THE EWISH SHEVAT 5730 /JANUARY 1970 VOLUME VI, NUMBER 5 FIFTY CENTS

Graphic by Siegmund Forst

Questions ... Questions ... And No Answers

THE JEWISH

QB SERVER

THE JEWISH OBSERVER is published monthly, except July and Aug~st, by the Agudath Israel of Amenc:i, 5 Beekman Street, New York, New York 10038. Second class postage paid at New York, N. Y. Subscription: $5.00 per year; Two years, $8.50; Three years, $12.00; outside of the United States, $6.00 per year. Single copy, fifty cents.

Printed in the U.S.A.

RABBI YAAKOV JACOBS

Editor

Editorial Board DR. ERNEST L. BODENHEIMER

Chairman RABBI NATHAN BULMAN

RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS

JOSEPH FRIEDENSON

RABBI MOSHE SHERER

THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not assume responsibility for the Kashrus of any product or service advertised in its pages.

JAN. 1970 VoL. Vl, No. 5

In this issue ...

QuEsTioNs ... QuESTIONs ... AND No ANSWERS,

Siegmund Forst ..................................................................................... . 3

THE EDITOR TAKES LEAVE .............................................................................. 11

EXPERIENCING ERETZ YrsROH, Yaakov Jacobs .............................. 13

THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN AGUDAH IDEOLOGY AND

AMERICAN REALITY, A SYMPOSIUM:

INTRODUCTION, Leo Levi .................................................................. 17

THE THEME IN PERSPECTIVE, Yaakov Weinberg......... 18

THE NEXT STAGE, Nathan Bulman ....................................... 21

SELF-PROTECTION ..• OR ENCOUNTER?, Yechiel Perr 22

UNDERSTANDING JEWISH HISTORY, Murray Friedman.................. 24

CHASSIDUS AND "SCHOLARSHIP", Yaakov Jacobs........................... 27

SECOND LOOKS AT THE JEWISH SCENE:

ON JEWISH GOBLINS ........................................................................... 29

Questions ... Questions ... And No Answers

Siegmund For.Jt

We believe that the following article is among the most significant we have been privileged to publish in these pages. Mr. Forst ranges over a broad canvas: the major intellectual and theological concerns which perplex the entire world; the upheaval in art and litera­ture which mirrors contemporary concerns; the rela­tionship of Orthodox Jewry to non-Orthodox institu­tions; and the role of Israel upon the world scene today. It is an editor's responsibility to present each article in such a manner that the reader l1'ill have the least difficulty in reading and understanding, hoping that the reader lVill meet the author part way. We have done ·

this here to the best of our ability; but because of the complex issues discussed, we urge the reader to read carefully, and to re-read-an experience which we feel certain will be amply rewarded. Mr. Forst is a free-lance artist and writer. He has contributed signi­ficant papers to various volumes of The Jewish Library, a pioneering effort in the expression of Torah ideology, edited by Rabbi Leo Jung, and soon to be re-issued by the Soncino Press of London. To our pages, Mr. Forst contributed: "Who's Afraid-Me?" (April '65); and "Biographical Fragments and Aspects of the Life of Michael B. Weissmandl" (June '65).

Things have happened and continue to happen in our time for which there is no precedent in the history of mankind; and they have radically and irrevocably changed the condition of man. The ever-shortening intervals between successive major happenings bring to mind the increasing acceleration of a falling object. Since Hiroshima, the age of explosions has set in. We speak of the Population Explosion, the Sex Explosion, the Freedom Explosion, and the Space Explosion, as if these phenomena in their inherent destructiveness were terms of reference in the relation between man and world.

The utter absurdity of man's condition today can be seen in a baffling contradiction between the physical and the spiritual and the simultaneity of opposing phenomena. There is on the one hand, the technological materialism which has conditioned Western man since the time of the Industrial Revolution and is now spreading over the whole globe; and there is on the other hand, a constantly growing manifestation of its absolute rejection. Technology as reason geared to practicability, unfolds itself in a functionality with no reasonable motive and purpose outside itself. That self-propelled dynamic functionalism expanding over the globe and beyond, appears simultaneously with a vehemently rebellious withdrawal which amounts to a revulsion against the Western self and an alteration of consciousness. Simultaneously with the expansion of the world goes the painful awareness of its closing in on us, to use a metaphor of C. P. Snow.

The Jewish Observer I January, 1970 3

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The mood of a generation is not expressed in its "silent majority." Static masses do not create ideas and revolutions. It is rather the 20% of college students in the United States who use drugs who are motivated-and not the others--to rebel against a curriculum irrelevant to the realities of life. An educational system concerned with how to make a living instead of how to live, cannot make sense in a time when life itself cowers under a huge questionmark.

The epistomological problem of education has become thus a moral issue and has led to questioning the entire premise of understanding by means of description, and of truth as synonymous with a scientific reality whose validation lies in its function as operative practicality. All this must be a bloody absurdity because it is just those practical people who now drag man into apparently inevitable doom. The Freedom Explosion-seen in this light-which has moved Western society on a way towards the abyss of a fantastic moral collapse is the spiritual equivalent of physical destruction which looms over our days. In one case it is the smashing of the atom by freeing it from the power which held it together; in the second case it is the dissolution of a culture by freeing it from its inherent contents. People are instinctively aware that the continuous increase in nuclear armaments and the progressive sophistication of weapons of destruction are endangering their physical existence on a global scale. One has only to read the Proceedings of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute to learn by facts and figures the incessant preparations of the two super powers to a point from where there is no return. The notion of a "Balance of Terror" appears to be antiquated; negotiations to be exercises in futility; and there is just the drive to be the first to strike the one decisive blow. The average man cannot understand why things must take that course, dictated by a few, with such

apparent inevitability.

The educational outlook of youth had been geared to a stability of order, and change was only its medium; now change, per se has become the overriding purpose and disorder is the medium to survive the order. Change does therefore not mean the substitution of one order by another, but it means essentially, destruction of forms with pseudo-contents of dangerous nonsense. Forms must be destroyed by a manifestation of non-sense against pseudo-sense and an outrageous display of irreality against an illusory reality. Destruction of forms means freedom from everything and before it

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

is completely and radically achieved, the drug secures at least freedom from one's own tortured self and-in Kafka's phrase-the "horror of life."

The precarious balance of man's physical being and non-being is mirrored in art and literature in expressions aimed at profound nothingness. Samuel Beckett, one of the most significant writers of our time, bearing its stigmata, (he recently was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature) has come closest to the fundamentals of the issue in his Endgame and Waiting for Godot. "Beckett has gone to the root of Nihilism in our time, to the question of Being and Nothingness, of Death, and has imagined the ineluctable form of dissolution. He touches the deepest aspirations of the age by touching on its darkest dread." (Ihab Hassen in The Literature of Silence).

Beckett's work has been described as an attempt "to talk himself and the whole of human culture into a nothingness" and "the ambition of putting a stop to the whole history of human thought hitherto, which he sees as a long train of error." One sees it in the asymetrical forms in music and the dissolution of harmony into a tortured shrillness of unrelated sounds, preventing predictability and aiming at the existential "sound of the moment." Also of significance in this respect is the great interest in exotic rhythm which leads nowhere but repeats itself in space with no progression. The dissolution of form in painting has been started in a spectacular way by the systematic distortions by Picasso and led over the spilled-paint canvasses of Pollock to the black pictures of Reinhardt who represents in painting a striking equivalent of Beckett in literature.

It is "the choice of non-being, to escape the anxiety of being," as the theologian Tillich has put it. The attempts to create a new optical and tonal vocabulary are highly significant absurdities of existence and a rebellion against the "tyranny of things seen" and heard. It is a shock treatment to which art subjects itself and man, in order to obliterate the distinction between normalcy and abnormalcy. It is a desperate attempt to reject reality by changing it, just as use of LSD is a way to distort normal vision by distorting man's senses. These are documents perceived through the eye or the ear, containing a message of a sudden change of man vis-a-vis his world; they are memoranda of a revolution of the spirit. This

totality of reaction corresponds to a totality of a global situation.

The lelt>ish Observer I January, 1970 5

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Political, economic, social and spiritual forces have become mutually genetic and race simultaneously towards their peak. Modern man, wherever he finds himself, is growing out of isolated patterns of individual consciousness and he is conscious of himself now in terms of this Western Civilization which in its totality is approaching its moment of truth. All this is a situation of eschatological significance.

It is the contradictory and the absurd as the sum total of man's condition today, as the foremost theme which can be summarized like this: "I'm interested in the absurd and the non-intelligible because it is absurd. Because it is absurd, I accept it, just as I see life which I don't understand in its absurdity. Therefore I give absurdity status." The remainder is just a gigantic garbage heap, the fall-out of the cultural explosion from which today's life evolves, and it cannot be shrugged off with moral indignation just as the atomic threat cannot be indignantly dismissed. Both phenomena are intimately related to each other and both are end-points of spiritual and physical existence. History is a flux of unceasing changes but never has change meant the transition from BEING to NON-BEING. The point of discontinuity at the immediate vicinity of our prospects has no precedence in human history.

JEWISH EXISTENCE also stands at a point which has no precedence in its history, not only because it is part of the situation of man in toto, but also, because its confrontation with that situation has never been as direct and compelling as it is today. Jewish existence has always conceived itself as in a different dimension of time and history­how is it to relate to the dynamics of change in the world today? This is a question apart from the alternative of participating to a degree in an alien culture, or negating it-a problem which has been the theme of Jewish survival through the ages and a point of ideological preoccupation. This is not a problem of evaluating something outside of our own realm and then, accepting or rejecting it. Our confrontation with the world around us is not an intellectual challenge which would require us to define our spiritual self in terms of a prevailing intellectual climate. It is not the substance of our ideas which is at issue, it is rather our gestalt in its totality, which presupposes a cognition by factors outside of it, which is the problem. Our tangible presence within the extent constellation requires an awareness, if not a definition of its

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

ultimate meaning within our own spiritual realm. We do not know the answers to the questions which stir mankind today and neither does mankind know. Any attempt to "validate" our spiritual substance through an "involvement" on a scientific, political or even moral plane would transpose it to an alien dimension. It is told that the old Rebbe of Belz once said "Men tor nit zugehen zu der Toire mit fremde hakdomes." This is a cardinal point. But the problem we are discussing here is one which asks for a position in intellectual terms peculiar to oursell'es and it is therefore an eminently religious problem. Even if Jewish existence, in the most literab sense of the word, were not involved, how does it spiritually relate to a world which is its ultimate concern and now sways between being and non-being? And within the sphere of religious thinking, one could even go one step further and ask: What did we do or what did we not do, and what shall we do with ourselves to find the point of our deviation? Are we to maintain a smug righteousness and a serves-them-right-attitude towards mankind in agony? Perhaps we are now pulled into its very midst in order to awake us from the lethargy of a routine existence which is missing something most vital and crucially important for ourselves and therefore for the entire world.

We find ourselves in a position which brings to mind that of the prophet Jonah who tried to run away from responsibility. We do not know what to do, we only see the unmistakable signs of being systematically forced to a confrontation which leaves us no option of a modus-vivendi withdrawal into the shtetl. We have been shifted from the periphery right into the center of the socio-political and moral dangers of a world in crisis and there is no escape.

The idea that the Jew with his individual act and the Jewish people collectively are responsible for the fate of the world, may sound like an absurd arrogance to the others and to the religiously illiterate among our own, but it is the very essence of our conceptual thinking about ourselves. Everything is moving now to the foreground and two phenomena are of telling importance. There are the imminent forces which were vibrating in the structure of Western culture and are now breaking through its facade and violently shaking its foundations. And there is at the same time, Jewish existence which has moved into the center of world events and taken on a form of

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970 7

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actuality which might tip the scale of the existential balance with incalculable efficacy. The idea that the fate of the world is mysteriously related to the Jew has moved from metaphysical immanence to a manifest evidence.

We are an eminently historical people and we are used to seeing Jewish existence as an extension of one cosmic point reaching toward

another, walking under the spell of our past and our face is turned towards the point from where we came. But suddenly we discover ourselves as not lonely anymore in etherical heights but on an eruptive globe in the midst of perplexed mankind and we, too, should be perplexed as we cannot think of any generation in our history less equipped than ours to cope with problems of a magnitude like ours. We have not even learned from our most recent cataclysmic experience and we have forgotten nothing. In the struggle to maintain our identity, we have paid a price which we are not fully conscious of. The partisan quality of our public life has acquired for us a myopic factionalism which is profoundly evident in a lack of charity towards others. It has become our habit to look with disdain upon our brethren who find themselves on the periphery of Jewish authenticity as if it were they who bear the burden of the inequities of our total.* ,--~-----

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The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

It does not enter our minds that we-as the tiny nucleus of Jewish continuity-might be the subject of metaphysical computation. We certainly have to tend to our fences, but our trouble is that while we are busily engaged in it, our garden withers.

We are too busy with our polemics and the delineation of our borders, pointing with disdain to the deviations of others, and it does not enter our minds that the deviators might be products of our own sickness. And our position towards individuals and groups corresponds to that vis-a-vis the world around us.

At the present stage, it seems inconceivable that the fundamental isolation which is at the root of Jewish existence is meant as an arrogant negation of the dilemma of an agonized world.

Our self-indulgent philistine existence has become invulnerable to the eternal sting of self-doubt and unrest of the soul, and our wisdom has become donnish and clever erudition. It is almost a matter of

religious conviction for us that our shortcomings must not find place in our consciousness and if they dawn upon us we shift the blame of our faults upon our adversaries who have made us into what we are. Our self-pity has thus developed into a deep-rooted defense mechanism which does not admit the thought that our historical misfortunes might be inflicted on us because the nations expect something from us which we have failed to give them.

There is one aspect of Jewish existence in the Galus which cannot satisfactorily be explained by the simple idea of a collective atonement of generations for the gift of their forefathers. Although this idea has its place in the whole complex of thought and inspired tradition, it seems nevertheless that the Galus is a dimension ipso facto of Jewish existence, which equally takes into account the world around it, as being acted upon by Jewish existence. The atonement-idea as the sole key to understand the meaning of the

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The Je~:ifh JYf>server / January, 1970 9

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Galus, would leave out the Jewish impact upon the world and treat it as a secondary effect and not as of primary importance, fateful for mankind, which is equally subject to direct divine providence. Let us not suppress within ourselves the truth that there is an innermost correlation between the Jew and the world: that we are a universal people not only in time and duration in the sense of vertical thinking, but also to bear the responsibility for the entire world in a way of horizontal thinking.-The world is not expanding, it is closing in-also for us. What are we supposed to do? Who knows? These are uncomfortable and disturbing thoughts, but perhaps all that we are required to do at this juncture is to ask the questions and be disturbed by our own ineptitude. There is one day in the year when our tefilla openly and explicitly includes the fate of nations and the entire world and that is Rosh Hashonah. Let us keep at least in mind that now, every day that dawns upon us, bears the charge of portentous fatefulness and a deep awareness of it might relieve us from the trivialities of our days and cleanse our hearts-it is the heart of the world.

* ... The emperor has sent a message to you, the lone individual ... just to you has the emperor sent a message, he felt the message so important that he made the man repeat it into his own ear. The messenger set off at once ... he forces his way through the crowd, when he finds obstacles, he points to the sign of the sun on his breast, he gets through easily as no one else could, yet the throng is so numerous, there is no end to the dwelling places, even if he did, he would be no better off, he would have to fight his way down the stairs ... if he only had a free field before him, how he would run and soon enough you would hear the glorious tattoo of his fists on your door, but instead of that, how vain are his efforts ... he is still forcing his way to the end of the palace but he will never get to the end, he would still have to get through the courtyards, the second palace enclosing the first, and more stairways and more

palaces ... and so on for thousands of years-and when he finally dashes through the outer gate ... but never would that happen, he would still have the capital of the world before him overflowing with the dregs of humanity ... But you sit by the window and dream it all through when the evening falls. 0

* Franz Kafka: The Emperor's Message.

The ]elvish Observer I January, 1970

The Editor Takes Leave

WITH THIS ISSUE, I TAKE LEAVE as editor of The Jewish Observer. For almost a decade, I have been privileged to work in the field of Torah journalism, following a decade in the rabbinate. Both experiences were personally rewarding, yet given the choice, I would have liked to spend the rest of my years in journa1ism. But an accumu1ation of persona] and professional pressures now 1nake it impossible for me to continue, and I must leave it to others to carry on.

The past six years with The Jewish Observer have given me the opportunity to bring to fruition some of my dreams for Torah Journalism. For this I am deeply indebted to Agudath Israel of America which sponsors our publication. Agudath Israel has a rich tradition of journalism going back to pre-War Europe. Agudath Israel in America continues to be a rallying-point for an independent Orthodoxy with no compromising alliances. But this leaves Aguda without many of the resources available to other Orthodox bodies which enable them to function with larger facilities and professional staffs. It is a tribute to Agudath Israel of America that they alone have shown the daring to publish an Orthodox monthly in spite of the heavy financial burden such an enterprise entails. It is further to their credit that they have made it possible for me to devote myself exclusively to The Jewish Observer, without burdening me with other organizational responsibilities. Whatever success we have achieved would not otherwise have been possible.

More significantly, Agudath Israel has not fallen prey to the understandable temptation of producing a house organ which beats the organizational drums and engages in self-aggrandizement. (If that sentence sounds like self-aggrandizement, surely our readers will forgive it---<:oming from a departing editor.) J should also like to express in print the gratitude I have so often expressed verbally to the many contributors to our pages who have collectively demonstrated Orthodoxy's capacity to address itself to the issues of the day in Torah categories. I am also indebted to my many friends and readers who

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

have shared with me their reactions to our work; their criticism and encourage1nent have 'been most helpful. Words of gratitude come relatively easily; words of farewell are more difficult to find. This difficulty is here compounded. Having just experienced Eretz Yisroel-having lived in Yerushalayim even for only two weeks, makes it all the more difficult to take leave-but unfortunately no less imperative.

THE PAST SIX YEARS have been an exciting and stimulating experience. The constant pressures of deadlines were rewarded with the pungent aroma of printers ink as the sheets roll off the press and yet another issue becomes a permanent record of the tribulations and the concerns of Torah Jewry in America. Franz Kafka wrote in his Diary that for him "writing is prayer." When I first read those words, they seemed to be highly subjective-peculiar to his own life situation. But over the years, they have become a living reality. 11111? nw~ ,,~, -~' ,~,~~ cix?. "L' odom ma' archei le iv" -the posuk tells us that all sorts of thoughts arrange themselves in the heart of man; "u'mei'Hashem nia'ane loshon"-but the capacity to express them derives from the Creator. To write of Torah in the garbled babel which is the English language today is an awesome challenge. To suggest that one speaks from a "Torah perspective" is a chutzpah that can only be tempered by the constant prayer that the Creator will guide us in so arranging our thoughts that they come close to what we earnestly wish to say-to what He wants us to say.

Some of our objectives in publishing The Jewish Observer have in some measure been attained; the bulk remain unfinished, perhaps reflecting 1'he unfinished state of the Torah community in America. Jn The Journals of Opinion and Reportage: An Assessment, published by the Magazine Publishers Association, John H. Schacht writes that: "It is almost a truism in the world of communications that the journals of opinion and reportage . . . exert an influence greater than their circulations . . . seem

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to justify." We believe that this is true of The Observer, particularly as Mr. Schacht defines his subject:

A journal of opinion [has as] its purpose ... to shape the course of events it report' and comments on ... such a purpose is hinged to a well-defined ... concept ... to which the journal hopes to make public practice approach and ultimately conform ... The attitude of such journals is commonly moralistic and idealistic, and as a result the tone is common1y intense; they tend ... to "agonize" over the issues of their primary interest.

The Observer has succeeded in this direction; we know this from the warm praise of those who strongly differ with us. as well as from reports of those who agree.

Over the years, we have engaged in self-evaluation on these pages. As The Observer enters a new phase when new and fresh energies will be brought to bear, it is appropriate to look back at some of these observations.

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The Jewish Observer is not a newspaper coldly reporting the facts. We are not objective; we are a journal of opinion. Most periodicals, even those which give the widest latitude to their writers, confine themselves to a clearly-defined editorial consensus. A left-wing journal is not likely to open its columns to right-wing thinkers. Even a middle-of-the-road journal will not veer too sharply from the middle of the road. What is our editorial frame of reference? We believe that the Almighty revealed His Torah to the Jewish people who were chosen to carry G-d's light to the world. We believe that the Torah scholars of each generation, imbued with knowledge of Torah and love for Torah, are the sole arbiters of authentic Jewish thinking on all matters relating to religious practice and religious thinking.

We claim no special privileges for living in accordance with this belief; we do feel privileged to have survived as believing Jews in a world which grows ever more hostile to traditional beliefs. To some this smacks of snobbishness or even conceit. We, however, feel most humble in our belief and hardly adequate to be the spokesman for this belief. But believe we do

and it has fallen to our lot to speak these beliefs -and speak we must.

-Entering Our Third Year /December, 1965

In the vast outpouring of the printed word produced by the American Jewish community, there is little real recognition of [the] role of Torah in understanding Jewish affairs and resolving Jewish problems. It is the purpose of '[he .Tewish Observer to serve as a corrective, offering a forum to current thought on issues of the day, as seen from the perspective of commitment to the Eternal Truths of Judaism.

-"A Little Too Serious ... ",/March, 1969

OUR PURPOSES remain the same--our goals become more pressing with each passing day. But we need greater support from our readers. I recently spoke to a prominent rabbi who has been reading us from the beginning and frequently has important observations to 1nake. After a very warm and positive comment about a recent issue, he remarked casually, "/ really should subscribe to your magazine." When I expressed amazement that he was not a subscriber, he explained he'd been reading us at a library.

A while ago I walked into the Seward Park Library on Manhattan's Lower East Side and saw a copy of The Observer on the periodical racks: it had been charged out over twenty times and the pages were worn thin-I' havdil-like an old siddur. Many large public and university libraries offer The Observer to their patrons. All of this adds up to a large and significant readership and it makes us happy-but it is not reflected in our annual financial report which continues to reflect a "deficit" or "further investment" -depending on how you look at it.

As a departing editor, I take the liberty I have not in the past of personally appealing to our many friends to do all that you can to build our circulation and distribution. (Write us and we'll let you know how you can help in your community.)

I HOPE TO CONTINUE to contribute to these pages in whatever way time will permit and trust the many relationships I have established will continue. I pray that you will all enjoy good health and success, and I solicit your blessings for the same in my new work.

May we all merit the coming of Moshiach speedily, and in our day. YAAKOV JACOBS

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

Yaakov Jacobs

Experiencing Eretz Yisroel These words are being written within hours after returning from my first visit to Eretz Yisroel. The touch of the Kosel Ma'aravi is still fresh on my fingers and I still feel the anxiety which I briefly shared with our brothers in Israel who are fighting to stay alive in a world divided between those who want to kill them and those who would be willing to see them die.

On the flight to Tel Aviv, my mind was filled with thoughts of those of our brothers who have over the centuries made the same journey, often at the risk of their lives. Arriving in a modern airport, and passing through the necessary entry procedures somewhat blunts the impact of setting foot on holy soil. Yet I was to find throughout my short stay that no experience-however blunting it might be for the moment-could not be overcome with the glorious thought: "I'm in Eretz Yisroel. I'm home­not to stay; but I'm home. And soon I will gather the courage to come here to live and to await the coming of Moshiach ... here where it all be11an."

I had resolved that during my visit, I would try to overcome my addiction to words; that I would make no effort to react verbally; not to debase feelings and emotions by reducing them to writing. (Thoughts are "reduced" when they are written. We speak of "committing'' something to writing: writing diminishes the thought; it limits your freedom by committing you to that small part of your feeling that has permitted itse]f to be "committed." One gains here some insight into why the Torah She'bal Peh was not to be committed to writing.)

Standing before the Kosel words seem especially inadequate. How do you tell the Ribbono Shel Olam, as you experience His Presence in a degree you never have before, that you are overjoyed to see the Kosel, but wouldn't He please restore the entire Beis Hamikdosh? And what do you say, or even think, when you are suddenly jarred out of your thoughts by the cry of the muezzin blaring from a loud-speaker atop a mosque close by the Kosel? And what do you say when you climb to the rooftop of an Arab girls school near the Kosel and you

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

look down at the Har Habayis-the site of the Bei£ Hamikdosh-and your mind is overcome by thoughts of the glory of old, but your eyes are dazzled by the rays of the sun striking the golden dome of the Mosque piercing the eyes and the mind and the heart?-But you must speak . . . and you must write.

Arriving in Eretz Yisroel, you feel confused about time. First off, you attribute it to having crossed a number of time zones; but then you realize it isn't that at all. The Netzach Yisrocl, the Eternity of Israel, the Timelessness of our People-the Einmaligkeit of Kial Yisroel: these are no longer slogans: they have passed from rhetoric to reality. You are no longer living in the Present-you have passed from Time ... into Eternity.-Not because the Land is old; not because you see ancient ruins-· there are ancient ruins in Athens, l'havdil. You have left Time because you are now in the Land whose credentials bear the signature and endorsement of the Eternal-a Land which He has chosen for the People He has chosen. You are in Yerushalayim: the City which He has chosen to be the center of the Land; and you quickly realize that you are really standing in the center of G-d's world. The limitations of time, the limitations of space fade away. And with all the sophistication of a modern who knows that there really is no "up" and there is no "down," you know that Yerushalayim Shel Ma' aloh, the Heavenly counterpart of Yerushalayim, is directly above you. And the measure of timelessncss-me' en Olam Ha'Bo-which in the Golab we may sense only on the day of Shabbos, is here apparent ou a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

On our first day in Israel (the plural here is not editorial: I was fortunate enough to share the visit with my wife), we went to Kever A vos: to the M'oras HtiMachpelah to visit the graves of Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov, of Soroh, Rivkah and Leah; then to the Kever of Rochel. From there, we went to the Kosel Ha'Maaravi, traveling in a period of hours through the birth of our People to the destruction of the Beis Ha'Mikdosh. As we walked up a ramp

13

leading to the M'oras Ha'Machpelah, our good friend, Reuven Gross, who drove us there, told us that a hand grenade had been tbrown at that spot one day when it was crowded with people and no one had been killed. The area of Hebron is hostile and we were made aware of it by the unfriendly looks of the local Arabs, and the presence of heavily-armed Israeli troops. At 11 :30 A.M. an Israeli sergeant, looking ferocious with his Uzzi strapped over his shoulder, asked us with a smile to leave the M' ora in accordance with an agreement providing for periods of Moslem prayer. We sensed so strongly then-as we were to many times-the feeling that unlike the invaders, the Golus has not yet been driven from the Land.

In America, "pikuach nefesh" is a momentary thing: a serious illness-Chas v'sholom-a passing circumstance. Here it is a constant of daily life. You feel it every time you see a young soldier with a rifle or an Uzzi on his shoulder~ whenever you pass a trash basket that may contain a terrorist bomb. But it was not until we traveled out of Yerushalayim up north that it really came home. The government press office provided us with a car and a guide and

we drove through the entire length of the West Bank, an area filled with reminders of Arab occupation -and Arab defeat. It was hard to think of the glorious countryside as a political pa\vn-is it, or is not ncgotiable?-it's Eretz Yisroel, and every inch of soil is filled with memories of our Fathers. of the Prophets, of the Jewish kings who ruled the Land as servants of G-d-and of those who didn't and brought destruction to the Land.

We passed the bomb shelters and the bunkers, and our guide pointed to the Lebanese hills which had been battered by Israeli jets twenty-four hours earlier. We passed settlements which were under constant shelling alert, and we sensed over and over again the tenacity of the people, and the Divine Protection which has blessed their courage. We made what could only be a brief stop in Safed, a city whose inhabitants believe that Moshiach will come first to their city. Our guide was a young North African Jew who had come to Israel a numebr of years ago. He was somewhat bewildered when I asked him to wait while I davened Mincha at the Ari Shul-he had been told he \Vas escorting "an American journalist."

Mothers in Israel Mourn Their Fallen Sons

14 The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

A sixtecnth·centul')' n1ap of the lvorld.

"You quickly realize that you are standing in the center of G-d's world."

During our stay the country was bubbling over with excitement over the five French gun-boats. When we met a high-level Israeli intelligence official. and my wife complimented him on their well-earned reputation, he smiled modestly and said "Wait a few days and you'll hear an even better story." He was of course referring to the capture of the Russian-built Egyptian radar installation which had been brought back in two helicopters. We need not compromise the skill involved in these operations, but at the very same time, one sees so c1ear1y the Divine Hand: the nations are at best indifferent to our survival, but the Ribbono Shel Olom wants us to live and His will prevails. The French arms boycott directed against Israel; the rc-cn1ergence of the anti-Sen1itic bureaucrats in our own State Department, who had been stifled under previous administrations; the

The Jell'ish Observer / January, 1970

constant Arab threats; the constant hostility of the Soviet Union: all proclaim-and you feel it more strongly in Eretz Yisroel-that we have nowhere to turn but to Avinu She'bashomayim, to our Father in Heaven. We are wont to speak of Hester Panifn, of G-d hiding His Presence in our time; hut every Jew who walks on holy soil, and every child who studies Torah and every hen-yeshiva who dedicates his days to Limud ha'Torah, and every military .action which is blessed with success, all testify that the Shomer Yisroel watches over every J cw-even over those who would deny Him.

During our visit, we met many old friends walking the streets of Y erushalayim, or at the Kosel. The country was fu11 of American tourists comparing notes about what they had seen. There is so much

15

to see-too much for a two-week visit; but more important than seeing is feeling. The heart is constantly feeling and I felt myself constantly drawn to the Kosel-forgive the clich6: it was like a huge magnet drawing me from the busy New-York-like streets of Tel Aviv; from the glorious panorama overlooking the port of Haifa; and even from the beautiful streets of the New City of Ycrusbalayim. Shabbos morning at the Kosel, I wandered almost in a daze from rninyan to minyan-1 never said "Kedusha'' so many times in one day.

"DON'T SEE ANYTHING UNPLEASANT," the heart argues with the mind. "Don't be a journalist-close your eyes; feel ... like a Jew ... feel only the kedusha," the hearts crys out. And you feel the holiness. And how wonderful it is to experience unadulterated holiness, for who can defile or even compromise what the Almighty has sanctified! And one gets the sense of Shabbos throughout the Land that is not duplicated anywhere else. Not only in Meah Sheorim, not only at the Kosel. We drove in a cab on Friday from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim to spend one more Shabbos under the spell of the Kosel. On the road you see a sight that is not listed in any guide-books; none of the guided tours include it in their itinerary. For miles and miles you see it: the bold little Army, the fighting men of Israel are going home for Shabbos.

Yet the gnawing questions con1e back. How account for a secular state on Admas Kodesh? How can "they" not see the Hand of G-d; not know that it is "Torah tzivah lonu Moshe" which makes us a People-not "T av yoter im Koka Kola." I gained some insight into these questions in speaking to a cousin. His story is not untypical.

WHEN HE WAS SIXTEEN, he decided to leave the little town in Czechoslovakia where he lived with his family. He had heard from Jabotinsky that "if Jews would not destroy the Golus, the Golus would destroy them." He pleaded with bis father to take his family to Eretz Yisroel, but to no avail. He arrived on holy soil in a bathing-suit, swimming ashore from an '"illegal" immigrant ship. He worked by day and fought in the underground by night, and for several years rotted in a British jail. And then he heard; and then he knew: his father, mother, brothers and sisters-all but one- had been murdered.

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How could he avenge their deaths?-by fighting harder to bnild a Jewish state.

How I pray I could convince him that he is wrong, but deep in bis sub-conscious he believes that his father's way was repudiated; that his way was upheld. They are dead-he lives . . . surely he was right all along. It is as though the heavens opened up and Jews took the Torah and handed it back to the Ribbono Shel Olom-"Here ... take it back; we've found a better way." But giving it back we give away our Peoplehood, and we give away our Land.

I don't want to polemicize-it won't help. I don't mean to argue. I want only to speak the pain in my heart that my cousin, whom I love deeply, stands apart from me. I don't think he would want me to come over to the other side. (Another cousin said to me: "I like to enjoy life; I like a good meal and a good bottle of wine. After all, you've got religion, but what have I got to live for?") But can he feel in his heart the same pain for inc, as I feel for him? Yet there must be a way. In the heat of passion which I still feel, I cannot list even the obvious ways. But when we want something very much, there is a Jewish response which we might phrase as a question: "Have we asked it of the Ribbono Shel Olom?" In our personal Jives, what we lack we pray for. Even Yiras Shomayim, which the Almighty allocates to our own Free Will. also needs a dash of Siyata d'Shmaya, even though we cannot be content with simply asking for it. But surely we can ask for our brothers. Surely, we can pray that whatever efforts arc being made to bring Jews together be blessed; and surely, we can ask of the Almighty that He grant us the wisdom, and the love to do more. And surely our prayers for the well-being of our brothers in Eretz Yisroel, our prayers that they be protected froin the evil designs of our enemies­surely these prayers must bind us closer to them. Indeed there are signs that this closeness is attainable. The kibbutz of Ein Harod, not kindly disposed to Torah in the past, recently dispatched a cheek for one hundred pounds collected from its members to aid in the construction of Yeshivas Hagra in Haifa. It is told that during one of the sieges of Yerushalayim someone said, "Yidden: m'ken zich nit farlozen of nissim-m'darf zogen Tehilim." We can't wait for Ein Harod to send its next cheek to the yeshiva; we want them to send their sons. And for this, we cannot "rely on miracles"-for this we must pray.

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

A Symposium

The Encounter Between Agudah Ideology

and American Jewish Reality

The 47th NaJional Convention of Agudath Israel of America was the largest and-according to .;,any veteran observers-the most exciting and stimulating convention ever.

One of the 1nost significant sessions was de­voted to a Symposium on "The Encounter Be­tween Agudah Ideology and American Jewish Realities." We have been fortunate in being able

DR. LEO LEVI, past President and Chairman of the Board of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists of America, and a frequent contributor to these pages, served as moderator of the sym­posium and the following is a transcript of his remarks.

I would like to open this session with a warning. Our subject for the evening is a Cheshbon Hanefesh, self­examination-and se1f-examinations can be very pain­ful. Indeed, I would say that if they are not painful, they are not likely to be effective. So let us hope that this will be a painful session.

In my opinion, what is wrong with Agudath Israel is-that not enough of our members are non-observant and Jewishly uneducated. Since this statement may be the opposite of what you expected, let me explain.

If someone were to ask here "What is the purpose of Agudath Israel?" we could expect a number of different opinions. A review of these can bTing us to the real purpose for which Agudath Israel was founded.

A COMMON OPINION is that Agudath Israel is primarily a private club for "yeshiva drop-outs," a "yeshiva drop­out" being any hen-yeshiva who has become a postal employee, a doctor, or a rabbi-anything but a Rosh Yeshiva. There are many such people, and they de­serve an organization which will provide a place for them to feel at home. It is only proper that Agudath Israel should provide that home. But we must not make the mistake to think that this exhausts the purpose of Agudath Israel, lest we falsify the meaning of our organization.

The Jewish Observer I January, 1970

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to transcribe. the re1narks o.f the various partrct­pants and we believe the following extracts will be of special interest to our readers in offering a deeper understanding of the ideology of Agu­dath Israel, and the projection of A gudah activity on the A1nerican scene. Beyond that, the dis­cussion has broader implications for all of Or­thodox Jewry in the crucial days ahead.

ANOTHER OPINION is best illustrated by a recent ex­perience of mine. At a meeting of our branch in Washington Heights, where we discussed the fact that our young people know very little of Agudah ideology, one of our most active and dedicated young baalebatim spoke up. "What is there to Agudah ideology? Learning Torah is the most important thing; you should learn more-that is all there is to Agudah ideology." He thus expressed a second opinion on the purpose of Agudath Israel: it is the public relations arm for the yeshiva world. Roshei Yeshivah who would never think of joining Agudath Israel, are happy to use it as a plat­form for reaching the Jewish public. And it is only proper that they should be able to do this. Agudath Israel should act as the public relations arm of the yeshivas. But this, too, does not exhaust our purpose.

A THIRD OPINION holds that Agudath Israel is a political party in M' dinath Yisroel whose purpose is to impose religious observance on an unwilling public and to provide jobs for members. Now. this opinion would be held only by non-members-members know better. But, though the first part of this opinion is a serious distortion of the truth and the second part is, in essence, totally false, even it may have a grain of truth in it. In any event, all three of these functions do not exhaust the purpose of Agudath Israel.

TO UNDERSTAND what Agudath Israel was really created for, we must view our situation historically. When the Jewish nation went into Galuth, there was, at first, still a national organization. There was still a supreme court and a governor. But, as the Jewish people became more and more scattered, this system broke down

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and soon Jewish nationhood had to be established on a local level. The individual K'hilloth became Jewish governments-in-exile, with Rav, Beth Din, and Shiv' ah Tuvey Ha'lr. This went on for many centuries until communication facilities improved and these K'hilloth could be organized into "federated K'hilloth": all the K'hilloth in one country were organized as a unit; this unit would then serve as the Jewish government-in­exile.

At the beginning of the present century, the G'dolci Yisroel felt that the time had come when K'lal Yisrael must be organized in an international, world-wide or­ganization, a kind of "super-K'hillah," uniting all the local K'hilloth. There should be a united government­in-exile for K'Jal Yisroel. This was the purpose of the founding of Agudath Israel.*

What are the consequences of these historical facts? A nation can not say "You can join," "You can't join," "You should feel at home here," "You can't feel at home here." Anyone who is a national belongs to the nation and must have his place in it. lf Agudath Israel is to be the Jewish government-in-exile, then everyone must be welcomed into it, and it is the duty of the government to see to it that everyone has his place. Rav Shim'on ben Lakish put it this way: "Umah zu /agefen nimsh'lah-tbis nation is compared to a vine." The body of the vine arc the ba' aley battim-they make up the substance of the Jewish nation. The esh-

"' Tlih is what the very nanie "Agudath Israel" in1plies. The outline of the program adopted at the foundin1t convention of our organization at Kattowitz also hears this out. It included five poh11s. (/) Strengthening Torah-study; (2) social action; (3) Eretz Yisrael settlen1ent; (4) puhlications and public re­lations; (5) defense against attacks on Torah.

The Theme RABBI YAAKOV WEINBERG, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel in .Toronto, Canada, lvas asked to present the Torah and Halachic perspective on the theme. Rabbi Wein­berg has made major contributions to the articulation of basic Torah concepts in the light of the troubled and confused tilnes in which rve live; and is rvidely sought after to address acade1nic and intellectual audiences. His "Waiting for Moshiach" appeared in our issue of September 1969.

When we discuss the clash between the ideology of Agudath Israel and American Jewish reality, we seek to' determine the extent to which Agudah ideology has shaped this reality in the past, the better to serve the needs of Agudah in the future. While it is undoubtedly

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•

koloth, the grapes, the fruit, are the Talmidey Chakha­mim. The leaves are the amey ha' aretz. All of these together must function as a unit if there is to be a viable organism. Perhaps even more appropriate here is the G'marah which declares, in the name of Rav Shim'on heChasid: "Kol ta'anith sh'en bah miposh'ey Yisrael, eyn sh'mah ta'anith." "Any fast convocation in which non-observant Jews do not participate, can not be called a fast convocation. How do we know this? Though chelb'na is an evil-smelling substance, yet the Torah counted it among the ingredients of the incense (which was offered in the Beth Hamikdash)." The chelb'na, evil-smelling though it is, dare not be omitted from the k'toreth, lest the Kohen offering it be liable to !he death penalty. This is how essential every mem­ber is to the Jewish nation as a unit, and. therefore, how essential he must be to Agudath Israel. We must recognize as a brother any fellow-Jew who wants to join us, who sees himself at least in principle, if not in action, t.is a member of the Jewish nation organized under the banner and rule of Torah. We must see in him a brother and make him feel at home with us and help him accept Jewish nationality in action, also.

Perhaps even more relevant to us, in the above Tal­mudic passage is Abaye's derivation of the importance of posh'ey Yisrae1-participation. Abaye bases this on the verse "V'agudatho 'al eretz y'sodathah," which Rashi explains as follows: "Agudatho: that is to say, when they arc all together-then it is firmly established on the earth." Agudah means a union which must combine all parts of the Jewish nation; only if Agudath Israel becomes true to its name in that sense, can we hope to be firmly established. 0

lll Perspective helpful to engage in self-criticism, in order to learn the lessons of the past and to more adequately cope with the future, I shall here like to think with you of the future alone.

First, we must recognize that when we speak of an Agudah ideology, we must be talking about something that is not only Torah ideology.-Torah ideology does not belong to Agudah; Torah ideology belongs to Kial Yisroel-to those who accept it, and-to our misfortune -to those who do not. Torah is Morosho Kehilas Ya­akov, the common inheritance of every Jew. Whether he realizes it or not, it is his inheritance, his obligation, his responsibility. Of course Agudah ideology must have a great deal to do with Torah ideology, both as its guide and in setting its goals. Torah ideo!O(,'Y guides

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

Agudah; Torah ideology forms the ultimate purpose of Agudah. Torah is at once the guide and the goal; the means and the purpose; the road to travel, and the end towards which we travel. And Agudah ideology must have much to do with Kial Yisroel. Agudah was formed to serve not Toras Yisroel but Kial Yisroel. Kial Yisroel can only be served when Toras YisroeI is a means, and Kial Yisroel can only be served if Toras Yisroel is the ultimate goal. This being the case it may be worthwhile to examine in what sense Agudah was formed to serve Kial Yisroel; in the process we may discover a need-perhaps an urgent and desperate need-to change Agudah ideology, to shift its thrust and to give new meaning to its purpose of being.

A Defensive Effort I do not think that Agudah was formed to give a

government to Kial Yisroel. I think Agudah was formed -as a defensive effort-to help fend off the incredible danger which Kial Yisroel then faced; that Agudah was formed as a way to protect Kial Yisroe! from the heresy of the Haskoloh, which proved to be a force that deprived Kial Yisroel of many of its finest minds, and decimated our ranks. And if Agudath Israel was born as a defensive tactic, then we must be ready to change the whole thrust of Agudah ... because the defense failed. We have iu fact lost J'l~1 J'll.l ~,, of Kial Yisroel. Hitler took its quality; Hitler took its quantity; and we volunteered additional Korbonos of quantity. The majority of Kial Yisroel today do not know of Taras Yisroel, are not aware of Toras Yisrocl-I am not saying they do not keep Taras Yisroel-they are not aware of Taras Yisroel. They simply do not know that Kial Yisroel and Toras Yisroel are one. In this light Agudath Israel can no longer assume a defensive posture: today Agudah must be aggressive and must find the methodology not only to protect the remnants, the shearis hapleitoh, but to win back those who have been lost.

The Problem-and Some Solutions

Let us now examine the halaehie approach to th~ problems we face. and to possible solutions !o these problems. If at one time Agudah was able to say: We will stand as a wall of steel and we will not permit the heretics to bring into Kial Yisroel the poison with which they destroyed Yiddishe neslwmos by the hun­dreds and thousands, it was because two conditions existed. First there was a Kial Yisroel; there was a People, an '1 C\I. We numbered in the tens of thousands the Torah institutions; the shtieblaeh; the baalebatim who learned Torah day and night; the chadarim in which every Jewish child had a place to learn Torah and mitzvos, and Yiras Shomayim-to learn the meaning of Ha'Kodosh Baruch Hu. And out of this great reservoir there arose in each time the Gedo!ei

The ]elvish Observer I January, 1970

Yisroel, and there was the Am Yisroel to follow this guidance. Under such circumstances a holding opera­tion made sense-it was the only possible way.

Avrohom Ovinu spent his whole life in proclaiming the name of G-d. He literally sacrificed his body and soul for each wandering Bedouin, to bring him the Rebono shel Olom: that He is One; that He is Emes. Yet this same A vrohom Ovinu who gave to every wandering Arab his time, his labors, his life-this same Avrohom Ovinu took his own son, his own Yishmoel, and sent him out with a small flask of water and said: Go, you have nothing more to do with me. The same Avrohom Ovinu who gave to every stranger everything he had, could offer nothing more than a little flask of water and a piece of bread to his own son. To an un­knowing heathen he committed bis soul and his body; with Yishmoel who learned . . . who knew . . . who understood ... and rejected ... A vrohom could have no relationship. This is a principal which holds true to this day. That Jew who is a tinok she'nishba, who was not aware and never understood and wasn't given the opportunity to learn Torah and to know the Truth of Torah-to him we must commit everything: our souls, our bodies, our self-sacrificing labors. To the 7xi111' ~11110 who knows and rejects; wh;, willfully chooses wrong; who says to the Rebono shel Olom: I am not Yours-him we let go.

When Agudath Israel began we were dealing with those who had rejected. And because they had rejected we had to say to them: We must go our way: the way of Torah, the way of Truth; and you go your way­unless you do teshuvoh. But with those of our brothers in Kial Yisroel who were never given the opportunity to kno\v, who never came to understand the Truth of Torah, who never came to understand the reality of G-d's existence; who never came to know that Kial Yisroel has no other purpose than to testify to the Oneness of G-d-to these we cannot say: you go your way and we will go our way. We have a sacred duty to bring them back; to go to them. to learn with them, to teach them. This we mnst do not only as Yiras Sho111ayiln aJone, but as an imperative of Halochoh as well. The Rambam maintains that Lhnud Ha'_Torah has two aspects that are really one: 11.l7'ii 11.l7'i to the Rambam arc not two separate positive commands. It is not one obligation to learn Torah and yet another to teach Torah: 11.l?'i includes 11.l?'ii. To learn Torah means to learn in order to transmit; and the obligation of learning Torah is complete only when the Torah that I have learned will in fact be transmitted to other. (Some say these arc two separate Mitzvos, but the Rambam, and most other authorities rule that it is one.) If it is not transmitted, it is not just that I haven't taught Torah, but that my learning is not the fulfillment of that mitzvoh of the Torah. It is a haloehoh inherent in the mitzvoh of learning Torah itself: 1~7'1-transmit-

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ting to others. The Rambam rules: l'M iii;, il'M1V 1'~'m ;iim imM )'1~':>~-A talmid who is not worthy, who is going in perverse ways (as he himself defines "not worthy") ;iim ii~?? iicM, you may not teach him Torah. What should we then do, the Rambam asks? ~:iim iniM pi~?~ i: im;i ~tii~; um; pi'Tn~­

you must first train him, and work with him, and persuade him, and cry over him, and laugh with him -until you have brought him back---and then you may learn Torah with him. This means that my own learning of Torah demands that when there is a ta/mid who is going in the wrong way that I bring him back, and see to it that he becomes worthy, and then teach him Torah-that is my obligation of Limud Ha'Torah. The same halochoh that requires me to learn Torah, requires of me that I bring this ta/mid back and make of him a proper Jew, so that I can then teach him. There is something lacking in the Torah that we learn -in the Torah of every member of Agudah, and in the Torah of Agudah as a whole if it is not m~ ?y ii~?';> and that ,,~.,., 11l~ ';oy means ~tii~':> iniM )'i'Tn~

:iim imM pi~?~i. Does this mean that we lower the barriers and bring

into our midst and work together with ':>Mi1V' >yivio?­it does not. The Rambam clearly states that it is the nature of man that he follows and conforms to the ways of those among whom he Jives: if they are evil he will become evil; and if they are good, he will learn to do what is good. Therefore, says the Rambam. one may not live in a place among those who do evil, and if he does, he must leave that place. And if for any reason, says the Rambam, he is unable to leave, then he must sit by himself, separate from the people among whom he lives-his own life completely divorced from all those about him, in order that he not learn from them. And the Rambam warns: Don't think, I am so good and so strong and so powerful and so stubborn, and such a great lamdan, and so wise that I can live there and not conform-a11 men, whoever they arc, will ultimate1y conform. Therefore we must have our own enclaves; we must form our own society; we must live only with those who are C'l'~M~ and ;iiin ,,~,!V

and know the meaning of C'~iV t1N1' and i1"1iil~ illi1JN:: this is the only way in which we can be the ,, '1~W who alone are the hope of an 'i Cl7.

Conflictin!? Halochos? But how do we reconcile these two halochos: the

halochoh of Jiving separately and the halochoh of ,~.,, and being ~tli~? i'Tn~? The solution is quite apparent: We must live with our own, but we must work with those that we have to be ~tli~':> i'Tn~. To bring them back to our ranks, to share our organization with them is impossible; we cannot say, become members of Agu­dah. We have to live with those who know Truth and

20

who keep Truth; bnt we have to work with those who don't-not make them a part of us--0ur homes and our lives have to be with those to whom Torah is life. But we can bring them into our homes to share with them-work with them, deal with them with Love and with Truth: not condescendingly and not in order to do a mitzvoh, but because they are G-d's People, and we owe it to them; because our heart bleeds for them; because we know that for every Jew who is not with us, we are missing a limb, and maybe a vita] organ.

When we speak of contemporary American Jewish reality, we are speaking of two factors which must necessarily affect what Agudah is. The one that we have just discussed: that we now Jive in an age and in a place where the majority of Jews don't know, aren't aware, and were never given to understand the essence of Torah. The other factor we must be keenly aware of, that must have a profound and intense effect on what Agudah is and what Agudah must do, is the presence of tremendous obstacles for Torah in our time that never existed before. The spirit of heresy, the problems engendered by science, are not new to the history of Kial YisroeL Challenges to our ideology, challenges to the teachings of Torah, we have had in age after age after age. And these challenges are easier to meet. We have ways that have evolved, even though there may be some differences of opinion and judgment on which of these methods are most proper today. But the challenge that is unprecedented, the challenge that is unprecedented in the whole history of mankind, is the challenge that goes beyond affluence to hedonism: the notion that we should use the unprecedented wealth lVith lVhich the Almighty has blessed us, our generation, for fulfilling every passion, every lust, every base need of the human body. This lust, this hedonism-imposed on us in the very air we move in, the newspapers, the radio, G-d help us! the television-is a challenge that never before in the history of Klal Yisroel have we had to confront. And this is a challenge we cannot meet with learning of Torah alone; this is a challenge we cannot meet with oratory and ideology; this is a chal­lenge that can only be met by creating such a flame, such a fervor, such a tremendous emotional com1nit­ment to Torah and Yiras Shomayim that the force of our own commitments, the fire that comes out of each one of us in Agudah, engulfs and burns away the '1M~itl that is in the hearts of most every Jew today. It means that Agudah cannot possibly be satisfied with teaching alone: Agudah must find the means of pas­sionately involving every Jew in his Yiddishkeit; of evoking an intense emotional commitment and response to the Truth of Torah. This and this alone is the only possible way to meet the challenge of the filth which fills the streets-this nM~itl can only be burned away -there is no teaching it away.

This is the greatest of all challenges that Agudah

The Jew;sh Observer / January, 1970

faces, and it cannot meet it with platitudes; it cannot meet the challenge by symposia and theoretical discus­~ions. It can only express itself by an action-program which will involve every member of Agudah in his daily-actual daily-life; in his minute-to-minute life

as he goes about his business, as he learns Torah, as he visits with friends and neighbors, as he teaches his children, as he relaxes with his children; as he teaches his friends and as he relaxes with his friends. Nothing less can meet this challenge. D

The Next Stage:

From Idea to Community RABBI NATHAN BULMAN has a well-earned reputation jor his ability to address himself to the unique circum­stances of American Orthodoxy in the spoken and the written word. He now serves as Rabbi of Young Israel of Far Rockaway and Dean of Studies of Sarah Sche­nirer Teachers Seminary. Rabbi Bulman has served as a member of the Editorial Board and has con­tributed numerous articles to .The Jewish Observer. At the symposium, he addressed himself to "The Next Stage in American Agudism: From Idea to Community."

This is the largest American gathering, we have been told, in Agudist history. Is it a mark of our vitality? Is it a mark of how alive we are as a movement? Or is it a mark of a desire to spend some time together with good friends and listen to some droshos?

I have been asked to discuss the translation of the idea of Agudath Israel into community. WeII ... don't we have communities? Aren't there hundreds of or­ganized communities? Aren't there hundreds of Torah institutions? Aren't there hundreds of Botei Midroshim and Shtieblach-Shuls and Kollelim?-What's missing?

AGUDATH ISRAEL was organized not only for the sake of defense; not only to protect Yiddishkeit of individ­uals, but for the sake of the defense of the Torah character of Klal Yisroel. It is important to recall that there were many great Jews-even in that generation of R' Chaim Ozer and the Gerer Rebbe--who had doubts about an organization, and not because they thought that Agudah was a little too modern. There were Gedolei Yisroel and major Kehilos who stayed out of Agudath Israel because they suspected that the illness could no longer be healed by institutional means. When the neshomoh is sick, when the "generator" is sick, and the Yeshiva doesn't help, and the Rebbe doesn't help, and the Rosh Yeshiva .doesn't help­could a governmental organization of the sort that R'

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

Yaakov Rosenheim had in mind, really help? There were many who believed it wouldn't work.

I had the z'chus of meeting the late Dr. Jonas Simon only a few months before he died this year. He was the 1ast surviving participant of the great conference in Kattowitz. I will never forget this meeting: he told me many things; he had visited R' Chaim-he visited many Gedolei Yisroel of that generation-and R' Chaim expressed serious doubts that institutional means of any sort would be capable of stemming that tide. There were great tzadikim who doubted it. Did the effort succeed? In part it did. In Poland we did not reverse the tide; but we stemmed it. For a generation before Agudath Israel and its beginnings, young yeshivaleit came home to find their sisters and wives engrossed in the culture of a Polish pianist or a Polish novelist, and they looked down with scorn at their husbands and brothers. Agudath Israel built Bais Yaakov and changed that. It will be told to the end of time what that reversaJ of trend 1neant to our sons and daughters. Polish Jewry was destroyed-but Bais Yaakov lives!

ONE OF THE KEYS to building Yiddishkeit and building kehilos is the creation of a genuine and dignified litera­ture-not the yellow Orthodox journalism of the sort that should make us flush with shame. In Polish Jewry there \Vas dignity, and such literature was produced. They took young men from shtieblach and taught them the ineaning of verbal and written communication. and they taught it to them without sending them off to college. They didn't study Polish formally; and they didn't study Lashon Ha'Kodesh formally; and they didn't study Yiddish formally; but they had a mouth and they had a pen, and the tide was at least partially stemmed.

In Germany, the movement of Rabbi Samson Ra­phael Hirsch enabled a sector of German Jewry to stand firm against an overwhelming assimilatory process which had torn away hundreds of thousands of young

21

Jews. Great-grandchildren of those first eleven Jews who joined Hirsch founded a kehila in America which today numbers close to 1500 families. There were major victories.

THE SAD CONDITION of Torah Jewry in America today is the result of one fact: we have no kehilos. There are a thousand rabbonim and congregations-and I mean Orthodox rabbonim-who are almost lost to what we call the Torah camp. We have given away the instru­mentality of the Rav and the congregation. Tzedakah has been turned over to the federations and welfare funds. They raise 250 million Jewish dollars a year, a large percentage from Torah Jews, and they'll give us an occasional camp for our poor children from Crown Heights. And if we protest some more, they'll give us a few more camps. But is this the way of our fathers? They built kehilos; they maintained them, and they supported them themselves.

Jewish kehilos, and Jewish kehilos alone will provide the "generator," the source of power for the soul of Kial Yisroel. lf we relinquish to others this source of power, then all of our efforts are doomed to failure. If we do not build kehilos for our Torah institutions, we doom our Roshei Y eshivos to stand like paupers

with outstretched hands; and we doom our rising Torah institutions to become dependent and subservient. The Gaon of Vilna once said that a rusty nail in a Bais Mcdrosh can destroy the Bais Medrosh. How many rusty plaques arc there in our Botei Medroshim today? We can't build this way. We must return to the source. We cannot content ourselves with building Shtieblach here and a Yeshiva or a Rais Y aakov there.

What happened to the yeshivaleit for whom we waited so long? We drive them to the Conservative Talmud Torahs, in a desperate search for parnasa. What a mighty army we would have today if we had succeeded in educating these few thousands to an un­derstanding: "Don't get lost in the shuffle! Build! Don't build a Yeshiva here and a Mikva there. Build Kehilos!" Ten Jews join together to build a Rais Medrosh or a Shtiebel, and they are oblivious to their responsibility to Kial Yisroel. They forget that they must have rabbonim-not just rabhis and mashgichim and roshei yeshivos and executive directors.

If we want to begin to do what Agudath Israel had intended to do, we must build a tzibur for Kial Yisroel. As long as we content ourselves with being a public relations department for the Almighty, I am afraid that our words will be lost in the wind. [J

The Yeshiva World and Orthodoxy: Self-Protection ... Or Encounter?

RABBI YECHIEL PERR discussed "The yeshiva world and American Orthodoxy: Self-protection ... Or En­counter?" He contributed "Reb Yisroel-Who Was He?" to the June 1969 issue of The Jewish Observer. He is Rosh Yeshiva of the newly organized Yeshiva of Far Rockaway.

It is one of those sad statistics of American Jewish life that of the estimated three million Jewish children in America, more than two million do not have even one hour a week of any sort of religious instruction.-This is an unbearable tragedy: over two million Jewish children cannot recognize the shape of the letter Aleph! I have been asked to discuss that small group who are students of the yeshivas, and this seemingly has little to do with the totally deprived Jewish children.

In the yeshivas we see a bright picture: Baruch Ha'Shem there has been a phenomenal growth in the numher of yeshivas established in the last few years,

22

and in the number of students now learning in yeshivas.

The Chazal tell us that when Y aakov A vinu left his home he actually went to Charan. But when he got there he thought: "Can I have passed by the very place where my fathers prayed, without having myself stopped to pray?" He turned back to that place and it was there that the Almighty blessed him. And Ge­dolim have said that had he not returned he would not have been blessed.

American Jewry ha"l also arrived ... in "Charan." But in our breathless haste to build Torah in America -to rebuild all that was lost in the churban of Europe -we forgot something along the way: we rushed right by a place where our fathers prayed.

The Yeshiva with a dormitory is unique in Jewish experience; it is a modern-day phenomenon. In the past the Yeshiva Bochur away from home ate "Teg." What did it mean for a bochur to eat "T eg?" It meant

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

sitting at the table of a local balebos and crying into your soup because you were sensitive. But it also meant experiencing a Jewish home, being part of a Jewish community; it also meant seeing at first hand the problems of a Jewish home and the problems of a Jewish community. But today's Bnai Torah are growing up in the hot-house environment of a yeshiva dormitory. Certainly a yeshiva dormitory is a fine place, a proper home for a Ben Torah. Yet there is nothing in the dormitory to give the Ben Torah an awareness of Kial Yisroel and its problems, and this is a serious loss in the total chinuch situation: a Joss to the Ben Torah and a loss to Kial Yisroel.

When Reb Chanina and Reb Chiya would disagree on a Halacha-the Gemmorah tells us-Reb Chanina would say, "How can you argue with me?-If, chas v'sholom, the Torah were to be forgotten, I could Testore the entire Torah with my power of Pilpul." And Reb Chiya would reply, "How can you argue with me?-I have seen to it that Torah will never be forgotten." The Gemmorah explains that Reb Chiya would plant and harvest flax which he spinned and wove into nets, with which he would capture some deer. He gave the flesh to the poor, and on the hides he wrote the Five Books of the Chumash. He would then go to a town, teach a different book of Chumash each to five youngsters; and teach a different seider of the Mishnah to each of six others. "Until I return," he instructed them, "each of you must teach what you have learned to the others." This is how Reb Chiya saw to it that Kial Yisrael would never forget the Torah.

NOW HOW DOES THIS ASSURE that Torah will not be forgotten by Kial Yisroel?-And why couldn't Reb Chiya have taught all of the Chumash and all of the Mishnah to all of the children-and not entrust their learning to those less capable than he? ... Reb Chiya

was not teaching Torah-Reb Chiya was teaching Jewish childTen how to teach Torah: While his goal was that Torah not be forgotten by Kial Yisroel, his method was to teach others how to teach-how to recognize their responsibility to other Jewish children. Only the teaching of responsibility for others can guarantee that Torah will not be forgotten by Kial Yisroel. One of the root causes of the breakdown in relations among men is the failure to comprehend that the human personality is a bundle of contradictions. Take Hillel's well known dictum: "Im ain ani Ii-mi Ii?" ("If I am not for myself-who is for me?") It often takes a lifetime to understand this. No one is for you. Not father. Not mother. Not wife. Not ckildren.-No one. And so, if I am not concerned for myself, who will be concerned for me? But Hillel continues, "Uch'she­ani l'atzmi-moh ani?" ("When I am only for myself -what am I?") The person whose horizons are only as wide as himself; whose main interest in life is to advance himself; who understands "Lil' mod U'le'lamed" as an obligation to teach others for his own personal growth: such a person is incomplete; he has not been fully developed. His indifference to others comprises even his own fulfillment.

THE GEMMORAH TELLS us that because of Sinas Chinom -unwarranted hatred-the Bais Ha'Mikdosh was de­stroyed.-What of the many Tzedukim and Biryonim Jn Yerushalayim?-why did Chazal single out Sinas Chinom as the root cause of the Churban?

The Tzedukim and Biryonim were symptoms of the disease: a manifestation of the process of Sinas Chinom which ultimately destroyed the Bais Ha'Mikdosh. And how far is indifference from Sinas Chinom?

"Self-protection ... Or ... Encounter?"-Do we really have a choice? Is one possible without the other?

D

A STATEMENT BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Editorial Board has announced the appoint­ment of Rabbi Nissan Wolpin to succeed Rabbi Yaakov Jacobs as Editor of The Jewish Observer. Rabbi Wolpin studied at the Mesivta Torah Vodaath and the Beis Medrosh Elyon. From 1958 to the present, Rabbi Wolpin has been principal of the Yeshiva and Mesivta Ohr Yisroel in Forest Hills, New York, which has grown in that time from a fledgeling four-grade institution to a vast Torah-chinuch complex serving hundreds of

.The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

youngsters, and ranging from kindergarten through senior high school. Rabbi Wolpin has been Editor of Olomeinu, Torah U'Mesorah's children's magazine, for the past ten years. For many years he has "observed" the American Jewish scene in Seattle (his home town, Los Angeles, Scranton, Baltimore and Mon­sey. Rabbi Wolpin will assume his duties as Editor in July of this year. Jn the interim, duties of the editor will be assumed by the Editorial Board .

23

Murray Friedman

Understanding Jewish History RABBI MURRAY FRIEDMAN has dedicated himself to the

development of a Torah-committed Jewish historiog­

raphy. Among other articles he has contributed to these

pages are: "The Patterns of Jewish History"" (Feb.

'68); and "The Faith of Our Fathers" (Jan. '69). The

following is an expression of some of the principles

which he has set down, and an application of these

principles to a specific period in Jewish history.

If we compare a seed with a ripe fruit, the two appear to have very little in common. Yet we know that the design hy which the fruit was produced was set from the moment of germination by the structure of the seed. Imaginatively speaking, we may say that the seed contains the fruit, although if we examine the seed itself, we may find nothing that remotely resembles any portion of the fruit.

The world at the time of Creation may be likened to a seed. When it first emerged from nothingness, the world already contained the grand design for the future course of mankind and, in particular, the des­tiny of Israel. We know, for example, that the primeval universe contained an inherent pattern for Israel's en­counter with four great powers that figure significantly in our history: Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. In the same fashion, the emergence of Biblical per­sonages was aJso presaged from the moment of the universe's birth. As the leaves of history are turned, G-d's original plan unfolds and becomes manifest be­fore the eyes of mankind.

History Reveals the Work of Providence

History may also be read as record of G-d's unin­terrupted custody of Israel. G-d blesses or reprimands His people in accordance with their deeds, but at all times, He maintains His status as sovereign and father. Retribution as well as reward reflect G-d's Jove and His intense desire to bring us into the kingdom of heaven on earth. Furthermore, all the predictions of the Torah, to the very last letter, were fulfilled when Israel lived in the Holy Land. The tide of events demon­strated repeatedly that obedience to G-d's will was an indispensable condition for Israel's tranquility. Begin­ning with Joshua's earliest conquests, the fortunes of war and peace were clearly influenced by the nation's moral conduct. Eventually, Israel's exile from the Land

24

with all its dire consequences proved to be the most awesome example of a foretelling confirmed.

Jn exile prophets arose among lsraael to carry on the task of admonition begun by Moshe. While they in­habited the earth, their exhortations and warnings of disaster carried the word of G-d to the People. Their utterances made it perfectly clear that the evils which befell the Jews were not the result of chance, but the operation of Divine will. As their worst forebodings were realized, so were the calming forecast~ of subse­quent redemption and return to the Land.

Prophecy eventually ceased in Israel; no longer was G-d's will made known through human speech. Hester­panim--concealment of G-d's visage-prevailed. When Israel sins, G-d turns away from them in anger and leaves the masses in confusion. Although G-d still guides our destiny, His ways are complex and full of mystery. Yet he makes His presence known to those who seek Him. Supplanting the vision of our divincly­inspired seers was the enlightened perception of our later Sages. Jn the historical configuration of their times, they were able to discern the pattern of G-d's involve­ment with the fate of His people.

AS TIME GOES BY, Israel's devotion to G-d appears to diminish. G-d reveals himself in a correspondingly stnaHcr measure to mortals on earth. His conduct be­comes more secret. Cataclysmic events rock the sup­ports of Jewish life with no apparent explanation. Long­established communities are uprooted overnight and even destroyed-and nobody can say why. In these circumstances, a careful examination of Jewish history brings us reassurance that G-d still rules the world in the interest of His people; that His love is undiminished; that His concern over our fate increases as our exist­ence becomes increasingly precarious.

History Binds Israel and the Torah

Man has a body and a soul. He may suffer physical death through the destruction of his body or spiritual death by the loss of his soul. This analysis applies equally well to the Jewish people collectively. To sns­tain us physically, G-d gave us a land of our own flowing with milk and honey; to sustain us spiritually, he gave us the Torah. Our physical existence after almost two thousand years of wandering over the face of the earth is incontrovertible testimony of G-d's bene-

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

ficience towards His people. He preserves us in ways that would defy human belief were they not real. Indeed, the abject condition in which Israel survives at times is a magnificent testament to the power of the Almighty.

ISRAEL'S SOUL DERIVES its sustenance from the Torah. Torah is called a "tree of life," and it manifests many characteristics ordinari1y associated with Jiving things. One characteristic of life is adaptation: the ability to adjust to changing conditions. Torah, too, possesses the aptitude of adjusting to the changing needs of the Jewish people. In its progress from one era to the next, hi~tory registers recurrent periods of spiritual crisis. As there were times when Israel stood in danger of physical extinction, there were also times in which the spiritual lifeblood of the people appeared to be threat­ened by depletion. Miraculously, as it were, Israel's survival was secured by the emergence of Torah in a guise especially suited to meet the exigency of that particular juncture in history.

Torah has a history of its own, moreover. From the time that Moshe received the Torah from Sinai down through the most violent and turbulent periods of the past, and to this very day, Torah has been transmitted from master to disciple in an unbroken chain. Jn each generation, select individuals emerge who are the standard-bearers for the Torah legions of Israel. A study of this vital process by which the continuity of Torah is maintained without interruption strengthens the realization that Israel today still carries on a living con1n1unication with Moshe Rabbeinu, our first teacher.

History Interprets Retrospectively

History is considerably more than the chronological arrangement of important events. Events are truly sig­nificant only when they are ordered in a meaningful pattern according to valid perspectives. Fortunately, history itself often provides the necessary clues for its own interpretation. Events that cause bewilderment when they occur, often are clarified in the light of later developments. Particularly in recent times, when swiftly moving events have brought in their wake a multiplicity of questions and doubts, we must often wait for the answers that the future will surely bring. Ultimately, we must expect, the final and definitive interpretation of Jewish history and the illumination of the many shadows that fill its pages will come about with the advent of Moshiach, may he come speedily in our tiine. Let us here examine one aspect of Jewish history in this perspective.

IN THE YEAR 3438, Israel was under the rule of King Artaxerxes of Persia. Almost half a century has passed since Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire,

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

had issued his edict permitting the Jews in exile to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Beis Ha'Mikdosh. Three decades earlier the construction had been com­pleted. Political sovereignty, however, remained in the hands of the foreign conquerors who had taken the Holy Land after defeat of the Babylonian kingdom.

Who were these Persians? Where did they come from?-and how did it come about that they held do­minion over the people and the land of Israel?

Authorities on ancient history have suggested a nmn­ber of causes for the phenomenal growth of Persia which, in the brief space of a single generation, was transformed from an obscure tribe to mastery over the great territories of the Orient. Theories devised on the basis of available evidence consider such factors as the superior personality of Cyrus as general and ad­ministrator; the healthy climate of the country which produced a sturdy peasantry; and the skill possessed by the Persians in the arts of war-particularly in the effective use of mobile cavalry and skilled bowmen. Persians are also described as a pliable people, ready to adopt the customs of countries which they conquered. By absorbing the cultures of their vanquished foes, the victors were able to live in harmony with foreign popu­lations while maintaining military and political control.

To the rational, unprejudiced mind, none of the generally accepted causes are able to account for the lightning rise to power achieved by Cyrus and his suc­cessors. Secu1ar historians exclude from the very outset the influence of Providence in the affairs of mankind; they restrict themselves to natural interpretations only. Regardless of how strongly the plain facts in a situation imply the workings of Divine wiJI, historians who do not possess faith in a supernatural force will search for the most remote and unconnected causes rather than relinquish a purely natural explanation. Data which do not conform with their shaky and elaborate theories and discounted or simply ignored. Jn utilizing the finding of experts, therefore, the student of Jewish history must be conscious at all times of an inherent bias that is present in the perception and interpretation of humanist scholars who believe that the human in­tellect reigns supreme in our universe.

Cyrus' meteroic elevation to glory was in fact an imperative ordained by G-d's plan for Israel. Jeremiah had prophesied that seventy years after the destruction of the first Beis Ha'Mikdosh, the Jewish exiles in Babylonia would return to their land. Persia had been chosen as the kingdom that would bring this prophecy to fulfillment. Cyrus' swift conquest of powerful Asiatic kingdoms was part of the scheme that was set in opera­tion in order to bring about the conditions necessary for the return to the Holy Land. Thus we find the following verses at the very beginning of Ezra:

25

26

And in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia-that the word of G-d from the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled-G-d stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia; and he made pass a proclamation throughout his kingdom and also in writing, saying:

Thus says Cyrus, King of Persia: all the kingdoms of the earth has the Lord, G-d of heavens, given to me; and he has charged me to build for Him a house in Jerusalem which is in Judah.

Whosoever there is among you of all His people-may his G-d be with him-let him go up to J erusa­lem which is in Judah and build the house of the Lord, the G-d of Israel, He is the G-d who is in Jerusalem.

And whosoever remains, from any place that he sojourns there, let the men of his place laden him with silver, and with gold, and >1··ith

fwotv~

• x_rrus zicur \'.j'ratitude 15'1 witli a

SCFOLL &.'!

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'f,f'l""" 9&9-"1114

goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of G-d which is Jerusalem.

To the secular historians, Cyrus' edict is an unsoluable riddle. Why should this relentless potentate who wor­shipped his Persian god display such magnanimity to a weak people with alien ways? What motive could have prompted such an unprecedented and seemingly irrational deed? Some authorities cite Cyrus' generous policies towards other conquered nationalities as indica­tive of his liberal nature. Others impute to Cyrus a lesser motive and allege that he was desirous of having the Jews returned to their land so that he would derive large sums of tribute from the flourishing econ­omy which they would create. Either explanation is flimsy and certainly does not approach in directness and simplicity the words in Ezra which state that G-d stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. But this is one kind of determination which a humanist analysis cannot allow and by its very nature is rendered un­acceptable.

IT MUST BE STRESSED, however, that while history demonstrates, it does not reveal His presence to us unless we first believe in Him firmly as an act of faith. To the believer, G-d's presence pervades every locus of the universe; His will is apparent throughout the story of mankind. But that is because he believes! To the one who does not possess this faith, the identical panorama of events which may lead a man of faith into an ecstatic realization of G-d's majesty will lead the secular scholar into some grotesque hyoothesis which is consistent only in its conformity to his pre­conceived judgment that G-d's influence is not felt upon earth.

Even miracles, open evidence of G-d's handiwork, do not prove conclusively that G-d rules the world. No matter how marvelous these happenings may be, there always remains the possibility--obviously quite remote-that these wonders may have been produced by natural causes. Why this must be so is easily un­derstood. Man's highest exercise of his freedom to choose between right and wrong is in the matter of faith. Once man has witnessed an absolute proof of G-d's presence, belief, turns into knowledge. If man were to possess this knowledge, he would lose his freedom to choose. He would be like the angels and not like other human beings.

The skeptic puts his entire trust in the perception of his senses and his intellectual prowess, while the re1igious conviction of the man of faith makes mani­fest the fulfillment of G-d's. Briefly: to the skeptic, to see is to believe; to the faithful, to believe is to see.

D

The Jewfrh Observer / January, 1970

Some Recent Jewish Books

Chassidus and "Scholarship" In our November, 1968 issue, we discussed the prob­lem of "The Book Industry and Orthodox Judaism." The following observations are an up-dating of that discussion in relation to some recently published books of specifically Jewish interest.

Chassidus continues to be a popular subject on current book lists. Yet to this day-apart from some English­language publications of Lubavitch-there has not yet appeared a popular work on the subject in the English language that can claim authenticity.

It is told of one of the Chassidic Rebbes that he overheard some of his Chassidim discussing a scholar who was said to be "an outstanding authority" on Chassidus. "The man knows nothing about Chassidus," the Rebbe said. When one of the Chassidim asked if the Rebbe would explain-since the man was widely recognized as an authority-he offered an exan1p1e. "If a man is an authority on the city of Paris; kno\vs all its streets and boulevards, and where they intersect; knows every place of interest; knows its shops and museums-but he had learned it all from books, and had never been to Paris-would you say he was "an authority" on Paris? Many people write books about Chassidus-but they have never been there."

Herbert Weiner, has written 91'.6 Mystics (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1969), a work on Chassidus sub-titled "The Kabhala Today." Weiner is a Reform rabbi from New Jersey, and he is a very special case: He thinks he has been there. Weiner writes of his visits with chassidim and leaders of Lubavitch and Bratzlav; he writes of his visits with Gershom Scholem, retired Professor of Jewish Mysticism of the Hebrew University. He describes Scholem as "the accountant" of Kabbalai and cites Buber's com1nent that "Scholem is a great scholar; he has made a science out of the Kabbala." Jn his preface Weiner expresses his "anxiety as an outsider venturing into an area usually reserved for professional scholars of authentic Kabhalists." "That my presentation," he continues, "has resulted in some distortions both of the subject matter and of the personalities described, I do not doubt. For this I am sorry .... " But-typical of his approach-he explains his errors by "a favorite image of the Kahbalists. The primal light, they say, is simply too bright for finite eyes to behold." Yet readers of

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

Weiner's book will be lured into the belief that they are indeed being introduced to "the primal light"­particularly when they pick up the book in a shop and read the blurbs on the dust jacket: " ... Weiner ranks with Martin Buber and Gershon Scholem as a most profound (and also delightful) exponent of his spiritual tradition . .. . "-ALAN WATTS; "I warmly recommend ... 9Y2 Mystics ... it is rich in information . ... "­ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL; "91'.6 Mystics is an outstanding addition to modern religious literature, treating a pro­foundly important and difficult subject. ... "-MAU­

RICE SAMUEL. Just to cite one example of Weiner's scholarship: "Halacha comes from the Hebrew k'lal, meaning generalization or principle."-We asked our nine-year old daughter-just to be sure-"What's the shoresh of Halacha?" She twisted her nose and thought for a moment: "Isn't it like Holech?" Perhaps Weiner should indeed have left Chassidus to the scholars, or better still to "authentic Kabbalists." If he is really searching-as he very well may be-he would do better not to use his search for personal gain. Buber accuses Scholem of making a "science of Kabbala." Buber turned Chassidus into literature-"theology" at best. Weiner has lumped it all together as journalism. And Weiner's readers, like himself, will not be blinded by the "primal Iight"-they will remain in total dark­ness until someone comes along who has really "been there.''

Ideas and Ideals of the Hassidim (Citadel Press, New York, l 969) is a survey of "Hassidic thought through the centuries, showing how it reflects and amplifies the universal teachings of Judaism." The author, Dr. Milton Aron, has "been thcre"-he served as a chap­lain in the United States Air Force, and as a Hillel director in Detroit. The book's publisher describes him as "a wide-ranging scholar in the various disciplines of Judaica"-apparently including Chassidus. Aron's wide­ranging scholarship is immediately manifest, even to the uninitiated reader. A glance at a small sampling of pages where "hassidic thought" is expounded shows the following source references: "A Treasury of Jew­ish Quotations"; "Buber: Tales of the Hasidim, Early Masters"; "So1omon Schechter: Studies in Judaism, Vol. I"; "J. S. Minkin: Romance of Hasidism"; and "New­man: Hassidic Anthology." Of course, Dr. Aron also gives credit to the founder of "Hassidism"-Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov.

27

ANOTHER ENTRY in the field of Hassidus is Legends of the Hasidim (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1968) by Jerome R. Mintz. While we have frequently noted that works on Orthodox Jews and Chassidim (the latter is of course a sub-set of the former), often have an anthropological ring about them, this work is indeed an anthropological study. The author is an associate professor at the Folklore Institute of Indiana University. He professes no expertise on Chassidus-not even in "Judaica." The publisher here assures us that the book will "be particularly reward­ing to students of anthropology, folk-lore and Jewish culture"-in descending order, one assumes.

Mintz has gathered Chassidic tales in informal in­terviews with various Chassidim in New York City. These tales have been categorized and catalogued in accord with what we assume to be proper anthropolo­gical methods. Like Weiner, Mintz visited various Chassidic centers, but he notes in his introduction that he "did not pretend to be an Orthodox Jew. Although I always wore a hat, I did not grow a beard or wear a kaftan." He admits to having said a prayer or two­and danced with the chassidim; but he balked at putting on tefilin in order not to practice "deceit."

In cataloguing the tales he collected, the author has meticulously assigned to each a motif and type num­ber in accordance with Stith Thompson's Motif Index of Folk Literature which he records following each story, making it possible for other scholars to note similarities to folk-talcs of other anthropological sub­jects.

The result of this effort is a series of stories which ,have a most primitive ring-not always due to Mintz' efforts-and present a distorted picture of the ultimate significance of Chassidus. In his acknowledgements, Mintz lists the "many Hasidim without whose help this book could not have been written but whom I may not name for fear of causing them some embarrassment." The book is not without value: it contains some beauti­ful photographs of Chassidim, and may offer some insights to the reader who can brush aside the anthro­pology. But alas!-Chassidus still remains a closed book to the English reader, and a proper book on the subject has yet to be published.

THERE Is A PATTERN that often repeats itself in scholarly treatment of Judaism in published works. We saw it first in the Fifties, when the University of Chicago Press published a series on the three major faiths in America. The work on Catholicism was written by a Jesuit priest; Protestantism was assigned to a minister; and the volume on Judaism was written by . . . a sociologist. Perhaps the scholars of religion have taken too seriously the contention that Judaism is "a way of life" and not a "religion." But the reverse seems

28

utterly inexcusable: a newly-published work titled, to use a fictitious example, "How to Organize a Ping-Pong League in Your Jewish Center" is listed under "Re­ligion"--or even worse: "Religion, Jewish."

In Princeton University Press' first volume in its "Religion in American Life" series, The Shaping of American Religion, the essay on "Judaism in the United States" is written by Oscar Handlin, the famed . . . social historian. Almost as if to justify his being chosen, Handlin opens his essay with tbe words: "In modern times, Judaism has involved less a system of ideas or a formulated creed than a way of life."

Jn his brief survey of American Judaism, Handlin practically ignores what has happened in the last few decades in American Orthodoxy, and feels free to note that: "Although the formal differences . . . re­mained as prominent as ever ... the actual substantive differences among them tended to diminish. All were subject to the same intellectual and social forces and within Jimited terms \Vere able to cooperate in the Synagogue Council of America."

After a passing reference to some growth in Ortho­doxy's self-confidence and assertiveness," Handlin con­cludes:

Nonetheless ... the main body of Orthodoxy was . . . approaching a norm common to the other branches of American Judaisn1. Some rabbis were indeed anxious to shed the desi!(nation Orthodox and to be known as Traditional. 1"hey e1nphasized the necessity of integration into the larger A1neri­can com1nunity and explained that the forms and rituals of the past were not fossils to be pre­served vvithout contact with the environment, but living grovvths to be nurtured in new ways hy the new soil of the United States to which they had been transpianted. "Take the beard off the rabbi and put him into a sports coat," urged an Or­thodox spokesman in 1959. While genuine dif­ferences remained, these conceptions tended to narrow the distance between Orthodox and non­Orthodox Jews.

In a footnote on the Jewish attitude to the New Testa­ment, Handlin advises his readers: "In general, see also Sholem Asch, One Destiny: An Epistle to the Christians ... and his novels."

This "scholarly work" -it grieves us to repeat-will be read by university students-Jews and non-Jews -as an authoritative work. But worse, it will be read by other scholars wbo will cite it in their scholarly works. And those works will be read by other scholars who wiH cite. . . . YAAKOV JACOBS

The Jewish Observer I January. 1970

On Jewish Goblins Last Friday night, October 31st, during our Shabbos meal at home, the door bell rang. One of our chil­dren, in a burst of prophetic vision, shouted, "It's trick or treat."

Which it was-except that we, not the visitors tried to do the trick. We invited the three Halloween visi­tors into the house and to our Shab­bos table. It was, after all. a true Hallowed Evening: Shabbos.

I don't know who they were, for they were well-costumed: two gob­lins and a cowboy. But when I pointed to our Shabbos candles and

asked if they knew what they were, they knew. They were good Jewish goblins.

They didn't want to sit down but we did offer them a treat: some ge­filte fish. They politely refused. Wine? No thanks. Chicken? Nope. Some freshly baked challah? Uh-uh. (A II they really wanted was some Halloween candy, and here was this rabbi offering them Shabbos food! They looked at each other as if to say, "How did we get into THIS­

let's get OUT of here!")

"Well," I said (I hope gently),

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"you know tonight is Shabbos so we didn't really prepare for Hallo­ween and we have no treats."

"Oh, that's all right," said the cowboy, looking at the door. "We have to go now." They said good­night and they ran ofj to continue their quest for treats at houses where Halloween would be more scrupulously observed.

I KEEP THINKING ABOUT THOSE Jew­ish children, innocently ringing door­bells on Halloween/Shabbos night. I think how easily ·they have been able to slide into the prevailing cul­ture of society: the witches, the 1nasks, the pumpkins, the attitudes. And I wonder if they are equally at ease with Shabbos, with Jewish attitudes, lvith Jewish values.

Those Friday night goblins were probably no 1nore than nine years old, and I wish them and their families well. But I keep thinking about them and about what they symbolize for an authentic Jewish life in the coming years. And they depress me.

They typify the great problems of living in two cultures, with the easy adjustment to one and the uneasy adjustment to the other. And they underscore the herculean efforts that are necessary if we are to

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The Jewish Observer / January, .1970

ZEIREI AGUDATH ISRAEL HOLDS NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Jn the aftermath of the inspiring Na· tional Convention of Agudath Israel, steps have been taken to revitalize the youth organization, Zeirei Agudath Israel of America. A series of meetings were held in recent weeks, and an interim executive board was established to plan the organization's activities and func· tions. The reactivated Zeirei Agudath Israel will be launched at an impressive National Assembly which wiJI take place on Sunday ever.ing, March 1st.

AGUDATH ISRAEL TO MOBILIZE ORTHODOX

PARTICIPATION INN. Y. C. SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS

Agudath Israel's Commission on Legis· 1ative and Civic Affairs, headed by Rabbi Menachem Shayowich, has undertaken to mobilize Orthodox Jews throughout New York City to participate in the local decentralized community school board elections which will take place on March 19th. Agudah activists have point­ed out that the new local school boards will have a major voice in dispensing federal and state funds and services that the Yeshivos should be receiving in each neighborhood, <ind Yeshiva interests could be seriously damaged unless men who are sensitive to the needs of the non-public schools are elected to these boards.

ROCKEFELLER URGED NOT TO DELAY AID TO NON­

PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN "Children attending non-public schools

should not be compeJJed to wait to obtain their sorely-needed state education aid until the time-consuming machinery to repeal the 'Blaine Amendment' is set into motion," Governor Rockefeller was told in a message from Rabbi Moshe Sherer, executive president of Agudath Israel of America. The New York Governor, in his opening message to the State Legis­lature, caJJed for the repeal of the "Blaine Amendment" in order to enable the state to help children nttending pri­vate schools. Agudath Israel, after many months of extensive research and work­ing with noted constitutional lawyers, has in collaboration with other interested groups helped shape a new bill which was presented to New York's legislature that would provide substantial help to children attending Yeshivos and other non-public schools. This bill follows the spirit of the recent Supreme Court de­cision which declared that any programs primarily directed to aid for the children do not violate the "Blaine Amendment."

The Jewish Observer / January, 1970

NIXON THANKS AGUDATH ISRAEL FOR SUPPORT ON

VIETNAM President Richard Nixon informed

Agudath Israel of America that he ap­preciates the resolution adopted at the 47th National Convention of the or­ganization supporting his "intensive ef­forts to achieve peace in Vietnam." "Your encouragement will strengthen our pursuit of the just and lasting peace that all of us desire," the President wrote Agudath Israel.

BORO PARK DEDICATES NEW BUILDING MARCH 8th The Boro Park branch of Agudath

Israel will mark the dedication of its new three-story building at 4511-14th A venue with a series of festivities be­ginning Friday night, March 6th and culminating with a gala Chanukas Ha­bayis Dinner Sunday evening, March 8th, it was. announced by Abraham Plotzker. president. The new large edi­fice includes facilities for Zeirei and Pirchei Agudath Israel, and will serve as one of the dynan1ic centers for Torah action in New York.

AGUDATH ISRAEL PARTICIPATES IN

WASHINGTON CONFERENCE ON ISRAEL SECURITY

Agudath lsrael participated in the emergency conference on American policy towards Israel's security situation, held in Washington, D.C., on January 25-26. after receiving assurances that the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, which had con­vened the gathering, would not perm it

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it "to evolve into an anti-administration forum, and its program will not incJude expressions that are not consonant with traditional Torah teachings." Agudath Israel, on ideological grounds, is not a me1nber of the Presidents' Conference, and participated in the Washington gath­ering in order to express the solidarity of all American Jews with the precarious security position of Israel. The Agudah delee:ation was headed by Presidium­inen'lber Rabbi Chaskel Besser.

POST-CONVENTION AGUDAH ACTIVITIES IN FULL SWING

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