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.
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