Gil reminded us all that Rav Soloveitchik זצ"ל was a Red Sox fan. That's hardly a surprise, given the fact that he lived, and was enmeshed in the fabric of Boston Jewish life for over sixty years.
I once noted in a comment that all of us in Boston knew the Rav was interested in the Sox. Over the years, though, I've encountered two versions of his level of enthusiasm. (I just can't recall the sources, at the moment.)
One story has it that the Rav once started a meeting in Boston with an excited cmment about some recent development with the team (Something like: וואס מיינט איר וועגען די רעד סאקס!).
The other, somewhat milder story, has it that ythe Rav explained his expertise in the team stats by the intense interest in the Red Sox on the part of the members of his family (a fact to which I can attest personally).
Truth to tell, I find this intense interest (and reaction) to the human side of great people and, a fortiori, Gedole Yisrael to be amazing. We almost invariably put them into procrustean beds, and are then amazed at their humanity. I find this regrettable. Great men are alway 3 (or 4) dimensional, not 2.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
A Lesson from Rav Reuven Katz זצ"ל
Today marks the forty-fourth yahrzeit of HaRav HaGaon Reb Reuven Katz זצ"ל , the chief Rabbi of Petah Tiqva and the Rosh Yeshiva of the Lomza Yeshiva, there. He was, however, much more than that. He was a phenomenal ga'on in Talmud. He was hand chosen to to join Reb Isser Zalman Meltzer in the Yeshivah of Slutzk, and later studied privately with Reb Hayyim Ozer Grodzinsky זצ"ל. He was an awesome posek, and his collection of responsa דגל ראובן and the decisions preserved in the Rabbinate archives attst to that fact. In addition, he was a highly accomplished and incredibly influential leader and repreentative of Orthodoxy. It ws he who led the efforts to convince the Rav זצ"ל to accept the Chief Rabbinate in 1960. At the same time, it was said that , in the Yeshiva World, only Rav Aharon Kotler זצ"ל was on his level.
Though he was physically diminuitive, he was a spell-binding orator and darshan. His collected sermons, דודאי ראובן , are (or ought to be) a work of first reference for any Rabbi or layperson who wants to confront the deeper issues of the Parsha. In his sermons he reveals himself to be the absolute opposite of the cardboard גדול for which people search.
He was heart and soul, root and branch, a member of the Lithuanian Yeshiva World. His passionate orations in praise of and support of the Torah are incredibly inspiring. At the same time, he was passionately devoted to the resettlement of Jews in Eretz Yisrael (as borne out by his eulogy of Rav Kook in שער ראובן), and strove heroically to imprint Judaism on the character of the state in the making.
He cared very much not only about the Haredi world, but about every Jew. He had great faith in the survival capacity of the Jewish People, despite the ravages of the Holocaust.
In one place in Devarim, he says something that I hold on to with both hands. Consider two kings of Judah, in the time of the First Temple: Menashe and Zedekiah. The former was an evil, corrupt idolator, while the latter was a צדיק, a his name attests. Yet, the Temple was not destroyed, despite the depravities worked by Menahe and it was destroyed, despite Zedekiah's piety.
This conundrum disappears, said Rav Katz, when you admit that the people determines its destiny. The Jews in the time of Menashe were moral, upstanding and pious. Their devotion was what protected the people and the Temple. By the time of Zedekiah, though, the people had corrupted itself, and so the piety of the king was of no event.
Powerful words for our time, from one of the truly great gedolim of another era.
תהי נפשו צרורה בצרור החיים ותהא מנוחתו כבוד
Worth The Wait....
In the absence of a celebratory video for 2007, this one will do quite nicely (except that it's missing John Lester).
Ahhhhhh....
So hard to get used to. Were the Sox really going to sweep the Colorado Rockies? It's so har to believe. So, I admittedly stayed skeptical. After all, what member of the Red Sox Nation isn't a bit defensively skeptical (especially those who lived through this):
Nah. Never mind. At 6AM, I watched the incredible become truly believable. 2004 was not a fluke. Belief and perseverence pay off. Yankees eat yoah hahts out.
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!
(Pigs will be flying on a regular basis)
(Pigs will be flying on a regular basis)
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Parallax Vision, or Secretary of State Rice
This article from Makor Rishon just came across my desk (thanks to Chana Sperber). It shows clearly the dangers of 'Cognitive Egocentrism.'
Joel Fishman
Makor Rishon 26 October 2007
The Personal Becomes Political:
The Attitudinal Prism of Condoleezza Rice
Last week in Jerusalem, U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, articulated some of her personal views which ultimately found their way into the press. For Dr. Rice the struggle of the Palestinians is analogous to that of the Afro-Americans for civil rights and she identifies with the Palestinians. She recalled what it meant to travel in segregated buses as a little girl in Alabama. She also compared the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to Reverend Martin Luther King, because, in her mind, both were committed to peace. According to reporter Aluf Benn, Rice views Abbas as committed to the struggle for Palestinian independence and, like Martin Luther King, opposed to terror and violence (Haaretz, October 16, 2007). Independently, David Bedein reported Rice's statements in The Bulletin (Philadelphia, October 17, 2007).
While this juxtaposition of the Afro-American campaign for civil rights and the Palestinian (armed) struggle seems strange, by using methods of political analysis it is possible to appreciate the significance of this type of information. Condoleezza Rice has given us the "Attitudinal Prism" of her decision-making process. Political scientists Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell defined the term and explained its importance: "Men choose among alternative paths in accordance with their perception of the world in which they must act. The lens through which that setting is filtered may … be called the Attitudinal Prism. The content of that which they perceive is the Image. Together these constitute the Psychological Environment, the framework of choice, decision, and action. In foreign policy, as in all politics, the prism is shaped by three interacting variables—political culture, historical legacy, and the personality traits of the decision-makers."
It is clear that Rice personally considers that the Palestinians have a strong moral case and that Israel does not. Furthermore, she bases her views on her personal experience, drawing upon an analogy from the memories of her own childhood, particularly her identification with the Afro-American struggle for civil rights. According to Almond and Powell's analytical criteria, such attitudes are critically important because they become part of the decision-making process.
The problem is that Rice has adopted an incorrect analogy. Mahmoud Abbas was never a man of peace. It certainly would be a positive step forward if Rice could deal with the facts on their own merits and try to grasp why the Palestinians have reached their present situation. She should also face the fact that the Palestinians could have done much better had they refrained from launching the Second Armed Uprising in 2000.
Returning to the civil rights struggle, Condoleezza Rice's statements reveal that in her quest for a simple analogy, she forgot the one group that proved its friendship for the Afro-Americans. American Jewry unreservedly supported the civil rights struggle through participation and financial contributions. No other group in America demonstrated its commitment to social justice, as did American Jewry and its representative institutions. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was a personal friend of Martin Luther King and marched with him. The Secretary of State should not forget that Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were martyrs for her people's cause, real martyrs – not to be confused with the terrorist murderers who blow up innocent civilians in public buses. The Afro-Americans did not win their campaign for civil rights on their own. They needed allies in Americans society, and the American Jewish community stood by them.
Further, Rice has overlooked a fundamental but not obvious, historical fact: Israel gave the world the idea that that all men are equal, because God created all men in His image. Israel also gave the world the principle that all men are equal under law. "One law and one ordinance shall be both for you and for the stranger that sojourns with you" (Numbers 15:16). This rule is called "isonomia". In Against Apion, written between 96-100 C.E., Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, states that Moses "the Lawgiver" established this rule three thousand years previously, long before the Greeks (and well before the birth of the other two monotheistic religions). Josephus adds: "…. Persons who have espoused the cause of order and law – one law for all – and been the first to introduce them, may fairly be admitted to be more civilized and virtuously disposed than those who lead lawless and disorderly lives." (Against Apion II: 15, 151).
Josephus' statement explains why today many Palestinian Arab residents of Jerusalem stubbornly insist on remaining under Israeli rule. They prefer equality under law – even if they do not particularly care for the Jewish state. Israel's laws and legal system are still superior. And one should not forget that, if it were not for Moses "the Lawgiver," there could not have been a civil rights movement or a Reverend Martin Luther King.
Condoleezza Rice's Attitudinal Prism reveals a perception of the current situation which is limited by her personal experience and hopelessly superficial. It also lacks an awareness of history. Such perceptions, based on a false and oversimplified analogy, prevent the Secretary of State from seeing the facts objectively and dealing fairly, which are the prerequisites of statesmanship.
Dr. Joel Fishman is a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. joel.fishman@gmail.com
Joel Fishman
Makor Rishon 26 October 2007
The Personal Becomes Political:
The Attitudinal Prism of Condoleezza Rice
Last week in Jerusalem, U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, articulated some of her personal views which ultimately found their way into the press. For Dr. Rice the struggle of the Palestinians is analogous to that of the Afro-Americans for civil rights and she identifies with the Palestinians. She recalled what it meant to travel in segregated buses as a little girl in Alabama. She also compared the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to Reverend Martin Luther King, because, in her mind, both were committed to peace. According to reporter Aluf Benn, Rice views Abbas as committed to the struggle for Palestinian independence and, like Martin Luther King, opposed to terror and violence (Haaretz, October 16, 2007). Independently, David Bedein reported Rice's statements in The Bulletin (Philadelphia, October 17, 2007).
While this juxtaposition of the Afro-American campaign for civil rights and the Palestinian (armed) struggle seems strange, by using methods of political analysis it is possible to appreciate the significance of this type of information. Condoleezza Rice has given us the "Attitudinal Prism" of her decision-making process. Political scientists Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell defined the term and explained its importance: "Men choose among alternative paths in accordance with their perception of the world in which they must act. The lens through which that setting is filtered may … be called the Attitudinal Prism. The content of that which they perceive is the Image. Together these constitute the Psychological Environment, the framework of choice, decision, and action. In foreign policy, as in all politics, the prism is shaped by three interacting variables—political culture, historical legacy, and the personality traits of the decision-makers."
It is clear that Rice personally considers that the Palestinians have a strong moral case and that Israel does not. Furthermore, she bases her views on her personal experience, drawing upon an analogy from the memories of her own childhood, particularly her identification with the Afro-American struggle for civil rights. According to Almond and Powell's analytical criteria, such attitudes are critically important because they become part of the decision-making process.
The problem is that Rice has adopted an incorrect analogy. Mahmoud Abbas was never a man of peace. It certainly would be a positive step forward if Rice could deal with the facts on their own merits and try to grasp why the Palestinians have reached their present situation. She should also face the fact that the Palestinians could have done much better had they refrained from launching the Second Armed Uprising in 2000.
Returning to the civil rights struggle, Condoleezza Rice's statements reveal that in her quest for a simple analogy, she forgot the one group that proved its friendship for the Afro-Americans. American Jewry unreservedly supported the civil rights struggle through participation and financial contributions. No other group in America demonstrated its commitment to social justice, as did American Jewry and its representative institutions. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was a personal friend of Martin Luther King and marched with him. The Secretary of State should not forget that Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were martyrs for her people's cause, real martyrs – not to be confused with the terrorist murderers who blow up innocent civilians in public buses. The Afro-Americans did not win their campaign for civil rights on their own. They needed allies in Americans society, and the American Jewish community stood by them.
Further, Rice has overlooked a fundamental but not obvious, historical fact: Israel gave the world the idea that that all men are equal, because God created all men in His image. Israel also gave the world the principle that all men are equal under law. "One law and one ordinance shall be both for you and for the stranger that sojourns with you" (Numbers 15:16). This rule is called "isonomia". In Against Apion, written between 96-100 C.E., Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, states that Moses "the Lawgiver" established this rule three thousand years previously, long before the Greeks (and well before the birth of the other two monotheistic religions). Josephus adds: "…. Persons who have espoused the cause of order and law – one law for all – and been the first to introduce them, may fairly be admitted to be more civilized and virtuously disposed than those who lead lawless and disorderly lives." (Against Apion II: 15, 151).
Josephus' statement explains why today many Palestinian Arab residents of Jerusalem stubbornly insist on remaining under Israeli rule. They prefer equality under law – even if they do not particularly care for the Jewish state. Israel's laws and legal system are still superior. And one should not forget that, if it were not for Moses "the Lawgiver," there could not have been a civil rights movement or a Reverend Martin Luther King.
Condoleezza Rice's Attitudinal Prism reveals a perception of the current situation which is limited by her personal experience and hopelessly superficial. It also lacks an awareness of history. Such perceptions, based on a false and oversimplified analogy, prevent the Secretary of State from seeing the facts objectively and dealing fairly, which are the prerequisites of statesmanship.
Dr. Joel Fishman is a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. joel.fishman@gmail.com
Rav Yosef Engel: On Shemittah and How to Pasken
In reviewing Reb Shlomo Zalman's unbowderized sefer, Ma'adane Aretz, over Shabbat, I notice that three times in the introduction he refers to the statement of R. Joshua Falk (aka Sefer Me'irat Eynayim (SMA) or Perishah/Derishah) on Hoshen Mishpat 67:1 s-p. 2 that the blessings that the Torah guarantees for the sixth, seventh and eighth years only apply to the time when Shemittah is de-Oraita. Today, when it's at most de-Rabbanan (and possibly a midat Hassidut), there are no guarantees.
This led one of the greatest Poskim of the turn of the previous century, Rav Yosef Engel (Rav of Bendin and Cracow) to make the following declaration in his monograph, שביעית בזמן הזה (which was a defense of the Heter Mekhira, against the strictures of his mehutan, R.Menachem Mendel Morgenstern of Kotzk). His point is exactly what I was trying to get across all of last week, and relects the philosophy of psak that I learned from מו"ר Rav Soloveitchik זצ"ל and מו"ר Gedaliah Felder זצ"ל.
This led one of the greatest Poskim of the turn of the previous century, Rav Yosef Engel (Rav of Bendin and Cracow) to make the following declaration in his monograph, שביעית בזמן הזה (which was a defense of the Heter Mekhira, against the strictures of his mehutan, R.Menachem Mendel Morgenstern of Kotzk). His point is exactly what I was trying to get across all of last week, and relects the philosophy of psak that I learned from מו"ר Rav Soloveitchik זצ"ל and מו"ר Gedaliah Felder זצ"ל.
Zog Gornisht, Red Yiddish: No Canary
This was my late brother-in-law Larry's admonition. Loosely translated it means: Don't say a word. Beware of the Evil Eye!Three in a row. One to go.
זאג גארנישט! רעד יידיש! קיין עין הרע ניט
Friday, October 26, 2007
Abraham's Greatest Trial
Common sentiment has it that of all of the ten trials undergone by Avraham Avinu, the Aqedah as the most difficult. After all, what could be more difficult than to acquiesce to God's command to offer up one's child, one's only child, who one loves, whose personality is so endearing and lovable as was that of Isaac. And, of course, generations of Jews have taken our Father Abraham's readiness to make ultimate sacrifices in the name of our ideals, for the Sanctification of God's Name in the World, as a model for imitation. (I discuss some of this here. The literature on the subject is just too massive to begin to cite. A simple Google produced over 100,000 hits and collections of further references.)
A teacher of mine in High School, though, once observed that Abraham's 'finest hour' is to be found in his defense of Sodom. Here he stood on very shakey ground, defending the right to live of the most depraved, self-indulgent, narcissistic and perverted societies since the Flood. Upon what did he base that defense, upon the possible existence of ten righteous men in Sodom?
What, though, were righteous people doing in Sodom? Why ten? Well, ten people would have constituted a significant presence, a community or 'edah' in Hebrew. Abraham evidently hoped that just as he had led thousands to repent, to abandon the depravities of idolatry and idolatrous self-worship, so such a minyan might be able to heal the spiritual rot that festered in the Sodomite body politic. If there were a minyan, Sodom might yet be saved. In the name of the possibility of Teshuvah, he was willing to stand up to God and bargain with Him.
In then end, Abraham won. God agreed to accept the possibility that a few good people can transform the most depraved, the most selfish and self-indulgent of cultures. The problem was, though, was that there was no minyan of Righteous men in Sodom. Either the former had given up on the cities of the plain, the latter had sunk so low as to be unsalvageable, or the former were unwilling to try (aside from Abraham) lest they be sucked in by the Sodomites.
Avraham Avinu, who apparently thought that his nephew could do the job, was willing to hold out hope for the cities of Sodom, Amorah, Adma, Tzvoyim and Tzoar. It was only when he saw that sometimes men just fig themselves a whole too deep that he accepted God's judgment and sadly, crushed, returned home. A Pyrrhic Victory indeed.
A teacher of mine in High School, though, once observed that Abraham's 'finest hour' is to be found in his defense of Sodom. Here he stood on very shakey ground, defending the right to live of the most depraved, self-indulgent, narcissistic and perverted societies since the Flood. Upon what did he base that defense, upon the possible existence of ten righteous men in Sodom?
What, though, were righteous people doing in Sodom? Why ten? Well, ten people would have constituted a significant presence, a community or 'edah' in Hebrew. Abraham evidently hoped that just as he had led thousands to repent, to abandon the depravities of idolatry and idolatrous self-worship, so such a minyan might be able to heal the spiritual rot that festered in the Sodomite body politic. If there were a minyan, Sodom might yet be saved. In the name of the possibility of Teshuvah, he was willing to stand up to God and bargain with Him.
In then end, Abraham won. God agreed to accept the possibility that a few good people can transform the most depraved, the most selfish and self-indulgent of cultures. The problem was, though, was that there was no minyan of Righteous men in Sodom. Either the former had given up on the cities of the plain, the latter had sunk so low as to be unsalvageable, or the former were unwilling to try (aside from Abraham) lest they be sucked in by the Sodomites.
Avraham Avinu, who apparently thought that his nephew could do the job, was willing to hold out hope for the cities of Sodom, Amorah, Adma, Tzvoyim and Tzoar. It was only when he saw that sometimes men just fig themselves a whole too deep that he accepted God's judgment and sadly, crushed, returned home. A Pyrrhic Victory indeed.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Of Frummkeit and Krummkeit
When the Rov זצ"ל attended the funeral of his friend, Rav Aharon Kotler זצ"ל, he was pushed to the back of the hall and physically stopped from delivering a eulogy. A talkbackist to this posting, referred to Rav Goren זצ"ל in a most uncomplimentary manner. This, in turn, elicited the following wise words from QED:
As a practicing MO Jew, I have nothing against frumkeit per se. On the contrary, I consider the present flourishing of the Jewish religion to be a highly positive phenomenon. After being told by non-Jews and 'enlightened' Jews for the past two centuries that we are doomed to extinction, it is heart-warming to see the exact opposite happening. Even academia, that bastion of secular liberal humanism, is starting to recognize the power and importance of religion in Jewish and non-Jewish society.
Nevertheless, this revival is not without its uglier aspects. One of these is the phenomenon of self-appointed 'defenders of the faith' who disparage and disgrace talmidei chachamim, gedolim and rabbis who are not 'frum' enough in their mind. The most extreme expression of such fanaticism is of course the small group of Me'ah She'arim kana'im (obviously I refer to a group within Meah She'arim, not all of its residents) who viciously attack all but the most stringent authorities. At times, this even leads to physical violence, as when some kana'im physically assaulted Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Israel, when he attended and spoke at Rabbi Isser Zalaman Melzer's funeral in 1954.
Most of the expressions of this disparagement do not reach this level, although they are no less digusting and disgraceful. One such phenomenon is the use of the term 'JB' for Rav Soloveitchik or referring to Rabbis without their proper title, like a recent comment on My Obiter Dicta's post about authorities on heter mechira referred to Rav Shlomo Goren.
It goes without saying that such people would go apoplectic if one referred to the Brisker Rav or the Hazon Ish in like form. That this is utterly hypocritical and disgusting also goes without saying. It is also contrary to halacha, which did not make kavod talmidei chachamim and the issur of bizui talmidei chachamim contingent on agreement with their halachic opinions, though I'm sure many have tried to be metaher that sheretz. Worse still, by allowing the use of ad hominem and insults against Rabbis one doesn't like, the more stringent sections of the Orthodox community are burning whatever bridges of common dialogue remain between them and the 'insufficiently frum' crowd. Nay, it undercuts the very fabric of halachic dialogue and 'friendly disagreement' on which I believe normative Orthdox Judaism rests. Otherwise we are no different than the various murderous sects of tzadikim the Netziv lamented in his intro to Sefer Bereishit. It pains me immensely that it has come to this.
I don't care what your opinion is on heter mechira, kashrut, or whatever halachic issue gets your goat. You have an unequivocal halachic obligation to respect the authority and person of Rabbis who hold differently. Otherwise, you're not much different from the thugs who attacked Rav Herzog - in other words, you're just a common self-important bully.
Frummkeit, Reb Yeruham Gorelick זצ"ל used to say, is Krummkeit.
As a practicing MO Jew, I have nothing against frumkeit per se. On the contrary, I consider the present flourishing of the Jewish religion to be a highly positive phenomenon. After being told by non-Jews and 'enlightened' Jews for the past two centuries that we are doomed to extinction, it is heart-warming to see the exact opposite happening. Even academia, that bastion of secular liberal humanism, is starting to recognize the power and importance of religion in Jewish and non-Jewish society.
Nevertheless, this revival is not without its uglier aspects. One of these is the phenomenon of self-appointed 'defenders of the faith' who disparage and disgrace talmidei chachamim, gedolim and rabbis who are not 'frum' enough in their mind. The most extreme expression of such fanaticism is of course the small group of Me'ah She'arim kana'im (obviously I refer to a group within Meah She'arim, not all of its residents) who viciously attack all but the most stringent authorities. At times, this even leads to physical violence, as when some kana'im physically assaulted Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Israel, when he attended and spoke at Rabbi Isser Zalaman Melzer's funeral in 1954.
Most of the expressions of this disparagement do not reach this level, although they are no less digusting and disgraceful. One such phenomenon is the use of the term 'JB' for Rav Soloveitchik or referring to Rabbis without their proper title, like a recent comment on My Obiter Dicta's post about authorities on heter mechira referred to Rav Shlomo Goren.
It goes without saying that such people would go apoplectic if one referred to the Brisker Rav or the Hazon Ish in like form. That this is utterly hypocritical and disgusting also goes without saying. It is also contrary to halacha, which did not make kavod talmidei chachamim and the issur of bizui talmidei chachamim contingent on agreement with their halachic opinions, though I'm sure many have tried to be metaher that sheretz. Worse still, by allowing the use of ad hominem and insults against Rabbis one doesn't like, the more stringent sections of the Orthodox community are burning whatever bridges of common dialogue remain between them and the 'insufficiently frum' crowd. Nay, it undercuts the very fabric of halachic dialogue and 'friendly disagreement' on which I believe normative Orthdox Judaism rests. Otherwise we are no different than the various murderous sects of tzadikim the Netziv lamented in his intro to Sefer Bereishit. It pains me immensely that it has come to this.
I don't care what your opinion is on heter mechira, kashrut, or whatever halachic issue gets your goat. You have an unequivocal halachic obligation to respect the authority and person of Rabbis who hold differently. Otherwise, you're not much different from the thugs who attacked Rav Herzog - in other words, you're just a common self-important bully.
Frummkeit, Reb Yeruham Gorelick זצ"ל used to say, is Krummkeit.
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