to Redemption

A Friday night sicha (the Roshei Yeshiva at Yeshivat Har Etzion speak after Kabbalat Shabbat) from Parashat Shemot 5756 (1996—because of how I found them, these will come in reverse chronological order of when they were delivered) started with the point that in one sense the passage from Bereshit to Shemot displays a tremendous fall in the fortunes of the Jewish people.

At the end of Bereshit, the Jews are autonomous, financially stable, children are being raised in the laps of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and Ya’akov Avinu sometimes merits visitations of the Divine Presence.

We enter the world of Shemot, and the Jews are subjugated to the Egyptians, forced into backbreaking labor, with masters going out of their way to embitter their lives, and suffering through hester panim, a withholding of the Divine Presence.

It’s Not All Bad

Those starting points become first steps on a remarkable upward path. The Jews become am benei Yisrael, the nation of the Children of Israel; the Divine Presence is revealed to the entire nation at Sinai and, according to Ramban, becomes institutionalized at the Mishkan; Moshe Rabbenu starts as a prophecy trainee but becomes the greatest prophet ever, speaking with Hashem panim el panim, face to face (as the verse calls it), as a man speaks with his fellow.

In RA”L’s reading, there’s evidence that throughout and despite the suffering, the Jewish people continued to believe in Hashem and not despair. Amram, for example, had the faith to return to married life with Yocheved, to not let Par’oh’s decree stop him from having children [RA”L didn’t mention it, but Rashi thought this was only because of Miriam’s encouragement].

For RA”L, the beginning of Shemot is a permanent reminder that even when life seems hard, we have to avoid despair, must trust in Hashem, Who redeems and saves us. This is a particularly interesting conclusion as, a few years earlier, he focused on the reasons the Jews didn’t listen to Moshe, in the next talk of his we’ll see.

They Didn’t Listen to Moshe

At seudah shelishit of Parashat Va’Era, 5750 (1990), RA”L spoke about the Jewish people’s not listening to Moshe mi-kotser ruach u-me’avodah kashah, because of a shortness of breath and hard work [that’s how 6;9 phrases it; I note that the talk was summarized by R. Yosef Zvi Rimon, at the time a young student, now a major rabbinic figure in several contexts in Israel, including being one of the Ramim at Yeshivat Har Etzion].

RA”L opened with the obvious question: Moshe had encouraging news, that Hashem was promising ve- hotseiti, ve-hitsalti, I will take you out, I will save you, and so on—what was hard about accepting that?

When We Can’t Hear

He suggests that the kotser ruach, aside from its literal meaning, can also imply a lowered spiritual state, where people are unable to hear and absorb lofty promises, such as being taken to be Hashem’s nation, being brought to the Land of Israel. The Jews were at a stage where the most they could focus on would have been news of a week’s vacation or a reduction of work load. They didn’t want to engage —or couldn’t get themselves to engage—with ideas, ideals, and promises of the kind Moshe was offering.

Or, perhaps, the people could accept the message, but not the timing. Unless they were being told of immediate redemption and results, it was too theoretical for them. They were uninterested in visions while being beaten by taskmasters. The promises were too far in the future to be of use.

But then Moshe’s using this as proof that Par’oh wouldn’t listen doesn’t make sense. Par’oh doesn’t have kotser ruach! [This applies even if one doesn’t accept RA”L’s explanation of the nature of the Jews’ shortness of breath or spirit—even if it’s literal, those reasons do not apply to Par’oh, so it’s odd that Moshe uses the Jews’ reaction as evidence for what Par’oh will do].

Presentation Matters

RA”L answers that there was another reason they didn’t respond to Moshe, as shown by his adding, “and I am aral sefatayim, have difficulty speaking.” Had Moshe been a demagogue, a captivating public speaker, he would indeed have lit a fire in the people, would have succeeded at exciting them about his message. That transfers to Par’oh.

[I have no idea whether RA”L was thinking this as he said it, but he himself was not a naturally gifted public speaker. The content was more than worth the effort, but it wasn’t always easy to understand what he was saying, both physically and intellectually. Years after I was in Gush, I saw a video of him from my time there, and realized that the physical speech problem got worse as he aged. He also spoke at length, and sometimes digressively, so it was easy to drop off. As I said, it more than repaid the effort to listen, but it did take a modicum of effort.

If I may be permitted one more moment of personal reminiscence, I remember my father a”h going to the Gush Dinner my first year back from Israel, and speaking glowingly of how RA”L zt”l spoke. I remember the frustration of having a father to whom RA”L’s speaking style was clear, logical, and convincing, effortlessly, when I was still working hard to keep up with him and to absorb as much of his words as I could.]

Avoiding Their Double Whammy

Thousands of years later, RA”L noted, we need to make sure we don’t reach the same kotser ruach (in both ways) and don’t reject the messages of those who might be arelei sefatayim.

[This latter seems a huge issue today, for Jews and non-Jews. Do we listen more than we should to captivating speakers? How good must a speaker be for us to listen? There are terrible speakers, and there are excellent speakers; but there are also perfectly passable speakers, who deliver important and valuable messages, but aren’t heard because they aren’t great and exciting and entertaining. A problem].

Back to RA”L, who spoke about the dangers of subjugating ourselves to making a living. People who focus solely on that slowly lose their ability to appreciate spiritual matters, and will remain apathetic to remarkable events. They may also themselves become arelei sefatayim, unable to convey messages of redemption to future generations.

We have to strengthen our connection to the spiritual, to seeing beyond the immediate, the physical, the monetary, and thus to be bearers of the message of redemption to others as well.

Teaching Children

The third of the sichot, delivered at seudah shelishit of Parashat Bo, 5748 (1998), takes up the four sons. The wise son knows the framework of halachah, not just the details, and so can ask the kind of questions that should arise for anyone tied in to Torah and observance.

Someone who doesn’t ask these kinds of questions—not only ‘what should I do,’ but ‘which of my practices fall into which of the categories the Torah set up?’—is observing by rote, not investing in his studies, and lacks the necessary connection to the depth of Torah. [In the context of a talk at a yeshiva, that is a not-so-subtle reminder that true Torah study cannot be superficial, must ask important questions].

The evil son is aware of the system, but ready to reject it—I see and understand what you’re doing, and I think it unnecessary! Different than the wise son, it’s also different from the tam, the simple son.

The Problem Children

Both the evil and the simple son’s questions are connected, by the Torah, to having arrived in Israel. But the evil son’s question is directly connected, with the Torah saying, “And it will be when you come to the land… when your children say to you, etc.” The simple son’s question is in Israel (the verse speaks of having been brought to the Land and already having first-born animals to offer to Hashem), but the Torah does not link the arrival to the question.

To RA”L, that suggests that the distance from the Exodus and the Revelation at Sinai itself fueled the tam’s ignorance. The Torah refers to your child asking tomorrow, machar, and Rashi comments that there’s an immediate tomorrow and a distant tomorrow. On this distant morrow, the child won’t know the background or framework for the service.

The evil questioner is placed on the background of entry. His asking signals his belief that times have changed, that being in Israel means there’s no longer any need for these old rules, intended (he would say) for exile.

The Educational Lessons

The Torah teaches us, first, that we have to differentiate education, tailor our explanations of the Torah to each audience, recognize that there is no one answer, that every generation, social circumstance and culture needs its own answers. Second, we must prepare those answers ahead of time-- the Torah’s anticipating these questions is an implicit call not to wait until a problem or question arises. We have to be ro’eh et hanolad, to see what’s coming and prepare for it.

From the end of the eighteenth century into our times, declines in Jewish observance and connection can be partially blamed on a lack of preparation, an unreadiness to deal with what was coming. Political and ideological developments that could have been seen ahead of time came as complete surprises to the Jews of each of those generations. Instead of having prepared answers, they were caught unawares.

Mistaking One for the Other

Some people try to influence evildoers by assuming they have an inherent, hidden sense of connection to the religion. All we have to do is uncover that, free them from the dross covering their innate attachment to the Torah. This is not the approach. [The italics are in the summary on the website; it’s remarkable, because plenty of sources speak of every Jew’s having that kind of connection. For one relevant example, both R. Soloveitchik and R. Kook spoke of anyone who chose to live in Israel as demonstrating that connection, even unknowingly.

At the very least—and I believe this is what he meant—RA”L was saying that the people who speak in the fashion of the evil child will not be reached by this approach. It may be that they have that connection, but it’s so layered over that that’s not the way we will effectively bring them back or, perhaps, prevent their ideas from spreading to others].

Our Job Is To Answer

We have to struggle with such people, oppose their views vigorously—the Haggadah speaks of blunting their teeth. We cannot accept their framework, have to note that we reject their starting point, and move the discussion to a different set of assumptions. That’s why the Haggadah’s answer to the rasha is placed elsewhere in the Torah. We don’t take up the conversation as they frame it, we move it to our frame.

Finally, RA”L points out that for all the questioners, only one person is tasked with answering. Part of the job of a Jew is to be ready to answer all sorts of questions and questioners, in all sorts of generations, and to answer each as is most effective for that person in that time.

The RA”L we meet in sichot for Pesach saw the Exodus reminding us to maintain faith in hard times, to avoid the shortness of spirit, insistence on immediate results, and openness only to demagogues that happened to slaves, and to prepare for the challenges of various kinds of children, students, and people at large in explaining the Jewish faith to them.

All that and more came out of RA”L’s experience of the Torah’s telling of the events of the Exodus and the Giving of the Torah.

RA”L’S USE OF HIS GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

One of the well-known aspects of RA”L’s presentational style was his inclusion of references to non- Jewish sources, mostly philosophy and English literature. As we come to the end of this project of discussing his published volumes, I thought to pause to see what we can gather about how he used those quotations in his writing.

To do this properly, I would have had to track down each citation in all thirteen volumes. Being too lazy for that, I can say that there were very few such references in the volumes of shiurim, either because he didn’t make them or because the people taking notes didn’t bother to include them (my memory of his daily shiur is that any such references were infrequent).

In the English volumes, there are more. I don’t mean to imply that he made such references only when speaking or writing in English—he did so in his Hebrew sichot, his talks, but not (I think) in his shiurim on Gemara. Here, I want to share what I found by tracking down the references in one of those volumes, Varieties of Jewish Experience.

All the essays in that volume were published in 2000 or after, so these are writings from relatively late in his life. They might be representative, or they might be different. But they do at least give a sense of what the elder RA”L did with the general knowledge he had acquired.

Uneven Spread

Worried that there would be too many citations to deal with the whole book, I had thought to sample it, to take each tenth page, for example, and see what I got. Then I realized that the first essay has no references to anything other than Torah literature, the second has some casual ones to Lord Chesterfield, Machiavelli, the danse macabre, and Yorick, but the first actual quotation from a non-Torah source comes at page 58, where he cites Lionel Trilling’s characterization of Avot (so it’s not, actually, a quote about secular issues). The third essay also has none.

The fourth essay, on p. 111, has a reference to the Jewish people’s “separatist streak” in philanthropy having “served, since Paul, as a crux of Jewish-Christian polemic.” At the bottom of that page, RA”L wrote, “Up to a critical point, we do indeed recognize the primacy of personal interest—and this, not only at the national plane, in the spirit of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, [orig. published, 1932] but at the individual level as well.”

Through a third of the volume, we really have only one citation of an idea that originated outside the world of Torah that was advanced in a conversation having nothing to do with Torah.

The fifth essay has two, but these are again casual references more than quotes. On page 131, RA”L notes “that dogma occupies a less prominent station in Yahadut than in Christianity—particularly, if the basis of comparison is Lutheran ‘justification by faith’…But there is also little of systematic morality in Hazal, and Spinoza’s Ethics was as alien to their spirit at Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.”

Over twenty pages later, on p. 155, he notes that people today do not much accept sanctions against other Jews grounded in their lack of faith. He adds, “It is not to my present purpose to rationalize this practice

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 107 Gidon Rothstein or to “justify the ways of God to man,” a take-off of a line in Paradise Lost I;25-6 (although RA”L did not footnote it), who wrote “justify the ways of God to men.”

Up until page 167, then, over half the volume, we have a few scattered references to non-Torah literature, surely indicating a better familiarity with that literature than most of us have, but not betraying any deep or formative impact. That changes, significantly, in the next two essays.

Where Madda Wove Its Way In

“Law and Spirituality: Defining the Terms,” and “Contemporary Impediments to Yirat Shamayim [Fear of Heaven],” have fourteen and seventeen such quotes or references, over the course of about thirty pages each (counting the pages of footnotes).

Some of these are, as before, casual references, such as his writing, on p. 170, that the “mythological view of nature—fauns, satyrs, maenads, and all—is more spiritual than the scientific. Analogously, Carlyle’s theory of history is more spiritual than Marx’s; the Rabad’s view of the afterlife less spiritual than Rambam’s.” Or his casually comparing, p. 189, the Vilna Gaon’s critique of the Tanya to Barth’s rejection of Schleiermacher’s Romantic theology.

Those give no indication that the madda component shaped RA”L’s thought; they are more in the nature of making his case clearer or more pungent. Many of these aren’t footnoted, as if he did not recall, and did not sit down to look up, where the idea was found.

Others are slightly misquoted, another indication that this was done from memory. When he quotes Robert Browning (p. 169), from a poem entitled O Lyric Love, the concluding passage of Book I of The Ring and the Book (I did look it up), RA”L has it as “half angel and half dust, and all a passion and a wild desire,” whereas the line seems to read, “half angel and half bird, And all a wonder and a wild desire.”

Substantive Use and Lessons

Other quotes seem to do more than offer a felicitous expression. When RA”L mentions Milton’s speaking of Hashem as “dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss, and mad’st it pregnant,” it’s from Paradise Lost, כיונה המרחפת על בניה ואינה I;21-2, which RA”L himself notes is based on Hagigah 15a, speaking of Hashem like a dove that hovers over her brood but does not touch them.” We might wonder, then, why he“ נוגעת chose to quote Milton’s version in the text, rather than Chazal’s.

Or his mention of Carlyle’s writing of those who are “at ease in Zion.” This is an example of citation from memory, I think, since there’s no footnote. Online, I found that Carlyle spoke of those “at ease in the world” in a letter to his mother from 30 January, 1821. Almost thirty years later, in a letter to Thomas Story Spedding, he used the exact phrase from Amos 6;1, “it is written, Woe to them that are at ease in Zion.”

Before I suggest an explanation, let’s see other examples where the citation does more than just express an idea well. In each of these two essays, RA”L mentions that “C.S. Lewis has somewhere observed that most people don’t want a Father in Heaven, but rather a Grandfather.” It’s again a slight misquote, from The Problem of Pain, but it makes a point that clearly resonated with RA”L, that people dislike the yirah,

© 2016 Gidon Rothstein. All rights reserved. 108 Blogging Rav Lichtenstein the awe, aspect of our relationship with Hashem. It is, as far as I could tell, the only twice-invoked citation from non-Torah literature in the volume.

There are also times when the non-Jewish world offers important background to events in the Jewish world. On page 205, RA”L noted the difference between “Bentham’s identification of happiness and the good with the pursuit of pleasure” and the world of the Canterbury Tales (where, “for all the levity and the traces of ribaldry…and despite Arnold’s complaint over the lack of “high seriousness of noble purpose,” Chaucer ended with “a prayerful epilogue).” A similar dynamic was at play two centuries later, RA”L points out, for Sir Philip Sydney, an Elizabethan courtier. Here, the citations make a cultural point, that the centuries have seen a change in how people define happiness, a change that affects Jews as well as non-Jews.

A couple of pages later, p. 208, the way to show that “Secular modern culture does not so much rebel against the Ribbono shel Olam as it ignores Him” is by mentioning that its “model is not... Aeschylus’ Prometheus, nor Milton’s Satan…” but “Je n’ai pas besoin de cette hypothése,” (RA”L doesn’t translate, “I have no need for this hypothesis”), Laplace’s reply when asked why he had omitted God from his treatise, Mécanique Celeste.

Sum total, my first guess would be that RA”L had absorbed a remarkable wealth of general knowledge, literary and philosophical, that he it had made enough of an impression on him that when he was looking to make a point, something from that body of knowledge often felt the best way to say it. When the two worlds met, such as when Carlyle cited Scripture, that, too, made an impression. And, many times, he seems to have felt that the way a non-Jewish source captured aspects of an idea were better stated than he found in any traditional source.

Favorites and Timing

While RA”L quoted a wide range of thinkers, he also had clear favorites. C.S. Lewis might be the only author with a specific quote mentioned twice, but Milton, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Keats, and Matthew Arnold are quoted more often and more variedly than other authors that I saw.

Shakespeare, perhaps surprisingly for someone whom RA”L characterizes as “the world’s premier dramatist (p. 269),” does not receive the same attention, but it was a formulation of his from Hamlet that became the shaping image of RA”L’s essay, “To Double Business Bound: Reflections on the Divided Life of Ovdei Hashem.” While this essay isn’t as full of references outside the world of Torah as the two earlier ones, it does come a clear third.

Two last notes. First, all of these are very much of high culture. I have no idea of the extent to which RA”L watched TV, saw movies, or read lighter novels (at the most recent Etzion Foundation Dinner, during a tribute to her father’s memory, Rabbanit Toni Mittleman, mentioned RA”L’s using Vince Lombardi, coach of the Green Bay Packers, as an example of someone who demanded and received excellence, at the cost of having his players hate him) but they are never cited in these essays. The madda he chose to reference in these writings was very much solely of the “best which has been thought and said,” a phrase of Matthew Arnold’s of which RA”L was particularly fond.

Finally, I note that the quotes are almost solely from authors who worked and wrote before he was born. The reference to Barth that we saw might have been written after his birth, and there’s a quick reference to Erich Fromm’s Ye Shall Be As Gods (first published in 1966). Other than that, it’s all much older. Again, I do not mean to imply that RA”L stopped paying attention to the general world at some point, but the storehouse of phrase, verbs, and sentences that fueled his writings seems to have stopped at or soon after his birth.

Conclusions

It leaves me with the following impressions: At some point early in his life, RA”L drank deeply and widely of the cultural thought of the generations before his. Those ideas continued to play in his head throughout his life, providing ways of expressing himself but also insights into aspects of life that he thought relevant to Torah-seeking Jews as well.

He did not quote for quotation’s sake, nor did he shy away from bringing to bear that which would help make the point. Issues of religiosity and relationship to Hashem were where, in this volume, the world at large had the most to contribute. Hence the uneven distribution: it was in some realms more than others that RA”L found value for the Jewish oved Hashem, servant of God, in the broader literature he had absorbed.

Lessons I learned by examining the sichat chullin, the casual expressions, of a great man.

THE RA”L I FOUND

There is a well-known parable of blind men encountering different parts of an elephant. One was at the tail, one at the trunk, one underneath the belly, one at the wide, round foot, and so on. Each came up with a plausible theory based on what he touched, none glimpsing the whole. (In different versions, when they compare notes, they either reject the others’ views, or come to see a greater whole by putting all of those together).

To put the same idea in more Jewish terms, when R. Soloveitchik passed away, I remember students of his complaining that each eulogizer cherry-picked elements of the Rav’s life and thought that appealed to him, ignoring much else (in contrast, as it happens, to RA”L, where people specifically noted the coherence of the eulogies, how, for all that they differed in emphasis, they all also clearly described the same person).

If it’s easy to find the Rav you want to find, rather than the man as he lived, I have worried, here and elsewhere, that I will find the RA”L I want rather than the fullness of the giant he was. (This is a problem in many contexts, one to which I’ve been a bit hypersensitive since my PhD dissertation showed me respected traditional commentators whose rules for reading texts allowed them so much flexibility in deciding what the text meant, that their interpretations were as much or more about them than about the text itself. Aside from making me very nervous around loose readings of texts, since I’ve seen how they can be used and misused, it has made me question myself, check that I’m listening to sources, not telling them what I need or want them to say).

With RA”L, I tried to avoid that by taking on all his published volumes, not those I might have singled out as personally appealing. I have tried to take points from within those volumes that seemed to be usefully reflective of the volume as a whole, although I did occasionally take points that jumped out to me.I hope those efforts have been rewarded by offering some accurate account of his Torah, but it is, necessarily, the RA”L I found, likely with much missing that I was unable to capture.

Where Complexity Takes Us

One of the elements of RA”L’s intellectual life I believe I successfully caught also explains why I wasn’t going to fully portray the man even if I did manage to leave my own proclivities out of it. I mentioned it once in these essays, but he more than once commented that if he had to summarize what he learned in graduate school, he would say he had learned the complexity of the world. The number of times I saw it referenced suggest that it was an idea that mattered to him, that he saw this experience of complexity as formative of his thought.

It is an insight borne out in these volumes, was the most prominent element of my attempt to wrangle his rich ideas into a brief presentation. As I read and reread these essays, I was surprised by how often I had apologized for having to cut short a discussion, having to leave out examples RA”L had brought, for having run out of room before I could deal with more aspects of a book.

RA”L dealt with the complexity of life by embracing as much of it as he could, taking it on, understanding it, categorizing it, putting each piece of it in its proper place. In halachah and hashkafah, the way he found a meaningful answer was to take the question in all its possible elements, see where the major thinkers of tradition (and, in some contexts, the major thinkers of other traditions as well) took that question, what new aspects hey raised, and where that left us.

Treading Widely and Well

Part of what’s surprising in writing that sentence is that he didn’t even do it by amassing an overwhelming set of sources. While he was remarkably knowledgeable, his bekiut, the breadth of sources he had at his fingertips, impressive as it was to ordinary people (and recognized talmidei hachamim, Torah scholars), it wasn’t the kind where he cited source after source after source.

At least in these volumes, it was a demonstration that even working with a fairly delineated set of sources (in the shiurim other than Taharot, for example, he mostly cited rishonim, authorities who lived before publication of the Shulchan Aruch, and his predecessors in the Brisker tradition, R. Chaim, the Griz, and, often, the Rav).

Yet the world he found with those sources was rich, complex, full of possibilities for how to understand halachah and how to set up a proper Jewish life. Nor did he puff up his presentations with fluff or unnecessary sidebars. Part of what made it so difficult to summarize well was that for all its length, everything in it made valid and valuable points.

A Broad Life and Our Need for Advice

RA”L once quoted R. Hutner as rejecting the idea of a “double life,” insisting that his students strive for a “broad life.” My strongest impression of what we’ve found in these volumes is that RA”L spent his life doing that, taking on all of Torah, and all of life, to the prodigious extent he could, bringing his remarkable intellect, insight, and memory to bear on understanding the world—within the frame of halachic discourse and without-- as it is, and to see what that teaches us about our lives, as students of Torah and servants of Hashem.

Before I let that aspect of it go, I want to append a lesson I think it bears for all of us. As we make decisions, as we pick our way through the challenges that come our way, RA”L’s example says to me— and, I think, says to all of us—that we must be suspect, even leery, of simple and simplistic answers. They may occasionally be correct, but we should not expect it to be the general case.

It means that we should step gingerly in life, unless we can be sure we have the breadth of vision necessary to make good decisions. If we don’t, we need to solicit as many views as we can. Because, for those of us who aren’t RA”L in breadth of knowledge and depth of thought, finding a decision that accounts for all the facets of an issue is highly unlikely, unless we work hard at it.

Holding On to Ideas, Because They’ll Eventually Come In Handy

It seems to me that his embrace of complexity underlay another feature of the shiurim, his holding on to theoretical possibilities. The first part of that is his interest in and insistence on laying out the ways one could understand a topic, so that when he saw the opinions espoused among the rishonim, it was sometimes like fitting them into the boxes he had previously laid out (or noting how they didn’t quite fit into one or other box).

It often put an otherwise unwieldy welter of opinions into a comprehensible framework, one likely reason RA”L did it. At the same time, when one of the possibilities wasn’t taken by anyone before him, RA”L was still interested in it, because it was a possible way to understand the topic. Nor did the fact that an idea was rejected in one place mean it might not yet shed light elsewhere, even if no one before RA”L had suggested that.

Yes, it shows his independence of thought even within deep traditionalism, but what makes it relevant here, I think, is that he seems to have felt that if an idea was logically possible, if it felt right, there should be a place for it, and keeping it in mind would be productive and rewarding.

[In a somewhat parallel way, pure mathematicians follow ideas that fit their axioms without regard to whether they can see a practical application. Some of them have the faith—and it is a bit religious—that any sufficiently beautiful idea must eventually find its expression. When that is later discovered, they’re happy and satisfied, but that’s not justifies their endeavor—they were following the ideas for their own sake.

That’s not quite parallel here, because RA”L started with Talmudic discussions focused on fleshing out halachah; as the Rav wrote in Halachic Man, halachah might proceed theoretically, but its goal is to apply it to life. RA”L was not engaging in random theorizing, he was taking halachic facts and seeking the range of ways to understand those, to be sure he and his students had the richest reading of halachah possible.]

Looking Over His Shoulder and Finding Satisfaction

Forced one last time to constrain the length of my writing, I note RA”L’s lifelong struggle to balance his respect for the past and applying that to the present. We saw RA”L’s acknowledged debt to the formative teachers in his life along with his willingness to walk his own path in understanding the Torah. We saw his concern with his choices to allow his shiurim to be presented in modern Hebrew, not the traditional lishna de-rabbanan, and that his starting from the middle of a tractate not be interpreted as a disregard for how Hazal structured the discussion.

Let me close with a story that moved me greatly, that brings this point to life, and that offers, I hope, a fitting conclusion to the time we have spent together reviewing some small piece of RA”L’s rich bequest of Torah. When I saw one of his close students soon after RA”L’s passing, this student (whom I do not quote since I’m not sure he meant these comments to be said in his name) noted his sense that the last years of RA”L’s life-- when family, students, and the broader public, expressed their great appreciation; when a group of supporters presented him with a Sefer Torah written in his name, an act that inspired an emotional reaction from him that I remember surprised me when I saw it; when he was awarded the

Israel Prize, and more—had given RA”L real nachat, satisfaction and some sense he had accomplished a reasonable amount in his life.

I was stunned. How could RA”L not have known, all throughout, how much he was doing for the Jewish people? In my mind, he and R. Amital, with the support of their wives yibd”l, had built a remarkable institution of Torah, from nothing. Thousands of students, those who passed through the yeshiva and those who admired him from afar, relied on his perspective of the world as justification for their own. How could he not know this?

The man who told me this story (a recognized Torah scholar in his own right) wouldn’t give details, but hinted that RA”L sometimes felt colleagues of his (I think from his days at Mesivta Yeshiva Chaim Berlin) accomplished more, had more students, built more prominent institutions of Torah. These last years allowed him to recognize he had done much as well.

I close with this because it suggests a challenge RA”L faced, coming from a particular world, seeing much of value in that world, yet also seeing a new way he had to go. Following that sense courageously throughout his life, even as he worried he had been too quick to relinquish this or that piece of that other world.

In living the broad life R. Hutner pushed, RA”L encountered many worlds, ideas, suggestions for how to serve Hashem best. As we’ve seen together, he spent his time fleshing out all those possibilities, conceptually and practically, to build a life and an example that has enriched us all.