Interview with Professor Lawrence Kaplan Interview with Professor Lawrence KaplanConducted by Baruch Pelta on December 22, 2008 at the 40th Association for Jewish Studies ConferenceTranscribed Using the Services of Olivia WiznitzerCo-edited by Lawrence Kaplan and Baruch Pelta Lawrence Kaplan received his BA from Yeshiva College, his MA and PhD from Harvard University, and his rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He has taught at McGill University since 1972, and is currently Professor of Rabbinics and Jewish Philosophy in its Department of Jewish Studies. In the spring of 2004 he held a Harry Starr Fellowship at the Center for Jewish Studies of Harvard. Baruch Pelta is a senior at Touro College South majoring in Jewish Studies. Olivia Wiznitzer is the Editor-in-Chief of “The Observer,” the Stern College for Women and Sy Syms undergraduate student newspaper. Olivia may be reached at [email protected] for those interested in contacting her. I have conducted two semi-formal interviews with Dr. Kaplan. While both interviews were conducted simply out of personal interest, I believe the latter will be of interest to Judaic Studies scholars, especially those who are interested in how Orthodoxy has developed. What follows is an edited transcript of said interview with footnotes. Although I meant to focus this conversation around his scholarly opinions about the rise of Daas Torah in Orthodoxy, we were able to discuss other topics within Dr. Kaplan’s realm of expertise as well. –BP Baruch Pelta: I guess my first question has to be if you changed your position since writing your famous essay on Daas Torah [1] and also, has Daas Torah evolved as a conception since then? Lawrence Kaplan: It’s an interesting question. I pretty much stumbled upon the subject- here’s a little prehistory. When Rav Hutner’s article on the Holocaust appeared in the Jewish Observer, it upset me greatly [2]. Oftentimes, things that get you angry turn out to be productive (similar to my being upset with Rabbi Meiselman’s article on the Rav [3] which led to my writing “Revisionism and the Rav” [4]). Most of my article in Tradition was really a critique of Rav Hutner’s basic position on the Holocaust—mainly a historical critique, but also somewhat of a theological critique [5]. While Rav Hutner himself did not refer to his article as a Daas Torah perspective on the Holocaust, the editors of the Jewish Observer did. So just at the very end of my Tradition article, I decided to raise some issues about Daas Torah in a somewhat critical vein. Despite the rather tentative and preliminary nature of my remarks on the subject, it seems they received a fair amount of attention. Therefore, when YU was having a symposium on “Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy,” the very first Orthodox Forum, the organizors asked me to give a full-blown talk on the subject, which obviously required a good deal of work on my part. And, actually, I have a later Hebrew version of the article, where I elaborate upon some things I write in my English version, correct a few errors of mine – something I attributed to the Meiri was not really by the Meiri – and update a few comments here and there [6]. But what I want to emphasize is that, as I explicitly state in my article, I wasn’t putting forward my own positive view of rabbinic authority. I was more criticizing the idea of Daas Torah as I think it’s popularly presented in the Haredi world. Some people might have misunderstood me to mean that I believe that all rabbis should speak only about pots and pans and should not have any say on communal matters. I never said that. And the other point which I made in my article is that I’m not sure if there’s necessarily throughout Jewish history one view of the limits and scope of rabbinic authority. Moreoever, I acknowledged the traditional rabbinic authority accorded to the rabbi who is the rav of the kehillah – actually I may have done this more in my Hebrew article, based on a reference that Professor Marc Shapiro pointed out to me – where the rav of the kehillah, by virtue of being rav of thekehillah , is granted a good deal of extra-halakhic authority on general communal issues. But even with respect to the rav of a kehillah, it’s not so clear – if you look at the Vaad Arba Aratzot, the laypeople oftentimes kept the rabbis on a short leash. If you look at the community in Amsterdam, it was the lay figures who put Spinoza in Cherem. Not the rabbis. Even though there were some prominent rabbis there at the time. To repeat, a lot of times, even in term of rabbis of communities – certainly in the Middle Ages and early modern times – lay leaders played quite a great role. Now the Rashba, on the other hand –but again, he was the official head of the community – obviously played a major role in the Maimonidean Controversy. But it should be pointed out that other people weren’t afraid to disagree with him, even though they admitted his preeminent stature. Other figures weren’t afraid to take issue with him, obviously respectfully, but they weren’t afraid to take issue with him. The idea of Daas Torah, as a charismatic notion of rabbinic authority, is something different. It doesn’t come out of nowhere, so it’s not yeish me-ayin. But, as I and others see it, it is an expanded view of traditional conceptions of rabbinic authority, precisely because of greater challenges in the modern period to rabbinic authority. And the classical sources which have been cited as support for it don’t seem to prove the larger claims made on its behalf. One such source is the notion ofEmunas Chachamim. But it must be said that the phrase is very general; what it means is not so clear. The meaning attributed to it by the exponents of Daas Torah seems to be a late nineteenth century development, imported from the Hasidic view of the Rebbe. The source cited most often in support of the notion of Daas Torah, and which I focused on most in my article, is Lo Sasur. As I pointed out, according to most authorities it applies only to the Beis Din Hagadol. I further pointed out that the view of Afilu omrin lekha al yemin shehu semol is that of the Sifre. The Yerushalmi is the other way, that only if they say yemin is yemin and semol is semol do you have to listen to them. In my article, particularly the Hebrew version, I went through all the different ways how different scholars try to reconcile the two sources. The authority who seems to be the key figure for the exponents of Daas Torah is the Sefer HaChinuch — he’s the one who applies the Sifre generally to Chachmei HaDor. But the Sefer HaChinuch’s view is more of a practical view; you have to submit to the authority of Chachmei HaDor not because they necessarily have such great understanding, but just because otherwise you’re going to have chaos and anarchy. So it’s a more practical view. So what I suggested is that the modern view of Daas Torah – again, I’m not saying it was made out of whole cloth – is arrived at by taking the idea of the Sefer HaChinuch applying Lo Sasur to all Chachmei HaDor and combining that with the view of the Ramban who talks about the Beis Din Hagadol’s great understanding and how God will protect them from error, etc [7]. Part of the problem in writing a critique of the concept of Daas Torah is that it is a moving target; people keep on defining it differently. When people are oftentimes defending it, they define it more modestly: it’s a limited notion, we’re not saying the “gedolim” are infallible, maybe there’s a plurality of views that are Daas Torah, but obviously rabbis should have some say on broader communal issues, etc. There was an exchange in The Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society between me and Rabbi Alfred Cohen — where if I understood him correctly, he proposed this type of scaled-down notion of Daas Torah [8]. And if that is all that is meant by it, I’m not sure if I would necessarily disagree that much. But what I find is that when it’s actually used in the rhetoric of the Haredi world, it’s used to make rather extreme claims. First of all, despite the idea of the plurality of Daas Torah, it’s pretty clear to me that originally within the Agudah circles, it was used to legitimate the Haredi world and to delegitimate the Modern Orthodox. BP: You’re saying now or back then? LK: Certainly there was no pluralism in Rav Shach‘s use of Daas Torah in his harsh critique of Rav Soloveitchik [9], and I think that’s the way it’s still generally used. And the second thing is that it really is used to stifle dissent and any type of criticism. I think the example of Rabbi Slifkin is the key example. It’s really clear to me that initially many prominent American Roshei Yeshiva were upset at the way he was treated. I just reread the original ban on Rabbi Slifkin [10] and was struck by the extremity of the language, almost the violence of the language — kefirah, minus, afrah le-pumei, it’s just such a terrible book, etc.