What is Halacha and what isn't, even if its proponent is an Orthodox Rabbi.

This is important.

The Deathly Hallows and Torah

My previous post caused offence to all those who don't care for Reb Tzodok.
I haven't yet developed the zitzfleish to sit and type out all my thoughts on this matter, but I think that a plot point in the Deathly Hallows explains the two schools of thought and Reb Tzodok's third school in a beautiful way.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we are introduced to a story that appears in a collection of children's tales. It is called the "Deathly Hallows". The story is written in classical fairy tale format. The first two responses to the story are rationalistic dismissal (Hermione Granger) and gullible acceptance (Xenophilius Lovegood). The truth is revealed to be that neither has the correct approach. The story was true, had historically accurate elements, but was conveyed in simple story-telling language. Outright Dismissal and Outright Acceptance were both wrong.

The analogue to the current "Avos keeping the Mitzvos" mini-scandal and Reb Tzodok's approach to Aggadeta is obvious to me. I think Rabbi Yair Hoffman is incorrect in stating that most rishonim think the Avos literally kept the Torah. I think it is more accurate to say that Rashi, and most rishonim of that school who interpret that gemara "literally", are merely taking the Gemara on its own terms. They are not dealing with "literalness" at all. They're just reading the words and explaining what they mean in context.

Reb Tzadok is the one who understands what's going on. It's not about literalness. It's about the POINT! He takes it out of the silly boxing match, the "Faith" vs. "Reason" shtick we got stuck with from the Catholic fight with Galileo, and brings it into the world of ideas, concepts.

Pri Tzaddik on Chanukah

Reb Tzodok Hacohen is GEVALDIG! His first piece in Pri Tzaddik on Chanuka is amazing!

A taste: Cohanim- Aharon- Torah SheBaal Peh- The famous Ramban on Parshas Vayechi- Mechokeik Mibein Raglav- Yehuda/Malchus-Cohanim from Yehuda via Elisheva Bas Aminadav- Chashmonaim- Shimon Hatzaddik - Alexander the Great - Aristotle - Yannai and the Sadducees - Hillel and his family the last century of the Beis Hamikdash.

Anyone nowadays who insists on maintaining a pre-Reb Tzodok view of Yahadus is simply a fool, a tipish. Harsh, but true.

The Avos and the Mitzvos

Dear Rabbi Hoffman,

Thank you for your exposition of the matter of the Avos keeping the Torah, a maamor Chazal built upon the last possuk in the first aliyah of Parshas Toldos.  I have been sharing this multi-faceted point of view to others as long as I remember, and especially since the video was released.  I have one serious qualm with the brilliant essay, and that is the last paragraph's in-bold sentence:

The overwhelming majority of Torah authorities, however, clearly and completely hold of the maximalist position, and this is the general position that should be taught in our Torah institutions.

???
I am confused about how you can say this first part, especially after you just went through a litany of "mainstream" meforshei Chumash, mekubalim, gedolei hachassidus and even poskim (The Baal Hatanya as well) who understand it in a "minimalist" way.  Not to discredit the maximalists throughout our history, but I think it is inaccurate to call them the "overwhelming majority".  It would have been sufficient to say that an impressive number of authorities espouse that viewpoint, without overstating the level of support.  

I do tend to agree that for the sake of chinuch, it is healthy for children at our frum  day schools to be taught the maximalist view, but to be taught layers of meaning only later in their learning.  This is not because I think the maximalist view is "better" or frummer, but because I adhere to the guidance of gedolei hachinuch that young children are not yet well-suited to nuance and gray areas. It is only with the chochma of maturity that they can properly absorb a spectrum of "Eilu V'Eilu", and children would not be able to properly absorb the idea that the Avos didn't keep Shabbos, or Kashrus etc.  That's why I have no problem with my children imagining that the Avos kept the Mitzvos in full form, like the Maximalist school.  

Tizku L'Mitzvos

Raphael Davidovich

Cleveland OH

some stray thoughts on Rabbi Steinzaltz: first draft

If I may be permitted a middle-of-the-road view on a subject of some controversy:
Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael (Steinzaltz) recently completed his Hebrew commentary of Talmud Bavli.

The tone of the chatter is either the kind that signs on to the condemning, excommunicating flavor of R Schach's attacks in the 80's, or the adulation of his followers, only strengthened by the resolve to fight off the attacks.

I think he did not deserve those attacks.  Yes, there! I said it.

On the other hand, I think that he made errors in judgment in how he went about his work.  Some of those errors were avoided by  the Artscroll Shas people, who were there to pick up the pieces of the effort after the Bnei Brak crowd tried to crush him.  And NO, I don't think there was a conspiracy. I just think Artscroll took advantage of a window of opportunity by working on a Shas commentary, in English and Hebrew, that avoided the weak points of R Steinzaltz's efforts.

1. First of all, but last chronologically, I think the Random House English version of his commentary is a huge waste of time.  I don't know who convinced him that would be a good idea. But even before Artscroll came out with its version, The English Steinzaltz Talmud is just a big fluffy waste.

2. Who knew that changing pagination would create such a stir? But it did.  The Orthodox Talmud learning community attributed tremendous value to a two century old pagination, as if it was handed down at Sinai.  He did learn that lesson, and later editions provided Vilna Shas pagination. All later Hebrew elaborators, (Artscroll, Mesivta, Oz V'Hadar etc) learned that lesson too, albeit the easy way.  I can't blame the traditional community for thinking there was some hubris on R Steinzaltz's part by displacing Tosfos.   I don't think he was thinking anything sinister. But when as Arthur Kurzweil has written, you want to "revolutionize" the study of Talmud, you are implicitly criticizing the way it has been studied.  That will earn you the ire of the establishment.  Over-reaching might be the right word.  Over-reaching is often good, but sometimes you get burned.

3. Someone who wants to write a work that changes the face of Torah learning usually gets haskamos. R Steinzaltz does have a letter from R Moshe Feinstein.  But those in the know know that those letters were (too?) easy to procure.  Being a Lubavitcher hurt him in this regard. He would never have gotten the kind of institutional support that the Artscroll group did.

4. His work on the men of the Bible contains no kefira.  Yes! I say so. But it does contain a tone that is unnecessarily flippant in a few places. Perhaps he thought we needed to move away from the yeshivish "nobody in Tanach ever did anything wrong in the slightest" school of commentary and pushed the other way.  But that's gonna get you burned.

5. Traditional Jewry wants its revolutionaries to have a mesora.  Unless you claim and are believed to possess an angelic mesora, like the Arizal or the Ramchal or the Baal Shem Tov, we want to see a human chain of which you are the latest and extraordinarily most brilliant link in a while.  R Steinzaltz is a Chabad Chossid, but he is an independent thinker, so what is his mesora in Limud Hatorah?  Maybe he is such a genius that he doesn't need one. Did Einstein need a mesora?  Well Torah is not like Physics.  We like to see or imagine a chain.  Not having one will hurt you.