In the Rav's Name...

So, again we've been treated to an invocation of Rav Soloveitchik's much bruited opinion on the question of Land for Peace. Last week, the full citation was provided to the membership of the Rabbinical Council of America through its in-house e-mail list. It's really quite famous. Even Nissim Mishal, in his book for Israel's Jubilee, made sure to cite it (along with the Rov's picture).

This is the central portion of the Rov's remarks (in Tishre, 5727), as cited in the above e-mail. The full text is found here ):

But I don't need to rule whether we should give the West Bank back to the Arabs or not to give the West Bank to the Arabs: we Rabbis should not be involved in decisions regarding the safety and security of the population. These are not merely Halakhic rulings : these decisions are a matter of pikuach nefesh for the entire population. And if the government were to rule that the safety of the population requires that specific territories must be returned, whether I issue a halakhic ruling or not, their decision is the deciding factor. If pikuach nefesh supercedes all other mitzvos, it supercedes all prohibitions of the Torah, especially pikuach nefesh of the yishuv in Eretz Yisrael. And all the silly statements I read in the newspapers-- one journalist says that we must give all the territory back, another says that we must give only some territory back, another releases edicts, strictures and warnings not to give anything back. These Jews are playing with 2 million lives. I will say that as dear as the Kotel Hamaarovi is, the 2 million lives of Jews are more important. We have to negotiate with common sense as the security of the yishuv requires. What specifically these security requirements are, I don't know, I don't understand these things. These decisions require a military perspective which one must research assiduously. The borders that must be established should be based upon that which will provide more security. It is not a topic appropriate for which Rabbis should release statements or for Rabbinical conferences.

There are two points to be made here. First, the Rov was opposing rabbinic pronouncements on the issue.

Second, and more important, he was not sayng that it's a mitzvah to hand over parts of Eretz Yisrael. He assumes here that some sort of security consemsus can be reached as to what borders Israel needs. He, himself, took no stand on that point. He had the humility to say that he could not take a position in an area where he had no expertise. That's it. Given that there is no consensus about the security impact of the destruction of Gush Qatif, there is no way of knowing whether the Rov's theoretical discussion applies, or not.

On the contrary, invoking it today is extremely misleading and distorting (as are a host of other, one sided citations of his obiter dicta). Consider this, in 1967 the State of Israel was considering territorial compromise with a sovereign Arab country with whom it had a long history of sub-rosa relations, namely Jordan. Today, we are talking about handing over territory to a terrorist entity which has no cohesion, except its blood lust to wipe out the Zionist entity. There is no Palestine Authority (see the article in the Atlantic cited in my earlier post).

Would the Rov have supported such a move? I personally think not, but there is absolutely no way of knowing. He was a big believer in people making up their own minds. Besides, necromancy is a sin, according to the Torah.

So please, in the name of intellectual honesty and out of deference to the Rov's memory. Please keep him out of this. He said what he said almost forty years ago. If he always critically revisited his shiurim, I am sure that he would have done so in matters of Life and Death. Tragically, he's no longer here.

חבל על דאבדין ולא משתכחין

Go Caroline!

Caroline Glick is one of the most perceptive political analysts writing in the Israeli Press today. Today she takes a look at the larger issues around Sharon's government and Netanyahu's resignation.

It's a tragedy that her analyses don't get published in Hebrew, and in places they might influence the broader public. OTOH, there is no daily outlet for neocons in Israel.

Hilkhot Gerush

Recently, there have been several suggestions as to how to powerfully respond to the destruction of Gush Kaqtif, and the demonization of its residents. I"d like to add my ideas, with a nod to R. Israel Rosen and thanks to Toby Klein Greenwald)

Jewish Pride and the deep and abiding conviction in the justice of our cause demand, in my opinion, that the exile from Gush Katif (should it come to that) be greeted with the utmost dignity. The exiles should depart with their heads held high. Each town should gather in its center. The Sifre Torah should be taken from the Aron Kodesh. Ashes should be placed upon each Sefer and upon the heads of every man, woman and child. They should tear Kri'ah (as we all will) and recite Tehillim and swear 'Im Eshkahekh). They should walk, with heads high, out of the Yishuv, led by their Sifre Torah, singing Ani Ma'amin. If they have a Bet Almin, they should carry their dead out at the side of the Sifre Torah. Somewhere it should say, 'Qiyymu eleh, mah she-katuv be-Eyleh.'

At Kissufim junction, tens of thousands should line the road on both sides to meet them and say 'HaMaqom Yenahem etkhem be-tokh she'ar Avele Tziyyon ve-Yerushalayim.'

I have no doubt that on Sheinkin, in North Tel Aviv and elsewhere there will be Hitnatqut parties (not unlike the way in which the Bundists had Kol Nidre Balls.) I have no doubt that the media will ridicule the exiles and gripe about how much money they're making on this deal.

However, for ourselves and for the Jews who still care about why we came back here in the first place, it is important to show that they will not break us. They will not humiliate us. The Torah teaches us both how to win and how to lose, and how to keep hoping for our ultimate vindication.

במהרה בימינו אמן

Gilda

Gilda's Blog is one of the most popular Hebrew blogs in the dati Leumi community. This is her latest contribution. Read it and weep1

A Word to the Israeli Academic

This week we heard about Eilat Mazar's thrilling find, which might be King David's Palace. My son, who's a student of Dr. Avi Faust at Bar Ilan, mentioned that the latter is about to publish a book discussing the anthropological implications and meaning of finds such as these. Faust is a real pioneer in bringing the tools of current anthropological analysis to bear on Biblical archaeology.

That got me to reflecting on the type of tunnel vision that afflicts the Israeli Academy (a point raised at the closing session of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, last Thursday evening). Around the world, archaeologists dig for finds in order to create a meaningful reconstruction of ancient life (a 'Thick Descriptive Model' in Geertzian terms). In Israel, however, we're all too often stuck with the material of our finds, and fail to ask what they mean on a larger plane.

The same is true in Talmud and Medieval Jewish Studies. We are the masters of manuscripts and philological reconstructions. But how much time do we really spend asking ourselves what all this means? How many of my fellow scholars use sociology, anthropology, cultural history, intellectual history and a plethora of other disciplines to take our work to the next level (as it were)?

I think it's high time for taking off the blinders, emerging from the tunnel and building a world on the material and textual finds we're so proud of.

(BTW, you can ignore the so-called archaeologist/propagandist from Al-Quds U. who was quoted by the Times article I linked to. OTOH, if you can tell me what he said, I"d appreciate it. It doesn't read like English.)

Defiling the Land

i wish I had something cogent to say about the murder of innocent people by an ostensibly religious person on Thursday. I don't. I have nothing but revulsion at him and at those whose moral obtuseness bred him. The shedding of innocent blood defiles Eretz Yisrael and its inhabitants. Period.

May God forgive us.

(QED and Manuscript Boy, did have thoughtful things to say on the matter.)

To Be a Jew

Even though I've spent a lot of my academic life studying medieval and modern anti-Judaism and antisemitism, I really didn't encounter all that much of it growing up. As a kid in Boston (in the refined, cultured suburb of Newton), I occasionally encountered anisemitism of the most basic kind, viz. getting accosted, threatened or beaten by Italian or Irish toughs who decided to teach the Jews a lesson. It wasn't pleasant, but It didn't happen all that often. I dismissed it as the acts of a few neo-neanderthals. In college and graduate school I don't recall ever experiencing either antisemitic or even anti-Orthodox sentiment. Once, during my two-year post-doc at Yale, I had one encounter with 'genteel' antisemitism that was so subtle that I wasn't even sure it had happened (until I recounted the encounter to the senior faculty member with whom I was working, and he confirmed it).

Since the start of the war in September, 2000 I have spoken and written extensively on the origins of Muslim antisemitism and the devil's pact between Christian and Muslim antisemites to demonize Israel and the Jews using the grossest forms of antisemitic archetypes and images. So, of course, I'm aware of that. I wasn't, however, living in its midst (except for my two trips to Paris during that time).

Now, however, for the first time in my life, I find myself feeling constantly beset by anti-Judaism of the most virulent kind. It's not coming from the Arabs, or the Christians. It's coming from the Jews. It's spewed by the Israeli newspaper of record, Haaretz (here and here and here and here and there's more where that came from). The poison is not confined to Haaretz, it oozes out of the Israeli Left's mainstream. As Amnon Lord reports in this week's Makor Rishon, MK Avshalom Vilan is anxious for the opportunity to wipe out the Right and finally obliterate any sign of Religuios Zionism (and Judaism) in the State of Israel. The same sentiments arise in the response sections of the Israeli papers on line and in epithets screamed at religious people in the street, in airports (I just received a few of those), and all sorts of other places.

Since 1993 I have warned that Oslo and its metastases covered a deeper problem, an out and out kulturkampf. It's now upon us in full force. The very weaknesses that led us to contribute to its creation (and we do bear a good part of the responsibility), are now leaving us totally unprepared for addressing it. Religious (and traditional) Jews who grew up here have never developed the coping mechanisms that Jews in Galut had. On the other hand, how do you deal with an hysterical pathology? (And Judische selbst-hass, is a pathological disorder). Maybe, all you can do is reinforce your resolve to live a life of Torah and Mitzvot with dignity. After all, at the end of the day, it's not the slurs of the Gidon Samets, Gidon Levy's, Avshalom Vilans, David Landaus, and Yoel Marcuses that determine Israel's fate. It's God who determines it.

Maybe that's why the Rambam highlights the element of Teshuvah for Tisha B'Av, and not the element of mourning.

Rabbenu Gershom, Me'or HaGolah put it best:

אזכרה אל-קים ואהמיה

בראותי כל עיר על תלה בנויה

ועיר הא-לקים מושפלת עד שאול תחתיה

וכל זאת אנו לי-ה ועינינו לי-ה

In a Ruined Country

Anyone who has access to the Atlantic Monthly MUST read the article by this name in the coming month's issue. It exposes the seemy side of Palestinian corruption and the heavy involvement of government connected Israelis in reaping the rewards. (The article was posted here but was evidently removed over Shabbat).

Women Learning Gemara

Gil Student has been preoccupied with the issue of the right of women to learn gemara.In that connection, he reproduces the Rav zt'l's letter, that was published in R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Community, Covenant, and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications, p. 83.

I recall seeing the Rov quoted on this issue (but I can't recall where). The quote went something like this: Women are obligated to study the Halakhos of the the mitzvos that they are required to observe. So, for example, in order to know Hilkhos Shabbos, you need to study Masseches Shabbos, and 'the way to Masseches Shabbos goes through Baba Qamma.'

Catching Up...

It's been weeks since I posted. My schedule in New York was just too full to allow for it. Now that I want to catch up, however, there's so much to discuss that I scarcely know where to begin. And if I begin, I'm afraid one posting will over shadow the other (cf. Berakhot 14a). So, I'll start by writing telegraphically and try to follow up with fuller discussions. [It's a tried and true method for those who listen to Rega shel Ivrit on the radio at 1555.]

1) I'm sick over the criminal insanity worked by a meshugenah Kakhnik. Murder is murder. The Torah forbids the murder of civilians, period. Never mind that every Jew in the world will now be a target (as if they wetren't before that.)

2) I am a big fan of Rivka Yaffa's columns. Her latest on why she can't plan a vacation after Tisha B'Av because of the impending expulsion from Gaza hits home. We're not going awayu that week either. Same reason. The real insight is provided by the comments that her column attracted. The Religious Zionist and Haredi Worlds have become the 'Jew.' It's chilling how so many hate us. I didn't experience that kind of loathing when I had to put up with physical attacks by Irish and Italians toughs when I was a kid. And if you don't believe it, take note of Haaretz' declaration of war on a messianic public that doesn't exist, except in its own fevered imagination.

3) If you didn't believe that this is a Kultur-kampf, get a load of Gidon Samet's scurrilous screed about the so-called decline of Jewish Studies. I can't believe that I used to sit with this same person as part of the Shaharit Group and thought he would work toward dialogue and the re-judaization of the State of Israel. There must be something about Haaretz hiring vicious, ignorant demagogues named Gidon.

4) I recently received an email from the RCA where a colleague reproduced the Rav zt"l's remarks in favor of territorial compromise, from 1967. I am really tired of people taking things out of context and using the Rov as an oracle. He was the absolute last person who would tell people what they must do. He did not believe in Daas Torah. He believed, mirabile dictu, that people should think for themselves.

5) Oh, and how could I forget the exciting events of the Fourteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies. Contrary to Samet's imbicilic, vicious diatribe it was truly inspiring and legitimating.

Expansions to follow.