Secrets From the Shadow of God- A review of Rav Bezalel Naor's The Legends of Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah with the commentary of Rav Kook

With the book launch for Rav Bezalel Naor’s “The Legends of Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah” based on Rav Kook’s commentary, coming up on December 10^th in Teaneck, this is an opportune time to share my thoughts on Rav Naor’s latest masterpiece. (Click here to view the Facebook event page)

This is not my first review of one of Rav Naor’s sefarim. Most recently, I reviewed his Rav Kook siddur. I’ve been blessed to not only learn from Rav Naor’s writings, but also from him in person. It is no exaggeration to say that he is like no teacher of Torah I’ve met before. While he is perhaps known as one of the biggest experts on Rav Kook’s Torah, his encyclopedic knowledge covers much more than “only” Rav Kook. He has published dozens of books on all sorts of subjects, which cover all areas of Torah, both nigleh and nistar. Those of us who have merited to learn from him in person, are continuously amazed by his grasp of Shas, halacha, machashava and more.

Rav Noar’s latest work is no exception. The Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah stories, found in Bava Basra 73a-74a, are as wild as they are enigmatic. RBBH meets all sorts of interesting people and sees mythic creatures. While the uninformed reader may see these stories as “tall tales” or mythology, through the eyes of a talmid chacham, they contain great secrets. Famously, the Vilna Gaon wrote a commentary on these stories, which became well known through Rav Aharon Feldman’s The Juggler and the King. Through the GRA’s grasp of all of Torah, these stories are revealed to have the greatest depth. Long before he became the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Palestine, while still living in Eastern Europe, where he served as a rav, a young Rav Kook also wrote a commentary on these gemaras.

Rav Naor’s new book contains the commentary in Hebrew, as well as in English with extensive endnotes, which k’darko b’kodesh, reveals Rav Naor’s encyclopedic knowledge, and fascinating analysis. Rav Naor shows how a young Rav Kook already possessed a thorough knowledge of nigleh and nistar, the latter of which he refers to directly, something which is different from Rav Kook’s later works. As if that wasn’t enough, there are 11 appendices included on fascinating topics including Rav Kook’s thoughts on mussar, Chabad chassidus, his connection to the Ramchal, and his understanding of what must happen for Moshiach to come.

While I loved nearly everything about this book, I was surprised by its cover, as well as the artwork which accomplishes each new section of aggadeta. Rav Naor’s name does not appear on the cover, and the title, referring to the aggdeta as “Legends”, as well as the artwork might well lead to someone thinking that this is a children’s book. Of course, it is anything but. It would be a shame if people judged this work by its cover. It is the latest in the incredible writings of Rav Naor, and as with all of his sefarim, it deserves to be studied by talmidei chachamim.

I am grateful to Alec Goldstein of Kodesh Press for making this work available to those who yearn for Rav Kook’s Torah.

Hashkafic Man- An open letter to Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz about producing the next generation of rabbis

Dear Rabbi Lebowitz,

I recently read an interview you did after you were hired as the director of the semicha program at RIETS. One particular answer stood out. When you were asked about the importance of investing in the rabbis of tomorrow, you said:

“It’s actually pretty simple. To get the most “bang for your buck,” it makes sense to invest time and energy in the influencers of society. If we want an educated and genuinely inspired community, it is critically important to develop the kind of leaders that can help teach, guide and inspire people in a meaningful way. When I visit other communities, in the United States and in Israel, I see my friends from my days at RIETS making a major impact.

Thousands of young men and women in yeshivot and seminaries in Israel are being influenced by my RIETS classmates. Hundreds of communities, shuls and schools are being lead today by my RIETS classmates. It follows that if we want to determine the direction of the community in two decades from now, we should look at the current students in RIETS.” (Underline added)

Although I am not a musmach of YU, I greatly appreciated this response. As someone who was and continues to be influenced by many rabbeim from YU, as well as someone with 20+ years in chinuch, I’ve thought a lot about what the next generation of Jews needs. I would suggest that there is one critical change to the semicha program which needs to happen in order for your goal to be achieved.

While there are many ways that YU semicha has changed over the years, and requires more than “just” learning and mastering Gemara and Halacha, there is still no requirement for YU musmachim to learn through at least one major work of machshava. Please allow me to explain why I think this should change.

While there may have been a time when it was enough to teach students about the “What?” of Judaism, that is certainly no longer the case. The Piaseczna Rebbe already recognized 100 years that students needs had changed, and that students required a different type of chinuch. If we want to produce students who are loyal to the Ribono Shel Olam and his Torah, and are passionate about their Judaism, we must also teach the relevance of the Torah which we teach. I have personally seen how much students, as early as 7^th grade respond to the ideas of great thinkers like the Rambam, Ramchal, Rebbe Nachman, and The Rav, and many others.

Although there are certainly some musmachim who learn these or other thinkers in depth, it has been my experience that many, perhaps even most, do not, never having gone through an entire sefer of this kind in depth. I am aware that some YU Roshei Yeshiva do bring some of this content into their shiurim, that is still a far cry from having worked deeply through these ideas. It is not uncommon to meet musmachim who can discuss a sugya in depth, or give a high level halacha shiur, but who cannot give over hashkafic ideas on a similar level.

You correctly note that we need an educated and inspired community. I would contend that a requirement to learn, either in a formal shiur or an in-depth chavrusa, at least one sefer machshava, will produce mechanchim (and rabbonim) who can help produce that community.

Sincerely,

Pesach Sommer

What's In A Name (Part V)- Am I Still Pesach Sheini?

From time to time (although it's been a long time since the last one), I will be writing about my reasons for choosing "Pesach Sheini" as the name for my blog. The more I have thought about the name, the more I have felt that it chose me and not the other way around. What follows is the fifth installation. To read the first four click here. 

Dear Rabbi _________________,

After a recent discussion by email, you sent me an email where you spelled out your philosophical and theological views, and asked me to respond in kind; “And you, Reb Pesach -- how do the pieces of your worldview fit together?”. I responded that I was not sure whether I wanted to try and summarize my beliefs, but I would think about it. After much thought, I have decided to respond, with one caveat.

I cannot tell you how the pieces of my worldview fit together, as a unified theory is not something I seek to produce. I’m not sure if anything more than being mine, is what holds them together. One thing which came across quite strongly in your email is that your beliefs are long-held. I suspect, and please correct me if I am mistaken, that you could have used the same words to describe your beliefs five years ago, and probably much earlier than that. I cannot say the same for myself.

When I first started my blog “Pesach Sheini”, the name seemed to make sense. It was my way of saying that I had come through a long, complicated, and painful religious struggle, and that what emerged was a new me. While that was in many ways correct, I made the mistake of thinking that whereas before I had subscribed to certain philosophical and theological beliefs, which, like yours, I would call for lack of a better word, rational, now I had new beliefs which no longer fit that term. What I did not realize was that though I may not ever need a Pesach Shelishi, my new beliefs were not just different, but were also much more fluid.

By way of thinking about how to answer your question, I took a look at the sefarim on my bookshelf. I not only noticed the sefarim which get frequent use these days, those of the Piaseczna Rebbe, Rav Kook, and R’ Hillel Zeitlin, I also noticed the sefarim which I haven’t used much in a bunch of years, although they were helpful to me in the earlier stages of “Pesach Sheini”. Among those sefarim were those from R’ Isaac Breuer, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, and Rav Amital. This is not to dismiss any of them as having importance to me. Rather I use to point out that my hesitancy in answering your question is due to the fact that my religious understanding is anything but static. In fact, if you had told a year or two ago me that ideas from The Baal haTanya and Rav Hillel Paritcher would be part of my religious experience, I would have looked at you like you are crazy.

Please don’t mistake this as meaning that there are no core beliefs. I would be surprised if the Piaseczna Rebbe and his Torah ever stops being of great importance to me. I don’t think I could ever be a chasid, but if the Piaseczna Rebbe was alive, who knows. The same goes for Rav Kook’s and Hillel Zeitlin’s Torah.

As for specifics, beyond the fact that my worldview is mostly mystical, I’ll just share a few brief thoughts. While I understand the reasons why you and others try to take a more rational approach, that worldview has very little appeal to me. Ultimately, no how much we try to rationalize religion, it is anything but rational. It ultimately stands on a relationship with a God, who cannot be touched by the world of rational thought. As such, I take God at his word in the Torah, as did the rabbis in the Talmud, that tefillah is real communication, and that God is directly involved in our lives. While you are correct to note that this approach raises questions, all approaches do.

To sum it up as well as I can, and I do realize that I have left quite a bit unsaid, I try and stand in serious relationship to HKBH, and believe with every fiber of my being that it is a real two-way relationship. Does it all fit together? It does in the sense that this is me. I have no desire to convince anyone else of the correctness of any of my views and beliefs. My desire is nothing more than continuously try and think about, develop, and grow in my relationship with God.

Pesach

Daughters of Queens- On producing the next generation of religious women

There was something powerful, and disconcerting (in a positive way) about watching 93 Queen as one of only a handful of men in a room filled, almost entirely, with Modern Orthodox women and teenage girls. As I watched the movie, I often found myself thinking about what those around me were thinking. I grew noticeably uncomfortable while seeing how the many men in the movie often stood in the women’s way, often in a heavy-handed manner. While the movie, which deals with the attempt of Ruchie Freier and a group of primarily chassidish women to start an all-women’s Hatzolah unit, was excellent, and I highly recommend it, I’d like to address the movie from a religious/sociological perspective. Specifically, I’d like to use my experience to think about some questions I’ve been thinking about on women and orthodoxy. In my next post, I hope to address a different aspect of the film.

As a father of three girls, and a teacher of many teens and pre-teens I constantly wonder about the future of Orthodoxy in general, and Modern Orthodoxy in particular, when it comes to women. What future is there for these groups (and others more to the right as well) in terms of holding onto the minds and hearts of women, in a world where women are more or less accepted as equals in pretty much every area of society? To put it differently, why would girls and women choose to be part of a world where they face restrictions of many kinds, when a world with few limits exists around them, and is easily accessible?

One perspective is to push Orthodoxy as far as it will go (according to various yard sticks) in an attempt to make it as egalitarian as possible. While I know people who take this approach, it doesn’t seem to me to be such a successful approach. No matter how liberal a yardstick one uses in attempting to move halacha in this way, they are assured of falling far short of anything remotely approaching egalitarian society. A lower mechitzah is still a mechitzah. Partnership minyanim still show the fact that women can’t lead the most significant parts of davening.

93 Queen seemed to gently suggest another possibility. What particularly moved me, and stood out to me about the women in the film, was the fact that they had a strong sense of knowing what they wanted, and what they had every reason to expect to get, while at the same time feeling strongly at home in, and comfortable with their community. As I watched the story unfold, seated in a Modern Orthodox girl’s high school, I couldn’t help but wonder about how the girls around me were seeing these women, as well as whether they could identify with women who identify so strongly with their religious community, restrictions an all. In particular, I found myself wondering whether there could be aspects of the more yeshivish and even chassidish girl’s educational system, which could be incorporated into the Modern Orthodox education system (to be clear, I have similar questions about the boy’s educational system as well).

I was moved by the strong women portrayed in the film. As I watched, I couldn’t help but hope that we in the modern world are providing a complex and nuanced enough education to our daughters to allow them to look at women from a very different part of the Orthodox world as heroes and role models. Where there are clear and obvious ways where we will part ways in how we educate young women, I hope that a high dividing wall is not being built to keep the two worlds apart.