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A Rabbi Who Married Historical Scholarship with a Ḥasidic Approach to the Talmud

June 28 2017

Unlike most other ḥasidic leaders who sought isolation from secular Zionism upon arrival in the land of Israel, the late Pashkaner rebbe, Yisrael Friedman, became closely affiliated with the socialist and secularist pioneer organization Hashomer Hatsa’ir, settled on a kibbutz, began using the Hebrew version of his last name (“Ben-Shalom”), and even studied at a university, eventually becoming a professor. Yakov Z. Mayer explains how Friedman’s historical expertise on the talmudic period merged seamlessly with his particularly ḥasidic method of Talmud study:

[When Friedman taught] Talmud, every sage mentioned in the [text] was richly portrayed, following the [talmudic] dictum, “One who relates a statement in the name of its author should envision the author of the statement as though he is standing before him.” To perceive the author of the statement, Friedman said, one must imagine the teachers and disciples of the statement’s author. Where did he live? Where did he study? Whom did he marry? Who were his children? What did he eat, drink, and wear? What did his beard look like? No detail is too marginal, no angle unexplored.

Envisioning the author of the talmudic statement before us was not simply a trick to spice up our learning; Friedman taught us that this is how Ḥasidim study the Talmud. . . . When Friedman called forth the images of the talmudic discussants, [it was clear to his students that] he was there with them, and [they] believed that the sages’ lips were whispering from the grave. . . .

In a certain sense Friedman’s [major scholarly work], The House of Shammai and the Zealots’ Struggle against Rome, reflects this style of study. He enters the era and describes [the sages of the school of Shammai] in their historical context. . . . The ḥasidic scholastic principle of envisioning the author of the statement was transformed, in Friedman’s hands, into a critical, academic method. . . .

He once said that the academy has the power to suck out one’s soul, so if someone survived it, he either has no soul or has a soul that is so deeply embedded that it does not want to come out. He did not sing the praises of the academy, but of ḥasidic Torah study, which is connected in so many overt and covert ways to historical Torah study.

Read more at Lehrhaus

More about: Hasidism, Jewish studies, Religion & Holidays, Talmud

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic