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THE JEWISH OBSERVER (ISSN) 0021-6615 is published monthly except July and August by the Agudath Israel of America, 84 William Street, New York, N.Y. 10038. Periodicals postage paid in New York, N.Y. Subscription $24.00 per year; two years, $44.00; three years, $60.00. Outside of the United States (US funds drawn on a US bank only) $12.00 surcharge per year. Single copy $3.50; foreign $4.50. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Observer, 84 William Street, N.Y., N.Y. 10038. Tel: 212-797-9000, Fax: 212-269-2843. Printed in the U.S.A.

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November 2000 VOLUME XXXl!l/NO. 9

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Tishrei 5761 •November 2000 U.S.A.$3.50/Foreign $4.50 •VOL XXXI!l/NO. 9

Israel on the Brink, Yonason Rosenblum

IN THE PATHWAYS OF BRISK

A Tribute to Rabbi Binyamin Paler ':>'Yl,

Rabbi Avrohom Birnbaum

A PARADIGM OF BRtSK

A Talmid Remembers Rabbi Binyamin Paler ':>"Yl,

Rabbi Moshe Einstadter

The Call of Shmitta, Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon

Jew vs. Jew: Cracks in the American Mosaic, Eyton Kobre

SECOND LOOKS

Let the Readers Beware, Rabbi Pinchas Jung

Letters-to-the Editor

I. THE DEEPENING CRISIS

((Israel's position today is worse than in 1973, when it was attacked by concerted Arab

armies, worse than when Egypt mobi­lized in 1967, worse than in 1948, when Arabs rejected the U.N. partition of Palestine ... and sent arinies to kill Israel;' writes George Will, perhaps America's most respected political corr1-

mentator. Then, at least, Israel was con­fident of the legitimacy of its positions. That confidence has been squandered over the seven plus years of the Oslo process, which, according to Will, has succeeded in "delegitimizing all previ­ous positions ... and destroying the absolute prerequisite for successful negotiations-the insistence that some­thing is nonnegotiable."

Will correctly identifies the greatest crisis in Israel today as one of the spir­it. The question still to be answered is whether the renewal of the intifada on Erev Rosh Hashana will provide the nec­essary shock therapy or only deepen the crisis.

-----···-----· Yonason Rosenblum who lives in Jerusalem is a contributing editor to The Jewish Observer. He is also director of the Israeli division of Am Echad, the Agudath Israel-inspired educational outreach effort and 111edia resource.

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The Scales Have Dropped

I

t wonld be hard to overstate the degree to which Israel's Jews, espe­cially ardent supporters of the Oslo

process, have been traumatized by the sustained eruption of violence since Erev Rosh Hashana. Janet Aviad, a leader of Peace Now, describes the peace process she and her colleagues advocated as "ended" and the peace camp as "not real­ly relevant."

Consider the psychological distance that believers in the ''peace process" tra­versed in a n1atter of days. I-1irsch Good­man's lead column for the October 10 issue of the JerusalC'rn Report, confident­ly prononnced that peace has already been achieved, with only a fevv lechnical details left to be worked out. The com­plex web of interpersonal relationships developed over the past seven years ensured, in his opinion, that another intifada was no longer a possibility.'

By that October 10 cover date, Israelis had already endured 12 days of ongoing violence, in which they found themselves unable to travel freely within or without

l T\vo issues later, CoodnMn bid adieu to that web of relationships and concluded, "\Vhat is needed is separation between then1 and us. lsrad on one side of the border and Palestine on the other."

Yonason Rosenblum

the Green Line. Residents of Upper Nazareth were unable to leave the city for almost the entire period; the Wadi Ara highway, one of the major thoroughfares traversing the Lower Galilee was closed for days by Israeli Arabs rioting in Umm-al-Fahm; and a motorist was killed by a boulder dropped on his car as he drove on the main coastal highway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. The Tunnel Highway from the Gush Etzion bloc, which according to the most far-reach­ing Israeli offers to date would still remain within Israel, was also closed on an almost daily basis due to stone-throwing and shooting. The situation of Jews living in Judea and Samaria and near the Gaza strip was even worse.2

Nor were Tel Aviv and Jernsalem spared: Shots were heard in Jaffa and the Jernsalem neighborhood of Gilo came nnder heavy and constant fire. 3 By open­ing his jail doors to Hamas and Islam­ic Jihad terrorists, Arafat gave the green light for renewed terrorist actions

2 The ability of the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, in some cases using firearms stockpiled over the past seven years and supplied by Israel, to com­pletely disrupt transportation throughout Israel gave a chilling taste of what they could do to pre­vent rapid Israeli mobilization in the event of a full-.srale war \Vith neighboring Arab states. That rapid mobilization has always been at the heart of Israeli defense doctrine.

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

throughout Israel, and effectively declared every Jew an open target.

During that same 12-day period, the IDF stood by helpless while a soldier bled to death over a period of five hours at Yosef's Tomb from a bullet wound. A week later the IDF evacuated the Tomb, which was promptly destroyed, along with sifrei kodesh, by Palestinian mobs. That same mob killed Rabbi Hil­lel Lieberman, who had rushed towards Yosef's Tomb to save the sifrei kodesh, and dumped his body in a nearby cave.

The savagery with which the mobs attacked Yosef's Tomb ominously fore­shadowed the scene less than a week later when another Palestinian mob killed two IDF reservists, who inadver­tently entered Ramallah, and continued to tear at them and stomp on them long after they were dead.

On the Northern border, Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers, in the type of daring action for which the IDF was once famed. Despite Prime Minis­ter's promise after Israel's May with­drawal from Lebanon that Israel would respond disproportionately to any bor­der incursions, the IDF found itself with its hands tied and no response was forth­coming.

Israeli Arabs also rioted. Thirteen Israeli Arabs were killed in violent clashes with police. In recognition of the threat posed by Israeli Arabs, the IDF began fortifying Jewish settlements in the North against attack by their Israeli Arab neighbors.

Israel Jews across the political spec­trum were shocked by the fury direct­ed at them by both Israeli Arabs and the Palestinians. Just weeks before the gov­ernment had told the IDF that it would have to make due with a second straight year of budget cuts. Now Israel was in an ongoing shooting war with no end 3 As this is written, nearly a inonth later, buses are still driving through Gilo at night with their lights off, and the streets are empty by 6:00 p.nl. because of the nightly sniper fire from nearby Beit Jala. After a four hour gun battle between Il)F troops and attack helicopters and snipers in Beit Jala on Novcn1ber l, Culture Minister Matan Vil­nai, a fonner deputy chief of staff, urged Israelis to "keep things in perspective." The Palestinians are only shooting at the Southern border of Gilo, not all of it, he pointed out.

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

in sight. At last, it dawned on Israeli Jews that the problem in Palestinian eyes is not, as George Will put it, "that Israel is being provocative, but that Israel's being is provocative."

Seventy percent of Israelis, admitted that they were apprehensive about the very future of the State. A Ma'ariv car­toon caught the national mood. Next to a tombstone over Yosef's Tomb, were

•

"Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Wherev­er you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them - and those who stand behind them:" Israelis were aghast, but as Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert commented dryly the only shocking thing about the "sermon" was our shock. Palestinian Media Watch, MEMRI (Middle East Media Research

Beilin explains his commitment to Oslo, "I can't live in a world in which peace is impossible." That is a statement

of faith not realpolitik. Messianic movements are rooted in despair and the Israeli peace movement is no exception.

several other dug graves marked Rachel's Tomb, the 10mb of the Patri­archs, the Temple Mount, and finally, the State of Israel.

Suddenly left-wing columnists, like Dan Margalit and Ben-Dror Yemini, sounded indistinguishable from their right-wing counterparts. They referred to the Israel Arab population as a sus­pected "fifth column" and warned dark­ly of the possible necessity of transfer­ring the residents of Umm-al-Fahm outside of Israel's borders.

Evidence Ignored

Evidence of the deep-seated emni­ty that boiled to the surface had long been available. At the height

of the crisis, Israel TV broadcast a ser­mon by the former rector of the Islam University of Gaza in which he railed, 4 The New York Times reported the speech, but reporter William Orne Jr. quoted only a relatively innocuous statement by the iman that Jews are all alike, whether they belong to Labor or Likud.

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5 Mayor Olmert caustically noted that the Israeli n1edia recently spent a week on Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef's views on transn1igration of souls, a sub­ject of no in1n1ediate impact on the daily lives of Israel's citizens, and yet had shown hardly any interest in the continuing incite1nent against Je\VS and Israel by the official Palestinian Authority media. Nachu1n Barnea, one of Israel's leading

Institute), and Israel Media Resources (monitoring Palestinian radio broadcasts) have been supplying reams of compara­ble material, much of it from official Palestinian Authority organs, for years.5

Within months of signing the orig­inal Oslo Accords, Yasir Arafat called for a "jihad" for Jerusalem before an Ara­bic-speaking audience in South Africa; he eulogized Yihye Ayyash, the man responsible for the deaths of nearly a hundred Israelis in suicide bombings, as a "holy martyr"; he repeatedly remind­ed Arab audiences that Mohammed too had entered into treaties with infidels only to abrogate those treaties when he was capable of defeating them militar­ily. For years the Palestinian Authority has run summer camps for thousands of youngsters, some as young as eight years old, in which they receive training in terror activities against Jews.6

c{)lumnist and not so111eone suspected of right­wing leanings, accused some of the prominent reporters on Palestinian matters of showing "absolute support for the Palestinians." He cited their failure to report Palestinian inciten1ent, their downplaying of shooting and fire-bon1bings by Fatah militia, and even their credulity with respect to the Palestinian version of the Ramallah lynching.

6 The PA advertisen1ent for the sun1mer camps, broadcast on official television, show paran1ili­tary training to d1ants of"My children, n1y chil­dren are in the suicide squad.

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Seven years after Oslo!, not one offi­cial map of the Palestinian Authority or in the Palestinian textbooks even men­tions Israel. PA television continues to educate Palestinian children that all of Israel - Acre, Jaffa, Tiberias, Jerusalem - belongs to them.

Four years ago, Nabil Sha'ath, one of Arafat's leading advisors, predicted the end of the peace process in a speech in Nahl us: At some point, the Israelis will say that they have given all they can. Then we return to war. And indeed twice before, Palestinian "policemen" and Arafat's pri­vate militias have shot at and killed Israeli soldiers and civilians: after the opening of the Temple Mount Tunnel in fall 1996 and in the spring of this year.

Even after Prime Minister Barak offered Arafat at Camp David far more than any Palestinian could have ever dreamed of receiving from Israel one year ago, not to mention seven years ago - a Palestinian state, with its capital in Jerusalem, over 90% of the West Bank, including the militarily vital Jordan Val-

ley rift, and the right of return for pur­poses of family reunification of tens of thousands of Palestinians -Arafat could not even pretend to agree to an end of the conflict. Eighty-three percent of Palestinians supported his rejection of that offer.

Arafat has not done anything to edu­cate the Palestinian population towards acceptance of Israel's right to exist. Far from encouraging a spirit of peaceful coexistence, the official Palestinian media encourages the Palestinian population in their maximalist demands. The con­stantly reinforced message of the official Palestinian media is that Palestinians have gained nothing from the Oslo process, even though 99% of the Palestinian pop­ulation is now under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

Worse, that same media legitimates violence as a means of realizing those goals. Palestinian TV broadcast on October 22 a series of interviews with women calling for weapons. "All we ask;' said one of these women, " is that the

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[Arab J countries give us weapons, and we, on our own, will ... kill them, mur­der them, slaughter them, all of them .... [W]ewon't spare a single Jew:'

Evidence of the irredentism of Israeli Arabs has also been long available. Every recent survey of the Israeli Arab popu­lation shows a remarkable shift in iden­tity over the past decade: From seeing themselves as Israeli Arabs, they today overwhelmingly identify themselves first and foremost as Palestinians.

Tens of thousand of dunams of have been destroyed in fires set by Israeli Arabs in recent years. And last spring Arab students rioted at Haifa Universi­ty, chanting "Slaughter the Jews."

The 10 Knesset members from the Arab parties compete with ooe anoth­er in hurling invective at Israel and in openly identifying themselves with the Palestinian cause and against Israel. At a November 4 conference at Ber Zeit University, MK Mohammed Barakeh urged Israeli Arabs to "participate" in the armed intifada of the preceding month. Two other Arab MK's are under inves­tigation for incitement, and yet anoth­er recommended Hezbollah's Sheik Nasrallah for a Nobel Peace Prize.

II. THE SOURCE OF THE MALAISE

Secular Messianism

If Israelis, especially the elite opin­ionmakers, professed to have had their eyes opened by the renewed

intifada, it is only because they have been so resolutely closed until oow. As Ha'aretz's Ari Shavit put it, "Arafat did not mislead us, we misled ourselves."

The peace camp, writes Ha' aretz military correspondent Aluf Benn, was swept up by a "messianic belief in the peace process!' 7 From its inception, Oslo

7 To be sure, as Douglas feith shows in the Septermber 11, New Republic, some Israeli pol­icymakers viewed Oslo from the beginning as unilateral withdrawal, designed to relieve Israel from involvement in the daily lives of more than a million Palestinians. But they disguised it and sold it to the Israeli population as a process lead­ing to peace. Both the public and the authors of the policy soon found the1nselves swept up in unfulfillabe expectations.

6 The Jewish Observer, November 2000

has been less about realistic analysis of our negotiating partner than about our own illusions. Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, the chief architects of the Oslo process, have both said that they had no idea where the process was headed at the time the first Oslo Accords were signed. And Bellin explains his com1nitment to Oslo, "I can't live in a world in which peace is impossible:' That is a statement of faith not realpolitik.

Messianic movcn1ents arc rooted in despair and the Israeli peace movement is no exception.s Sabbatean fervor swept the Jewish world not long after the Chmelnitzki n1assacres, and the decision to rescue a bankrupt Arafat from the dustbin of history came against the backdrop of an ongoing intifada pitting young Israeli troops against stone­throwing Palestinians for years. The major argument advanced for the Oslo process has always been, "What's the alternative?"

Messianists proclaim a post-history in which all previous laws and rules of human nature are suspended. (That was one of the ways that supporters of Shab­batei Tzvi justified his many halachic vio­lations.) Israelis convinced themselves that the mastermind of the Ma' a lot and Coastal Highway massacres had changed his spots and was now prepared to live in peaceful coexistence with Israel.

Any information that calls into ques­tion the arrival of blissful n1essianic era is suppressed. That is why Israelis have shown so little interest in what Arafat and the Palestinians have been saying over the past seven years or in the con­stant violations of the Oslo Accords.

Though it may take a long time,9 even­tually the evidence exploding messianic illusions becomes too overwhelming for most people to sustain their hopes any longer. When Shabbetai Tzvi became an apostate to Islam, most Jews who had been swept up in messianic expectations realized they had been wrong.And most Israelis have been similarly disabused about Palestinian ambitions today.

8 The co1nparisons between today's peace n1ovc­ment and the Sabbatean outbreak arc meant only to be sugge::.tive. Needless to say, 1nany different factors led to each of the two 1novements.

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

Of course, even after Shabbatei Tzvi became an apostate to Islam, there were those who could not live without belief in his messianic mission and developed elaborate theological doctrines to jus­tify his apostasy. And the architects of the Oslo process appear to have been unfazed by the events of the past two months. In his book The New Middle East, Shimon Peres presented a vision breathtaking in its looniness of a Mid­dle East in which hotels are more vital to national defense than troops and bor­ders. On the worst day of recent fight· ing, in which three Israeli soldiers were killed, he offered increased business investment in the Palestinian econo1ny as the means to end the violence. At a memorial rally for Yitzchak Rabin, he opined that "stone-throwing" must not be allowed to stop the peace process. 10

Yossi Beilin too has yet to utter a single word suggesting that he was wrong about anything.

A Failure of National Will and its Causes

But even many who profess to be no longer be deceived about the true nature of Arafat, nevertheless

see no alternative to ongoing negotia­tions. l'hus an overwheln1ing majority of Israelis today tell pollsters that Arafat is not a trust\vorthy partner for peace while at the same time expressing their hope in the speedy resumption of negotiations. They cannot come to grips with the question: If the other side is not interested in peace, what are we going to negotiate about?

The reason is simple: the same des­peration that gave rise to Oslo in the first place can only increase in face of pre­dictions by the IDF of a second intifa­da extending into the foreseeable future, and this time against an enen1y armed with thousands of rifles and submachine guns, not just stones and Molotov cocktails.

In short, the sense of desperation reflects a profound crisis of will in Israel today. Daniel Pipes succinctly describes the situation and the danger in the Feb­ruary Commentary: "Israel today has weapons and money; the Arabs have

will ... Israel has high capabilities and low morale; the Arabs have low capa· bilities and high morale. Again and again, the record of history shows, vic­tory goes not to the side with the greater fire power, but to the side with greater determination."

Yitzchak Rabin did not belong to the messianic wing of the "peace camp:' He had to be practically pushed to take Arafat's hand on the White House lawn. Neither did Ehud Barak initially belong to that camp. As chief of staff, he was horrified when he first read the Oslo Accords, which had been concluded without consultation with the IDF. If these two military 1nen have gone along with the Oslo process of land for time, it is primarily because they believed that Israel is no longer capable of mustering the strength for a costly war. Barak has made this point explicitly several times, most recently in a ceremony con1-memorating the fallen in the Yorn Kip· pur War where he unfavorably com· pared the national spirit today to that of 1973.

Nowhere was this national demoral­ization more evident than in the 1nan­ner in which Israel withdrew from Lebanon. The Israeli public was willing to pay any price to leave Lebanon, including the return of the entire Golan, so fixated had it become on the casual· ties in Lebanon. That fixation allowed no rational cost-benefit analysis of long· range consequences of withdrawal, espe· cially one so precipitous that it was reported around the world as a rout. Foremost among those costs was the dan­ger of emboldening our enemies with proof that the Israel can be spooked. Just as Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon warned would happen, the Palestinians have repeatedly cited Lebanon as a model for their own struggle against us.

There are many causes of that loss of national will. One of the most impor­tant, however, is the loss of Jewish iden­tity and with it of any particular mis­sion for the Jewish people.

Twenty years ago, I heard Rabbi Aharon Feldman describe the belief that "we stole the Land from the Arabs" as the worm eating away at Israel from the

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core. At the time, the statement seemed extreme. One never heard such opinions expressed Today they are commonplace. One can pick up Ha'aretz, the newspa­per of the secular elites, any day of the week, and read Amira Golan describe Israelis "as a people dwelling on anoth­er people's land ... who have not yet learned to live in peace with their neighbors;' or similar statements.

Respected Israeli academics portray Zionism as just another form of Euro­pean colonialism. The old ninth-grade Israeli history text had twenty pictures of Jewish heroism and suffering dur­ing the 1948 War of Independence. The recently introduced ninth grade text­book, by contrast, has none. The only picture connected to the War of Inde­pendence shows Palestine refugee chil­dren learning math in Jordan in 1949. Once maps of the War of Independence showed seven invading Arab armies, today they show the paths of fleeing A rahs.

Reviewing the new Israeli history texts, Hillel Halkin lamented, "There are many words missing here, the smallest of which is 'we.' Nowhere is the ninth-grader reminded that he belongs to the people he is reading about; ... nowhere that their story is his story." Shulamith Aloni, former Minister of Education, opposed trips to Auschwitz precisely on the grounds that such trips might foster a national identity in stu-

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dents. In the eyes of our intellectual elites,

Judaism itself is the enemy, because Jewish history and the age-old Jewish sense of peoplehood gave legitimacy to the idea of a Jewish state. And that state is a colonial enterprise, conceived in sin, founded upon outdated concepts of national character and mission.

To counteract that sense of nation­hood, the new history texts emphasize Jewish communities as distinct from one another and heavily influenced by the surrounding gentile society. The bonds of language and law that joined Jews across the globe to one another are downplayed. The first time that the Jews are introduced in the new world history text is as a Greek vassal state.

No wonder that a recent World Health Organization study found that Israeli teenagers were the least happy in the developed world. They have been stripped of any sense of themselves as part of the chain of Jewish history, as part of a nation with a historic mission.

1'he loss of any sense of ourselves as a people has left us unable to compre­hend our enemies. Having lost our love of the Land, we cannot conceive that another people has not. Having lost our sense of ourselves as a people, we can­not comprehend that another people has not. Cries of "slaughter the Jews" thus come as complete shocks.

Desiring only to be left alone to enjoy our new material wealth, we convince ourselves that the Arabs want only the same, and that if we only keep the atmospherics favorable and provide enough presents, they will be satisfied.

Ill.THE WAY OUT: SOME HUMBLING LESSONS

What is Hashem Telling Us?

None of us - and certainly not the author of these words - can state with confidence the sig­

nificance of the events currently taking place in Eretz Yisrael. But when a fate­ful sequence of events begins on Erev Rosh Hashanah, with attacks on wor­shippers at Judaism's most sacred site,

we can be sure that there is a message directed specifically at those of us attuned to seeing Hashem's guiding Hand in the events of history.And when the tension only increases throughout the Asseres Yemei Teshuva to the point that Israelis are being advised to leave their radios tuned to a silent station on Yorn Kippur in case of the outbreak of war, we know that something is being demanded from us, and not just from the non-religious Jews, even if we can­not say with assurance what it is.

It was with that in mind that the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America issued a heartfelt cry urging all Jews to do everything within their power "to arouse Divine mercy;' in all the ways that have always marked our people: increased Torah study, prayer, and deeds of lovingkindness.

The significance of the timing is obvi­ous for another reason as well. One month before the outbreak of the new intifada, Prime Minister Barak announced a "secular revolution." Among the items promised were pub­lic transportation and El Al flights on Shabbos, civil marriage and burial, a sec­ular constitution, and removal of the line for nationhood from the national iden­tity card.

Barak's secular revolution was a reversion to his election strategy of run­ning against the haredim. If, as Dr. John­son said, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels in most democracies, attack­ing the haredim plays the same role in Israeli democracy. Barak was appealing to Israel's "best and brightest" who, according to the media, were rapidly concluding that Israel was no longer a tolerable place to live because of the haredim.

The secular revolution was one of the first victims of the new intifada." Sud­denly it did not appear to be quite so rel-

9 Western intellectuals - Lenin's "useful idiots" ~for instance, retained their belief in the Sovi­et Union as mankind's best hope despite the star­vation of n1illions of kulaks during the Soviet Union's forced collectivization in the '20s. (Here too much of the evidence was suppressed.) Many continued to hold on to their faith through the Moscow Show Trials and even the Molotov­Ribbentrop Pact.

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

evant. In the face of Palestinian bullets, hareditn no longer seemed so "intolera­ble:' After years of preoccupation with the high chareidi birthrate, Israelis sudden­ly began worrying about the even high­er Israeli Arab birthrate, and the impli­cations of having one-fifth of our citizens) whose votes can determine all but the most one-sided election, openly identi­fying \vitJ1 our enemies. At least chareidi children don't yell, "Death to the Jews:'

After a month of debating whether a few buses would run to the beach on Shab/Jos, Israelis suddenly found them­selves thinking twice every time they conte1nplatcd taking a bus, due to repeated "\Varnings about likely terror­ist attacks.

It is natural for religious Jews to sec in the close proximity of the renewed intifada to the announcen1ent of the secular revolution as a clear expression of Divine wrath over the secular rev­olution. Catastrophes have struck Israel before in the wake of attacks on the religious fabric of the State. The Yo1n Kippur War is one such example.

But there was more to the ti1ning of events than that. Hashem seemed to be pointing directly at the loss of our national identity as Jews as the source of our trials. Destroying that identity was precisely the goal of the secular revolution.

"fhere is an inverse relationship between our attachn1ent to our roots as a nation and the Palestinians sense of themselves as a nation - as our attachment wanes, theirs waxes. On Shabbos Shuva, the day Yosef's Tomb was destroyed, we read in parashas Ha'azinu, "You provoked me with a non-god, ... and I will provoke you with a non-nation."

By all measures, Israeli society has become increasingly hedonistic and n1aterialistic in recent decades. The old collective values have been supplanted by the pursuit of individual pleasure. Not only has much of the society turned from Hashem, but it has turned to the worship of things without even the pretense of holiness, the "non­gods" of money and pleasure.

"fhc same period has also witnessed

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

the creation of a nation fro1n a "non­nation." During 19 years of Jordanian rule of the West Bank, no calls for an independent Palestinian state were heard because there was no Palestinian people- no unique language, no unique culture. During that period, Jerusalem continued to be what it has always been in Islam - a relatively minor site. No Arab leaders made pilgrimages to the Al­Aksa mosque.

Today all that has changed. At Camp David, it was Arafat who lectured Barak on the significance of Jerusalem. A Pales­tinian national identity and mythology, embracing Israeli Arabs as well, has been forged from appropriated parts of our own discarded history.

The Arabs have no trouble compre­hending the relationship between Jews' declining connections to their roots and the flowering of their own national aspi­rations. Palestinian national fervor has been fueled hy the loss of our own national identity. Sallah Tamari, a Pales­tinian parlian1entarian, related to Israeli journalist Aharon Barnea a dramatic transfonnation in his thinking that took place when he was an Israeli security prisoner.

While in jail, he noticed his Jewish warder eating pita during Pesach. When he asked him how he could do such a thing, the Jewish guard replied,"] feel no obligation to events that took place

over 3,000 years ago:' Until then, Tamari had concluded

that Israel was too powerful and that the Palestinians would never realize any of their territorial dreams. But that night he could not sleep. All night he thought to himself, "A nation whose members have no connection to their past, and are capable of so openly transgressing their most important laws - that nation has cut off all its roots to the Land:'

From then on, he determined "to fight for everything- not a percentage, not such crumbs as the Israelis might throw us - but for everything. Because opposing us is a nation that has no con­nection to its roots."

A Midrash hints at another aspect of our struggle with the descendants of Yishmael. Yishmael boasted to Yitzchak Avinu that his bris was more praise­worthy than Yitzchak's because he was thirteen years old at the time, not a mere eight days. Yitzchak replied that he would be willing to give up his life if Hashem de1nanded it. 'fhat was the pre­lude for Akeidas Yitzchak.

The /Jris is the sign of Hashem's covenant with the descendants of Avra­ham A vi nu. The argument between Yish­mael and Yitzchak was thus over which one of them was the true heir of the Divine promises to Avraham, including the promise of the Land. And both understood that the answer would turn

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on rnesiras nefesh, on the intensity of their desire to be Avrahani Avinu's true heir.

For three thousand years, Jews have been the exemplars of mesiras nefesh in the world. No people has willingly suf­fered more for their belief in G-d. Yet today it is the Palestinians who have become the symbol of religious devo­tion. We may not understand how Palestinian parents, descendants of Yishmael, can eagerly send their chil­dren to risk their lives shielding Pales­tinian gunmen. But they do. And we must acknowledge the intensity of belief in an afterlife that causes them to so blithely court martyrdom.

If we are to combat them, our own emuna must burn with the same intensity that it once did - not as words learned by rote, but as something reflected in everything we do. When we lose our connection to Hashem's covenant with Avraham Avinu, our safety in the Land promised to Avra­ham is endangered. That covenant was based on Avraham's co1nmitment that his descendants would follow in his path of Divine service. If we do follow that path, we are Avraham's rightful heirs. And when we don't we are a liv­ing embodiment of the rule: A nation that has no past has no future.

L.S.

The Bright Side of Adversity

If nothing else, the renewal of the intifada has been a prolonged exer­cise in humility for Israel's leaders­

indeed for all Israelis. At the end of the day, no one knows how to put a stop to the violence. 1"he Palestinians have an almost unlimited supply of eager mar­tyrs, and can therefore keep sporadic confrontations going indefinitely. The level of intensity of the conflict may rise and fall, but one day this major traffic artery will be threatened and the next day another.

Even those calling for Israel to show a stronger hand are not unmindful that Arafat may seek to provoke just such a response. A large number of Palestinian casualties might inflame the Moslem street in Egypt and Jordan to such an extent that their governments would have to choose between military con­frontation with Israel or rebellion at home.

Perhaps it is towards just such a recognition that we have no solutions and nowhere to turn except to Heaven - the Sea in front of us, the Egyptians behind - that Hashem is bringing us. The Talmud comments on the verse in IJa'azinu, "He shall relent regarding His servants when I-Ie sees that enemy

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power progresses and none is saved or assisted" (Devarim 32, 37): Moshiach will only come when the Jewish people have abandoned all hope of Redemption (Sanhedrin 97a).

Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky ?""lit

addresses the obvious problem: How can loss of faith in the Redemption bring the Redemption? He answers that the loss of faith in redemption refers to belief that the Redemption will come through natural means - e.g., that the world will take pity on us and provide us with a place to build a homeland. In other words, until we know that there is no source of Redemption other than Hashem, it will not come. We are get­ting closer to that recognition every day.

Certainly the past month has been an extended lesson in humility. Confidence in our power and the strength of our hands has been badly punctured. The first intifada showed us the limits of mil­itary power, as children with stones faced down one of the world's most power­ful armies. And the second intifada has only reinforced the lesson. The IDF could not, or would not, rescue a wounded soldier from Joseph's Tomb before he bled to death. Nadav Shragai in Ha' aretz described this as the first war in which Israel has refrained from sav­ing the lives of its citizens only in order to avoid hurting Arabs.

The IDF was forced to abandon Joseph's Tomb and has been unable to secure Rachel's Tomb so that Jews can pray there. Repeated threats and ulti­matums have been ignored without cost. ''Even ultimatums are penultimate," writes George Will. After the Ramallah lynching, IDF attack helicopters hit selected PA sites, but only after giving three hours advance warning. And that pattern has continued.

By repeatedly boasting of our mili­tary strength and then not employing it, Israel has only emboldened the Pales­tinians. For that reason, army comman­ders have been sharply critical of using attack helicopters in symbolic forays to assuage public opinion but in a way gnar­anteed to inflict mini1nal damage.

It is not only our confidence in our vaunted military power that has been

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

shattered. Our leaders' equally great belief in their high intelligence and ultra­sophisticated strategies should also have been dealt a fatal blow. For seven years, Israel's foreign policy been based on a view of diplomacy as a form of psy­chotherapy. Ily making the Palestinians feel good enough through an endless series of concessions, Israeli policy­makers assu1ned, we could create a New Middle East not so different from the European Common Market. We sized up our enemies as if looking in a mir­ror. Knowing that Bashar Assad shares our love of the Internet was enough to convince us that peace with Syria could not be far a\vay.

Now belatedly we are awakening to the realization that the Arabs are not yet our mirror image, interested only in a higher GNP and improved lifestyle.

We had sophisticated answers for everything. When the Palestinian "police;' originally slated to number no more than several thousand, grew to a 40,000 man army, and the number of firearms in the Palestinian Authority dwarfed those allowed under the Oslo Accords, we had a clever answer: Guns do not constitute an existential threat to the State oflsrael. Perhaps not. But they have proven in ore than just a threat to the lives of too many Jews.

When the PA continued to incite against Israel and Jews in its n1edia and textbooks, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak had another clever answer: It does not n1atter what Palestinians say, only what is in the signed agreements. That was like saying, "I don't care that the seller has been convicted of mail fraud five times as long as the contract price is good." Not surprisingly, what the Palestinians said, especially in Ara­bic, turned out to be far more proba­tive of their intentions and willingness to accept Israel's right to exist than did a series of agrce1ncnts, which were never enforced.

Prin1e Minister Barak has twice risked Israel's security on the basis of theories that were not only untested but could never be tested until it was too late. He offered Syria the return of the entire Golan and the Palestinians the

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

entire Jordan Valley Rift. Both had been widely considered indispensable military assets. Had Barak managed to give away all the Arab villages adjacent to Jerusalem that he had wanted to, Ramot, Pisgat Zev, and Jewish funeral processions on Har Hazeisim would now be under live fire, just like Gilo. For having endangered Israel's very exis­tence, George Will dubbed Barak "the most calamitous leader any democracy has ever had:'

The one significant accomplishment of our "sophisticated" foreign policy was the temporary boost to Israel's inter­national standing achieved by breaking every previous Israeli taboo at Camp David and making Yasir Arafat an offer reckless in its audacity. After three weeks of preening about our new inter­national prestige, it took only one film clip of I2-year-old Mohammed al­Dura being killed in crossfire between Israeli and Palestinian soldiers for Israel's international standing to plum-1net once again. One week, the Prime Minister was confident enough of Israel's international standing to offer the U.N. Security Council control over the Temple Mount, and the next week that same Council was condemning Israel for war crin1es.

Israel finds itself once again "a nation that dwells alone." Ariel Sharon's walk­ing on the Temple Mount justifies in the

world's eyes whatever Palestinian vio­lence followed. The weeks of security warnings that Arafat was planning just the kind of uprising that took place and the killing by roadside bomb of an Israeli soldier the day before Sharon's walk are ignored.

Christendom has remained mute to Arafat's claim that the Temple never stood on Har HaBayis, even though, as Cynthia Ozick wryly notes, his claim contradicts Christianity's own sacred texts. The New York Times, CNN and BBC have downgraded the Temple Mount to the "claimed site" of the first and second Temples, or simply "the Moslem compound." Gilo is no longer part of Jerusalem, but a "settlement;' the better to justify Arabs' shooting at it.

CNN, the major news source for much of the world, maintains a running body count of Palestinian's killed, mak­ing the PA's offer of $2,000 to the fam­ily of any "martyr" worth every penny invested. Once again the "shanda;' in the world's eyes, is that not enough Jews are being killed to prove our righteousness.

In The New York Times and the Los Angeles 1'imes, Jews are ahvays "ram­paging" while Arabs are inevitably "protesting," even if doing so with Molotov cocktails and submachine guns.

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A Window of Opportunity

Most Israelis have learned the lesson that we are not so strong or as wise as we

thought, though it is not yet clear if our prime minister is among them. In that newfound humility lies an opportuni­ty for the religious community.

Believers in the Oslo process have witnessed their intellectual universe collapse like a house of cards. That experience raises other questions: If I could be so wrong about where Oslo was leading, could I also be wrong about other things - including Judaism?

They will, of course, not ask the question in precisely that way, but it lurks beneath the surface. Severe dis­ruptions in one's normal routine - of which we have had plenty of late - are conducive to reexamining one's life in fundamental ways. That is why the Rambam lists changing one's resi­dence as one of the means of inspir­ing teshuva.

The real flowering of the Israeli teshuva movement did not take place after the Six Day War, when Israel was drunk with power, but rather in the wake of the Yorn Kippur War, which forced a complete reexamination of the reigning assumptions.

Israel's Jews are going through another such traumatic period today. In such a situation, people find themselves looking for answers to questions they did not know they had. There is evi­dence - albeit as yet anecdotal in nature - of Jews beginning to pray and take on certain mitzvos. They are testing the waters. A neighbor recently told me how an acquaintance active in "Palestinian rights" organizations just started light­ing Shabbos candles.

The times demand large gestures fron1 the religious com1nunity. We must be extra scrupulous about seeking opportunities for kiddush Hashem, extend our hands across the secular-reli­gious divide, and most importantly, show our fellow Jews that we are with them and not just observers of a situa­tion that does not really involve us. II

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

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I Talmud relates that after the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died, the task of passing on Torah knowledge to the next generation was left to the five remaining stu­dents ivho, through super-hu111an effort and Divine assistance, succeeded in accon1-plishing a job that would normally have taken all of their generation.

Si1nilarly, in our generation, after the great destruction of the Holocaust, when hundreds of Torah scholars who would have been the transmitters of Torah to the new generation -iv ere murdered, the task of pass­ing on Torah knowledge from the great Torah centers of Eastern Europe was left in the hands of the few great survivors. Hagaon Rav Binya1nin Paler, 7"Yr was one of those few who nu111bered a1nong the primary trans1nitters of that legacy to three generations of post-wat A1nerican stu­dents. His pctira on the Fifth of Av, 5760, marked the passing of a Torah giant of the stature of a bygone era, as well as a peda­gogue and builder of stu­dents who forged an unusually close rebbe-talmid bond with his students.

His greatness was one associat­ed with the giants of the generation in which he was raised, for he received first-hand, absorbed and transferred the unique Mesorah (tra­dition) of Brisk as he had learned it from the revered Brisker Rav, Rabbi Yitzchak Zev

Avrohom Birnbaum is an educator in Lakewood, NJ. This article is based on extensive intervievvs which the author conducted with talmidim of Rabbi Paler ?"Y'r. He wrote two other articles based on these interviews that were published in the ·weekly English-language Haniodia, to which he is a regular contributor.

14

Avrohom Birnbaum

In the Pathways of Brisk A Tribute to Rabbi Binyamin Paler J"~t

Soloveitchik, 7··on. His dedica­tion to that Mesorah was further enhanced by the hasmada (dili­gence) of Mir as he experienced it in Shanghai.

Despite his being anchored to the milieu of that great gener­ation, Rabbi Paler developed his unique peda­gogic talents to reach Anierican­born yeshiva students. He made demands froni thern, while instilling in them a loyal­ty, love and fer­

vo1· for Torah, which few other European­born, or even A1nerican-born, Roshei Yeshiva did.

GROWING UP IN BRISK

llibbi Binyamin Paler was born inety years ago in the city of risk, Poland. His father, Reb

Yitzchak, was one of the distinguished talmidei chachamim in a town renown

for its Torah scholars. Reb Yitzchak devoted his days and nights to Torah study while his wife ran a small business to support the family. He was held in such esteem that when the Rav of Brisk was not available to be sandek at a local bris, Reb Yitzchak was often asked to serve in his stead.

From childhood, Rabbi Binyamin Paler displayed a seriousness that belied his age, devoting most of his day to Torah study. As a young bachur, he learned in the Yeshiva Ketana of Brisk under its Rosh Yeshiva Reb Moshe Sokolovski, 7""1 author of the Sefer Imrei Moshe. He then became one of the prime students of the Brisker Rav, Reb Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik, under whom he spent many years as a close talmid. Undoubt­edly the Brisker Rav exerted the strongest influence on young Binyamin Paler, for Rabbi Paler lived with the image of the Rav constantly before his eyes, influ­encing his way of learning, his world­view and his yiras Sha1nayim. Just a win­dow into the depth of their relationship could be discerned from the following:

Soon after the Rav's passing, the first sefer containing his Torah thoughts was published. A student brought Rabbi Paler a still unbound copy of the sefer. He was already familiar with most of the contents, having personally heard the divrei Torah during his years in Brisk. Nevertheless, the excitement of the usually reserved Rabbi Paler was palpable, as he joyously exclaimed, "Today we should light can-

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

dies, it is akin to a Yotn 10v!" For the next week, he constantly quot­

ed the se{er, unable to part from it for even a short titne.

The Brisker Rav) in turn, recognized the unusual talents of his student. expressing enorn1ous respect for his scholarship, deep understanding and powers of explanation. At tin1es, when the Rav's students would request clarifi­cation of a "faln1udic argument, he \vould ask his student Binyamin Paler to eluci­date it, saying, "He explains it better than I do:' Upon Rabbi Paler's engagement, the Rav sent a letter to his future father-in­law, the Matersdorfer Rav, Rabbi Shmuel Eherenfeld '7'"1, wherein he wrote, "I want you to know that you are getting a chas­san who is an expert in the inajority of the volumes of Rambam:'

At the outbreak of World War II, Rabbi Paler fled Brisk, eventually join­ing the Mir Yeshiva in Vilna, making his way together with the Yeshiva across Russia, to Japan, finally reaching Shang­hai, where they spent most of the war years. He would later describe the Shanghai years, where he toiled in Torah with unusual diligence, as the most productive period of his life.

fn Shanghai, the European-born yeshiva students experienced great diffi­culty in acclimating themselves to the intense tropical heat, lvhich rose well above 100 degrees in the summer. Rabbi Paler's fellow students recount that dur­ing his learning seder he lvore a to1vel around his neck to absorb the perspira­tion caused both by the intense heat and the enorn1ous a1nount of 1nental energy that he expended while learning, By the end of the seder, the towel was dripping from both sides.

Among the many halachic questions that faced the students and faculty of the Mir Yeshiva throughout the course of the war, was the question of obeying the local governn1ent's requirement that every individual carry his identification pass at all times: Would one be permitted to "wear" the pass on Shabbos by pinning it to one's clothes before nightfall? Rabbi Yechezkiel Levenstein, 7""1, Mash­giach of the Mir, who presided over the Yeshiva during the war years, appoint-

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

ed Rabbi Paler and Rabbi Leib Malin, 7""1, to thoroughly research the problem and issue a halachic decision. Rabbi Paler recounted that he toiled for three suc­cessive nights delving into the problem before issuing a ruling that it was per­mitted, The respect that he command­ed was such that not one person con­tested the ruling in spite of the fact that Rabbi Paler was a bachur at the time.

TOILING IN TORAH - LEARNING AND TEACHING ACCORDINGLY

Not just learning Torah but actu­ally toiling in Torah, expending tremendous effort in trying to

understand the Torah in all its depth, was his very essence.

Once, Rabbi Paler, looking unusual­ly weak and pale, was approached by a close talmid who asked, "Is the Rosh Yeshiva feeling all right?" Rabbi Paler responded, "Baruch Hashem) halevei veitcr- if only this \vould continue."

Taken by surprise, the ta/mid asked for an explanation, "Does the Rosh Yeshi­va wish to continue feeling weak?n

Rabbi Paler responded, "I have nei­ther eaten nor slept norn1ally for the past three days, while trying to figure out the explanation of a difficult Tosafos, Ha/evei I should be able to continue to toil in Torah in this 1nanner."

His ko'ach hachidush (creative insight) was extraordinary. His yesodos (basic principle of Talmudic reasoning) and novel interpretations in tractates normally studied in depth in yeshivas, were quot­ed by numerous other Roshei Yeshiva.

The Rosh Yeshiva's life was a person­ification of the words of the Torah, "Va' chai bahem -you shall live by them

(the mitzvos)." Sefarim explain these words beyond their literal translation: not only should one live by the mitzvos, his actual sustenance, his life and strength should be derived from them. Indeed, that Rabbi Paler's primary life force was drawn fro1n 'lbrah was clear to all who knew him.

A number of years before his petira, Rabbi Paler was struck with a serious ill­ness. To the utter astonishnzent of his doc­tors, a short titne later, he returned to his life's work of developing novel Torah thoughts and teaching his many students, The Rosh Yeshiva matter-of-factly stated, "Tf Hashem presented me with a gift -additional years of life - I must at least use it to be mechadesh Torah,"

THE REBBI-TALMTD RELATIONSHIP

In 1946, Rabbi Paler immigrated to the United States where he joined the Mirrer KolleL The following year, he

joined the staff of Yeshiva Chasan Sofer, whose Rosh Yeshiva, the Matersdorfer Rav, Rabbi Shmuel Ehrenfeld, ?·"1, had taken hi1n as a son­in-law, He later assumed the posi­tion of Rosh Yeshi­va there. Thus began his lifelong career as an educa­tor who left an indelible imprint on his talmidim. In dealing with his talmidim, Rabbi Paler adhered to the educational The Briskt'r Ral'':>"::ii

philosophy of Brisk, fostering an atmos­phere of awe for the rebbi. Thus, despite

15

the extremely intimate bond between Rabbi Paler and his students, his love and affection for them were often hard to dis­cern, hidden as they were by the yiras hakavod that he wished to instill in them. Those who studied under Rabbi Paler for an extended period of time learned to understand and recognize the deep feel­ings oflove, cloaked as they were by awe.

Once, a talmid was invited to join the Rosh Yeshiva in his home for a Shabbos meal. Upon his arrival, Rabbi Paler, in contrast to his usually stern "Rosh Yeshi­va mask," greeted him as a guest, exud-

ing warmth and love. The student found it hard to comprehend that this warm, friendly individual was his Rosh Yeshiva.

Despite the general perception that sternness can turn students away, he somehow managed to draw his students close. At the chanukas habayis (dedi­cation) of his own yeshiva, Mekor Chaim, his father-in-law, the Maters­dorfer Rav, commented, "I have never seen a rebbe whose talmidim are so attached to him as to Rabbi Paler:'

Indeed, the Rosh Yeshiva saw himself as the spiritual father of his students. One

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had to witness the war1nth and love en1a­nating from him when he participated in the simcha of a student. It truly looked as though he was participating in a fam­ily simcha. Even during his last months, when each step was difficult, Rabbi Paler, despite many attempts to dissuade him, tried his utmost to attend the wed­dings of talmidim and their children.

He so prided himself on being a rebbe to his talmidim that he would often say, "I am a melamed." He did not choose to identify himself with the more pres­tigious title of Rosh Yeshiva because to his mind, there was no more distin­guished assignment than to be a melamed - a teacher of Torah.

Along the same lines, Rabbi Paler was very particular to conceal his personal halachic stringencies (many of which were adopted in Brisk) from his stu­dents. He felt that his students should first and foremost learn fron1 him how to study Torah and properly analyze Tal­mudic topics; copying his stringencies might sidetrack them from their pri­mary goal. In addition, he took pride in encouraging his students not to abandon their own family minhagim in their zeal to emulate him.

He succeeded in knowing each of his taln1idim, assessing with uncanny abil­ity and accuracy each of their individ­ual natures and thought patterns. He was then able to teach and advise them according to their specific needs. For this reason, it was not uncommon for Rabbi Paler, when approached by two students for advice in relation to a sim­ilar problem, to dispense different advice to each, reflecting their individual needs.

Rabbi Paler's emphasis on the intel­lectual development of his students in no way precluded his involvement in the material dimensions of their lives. Like every other aspect of Rabbi Paler's relationship with his students, his inter­est in their well-being was displayed with classic depth and sensitivity.

There was a student in the yeshiva that had suffered a bout of mononucleosis and, as a result, had lost a considerable amount of weight. Every week the Rosh Yeshiva insisted that the student call him on the phone to update him on how much

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

~

(L. to R.) Mr. Pomerantz, current Matersdorfcr Rav, Rabbi Paler, late MatersdorfCr Rav'J"!H. R' Akiva Ehrenjdd, R' Mosl1e Cohen {son-in-law)

ished his iron control so1ne­what and he davened a bit louder - could one hear him enunciate the words and wit­ness this servant of Hashem pouring out his heart and soul to his Maker.

found. After thinking for a few seconds, Rabbi Paler, responded that there was no such source. Ultimately this co1nment was confirmed with the new printing of the Frankel edition of the Rambam, where­in it was acknowledged that there had been a printing mistake in earlier editions of the Kessef Mishna regarding this alleged source. weight he had gained back.

Another case in point: Many years ago one of Rabbi Paler's talmidim lost his father at a young age. A short while after the shiva, Rabbi Paler returned to the home of the widow, where he spent close to an hour talking with her, encouraging her to carry on. Only later did she dis­close how after the shiva, she had been feeling completely alone and forlorn ... until the visit of Rabbi Paler, which lift­ed her spirits, giving her the boast that she so desperately needed to continue n1an­

aging her family, alone.

HIS VARIOUS VEHICLES FOR IMPARTING LESSONS

Kbbi Paler's main educational ehicle for transmitting his 1ethodology of learning, and

actually molding and sharpening the minds of his students, was through his shiurim. That was how he taught 1orah. His teaching of yiras Shanzayint, on the other hand, vvas done n1ore infonnally - more through personal example than lessons. In general, he did not give mus­sar in the conventional manner. Rather than fiery mussardiscourses, he preferred that his students try to emulate him. There was no mistaking the trembling and fear of sin that permeated his entire being at the mere thought of inadver­tently stun1bling or transgressing. In fact, his iron resolve not to stumble 1nade n1ore of an in1pact on his students than any n1ussar shniuess could have.

An even stronger lesson was derived from just observing his daily tefi/los. To the casual onlooker, Rabbi Paler looked like a soldier, standing ramrod straight, completely in control, with barely a movement during the course of his prayers. Only when one came closer -particularly in his later years, when his weakened physical condition dimin-

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

There were, however, times when Rabbi Paler did give a mussardis­course. It was not in the conventional n1anner normally prevalent in yeshivas. Rather, it bore the stamp of his unique personality. Each of his discourses dis­played profound depth. Many of his talks were based on the teachings of the Maharal. (Rabbi Paler once related that, as a young bachur, he had come across the Maharal's sefer Nesivos Olam in his father's library. After learning it from cover to cover, he became especially attached to the sefarim of the Maharal.)

"His shmuessen were so multi­faceted," said one student from a Chas­sidic background, "that they appealed to all of the bachurim, whether their paths in Avodas Hashe1n revolved around Chassidus or Mussar. His shntuessen encompassed both."

Rabbi Paler had instant recall of all of Shas and Rambam at his fingertips. His rnemory of the entire 10rah vvas put ta the test when a student approached him asking where a source in the Mechilta, quoted by the Kessef Mishna, the prime commentary on the Ran1ban1, could be

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His awesome memory was such that he seemed to have never forgotten anything he had learned.

Once, two students, on their way to visit their rebbe on Chol Hamoed Succos, began a discussion of an interesting question concerning the kashrus of an esrog, which one of them had seen in the sefer, Hameir La'olam. They decided that during their visit they would pose the question to the Rosh Yeshiva. Rabbi Paler, upon hearing the question, closed his eyes in concentration: "1Vhen I was a bachur about sixty years ago, I took ill and had to see a doctor in a certain town. Since no train went directly from Brisk to that town, however, I had to stop over and spend the night in another city. The pre­vious Rav of the city had written a clas­sic sefer, Hameir La' olam. While in shul that night betlveen Mincha and Maariv, I discovered a copy of the sefer, and leafed through its pages."

The talmidim sat there dumbfound­ed as Rabbi Paler recited verbatim the question they had just been discussing -

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17

and which he had seen 60 years earlier, between Mincha and Maariv at an overnight stop!

Nor did he forget his talmidim. Even after his talmidim had left Yeshi­

va, many of them continued attending shiurim that he gave to his alumni. One talmid, a regular at the "alumni shiur,"

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related, "Once in the middle of the shiur, I posed a question. The Rosh Yeshiva looked me sternly in the eye, 'You asked the same question 25 years ago in Yeshiv­as Chasan Sofer!'"

MEKOR CHAIM: FOUNTAINHEAD OF LIFE

In 1965, Rabbi Paler opened his own yeshiva in Baro Park. On the advice of some of the gedolei hador he

named the yeshiva "Mekor Chaim," for it was to serve as a source for those seek­ing to master the derech of Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk. The yeshi­va bore the indelible stamp of his per­sonality and the Mesorah that he wished to impart to his students. Thousands of students passed through Mekor Chaim and to this day, bear his unmis­takable imprint.

Another unique aspect to his yeshi­va was that former students attended a shiur or davening in the yeshiva on a reg­ular basis. Roshei Yeshiva and maggidei

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shiur were learning alongside others who were baalebattim, engaged in earning a livelihood. In Mekor Chaim there simply was no such thing as a "former student." A student of Rabbi Paler remained a student for the rest of his life, always retaining a place in the yeshiva, even decades after having left.

In 1976, Rabbi Paler opened an affiliated Mesivta for high-school-aged students, Mesivta Mekor Chaim.

** * Throughout the year, the talmidim of

Rabbi Paler looked forward to certain high points, all of which were perma­nently etched in the minds and hearts of his students.

To observe the serious demeanor of Rabbi Paler on Rosh Hashana and Yorn Kippur as he davened, supplicating his Creator like a servant before his King, to hear him clearly and meticulously enunciating each and every word, was enough to encourage anyone to con­template the gravity of these days of awe, propelling them to do teshuva and improve their conduct. One student, a prominent educator today, recalled how Rabbi Paler's yiras Shamayim was prac­tically palpable.

During the period between Kol Nidrei and Maariv on Yorn Kippur, the Rosh Yeshiva would learn Chovos Halevavos. One had to but watch how he became completely oblivious to his surroundings as he immersed himself in the mussar sefer. At that moment, he was a picture of dedication. "It was one of those moments when the sublime servant of Hashem shone through the mask oflam­danus usually worn by the Rosh Yeshiva."

Unquestionably, Simchas Torah with Rabbi Paler was the most joyous peri­od of spiritual elevation. Even as he grew older and his health deteriorated, the intense joy displayed by Rabbi Paler as he danced and clapped together with his talmidim throughout most of the night and day, was a sight to be seen and absorbed. At night, the spirited danc­ing would go on and on until the wee hours of the morning. Often his talmidim would tire, and wish to end, but not Rabbi Paler, who urged that the

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

hakafos continue despite the late hour, even in his later years, despite his poor health. The following day, the dancing would again continue until Yam Tov ended. To paraphrase the Talmud, who­ever had the fortune to witness the sim­cha of Harav Paler and his talmidim on Simchas Torah, knew what real rejoic­ing with the Torah is.

Shavuos morning also resembled a Simchas Torah of sorts. The all-night

learning session and Shacharis were fol­lowed by spirited and joyful dancing, in an uninhibited display of pure rejoicing with the Torah. The spiritual energy and simcha emanating from Rabbi Paler on the day of Kabbalas Ha Torah was contagious.

This re1narkable tabnid chacham not

only served as a bridge to a bygone era of greatness in Torah and

Avodas Hashem, but succeeded in imbu-

ing future generations with a sense of that greatness, and provided them - and us -with a vision of that elusive goal, and with the means for striving to achieve it. Although the Rosh Yeshiva's passing has left a great void, his many students have taken comfort in the fact that the Yeshi­va, now under the leadership of his sons, led by his oldest son Rabbi Yitzchak Paler N"VV7v, continues to function along the path that he forged. •

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The Jewish Observer, November 2000 19

DEFINING THE INFLUENCE OF BRISK

prominent Rosh Yeshiva ecently

expressed his opin" ' ion to me that today · there is no such thing as a Rebbi Muvhak (a prime teacher who not only imparts his knowledge and insights to his student, but who imbues him with his metl1odology of thinking), If so, I consider myself doubly favored. For one, I was indeed zocheh - I did merit -to have a Rebbi Muvhak; and two, my Rebbi Muvhakwas Hagaon Rav Binyamin Paler 7"lll, Ta/mid Muvhak of the Brisker Rav ....

The quality of thought known as Brisk means two things. First, it desig­nates a clarity of perception that does not satisfy itself with ideas of possible or even reasonable validity, but demands incontestable validity.' Second, in its highest form it indicates an ultra­sensitivity to even the 1nost subtle nuances of diction, formulation, and categorization, and cultivates the con­cept of chiddush (an original comment or explanation) to profound and orig­inal insights.' There were (and there still are) a number of the Brisker Rav's talmidim who exemplify the first crite­rion. There are far fewer who exempli­fy the second. And of the latter, there was none who equalled the Rosh Yeshiva.

I recall how he trained us in the first of these principles, the clarity of per­ception, knowing peshat from pshetl. How often did he pose a basic and dis­turbing difficulty in the understanding of a Gemora or a Rishon, but did not provide us with an answer. He refuted our attempts at a resolution and left us hanging with unanswered questions. Intellectually, it was very unsatisfying to us; but pedagogically, it was masterful. It developed in our thinking the essen-

Rabbi Einstadter is Rav of Congregation Torah Utefillah in Cleveland. The above article was adapted by JO fron1 a longer tribute to Rabbi Paler ':r~r, which was published in the Yeshiva Mekor Chaim's dinner Journal several years ago.

20

tial attitude that the fact that a problem begs for a solution cannot in itself force a solu­tion when there is none to be had. The problem would have to continue begging for a while - per­haps even a con­siderable while -

until the true solution is discovered .... But it is that second hallmark of

Brisk, the profound sensitivity to nuance and the awesome ko'ach hachiddush -capacity for innovative thinking - that irresistibly drew the best of the Rosh Yeshiva's talmidim to him. It electrified them, it inspired them, it imbued them with an ovcr-whehning sense of depth and grandeur that touched and ennobled the innern1ost fiber of their being. Clear like a bell, l?i!JN "n:J iren N?

ci~!Jn ?:ir cinv

,~!Jn rang and reverberated in their conscious­ness with each layer uncovered, with each yesod (basic principle) propounded. Whereas others asked questions and gave answers, the Rosh Yeshiva elicited and formulated yesodos. Here from a diyuk (inference) from the Rambam's choice of expres­sion,3 there from the particular context of a given halacha,4 and not infrequently from an indisputable inference which he cast in the fonn of a yesod. 5 Once in

Rabbi Moshe Einstadter

Maseches Kiddushin, the Rosh Yeshiva delivered a shiur on ?:Jii:i1 ciw:i ci'l:iv

riNi:si based on his interpretation of a Yerushalmi. The analysis was so original, the terminology so different, that I knew even then that only he could have given this shiur, and I recorded it almost in its entirety along the margin of my Gemo­ra.

In spite of the uncompromising emphasis on the acquisition of the derech halimud of Brisk, the Rosh Yeshi­va was not pleased when our pace of learning was too slow. I recall his look­ing over the shoulder of one on my classmates, and noting the daf we were on and the relatively small amount we had covered, he exclaimed, "Ir meint dos iz Brisk? - Dos iz nisht Brisk! (Do you think that this represents Brisk? - This is not Brisk!)"

DEPTH AND SCOPE: NOT A PARADOX

AT ALL

During those years,

froin time to time the Rosh Yeshiva would appear in the beis midrash during the second seder (afternoon session), and sit at

his shtender at the head of the hall. For the most part, he re1nained undis­turbed, and he would study the Gemo­ra we were studying at the time. Every so often I observed that he turned a page, and then soon another, and then again another, all in rapid succession. I could not figure out just what he was doing.

1'hen one summer, during a brief stay at a hotel in the Catskills, I met Rav

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The Jewish Observer, November 2000

__ ,a former talmid of the Brisker Rav, who happened to be staying at the same hotel. Upon discovering that I was a talmid of Rabbi Paler, he related the fol­lowing incident.

One year in Brisk, he and the Rosh Yeshi­va studiedbechavrusa (in partnership) for the first seder. The Rosh Yeshiva declined to study with him for the second seder, how­ever, saying that: he wished to move at a quicker pace. Rav __ objected to his inten­tion with the argument, "VVhat good can result from that?" but to no avail. The Rosh Yeshiva would not be dissuaded. He then began studying Babba Basra, and a few days later was well into the Mescchta. Once again Rav __ voiced his objection, and again the Rosh Yeshiva refused to be deterred. Now Rav __ concluded, and I quote hhn prac­tically verbatim:

"A few days later, he completed Babba Basra and started Babba Kamma .... I don't recall whether or not it was a leap year [with an additional month}, but between the end ofSuccos and Pesach, he went through Babba Kamma, Babba Metzia, Babba Basra, Avoda Zara, Sanhedrin - the entire Order ofNezikin! The others ridiculed him /i.e. How can one succeed in absorbing so much information in so short a period of time?], to which he responded with the challenge to test him on anyTosafos in all ofNezikin. So they asked him questions posed by Tosafos

Rabbi Paler with his father-in-law

from throughout Nezikin. Where Tosafos offered one answer, he quoted the one answer; when Tosafos offered two answers, he quoted two answers." 6

At the end of the summer I returned to the Yeshiva and went in to the Rosh Yeshiva to greet hi1n. We were alone ~n his office, and he inquired how I had spent my summer. I mentioned that I had met Rav in the mountains. With a look of mild interest he asked, "What did he have to say?" I, with sup­pressed mirth, related to him everything Rav __ had told me; I did not omit a single detail. At first the Rosh Yeshiva said nothing, only arching his eyebrows, then lowering his gaze to the desk, and final­ly focusing back on me again. He then confided to me, "I also studied all rele­vant parts of Rambam, Rif, Baal Ha ma' or, and Rosh. I was mechadesli Torah (developed novel insights) on the subject n1atter throughout, and, as a matter of fact, I still draw on those insights in my shiurim to this very day!'

After that I was no longer troubled by his turning pages during the after­noon seder . ...

A SWEET BURDEN

The Mis/ma relates, "Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai had five dis­ciples" (Avos II, 10). Countless

more studied under him, yet he had but five talmidim whom he could call his dis­ciples.' A talmid is one who in his per­son, in his niode of thinking, reflects his teacher. "From all of my teachers did I gain insight" ( Tehillim 119, 99) was true of David Hamelech as it is true of every wise man. But that confers neither the title of Rav upon the one, nor that of ta/mid upon the other. One must first fashion himself into a ta/mid - submit to his teacher as an eved (slave) before his adon (master)- before the Rav can

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The Jewish Observer, November 2000

be consid­ered a Master and the talmid his disciple. And the Rav, as Elozor Weiss

the Rosh Yeshiva himself pointed out to me in the Rema in Yoreh De' ah when I was just beginning to develop into his talmid, is the one who instills in him the perception of truth and intellectual integrity. He teaches him how to think, he makes him sensitive to what is great and beautiful,and he shows him how to distinguish between what is truly great and what is only apparently so; between what is eternally beautiful and that whid1 wilts and fades. He enlightens and ele­vates him, and instills in hin1 a burning desire to know "His great Name:' And once the bond between Rav and talmid is forged, it endures forever. ...

Thus, when at the very end of the seventh perek of Hilchos Temidin Umusafin, Rambam inserts a halacha relating to Hilchos Berachos, which seems out of place, it disturbs me and leaves me no rest. And were I to ask myself why I agonize over it- why I can't formulate a "good enough" answer, or else shrug my shoulders and just let it go, as many others do - I do not have far to search for an answer .... And when in Hilchos Mamrim, in reference to Ben Sorer Umoreh, Rambam quotes a pasuk, but quotes three words too many, and I see in these three words a new yesod in Rambam's definition of the chiyuv malkos of the Ben Sorer Umoreh, then I know where my indebtedness lies.

I carry a burden of gratitude of which I can never divest 1nyself. But it is a sweet burden, and I carry it willingly and lov­ingly without ever feeling its weight. And I will carry it for as long as the blood flows through my veins and I draw the breath oflife. And in the World to Come, I shall carry it there as well.... II

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?kU<>J From Sinai. .. to You Translated and adapted from a shmuess (discourse) by Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon N"V>71!1, Mashgiach Ruchani of Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood, New jersey

I. PUTTING AWAY THE PLOW: THE ROAD TO INNER GROWTH

1. A Mitzva of Divine Source

The 1orah introduces the topic of Shmitta - the Sabbatical year, when all fields lie fallow - with

"And Hashem spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai saying ... " (Vayikra, 25, 6). Rashi asks, "What is the significance of 'on Mount Sinai' in relation to Shmitta?" He answers: "Just as the laws of Shmitta - its general rules, details and fine points -were all revealed at Sinai, so too were all the other commandments - with their general rules and fine points - revealed at Sinai."

Why did Hashem choose the mitzva of Shmitta to be the prime example for Mount Sinai serving as the source of all mitzvos? Isn't the san1e true of all other Torah laws?

The Ksav Sofer, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Binyomin Schreiber (1815-1871 ), Rav of Pressburg, answers that the mitz­va of Shmitta is unique in that it serves as an active declaration of belief in Torah min haShamayim (the Divine source of Torah). Even if there would have been no revelation at Har Sinai, the very observance of the mitzva of Sh1nitta is dramatic proof that Hashem gave the Torah. The Jewish people in Eretz Yisrod had always been an agrarian society. Refraining from working the land for a full year would have resulted in a massive

This article was translated and prepared for pub­lication by Rabbi Avrohon1 Birnbau1n, of Lake­wood, NJ.

famine for all of its inhab­itants; they could scarcely rely on neighboring countries such as Amon and Moav to share their pro­duce, for they were sworn enemies, bent on the destruction of the Jews.

Nevertheless, Hashc1n commands them to let the fields lie fallow. What will prevent them from starving? The Toral1 tells us that Hashcn1 pro1nises: "V'tzivisi es birchasi- I will command My blessing on them. In the sixth year, I will make such an abundant crop that there will be a suf­ficient supply for three years:'Who but the Almighty could risk making such a claim, which would be put to a public, objective test? That is precisely why Chazal chose this mitzva to be the prime lesson for Torah min haShamayim: Just as Shmitta was revealed at Sinai, with the mitzva itself attesting that it is min haShamayim, so too were all the other mitzvo~ with their spe­cific rules, revealed at Sinai.

2. In Control of Nature ...

The discussion continues: "V' chi somar ma nochal- if you will ask, 'What will we eat in the seventh

year if we cannot plant or harvest fruit?"' In response, Hashem promises to invoke a special beracha whereby the field will produce threefold the usual harvest, providing enough produce for the sixth, seventh and eighth years in the Shmitta cycle.

The message inherent in these pesukim is clear. Hashem is not asking us to prove our loyalty to Him through the misery of hunger, nor to express our love for Him by refraining from working the fields in

face of an overwhelming difficulty that it would impose on us. On the contrary, the consequence of the mitzva is" V'tzivisi es birchasi" - Hashem will bestow His beracha upon us, thereby dcn1onstrating to us and to the world at large that He is in total control of nature and that our sus­tenance is con1pletely dependent on Him at all times. Ifhe chooses to provide us with three years of food in a single year, He has the power and resources to do so. Just as it is by decree from Hashem that we must work for six years to earn a liv­ing, so too is it by Divine decree that we allow the land to lie fallow for the seventh year, leaving provision of our livelihood completely to Hashem's blessing.

3 . .. . And Proprietor of the Fields

The Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzva 84) underscores a similar point when explaining why the 1orah obligates

a person to declare his fields ownerless, in addition to refraining from cultivating them. A person should bear in mind that the land does not produce its yield year after year, as a matter of course. He who controls the natural forces that result in the annual harvest is also Owner of the land. And as such, He commands each Jewish farmerto pronounce his field hejk­er- renouncing his claims to ownership -when He so chooses. Clearly, the com­mandment of Shmitta is meant to show

--·---·-------·--·------------·------- ·--·--------···--···-------------·------The Jewish Observer, November 2000 23

It's amazing what can happen in one year. Just twelve months ago, you volunteered to befriend a troubled young person.

He was frustrated, angry and sometimes out of control ...

... But over time, attitudes softened. You gained trust by viewing the world through his eyes: A world where expectations can seem impossibly high. Where the future is often uncertain. And where life is confusing for a young Jewish teen who would like to listen to his parents, but still wants to have fun, experience the world and be just like everyone else.

It didn't take long to realize this distant, distressed person was not a stranger, and not a statistic. Underneath it all, he was just a regular kid.

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Another time, another place ...

Sadly, it was replaced with a dangerous para­doxical world. A world in which we know more about the harm of graphic images, toxic ideas

and deadly substances, where they're easier to find and harder to resist. It's a world where setting proper limits is a necessity, though harder and harder to do.

Indeed, raising children is not easy; and those who fail are far from alone. But as an outsider, you can help.

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that Hashem is both master and propri­etor over everything, despite the fact that we often attribute economic success to our own efforts and acumen.

The Chinuch continues: ''.Another purpose [of keeping Shmitta] is to acquire the character trait of vatranus -tolerance (foregoing one's proper share) - for there is no greater level of giving rl1an doing so without thought of remunera­tion." l"his conveys a profound lesson: foregoing one's rights is 1nuch more dif­ficult than being generous with one's own money by giving it away as a donation.

A person may give away thousands -even millions - of dollars to tzeddaka, but if he feels that someone is unfairly tak­ing advantage of him, he will fight him until the bitter end, even if the lawyer's fees exceed the su1n of money in dispute. He can be a generous donor, but not a foregoer. During Shmitta, despite the fact that the fields remain in a person's pos­session, everything in the field must be considered ownerless - that is, one must permit anybody to take the produce with­out so much as a thank you! In our con­temporary society, people insist on their "rights," constantly insisting, "I have a . h ""D ' l 'gh " rig t... on t tramp eon iny r1 ts ....

The Chinuch tells us that the Torah wants to teach us how to relinquish even that which we own and is "rightfully" ours.

Even those of us who are not farmers can benefit from this Shmitta lesson.

4. A Matter of Focus: The Spiritual Dimension Over Material Bounty

In the Torah's discourse on Shmitta, the pasuk begins, "The land will give its fruit and you will eat to satisfaction and

you dwell securely on it" ( Vayikra 25, 19-23 ). Rashi explains this to mean that"one will feel satisfied even after eating only a small quantity [of food]:' The pasuk con­tinues, "If you will ask 'What are we to eat in the seventh year? We have not planted nor harvested our produce.'" To this, the Torah answers:" Vetzivisi es birchasi- I \Vill

command My special blessing so that the field will produce threefold."

The question then arises: If Hashem will make one satisfied after eating small quan­tities, what need is iliere for the beracha con­tained in the pesukim that follow, which state "Hashern will con11nand a special blessing"? What need is there for a special blessing to provide the enormous amount of food required for satisfying three years' needs, if a person will be satisfied by eat­ing only a n1inutc an1ount?

The Sforno explains that the pesukim are speaking to Jews at different levels.A tzad­dik - the fully righteous individual who trusts in Hashem without need to see proof and does not require the beracha of the sixth year - will only need a small quan­tity of food, which will suffice for his own needs. He can sell the surplus of this pro­duce and become wealthy. The next pasuk

of"V'chi somru ma nochal-If you will ask, '\!Vhat will we eat?"' is answered (says Sforno) with "Vetsivisi es birchasi - I will command My blessing ... .'' The latter pesukim are addressed to someone whose spiritual level falls short of rl1e tzaddik's. For him, to eat just a bit and rely on Hashem to make him feel fully sated will not suc­ceed. He does not feel secure unless he actually sees the food in the quantities that he normally needs to sustain himsel£ Only after he sees the bountiful harvest before the seventh year can he refrain from agri­cultural activity with confidence.

When such a person asks, "What will I eat?" Hashem responds, "I will give you a beracha [that the field will produce so much] that the eye will be satisfied because of the enormous an1ount of pro­duce, and you will not have to worry about where your food will come from."

Hashem is teaching us that the main blessing for a tzaddik is that he should not have to actively concern himself with mundane aspects of his existence, neces­sary for his survival, such as stock-piling food. To him, Hashem says, "Eat a little and you will be satisfied, thus allowing you to channel all your energies toward spir­itual pursuits.'' However, He also says, "If you are not on such a high spiritual level, I will supply you with enough gashmius (material bounty) that you will be satis­fied, even though you refrain from farm­ing on Shmitta.''

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II. INSPIRATION AND INSTRUCTION FOR THE NON-FARMER

I. Making Time for Spiritual Pursuits

Those of us who arc not farn1ers, and are not engaged in agriculture, also have n1uch to learn fron1 the

Sh1nitta experience ... lessons to guide us in our budgeting of resources and time.

The 01umash states: "The seventh year will be a year of rest for the land and a Shabbos !'Hashem:' Rashi explains" Shab­bos /'Hashem" to mean "Lesheim Hashem - for the sake of Hashem;' similar to the Torah's statement about the weekly Shab­bos, which is also described as "Shabbos !'Hashem." The Sforno goes further and says that just as on every Shabbos the mundane must be set aside so the day be utilized exclusively for avodas Hashen1, so too must the entire seventh year be set aside for serving Hashem. 'rhat, then, is why they both share the description of "Shabbos !'Hashem Elokecha .. .. "With this explanation, we are given to understand that Shmitta is not simply a year in which we 1nust passively refrain fron1 working the fields. Rather, abstaining from farm­ing provides an opportunity to spend the year actively seeking Hashen1, to emerge as better Servants of Hashe1n. It is in this vein that Sforno co1n1nents, two pesukifn later (v. 4), on the words: "Shabbos Shab­boson yihiyeh ha'aretz, Shabbos I' Hashem - the agricultural workers of the field, when they rest during the Shmitta year, will also be roused to seek out Hashem in some way."

The agricultural calendar is demand­ing and unrelenting. When the growing season ends, the planting season begins, followed by fertilizing, pruning and har­vesting. This leaves the workers of the land little opportunity to enter the beis hamidrash and contemplate spiritual matters. The Torah therefore saw fit to give the far1ners a year of rest from their regular, grueling work schedule to allow them the time and opportunity to come closer to Hashem. The Shmitta agenda, then, is to grant discretionary time, even to those who normally lack it, so that, at least once in every seven

years, they can also imn1erse then1selvcs in the service of Hashern.

2. Shabbos and Shmitta - Times for Faith and Trust

Awareness of the kedusha (sancti­ty) of the weekly Shabbos day serves as the n1odel for experi­

encing the Shmitta year. It would thus be in place to appreciate the ernuna (faith) and bitachon (trust) in Hashem that are integral to keeping Shabbos,

The Torah's description of the first

Shabbos (which is part of" Vayechulu" of the Friday night Kiddush) concludes with" Vayevorech Elokiln es yorn hashvii vayekadesh oso - And Hashem blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ... ," on which the Rabbis commented: "He blessed it with the manna by bestowing a double portion of manna on Friday [to provide for Shabbos'sneeds], and sanc­tified it with the manna [by abstaining from delivering manna on Shabbos]" (Bcreishis 2,3 see Rashi).

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Creation should focus exclusively on a forty-year period of Israel's existence -the years of Bnei Yisroel's wanderings in the wilderness. The Sifsei Chachamim (ad Zoe) replies that, in fact, Hashem always provides in advance for the Shabbos needs of those who honor the sanctity and the restrictions of the Sabbath. In effect, Hashem promises: "Borrow on My account to keep the Shabbos, and I will pay your debt." He continues to bless and sanctify all Shabbosos, to the end of time.

As a matter of fact, Hashem always assumes the burden of the expenses incurred in fulfilling mitzvos; His rec­ompense is obvious to all, however, in regard to both Shabbos and Sltmitta. This is alluded to in the Shabbos-day Zemiros ("Ki Eshmera Shabbos''): "Hinei- Behold our sacred Source bestowed a miracle on that initial generation, by giving a dou­ble portion on the sixth day; so does He double my food on every sixth [day]."

David Hameleclt reinforces this mes­sage in Tehillim (37,3):"Trustin Hashem and do good." The message is: do not say, "If I refrain from stealing or cheating, or if I offer charity to the poor, how will I sustain myself?" To the contrary, the Psalmist insists1 "Rejoice with Hashem, and He will fulfill your heart's requests." Draw on the model provided for us by the Shabbos. Apply your faith and trust to the full range of mitzvos, and Hashem will provide your needs.

3. Keeping Shmitta - in the Fields, in the Study Halls

During an earlier Shmitta cycle, a "novel and innovative" idea was introduced - the founding of

special kollelim for Shomrei Shvi'is to learn during Shmitta. In actuality, how­ever, this idea is not new, for according to the Sforno, it is the underlying pur­pose of Shmitta.

Rabbi Yaakov KamenetzJ..)'7""1, makes an interesting point with regard to Shmit­ta that has relevance to us. He points to a seeming contradiction: In J>arshas Behar where the Torah discusses Shmit­ta, the pasuk states, "If you will keep Shmitta, v'yeshavtem al ha'aretz lavetach - you will live peacefully on your land."

28

Rashi explains that we can infer from the pasukthat in retribution for the aveira of not observing Shmitta, Jews are banished into Caius. Indeed, the Torah in Parshas Bechukosai details the terrible curses of the Tochacha, which came about "because you did not keep the Shmitta." Thus, the Tochacha concludes: "Then, after you are driven out of Eretz Yisroe~ the land will rest:' Rashi explains that the seventy years of the Babylonian exile were in retribu­tion for the seventy Shmittayears that the Jews failed to keep. Yet, Rashi at the begin­ning of Parshas Bechukosai implies that the curses in the Tochacha were due to the lack of ameilus b'Torah, diligence in studying Torah, quite independent of fail­ure in Shmitta observance.

II

To the contrary, the Psalmist insists,

"Rejoice with Hashem, and He will fulfill your heart's requests."

II Reh Yaakov poses a second question:

Rashi states that the Jews never kept Shmitta. Is it possible that nobody ever kept Shmitta? Consider the amount of Shmitta observance that the Chazon !sh, one man alone in our times, was respon­sible for! Is it at all possible that none of the great people of that earlier period kept Shmitta?!

In explanation, Reb Yaakov points to a single factor. To be sure, he says, they kept Shmitta in the years before the Caius in Babylonia. They did not, however, uti­lize the extra time that observance of Shmitta afforded them for the purpose for which it was intended. Our focal point must ah,vays be diligence - learn­ing and toiling in Torah - and every free moment must be used for that purpose. As a 1natter of course, during the seventh year, a Shmitta observer should be found in the beis midrash. If he is not there, then he is not observing Shmitta as a "Shabbos I' Hashem"; he is only obey-

ing the mundane aspect of Shmitta by passively refraining from working the fields, and is ignoring the 1nain, inner reason for Shmitta. In this sense, he has not kept the mitzva of Shmitta.

The two causes for the Tochacha, then, go hand in hand. The Bnei Yisroel are deserving of the Tochacha for failing to keep the Shmitta. In what way did their observance fall short? By not studying Torah in the free time provided as a result of not working the land during Shmitta - the end purpose for which the com­mandment of Shmitta was created. Only when the Shmitta year is properly used - for diligent Torah study - is one con­sidered to have properly kept Shmitta.

This lesson is equally applicable to those who are not actually included in observing Shmitta. We all have periods of time that are not structured for pur­suing our livelihoods. They actually can serve as opportunities to pursue personal agendas for growth in Torah and avodas Hashem- as islands of Shmitta-like calm and disengagement from material pur­suits. For example, the non-Jewish day of rest in Western society is Sunday, when we are not occupied with routine respon­sibilities of earning a livelihood. Instead of trying to find new ways to utilize Sun­days (and other legal holidays) for busi­ness, perhaps we could better use them as an adjunct to Shabbos /'Hashem, car­rying over the inspiration of Shabbos to inform the week that follows. Certainly, we are subject to the curse of "bezayas apecha tochal lechem - by the sweat of your brow, you must earn your bread." 'rhe expression "free time;' however, does not refer, as many assume, to time that is free; it describes time that was made available, that was rendered free, to devote to 1natters of greater importance.

In light of what we have said above, our assignment is clear. Time is 1nade free for learning Torah and for avodas Hashem. Let us learn and internalize this innate les­son of Shmitta. If Hashem gives us time - be it Sunday, or any other time when we do not have to be occupied with our daily struggle for parnassa - let us seize the mo1nents and utilize them for Hisser­vice. In this way, we too can be counted among the Shomrei Shmitta. II

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

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J£W V'b. J£W: CRACKS IN THE AMERICAN MOSAIC

Earlier this fall, a new book on the topic of intra-Jewish conflict in America received a great deal of media coverage, due, in part, to its fortuitous release just as the Lieberman nomination was sparking a heightened focus of attention on the Jewish, and in particular Orthodox, community. Reviews of the book and its provocative themes in The New York Times, The Wall Street journal, The Economist, Commentary and various Jewish publications provided commentators of diverse Jewish stripes with an opportunity to advance their views on the causes of strife and prospects for communal peace within American Jewry. The very real issues raised by the book and the author's treatment of them merit the attention of the JO readership as well.

Ever since the advent of the Eman­cipation and the societal sea changes it wrought, factionalism

along religious and political lines has been a fixture of Jewish commu­nal life. And, although the sec­ond half of the zot century saw the sunset of many of the. Jewish movements that had sprung to life in the preced­ing 100 years, and the twi­light of others, unity within the ranks of our people remains as elusive as ever.

In Israel, where Jewish­ness inheres in the national \Varp and woof, it does not sur­prise that intra-Jewish dissension abounds, pitting the secular against the religious, the Sephardic underclass against the Ashkenazic elites, and the post-Zionists against everyone else. In America, however, the acceleration of Jewish assi1nilation and intermarriage and the shedding of all Jewish identity by ever greater numbers of Jews might have been expected to lessen the frac­tiousness. In fact, it has exacerbated it.

It is this conflict-ridden state of American Jewry that is the focus of Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of Amer­ican Jewry, a new book by former New York Tin1es reporter Samuel Freedman. He skillfully crafts a moving portrait of a conte1nporary American Jewry riven

Eytan Kobre, is the director of Agudath Israel's Project Equal Educational Access and an occa­sional contributor to various Anglo-Jewish pub­lications.

by religious and political schisms and, ultimately, by irreconcilably divergent conceptions of what it means to be Jewish.

Freedman, who now teaches jour­nalism at Colu1nbia University, knows how to tell a tale, and makes full use of his narrative talents to weave a tapestry of eight vignettes, each highlighting a particular tinderbox of A1nerican Jew­ish co1n1nunal strife. With an uncom­mon ability to make an abundance of detail engrossing rather than mind­nun1bing, Freedman excels at fashion­ing such details into period pieces that vividly recreate such elements of the

zoth century American Jewish experi­ence as the once-thriving Yiddishist and

Labor Zionist milieu and the emer­gence of a nascent Orthodoxy in the

decades following the Second World War.

SAMUEL FREEDMAN MEETS RAV SAADYA GAON

Jew vs. Jew's central the­sis, developed subtly throughout the book

and argued squarely in its epilogue, is that "except for

religion, none of the pillars of Jewish identity in America can

bear its weight any longer." Although he is reluctant to

acknowledge that "the Orthodox themselves have prevailed;' the author is very clear about what he believes is the upshot of his book: "the Orthodox model"--that is to say, that only reli­gion defines Jewish identity- "has tri­umphed:'

'fhis conclusion, so politically incor­rect in the current"I'm OK) you're OK" Jewish climate, is predictably unsettling to people like the book reviewer at the Forward who found Freedman's epi­logue "infuriating," but, in refutation, could muster only the retort rloat "it pre­sents a single 1noment in Jewish time ... as ... a predictor of the future that will follow it." That, of course, is precisely what sociologists (and some journalists) do for a living--predict the future from trends of the present.

The Jewish Observer, November 2000 31

Interestingly, that same reviewer, in a column some months ago, assailed the writer David Klinghoffer's assertion that "the defining Jewish criterion must not be blood, or culture ... or any of the innumerable substitutes for Judaism that have been proposed by factions among our people ... but Truth alone" --essen­tially, a 1nore traditionalist version of Jew vs. Jew's basic pre1nise. What distressed the reviewer about that contention was its perceived <(dismissal of the various ways some 83 percent of North Amer­ican Jews live their Jewish lives," as well as, apparently, what struck him as Klinghoffer's insufferable temerity in capitalizing the word "truth"--an unpardonable no-no for enlightened moderns who quite absolutely detest those who profess a belief in absolutes.

The reviewer proceeds--by all indi­cations, in total seriousness--to enu-1nerate «a partial list of what a tradi­tionalist might regard as 'substitutes for Judaism,' but what a more generous observer would see as the glory of Jew-

I

ish creativity and re-invention, from Sinai until today:' The list includes Jew­ish gastronomy, genealogy and comedy, creative kippot, adult study classes on Bible, kabbala, history or Jewish cook­ing (which study constitutes "Torah lish­ma"), the federation system, the sub­urban synagogue (unfairly "maligned [as] ... bourgeois and soulless"), bar niitzva candle-lighting ceremonies, the Marx Brothers and ... "pick-and-choose Judaism:' So there we have it - not mere­ly the glorification of the utterly vapid trappings of American Jewish ersatz "Judaism," but their equation with what our nation received at Sinai. This, in capsule form, is what Samuel Freed­man and others earnestly concerned about the future of American Jews and Judaism are up against.

Freedman is not the first, but mere­ly the most recent, writer to propound this conception of religion as the one truly indispensable element of Jewish­ness. Several recent books have advanced the sa1ne view, most notably

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prominent neo-conservative thinker Elliot Abrams' Faith or Fear, which gen­erated similar "buzz" to that now being stirred up by Jew vs. Jew. And, of course, as Abrams himself observed in his book's concluding section, the notion that Judaism is the essential determinant of Jewish identity is mere­ly a rephrasing, in the contemporary idiom, of Rav Saadya Gaon's famed aphorism, "Our nation is a nation only by dint of its Torah." Implicitly, then, these writers confirm a basic fact of Jew­ish history: that the inexorable march of events has its own way of settling long­running ideological debates and con­signing to obscurity, and at times, ignominy, even the most temporally vig­orous of"Jewish" movements- and that the American Jewish experience of the century just ended is no exception.

A FAIR-MINDED EFFORT

Although Jew vs. Jew addresses highly contentious topics like pluralism, feminism and the

Israeli peace process, it strives admirably for impartiality, and usually succeeds. The author, raised in a self-described «intensely secular» home and present­ly Conservative-affiliated, makes no secret of his own religious and political sympathies, but prefers to let his cast of characters tell their own stories and his readers draw their own conclusions.

Freedman does not flinch, for exam­ple, from showing secular Jews to be capable of truly despicable attitudes and behavior towards their observant fellow Jews. He balances his description of Orthodox rowdies hurling invective and objects at mixed prayer services at the Kosel with accounts of secular American Jews screaming obscenities at a Luhavitcher youth or referring to Kiryas Yoel's Satmar populace as "the most horrible people that G-d put breath in;' and of feminist-minded lib­eral Jews labeling their more tradition­al fellow congregants "Neanderthals:'

In the lengthy chapter on the battle over a proposed Orthodox campus in the Cleveland suburb of Beachwood, Freedman's narrative lays bare both the

--- -·· .. ·-------... ~----~··- ---- --·~·------·---------

32 The Jewish Observer; November 2000

hypocrisy and deep-seated loathing of the area's non-Orthodox residents. Decades earlier, these very satne Jews had overcome anti-Semitic opposition to a Reform temple's move to Beach­wood, couched obliquely as concern over quality-of-life and zoning require­ments. This did not prevent them, however, from waging their own unre­lenting, no-holds-barred battle to keep their town fron1 becoming a "little Jerusalem" and going the way of anoth­er, now largely Orthodox neighborhood whose main thoroughfare they dubbed "Rue de la Peyes." Citing the same sort of aesthetic objections to which they had once been subjected, they blamed the Orthodox for the deterioration of Cleveland's urban Jewish neighbor­hoods, a process the non-Orthodox themselves precipitated through their "white flight" to the outlying suburbs.

Freedman is also refreshingly forth­right in his treat1nent of Denver's short­lived interdeno1ninational conversion project in the late '70s, pointing up the inherent lin1itations of cooperative ini­tiatives in the religious realm. He doc­uments the unraveling of the project, until its eventual collapse "under the weight of its own contradictions, fun­damental differences in doctrine that no amount of belief in Kial Yisrael could wish away." In typical fashion, the author lets the protagonists describe how what was envisioned as a daring experiment in pluralism turned its Orthodox participants into nothing more than, in one H..econstructionist rabbi's words, "mikvah clunkers."

Not surprisingly, the Orthodox rab­bis involved came to feel "theologically fraudulent" as they were reduced to pro­viding an imprin1atur of legitimacy to Refonn conversion candidates they had barely met, who bypassed kabbalas al mitzvos "in favor of the Ten Co1nmit­ments, which had been hashed out at the Regency Hotel, not handed down at Mount Sinai." The project's collapse prompted Rabbi Stanley Wagner, one of its Orthodox architects, to conclude that "it's erroneous to build the idea of Jew­ish unity on religious or ideological compromise."

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

ERRORS AND OMISSIONS

Given the book's degree of detail, the author has succeeded in rendering it quite factually accu­

rate. Nevertheless, the alert and informed reader will happen upon the occasional serious error. For example, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch is cast as the ideological forebear of Modern Orthodoxy, enamored of the Emanci­pation, whose disciples "added [to Hirsch's Modern Orthodox philoso­phy) two other core principles, support

for Zionism and the willingness to col­laborate with non-Orthodox Jews:' Even a passing familiarity with Hirsch's liter­ary oeuvre and the history of German neo-Orthodoxy show such notions to be not only incorrect, but at diametric odds with the Hirschian weltanschauung. 'fhis is a not insignificant point, in view of the past efforts of some individuals to add luster to their version of Modern Orthodoxy by portraying that ideology ahistorically as a legacy of Rabbi Hirsch.

Equally glaring in a work of this nature is the author's failure to discuss

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in any detail the rise and growth of the ba'al teshuva movement. This book is, after all, a treatment of the fault lines between Jews with widely divergent reli­gious approaches, or none at all. The existence, and persistence over decades, then, of a phenon1enon in which many thousands--one infor1ned estin1ate places the figure at upwards of 100,000--of secular and non-Ortho­dox-affiliated Jews from all walks oflife have made the often wrenching transi­tion to one or another variant of the Orthodox lifestyle, merits significantly

more than a passing mention. Put sim­ply, would not those who have traversed the seemingly unbridgeable Jew vs. Jew divide be fitting subjects for at least one chapter in a book bearing that title?

Through the vehicle of his lushly detailed, heavily biographical sketches, Freedman succeeds greatly in human­izing his subjects and providing an inti­mate window into their underlying e1notional and intellectual complexities. It is thus unfortunate that none of the book's episodes feature as a protagonist anyone who is a product of the charei-

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di world, particularly given the author's own estimation of that community's current ascendancy and assured future prominence. Although the book devotes much space to a largely positive portrait of one fervently Orthodox individual, Rabbi Daniel Greer, his unusual back­ground renders him a less than fully rep­resentative figure.

THE INVISIBLE JEWS

More troubling than the occa­sional factual error or omis­sion, however, is the book's

oversi1nplification - or worse - of the philosophical bases and practical real­ities of chareidi life. vVhile his resolve to remain fair-minded and employ the dis­passionate journalist's voice throughout is both evident and laudable, Freedman clearly lacks an intimate familiarity with the Orthodox community that figures so prominently throughout his book.

Thus, in the world of Jew vs. Jew, all chareidim seem to eschew secular edu­cation and are thereby forced into lowly teaching positions; are bent on incorporating ever more mindless strin­gencies into their religious practice; shun contact with the outside world wherever possible; and view the yeshiva rather than the family as "the epicenter of Orthodox life." The overall portrait of chareidi Jewry that emerges, however subtly, is a decidedly unsavory, vaguely threatening one: an nndifferentiated mass of extremist, angry people preoc­cupied with censuring others and living in ever-present fear of various real and imagined dangers.

Facile generalizations of this sort are not unfamiliar to Orthodox readers, who by now may have grown accus­tomed to these literary equivalents of the funhouse mirror, in which they glimpse an image of themselves bearing only the faintest resemblance to the reality of their lives as Orthodox Jews.

Freedman, too, is a well-intentioned outsider to Orthodoxy looking in, but with few if any clear windows on that world. In the book's "Acknowledge­ments" section, the author mentions scores of individuals who contributed

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

in some nieasure to his work, but only a small minority of those so acknowl­edged is Orthodox, and almost none of them chareidi. Orthodox-authored entries in the book's bibliography are, similarly, virtually nil.

A writer seeking to faithfully portray a community that is not his own is bid­den to allow the com1nunity's own thinkers to articulate its positions and suppositions. Certainly, there is no dearth of highly intellectual, well-spo­ken Orthodox individuals, not merely "experts on Orthodoxy;' who could fill that role if invited to do so.

Even a minimally informed grasp of developments within Orthodoxy in recent decades would suffice to dispel many of the outlandish myths about Orthodox life. For example, the ubiq­uitous presence of deeply observant Jews at all levels of the professional, acade­n1ic and business spheres of conte1n­porary life and the extensive outreach by Orthodox organizations and indi­viduals alike to Jews from across the reli­gious spectrun1 arc easily ascertainable facts that belie the trite characterizations of Orthodox insularity. An awareness, as well, of the exponential growth of Jewish learning and a resultant deepened con1mit1nent to religious growth \vith­in all sectors of Orthodoxy would make readily comprehensible such phenom­ena as the proliferation of highly ideal­istic Kolle! scholars who pass up poten­tially lucrative careers for a life's calling of teaching and public service, and the trend toward heightened standards in the performance of n1itzvos born most often of a striving for spiritual excellence rather than of one-upsmanship.

Yet, the failure to give authentic, elo­quent Orthodox voices the opportuni­ty to explicate the underpinnings of that community's beliefs and way-of-life effectively relegates its 1nembers to the status of"The Jews Who Weren't There" (not to be confused with the essay of similar title by Rachel Adler, the femi­nist scholar who appears in Jew vs. Jew's chapter on feminism, sporting a kippa crocheted with the word" apikoros" and acknowledging that she's "allergic to hav­ing rabbis tell me what to do"). Of

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

course, San1uel Freedn1an is not the vil­lain here; the marginalization of the Orthodox, and the "fervently" so in par­ticular, is a long-standing fact of Jewish communal life.

MISSING THE POINT ON MODERN ORTHODOXY

Nowhere is Freedman's tenuous grasp of the inner workings of Orthodoxy and its philosophi­

cal predicates more evident than in his coverage of both intra-Orthodox divi­sions and fc1ninism within and outside of Orthodoxy.

He identifies Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik as the pre-eminent intel­lectual force within Modern Orthodoxy, which he equates with an attitude sup­portive of cooperation with non-Ortho­dox denominations and the sanctioning of 'vomen's prayer groups. Yet, as is well known, Rabbi Soloveitchik was outspo­ken in branding the modern-day Jewish heterodoxies more sharply deviant fro1n Jewish tradition than even the Karaites of yore, and publicly urged Jews to forego the mitzva of hearing shojar if the only available venue for doing so was a non­Orthodox house of worship. According to some of those closest to hi1n, he also adamantly opposed such feminist­inspired innovations as won1en's prayer groups, womcn)s dancing with the sefer

Torah, and any n1anner of tampering with liturgical custom, and viewed the feminist enterprise as a whole with pro­found dismay.

In the book's epilogue, the author puts forth his prognostications regarding the future of An1erican Jewry, which he sees fragn1enting into four distinct groupings: Chareidi, Conservadox, Reformative and Just Jews. The Conservadox camp, Freed­n1an posits, will result from the n1erging of Conservatism's right wing with a Mod­ern Orthodoxy that will experience a "cri­sis of definition" over the feminisn1 issue, forcing it to "give up its already tenuous partnership with the chareidifn)) and bcco1ne fully egalitarian in its religious practices.

\'\That this conjecture ignores, how­ever, are recent indications that femi­nism has hardly taken root within Modern Orthodoxy as deeply as some would have us believe. A 1999 study by feminist sociologist Sylvia Barack Fish­man, for instance, reported that "many [respondents J expressed the belief that the [women's prayer] groups themselves were a transient or transitional phc­no1ncnon," and revealed a generational divide in which younger Modern Orthodox women tend to reject much of the agenda of"Orthodox feminism" of their mothers' era. These findings are also confirmed by a recent survey of stu­dents at Stern College for Women, a

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majority of whon1 reacted to women's prayer groups with "a sense of ambiva­lence, confusion and rejection." Likewise, Lincoln Square Synagogue's much-bal­lyhooed experimentation with a female "rabbinic intern;' who has since depart­ed, was, according to the New York Jew­ish Week, " marked by bitterness and regret;' and "confirmed the traditional Orthodox argument that a woman rabbi could be a sexual distraction."

More fundamentally, Freedman's vision of a future '(Conservadoxy" fails to consider that for all their doctrinal

36

484 pp. I complete with pictures and rare artifacts

spats, the various sectors within Ortho­doxy all affirm the centrality of a belief in the Divinity of both the Written and Oral Torah, save for a handful of reli­giously radical, albeit vocal, individuals on the movement's fringes. This foun­dational tenet, among others, opens a yawning ideological chasm that will not readily be bridged merely because the " [right wing] faction of Conservative clergy and laity already follows much of halakhah and espouses a good deal of ... social conservatism."

Indeed, Freedman's notion of the

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kind of traditionalism that would enable Conservatism to link arms with even the most liberal form of Orthodoxy is itself rather superficial. Thus, to support his assertion that, throughout the late nineties, the Conservative movement "embraced traditionalism in a series of major actions," he can cite only that denomination's program of chapter-a­day Bible study (which parallels, writes Freedman, the Orthodox system of "reading the Talmud ... a page a day") and its promulgation of policies barring intermarried Hebrew school teachers and summer campers who are not halachically Jewish.

FLAWS ON FEMINISM

a preface to his chapter on the ontroversy that roiled a liberal os Angeles congregation over

whether to institute liturgical refer­ences to the Imahos (the four Matri­archs), the author undertakes a brief gen­eral treatment of gender issues in Judaism. Although his discussion con­tains several errors of fact, e.g., that women are prevented from performing mitzvos from which they are exempt, such as shofar and succa, that only female characters in the 10rah were barren, he commendably avoids the more egregious factual distortions that are standard fea­tures in much of feminist-oriented writing in this area.

Unfortunately, Freedman's prefatory discussion does share another tenden­cy of women's movement polen1ics that is aptly captured by the writer Hillel Halkin, certainly no Orthodox apologist himself. Halkin decries the "heedless assumption that if Judaism has not tra­ditionally treated women as men's ritu­al equals, this must be either a careless oversight on its part or simply gross sex­ism .... That in separating the sexes ritu­ally Judaism may be making a statement about sexuality and sexual differentiation that is fundamental to itself,. .. indeed, that Judaism and feminism may be so opposed in their values that one must choose one or the other, does not even seem to have occurred [to many writers on the topic]."

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

Thus, Freedman speaks repeatedly in terms of"the tension between doctrine and custom on one side and the ... belief in gender equality on the other." In so doing, he fails to perceive that those on the traditionalist side of the feminism issue do not reject the notion of gender equality per se, but hold a radically diver· gent conception of the nature and meaning of equality as applied in a spir· itual, rather than secular, context. In Rabbi Mayer Twersky's succinct phras· ing: "Unlike its mathematical counter­part, ontological equality is not expressed in sameness or identity. While the Torah, assuredly, does not discrim­inate against men or women, undoubt­edly it does discriminate between then1:'

In addition, for Freedman to write that in the '70s and '80s, "Who is a Jew?" was a question that "the female half of the American Jewish population was ask­ing in terms of religious and social equal· ity" is to blithely ignore the thousands of observant women, many of them every bit as accomplished and dynam­ic as any of their liberal counterparts, who believe they have an altogether sat· isfying answer to that question. This calls to mind a recent New York Tin1es story on the Israeli Supreme Court decision permitting the Women of the Wall to hold women's prayer groups at the Kosel. The story was captioned "Religion Loses a Round to Women In Israel," in cavalier dismissal of the innumerable Israeli women who not only emphati· cally reject the Women of the Wall's agenda, but hold the deep conviction that in eschewing women's prayer groups, "religion" is elevating women's status rather than denigrating it.

few vs. Jew's failure, 1nentioned ear­lier, to devote attention to the ba' al teshuva phenomenon, is feh particular­ly keenly in this chapter. The author's efforts to provide "equal time" to dif­fering viewpoints would have profited greatly, for example, had he spoken with some of the ba'alos teshuva featured in feminist sociologist Debra Renee Kauf­man's Rachel's Daughters, or others who have returned to observance more recently. Even a reference to Kaufman's above-mentioned landmark study of

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

150 newly observant women and her findings that "the most valued part of their lives has to do with their lives as women within Jewish orthodoxy" would have been meaningfully revela· tory for the book's readers.

The author might also have added to this chapter's balance had he noted cer· tain facts tending to show that Conser· vatism's ever wider embrace of the fen1-inist agenda sterns less fro1n a genuinely-held reinterpretation of halachic dictates than from a reflexive, politically correct submission to its laity's demands to defer to whatever societal currents happen to be swirling about. While the fact that, in the words of Conservative acade1nic Daniel Gordis, "both the halakhic agenda and the outcomes of halakhic discussions are now set by [the Conservative J laity;' is demonstrably true in many contexts it is perhaps most pronounced in the movement's approach to halachic issues involving women.

Thus, Freedman writes that "[a]fter four years of bruising debate among its faculty, the ... !Jewish Theological Sem· inary] voted in 1983 to admit women for rabbinical training." A more accurate account, based on the Seminary's recent­ly-published official history, would have informed the reader that then-Chan­cellor of the Seminary Gerson Cohen had initially opposed women's ordina-

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tion but immediately dropped his oppo· sition when a Seminary-commissioned survey found that the laity supported such an innovation; that Cohen initial­ly was opposed by the Seminary's entire Talmud faculty; and that he set about creating an independent commission on the issue, half of whose 14 members were laypeople and only one of whom was on the Talmud faculty, which enabled him to "ram the com1nission's report down the Faculty's throats:' Indeed, leading Conservative Rabbi Joel Roth, who authored the pivotal paper supporting women's ordination, notes that although "most of [the Seminary's] world-recog· nized luminaries" opposed that move, "there were strong efforts to make then1 kiss the papal ring and accept the deci· sion as infallible."

Similarly, the book admiringly describes how a feminist group called Ezrat Nashim almost single-handedly brought about the Conservative move· ment's decision to include women in prayer quorums and call them up to the Torah, thereby rectifying "an affront to their intelligence, talent, and dignity." Surely, however, the reader would have been edified by Rabbi Roth's observa· tions on how the movement's initial sup­port for egalitarianism as an alternative approach in the interest of pluralism, has by now reverted to being the move· rnent's exclusive approach, with more

37

traditional Conservative Jews being labeled misogynystic and morally defi­cient. Roth writes that "[w]hen Ramah camps simply ignored the Chancellor's dictate that multiple minyanim be pro­vided and instead provided only egali­tarian minyanim ... [or] when clear inti­mations are made that Conservative rabbis who oppose women in the minyan no longer have a place in the Movement, the commitment to pluralism is under­mined.» Or, as prominent Conservative scholar David Feldman summed up Conservatism's exclusionary tendencies: «convinced of, or insecure about, the moral correctness of our position, we declare the others to be immoral; we stig­matize dissent, we solicit uniformity."

WHEN EMOTION PREVAILS

Per haps one of Jew vs. Jew's most sig­nificant contributions is in focus­ing attention on the large role

played by raw emotion in fostering and perpetuating intra-Jewish tensions. In vir­tually every chapter in the book dealing

with discord between Jews with varying levels of religiosity, there appears, often barely noticeable among the verbal fusil­lades and ideological posturing, at least one comment that reveals the visceral emotional reactions churning beneath the surface of ostensibly principled dis­agreements.

In one poignant, and unfortunate, scene, Si Wachsberger, later to emerge as a leader oflocal efforts to oppose a planned campus of Orthodox institutions in Beachwood, Ohio, tells of being upbraid­ed by an Orthodox shul-goer for tending his garden on Shabbos. The incident, along with other real or imagined slights of non­Orthodox Jews and Judaism, left Wachs­berger with a sense "of being judged, scorned, found deficient as a Jew:'

In many other contexts, though, ranging from Long Island's Gold Coast to a bucolic Chassidicenclave to the pin­nacle oflvy League academe, the author portrays non-observant Jews whose sen­sibilities are seemingly offended by the mere fact of Orthodox Jews going about their Jewish business, as it were, taking

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Thus, the book's prologue opens with a brief sketch of two neighboring couples in Great Neck, New York, who got along amicably until one of the cou­ples became, in the other's eyes, "fanat­ics ... [who entertained] five or six other families from their synagogue" every Shabbos. Even the religious couple's erection of a succa on their front lawn upset their still-secular neighbors as an act of"flaunting it... [i]n your face:' Even­tually, the secular couple moved away, after coming to feel progressively "sur­rounded, encroached upon, and implic­itly judged."

In a similar vein, Freedman observes, "the hidden issue in the Yale Five case;' in which Orthodox students sued to be exempted from Yale's policy mandating on-campus residence in its mixed-gen­der dormitories, "to be found nowhere in all the legal documents, was who established the definition of Jewish, and more specifically Orthodox authentic-

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The Jewish Observer, November 2000

ity." His assessn1ent receives direct con­firmation from the pained acknowl­edgment of Betty Trachtenberg, the Yale dean of students who rejected the stu­dents' exen1ption request: "Here I a1n, a person who identified as a Jew, raised my kids as Jews .... I didn't want anyone to call into question who I was."

In truth, it is not only the Orthodox who evoke such reactions from those less observant. A case in point is last year's acrimonious debate within the Reform rnoven1ent over its proposed "Ten Prin­ciples" mission state1nent, which initially advocated an an1bitious turn towards tradition, only to emerge after nu1ner­ous drafts as a much-eviscerated «State­ment of Principles:' The proposed plat­for1n elicited strong reactions, both pro and con; typical of many of the nega­tive responses was a letter to Reforn1 fudaisn1 n1agazine warning that adop­tion of the Principles would "limply] that those who do not practice these are in some degree less Jewish." The perva­siveness of that sort of reaction led the author of the Principles to respond: "Where do we get these feelings? The Reform n1oven1ent has never spoken this language--and so we need to help each other rise above the guilt it reflects:'

The kinds of emotionally charged reactions illustrated above likely have their roots in several sources. For so1ne, encountering, or being confronted-­inexcusably so--by those more obser­vant than they, may evoke feelings of guilt and inadequacy regarding their lack of observance and Jewish knowledge. And for some, the very fact of their co­religionists' open and unapologetic observance is a visceral embarrassment that thwarts their own detern1ined efforts to enter fully into America's assin1ilationist e1nbrace, or at the very least, to keep religion in the private domain so as to blend unremarkably into a society which looks askance at publicly practiced religiosity. Like one of Freed1nan's protagonists in ]evv vs.

Jew, many Jews are, sadly, moved to express their deeper attachment to truly meaningful Jewishness through the living room display of a "line drawing of a davening Hasid, beaver hat on

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

head;' while, paradoxically, fighting to bar from their neighborhoods Jews whose religiosity is far less conspicuous than that of the "Hasid."

Moreover, the ability of Orthodox Jews to thrive in a wonderfully tolerant America while practicing, to varying degrees, a selective engagement with their host society, constitutes an implic­it, if unintended, rebuke to the great numbers of Jews who have jettisoned parts or all of their Judaism in the belief that one could not "have it all:' In this regard, ironically, the greatest unspoken challenge may be sensed by secular Jewry

as issuing not fron1 chareidi1n less engaged with the broader society, but rather from individuals like the Yale Five who, as the historian Jack Wertheimer notes, "represent a new phenotnenon: modern-Orthodox Jews who are open to Western culture but ... much more willing, in the name of Judaism, to adopt a culturally critical stance." One wonders whether the recent criticism leveled by some Jews at Senator Joseph Lieberman for too much public talk of G-d and reli­gion does not, beyond the surface rhetoric of concern for separation of church and state, likewise evince a

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deeper discomfort with the Senator's apparent ease in leading an observant, G-d-conscious, yet thoroughly con­temporary, life.

erence to a paradoxical mix of Jews' inse­curity, embarrassment and concomitant desire to hold the growth and visibility of openly observed, full-time Judaism to a minimu1n, on the one hand, and their inchoate spiritual longings, on the other. How else to satisfactorily explain what Nathan Lewin has called "the greatest obstacle to the continuity of Judaism in America ... the slavish, mindless, and reflexive devotion of American Jewish leadership to the 'Wall of Separation' between church and state.... [which] is more revered ... than is the Western Wall in Jerusalem?"

Indeed, some of the more curious features of the dominant American Jew­ish mindset seem explicable only by ref-

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Jewish study topics, intern1arriage is at the bottom and the Holocaust is at the top, because the 1atter does not exact, as Jacob Neusner puts it, "much cost in meaningful everyday difference from others"; and that Jews, possessed of what Freedman calls "a perverse longing ... for anti-Semitism," persist in scouring the horizon for lurking Jew-hatred despite all the evidence that it continues to wane?

Whatever its sources, the emotional subtext of internecine Jewish conflicts cannot be dismissed, and, as Jew vs. Jew de1nonstrates, its impact upon the out­comes of those conflicts should not be underestimated. So long as unan­nounced, en1otion-driven biases con­tinue to exert their influence, con­sciously or otherwise, on issues of shared Jewish concern, the prospects for mutually respectful resolution of such matters appear to be dim indeed.

At the same time, the book's stark depictions of non-observant Jews' sen­sitivities sound a cautionary note regard­ing the need for observant Jews to act -and interact--in a way that balances a pride in, and con1mitment to, their beliefs with an attitude and demeanor that conveys an acceptance of every Jew and respect for his or her intrinsic worth. Perhaps it is not too daring to hope that such displays of authentic Torah-based behavior towards fellow Jews will, of their own accord, spark an opening of new channels of communication and good­will that will, ultimately, help banish the alienation and estrange1nent bet\veen brethren that have been our people's lot for far too long. •

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SECOND LoOKS

Let the Reader Beware! Navigating a Gray Zone

The recent unprecedented increase in kosher Judaica from well­known as well as lesser-known

sources has impacted our homes and institutions in a meaningful way. It has filled our private bookshelves as well as those of our school and shul libraries wifh a broader range of titles than the previ­ously familiar translations, textbooks, holocaust classics and other histories.

The current trend has also provided us with an ever increasing array of excit­ing hardcover novels, gripping narratives, many with a professional touch as to style and presentation. They boldly delve into the personal lives of a wide variety of imaginary characters, including those who rejected their Yiddishkeit, albeit to return to the fold some time later.

Rather than discussing or analyzing specific titles and supporting observa­tions with selected extracts, this writer has chosen an alternative approach. Would it not be appropriate to appeal to parents and educators to devote a little time to review books in order to pass

Rabbi Pinchos Jung serves as Mashgiach of Yeshi­va Kol Yaakov, as well as Dean of Beth Rochel School for Girls, both in Monsey, NY

their own judg­ments, with standards they have then1-selves chosen on behalf of the young­sters for who1n they are respou­sible?

The reasoning behind this attitude, which does call for a more time-consuming check on the literature, is as follows. Having been consulted regn ar­ly by the well-read and sensitive librari­an of a highly reputable Torah school, an essential truth relating to these novels emerged with singular clarity. If there ever was a gray area, this is it.

Most of the passages or phrases that mechanchim find disturbing or dis­tasteful are subtleties which, by their very nature, could expose themselves to endless debate. A conversation that one critic will condemn as totally inap­propriate for yeshiva or Bais Yaakov stu­dent consumption will be considered quite innocent and benign by another.

Therefore, this writer wishes to urge

PRESENTATION OF (URR!CULUM

Rabbi Pinchas Jung

parents, teachers, or librarians to decide for themselves, in light of their own hashkafos and the standards they strive to achieve. That individual will have to

judge whether they feel that the mul­tiplicity of stories about dating,

replete with details of all emo­tional turmoil involved, are, or

are not suitable reading material for impres­

sionable adolescents. Likewise, they should determine whether lengthy accounts of the ehavior of

"turned off' youths, momentarily disen­chanted with all we herish, are beneficial

or a Torah teenager who is hap­pily progressing along the straight and narrow.

Needless to say, if that teenager is determined to access and devour certain less desirable material, he or she will always be able to find a way. We are talk­ing of the input of the adult concerned as far as his or her influence is effective.

It would be proper to remind parents at this point that material their children read will not simply "go over their heads;' as they may wish to imagine. The lines read can make a profound and sometimes disturbing impression, yet the children will not discuss what they

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have read. The chances are that these unsettling ideas will linger endlessly in their young minds, eating away at their innocence and temhnus.

Neither Booklist nor Individual Haskama

Short of publishing a recommend­ed booklist - which, by definition, will raise the question, "and what

about ... " - the option recommended seems to have its virtues. As already said, categorizing titles, certainly blacklisting some of them, could so easily generate discussions and arguments without conclusions.

The closest analogy to the book sit­uation would probably be the equally bewildering subject of contemporary Jewish music. Clearly, much of what is offered to the consumer today, includ­ing albums entitled "chassidic," have undoubtedly borrowed their tempo, rhythm and style from less than desir­able elements within the secular world. One could certainly compile a list of rec­ommended Jewish music. One would, however, be inviting trouble if we would attempt to create the definitive directory of "kosher" as opposed to <(non-kosher" tapes.

Interestingly, as many readers will have noted, tapes of heimisher nigunnim have already been issued with a hechsh­er or haskama from leading Rabbanim who are dearly concerned about the alarming decline in the refinement and genuinely Jewish character of modern musical albums. This breakthrough is surely a welcome development.

A word of caution, however, would be in place regarding haskan10s (letters of approval) of)udaica publications. If we are dealing with a collection of shi­urin1, a biography or a translation, it is helpful and reassuring even if the letter is essentially an approval of the caliber of the author, his knowledge and char­acter.

VVhen considering a novel or similar work, however, we must read the haska­ma carefully and not just recognize the signature or letterhead of a well-known personality. We must really be quite sat­isfied that the Rav or Rosh Yeshiva con-

The Jewish Observer, November 2000

cerned has indeed given of his precious time to check the book, cover to cover.

Failing that, there is obviously a dan­ger that the author of the haskama has merely reviewed selected chapters of the book and formed no more that a gen­eral impression. He may well have 1nissed those critical passages or even phrases that can do untold harm. And this is damage that cannot later be put right. Can one "fix" the after-effects of such reading? It has already been said that once unsavory ideas have pene­trated the vulnerable mind of the youngster, there is little one can do to remove them.

A typical example is one of the lat­est, best-selling, techno-thrillers, com­plete with three letters of approval from well-known rabbinic personalities reproduced on the back cover.

The story includes numerous episodes of people becoming involved in all the undesirable activities that we are battling today. A Jewish man becomes involved with a young woman he believes to be non-Jewish. A Jewish youngster gets entangled with drug deal­ers and a gentile girl; there are shooting incidents and samples of rough language along the way.

Have the approving rabbis indeed read the entire book? Do they honest­ly believe that this is ideal reading mate­rial for our youth? If so, we have a new problem.

Complicating Factors

Just as Hebrew titles cannot "kasher'' music that is boldly inappropriate and sacred words from pesukim do

not sit well with wild jungle sounds, so it is with books. The fact that a text car­ries a Jewish sounding title or has char­acters with names adjusted so as to be acceptable to us, is feeble proof indeed of its suitability for a place on our shelves. Unfortunately, even if we are dealing with a Yiddish text, the uncer­tainty remains. We dare not forget the days when Yiddish literature was churned out in quantity by architects of a secular and actively anti-Torah culture.

A practical point would be justified

at his stage - Judaica stores as well as publishers are in business to produce and promote material that sells best. In a recent campaign, only one out of 24 stores agreed to remove a given title from stock when a librarian convinced them of the unacceptable nature contents. There are stores who place principles before profits, but, sadly, they are in the minority.

A final word must be said if we are to he realistic about the temptation to read the book that was not approved. It is one thing if the selection is merely a question of recommending positively beneficial titles and dismissing the other - and the youngster is quite pre­pared to toe the line.

The same task becomes more com­plex, however, when the operation of selection for home or library is intend­ed as a deterrent - to keep the child away from the public library with all its pre­sent day nisyonos (pitfalls).

How far are we to go in order to pre­vent these visits? May we bend any of the rules? And if we exclude a title, can't they access it elsewhere anyway? These are agonizing questions that can hardly be addressed in an article of this type. These are issues that each parent, mentor or educator will have to grapple with, weighing up their particular situation. As with many other areas of life where guidance is required, we will, once again, consult daas Torah. •

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THE NEED FOR EDUCATED CONSUMERS ... AND SUPERVISORS

To the Editor: Dr. Judith Leif's thorough insider's

look at kosher certification (" Kashrus in the Year 2000;' JO Sept. 2000) provides a good portal for readers to understand the complex world of kosher certification and the need for the kosher consumer to be discriminating in his/her use of prod­ucts certified by the now 382 kosher cer­tifying agencies worldwide (as listed in the "200 I Kosher Supervision Guide" of Kashrus Magazine, Sept. 2000).

In my travels and in my home city of Brooklyn, NY, I have observed many rab­banim who give kosher certification, yet lack sophistication in current food tech­nology. Mrs. Leff mentions the need for a rav to " ... keep abreast of the latest developments in production processes:' She points out that many rabbanim and organizations " ... often lack the neces­sary technical knowledge to evaluate the kashrus of complicated ingredients:'

Are we to conclude, then, that the only acceptable kashrus agencies are the "big four" (OU, OK. Star-K, and Kof-K), those which have on-staff food technologists or rabbanim who are technically savvy? I think not. Truly responsible heimishe hashgachos utilize their yiras Shamayim

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to investigate through knowledgeable people, and control the kashrus of the products, that they certify.

On the other side of the coin, avail­ability of on-staff expertise does not guarantee that it is always utilized. For example, Mrs. Leff talks about the availability today of chemical testing for fraud or error. It is a great idea) but, unfortunately, almost completely unused by any agency, large or small.

One major problem, which was not addressed by Mrs. Leff, is the extreme­ly high number of companies certified by one rav or by the individual rav in a large kashrus agency. When I call and find that the rav responsible for a given company is unfamiliar with details and must research what I am reporting to him, I realize that he has taken on or been assigned more than he can handle.

What is most needed is for the con­sumer and the local rabbanim to get more involved in learning about kashrus. It is only with the help of edu­cated consumers that we can upgrade kashrus. Today, the US is superior to Europe in its kashrus standards, yet we are a long way off from the standards available in Eretz Yisroel.

In Brooklyn, rabbanim have formed the KIC ( Kashrus Information Center), which has hired a monitor who checks daily on the standards of local estab­lishments. No hashgachos, just solid information. Through such monitoring) member rabbanim stay up-to-date on much of what is going on in kashrus. Other communities should follow suit.

RABBI YOSEF WIKLER, EDITOR

KASHRUS MAGA7:1NE

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COMMENTS ON KASHRUS-2000

To the Editor: Re:" Kashrus in the year 2000" - Dr. Leff

raises some interesting points regarding Kashrus supervision during our time. As she points out, we have now reached a point where standards are constantly upgraded. This is so, she continues, because of competition among the super­vising services, and also because of con­sumer demands. There is yet another phe­nomenon: products will carry two kashrus symbols, one ofa better known kashrus ser­vice, and a second symbol for the more dis­criminating. It is not always easy to explain to a food manufacturer why yes­terday there was a lower standard Also, why some consumers would not accept the supervision of a better known kashrus ser­vice, but insist on a" heimishe" hashgacha.

Upgraded standards are, of course, laudatory and desirable. Unfortunate­ly, enforcement can sometimes be a problem. Take the case of an individual or a company who is reluctant to abide by the understanding and contract of the supervising organization. The Kashrus organization will then, patiently -sometimes too patiently - try to con­vince the company to "toe the line." There is also often a hesitancy on the part of certifying agencies to terminate a contract. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link," as the cliche goes. Kashrus agencies operating in the U.S. employ and contract with hundreds of mashgichim. Many of these supervisors are on a part-time basis who are reim­bursed per visit or per job. They may be living in areas far away from frum pop­ulation centers. They serve in the

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kashrus field simply because it is a finan­cial drain on the supervising agency to assign a regular full-time mashgiach. It is conceivable that these individuals are less-than-qualified and properly­trained. Yet, in today's complex world of kashrus supervision, ntashgichim should be subject to training.

What further complicates the kashrus scene is today's global econo­my. Manufactured foods and ingredi­ents are imported from the "four cor­ners of the earth:' (Food companies have already begun producing their products in China. This presents a num­ber of problems, beginning with pro­viding for on-site mashgichim. Chinese culture and the manner of their doing business adds up to unique problems in kashrus supervision.)

Today, kashrus supervision faces yet another formidable obstacle, litigation. There are a nu1nber of facets involved. A client is not meeting his contractual obligations regarding the kashrus of his product. The supervising agency atte1npts to bring him in line, or in the extreme, to terminate the contract. The food manufacturer then has his lawyer write to the supervising agency threat­ening '(legal action," a costly alternative for the supervision agency.

Then there is the disgruntled client whose aim is to completely do away with kashrus restrictions and legal safe­guards. He supposedly sees kashrus legislation as interfering with the sepa­ration of church and state, so he brings suit. Unfortunately, he often wins in court. This has happened in New jersey, where kashrus laws had to be re-written in a greatly watered-down version.

46

0 R C H E S T R A S

516 569 4949 718 237 2988

More recently, in New York State, kashrus laws have been found to be unconstitutional. Several years ago, this writer was present at a meeting where heads of kashrus supervision agencies, including the "big four," were in atten­dance. The purpose of this meeting was to explore areas of possible co-operation between the various agencies. A sug­gestion was made. Rabbi Don Yoe! Levy of the OK arose and quoted his legal counsel who advised against co-opera­tion in that particular instance. The rea­son? A possible violation of federal anti­trust laws! Had the agencies been able to cooperate in this area, it would have been a significant step forward in kashrus observance.

Dr. Leff is to be commended for an excellent article in which she pointed out the ever-changing spectrum of food pro­cessing as it effects kashrus. What the aver­age consumer may not realize is that vir­tually every processed food contains chen1icals, which n1ay present kashrus problems, and almost every food is processed. Also, 1nany "natural" foods, including "fresh" fruits and vegetables, are processed with chemicals that in some instances comprornise their kashrus.

While modern day technology pre­sents constant challenges for the kosher consun1er, in some cases it also presents opportunities. A "for instance" - to avoid bishul akun1 there is a kashrus super­vising organization, which uses an elec­tronic device to fire the ovens. It can be costly to assign a shomer Shabbos Yid to stop in daily - and sometimes several times per day- to light the ovens. This device is programmed so that by punch-

ing a code via telephone the ovens will be activated. (For Sefardim, however, this device does not satisfy the issur of bis/ml akum. Generally, Sefardim should be careful as to whether to rely on Ashke­nazi hasgachos.)

AVRAHAM MORDECHAI KAUFMAN

Lakewood, NJ

EDITORIAL CORRECTION:

Hollis Dorman's article, "The Market­place of the Mind" (JO, Sept. '00), featured extensive citations from Rabbi Samson Raphael I-Iirsch's writings on education. The quotations were taken from The Col­lected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Vol. 7, Feldheim Publishers.

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