DEGEL: TORAH AND JEWISH StUDIES FROM ALEI TZION | 3 CONTENTS Notes from the Editor Editor 3 Notes from the Editor Ben Elton BEN ELTON Designer 7 The Journey of Reb Nachman to Erets Yisrael Tammy Youngerwood RAV AVI SCHARF elcome to the second issue of Degel. The Orthodox and Religious Zionist, because they objected to 16 Chief Rabbi Yitshak HaLevi Herzog on Shimon HaTsaddik labelling or pigeon-holing the kehilla its members. Many Proofreading inaugural edition, published last Rosh TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY RAV WARREN KAYE Hashana displayed just some of the talent argue that Jewish religious labels are simplistic, unhelpful Sandy Tapnack Wpresent in our community and was well received. I hope and divisive. It is this sentiment that has led to the growth Jemma Jacobs 22 Yona’s Three Day Journey: Greek Tragedy and the Gaon of Vilna this edition will confirm first impressions, not only by of trans-denominational or post-denominational Judaism. TIKVA BLAUKOPF maintaining the standard of the Rosh Hashana issue, but This is a major intellectual challenge to a community that Fundraising does define itself in denominational terms, as Modern 28 Understanding the Obligation to remember the Exodus from Egypt by doing so with a completely new set of authors. My Ben Vos thanks go to them, Tammy Youngerwood for her design Orthodox and Religious Zionist. YAIR BLUMENFELD Joel Stempel and setting, Sandy Tapnack and Jemma Jacobs for proof- The debate is not a new one. As long ago as 1915 Oswald Anthony Bodenstein 35 The Amida: What do we stand for? reading the articles, Ben Vos, Joel Stempel and Anthony Bodenstein for their fundraising activities and everyone John Simon attacked what he called ‘the folly of religious YONNI COHEN 1 who placed a greeting. l a b e l s’. He derided terms such as ‘conservative’ or 41 Modern Orthodoxy - Religious Zionism: One Hashkafa or Two? ‘liberal’ as ‘obscure, unreal, stereotyped and emptied of all philosophical and spiritual value’. ‘Why’, he appealed SIMON LEVY ‘cannot a Jew be content with just saying humbly and 53 Tevya’s Milk is still Fresh: One hundred and fifty years of Sholem Aleichem Many argue that Jewish religious reverently “I belong to the holy faith and people of Israel by conviction as well as by blood. God help me to be NATHAN WOODWARD labels are simplistic, unhelpful worthy of this tremendous trust which has come to me”.’ 58 Radical outsiders? Jews in pre-War British business and divisive. When we look at how Jews have used religious labels OJ BEN VOS Simon seems to have a point. Different people have used 70 Letter to the Editor One element of my last Notes that attracted attention the same term in different and often contradictory ways, was the attempt to explore what it meant to be a Modern and used different terms to describe the same ideas. In Orthodox Religious Zionist kehilla. You can read Bobby 1934 the Vice-President of the United Synagogue, Robert Hill’s letter on this subject in this issue. I tried to do this Waley Cohen described Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, 2 without attempting a comprehensive definition, but by the Seridei Eish, as ‘ultra-orthodox’. Yet today, in light of describing some of the ways in which this hashkafa might his commitment to modern scholarship and his teshuvot manifest itself in practice: Hallel on Yom Ha’atsmaut, on mixed singing and the celebration of Benot Mitsva, holding a Simhat Bat, and so forth. Amongst other he is considered one of the spiritual fathers of Modern feedback, I heard two opposing objections; some felt I had Orthodoxy. not gone far enough, while others felt I had gone too far! The same Robert Waley Cohen protested at around the A number of people argued that I should have tried to same time that his brand of orthodoxy in Anglo-Jewry was define Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionism fully being overtaken by ultra-orthodoxy. He cited as evidence and rigorously. An equal and opposite reaction came the pressure to close shops at the time when Shabbat Degel is a publication of the Alei Tzion Community | aleitzion.co.uk from those who disliked any attempt to define Modern began on a Friday afternoon, however early, rather than LSJS Schaller House | 44a Albert Road | London | NW4 2SJ | [email protected] close them at six o’clock.3 It is unlikely that anyone today 4 DEGEL: TORAH AND JEWISH StUDIES FROM ALEI TZION | 5 would claim that orthodoxy was compatible with keeping coterminous. A Jew is first of all a Jew, sans phrase. author’s one hundred and fiftieth birthday. Tevye is at heart businesses open until well into the hours of darkness on a If, further, he styles himself ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Liberal’, a mystic forced to work for a living. The same could not be Friday. he should regard the adjective as referring to that said of the masters of commerce Ben Vos discusses in his aspect of Judaism which he and his friends desire analysis of the Jewish impact on British business. If we turn to our own labels of choice, we can find to emphasise, not as separating him and his friends examples of their use far removed from our religious from other Jews. The adjective is domestic: its Many of the articles in this edition are concerned in one philosophy. In 1897 Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler preached purpose is to keep his special duty before his eyes, way or another with rescue and redemption: Shimon 4 a sermon entitled Religious versus political Zionism. It not to endow him with a mark of superiority.’ Hatsaddik’s salvation of traditional Judaism in the face was by no means an appeal for a Mizrahi as opposed of the Greek challenge. The deliverance of Nineveh form to a secular Zionist approach. The ‘religious Zionism’ destruction by an unwilling Yona. The longing for Erets Adler advocated was no more than an adherence to the In that spirit, Degel presents its second edition comprised Yisrael of R. Nahman and the Religious Zionists. Tevye’s traditional belief in the Messiah and continued prayer of articles dedicated to the study of the Torah and Jewish escapist day dreams and our hopes expressed in prayer. for his coming and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Adler life. The Jewish people’s condition as an exiled nation of ruled out any practical measures associated with Herzl’s outsiders, enabling some of its members to shake up the programme. By this definition Neturei Karta qualify as In the fiftieth year since the death of the State of Israel’s commercial status quo. The memory of our Redemption religious Zionists. first Chief Rabbi, R. Warren Kaye presents an annotated from Egypt, which we trust will soon be overshadowed by translation of a short essay by Chief Rabbi Yitshak HaLevi one that is even greater. A fitting theme for what I hope Herzog on Shimon Hatsaddik. R. Herzog discusses the will be for all a hag kasher vesameah. A Jew is first of all a Jew, sans complex relationship between Torah and Greek wisdom. In that spirit Tikva Blaukopf fuses insights of the Vilna — BEN ElTON phrase. Gaon and parallels in Athenian Tragedy to come to a better understanding of Sefer Yona. As for ‘Modern Orthodox’, Rabbi Oscar Fasman, former R. Herzog was both Modern Orthodox and a Religious Endnotes Rosh Yeshiva of the Hebrew Theological College in Zionist. Simon Levy explores the complex relationship 1. Jewish Chronicle 3 September 1915, 26 Chicago, reports that in the 1940s the term was used between these hashkafot through their historical 2. M Shapiro, Between the Yeshiva world and Modern in America to describe synagogues that were basically development and in their current form. Religious Zionism Orthodoxy (1999), 134 traditional but where there was mixed seating. To confuse is just one expression of the love for the Land of Israel that 3. B Homa, A fortress in Anglo-Jewry (1953), 14-15 matters further, synagogues which retained the mehitsa has burned in the heart of the Jewish people for millennia. 4. JC 15 October 1897, 13 5 were called ‘traditional’. The Rav discusses the attitude of one of the great Jewish 5. OZ Fasman, ‘Historical reminiscence: After fifty thinkers of recent centuries, R. Nahman of Breslov, to years, an optimist’ American Jewish History 69:2 (De- So much for the pitfalls involved in using religious labels, Erets Yisrael, and finds themes that the great thinkers of cember 1979), 162 but should they be discarded as completely without Religious Zionism, notably Rav Kook, would later develop. 6. H Loewe, ‘Introduction’ to A Rabbinic Anthology ed. merit? In 1938 Herbert Loewe, the Reader in Rabbinics at CG Montefiore and H Loewe, (London, 1939) lix-lx Cambridge stated his view, which, more than seventy years Chief Rabbi JH Hertz told the congregation at the 7. JH Hertz, Affirmations of Judaism (Oxford 1927), 35 later, stands up extremely well:6 Bayswater Synagogue on shevi’i shel Pesah 1926: ‘Judaism embraces the whole of life...Judaism is far more than a ‘Labels are a great convenience: they prevent creed or a theology...Judaism is a religious civilization – a luggage from going astray. But labels and luggage spiritual culture aglow with a passion for righteousness. It are not synonymous: if the luggage gets lost has its own language, literature, history, customs and social and the labels, sans luggage, are delivered, the institutions.’7 Guided by that broad vision we present here passenger is not unreasonably discontented. Jewish studies in their fullness. One the one hand, Yair Labels, therefore, are admittedly of the highest Blumenfeld traces the mitsva of zekher yetsiat mitsrayrim importance, but the sphere of their importance and its understanding from the Mishna to the Aharonim.