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.

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

Leaving Har Sinai- On the challenges of taking Matan Torah Into life

Thanks to a wonderful shiur I listened to on Friday, I headed into Shabbos and Yom Tov with strong expectations. Rav Ami Silver gave over a derasha from Derech HaMelech, which the Piaseczna Rebbe first delivered nearly 90 years ago. I went into Shabbos wanting to learn through the rebbe’s words on my own, as I strongly wanted to internalize the message. It took a few times going over it, but eventually I was able to reconnect with the message of the derasha. I was deeply moved by the idea that Kabbalas HaTorah is something which re-occurs throughout time, and that we need to see ourselves as having something worthy to merge with the Torah, rather than accepting it passively. The part which touched me the most was the idea that we must dig down within ourselves, in our own “dirt” to discover that even there, we connect with the Ribbono Shel Olam.

Over the chag, I continued to learn from the Derech HaMelech, as well as from Rav Kook’s Midbar Shur. Combined with the time I spent with family, and the learning I did with several of our children, Shavuos was a deeply meaningful experience. I truly felt that it was a personal Z’man Matan Toraseinu.

Just as suddenly, as I went from Yom Tov to chol, the experience disappeared. I remember the words, and the ideas they conveyed, but I can no longer access them. Even as today is Iseru Chag, the day when we are to bind the experiences of the yom tov to our lives, the switch from kodesh to chol is too dramatic. While I try and pass it off as being a product of physical and mental exhaustion, it seems to me that something else is going on. As I stood at the base of Har Sinai, I could imagine finding the holy within dirt, even within my own. Now, having traveled on, my imagination fails, and this profound teaching has reverted to just an intellectual concept.

I better understand how 40 days after Kabbalas HaTorah there can be a Cheit HaEigel. To receive the Torah is an avodah, but to bring it with you from Har Sinai is a greater one, and right now I don’t know how to do that.

More Than A Peirush- a review of the new Rav Kook Siddur

“A student asked his Rosh Yeshiva whether he should study Rav Kook’s perush to the siddur. In his inimitable style, the Rosh Yeshiva replied” ‘Ach, it’s not a perush to the siddur.’ Intrigued, the student asked “If not a perush to the siddur, then what is it?’

‘A neshamah on paper.’”

While it has been pointed out by both those who read the quote carefully, as well as those familiar with the actual context, that Rav Yaakov Weinberg, the above quoted rosh yeshiva, did not necessarily mean his words as a compliment, seeing Olat Reiyah as less than a peirush on the siddur and only “a neshmah on paper”, I believe that Koren, the publishers of the new Rav Kook Siddur were right to use this quote. Regardless of the rosh yeshiva’s intent, Rav Kook did not merely write a commentary, with all the limitations that this term implies. Instead he truly bared his soul, and even more importantly, showed that real tefillah cannot happen without each of us doing the same.

Until now, as with much of his thought, Rav Kook’s approach to tefillah was largely off limits to the English-speaking world. Rav Bezalel Naor, who wrote the commentary which accompanies the new Rav Kook Siddur, has once again made Rav Kook’s ideas available to a broader audience. As he has done with other of his published works based on Rav Kook (his Pesach haggadah being another example), Rav Naor has stayed away from a straightforward translation of Rav Kook’s sefer, in this case Olat Reiyah. While this decision means that not all of Rav Kook’s ideas on tefillah are to be found in the new siddur, it offers the benefit of being a single volume which can be used for davening and not just just to study. Additionally, Rav Naor does a masterful job taking Rav Kook’s difficult Hebrew and deep concepts, and making them understandable. On top of this, Rav Naor offers many of his own insights culled from his many decades of studying Rav Kook’s ideas.

I was pleased that Rav Naor decided to begin the new siddur with the translation of Inyanei Tefillah, Rav Kook’s explanation of the idea of tefillah which appears at the beginning of Olat Reiyah. In doing so, he offers the reader the ability to understand Rav Kook’s unique approach to prayer, which he sees as latently always taking place in the human soul, and becoming active during times of actual tefillah. With this introduction, and the other ideas which follow, one understands why Rav Kook could never have merely written a commentary on the siddur. For him, the words we say when we stand before our Creator are not merely vortelach, clever though they may be. Instead, they are words with which we express what lays most deeply within ourselves, or perhaps more properly, who we are in our deepest essence.

[One note for those who will want to use The Rav Kook Siddur along with Olat Reiyah. Rav Naor used an earlier edition of Olat Reiyah, and as such, the pages listed in the footnotes in the new siddur do not match up with the pages in the newer edition of Olat Reiyah.]

For those who wish to use this new siddur to not only study Rav Kook’s ideas, but to work on their avodas hashem, they now now have a new powerful tool to use as they truly engage in what is avodah shebalev, service of the heart. If Rav Kook truly bared his soul in writing Olat Reiyah, Rav Naor’s new masterful siddur allows us to see who Rav Kook truly was, and who we might be through the gradual baring of our soul on prayer.

Letting Go- On teshuva, religious experience, and the intellect

When I think about what I’m experiencing, I am scared. I feel myself changing, and that leaves me feeling vulnerable. I also find myself questioning the change and my motives. Is this real? Am I fooling myself? If I really change, what else goes along with it?

For a while, I’ve associated teshuva with brokenness, and gravitated to Torah where brokenness and even darkness could be found either explicitly or implicitly. Rebbe Nachman and Rav Shagar spoke to me, while other more optimistic approaches like that of Rav Kook did not. The reasons for my preference were not hard to understand. In the battle between my father’s pessimism and cynicism, and my mother’s ever hopeful optimism, life had mostly pushed me towards the former. I struggled to not fall into skepticism, or even worse, cynicism. Little by little, I tried to stop dreaming dreams, fearing getting hurt once again, if like Charlie Brown I convinced myself that this time I’d succeed at kicking the football.

I can’t put my finger on why things changed this year, but somehow the dark shadows receded, and I found myself connecting to Rav Kook’s Torah. I felt hopeful, and started believing that I could really change in a way I’d long thought impossible. Still, I struggled to just go with it. The fears of what this change would mean to me and those around me, and whether what I was experiencing was real, attacked me, refusing to let me go without a fight. I felt like a faker, pretending to be what I am not. A friend’s recommendation to take things a day at a time rather than worrying about the future helped, but only partially. Then I learned a section in the Piaseczna Rebbe’s Derech Hamelech this past Shabbos which I think might allow me to take a big step.

In the ninth perek of Derech Hamelech, the Rebbe gives strategies for working on Avodas HaShem. As with other places in his writings, he touches on the power of the imagination and how it can put you deeper in an experience than merely thinking about it intellectually. At one point he suggests a partial way to attack thoughts and feelings coming from the yetzer hara. Essentially, he suggests intellectualizing the experience. By looking at the thought and questioning where it comes from, the power of the feeling dissipates, as you stop experiencing it, and switch to thinking about it. In discussing this with my chavrusa, I recognized that this is the opposite of what the Rebbe suggests with davening, where he warns against intellectual thoughts and assessing whether davening is going well, as this prevents being in the tefillah.

Here, in the moment where an optimistic and hopeful teshuva feels possible, and my connection to God real,  intellectual scrutiny will be destructive. Putting these experiences under the microscope will dry them up, sapping them of their power and vitality. For now, I will simply be in my experience of teshuva, and not worry about ramifications, authenticity, or what comes next.

Finding God in History- A Review of When God Becomes History: Historical Essays of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook

As I have noted in a previous review, Rav Kook, despite being somewhat well known, is the victim of all sorts of assumptions. This is particularly true in the English speaking world where he is primarily known for his Zionism (more on this later), and secondarily as a charismatic leader. While there are various reasons for why he is seen in this manner, I will just focus on a few.

Until fairly recently, not that many of Rav Kook’s writing were easily available to the English reader. Of those that were, most came from his more mystical and theoretical writings. My sense is that even those who study his writings in Hebrew, are less aware of his more practical writings. Fortunately, Rav Bezalel  Naor, who I am privileged to count among my teachers, has committed to not only spreading the teachings of Rav Kook, but in his latest work, a new edition of When God Becomes History- Historical Essays of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (first published in 2003), Rav Naor has committed to showing that Rav Kook had a more practical side, and that he spoke out and wrote about some of the pressing issues of the day, some of which continue to affect us today.

In addition to many of the features which make any work of Rav Naor worth reading in general, and in particular those on Rav Kook, including his erudition, scholarship, and fascinating endnotes which are often almost worthy of a book of their own, there were a number of things which stand out in this book. To begin, we see Rav Kook not just as theoretician, whose writings sometimes border on the prophetic, but we also see him addressing various situations, including the passing of Herzl, in the eulogy he delivered in his memory.

Another chapter offers us the speech which Rav Kook delivered at the ceremony marking the opening of the Hebrew University in Yerushalayim. What makes these last two examples particularly fascinating is that Rav Naor writes of the controversy that each of these speeches engendered among Rav Kook’s friends, talmidim and opponents. Several letters are brought where we see Rav Kook clarifying his remarks to those who intentionally or accidentally misunderstood him.

Perhaps the most fascinating part for me (although there is this amazing idea in the endnotes from the Pachad Yitzchak , whose author Rav Hutner appears in the book…), is the introduction to the eulogy for Herzl, where Rav Naor shows that the common understanding of Rav Kook as a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist, with no misgivings about the Zionist venture to be mistaken. Rav Naor conclusively demonstrates that Rav Kook had strong misgivings about Zionism, particularly early on in his stay in Israel, and that he took the positions he did about Zionism due to careful considerations, despite his concerns, and it is here that I come to what makes this book one that only Rav Naor could have written.

I have studied a decent amount of Rav Kook’s Torah, and read many articles and essays about him. While there are many scholars in the Hebrew and English speaking worlds who can do research and share interesting ideas about Rav Kook, Rav Naor is sui generis in having expertise in so many of the areas which made Rav Kook who he was. When he writes or speaks of Rav Kook, one almost gets the sense that they are hearing from someone who studied with Rav Kook firsthand, even as they know that to be impossible. His grasp of nigleh and nistar, as well his serious scholarship makes him unique in those who can teach us about Rav Kook.

This fascinating volume will benefit the expert and the laymen, those who have studied much of Rav Kook’s Torah and those who have not, and especially those who think they’ve heard all that has to be said about this fascinating polymath. It can also serve as an excellent introduction into the ideas for Rav Kook for those who might have assumed that his Torah and ideas are inaccessible to them. Once again, Alec Goldstein of Kodesh Press is to be commended for making a quality work of Torah scholarship available to the English-speaking world.

The book launch for this book will take place next Thursday, February 9th, at the YU Seforim sale. Rav Naor will speak at this event, which is free. For more information, please click here.

The Many Roads to Serving HaShem- audio shiur marking the 80th yarhrtzeit of Rav Kook

In this week’s shiur, we look at a derasha delivered by Rav Kook, as a way of marking his 80th yarhrtzeit.

We examine the challenge of balancing growth as an individual versus being part of the larger community. Combing a fascinating derasha which helps us begin to turn towards preparing for Rosh Hashana, along with a similar idea found in the Shem MiShmuel, we learn that personal identity, and commitment to the klal need not contradict. Most importantly, we discover that there are multiple legitimate ways to serve HaShem.

Running time- 40 minutes

Required reading- On the importance of Rav Kook and his sefer LeNevuchei HaDor for our generation

In the 80 years since Rav Kook passed away, much has changed in the world. One wonders how he might have responded to the holocaust, the death of nationalism, and so much that has changed during that time. Even now, we are quite possibly watching the demise of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an institution for which Rav Kook had such high hopes. Still, there is much that he wrote and taught that continues to feel relevant, and even essential. Perhaps none of his works are more in need of study in our time than LeNevuchei HaDor.

LeNevuchei HaDor was written in Europe over 110 years ago, before Rav Kook made aliyah. For reasons that need not concern us here, this important work did not see the light of day until very recently. There were those who even questioned the existence of this work, less than 10 years ago. While Merkaz Rav Tzvi Yehuda published a censored version of this work, Yediot Achronot published a full annotated version of the text, along with an important introduction, and essay at the back. While LeNevuchei HaDor is not yet available in English, it is written in a Hebrew much more comprehensible than the one Rav Kook adopted after his arrival in Israel.

Rav Kook wrote LeNevuchei HaDor as the Moreh Nevuchim, the Guide for the Perplexed, for his generation. The Rambam had written the Moreh to help  a generation that was perplexed over issues of Greek philosophy. Rav Kook saw a generation that was struggling with the issues of biblical criticism, the philosophy of Kant and Hegel, evolution, socialism, Zionism, and more. When he saw that nobody else was dealing with these issues in a way that spoke to the young people of his generation, he decided that he had to be the one to do so.

While some of what he wrote is dated (in fact, he himself would change his thoughts on some of these ideas after moving to Israel) a lot of the ideas continue to resonate today. He took bold positions such as allowing for the possibility that some of the ideas of the bible scholars of his time need not be rejected. Perhaps the most important lesson that he taught, a lesson that sometimes seems lost on many of today’s leaders, is the importance of teaching the ideas of Judaism in a way that is relevant, and that responds to the pressing issues of the day. Rather than attack those who believed in ideas that many rabbis felt were incompatible with Jewish thought, he reached out to them, and suggested a way of inculcating these ideas into Torah. In doing so, he showed that Judaism’s timeless message could continue to resonate, as long as its teachers were knowledgeable enough and bold enough to be creative.

As a new generation calls out to its leaders and teachers for guidance and relevance, LeNevuchei HaDor should be required reading for those want to help.

[For those who are looking for English works by or on Rav Kook, I would highly recommend Rav Betzalel Naor’s masterful translation of Orot, and Rav Yehuda Mirsky’s excellent intellectual biography Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution.]

Techiyat Orot- A review of the new translation of Rav Kook's Orot by Rav Bezalel Naor

[This review is based on the review that appeared in the Book supplement in this past week's Jewish Press. Subsequent to writing this review, I had the pleasure of meeting Rav Naor, and now attend his weekly chabura.]

Although Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook was one of the most important Jewish thinkers of the last few centuries, there are many Jews who are unfamiliar with his worldview and writings. There are a number of reasons why this is so. Some think of him only as an early leader of the religious Zionist movement, evidently unaware of the spiritual and philosophical breadth and depth that his writings cover. Those who are aware of the scope of his writing, have oftentimes been prevented from exploring those writings, due to the fact that he wrote in  a poetic and flowery Hebrew, challenging even to the native Israeli. This unfamiliarity is particularly unfortunate, as Rav Kook offers ideas and insights of great importance to the modern Jew, in areas as varied as humanism, biblical criticism, and the religious-secular divide.

In the early 90s Rabbi Bezalel Naor, himself a serious and prolific thinker and writer, as well as one of the preeminent scholars of Rav Kook’s thought, wrote and published an English translation of Rav Kook’s Orot. Orot, which was originally published in 1920, offered a new, almost prophetic vision of where the Jewish people were headed and how they would get there. Rav Kook provided a religious framework for how to understand the “secular” Zionist movement, an emphasis on the value of a religious and physical revival, the import of “secular” studies, as well as a sense of great hope to those who feared the growing religious-secular divide. For many who wished to understand Rav Kook, Naor’s translation opened the door to this profound and prolific thinker.

Naor’s translation became an instant classic, not only due to the skill with which he translated Rav Kook’s words, but also for the fascinating introduction in which Naor traced the history of the publishing of Orot and the subsequent controversy which arose in pre-war Palestine. To top it all off, Naor included more than 80 pages of endnotes tracing the origins of Rav Kook’s thoughts, which included quotes and allusions from Tanach, Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, midrashim, the Zohar, as well as from thinkers as varied as the Rambam and Rebbe Yehuda HaLevi, the Maharal, the Baal HaTanya, Rav Nachman, and Hegel and Nietzsche to boot. For many years, the original translation has been out of print. After more than 20 years, it has been re-published, this time by Maggid Books, a subsidiary of Koren Publishers.

In addition to all of the above mentioned bonuses, the new edition has various additions that will make it even more valuable to those who wish to undertake the challenging, but rewarding path of exploring Rav Kook’s thought. Most prominent among these additions is the inclusion of the Hebrew text alongside Naor’s translation (this is only available in the hardcover edition). This has the added benefit of making it possible to try and read Orot in its original language, while at the same time, offering a translation for the more challenging words and phrases. Naor has written a new introduction for this publication which includes even more fascinating stories and information about the publication of Orot, things Naor has discovered over the past 20 years. The new edition has even more endnotes than the original,  as Shemonah Kevatzim, eight of Rav Kook’s original journals, have been published in the last two decades. These journals offer readers a glimpse into the original form in which Rav Kook thought of the ideas, that ultimately became Orot. Naor has gone through these journals and carefully notes the differences between the journals and the book that was ultimately published. While some of these differences are merely semantic, others show how carefully Rav Kook, and his son Rav Tzvi Yehuda, who was his publisher, weighed his words, as they attempted to get across a subtle point, or soften the opposition of his adversaries. Finally, Naor made the decision to provide the chapters of Orot with English titles and to begin each chapter with a brief summary of its contents. He chose to do so, following in the footsteps of some of Rav Kook’s editors, due to the fact that Rav Kook wrote in a poetic, free-flowing manner, with little, if any, thought given to how it might be understood by his readers.

There’s very little to quibble with in this incredible new edition. I would suggest that future editions have the numbers for the footnotes on the Hebrew side as well as the English. Additionally, it would be helpful to have the Hebrew and English page breaks  align more closely, to make it easier for those who are making use of both sides of the page.

I am quite certain that, just as the original translation became a must read for those who wished to understand Rav Kook, the same will be said for the new edition. Naor has done the incredible, offering a translation that is, at once, comprehensible and useful for the novice, while at the same time offering even those who already are most familiar with Rav Kook’s thought and writings, many new avenues of thought to consider.

Click here to order the hardcover edition, here to order the softcover edition, and here for the Kindle edition.

Finding a more modern Orthodoxy- My speech at the Project Makom shabbaton

[A few people wanted to know what I spoke about on Shabbos at the Shabbaton and since I don’t have the Shabbos App, I was unable to record my speech. What follows is an approximation of what I said, plus or minus a few witty comments. Where appropriate, I add a little commentary.]

Intro

As many of you know, I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to say for many weeks. Before I start with what I am going to talk about, allow me to tell what I will not be talking about.

What I don’t want to say

• MO is the right community for everyone- you’ve already spent enough time in a community that tells you it is the right place for you. I will not be doing that. In fact, I will not be speaking about Modern Orthodoxy. Instead I will speak about a more modern Orthodoxy.
• That the charedim are wrong- I am not here to bash anyone. Different communities will work for different people.
• That there is one way to be a Jew- As I always tell my students, anyone who says “The Jewish view of X is…” is almost always lying. There are many legitimate views.
• Being modern Orthodox is about a uniform, or being a wishy-washy Jew- It is about being a serious Jew with a different perspective.
• That I am here to teach you- I am not some brave modern Jew here to save from the error of your ways. In fact, I am not here to save you at all. I am here to speak with you, and to learn from you. Each of our communities can benefit from some of what the other one has.

So what do I want to say? Allow me to begin with a story

A friend who went to a very Litvish yeshiva, you know, the kind where they don’t play basketball during Elul [inside joke, you had to have been at the Shabbaton] told me of a time when he was saying selichos in Chevron by Maaras HaMachpeila. As he looked around, he noticed many types of yarmulkes, and modes of dress. As they sang “Tefilla L’Ani”, he watched the other Jews sing and realized that everyone there meant what they were singing, and wanted to be close to HaShem.

One of the biggest challenges is that for many of us, other types of Orthodoxy is seen, at best, as a bidieved. Forget that, from what I heard from some of you, being a different type of Orthodox Jew is like being a “sheigitz”. How do we change that?

I’d like to talk a little bit about stars.

Imagine someone like us, who lives in the Northern Hemisphere. He loves stars. He loves looking at the various constellations, and can name all of them. One day, he meets a person from Australia, who also loves stars. Only this person says he’s never heard of the other constellations. No Big Dipper. No Little Dipper. If the first guy didn’t know better, he’d think the other person was lying. Depending on where we are, we see things differently. It is not that one is right and the other is wrong. There are different perspectives.

So when did modern Orthodoxy begin? I’m not going to bore you with a historical analysis. Instead, allow me to mention various Jews who represent the best of what a modern Orthodox Jew might think. so where did it all begin?

• Maybe it was Avraham Avinu looking around and finding HaShem through nature. As the midrash explains, Avraham looked at the world and realized there must be a Borei Olam.
• Or maybe it was Dovid Hamelech looking up at the stars and saying  כִּֽי־אֶרְאֶ֣ה שָׁ֭מֶיךָ מַֽעֲשֵׂ֣י אֶצְבְּעֹתֶ֑יךָ יָ֘רֵ֥חַ וְ֝כוֹכָבִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֣ר כּוֹנָֽנְתָּה: מָֽה־אֱ֭נוֹשׁ כִּֽי־תִזְכְּרֶ֑נּוּ וּבֶן־אָ֝דָ֗ם כִּ֣י תִפְקְדֶֽנּוּ: וַתְּחַסְּרֵ֣הוּ מְּ֭עַט מֵאֱלֹקים וְכָב֖וֹד וְהָדָ֣ר תְּעַטְּרֵֽהוּ: Looking up at the stars we talked about beforehand, he engaged in serious thought about man and his relation ship with God.
• I know. It was Rebbe Meir. When his rebbe, Elisha ben Avuya stopped believing, Rebbe Meir continued to learn from him. In a way similar to what Rambam would say 1,000 years later, Rebbe Meir realized that we can learn from everyone, and that the idea should be judged, rather than the person saying it. The gemara tells a beautiful story of rebbe and talmid studying together on a Shabbos, as Acher rode a donkey. When they reached the techum Shabbos, he told Rebbe Meir he had reached the limit of permitted travel. Apparently, even non-believers can be caring, sensitive people, who have what to teach us.
• On the other hand, it could have been Rav Saadya Gaon  and Rambam who taught that Torah and TRUE science don’t conflict. More than that, they can’t conflict as they are given by the same Creator. In fact, they said that when there is an apparent conflict between the two, we leave science as it is, and realize we have misunderstood the pasuk. They taught us that we need not fear as we engage with the secular world.
• This might seem odd, but it could have been the Baal Shem Tov and the early founders of chassidus who emphasized the words “Bechol deracheicha da’eihu”. Through all of our traits, and all aspects of our personality, we can connect with HaShem. We need not hide who we are to be a good Jew.
• Some would say it was Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch who taught that we could combine the best of Jewish and general culture, that a Jew could use modern culture including art, music, and poetry as part of their Avodas HaShem. He also taught that when it came to science, the chachamim used the best available science of their time, and therefore could make mistakes. No one is perfect other than HaShem.
• My suggestion might be Rav Kook who taught that no part of the world is foreign to a Jew, that extremism is harmful to Judaism, and that if we look at things correctly we can  see HaShem in everything. In LeNevuchei HaDor [holding up the sefer] he wrote a new Moreh Nevuchim for his generation. He saw that his generation was struggling. Instead of banning questions, he tried to give them a framework to use to deal with the questions
• This might surprise you, but it could have been Sarah Schneier who founded the Beis Yaakov movement. She knew that while Torah doesn’t change, the world we apply it to DOES change. The BY she founded was open, serious and intellectual. There are various approaches to women learning Torah. Different people will follow different approaches, but for the women here, if you want to learn serious Torah, do it. When my daughters were born I thought about what I want for them, and I know I want them to all have the opportunity to learn Torah on a serious level. Throughout history, women like Bruriah, who was married to Rebbe Meir, as well as Rav Hutner’s daughter, who helped him edit Pachad Yitzchak, through today with women like Dena Bloch who will be speaking next, have studied Torah at the highest levels. Knowledge is power. The more you learn, the less others can tell you what you must think.
• Getting to more recent times, modern Orthodoxy is lived by people Aaron Feuerstein who owned a factory in a small town where many of the locals worked. When the factory burned down, Feurstein continued to pay his workers their salary at great personal cost. This is not an Artscroll story. For a while, he faced bankruptcy. Still, he saw the Tzelem Elokim in everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike, and he placed mentschlichkeit before profits.
• Finally, let’s consider Robert Aumann who is a Nobel Prize winner. He came late to the ceremony so that he would not have to violate Shabbos. He also wrote a commentary on Maseches Kinnim, one of the most complicated masechtos in Shas Mishnayos, which he helped explained using the same math that won him the Nobel Prize. [NOTE: apparently I confused RA with someone else who used math to explain Kinnim. RA used game theory to explain a challenging sugya in Kesuvos]

[At this point, I added in a bit about my personal religious struggles, as well as my journey from and back to Modern Orthodoxy. ]  Sometimes we have to leave our birth community behind. At times, it is possible to come back to what we left behind, at least the good parts, and incorporate them into our new lives.

Finally, bringing it full circle, let’s talk again about stars:

In Tehillim Perek 147 pasuk daled it says

מוֹנֶ֣ה מִ֭סְפָּר לַכּוֹכָבִ֑ים לְ֝כֻלָּ֗ם שֵׁמ֥וֹת יִקְרָֽא:

He (God) counts the stars, and gave names to them all. What does this mean? The Malbim teaches that HaShem values each star. We might look up and see stars, but each one is unique. Each one is an individual. In the world you are in, you have not always been treated as individuals, but you are stars. Each and every one of you. As Chazal teach, just as no two people look alike, no two people have the same personality. You are individuals, and each of you is unique.

[A few people wanted to know what I spoke about on Shabbos at the Shabbaton and since I don’t have the Shabbos App, I...

Posted by Pesach Sommer on Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Torah MiTzion- On the educational vision of Gush

Although Rav Kook died more than 30 years before the founding of Yeshivat Har Etzion, commonly known as Gush, I’d like to think he would have greatly impressed by the yeshiva. Even before Rav Kook made aliyah from Eastern Europe, he wrote of the importance of teaching all Torah with an emphasis on ethics and morality. In Gush, he would have seen this vision implemented.

Rav Kook suggested that in teaching Torah without showing the ethical and moral underpinnings behind it, yeshivos were driving away the most ethically sensitive students of his generation. By being exposed to Gemara without being taught the ideas behind it, Rav Kook believed that the students left for other destinations, real or conceptual, where they hoped to discover the great ethical and moral ideas needed to help reform mankind.

Looking around today, it  seems like we need to implement Rav Kook’s ideas even more. The vast majority of yeshivos have become gemara factories, where no other Torah is taught. Seldomly is mussar studied and when it is, it is without the vitality that is needed to make it effective. In the rare cases where aggadeta is studied, it is approached with a level of superficiality that misses the mark. Students leave yeshiva having learned many blatt gemara, but without a sense of the ideas that serve as the underpinnings for the gemara they have learned.

I was not fortunate enough to study at Gush, although its Torah has had a profound effect on me. The first time I read Rav Amital’s writings, I was almost brought to tears, as his deep ethical sensitivity came through in each of his essays. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s writings are not only deep and profound, but also emphasize the morality and sensitivity that made him a true gadol. Through their talmidim, I have come to appreciate a yeshivah that teaches the nuance through which Torah must be learned. Although the talmidei hayeshivah have various approaches to many issues, and that is not by chance but by design, what I see in them, indeed what seems to me, as an outsider to be at heart of the yeshiva, is a sense that Torah is not Torah if it remains in the beis medrash. Indeed, in different, but complementary ways, both Roshei Yeshivah, taught through their actions, both great and small, that the Torah, and those who study it, must bring peace to the world.

With Rav Aharon’s recent passing bringing his Torah and gadlus to a broader audience, it is my hope that we will not only learn from his greatness in Torah, but also from his, as well as Rav Amital’s vision for how Torah should be taught and lived.

What's the Goal Behind Keeping the Mitzvot? (Audio Shiur)

In this week’s shiur we discuss the concept of Taamei HaMitzvot. After briefly examining the idea of finding reasons for specific mitzvot, we move on to discuss the general goal of the system of mitzvot. Starting in ancient Alexandria we work our way up to the Middle Ages, followed by the Modern era. By the end of the shiur we see various approaches to the goal of shemirat hamitzvot, as well as Judaism as a whole.

The shiur can also be accessed on YouTube by clicking here.

Running Time 1:10

Finding the Chanukah story in Tanach, Gemara and Jewish History (Audio Shiur)

In this weeks shiur, we look at the question of why the initial emphasis on the Chanukah story focuses on the military victory while the later sources focus on the miracle of the oil. This is bookended by an idea based on Rav Kook about the menorah and focusing our studies towards God.

The shiur can also be viewed on Youtube by clicking here.

(Running time 53 Minutes)