Year: 2019

The Religious-Zionist Manifesto of Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya

by Bezalel Naor

In 1901 there appeared in Vilna a 32-page booklet entitled, Ha-Tsiyoniyut mi-nekudat hashkafat ha-dat (Zionism from the Viewpoint of Religion). The author was Yehudah Don Yahya.[1] The final eight pages of the work contain a supplement (Milu’im) by one Ben-Zion Vilner, criticizing the anti-Zionism of the Rebbe of Lubavitch. (One ventures that “Ben-Zion Vilner” is a pseudonym.)

What is remarkable about this manifesto that argues that Zionism is totally compatible with traditional Judaism, is that the author, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya, was an intimate student of Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik, a most outspoken opponent of the Zionist movement.[2]

To add to the intrigue, Don Yahya’s grandfather, Rabbi Shabtai Don Yahya of Drissa, had been an ardent Hasid of Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Lubavitch (known by his work of Halakhic responsa as “Tsemah Tsedek”).[3] Yehudah Leib himself would go on to serve as rabbi of the Habad Hasidic community of Shklov.[4] Although, as we shall see, within the Habad community, there were differing responses to Zionism along the fault line of the Kopyst—Lubavitch dispute.

Today, students who immerse themselves in the Torah novellae of Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik may come across the name of Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya, but they have no idea who this disciple was. Appended to Hiddushei ha-GRaH he-Hadash ‘al ha-Shas (issued upon the ninetieth anniversary of Rabbi Hayyim’s passing in 2008) are Don Yahya’s memoirs of his beloved mentor in the Volozhin Yeshivah. In 2018 (coincidentally a century since Rabbi Hayyim’s passing) there appeared in print a Tagbuch or diary, in which Rabbi Hayyim jotted down his insights on Talmud and Maimonides’ code.[5] In his introduction to the volume, the editor, Rabbi Yitshak Abba Lichtenstein, notes that Rabbi Hayyim would allow some scholars to copy down entries from the journal. Indeed, one such scholar was Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya. Two novellae that appear in the Tagbuch were previously published in Don Yahya’s Bikkurei Yehudah (1939).[6]

One asks: What would prompt such a devoted disciple to break from his master’s ideology concerning Zionism?

To understand how such a phenomenon as Yehudah Leib Don Yahya was possible, one needs to trace his membership in Nes Ziyonah, the underground proto-Zionist movement that existed in the Volozhin Yeshivah from 1885 until its disbandment in 1890.let

This was the era of Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion), a Russian Jewish movement to settle the Land of Israel that predated Herzlian political Zionism. Nes Ziyonah, which blossomed independently within the ranks of the student body of the famed Volozhin Yeshivah, interfaced with Hovevei Zion, presided over by Rabbi Samuel Mohilever of Bialystok. Members of Nes Ziyonah were sworn to secrecy. The membership included such illustrious scholars as Moshe Mordechai Epstein of Bakst,[7] Menahem Krakovsky,[8] and Isser Zalman Meltzer. Moshe Mordechai Epstein would eventually become Rosh Yeshivah of Slabodka. Menahem Krakowsky would one day assume the position of “Shtodt Maggid” of Vilna. Finally, Isser Zalman Meltzer would become Rosh Yeshivah of Slutzk and later ‘Ets Hayyim of Jerusalem.[9] It was through the last-mentioned disciple, who was especially close to Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik, that Rabbi Hayyim was able to discover the identities of the students who belonged to Nes Ziyonah.[10]

Nes Ziyonah had sprung up without the knowledge of the elder dean of the Yeshivah, Rabbi Naftali Tsevi Yehudah Berlin (NeTsIV). In fact, according to Israel Kausner, who wrote a history of Nes Ziyonah, the members of the secret society prided themselves that they had been able to prevail upon Rabbi Berlin to join the greater Hovevei Zion movement and to assume a role of leadership alongside Rabbis Samuel Mohilever and Mordechai Eliasberg of Bausk.[11] In 1890, somehow Nes Ziyonah came to the attention of the Russian government authorities. One of its leaders (Yosef Rothstein) was arrested but subsequently released. When Rabbi Berlin learned that such a society had sprung up in the Yeshivah under his very nose, he was aghast. He feared that Nes Ziyonah might jeopardize the existence of the Yeshivah, which was under constant government scrutiny.[12] Leaving aside pragmatic considerations, in principle, Volozhin had always been a bastion of pure Torah learning; there was no room in it for Zionist activism.[13] Nes Ziyonah ceased to exist. (Hovevei Zion, with its office in Odessa, was legalized by the Tsarist government in 1890.)[14]

The idealistic young men who had formed Nes Ziyonah were not ones to easily give up. Nes Ziyonah morphed into Netsah Yisrael, whose express goal was to advocate on behalf of Zionism and religion. (Nes Ziyonah had restricted its activities to settling the Land of Israel.) Most prominent in this reincarnation of Netsah Yisrael was—Yehudah Leib Don Yahya.[15]

It is against this backdrop—the publicistic activity of Netsah Yisrael—that one must view Don Yahya’s tract, Zionism from the Viewpoint of Religion.

Let us briefly sum up some of the more salient points of the booklet.

Don Yahya begins by clarifying that the return of the nation to its land can in no way be viewed as the complete redemption prophesied in Scripture. The prophets’ vision, while including the ingathering of exiles, extends beyond that to global mankind’s acknowledging God and embracing His Torah.[16]

On the other hand, Don Yahya is flummoxed by various rabbis who adopt an all-or-nothing attitude to the Zionist organization’s striving to secure from the Ottomans a safe haven for Jews in the Holy Land. Just because the Zionist dream does not encompass the comprehensive vision of our prophets of old, is no reason to reject Zionism. Granted that the Zionist goals are much more modest in scope; that still does not justify opposing the movement. Don Yahya’s own reading of the sources—Biblical and Rabbinic—is gradualist. He anticipates a phased redemption. The Jews’ return to the Land is certainly the beginning, the first installment in a protracted process which will eventually—upon completion of “the full and encompassing redemption” (“ha-ge’ulah ha-sheleimah ve-ha-kelalit”)—culminate in the restoration of the Davidic dynasty in the person of King Messiah and the rebuilding of the Temple.[17]

The author adopts as his paradigm the Second Temple period. Taking issue with those who construe the return from Babylonian captivity as a “temporary remembrance” (“pekidah li-zeman mugbal”), Don Yahya maintains that the Second Commonwealth had the potential to develop into full-blown redemption. With that model in mind, he writes that return from exile and settling the Land can evolve beyond that to greater spiritual dimensions.[18]

After having made his case for the compatibility of the nascent Zionist movement and Judaism, Don Yahya tackles the painful question why some of the great Torah geniuses oppose Zionism.[19]

Don Yahya has a couple of explanations. First, knowledge of Torah is divided into Halakhah and pilpul, on the one hand, and matters of belief and opinion, on the other. Contemporary ge’onim (unlike their medieval predecessors Maimonides and Nahmanides) have devoted their lives to Halakhah, to the exclusion of emunot ve-de‘ot (beliefs and opinions). “In regard to the portion of Torah which is beliefs and opinions, their view does not exceed the view of an average Jew.”[20]

Continue reading…

From The Seforim Blog, here.

“And if you make for Me a mizbayach of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them.” Exodus 20:22 (The Israel Bible™)

Marine biologists have just made a remarkable find: a unique rock-eating worm found only in one river in the entire world. Remarkably, it may be that the existence of this worm was hinted at in Jewish tradition as an essential element used by King Solomon in the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Its recent discovery comes just in time for it to play a role in the construction of the Third Temple.

In 2018, marine biologists doing research in the Bohol region of the Philippines were incredulous when locals told them about a marine worm living in a remote river that ate rocks. Locally, it’s known as “antingaw,” and young mothers eat it because they think it will help them lactate. The scientists were even more surprised to find that the rumor was true.

The worm is unprecedented, representing both a newly identified genus and species scientists named Lithoredo abatanica. It is a worm-like bivalve, a freshwater clam commonly known as a shipworm (Teredinids). The new worm is also unique in its dietary habits; every known shipworm eats wood, a trait known as xylotrepetic, but the new discovery eats rock and expels sand as scat while it burrows. Thus far, the worm has only been found in a short stretch of the Abatan River in the Philippines, burrowing into the limestone.

Lead author Reuben Shipway, a postdoctoral researcher in marine-biology at Northeastern University, enthusiastically described his new find.

“These animals are among the most important in the river and in this ecosystem,” Shipway told Science Daily. “As they bore elaborate tunnels in the limestone bedrock, these animals change the course of the river and provide a really rich environment for other aquatic species to live in. So far, this is the only place on earth that we know these animals exist.”

“There are a small number of animals that do ingest rock — for example, birds use gizzard stones to aid digestion,” Shipway said to Live Science. “But Lithoredo abatanica is the only known animal that eats rock through burrowing.”

“When I was diving in the river, I saw burrows that were over 2 feet [60 cm] in length!” Shipway said. “So, there may be some absolute monsters living deep in the rock.”

The existence of the worm may have been unexpected among scientists however a rock-eating worm was described in Midrash (homiletic teachings) as a necessary element in the construction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, the noted medieval French rabbi and author of a comprehensive commentary on the Bible known by the acronym Rashi comments on this verse that iron, the material of deadly weapons, should not be used to shape the stones of the Temple, the essence of which is peace.

And if you make for Me a mizbayach of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them. Exodus 20:22

When King Solomon set out to construct the Temple, he was faced with a difficulty in the construction of the altar. The Torah requires that the altar be made of stones that have not been quarried or shaped by steel. Referenced throughout the Talmud, the Shamir, a worm capable of cutting the hardest rock with absolute precision, was reputed to have existed in the time of Moses, as one of the ten wonders created on the eve of the first Sabbath, just before God finished creation.

The timing of its creation was essential to the nature of the Shamir. Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, a 17th Century Torah sage from Prague known as the Maharal, explained that the entire physical world created during the Six Days is governed by the laws of nature. Not having been created exactly within this time frame, the Shamir is therefore supernatural.

Moses reputedly used the Shamir to engrave the precious stones in the High-Priest’s breastplate. King Solomon, aware of the existence of the Shamir, but unaware of its location, commissioned a search for the elusive worm. The Shamir was kept in wool and stored in a container made of lead since it would have cut through any other material.

Despite its unique diet, Rabbi Zamir Cohen, a noted scholar and head of the Beitar Illit Yeshiva, noted differences between the recent find and the fabled Shamir.

“Our Sages tell us in Tractate Sota that the size of the worm was as small as barley, and this worm is much larger,” Rabbi Cohen said to Hidabroot. “In addition, the words of the Talmud indicate that the worm pierced and cut the stone by means of radiation that emanated from it and not in any other way, as it is written there regarding the precious stones in the garments of the High Priest, on which the names of the twelve tribes were inscribed.”

Unfortunately, there is an opinion in the Talmud that the Shamir, created for a single purpose, ceased to exist after it completed its task: “When the Temple was destroyed, the Shamir vanished.”

Rabbi Yosef Berger, the rabbi of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, stated that the discovery of the rock-eating worm may be a harbinger of the imminent Third Temple era.

“Hashem (God, literally ‘the name’) sends us what we need when we need it,” Rabbi Berger said to Breaking Israel News. “The Shamir was created to help build the Temple. This discovery may be a sign that the need is arising again.”

Rabbi Berger cited Rabbi Yom Tov ben Avraham Asevilli, a medieval Talmudic commentator known by the acronym ‘Ritva’, who stated that the Shamir could still be found but only with great difficulty. Rabbi Berger cited the Talmud which related how Solomon forced Asmodeus, the king of the demons, to tell him where the Shamir was located. Asmodeus confessed that it was being guarded by the peahen but was under the watchful eyes of the angel who ministered over the seas.

“This might be a hint that the worm is actually a sea animal,” Rabbi Berger said.

Rabbi Yehoshua Friedman authored “Mizbach Elohim” (Altar of God), a book devoted to the laws concerning the construction of the altar. Rabbi Friedman was impressed at the find but noted that the construction of the Third Temple was not dependent on the Shamir.

“Moses and Solomon used the Shamir but Maimonides states that constructing the Temple, even the altar and the breastplate, is not entirely dependent on the existence of the Shamir,” Rabbi Friedman told Breaking Israel News. “Other methods that do not include iron can be used.”

Though they probably do not realize the Third Temple implications of their discovery, the marine biologists were both pleased and mystified.

“Most other shipworms are as skinny as your finger,” Shipway says. “These animals are quite chubby, robust. They look really different. Where they get their nutrition we don’t know.”

The new shipworm also may provide new insights for paleontologists. Until recently, fossil borings in rocky substrates were thought to be a marker for ancient marine habitats, Shipway explains. L. abatanica shows that such fossils might mark ancient freshwater sites as well.

From Breaking Israel News, here.