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A Principled Rabbi Tells What It’s Like…

To Be A Rav – With Principles

By  Rabbi Dov Fischer –

At my first shul as a rav, I was told, “Soon enough, you’ll figure out that you have to compromise on principles or you’ll never get anywhere.”

Wherever I went, I was told, “Sooner or later, Dov, you’ll learn that you can’t feed a family on principles. Everyone sells out, sooner or later.”

Throughout my life, I have heard many Jewish laity snipe about their shul rav: “He has no guts. No rabbis do. Cowards – the whole lot of them.” And yet, that’s the very rabbi these complainers want: a man who’s fearless but does and says only what he’s told – on penalty of being fired.

And so we see rabbis who stand up and preach with fire on Shabbat: “If Yasser Arafat were to walk into this room right now, I would look him right in the eye and tell him exactly what I’m telling you about our rights to the land of Israel.” The thing is, Yasser Arafat never needed to stop by that shul to say a yahrzeit kaddish.

It has been an exciting rollercoaster of a life for me. Very challenging, not always quite as planned. But I have the extraordinary feeling that comes from knowing that I have never sold out.

I had in-laws who did everything they could to convince me in my 20s to go to law school and become a lawyer for the rest of my life. But my dream was to become a rav. So after four undergraduate years at Columbia University, I attended YU’s rabbinic school – not law school. I became a rav and followed my destiny. And a decade later, when the time called for it, I went to UCLA Law School and became an attorney – and a law professor.

I was told that if I would just condemn and separate from Rabbi Meir Kahane at the height of the Soviet Jewry movement, I could open fabulous doors for myself in the American centrist Orthodox rabbinate and could go on to great things. But I stood firm.

As a result, when I was granted semicha, the people in YU’s rabbinic placement office wouldn’t offer me a suitable pulpit opportunity. Instead, they gave me a choice of Cape Town, South Africa at the height of the Steve Biko apartheid riots; Christchurch, New Zealand; and Wichita, Kansas. They said, “We don’t want you in the New York area.”

So I did the forbidden. I went wildcat and applied for my own pulpit independently rather than proceed through the YU placement office. In retaliation, they blacklisted me for five years. But I managed to remain in the New York Tri-State area, and that allowed me to become national director of the Likud in the United States.

That has been my life. I lost many opportunities because I wouldn’t back down on core principles. At a shul in California, I learned that a member of the shul’s Board of Directors was harassing and propositioning women, including my office secretary. I insisted that he be removed from the board and from all lay leadership positions.

They warned me that he’s very popular, and he and his friends would destroy me if I didn’t let it go. But I persisted until he was off the board and out of leadership. He then gathered supporters who pressed me to leave the shul.

The people he gathered included people who had other issues with me. The community of 100,000 Jews had no mikveh, so I built one – raised the first $100,000 all on my own – and thus unfortunately made enemies of laity who wanted a building-enhancement campaign instead of a mikveh.

Others fought me because the city only had a Community Day School where boys didn’t have to wear yarmulkes and where Chumash and Rashi – to say nothing of Gemara and Tosafot – weren’t taught. So I pushed for a yeshiva day school under Orthodox auspices.

I was warned that would be the death blow to my rabbinic career. So I started my own shul down the block. It’s now in its 13th year.

I am reasonable. I compromise – all the time. That’s why my second wife – the love of my life whom G-d took from me with glioblastoma last year after 20 years of a marriage made in Heaven – and I got along so well. I compromise all the time. She liked that. But never – ever – on principle. She admired that.

There is a price to pay. Some of my rabbinic colleagues are scared of me; they maintain their distance. Some speak horribly behind my back. “Do you know he has never held on to a big shul?” “Do you know he once was divorced?” “Do you know that he has no friends, that he can’t get along with anyone?”  That hurts. Of course it does. It’s good that I have friends who warn me.

When I applied to attend YU’s rabbinic school in 1976, I initially was rejected because of my activity in the Jewish Defense League. I had to meet personally with the new president of YU, Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, to ask him to overturn the decision of a very-highly placed rabbi at YU who insisted I be kept out because I wouldn’t turn on Rav Kahane.

It was Rav Lamm’s very first tough decision to make as president of YU – and he admitted me. I have remained his deepest admirer to this day. Even when he came under attack decades later by opportunists on the left and the cancel culture crowd, I stood by him. When I was told that now was the time to turn on him for my own gain, I stood by him. Ironic, no?

When I applied for membership in the Rabbinical Council of America in the early 1980s, the same people who initially kept me out of YU now worked to keep me out of the RCA. They succeeded for 20 years. And then, one day in 2005, I received a call from the placement office of Yeshiva University – the one that had blacklisted me a quarter century earlier because I wouldn’t be the rabbi of Christchurch – and the placement director begged me on the phone for half an hour to apply for a certain pulpit. I complied. And he then got me into the RCA as a member.

Soon I was elected by RCA members to sit for three terms on the RCA Executive Committee, but only after I ran as a wildcat. The official Nominating Committee wouldn’t nominate me. To avoid my becoming West Coast Vice President, they even redefined the term “West Coast” to include Europe. Parlez vous francais?

Why am I writing this? To brag? To say, “Hey, everyone, look at me”! Nope. If that were my purpose, there is plenty more I would add – and stuff I would leave out. Rather, I’m writing this for young rabbis since I now have 40 rabbinic years in my rear-view mirror. I am writing this likewise for non-rabbis in every walk of life.

Know this: There comes a time when you look back on your life and ask yourself: “Has my life been well lived or have I wasted so much of what I could have done and been because I feared what others would think of me, what others would say?”

If you compromise reasonably but stand firmly on your principles and values, and if you treat people right and try to accept and love all people unless they truly stab you in the back and prove themselves despicable – you will be able to look in the mirror and know that you have honored your destiny. You will have touched more lives for the good than you ever will know.

And the thing that your haters will hate most about you is that they never managed to transcend mediocrity while you somehow, despite one setback after another, never stopped advancing forward without selling out.

From The Jewish Press, here.

The Book of Ruth: What R’ Gedalia Nadel Enjoyed

Seed of Redemption

BREAKING FREE TO GEULAH

By Yonoson Rosenblum | MAY 26, 2020
Mashiach can only come from a seed other than the one that gave birth to Kayin
Rav Aaron Lopiansky, rosh yeshivah of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, recently published Seed of Redemption, his English adaptation of Rav Yosef Lipovitz’s Nachalas Yosef on Megillas Rus. Just in time for Shavuos.
When Nachalas Yosef was presented to Rav Gedaliah Nadel, one of those closest to the Chazon Ish, “he read it breathlessly from beginning to end, sobbing uncontrollably. [When he finished], he said, ‘it is 500 years since a sefer of this kind was written; undoubtedly, it was written with ruach hakodesh,'” according to an eye-witness account.
Nachalas Yosef weaves the words of Chazal together in a seamless tapestry, not as isolated comments. The commentary demonstrates that Chazal’s words are not fanciful extrapolations from the text, but careful explications of the verses, which peel back layers of meaning..
Rav Lipovitz, a close talmid of the Alter of Slabodka, introduces his commentary with two essays on recurrent themes throughout the megillah. The first focuses on chesed. “Rav Zeira said, ‘[The megillah was written] to teach me how much reward lies in store for people who perform deeds of kindness’ ” (Rus Rabbah 2:14).
Chesed, as defined by the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim, is acts of benevolence toward one’s fellow man to whom no duty, or even sense of duty, exists. The paradigmatic act of chesed was Hashem’s creation of the world, which obviously did not emanate from a preceding obligation. Every act of chesed, then, attests to the Creator, for it flows from the breath of the Divine within us. Avraham was able to deduce the existence of the Creator “from himself,” from his own middah of chesed.
Not only is chesed the foundation stone of the world, and necessary for its continuation, it is through chesed that the world will come to final establishment of the Davidic kingdom with the coming of Mashiach. Thus the centrality of chesed to the story leading to the birth of Dovid Hamelech.
The second essay describes the period of the Judges, which was in many ways the antithesis of a world of chesed. Chazal ask how the nation degenerated so rapidly following the death of Yehoshua. They find a hint in the description of Yeshoshua’s burial. Nowhere does it say that the people mourned Yehoshua, after burying him north of Gaash (Yeshoshua 24:29–30).
Nowhere else in Tanach is a place called Gaash mentioned. That absence leads Rav Berachiah to deduce that the meaning of the verse is that the people were too preoccupied (nisgaashu) to mourn Yehoshua. They were involved instead in their properties, fields, and vineyards. (See Rus Rabbah Psicha 2)
Materialism and self-absorption were the culprits. The entire period of the Judges is described as one in which each man did what was straight in his eyes. They acted without any consideration of anyone but themselves.
Chazal found in a verse in Mishlei (19:15) — “Laziness begets slumber, and the deceitful soul starves” — stages of decline. Because Yisrael was lazy in paying their respects to Yehoshua, and were deceitful to Hashem, even to the point of idol worship, Hashem starved them of the Divine spirit. Overindulgence in material pleasures led to a slackening of chesed, and ultimately to spiritual slumber.
But because Hashem can neither destroy His rebellious people nor return them to Egypt nor exchange them for another, He must instead bring upon them famine to awaken them from their spiritual slumber. Megillas Rus begin with a terrible famine. (Perhaps today we could substitute plague for famine.)
THE EVENTS of Megillas Rus all foreshadow the process culminating in Mashiach. The first verse tells us “va’yeitzei ish — a man went out,” a phrase that appears in only one other place in Tanach — with respect to Amram’s taking back his wife Yocheved. The earlier event led to the birth of Moshe Rabbeinu, the Redeemer of Israel from Egypt, and the second va’yeitzei ish, for which Elimelech is sharply criticized by Chazal, ironically sets in motion the process leading to the final Redeemer.
Particularly subtle is Nachalas Yosef’s treatment of Orpah. She and Rus are sisters. Orpah does not feign her love for Naomi. Her tears upon parting from Naomi are genuine. For each tear shed, say Chazal, she was rewarded with another gibur as a descendant.
Her decision not to accompany Naomi followed normal human logic. There was little she could do to significantly improve Naomi’s fate, and by joining her mother-in-law she would be dooming herself to self-extinction, for who would marry a daughter of an enemy nation. She was, in essence, following the halachic principle, “Your life takes precedence.”
It was Rus’s decision that was unnatural, or above nature, as it were. For Rus, the ideals she saw embodied in Naomi were not just enhancements of life, but ideals for which it was worth sacrificing one’s life. Naomi’s truth was the higher prophetic truth from which the ultimate tikkun haolam derives. As David told Golyas, the descendant of Orpah, “You come against me with the sword and spear, and I come with the Name of Hashem….” (I Shmuel 17:45). The strength of Israel in all our battles is not the born of human logic but of steadfast clinging to Hashem.

הר הבית מול הר מירון – הרב דוב ליאור שליט”א

הרב דוב ליאור על האסון במירון: ‘לא ייתכן שמזניחים את מקום המקדש’

חייבים לפשפש במעשינו ולחפש ולשאול על מה באה עלינו צרה זו • ההשתטחות על קברי צדיקים באה מרצון חיובי • יש עלינו קטרוג משמים על הזנחת הר הבית • דורו של דוד נענש על שלא התעורר לבנות את בית המקדש • יש קפידא על הציבור בגלל האדישות למצב במקום המקדש • על כל אחד לעשות את חשבון הנפש הפרטי שלו • עלינו לעלות ולהתפלל בהר הבית • מו”ר הרב דוב ליאור שליט”א • בעקבות האסון הנורא במירון

“אנשים בהמוניהם נהרו להר מירון מתוך התלהבות. יש עניין בהשתטחות על קברי צדיקים. אבל בו בזמן במקום מקדשנו נתון למרמס בידי המחבלים ומשפילים שם את עם ישראל. יהודי שעולה ומעז להתפלל, מוציאים אותו החוצה”, אומר הרב ליאור. “ברור שיש פה תופעה בריאה שעם ישראל מתאמץ, אבל זה לא יכול לשמש תחליף להתרכזות של כלל ישראל בעלייה לרגל לבית המקדש.

“שלוש פעמים בשנה בזמן שעם ישראל היה בארצו היו עולים בהמוניהם, ולמרות הלהט הזה, אני לא חושב שאירעו שם אסונות. יש להט לעם ישראל שמחפש פורקן לנשמה שלו – הנטייה היא נכונה, השאלה היא האם הכיוון נכון. הולכים להשתטח על קברי צדיקים, אבל מה בית המקדש, מה עם מקום התפילה?”, זועק הרב ליאור.

“במקרה כזה, ‘קודשא בריך הוא תבע יקריה’. הקב”ה אומר לנו: את המקום שלי אתם לא פוקדים. בגלל כל מיני סיבות אתם הולכים למקום אחר? למה אתם לא עושים הכל ופונים לממשלה כדי שעם ישראל יוכל לשפוך את שיחו בהר הבית?

“בזמנו של דוד המלך היה זמן שבו עם ישראל הגיע לשיאים עצומים, הן בתחום הכלכלי והן בתחום הבטחוני. אלא מה? ארון ה’ נע מאוהל לאוהל. אמנם נאמר לדוד בנבואה שהוא לא יבנה את המקדש, אבל הוא עשה כל מה שיכל והכין את התשתית לבנו שלמה. הרמב”ן אומר שאילו ההתעוררות לבניין המקדש היתה מצידו של הציבור, בית המקדש היה נבנה בימי דוד המלך! בגלל שעם ישראל עמדו מן הצד, היתה קפידה על כל עם ישראל על כך שכל אחד יושב בוילה שלו ומקום הארון נטוי באיזשהו אוהל. בעקבות האדישות הזו העם נענש ומת במגיפה.

“גם אם לא לבנות את המקדש, מה עם לפחות לגאול את המקום?!”, תוהה הרב ליאור. “ההשגחה האלוקית החזירה לנו את המקום הזה במלחמת ששת הימים, וההנהגה של המדינה במו ידיה הסגירה את המקום לוואקף. איזה חטא חמור. גם היום, משפילים של יהודים והם מתפללים רק תחת כיפת השמים. וכל זה כדי לרצות את המחבלים שלא רוצים בכלל שיהודים יהיו בירושלים ובהר הבית? אין ספק שזה חטא! בתפילת עמידה כל היהודים ברחבי העולם פונים לכיוון המקדש. זה מקום התפילה העיקרי של עם ישראל ושל העולם כולו. אנחנו לא מונעים מאף אחד להתפלל. ועם ישראל אדיש”.

“אני לא בא לזלזל בלהט של עם ישראל למירון”, מחדד הרב ליאור, “אבל וודאי שזה לא מספיק. לא ייתכן שמזניחים את מקום התפילה המיוחד שלנו ולא מקימים בית כנסת בהר הבית במקום שמותר לעלות לכל השיטות, בצד הדרומי של ההר. כל המקום הזה הוא מוזנח לגמרי ולא נוקפים אצבע כדי שיפנו לשם”, חותם הרב ליאור. “לעניות דעתי יש קפידה על עם ישראל על כך היות והציבור אדיש למקום המקדש”.

המשך לקרוא…

מאתר חדשות הר הבית, כאן.

Destroying Monuments Is As Old as the Pyramids!

Condemning Statues

By Simon Connor

The summer of 2020 gave us the occasion to observe a phenomenon as old as the hills and yet more witnessed than ever in the current climate: the destruction of images. At the heart of the events linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, many statues around the world have been the target of polemics and physical attacks.

 

Kneeling statue of Hatshepsut found buried in a pit in front of her temple (in the so-called ‘Senenmut Quarry’), after being smashed into pieces under the reign of Thutmosis III. New York, MMA 29.3.1. Granite. H. 261; W. 80; D. 137 cm. Systematic targets on Hatshepsut’s statues are the uraeus, nose and beard, as well as the wrists. The statues are also usually beheaded. Attacks on the eyes, visible on this statue, are less frequent. (Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MMA excavations, 1927–28, Rogers Fund.)

Altering three-dimensional images that stood in squares, courtyards or public gardens was tantamount to punishing the characters depicted, now considered dishonorable because they have become symbols of slavery, colonialism or racism. Treated just like actual human bodies, these effigies have been disfigured, decapitated, mutilated. Even in contemporary societies, where it is generally accepted that no soul or spirit inhabits a body of stone or bronze, monuments and sculptures are not seen as mere ornaments. They have a role, they represent ideas, whether similar to those originally intended or not.

Pharaonic history provides us with well-documented cases of condemnation of the memory of specific individuals – what we today call damnatio memoriae, a Latin term created in the 17th century to label Roman memory sanctions. For example, the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, considered a usurper after her death, was erased from the official memory and removed from all her monuments. A few generations later, Akhenaten’s figure was also eradicated from the monumental landscape, following the failure of his Atonist revolution. However, in the large panorama of Egyptian art, many other causes than the erasure of someone’s memory led to the destruction or mutilation of images, and one should not be too quick to conclude on the motivations that may have led to their alteration.

When considering an altered monument, one should first address the following three questions:

– Is the mutilation intentional? How can this be ascertained?

– Is there any evidence allowing to date the mutilation? A few hours as well as several centuries or millennia can separate the installation of an image from its end.

– What sources are available to interpret this alteration?

When getting to this third question – the most difficult – three points should be considered:

– Who was the figure or entity represented? How was he/she perceived over time and how can we trace the evolution of this consideration?

– When and why was this image produced and/or installed?

– What were the motivations of those who harmed it?

When dealing with ancient and sometimes poorly documented monuments, it is difficult to answer the questions we have asked, but we must keep in mind that such a multiplicity of points of view is always a possibility. The perception of an image by its deteriorators may have been very different from the perception of the people who produced it, as well as that of the people who have been in contact with it over the centuries.

This kind of practice can be observed throughout Pharaonic history. Even more than in our modern societies, images were endowed with a strong “agency.” They were performative, served as potential bodies in which the entity represented could take place, and they were therefore capable of action. An acting image could bring benefits – for example, it could serve as an intermediary between a worshipper and the figure represented, whether it was an ancestor, a deity or the reigning king – who was himself of divine essence. An image could also carry danger. For this reason, to avoid any risk that this image would take action, it was advisable to deactivate it by depriving it of its organs of life, its limbs or its inscriptions that conferred it an identity. A mutilated bas-relief or statue deprived of its arms and legs, its nose or even its face would go back to its first nature as a block of stone.

Mutilation or destruction of an image could serve many purposes. For example, the intention may have been to remove from view what one no longer wanted to see. The very performance of the destruction may also have been the goal of the act, whether it was performed in front of an audience or in the framework of some kind of ritual. This act of destruction was itself a producer of images, even if mental ones. Sometimes, too, the intention may have been to ostensibly leave visible the injuries brought to a figure.

Let us mention the well-known case of Hatshepsut. The many statues from her temple at Deir el-Bahari were found mutilated at specific points (always the nose, beard, and uraeus; sometimes the eyes, the entire face, or limbs) before being broken into several pieces and buried in two pits in front of the temple. These statues did not remain visible for long in their mutilated form. We will never know if their destruction took place in front of an audience – we may assume so – but their destruction certainly followed a very systematic procedure. We know enough about the political context that led to the proscription of the female pharaoh’s memory to be able to date the event to the end of the reign of Thutmosis III.

The case of Akhenaten is also well documented. At the end of Dynasty 18, with the seizure of power by Horemheb, a campaign of proscription seems to have taken place against the rulers attached to the memory of the Amarna revolution: Akhenaten and Nefertiti, their successor Neferneferuaten, Tutankhamun and Ay. When exactly did this proscription take place, how long did it last, how systematic was it? The rock-cut statues of the boundary stelae of Amarna remained clearly visible in their mutilated, outrageous form, as if to serve as a warning to those who, like Akhenaten, would fail in the mission entrusted by the gods. The countless statues of the royal family in Amarna and Thebes were all mutilated, often reduced into pieces and buried. The blocks covered with reliefs were reused as filling in the masonry of new temples.

Continue reading…

From ASOR, here.

Uncovering Sefer Yirmiyahu

New Book: Uncovering the Book of Jeremiah

I should note at the outset that the title of this post is incorrect, for there is no book with such a name. But therein lies an important reason for writing this post in the first place: English readers are not apt to discover a book entitled Uncovering Sefer Yirmiyahu when searching for commentaries and writings on Jeremiah.

The author is Rabbi Yehuda Landy, a former neighbor of mine in the Judean hill country, though we did not meet then and have not since. But I stumbled across his excellent book on Purim and the Persian Empire (recommended if you’re studying Esther), and somehow we got connected by email, and he alerted me to his new book on Jeremiah. That was good, because I wouldn’t have found it by searching Amazon for Jeremiah.

 

Uncovering Sefer Yirmiyahu: An Archaeological, Geographical, Historical Perspective: Rabbi Yehuda Landy: 9781680254075: Amazon.com: Books

According to the book jacket, the series is intended for the “Jewish reading public,” and that explains why the title is (partly) in Hebrew. But the subtitle reveals why this book is of interest to this audience: “An Archaeological, Geographical, Historical Perspective.” Readers, pastors, and teachers who want to go beyond a standard text commentary will learn much from this book about the sites, material culture, and historical background of this prophetic text.

The basic facts of the book are these: hardcover, 390 full-color pages, lavishly illustrated with photos and maps, published by Halpern Center Press in Jerusalem, $35 on Amazon. The Hebrew edition was published in 2015; the English edition is somewhat revised and was published in 2019. The author is a rabbi, Israeli tour guide, and a PhD candidate at Bar Ilan University, in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology.

The 75 chapters are divided into two sections. The first section provides a historical review with chapter titles such as:

  • Jerusalem in the Days of Jeremiah
  • The Spiritual State of the Jewish People at the Time of Josiah
  • Archaeological Evidence of Pharaoh Necho’s Campaign
  • Nebuchadnezzar Arrives at Jerusalem to Suppress the Rebellion of Jehoiakim
  • The Exile of Jehoiachin
  • The Judean Exiles in Babylonia
  • (Note: I’ve anglicized the names here. See below.)

The second half goes through Jeremiah chapter by chapter, providing an “explanation of concepts” for nearly each chapter.

I have not read the entire book, but I’ve made note of some valuable insights I’ve gleaned as I have read, including:

  • Jeremiah may have been the brother of Azariah the high priest whose seal impression was found in the city of David.
  • Anathoth was the closest priestly city to Jerusalem. This reality may signify the prominence of Jeremiah’s priestly family.
  • One rabbinic tradition says that Josiah hid the ark of the covenant under the Chamber of the Wood. Another tradition says that it was carried off to Babylon.
  • One rabbinic source suggests that Josiah’s error in confronting Pharaoh Necho (who killed him) was that he did not consult Jeremiah for the Lord’s counsel. Another rabbi argues that he did not obey Jeremiah’s command to turn back.
  • Jeremiah may have traveled through a secret passage recently discovered in excavations at the City of David in order to meet King Zedekiah.

Readers who haven’t studied Hebrew will have to learn a little bit of new vocabulary, for though the book is written in English, many names and terms are in transliterated Hebrew, including Beis HaMikdash (temple), HaNavi (prophet), and Nevuchadnetzar (Nebuchadnezzar).

I recommend this book to anyone studying Jeremiah for four primary reasons: (1) this resource is carefully researched and provides a lot of useful historical background; (2) the work is up to date with regard to archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem; (3) the numerous photos and maps are an aid to understanding (and are usually lacking in commentaries); (4) the perspective of a Jewish rabbi and tour guide will provide a fresh approach for many Christian readers.

From BiblePlaces.com, here.