Welcome to Judaism, Demystified, a podcast for the perplexed.
We are joined by Rabbi Doctor Mark Shapiro.
Robert Shapiro holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies
at the University of Scranton. A graduate of Brandeis and
Harvard, he is the author of numerous books, articles, and
reviews, and is a popular scholar in residence at
synagogues around the world. He has written between the
Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy and the Limits of
Orthodox Theology, both of which were National Jewish Book Award
finalists. Other books of his include Saul
Lieberman and the Orthodox Studies in Maimonides and His
Interpreters and Changing the Immutable, How Orthodox Judaism
Rewrites Its History. In 2019 he published Igorot
Tamasche Ravanan, which contains more than 30 years of
correspondence with some of the world's most outstanding Torah
scholars. He regularly publishes widely
read scholarly articles on this forum blog and is currently
writing a book on the thought of Rav Cook.
Doctor Shapiro leads a number of the Torah in Motion Jewish
history trips. His appearances on the Habura
and Torah in Motion are Must Watch without further ado, Rabbi
Doctor Mark Shapiro. Thank you for joining the
Judaism Demystified podcasts. We are honored to have Rabbi
Doctor Mark Shapiro on the podcast.
And before we begin, we would like our audience to know a
little bit about you. So if you can, please give us
just a brief about who you are. OK, thank you.
A pleasure, honor to be here. I grew up most of my life in New
Jersey, had a typical Modern Orthodox education and day
school and high school, studied in Israel.
Then my BA is from Brandeis, My PhD is from Harvard.
I was Professor Isidor Yitzhak. Tversky's actually his last PhD
student that he sought to completion the doctorate.
Along the way I also studied some with Soleil Chicken.
This summer I got some Yuka from her frying Greenblatt.
I worked as a rabbi for a few years, so I've done a a number
of different things. But my main job is work at the
University of Scranton, a professor in the religion
department, and in summers I do. I lead Jewish history tours and
try to write, and I keep my voice out there.
I guess that's that's enough to say I think, about me.
Yeah. And you're you have excellent
shurim on the Habura. I do want to plug some of your
books, Changing the Immutable Limits of Orthodox Theology,
among others that were very, you know, well versed in.
And, you know, we also want to recommend the audience listen to
your new series on the Reform movement, which is what we're
going to be talking about tonight.
We kind of want to, you know, emphasize this because it's
fascinating. It really, it's really, really
interesting. And I think a lot of people just
dismiss the reform movement off hand without actually studying
the history. So we want to kind of get to
know, you know, what it is that you're going to be this you are
discussing on your series. So first I want to just discuss
the origins of the first generation of the Reform
movement. What?
What was Gershom Solem's thesis on this, and what are your
thoughts on his thesis? OK, two separate things.
First of all, while you speak about reform, what Shalem is
speaking about is right at the beginning, like why did the
reform happen and where did it come from?
Did it just come out of the blue?
And Shalem, he saw really Sabakianism and everything, or
he tried to uncover it. And he makes the claim that
there was a connection not just between the early Reform but
also Haskell, early Haskell Law and Sebatianism.
His argument basically is that, well, first he tries to actually
make some connections, actually physical connections between
people, Sebatians and early Haske Law.
But his basic argument is that Sebatianism, it's antinomianism.
That is the idea that the Jewish law is not binding, you know,
the whole Sebatian idea. We're entering into a new era
that that really set the stage for a questioning of the the
binding nature of halacha and really allowed for reform to
take root. I guess you could say in the in
the Jewish community, because ideas about the Jewish law of
Sebatian type of ideas had already filtered in.
I guess you could say the best way to put it.
Others have said show them, as far as I know did not say this,
that it's also due sabatinism had an influence in another way.
The great disputes the end in Aisha's dispute that led to such
a degeneration in in the eyes of the people of the rabbis,
because they're killing each other, attacking each other, and
with the lack of respect. And there have been a class that
opened up the doors to the possibilities of new approaches,
new rabbis. In terms of Sholom's point, the
second point, which Sholom, as far as I know does not make it
probably has some validity. The first point, I think
scholars have basically rejected this.
There really doesn't seem to be any evidence about the
individual connections. And if I could say from my own
perspective, you always have to ask yourself, you know what If
So, what if there never was a Sebastian movement?
Do we really think that the reform movement went to develop
that they in? In modern times, all you have to
do is look at the other Judea, you have to look at
Christianity. You see they had a Reform
movement as well. It's it's hard to imagine that
by the 18th century, when there's an enlightenment out
there in Europe, and where Jews are being welcomed to to a
limited extent to participate in general culture, is that there's
another when there's another option out there, it isn't just
Judaism or Christianity. You have this middle ground that
you can you can be Jewish and Christian and meet in the middle
ground. The neutral space is that Jews
would have remained committed to halacha even without the even
without sebatianism. The idea that there wouldn't
have arisen a Reform movement. I I see it as incomprehensible
his position because certainly there would have arisen a Reform
movement. Now why would have been because
Jews would have rejected Jewish law.
There's no question that with modernity, many Jews would have
felt that we don't want to be, you know, bound to these archaic
laws. And at the same time, you would
have had people who have arisen who said, well, does that mean
we're going to lose these Jews entirely?
No. We want to offer them another
form of Judaism, one that you can still remain Jewish.
Because, remember, the early reformers were not converting.
They were not becoming apostates.
They wanted to remain Jewish, and they suffered to be for
remaining Jewish. If they would have become
Christian, the whole world would have been open to them.
But they remained Jewish. So you see, they had a certain
amount of pride in their Judaism, but they didn't want
their Judaism to be understood as just through halacha.
You know, where did they get these ideas?
Well, well, if if you're living in Germany in the 18th century,
enlightened opinion is is talking about how organized
religion doesn't make sense. You know, ideas of miracles,
obligations, and you had the exact same thing going on in the
Christian world. So it makes sense that those
Jews who wanted to leave the confines of the ghetto, even the
opportunity, you didn't have a termed era Pirates of
Schumpscherhoff Arge. You had the choice either to be
part of greater German society and like in society we're living
like a a ghetto sort of existence.
And the idea that you're gonna go to university and still
follow halacha that that option wasn't available.
So I think that we have to conclude that that Shalom's
argument is questionable. I don't even know if you can
make the case that sedate deism speed up the movement towards
reform. It appears to me, at least from
how I see it, that this is some something completely independent
with no relationship whatsoever. It's it's really response to
what's going on in an enlightened German society or an
English society. Because there was Reform
movement in England also people forget about.
Yeah, you know, people also make the make the same kind of
connection with Maimonideanism, you know, leading to
Enlightenment or or Kabbalah. I've heard many theories, but
I'm curious to know what you you lightly touched on the Raviakov
Emdin and Ravionton Abishitz controversy.
How does he make that connection there?
He's just saying that. I'm saying I don't.
I don't recall him actually speaking about.
He might say it, but many others have made the point.
Maybe that's why he felt he didn't need to, that the
breakdown. I think Gretz makes the point
even now that the breakdown of rabbinic authority because of
the dispute. Look, everyone was in Hayram.
The Indian forces were putting them in Hayram, vice versa.
And if you're a layperson and you're looking and these, these
are our Gadoli and these are our great rabbis, and they're
attacking one another like that, it can only lead to a decline of
their prestige in people's eyes. And that the argument isn't
made. That's what led to the opening
for Haskell. Because look, if if this is who
our rabbis are, we're not, we're not going to be, you know, like,
you know, people, sophisticated people, people with sensitivity,
they're going to see a problem with this and they're going to
be inclined to move in a different direction if offered.
So the the claim is made that, and I think there is validity to
this, that the rabbis in the 18th century remember that
Haskell of the movement away from traditional Judaism really
comes very shortly after these great disputes.
And it isn't just ending. I've shits.
This tore apart all of German jewelry.
The Pineya Shua people don't realize this.
Rishua Faulk, the great Pineya Shua was also on Ryako Hempden
side and many other Ghidoli were entered today.
People assume it's just Yaakov Emdin, but it's not the case at
all. And whatever show you went to,
you sort of were involved in some in this dispute to a
certain extent. The big shows in the cities, I'm
saying. Who were some of the figures
that really began the movement? Like who?
The Reform movement. Yes, the the the first
generation, how did it like I'm the first people.
When I speak about the Reform, I'm not speaking now about,
let's say, students at Mendelssohn who just gave up
traditional Judaism and either adopted some sort of universal
religion or no religion. Now I'm talking about people who
actually advocated a a a new type of Judaism.
And I mean, you had the community of David Friedlander.
You had, you had, you had a whole, you had community in
Berlin and Humber, basically groups of Jews.
And they found certain rabbis who were willing to lead them.
So, for instance, there was a man named Eliezer Lieberman.
I don't know that much. Before I go on your readers,
full treatments of this can be found in this book by Michael
Meyer. What I tried, it's called
response to modernity or a history of the full moon in
Judaism. What I tried to do in the series
is do some things which haven't really had much discussion,
namely the rabbinic rule. I'm not the, I mean, you know,
traditional rabbi is their involvement of it like he speaks
about in Westphalia you had things going on.
You had in, in in in Berlin and Hamburg there was a movement of
laypeople first. It starts from the laypeople
that they want a different type of synagogue service.
No one is saying to get rid of the Sabbath, how many, how much
these people observe the Sabbath.
It's hard to imagine that there were any real Sabbath observers
the way we think of it. But they still, they wanted to
go to the synagogue and some of the things they wanted were
you'd be surprised before. They wanted sermons in the
vernacular and sort of like we get every week in our synagogues
that that that everything was in Yiddish.
They wanted it. However, in in German, they
wanted music, something that our synagogues all have.
It's music. Singing of the sort we have, by
the way, is not a traditional Jewish thing either.
But they're not even referring to that.
They're referring to music like of a Cantor and a choir and an
even musical instrument, The organ.
The organ was considered very important, of course.
Can you play an organ on Shabbos?
We'll get into that as well. So they, they wanted decorum,
they wanted aesthetics. They they think of the Stiebel,
if you know what a Stiebel is, they wanted a different.
And even if it's not a Stiebel, they had big synagogues in
Germany. But you didn't have decorum you
didn't have. We have descriptions by the way
of non Jews who came to the synagogue.
And look when you when you feel comfortable in a synagogue,
maybe you don't treat it the way you're supposed to have it that
they wanted to get rid of PU team.
Look in Arsene I can speak for the Ashkenazim, my synagogue
doesn't have any of the PU team. Now what happened to them all
they they got rid of them. So I guess we're Reform also.
One of the ironies is that number of the reforms.
Well, a number of the reforms are now considered basic today
in a Modern Orthodox or even some in some parade communities.
They some of them wanted to change the pronunciation of the
the to the Sardak pronunciation, a variety of things like this,
and there was an individual don't know much about him.
His name was Eliezer Lieberman. He was not a.
He was a learned person. How learned?
It is hard to know, but he was learning enough to write a
halachic work. He had a good Hebrew ability and
he was asked by the earlier formers, can this be justified
halachically because they wanted to be at least this.
They wanted the synagogue to be halachic and that's what's
unique about the first generation Reform.
They saw themselves as a halachic movement.
By the 2nd, 3rd generation they had no interest in halacha, but
the first generation they wanted to be halachic.
So Eliezer Lieberman, he begins sending.
He wrote his book as Well, or No God's Called, which set forth
his position. But then he got rabbis from
Europe, mostly from Italy, one from Hungary, a couple of
mishawaki from Israel, to answer questions of his about these
reforms. Now we don't know how many
rabbis? He asked.
Presumably he has lots of rabbis, and they turned to noun,
But he was able to publish a book called No God Sedic, which
has mainstream rabbis. Even Aron Horan, who would later
be a leading Reform rabbi, Hassan Sofa, referred to him as
Akher. But at this time he still was a
traditional rabbi with reformist ideas, and he published a volume
in which they defended so, for instance, an organ in a
synagogue. They found a whole defense in
this volume. What's wrong with an organ in a
synagogue if a Nanju play plays it as Rimosha Kunitz, who was
the Diane and Budapest? Today we call it Budapest wrote.
Every single Shabbat, the Nanju comes in and turns off the
candles in the synagogue. And if it's, you know, if the
candles were to go out, the Nanju would come in and like
that. Well, if that's allowed, then
why can't an organ be allowed played by a Nanju?
And that will bring people to the synagogue so they can
appreciate it. And after all he said and others
pointed out, they used to have weddings Friday afternoon which
will continue into Shabbat and non Jews would play music today.
It's hard to imagine it, but non Jews would play music at wedding
meals on Shabbat because it's a sudas mitzvah.
It's and the non Jew is is playing it and he's told before
Shabbat to do it, it's permissible.
So that was the argument that was made and prayer in the
vernacular. The people wanted to have prayer
in German. Now, what could be wrong with
prayer in German? All all these authors wrote in
this volume. After all, doesn't the Mishnah
Doesn't the wrong mom tell us explicitly?
Prayer can be in any language, so these were the sorts of
matters they wanted to change to update.
Nothing about moving the Sabbath to Sunday.
Nothing about, you know that kosher food is only for an
earlier time when they they didn't know how to keep the
food, you know, at good temperatures.
Nothing about the fact that a lot of these laws are only to
keep us away from pagans. And today we live among
dignified Christians, and therefore they're not
applicable. No, it was a halachic movement
designed to modernize Judaism. I can't hear you.
Oh, so we wanted to I wanted to ask you how is the response of
the of the Orthodox rabbis at this time towards this new kind
of hula seeking seeking kula system of Eliezer Lieberman.
So like what was like the the, the climate with with in the
orthodox circle towards what was going on over there?
OK, well, the first thing to note is that we we don't want to
call them Orthodox yet. They only become Orthodox, sort
of when there's a Reform. They're the traditionalist
rabbis. And the the response?
The response was furious because the rabbis understood that much
of this was about imitating the Christian practices.
Much of what they wanted to do was an imitation.
Why do you want an organ? Because the Christians have it.
And look, you have to. The Rev Soloveitchik once said
that maybe if Ramosha Sofia, the Hatam Sofia, was not so strided
in his opposition that we could have stopped the reform
movement. After all, what did they want?
The the, you know, many of the things they they, they didn't
were not so extremely compromised.
But then when we saw of a chick said, But you know what?
If maybe if he wasn't so strident, things would have
become much worse. The rabbis the the, the the
leaders, the Gadoli astral we call them, understood that that
for the the reform communities, these new communities, that they
would then call them Reform. This is only the first step and
that this, this wasn't all that they wanted, that this was
basically gonna open the floodgates.
And their assumption was, and I think it's correct that the
rabbis who replied rabbis in Italy, one in Budapest, they
didn't understand what was going on.
They were answering this question just like it's a pure
Halachic question without knowing the the context of
what's going on in Germany and that you have communities of
irreligious people. And this is just like the
opening step before they move in, which they did move further
along. And I think it's from Mordechai
Bennett, if I remember correctly.
He says, look at these letters, look at the, the, the, the, the
letters. In Nogat Senec, you don't have
any local rabbis. Why did Lieberman write to the
people in the other countries? Precisely because they didn't
know the situation and they would answer it just as a pure
halacha question. If you were living in Germany
and you saw up close what was going on, you would have
understood that this was just you had to close the doors.
We're not dealing. This isn't just a pure halacha
question. This would open the floodgates
to more and more. And I think we have to say that
the rabbis, this rabbinic expression, Hakamadi Fu Navi,
they're a a wise person. You know, there's there's more
insight you could say than a prophet.
They, Rev Moshe Sofre Remotege Bennett and the others
understood what was going on here and and they put a stop to
it to a large extent. But it is ironic that so many of
these reforms, if you read them today, we actually have them in
our communities. But that's because we, we sort
of fell into them organically and that is very different that
Remotia Sofre understood very clearly.
That the the Kavanaugh the intention is really determines
many of these matters. In fact, he coined the phrase
what's new is forbidden from the Torah because today you can't
have novelty, because it's so dangerous, because you have a
whole group trying to tear down traditional Judaism.
In earlier generations or in the Svartic world, for instance,
this isn't a problem because there isn't a Reform movement.
So perhaps you could be more liberal.
Incidentally, if you go to Budapest today, the Dohani
synagogue, that's the big synagogue there of the the
liberal Jews. They call them the neolok.
To this day on Shabbat, they have an organ played by a Nanju,
and that's in line with the sock of Hermosha Kunitz, the Dalian,
the Dalian of Pesht. Wow, wow.
Something that I'm taking from what you've said is that the
beginning of the first generation reform, essentially
what you explained came from actually from from from the
bottom up, it was from the people, right.
The people wanted certain changes and that that that
sprung into well, what it became for better or for worse, right.
But what I'm taking from that is, is that, you know, in
general we tend to think that change can only come from
leaders. But in reality, what what we can
learn from that is that, you know, we as members of the
community, members of the Jewish people as people can create
change. If we if we if we if we make, if
we do it the right way, it's possible to make change.
We're not. Absolutely.
Leadership. In fact, in by the 2nd and 3rd
generation Reform, the Rabbis were running the show when they
were leading it. But in the early years it was
the people. They didn't have rabbis, they
started their synagogues. Later they call them temples,
and they were not happy with the main synagogue and they wanted
to make changes. But of course, what you say is
absolutely correct and change can come from the people.
It's it's always come from the people, sometimes consciously
but often unconsciously. That is, the people just develop
in a certain way. And the earlier Reform movement,
but it's a but the what I'm speaking about is a one
generation thing because when the rabbis didn't go along with
it and it became obvious that you couldn't create Halaqa
Reform synagogues. If you want to use the term
Reform, then by the next generation you know Halaqa is
really jettisoned as a as a binding principle.
Leaders like Geiger and others whole time they have no interest
in Halaqa. They come out of strict Orthodox
backgrounds, but they believe that we're now in a new era and
we don't need to go to the rabbis for to get their
opinions. OK.
So on that note, since we're now segwaying into the second
generation reform, when and why did the second generation reform
develop? You touched up on it a little
bit now, but if maybe should expand on that a little bit,
right? And and how did it differ from
the first? OK, well no, God said.
It appears in 1818. Geiger's dates are 1810 to 1874.
So by 1840, let's say 50, you have a a real strong reform
movement of some significance. What you have is you have a
group of individuals like mind individuals who have been raised
traditionally and some were real time old time.
Guy Geiger's a big time. He was a covers the University
of with the University of Bond with with Hirsch and they
together come to the conclusion that Judaism needs to be
updated. And you have some in this group
who are radical, extremely radical, who wanna jettison the
entire oral Law. Basically they're very much like
Karates that you know they just the the Bible, that's all they
want. Then there's others who are much
more traditional who see Reform. They take the mantle of
Pharisees, that we reformers are like the old Pharisees, We're
the traditionists and you can't ask what the Pharisees said.
You have to ask what they would say if they were around today
and that's Geiger's position that and you have many rabbis in
towns and you have to understand you're in a small town let's say
in Germany and the people, they just listen to what the rabbi
says. And if the rabbi comes home one
day and says that, you know, now the rabbis have decided you only
need to keep one day of the omtov, you know, well not two
days anymore, what do the people know?
They'll they'll go along with it.
That's why it was very dangerous situation and it took a while
before it became clear that there were two camps here, the
Orthodox camp and the Reform camp, because there was a lot,
as I would say, false advertising.
You know, they have little rabbis in little towns that they
can advertise their positions. But Geiger was a well known
figure and he really is the most important.
And the argument basically is that we are now in a different
stage by the mid, let's say, 19th century.
The argument is we're at a different stage.
We're living among civilized gentiles.
Many of the laws in the past were designed to keep us
separate from the non Jews. These are not the type of non
Jews today that we no longer can believe what other people
believe. That is, we can't believe in
Tara Musini tradition in a traditional sense.
So if you're if you have the argument that we can't believe
in Torah the way it used to be believed in.
So what's important So monotheism's important Ethical
monotheism, the idea that the Jews have a mission, that we're
we're a holy people because we spread morality that so that
becomes the stress. And as Geiger himself as I
recall said, you know we're not inspired by the rule of a
natural getting more you know we're we're not jettisoning all
of the Bible, but we're looking for what what speaks to us.
Not everything speaks to us. So it was a recreating of
Judaism in line with modern sensibilities.
So from an Orthodox perspective, this is terrible.
This is the worst at destroying Torah.
So you can understand why they attacked them so brutally and
viciously and justifiably from Alaska perspective.
But if you take the broader view, you can actually be what
we'd say, Mohammed Sult. Remember, these are people who,
although the Orthodox said to them, you're no different than
the Christians, You want to get rid of Torah.
You know, you're like Paul, who's Saul of Tarsus.
You're saying that, you know, we don't need the the law anymore,
but these are people who could have abandoned Judaism and all.
They still suffered as Jews. There was all sorts of
disabilities on them in the professions and in other areas,
and yet they chose not to. They chose to remain Jewish.
So they were proud to be Jewish. So from our perspective, I think
we have to look at them and say although of course they were
wrong in their views of halacha, but to see them as the Orthodox
of the times saw them as simply wanted the easy way out and not
caring about Judaism. Really you have to, it depends
how you look at the glass half full half hepty.
They suffered for their Judaism. It's not a Judaism that we
recognize, but in their mind it was Judaism.
And and look at the end of the day many of these Jews died, oh
Kiddush Hashem because they remained Jewish.
Had they converted to Christianity in the mid 19th
century, 100 years later, they would have been regarded as
Aryan because it would have been four or five generations.
So we have to give some over. If Cook says that in every, even
in every negative thing, there's sparks of holiness, so what's
the spark of holiness in reform? I think this is the spark of
holiness that they still showed a connection.
They didn't want to give up that last spark of Judaism that they
had. Something was keeping them in
the community. It wasn't over the way we see
it, but it was something, yeah. So they so they essentially
wanted to kind of focus on Judaism as an idea versus law,
right, essentially. Yes, the law.
There's no no such thing as law anymore.
There's only suggestions. I guess you could say if the
practice gives you inspiration, then do it.
So what's Shabbos? Shabbos to them is not the 39
Mahot. It's not what you can't do.
It's the idea of Sabbath, the spirit, the day of a family,
time of connecting to God. So some people said, well then
we why don't we make it on Sunday?
Then we could do the same thing. But that was voted down.
They had three major rabbinic Reform conferences where they
voted on these matters. Circumcision.
Some Reform rabbi said it's barbaric and others said no,
it's it ties us to the 3000 years of Jewish history and it's
so it's not a command. The the, the, the, the practices
are never a command anymore from God.
Rather, it's our way of connecting to God because they
believed in God. But if these are creations of
humans to try to connect to God, and we have to decide whether or
not we still find meaning in them.
You know what's interesting to me?
You can. We can make the same sort of
criticism on the opposite direction towards Orthodoxy, in
that Orthodoxy is so hyper obsessed with Alpha that they
lose the forest from the tree, the trees from the meaning they
lose the the soul of the matter. Right, Because.
Obviously. At that.
Point has been made by many. It was made very strongly by Rif
Cook. That and by Heschel.
Heschel said that Orthodox Jews are not in awe of God, they're
in awe of the shukran earth. I mean that's that's a big
problem when you're at, you could be at a Pesach seder and
instead of focusing on, you know, this great redemption, the
focus is on the, the Shirin, the Kazais, this and that.
I mean when I was in yeshiva, I'll never forget this.
So they took us. I think it was her Shabbos or
Shabbos, I can't remember to the the Western Wall and you can see
Harabayi. You're supposed to do Crea when
you see that and for whatever reason today people don't do it.
There's discussions as to why they don't.
That's bottom up by the way. The people don't do it.
Then the rabbi's trying to justify it, but the sources say
you should. So we went on either air shops,
I forget or should before Shabbos or Shabbos.
But I remember that we were told we're going so we wouldn't have
to do the Crea. And even then I was only 18.
I remember thinking this is like so wrong, so Orthodox, if you
want to put it, we're supposed to see Harabayi and be so, you
know, moved by the the the scene of the the non Jewish house, you
know, the houses of worship, the shrine up there that we're
supposed to do Crea. But instead, we try to find a
trick to go at a time when we don't have to do it to spare our
shirts. I mean that would be an example
of seeing the far losing the the forest for the trees instead of,
you know, and unfortunately, Orthodox Jews fall into that
trap, what Heschel called halajo centrism.
That look, if Salvatrix said that halajo is not the ceiling,
it's the floor, we have to fall halajo, of course, but that's
not all there is. That's the basis.
And then you have, if you would, you could be with the Ramban
says and the valbra, juta Tara, you can follow all the halajo
exactly. And yet you're still a scoundrel
because you lose sight That how I thought there's a tell us you
know it's trying to get you somewhere.
So there's no question that the non orthodox the reform had a
point and they there were many problems in the traditional
world. Hirsch himself pointed out there
were many problems. Hirsch was a reformer with a
small R and he but he adopted the critique he we say or he
agreed with much of the critique of the reformers.
What sense does it make to say you're not gonna have sermons in
the vernacular what the Yiddish is?
Holy language or something? Now Taro was given in Yiddish.
The people want music. So you have a choir.
Hirsch has a choir. Hirsch started wearing gowns.
What's the problem? I mean, the other rabbi said
it's absolutely forbidden, but the people, they wanted it.
They thought it was dignified. And if that's gonna bring him to
the synagogue, Hirsch thought that this you're being, you're
cutting off your nose to spite your face, that you're making
stands on meaningless small things.
You have to look for the bigger picture here.
So what, German neo orthodoxy. German orthodoxy, which gets
going through Hirsch, Hildesheimer and others, they
recognize the problems that the Reform pointed to, but they
offered a different solution. Obviously it's not abandoning.
Hahaha, it's But it's creating a new type of Judaism.
And Geiger was very upset with Hirsch when Hirsch publishes 19
letters because Geiger, Geiger thought that he was going to be
dealing just with old fashioned Judaism, which would remain a
tiny segment. But here Hirsch comes along and
says no, you can be observant and you can have everything.
You can go to the university and be a government worker.
Geiger's whole point was that traditional Judaism is a pre
19th century form of Judaism. We if you want to be a 19th
century German Jew, you can only be a reformed Jew.
And the traditionalists agreed with Geiger.
They also agreed with Geiger that she writes, you can't go to
the university if you want to be a traditional Jew.
So what would that have left traditional Judaism with a small
little group? That's it.
It's Hersh who comes on the scene and says those rabbis, the
traditionalists, they're wrong, that we can we can be part of
this German society, but we don't have to give up to her.
So it's you have to accept parts of the critique of the
reformers, because the the traditionalist rabbis were
living in the 19th century just like they were living in the
18th and 17th and 16th century. And that led to disaster.
In the year 1800, every large community was dominated by the
traditional Jews. In two generations, every every
city was dominated by the Reform Jews.
This happened on the watch of the traditional rabbis.
If they were football coaches, they all would have been fired.
It happened on their watch and Hirsch understood this.
They allowed reform to grow. And Hirsch said, you know why
they allowed reform to grow? Because they didn't understand
Torrendera Harris. Torre has to deal with every
civilization and every era and the response of Torre's gonna be
different. These rabbis, they were in
eighteen 19th century Berlin and they were acting like they were
in 17th century Vilma. You know that's you can't have a
Judaism like that and and so yes, was Hirsch a reformer, of
course reformer with a small horror.
But he understood something that the reformers also understood,
that Judaism can't remain static.
Isn't, isn't, isn't a lot of what you're expressing now, kind
of what Modern Orthodoxy is striving for.
Exactly. You have.
It's not just Modern Orthodoxy. Haridim also are doing it.
Not the Harim in Israel. Haridim in America.
They're so acculturated. They're so though you go to the
the basketball game and there's a block culture hot dog stand
there. So what?
You could fight. You could scream, you could say
this is terrible. My kids Super Bowl Sunday.
So what do they do during the half?
You when I was young and yeshiva, the rabbis would get up
and tell you not to watch it. It's terrible.
Today they don't say that. They say during the halftime
she'll call in. They have like a little sheer
for 20 minutes. So that's what turned our
harence is you recognize the reality.
You're going to fight against things.
You can't fight against it. This is the way of the world, so
you have to deal with it. And that was what Hirsch
understood. He's not saying that in Poland
they should wear a gown or that they should have a sermon.
Remember sermons come from the reform.
Also, we never had sermons. We had rushes.
But a sermon, the way we think of it, like a 10 minute talk
which is supposed to edify and give you inspiration that comes
out from the that comes from the Christians, the Protestants and
then their formers adopted, the people wanted it.
It's hard to imagine that people wanted sermons today.
They don't like sermons, but they demanded sermons.
They never had that. So that's a it's a good idea so
but Hersch isn't saying that you should do this in Boland.
You know that when Rosary Hodesimer came to Berlin, he's
he observed that no, sorry. Now when Rousseau Cilantro came
to Berlin, he saw Rousseau Cilantro teaching a class in in
hahaha to young women in Berlin. And he said if he if the rabbi
in Russia ever tried to teach women, you know, advanced
halakha like that or I shouldn't say advanced just halakha,
they'd throw them out and for good reason, he said.
But I wish that my share in Omhaba will be Israel
Hildesheimer, because every community is different.
And you mentioned Modern Orthodoxy, Hirsch Hildesheimer.
This is a form of Modern Orthodoxy.
It's a recognition of the issues of the problems, but giving a
different solution. Look, girls are being educated.
So what are you gonna do? You have to give that.
You have to have a reform. You have to teach girls.
Then if they're getting educated, secondarily, you have
to educate them Torah as well. So the Reform movement had a
correct diagnosis, many of the problems.
But there's a solution was was the incorrect approach.
The one wayward. The solution one wayward.
Because they assumed that by definition.
Since they confused, I would say the out the shell with the
kernel. This there's a shell the way the
Jews they said you couldn't get, you had to work, let's say as as
a merchant you couldn't have what we would call today white
collar professions 'cause that would mean you have to go to the
university. We can't go to the university.
We they said you can't make any changes in this synagogue.
You can't have the sermons in the vernacular, you can't have
sermons at all. You can't have music where
people you know all the things. By the end, again it wasn't
singing along but listening to a Cantor, all these things because
we can't have any changes. And then the Reform pointed this
out, but then they threw out. Not only did they make the
change, they threw out, ha ha, they threw out the divine nature
of Torah, when really all you had to do was modify the
external. And that's what Hirsch's whole
point was. He said you may need to
distinguish between the Colonel, the Torah, which is eternal, and
the outer form, which is different, obviously.
It's different in every society. That's what Torah Derek Harris
means, Torah with whatever Derek Eretz there is.
And so Reform took the Derek Eretz and they created their own
Torah, whereas Hirsch kept the Torah.
And since the Darrell Harris has changed, he, you know, the outer
form of the change, the I guess if you want to speak like an
Aristotelian, you have matter and form.
The matter remains the same, the form changes.
But for the Reformers, not only the form changed, but the matter
was changed. There wasn't any bases of tar
anymore. Very, very excellent points.
There's a lot there to unpack. One of the things that I think
is a tragedy, it's the reaction to the Reform movement, for
example, them championing like you mentioned, Tanakh, just like
the Carites. It kind of led to a response by
the orthodox or the traditionalists later to to just
champion Talmud study and halacha like you said.
And I till this day I feel like this is really a one part that's
just lacking in in in the Orthodox.
Majorly. Well, it's the Ashkenazic
orthodox world, not the Spartak orthodox world.
It actually wasn't a response to the reformers.
That's the response to the Haskola, the Muskili that begin
in Germany and of course in Germany the Muskili and the
Reformers, they intersect. But in Eastern Europe you don't
really have reformers and the reformers you have are really
Helochic, completely helochic. You don't have.
They just, you try not correct to call them reformers.
They're liberals say but because the Muskili.
They've also wanted a broad they they had a good diagnosis also.
The diagnosis was that we have to you know have some breath.
Not everyone can function you know just you know either go to
yeshiva or something they wanted to and Judaism is broader.
The Spartak Rd. never would have had this problem because the
Spartak Rd. recognized you have the great poets in in Spain you
have the philosophers all these things.
But Ashkenaz's Judaism has always been Talmudic centric.
And then when the but there never was a problem reading
Tanakh but that wasn't something most people did.
If you're a Tom McLaughlin but then when the stealing started
championing this then you start having a a trend against it.
You're not even for Shoma Cougar great great hawk authority from
Glitzia says you can't even teach kids Tanakh.
And the old joke which isn't just a joke you how do you know
a verse from Tanakh You know it from the the Talmud the page
it's on. But this trend actually goes
back even to medieval times. The Toast Fold already talks
about how we don't need to study Tanakh because you know
everything. We got everything in the Talmud,
and Hirsch criticizes this in his 19 letters.
That's a mistake, but it reached extreme proportions because the
early opinions, whenever saying that there's a problem when it's
done off, they just say you don't need to.
By the coming at the 19th century, if you're in a Bait Me
Drash and you're sitting there reading, let's say Safer Yohesco
or Safer Danil Khasmusallab, they're going to assume that
you're not a traditional Jew but you're some Moscule, because
that's not what we do. And that's a complete
distortion, obviously. And it it's, you know, often
backlashes lead to extreme positions and eventually you
find your way to the middle ground.
But it it, it hurt traditional Judaism a good deal.
And it did not allow traditional Judaism to respond, I think
creatively to challenges in the 20th century with the rise of
the State of Israel and return to biblical, you know, sites
that and how to relate to this. And fortunately in the religious
Zionist world, there now is a renewed emphasis on Tarak,
Mahonertzag and much going on great stuff.
But you're absolutely correct that the the response led to all
sorts. Well, you had that response to
the reformers. I don't know if you know this,
that in Hungary the response to the reformers was so extreme
that they made all sorts of resolutions.
So, for instance, you couldn't have a wedding and a synagogue
in Hungary. This was banned because the
reformers did it. You could not have a choir, you
could not have sermons in the vernacular.
This is, it's a common theme and it's an understandable things
that would be permissible when they're advocated by the other
side. Then they became very, very
problematic and it takes a while to reach equilibrium.
Fascinating. So we touched on the different
sects that splintered off. Besides, you know, Orthodoxy,
Modern Orthodoxy, Modern Orthodoxy, Conservative, Reform,
Reconstructionist. We have many subgroups that have
splintered off these primary sects.
Sticking to the main branches of Jewish sectarianism today, what
would you personally suggest and hope should be done with these
issues that we have today? Well you know it's hard to know
who's a sectarian or not because to the people, to the right
often see the people to the left as a sectarian.
And even just in the wider Orthodox world, you probably are
aware of how many leading Orthodox figures have pointed to
Yeshiva's called Vittora as open Orthodox as sort of like a
sectarian type of reformist movement.
So my attitude is that, look, we have to recognize reality here,
that we have all these different types of Judaism.
You mentioned them, you didn't mention renewal.
That's another one. Now these are all people who in
this, in our era of, of, of secularism, of post religion, in
much of the world, you have people who want to be Jewish and
that's already a glass half full.
And So what do you do with these people?
Do you throw them out? Do you reject them?
You don't want them, obviously. There's real difficulties that
the Orthodox side has with the others that there's even an
aspect, which you didn't mention that when you deal with the
Reform movement, for instance, conserving movement to a lesser
extent, but also significant, many of the members are not even
holically Jewish. So that raises its own problems
because of patrilineal dissent or conversions that we don't
recognize. But let's leaving that aside.
I have thoughts about what to do with that as well.
But leaving that aside, at the end of the day we can go back to
something and that Siv said not so.
I see you here to bring in. He said that among each other we
fight. Obviously we fight about
matters, 'cause they're important to us.
So if they're not, you don't fight about things.
If they're not important to you, if if we all got along and no
one had any disputes, it would mean that we don't take it
seriously. However, when it comes to the
outside world, then that Siv said this, and he was referring
to all types of Jews just like we have today.
You joined together because you need to distinct or Solovacek
also elaborates on this. This is what we call Coppe
chutzu penim that we all still are people.
They're reformers, They're completely irreligious.
We see this right now in Israel. You know when when we deal with
the enemies, we're all one people.
So I think and and I think we're in an era where everyone can
recognize that the era of polemics of criticizing the
other, of trying to tear them down, It's past.
It doesn't accomplish anything. What's the point of a polemic
against the reformers? You're not going to convince
anyone. This was all done 100 years ago.
Well, I think we need to recognize and that and treat
everyone with respect. They have a different opinion.
We think it's incorrect, but they think that we're incorrect
and that way we can coexist and we want to coexist.
We don't want to live like Satmar or living in some shtetl.
We want to be part of the larger Jewish people.
Because even before you had the Reform movement, we still had
prayers saying, you know, Rosh Hashanah, he's the Ashkenazi or
Yom Kippur. You know that we're going to
pray with the sinners. We've always had sinners, so we
had more sinners. Today, most of the Jewish
community is sinners, but we're sinners also.
We're just sinners in different ways.
We're all sinners. Maybe we're better in certain
areas, but some of these Reformed Jews, I don't call them
non religious, some of them are very religious, they're not
Hilah. So they're misguided, but
they're they're we're all one people and look in the Spartak
world that you come from, you never had the Reform move, you
never had movements denominations, but you always
had different levels of religiosity and you always were
able to be a a large tent. The Ashkenazi unfortunately,
have denominations. It's our curse that has a lot.
To do with just living in Christian countries, you know
the the, the influence of that, you know countless sects of
Christianity and I think that there you just naturally model
after that, you know? Well, also I think they were
living in eras where secular society was very sophisticated
and the people went to universities.
That opened up all sorts of possibilities.
But at the end of the day, you ask what to do with all these
different sects. I say don't do anything with
them. We have we battle in the battle
in the square of public ideas, and I think we have a good
product. And I think unfortunately many
of these groups are disappearing and it's not a good thing.
I don't think we should be happy about it through intermarriage,
through assimilation, lack of caring.
But as long as we have other types of Jews, I think we should
treasure them for what we are. We're a people.
Yeah, I agree. And as Safari Jews, you know, we
always grew up with that. You know you have the guy next
to you who drives the Shulan Shabbat and the other guy next
to you wears a Black Hat who's a hassid even.
And you don't really see other than Habad, you don't really see
any any groups interacting with the other.
I think that what we, what I actually want to advocate for
and what we're trying to do on the podcast as well is to, you
know, humanize these other groups like they are part of
our, like you mentioned, they're part of our nation.
And now post war, post October 7th, Judaism, we kind of have
to, you know, wake up a little bit and kind of change our
attitude. It doesn't mean we have to, like
you said, accept their beliefs, but it's very rare to find, you
know, a Modern Orthodox rabbi invited to speak in a Aridi
shul. But you'll have a Modern
Orthodox shul bring a Haridi rabbi to speak in.
And I actually would like to see a conversation like I don't know
if you know Rabbi Mark Gallop, you know, one of the best Jewish
interviewers. I think he's Reform even.
And he, he would interview everyone from from Rabbi Mark
Angel to Rabbi Sachs to Meri Kahana, I mean the who's who and
from completely different areas. And I think that was, to me,
that was very nice to see because, you know, not often I
get to hear a conversation between a Reform rabbi and an
Orthodox rabbi. They're not going to persuade us
in one way, one way or another. But having a conversation could
only benefit the society as a whole.
I I think that's. What you said, you said a lot of
important things. I'll just add one thing as well.
You didn't mention, but you talk about Sephardic communities.
Look at the astronauts, the world, you know how many
khairums, Khairum against this and that other than Espinoza and
maybe in Syria you had a Khairum in Aleppo against there's a
there's an period but other than that, you know you don't have
that in the sphartic world. The issue with the Khairum is a
difficult one because at the end of the day, although it would be
very nice for them to invite the Modern Orthodox rabbis, they
fundamentally don't accept the legitimacy of the Modern
Orthodox approach and their whole lifestyle and way of
thinking is that is is not like the Modern Orthodox I I did
classes on the Satan Marebi. We wanna understand everyone
doesn't mean we agree with them but they don't believe in a
public setting of giving legitimacy to people who
religious leaders who don't share their Hashka FA.
So I don't really know how you break that down to the idea of a
debate. We would love to have a debate.
You get people together but they don't believe in that.
It's just a different philosophy and I don't know how you can
change that so you're never gonna get.
It's a common theme. You know every year when I was
growing up the Lakewood yeshiva would come to my town there'd be
a breakfast for them and raise money for the some school in
Lakewood. But they they would never do the
same in Lakewood for one of our schools that that's that's just
the way it is. And you have to.
So if you don't wanna give any money to one of these
institutions, like what? Saying 'cause it's there's no
reciprocity, OK, that's one approach.
Or you can sort of, I guess, be a bigger person and say that you
can recognize that other institutions, even to the right,
if you still have value, even while acknowledging that they
will not see the same about your institutions, the at least not
the same to raise money. They might think that they have
value to prevent, you know, us from assimilating that sort of
thing. That's just the reality.
And I I guess that's the definition of being a liberal in
this sense. I think we should all be
liberal, that we can have tolerance for those who are not
as tolerant to us. That's at least the path I've
chosen to lead my life, I. Think Modern Orthodox is
probably the the path that allows for that in a way because
we we do, for example, respect the Haredi leadership and the
bit Dean and so on. Sure, Shivan pony Matora mine
Mython Oxy believes there's different paths the Haradi
world. The big problem is that they
forgot the net. And although there's different
paths in the Haradi world, but it seems that each Haradi seems
to have that this is the Das Torah.
That's that's a problem. Look, there's much we could
criticize about the Haredi world, but we also have to
acknowledge all the positives. Just like there's much you can
criticize about the modern orthox world, there's some stuff
in the Haredi world which is outstanding, absolutely
outstanding, which the modern orthox world doesn't even get
close to that. On the other hand, there's much
that we can criticize in the Haredi world.
So no, no side is perfect. And Haredi rabbis recognize
this, and privately they will talk about this to you.
They talk about it to me all the time.
It's just it's hard in a public setting for them to do that.
And so you have to accept that that's just their approach.
They have a different approach. Like we were talking about in
the beginning, I was just thinking that people are, they
call the shots, which is how it works.
Actually. We did a podcast with This is
reminding me of that interview we did with Alex Gutman and we
were discussing the voodoo. We called it Voodoo Judaism.
But a lot of stuff that just starts to kind of appear within
Orthodox circles, which is like Schlisselhala and all these
strange practices. But the rabbis really, they,
they kind of have to like accept these things because they just
creep in and everyone starts doing it and then it becomes
very popular and it's just hard to stop it.
And the conclusion of that conversation was that it's not
going to come from the rabbis. These kind of these things have
to be stopped. Well, what you're saying, it
seems to be what's going on in Israel now.
There seems to be. Look, every time you have a war
like big event like this, we don't know how society changes
afterwards. And you have now thousands of
Haradian. I'm told these are not like the
losers, the ones hanging out in Ben Yehuda, the Shabab Nikim,
that these are real Shiva students who have entered the
army. You're having lots of people in
the army and Haradi society looking around and seeing that,
you know, our mothers are going to sleep.
They're fine. Our life continues as normal and
yet funerals are going on every day.
Someone I know his son-in-law was killed to just today and I
watched the funeral. This is going it could touch to
the core Hari society and there are rabbis.
There are young people Rishiwa Feffer and others.
If you have an interview to me certainly a good interview a
leading Haridi thinker there from the younger generation
arguing that we need to make a change.
So if the there if the people may and you know by the way this
is a problem in Hari. There's the leadership.
Yeah, the leadership in Haridi society, you hear me?
Yeah, yeah. What was his name?
You said the. Name of that well.
Shua Feffer PFEFFAR. He's has a magazine and his they
call him Haredi light. But I mean this is this seems to
be the direction that much of the haredi community certainly
American style. Haredi as well live in Israel
but you know that something's a brew.
How do you know that? Because we've had all sorts of
extreme crazy statements by Haredi Russia Shiva leaders in
the last few weeks. How you you Shiva students
should not have anything to do with the army.
You shouldn't go to funerals. You shouldn't even visit sold
injured soldiers, you know, extreme crazy stuff.
They see that the ground is shifting and they're trying to
keep the ghetto walls up there and trying to.
So that's a sign that and things are changing and what's going to
happen is that the people on the ground will change it.
You're never going to have a complete change.
There'll be different communities, but you're going to
have, I think, the development of a different style.
Haridim, we'll call them Haridi who work, or Haridi Seonim,
whatever you want to call them. People who want to be part of
society. And the rabbis will emerge
because the communities will appoint the rabbis.
And we've seen this again and again.
We've seen this with the Hasidic movement.
We've seen this with the Roja Zionists movement.
You think Roja Zionists had, you know, they had to find rabbis
also for many of their communities.
We've seen it with also. We've seen it again and again.
And this is just the. Anti Zionism.
The Anti Zionism of a lot of those communities is also gonna.
I mean obviously. The communities are not anti
Zionists. They all the people forget what
the rabbis say. The rabbis speak a language.
Sometimes those are the people. The typical Haradi in Israel
feels connected to the state of Israel.
It's his country, it's his. He can he connects to it.
And so they practically they already are Zionism.
What does Zionism mean? Zionism's ideology to create a
state. The state's already there, So
what? I mean Zionism.
Everyone who lives there is connected to the state.
The issue isn't Zionism. Yes, the Haredian have problems
with symbols of the state, you know, things like that.
But practically you know they they live many of them as with
the with the exception of going to the army which is the big one
they live as part they they feel connected to the the state of
Israel. Look they know that what anti
Zionism you get someone in America some politician to to
Talib or something and anti Zionist they know it's
anti-Semitism they they so there's gonna be changes reforms
with a small R remember the reforms of Hirsch the firms we
either talk about you have to sing as she reforms with a small
R and reforms with a large R we've always had reforms of
Judaism we kind. We kind of have this discussion.
We've had this debate. Yeah, because I also have
relatives in Israel somewhere, not religious, who used to be
haraidi, let's say and went off the darek or whatever it is and
they're like saying the opposite.
No, it's not. Nothing's changing.
We spoke to last few days ago, we spoke to Rabbi Slifkin and he
was saying the the changes are it's it's so minute and it's so
small. He was kind of downplaying it.
I kind of believe that myself, but I'm hoping that he's not.
The positive, I'm. The positive, Yeah.
Yeah. Listen, I don't know.
I don't live there. I can just tell you what I'm
reading, what I'm hearing. They're saying that, and we
don't know. None of us knows.
Is everything gonna go back to normal like it was before
October 7th? It's hard to imagine that.
I mean, Jews are being buried every single day.
And the Kharadi world has to look at this.
They there has to be a Hezbollah nefesh, as we say, A reckoning
of how, again, it's not just the army.
If you live in a Kharadi settlement and there are in the
West Bank, you have some settlements you don't, you have,
you don't do your own guard duty.
I had a person on one of my tours in the summer was
complaining that Pesach night, his son couldn't be at Seder
because he was at one of these Scar 80 places.
He was guarding them. Why can't they guard themselves,
this idea that they can't carry a gun, you know, that that that
they're not well, well, where did they get this thing from?
I think they're going to have to step up, especially with their,
you know, population. And I don't know if it
necessarily means in the army for men, most of them, but
national service, there has to be something there.
There has to be some involvement more.
And I think most of them are going to recognize this or many
of them are, look, we could be wrong.
It could go back to the way it was before.
But what I think is very, very interesting and maybe I'm wrong
about this, but this is just the general feeling I have.
I feel like this the times we're in right now like a figure, like
Rabbi Sacks is sorely missing. But I feel like there's no like
voice coming from the rabbi is that that is just like
inspiring. I'm not talking about just
shirim. Like all you hear is like the
gogu, my gogu shirim and then or you hear the, you know, you hear
the the the ultra caridi approach or you hear you know
things talking rabbits talking about politics but inspirational
kind of messages and also kind of paving the way for a post
October 7th Judaism. I don't hear those
conversations. I feel like there's a big lack
and actually I'm noticing that the people are actually the ones
like for example today and. That's.
What counts? Yeah.
And I'm listening. You know, I'm, I find myself
listening to a lot of, you know, people who are, let's say, for
example, comedians, Jewish can be like AMI Kozak.
I find myself listening to him more than I do to certain
rabbis. Or I listen to, you know, some
influencer and the people are speaking up and like it's almost
it's interesting because in the world that we're living in
today, the people are becoming the brands in a way and they
have a lot of influence and and it's no longer just the rabbi
who has a voice. It's very interesting what's
happening. Yeah, I but there are some and
some will emerge. I don't know.
If you listen over to Mayor Soloveitchik, who certainly
presents a very he's a public intellect, maybe the leading,
certainly the leading rabbi, public intellectual, and one of
the leading Jewish public intellectuals.
But we have, we have many columnists and other speakers.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a wider range, obviously.
I don't want to say. All of them.
Obviously we have we have our own personal rabbit, Rabbit
Maroof. He's phenomenal.
You know he's just he's really he's so understanding of he's so
sensitive to the times that we're in.
And also Rabbi Yonatan Halevy is somebody who who we really have.
Yeah. They're saying, look, you're
comparing Rabbi Sachs. This is a once in a you know
well maybe in a century type of figure.
You've had a lot of chief rabbis in England.
No one was like him. He was the he was the rabbi.
Not just to the Jews in England, to the non Jews.
I mean he was a a moral spokesman someone who could we
we miss his voice right now. Oh, do we miss his voice to
speak to the world about the the morality of what's happening and
the immorality of of the progressive outlook.
We really miss his voice on the world stage.
And I think we're gonna do, we're the ref generation.
We're gonna, we're gonna appreciate.
I think people will appreciate Rabbi Sacks in the century from
now. I think he's just one of he's
gonna be one of he's just so underrated right now.
But. Well, he people will read him.
People will read him. In a century from now, most so
that's most rabbis will not be read but he's one.
He had an enormous impact and look, I knew him personally, so
but yeah, these are great. Figures.
What was that? What was that experience like?
I always love to hear a good Rabbi Sack story.
Well, I'll tell you a good Rabbi Sack story.
I told it in in my class as well, though that, so I came to
England to speak actually at his, you know, a show right near
where he was living. So he asked me to come see him.
We had corresponded before that, but that was the first time I
met him and he would talk a lot. He didn't listen so much.
He talked, but so he said to me he like first.
He began by saying I he he reviewed my book on Rabbi
Weinberg and he he read all my stuff.
He liked it very much. He even read my blog post, the
swearing blog, which really gets into the weeds.
He said to me, but now it's time for me to, he said he said to
me. I didn't ask him, but he told
me. He says I want you to start
writing for the Wall Street Journal.
I want you to start writing for the New York Times.
I want you to bring your vision to the wider world.
In other words, he was telling me that I should be like him.
So on the one hand, it's a big compliment.
He thinks that I have something to say to the world, that I
should start writing like basically like Mayor Salvation,
who's writing for the Wall Street Journal every few months.
The truth. But I said to her by sax, the
truth is that that's not my interest.
I'd rather write A blog post about some obscure rabbi from
200 years ago that maybe 1000 people find interesting than
write a piece. My daughter actually has had a
few pieces in the World Street Journal, so she gets 100,000.
You know, readers, not me, but what can you do?
That's not my interest. But he stressed the point.
He thought that there's a need for Jewish spokesman on the
wider in the wider world for the the world at large.
And he thought that I had the talent, the ability, whatever I
might have the talent, I might not, but I certainly don't have
the desire. So I had to disappoint Rabbi
Sachs and I submitted one article after that maybe because
he inspired me and the Washington Journal turn it down.
So I said enough with that. I'm going back to the things I
do best. And.
But that I thought was interesting because you saw and
I'm sure by Sack said the same thing to many that was
significantly younger than probably 15 years ago.
I'm sure he said the same thing to a number of younger people,
that it's important for us to carry on, you know, 'cause he
believed, like Hirsch did, that Judaism is not just for the
Jews, that we have something to say to the world.
We're a universal religion. We have universal values and an
outlook and he didn't want to be the only person out there.
So that's that was my that's my Rabbi Jonathan Sacks story that
I like to repeat. The things that he was saying
also just a few years ago about the mutating virus of
anti-Semitism, it's so relevant today.
It's just like he's it's almost prophetic, this stuff he was
saying. He has a great.
Yes, he saw. He saw before many others the
the, the, the dangers of multiculturalism and the.
The. Populism the the division into
the that the you know the Jew as the oppressor and that the the
so-called liberation means liberation from the Jew as well.
The twisting of the right becomes wrong.
He saw that before it became obvious to everyone else.
Amazing. Before we go, and this has been
an amazing conversation we wanted to get, if you can tell
us a little bit about your interactions with Hakam Fawr.
He's also someone who's important to us in the podcast.
We we have a lot of affinity for for Hakam Fawr and we and you
mentioned to us before we came on that you had a certain
relationship with him. We just wanted to know if you
can say a few words on that. Sure.
My my relationship was almost exclusively via e-mail.
I I wrote a piece a little booklet on Shaul Lieberman Seul
Lieberman the Orthodox, and at the end of it I dealt with the
controversy with Rabbi Faur in his community, which was very
similar to what I wrote about Lieberman.
Namely he was teaching at the JTS and Juicy Oju seminary and
some of the more right wing rabbis thought that that would
have that possled him that made him Pasul to teach in the Syrian
community. So that was a bit of a a
controversy in the Syrian world and I touched on it and later I
published more documents on this matter and throughout that I
then I was in communication with Rabbi Fatwur just discussing
these matters and then he invited me to come visit him.
He would spend the summers down at the Jersey Shore, Oakhurst,
Elberon, one of those towns. So we spent the entire morning
together, and that's where I could say I I got it from the
horse's mouth, as it were, about his life, his time in Lakewood,
his outlook, his experiences. He was such a special,
interesting person. I don't share a number of his
views. I actually think that some of
his judgments of the Ashkenazics ages are a little bit askewed.
But he was such a unique individual, and I learned so
much from him, his writings and what can I say, a great loss.
So these are giants, these people, and we don't appreciate
them sometimes when they're here.
And we miss them, though, when we see what we miss when they're
not here. And I think I have more stuff.
I think I have, yes. I have another document I
haven't yet published relating to the fatwa controversy, Rabbi
Hakamatu Babadi. He was a businessman, but he was
a huge tomahawk home, One of the leading rabbinic figures in the
Syrian community. He was one of the big backers of
Fatwar. Zach Fatwar took him to meet
Sean Lieberman, who was, I guess Fatwar's other rebbe.
If you want to call him that. And one thing I confirm with
Fatwar, you might be interested. He was such a close student to
Reviron Cutler. He was.
He went to Nightwood and he writes about it.
Actually he and Navarro and even came and when I thought were
open to yeshiva, he was a young man.
He was in his late 20s, He opened to yeshiva in Flatbush.
Navarro and Cutler came in the late 50s, came and spoke there.
But when Navarro died, they asked Fatour to be one of the
people to carry the coffin. They heard that from someone and
I didn't know if it was true. And I asked Fatour and he said
yes, he was one of the people that carried it.
So that just shows you how how respected he was then in the in
the literature world. However later on look he went to
the seminary to make a living make up on us.
So like the seminary has always been filled with Orthodox
individuals and there were people for either.
I don't want to get into the politics.
So whether it was for you, look, he Fowler would have Shirim and
the place would be smiled everyone would come here.
So from his side this is all about jealousy.
You know here is or he's the most popular teacher and the
other rabbis are not as popular. So that on the other side and
the other rabbis and the the side of the other rabbis was
that despite his brilliance he was teaching at a non orthodox
institution and therefore we can't have that in our
communities. Even if he's personally
observant, we can't have someone like that teaching for us.
So it became a bit of a a ball gun and for him and he suffered
on account of this, definitely, yeah.
And it was unfortunate. And I have letters, private
letters back and forth between him and his opponents which
shows the bad blood. And it's it's really unfortunate
and what can you do though? Yeah, it's very unfortunate.
And, you know, sometimes you could just look at somebody
who's like a pose like that for really a silly reason.
You realize that maybe it's a badge of honor you know that
that they kind of excommunicate him because he he he was a very
important person and his writings are unbelievable and
they're so there's it's just so it saddens me that you know
people don't have knowledge about his books and you know we
especially at you know we're not we weren't connected to him
directly but we have indirect connections to him through
people in our community, Robby Tone and his family.
And I really, really hope that you know with your help, with
your articles and everything that you write that he will you
know get his his due. Yep.
But I do have to say that, and I didn't.
I had too much coverage, so I didn't say it to him.
I do think that there's certain problems and things.
He writes for example his whole notion.
I mean he by very interesting. He rejects the whole idea that
Averoism philosophy led to the conversions in Spain, which I I
I think that's a difficult position.
But what I would have said to him, but I I had too much cavode
is I think he speaks disrespectfully.
He has an article about certain Ashkenazi rabbi.
So for instance he has an article there called
Antimaanidium demons and here he's speaking about these.
I speak about Ashkenazi speaking about the Rambon and he speaks
Rush. Rush is an Ashkenazi.
Look we can't he's a great man and sometimes people who are
great people they they they call the Rita Dorita when they get
involved in things They at the end of the day though he's not
living in medieval times you can't speak about the rush or
Russia didn't feel this way and you can't speak about Nahmanalis
this way. So I feel that he went overboard
sometimes in his, and I think it's, I think it's unfortunate
because it casts a poll over some of his writings and some
people who would benefit and would learn a lot because they
might see some of these things, they might not look.
At. It, yeah.
And that's. Look, everyone I've I've written
things that I regret. I shouldn't have phrased it a
certain way So it's it's a it's a big problem though because if
these people should recognize that there's so much there and
look if everyone you read every writer there's going to be
things that this so they. Yes there are things in thought
were I would have told him if I was his editor put it there a
little differently but and I do think he his you know his view
of the Ashkenazi. We're not all you know I think
all the good is not found among the sardine let's put it that
way But look I I was great admirer if I were 100% but you
know he wasn't a rebbe and he didn't he didn't want Hasidim.
That's he I told him that certain things I disagreed with
him when I met him that time he didn't want you just to follow
him that's that's a rebbe. He, he wanted you to look at his
writings and if you disagreed with him, you know, dispute him
in print and he would respond back and.
But where do you find someone who's an expert in the Talmud,
in the Rambam, in all the shells and shovels of the Sardi rabbis,
from Salonika, from Syria, from Iraq, and also can write about
Derrida and Levinas and modern philosophy?
I mean the breath of and and I mean the breath is unbelievable.
That's all I can say. Very, very well said.
This has been incredible. I I hope that we can have you on
again. There's so many things that I'm
thinking as now that we've gotten to know you more, I have
a lot of thoughts of things that we could do in the future.
We'll see. But we want to really thank you,
great conversation. Thank you for your contribution
coming to our humble podcast. We really appreciate it.
OK. Well, I thank you for having me.
You know, I didn't, I didn't realize.
I sort of, I sort of started waxing on and on with my views,
but you were sitting there listening.
So I will. So if it's of maybe if it's of
interest not just to you too to other people, then I'm happy to
do it. But Sofia Niestaiti, you see in
the Ashkenazic world, in my humble opinion, that's all that
I said at least the second-half of the talk.
Thank you for having me and thank you.
Thank you. Bye.
Bye, bye. Hey guys, thanks so much for
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