National Scholar Updates

I.

With the recent publication of Aharon Appelfeld’s newest novel Blooms of Darkness[1] engagingly translated from the Hebrew by Jeffrey M. Green, one is initially motivated to agree with Philip Roth, the eminent American novelist, who adorned the author as fiction’s foremost chronicler of the Holocaust. Roth observed that the stories herein are “small, intimate, and quietly narrated, and yet are transformed into a soaring work of art . . . with a profound understanding of loss, pain, cruelty and grief.” Additionally, one is equally moved to add, in the words of Primo Levi, the Italian novelist and critic, that Appelfeld’s voice “has a unique, unmistakable tone which strikes the reader with awe and admiration.” And one is further tempted to agree with Honoré de Balzac, the French nineteenth-century novelist, who declared, on an entirely different occasion, that “the novel is really the private history of nations.”

Part of the pleasure in reading Appelfeld’s “history of his nation” in this novel, and others, is the brevity of its presentation. For example, many initial conversations between a mother and son, who are hounded by a Nazi killer, are uttered in half-sentences. For Holocaust-era conversations had to be brief, lest the savages discern any moves and motifs deserving liquidation. Under those circumstances, one hardly speaks in fluid sentences. Everything is secretive, for life depends more on silence than on speech: a look here, a motion there, or an eyebrow raised, often ends most conversations. To capture these sensations, Appelfeld actually tells this entire story in some 68 chapters, each one of them no more than four pages, which add up to a unique, sad, and captivating experience for the reader.

Appelfeld has dedicated his creative life to the literature and history of his own people, beginning, of course, with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and proceeding, most often, in agony—murder, extortion, banishment, vilification, and exile—throughout the ancient, medieval, and modern periods of his national history. Ultimately, of course, he devoted—attached—himself to the bitter, brutal, murderous, forlorn, and unforgettable years of the Holocaust, all replete, needless to say, with “loss, pain, cruelty, and grief.”

Julia

            But first, the story. Told almost in a whisper, it takes place in an unnamed Ukrainian city not far from the Carpathian Mountains. Among its citizens, we find Julia and Hans Mansfeld and their three children, Otto, Anna, and young Hugo. The parents were pharmacists by profession, who, during their years of dispensing pharmaceuticals and prescriptions, were heralded not only for their professionalism, but also for equally delivering those items and food, without cost, to those unable to pay. Hans, alas, was the first to be “transferred” to a secret place, near the mountains, followed sometime later by Otto and Anna; leaving Julia and 11-year-old Hugo to navigate for themselves in that chaos.

            We find mother and son, first, standing on the street, anxiously beleaguered, waiting for the arrival of one of the notorious “peasants,” who operate by snatching children “for fees,” to deposit them eventually in some “hiding places” near the mountains. Fortunately for Julia and Hugo the peasant fails to appear. Determined that at least Hugo would survive, mother and son quickly lower themselves through the half-dry public sewers of the city, until they reach its outskirts. There by the grace of good fortune, Julia chances to meet up with an old grammar school classmate, one Mariana Podgorsky, a non-Jew, and by profession a “madam,” who lives in a place called the “Residence,” together with a string of other harlots, catering exclusively to the German soldiers who visit there nightly.

            Julia shares her tale of woe with her friend of grammar school years, who graciously consents to care for the innocent youngster until the war’s end. Mercifully relieved, and filled with unending gratitude, Julia surrenders young Hugo to Mariana, while handing her son his personal knapsack, filled with “a Bible, games of chess and dominoes, plus some reading and writing material.” Shortly thereafter, Julia is herself “deported.”

            Hugo accompanies Mariana to her own room in the “Residence,” which is lavishly filled with all sorts of perfumes, bottles of brandy, which she imbibes frequently, as well as a “personal closet,” stocked with all sorts of lavish attire. Next to her “boudoir” rests another closet, bereft of any and all human necessities. She assigns that closet to Hugo, in order that he be hidden from all human contact while staying there. She immediately warns him that, should she be out at times, for whatever reason, he must never answer the door, nor leave his closet except when in her presence. As one of her first gifts, she hands him a crucifix which she then gingerly places on his neck.

            After about three months, everything in Hugo’s life changes. How much has changed, he obviously doesn’t know. “His young heart,” we learn, “began to torment him because he hasn’t kept his promises to his mother. He doesn’t read the Bible, he doesn’t write, and he doesn’t do his arithmetic problems.” Worse still is the fleeting thought that his mother may have actually “passed away.”

            In the loneliness of his “closet,” where, during the wintry nights he almost freezes to death while lying scantily dressed on his temporary couch, Hugo finds solace in an occasional dream. One night, in fact, his mother appears to him, checking on how well he is managing, and whether Mariana is treating him well. Hugo begs her not to leave him. Before going, however, she confesses to him: “You know very well that I didn’t observe our religion, but we never denied our Jewishness. The cross you’re wearing is just camouflage, not faith. If Mariana—or I don’t know whoever—tries to make you convert, don’t say anything to them. Do what they tell you to do, but in your heart, you have to know: Your mother and father, your grandfather and grandmother, were all Jews, and you’re a Jew, too. It’s not easy to be a Jew. Everybody persecutes you. But that doesn’t make us an inferior people. To be a Jew is a mark of excellence, but it’s also not shameful . . . I wanted to say all this to you, so that your spirits won’t fall . . . Read a chapter or two of the Bible every day . . . . Reading it will strengthen you . . . . I can go away in peace . . . .”

            She leaves Hugo.

Mariana

            And who, indeed, is this Mariana, the “savior”?

She started her career as a madam, we are told, at the tender age of 16, mainly because of her “disgruntled and abusive” parents. But somewhere within herself, we are led to believe, is a “soul.” When untrammeled, she finds herself believing, despite her profession, in a Christian God, to whom at times, and to the surprise even of her friends, she addresses directly. Consider, for example, this confessional: “Dear God: you understand my heart better than any person. You know that my pleasures in this world were few and bad, my humiliations were many and bitter. I don’t say I’m a righteous woman worthy to get to heaven. I bear the burden of shame, and that’s why I’ll pay a forfeit when the day comes. Even when in the depths of hell, You are my beloved.”

            Needless to say, while serving in a house of sin, she claims that young Hugo is a “symbol of a greater nation.” Citing an example of her generosity, Mariana recalls that his mother, Julia, during their youth, had been very kind to her, bringing her, despite her poverty, “clothes, fruit, and cheese.” And during those very years, she never chastised Mariana by asking, “Why don’t you do respectable work?” And that is why as Hugo begins to mature, Mariana entices him, “suggesting that he enjoy her physical delight which a woman needs, for the rest is only dessert.” Since he makes no demands on her, she continues to compliment him: “You love Mariana and make no conditions or demands on her . . . you’re beautiful.” Which leads Hugo to entertain the illusion that Mariana “really doesn’t belong to those in the Residence . . . that even in her profession one can maintain manners and respect,” that is, if one possesses “backbone.” Thus to no one’s surprise, Hugo could, and did, follow her warning that, whenever questioned, he should always answer by saying he is her “son.”

            Not only would he agree to call himself her “son,” but also because, as he matured, he actually became in pleasure, at least, her “lover.” So that whenever Mariana asks him to sleep with her, he always answers her call. For she assures him, he is “good and sweet and doesn’t want anything from her.” So that even in her drunken stupor he believes “she is really delicious.”

            One morning sometime later, Hugo, reaching for his knapsack, finds a long letter from his mother, in which she again extols Mariana as “one who will surely take care of him all the time,” adding, mournfully, that she herself may never return, and that he dare “never to despair, for despair is surrender.” And even in these dark times, “she remains optimistic . . . and that he, too, must believe in his future freedom.”

            Whatever optimism he may have felt at the time, all of it disappears when Mariana absented herself from the Residence, for a short time, in order to bury her mother. Her death, Hugo learns, was due to Mariana’s neglectful failure to purchase the medicine her mother needed. On her return home, Mariana readily admits to that failure, which draws Hugo’s strange reaction: “Circumstances are guilty.” To neither of their surprise, Mariana, relieved, “fell on her knees, hugged and kissed him,” which helped Hugo forget his short loneliness and the awful fears that surrounded him during her absence. Rather than bemoan her loss, Mariana, instead of even a brief mourning, continues to speak solely of her sad status as a madam, due, as she often repeated, to her own parents’ neglect. Always, apparently, conscious of her plight, Hugo comments further: “Behind her suffering lies a good and lovely woman.” To which Mariana adds only more kisses and pampering arms.

            Despite all of Mariana’s reliable availability, the Germans continued their unabated search for strangers, even at the Residence. Fearing the inevitability of yet another series of searches, especially since the Germans seemed less certain of winning the war, the “madam-in-charge” of the Residence orders Mariana and Hugo to leave at once. Advised hurriedly to look everywhere for any and all resting places or homes for shelter, sleep and hiding, lest they be recognized, Hugo feels self-assured because of the crucifix he wears at all times. Mariana, on the other hand, engages, as usual, in a solemn prayer to God: “I don’t say I’m a righteous woman, worthy to go to heaven . . . . I bear a burden of shame . . . . But I never stopped longing for you, God . . . . You are my beloved.”

            Because of his love for her, Hugo is enraptured with her confessional, to a point where he actually invokes his parents, saying aloud: “Papa, Mama, where are you?” No answer. They seem no longer to be with him, nor does a memory search seem to help, for they have apparently parted even from his dreams, now enshrined in Mariana.

            Hugo then opens his Bible to read the story of Joseph, whose brothers, at first, planned to kill him, only to witness his revival, in the end, and to recognize his political, and national prominence. Hugo now finds hope and inspiration in one of his ancestors’ life.

            As they proceed, rumors spread everywhere that although the Germans are actually losing the war, they will never end their violence, they still believe, until all the Jews are destroyed. The Russians, on the other hand, will surely decimate anyone who has ever cooperated, in any capacity, with the Germans. Mariana and Hugo decide to flee toward the Carpathian Mountains. Along the way, Hugo has another vision of his mother and is moved to frantic tears. As he weeps uncontrollably, Mariana suddenly criticizes him, arguing that “a person who cries announces to the world that he’s lost and needs pity,” adding that “Jews spoil their children, and they don’t prepare them properly for life.” All of which moves Hugo to wonder, “When will the tears freeze in me?”

            As they proceed further, Mariana keeps sharing her thoughts: “I’m amazed at the Jews. An intelligent people, everyone agrees, yet most of them don’t believe in God. I asked your mother, ‘How is it that you don’t believe in God? After all, you see His deeds every day, every hour.’” Answering her own questions, Mariana tells Hugo that his mother “lost her faith at the Gymnasium and since then, religion hasn’t returned to her. I’m sorry for your mother.”

            Of a far more immediate crisis, Mariana turns to Hugo, saying, because the Russians are rapidly approaching, they will kill her, as well as all those who worked in whatever capacity with and for the Germans and should save himself. “You are still young. Every time I remember that, I choke with pain . . . . And because I slept with Germans, my blood is on my head.” Now she believes God won’t stand by her. Except Hugo, who, when asked when he wants to do in the future, replies, “To be with you.” That, she adds, “would be impossible.”

            In a final farewell, she asks Hugo to take care of himself. “When the informers come, don’t go after me. They’ll take me straight to the gallows, or who knows what. You may not be religious, but since you’ve been with Mariana, you’ve changed a little

. . . . Just promise me, you’ll read a chapter or two of the Bible every day. That will strengthen you and give you power and courage to overcome evildoers.” Hugo promises.

            While Mariana and Hugo happen to be resting one day under a tree, three men suddenly appear and announce that they have strict orders “to bring Mariana in, dead or alive.” Hugo is not to be taken, because he speaks Ukrainian, not the official language of any enemy. Remaining behind, Hugo is crushed emotionally. He stands watch, at the center of the square, near a large barrel of soup provided by the Russians, where all enemy suspects stand shivering, to await their inevitable fate. When one of the guards happens to ask Hugo whom he is waiting for, he answers, “My mother.” While there, Hugo learns from another prisoner that Mariana was actually sentenced to die. Crushed by that terrifying news, Hugo recalls one of Mariana’s final and fateful pleas to him: “If they kill me, don’t forget me. You’re the only person whom I trust. I buried some of my soul in you. I don’t want to depart from the world without leaving something. I have no gold or silver. So take my love and place it in your heart, and from time to time, say to yourself: ‘Once there was a Mariana. She was a mortally wounded woman, but she never lost faith in God.’”

Desolation

            Roaming the streets of his native city in the Carpathian Mountains, Hugo reaches the square, where a woman approaches him to inquire, “What’s your name?”

            “Hugo,” he answers.

            “Ah,” she says, “so you’re Hans and Julia’s son, right?”

            “Right.”

            “They were wonderful people. There wasn’t a person in the city who they didn’t always give something of their generosity.”

            Hugo is momentarily gladdened, but simultaneously saddened, because of all the townspeople he chanced to meet, not one ever disclosed the news of the well-known bestial Nazi concentration “camp thirty-three,” where his parents were incarcerated and, apparently, finally liquidated.

            However bitter and frustrated at not having heard any formal news of his parents’ demise, Hugo still continues to walk fitfully, stopping at all those places that never seem to leave his memory, especially those homes of the Jews, who once lived above the many shops, now entirely occupied by strangers. And at the windows and balconies were women and children standing, chatting, and laughing. Hugo instinctively feels that a “different wind seems to be blowing in the air,” which he attempts to identify but fails. Worst of all is the sight of the pharmacy building, which has now become a grocery store.

            While visiting these places, Hugo suddenly recalls an incident that occurred one late Friday afternoon, while on a leisurely walk, oft taken with his father, during which they meet some bearded Jews on their way to the synagogue. Seeing those Jews, his father fell silent. While answering his young son’s question whether those Jews were “real Jews,” he offered a long reply that “would confuse things rather than clarify them.” Hugo also remembered his father’s “embarrassment at such unexpected meetings and the silence that accompanied them.”

            Even more staggering for Hugo was his heartbreaking ultimate experience during these local reminiscences. He enters his own home, and is greeted by an old man, a possible Ukrainian, who calls out to him loudly and gruffly:

“Who are you?”

“My name is Hugo Mansfeld.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to our house.”

“Get out of here. I don’t want ever to see you again,” said the old man, waving his cane.

Hugo leaves, disturbed and shaken.

II.

            This reader’s first “meeting” with Aharon Appelfeld actually occurred some ten years ago, in an extended review of his 12^th novel, The Conversion, which, incidentally, appeared in an issue of Tradition quarterly.[2] Both that work and the current Blooms of Darkness, also published by Schocken Books, reflect much that has made his fictional creativity a mark of distinction. And in this current work, there linger echoes and themes of such topics as “assimilation, disorientation, alienation and accommodation, weakening of faith, apostasy, physical and emotional dislocation, the Bible and secular studies.” All of which give his fiction a strong following on both sides of the Atlantic. He has certainly proved himself an engaging author.

            But, occasionally, one is motivated, as in this particular work, to approach this piece of fiction with an impersonal voice that does not sound like the product of some professional or academic training but rather from a very personal point of view in a voice that does not necessarily include a complete identification with the main character but, rather, with an understanding of its idiosyncratic nature.

            Since Mariana is the major, if not the only significant character in this novel, and has achieved—by saving a young, innocent child from annihilation, the incredible honor, tradition teaches, of a “share in the world to come”—why, pray tell, does Appelfeld assign this honor, however deserved, to a prostitute? There were, we know, hundreds, if not thousands, of simple or selected non-Jews during the Holocaust who saved children, and even adults, at their own risk from violent execution, all accomplished, we know, in a total silence, without rewards, including sexual, of any kind.

            And however much one admires Mariana’s constant supplications to her God, as recorded here, why has she still committed herself to satisfy her “three” or more “visitors” every night, in her perfumed salon? What changes did all those extended prayers have on her personal life, if any? Prayers hardly substitute for vagrancy, or worse.

            Furthermore, from the author’s brief references to Hugo’s parents, one is led to believe that in their lives they were lost not only for being Jewish, but also because they neglected their simple Jewishness; and, in Julia’s case, because, in her youth, she attended Gymnasium, a nomenclature for a secular education, rather than a totally Jewish one, to become a stranger to her past. As for Hans, what, pray tell, does our author imply, almost casually, to be so destructive in a secular education, when, in a multitude of cases, it is accompanied by a study and practice of classic Jewish faith and practice?

            Frankly, however much Hugo, Julia, and Mariana are encouraged, or self-inspired, to read the Bible, one still insists on inquiring, for what real purpose? How would such a reading have possibly changed their daily lives? In which way? Would it strongly influence, for example, their practice of Judaism? A mere reading? How? For himself, Appelfeld relates, it helped him fully appreciate the beauty of its language. And, he adds, importantly, a better understanding of Jewish myth. And eventually, its practice, and “its beliefs from the Bible to Agnon.”

What Appelfeld must remember, as he must surely appreciate, is that without the daily practice, and/or study, of the content of the Bible and Talmud, their linguistics, however inspiring, motivating, and enthralling, are ultimately meaningless. Language alone is a sort of serious and fascinating identification but not necessarily a religious guide to its practice, or the saving of lives, of whatever kind, in distress.

            Otherwise, doom would surpass bloom.

Prologue

From time immemorial, soldiers on the front lines have borne the burden of carrying out orders that are issued by senior officers from the relative safety of the rear echelon. When those orders are illegal, or of an ambiguous moral nature (think Nuremberg and My Lai), who bears the responsibility for their consequences?

This article is adapted, unabashedly, from a thoughtful article by the late Professor Moshe Greenberg of the Hebrew University, a renowned scholar of Tanakh, Parshanut, and the ancient Near East, entitled: “Rabbinic Reflections on Defying Illegal Orders,” in Menachem M. Kellner (ed.) Contemporary Jewish Ethics (NY, 1978), 211–220. I have added sources here and there and, of course, the pedagogical adaptation is entirely original. I alone bear the responsibility for the presentation of the sources and for the conclusions drawn from them.

A Word about Methodology

Our Sages describe the highly selective nature of biblical history as nevu’ah she-hutzrekha le-dorot: prophecy that is required for eternity (BT Megillah 14a). According to this principle, only those events that were to have everlasting meaning and application were recorded in Tanakh, whereas other, ostensibly more idiosyncratic, events were omitted. In other words, prophetic foresight enables us to draw not just inspiration, but practical advice from the deeds—and, yes, misdeeds!—of our ancestors.

            Just as the talmudic sages and medieval exegetes judged the evidence of the biblical text and applied it to their own circumstances, so too must we evaluate the evidence of their interpretations and attempt to extract from them the guidance we seek. Sometimes our situations are sufficiently similar that we can adopt their suggestions wholesale. At other times, however, and despite the overall sameness in our underlying human conditions, we can take their suggestions only as foundations upon which we must then construct our own edifices. I trust that I have built prudently.

Synopsis[1]

As King David lies dying (1 Kings 2), he instructs his son, Solomon, to settle old scores with Joab ben Zeruiah (vs. 5) and Shimei ben Gera (vs. 8). When Joab hears that Adonijah, whose candidacy for king he supported (1 Kings 1:7), has failed to secure the throne, he realizes that his life is forfeit and he seeks sanctuary in the "Tent."[2] He is brought before King Solomon and charged with the murders of Abner ben Ner (2 Samuel 3:27) and Amasa ben Yeter (op. cit., 20:10). According to the "peshat" of the Book of Kings, Joab is immediately and unceremoniously executed by Benayahu ben Yehoyada (vs. 34). Talmudic Aggadah, however, has Solomon bring Joab to trial where he successfully defends himself against both murder charges. Instead, he is eventually executed on a third charge—namely, his collaboration in the unsuccessful coup staged by Adonijah.

The core of this essay is an examination of Joab’s defense in which the element of obedience to the orders of a superior officer plays a pivotal role.

Exhibit One: Joab’s Trial

Sanhedrin 49a:

[Solomon] brought Joab to trial and said to him: Why did you kill Abner? He replied: I was avenging [my brother] Asael.[3] Wasn’t Asael in pursuit of Abner?[4] Abner could have saved himself by wounding Asael in one of his limbs [he needn’t have killed him]. Perhaps he was not able to do so? Since Abner was able to strike him at the fifth rib[5] ...he could have just wounded him.

[Solomon] said: Let us leave [the subject of] Abner. Why did you kill Amasa? [Joab] replied: Because Amasa committed treason against the king. “The king [David] ordered Amasa to summon all the men of Judah in three days’ time... Amasa went to summon them and tarried” (2 Samuel 20: 4 ff.). [Solomon] said: Amasa construed the “but’s and only’s.”[6] He found them engaged in [religious] study and reasoned: [The Israelites promised Joshua] “Whoever contradicts you or disobeys you, whatever you command, shall die” (Joshua 1: 18). Does that include [disagreement on account of] Torah study? The verse states: “Only [rak] be firm and resolute” (op. cit., vs. 7).

[So why was Joab executed?] He was a traitor, as it states: “The news reached Joab who had sided with Adonijah, although not with Absalom” (1 Kings 2:28).

Elaboration:

The right of a leader to expect obedience to his instructions is not granted expressly in the Torah;[7] it derives from a specific historical precedent. After the death of Moses, the Israelites swore their allegiance to Joshua and promised to punish any disobedience to his command. This pledge, however, was not a blank check. Through their reference to “Only be firm and resolute” (rak hazak ve-ematz; the “but’s and only’s” cited above), they reveal to us our first important insight into the halakhot of obedience: A leader is expressly prohibited from requiring obedience in violation of Torah law.

NOTE: The Talmud accepts Joab’s claim vis-à-vis Abner, but rejects his claim against Amasa by justifying Amasa’s delay. Nevertheless, it prosecutes Joab on the separate charge of treason. The conclusion appears to be that while he was morally guilty vis-à-vis Abner and Amasa, he was not legally culpable.

Exhibit Two: Abner, Amasa, and Disobedience

Abner and Amasa, ironically, play a critical role in the talmudic derivation of the halakhic principles of obedience to orders.

In 1 Samuel 22:17, Saul commands his servants to kill the kohanim of Nob because they had aided and abetted David in his escape. The soldiers refuse to shed the blood of “servants of the LORD,” so Saul turns the task over to Doeg the Edomite who has no such compunctions and kills them.

The Talmud Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 29a) asks:

Who were those servants [who refused the order]? Rabbi Samuel ben Isaac said: They were Abner and Amasa. They said to Saul: If we owe you anything besides these belts and coats [their uniforms and insignia?], take them back!

The Talmud Bavli (Sanhedrin 20a), however, has certain reservations about their conduct:

Rabbi Judah said in Rav’s name: Why did Abner meet an untimely death? Because he failed to take a stand against Saul. Rabbi Isaac said: He took a stand, but he was overruled.

Elaboration:

Abner’s death at the hands of Joab is his just desserts for his failure to assume a more vigorous opposition to the murder of the kohanim of Nov. This provides us with our second important insight into the halakhot of obedience: It may not be sufficient to abstain from obeying an illegal order; you might have to offer more than your resignation.

Indeed, the Talmud (Shabbat 55a), in elaborating on Ezekiel 9:4 (“Go through the streets of Jerusalem and place a mark on the foreheads of all who sigh and groan over the abominations committed in her”), makes the point that it is not enough to refrain from committing evil when one can also take a determined stand against it.

Exhibit Three: Joab and Disobedience—A Contrast

Given the aggadic penchant for validating the aphorism, “According to the measure that one metes out so is it meted out to him,” we should not be surprised to discover that the disobedience that goes around comes around. The same talmudic passage with which we began (Sanhedrin 49a), continues:

God brought [Joab’s] guilt down upon his own head for having struck down two more righteous and better men than he [i.e., Abner and Amasa]. Better, in that they construed the “but’s and only’s,” while he did not. More righteous, in that they refused a command that came orally, while he obeyed a command that came in writing.

Elaboration:

Whereas Abner and Amasa defied a questionable command that, by virtue of its verbal nature, carried an inherent note of ambiguity (and, thereby, could have provided them with “cover” should they have chosen to obey it), Joab failed to defy a written order (which contains no such uncertainty and therefore offers no acceptable alternative to disobedience) —to place Uriah the Hittite in the line of fire.

Exhibit Four: Crime and Agency

The Talmud in Kiddushin (43a) stipulates:

If one commissions an agent to commit murder and he complies, the agent is guilty and the principal is exempt. Shammai the Elder said in the name of the prophet Haggai, the principal is guilty, as it states [of David, regarding Uriah]: “You slew Uriah… by the sword… and killed him by the sword of the Ammonites” (2 Samuel 12:9).

Elaboration:

Given their negative assessment of Joab’s morality (see Exhibit Three), why do the Sages not rebuke him openly for his complicity in Uriah’s death by applying Shammai’s principle[8] that every individual bears responsibility for his own deeds and cannot abrogate that responsibility by arguing that he was only “following orders”?  The contemplation of this question leads us to our third and final observation on the halakhot of obedience: The rule of delegated responsibility stops short of the throne.

Just above, we cited the verse: “You slew Uriah… by the sword… and killed him by the sword of the Ammonites” (2 Samuel 12:9).  R. David Kimhi (Radak; Provence, 1160–1235), commenting on the ostensible redundancy (“slew...killed”), notes that soldiers—even commanders—in the heat of battle, are entitled to take for granted that their commander-in-chief, the king, has done the necessary values clarification and they may therefore assume, implicitly, that any order he gives is legal:

   You slew him: As though you had slain him [personally] by instructing Joab to place him in harm's way. You killed him: [Why the repetition?] You have compounded the felony by having him slain by the Ammonites, the enemies of Israel.

   Our Sages have said: Although the universal rule is, "there is no agency for the commission of a crime" and in every case the agent—and not the principal—is culpable, here the situation differs since the verse calls [David] a killer. Why is this? Since he was the king and his word was law, it is as though he did the killing himself. Similarly, when Saul ordered the killing of the kohanim of Nov, it was as though he killed them himself.

   Generally, a person should refrain from following the king's orders in such a case. We have explained, apropos of "Anyone who defies your word shall die" (Joshua 1:18), that this does not include the commission of a crime, as the verse states: "Only" [be firm and resolute; i.e., excluding instructions that violate Torah law].

   Not everyone, however, is capable of construing "but's" and "only's." The onus [punishment], therefore, is on the king.

Exhibit Five: What Goes Around…

The principle of royal responsibility articulated by Radak takes on additional significance when viewed in the context of David and Joab’s later interaction in a comparable situation. According to 2 Samuel 24:1 ff. (and 1 Chronicles 21:1 ff.), David is induced to commission a census of Israel and instructs Joab to carry it out. The text of 2 Samuel 24: 1–4 reports:

And again the anger of God was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them, saying: 'Go, number Israel and Judah'. And the king said to Joab the captain of the host that was with him: 'Go now to and fro through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the sum of the people.'

And Joab said unto the king: 'Now the Lord thy God add unto the people, how many they may be, a hundredfold, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it; but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?' Notwithstanding, the king's word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the host. And Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel.

Joab initially opposes the mission, saying, according to 2 Samuel: “What do you need it for?” (lamah hafetz ba-davar ha-zeh) and adding, according to 1 Chronicles: “Why cause Israel guilt? (lamah yihyeh le-ashmah le-Yisrael). This clearly implies that while Joab ultimately submitted to the order on account of the rule of royal responsibility (va-yehezak devar ha-melekh el Yoav), he, again, recognizes its essential illegality or, at least, impropriety.[9] While Abner and Amasa, in a similar situation (see Exhibit Two), tendered their resignations to Saul; Joab, as was his wont, abdicated his moral responsibility albeit remaining strictly within the limits of the letter of the law.

Epilogue

The sources we have presented indicate that the responsibility for ensuring that orders issued to frontline soldiers are legal and moral belongs, foremost, to the king in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. Officers of lower grades—including the Chief of Staff!—may assume his orders to be proper, particularly if they are in the heat of battle and lack the necessary leisure to evaluate them on their own. However, if they definitively know a particular order to be illegal or immoral, they must refuse to carry it out and, if necessary, suffer the consequences of their disobedience to the point of surrendering their commissions. In some cases, given the patently egregious nature of the illegal order, they must also protest it publicly.

Operative/Normative Conclusions

In conclusion, we cite several "codifications" of the laws of military obedience.

1. Rambam Hilkhot Melakhim (3:9):

Whoever defies a royal order on account of preoccupation with mitzvot, even of a minor variety, is not culpable. When the master and the servant both speak, the master's words take precedence. It goes without saying [however] that if the king commanded that a mitzvah be annulled, he is not to be obeyed.

2. HaRav Shelomo Min-HaHar: Dinei Tzava U-Milhamah (Laws pertaining to the army and warfare, #28):

The regulations of the General Staff and the Military Rabbinate are available to assist soldiers in all cases. According to regulations, orders that contravene halakha are invalid.

3. U.S. Dept. Of the Army, Field Manual: The Law of Land Warfare 182:

[Military courts are admonished] to take into consideration the fact that obedience to lawful orders is the duty of every member of the armed forces; that the latter cannot be expected, in conditions of war discipline, to weigh scrupulously the legal merits of the orders received.

4. The American Law Institute: Model Penal Code, Military Orders (2.10):

It is an affirmative defense that the actor, in engaging in the conduct charged to constitute an offense, does no more than execute an order of his superior in the armed forces which he does not know to be unlawful.

Practical Pedagogy

Have students consider the following questions while preparing the sources:

Re: 1 Kings 2:28 ff.:

On what charge is Joab is condemned to death?

How did Joab think to evade his fate?

Why was he unsuccessful?

Re: Sanhedrin 49a:

How does Joab justify his killing of Abner?

Of Amasa?

What is Solomon’s challenge to that justification?

What is the final disposition of Joab’s case?

Re: 1 Samuel 22:17 + Yerushalmi Sanhedrin + Sanhedrin 20a + 49a:

What do Abner and Amasa have in common?

How does this reflect on Joab?

What do these sources teach us about protesting illegal orders?

Re: Shabbat 55a:

What does Ezekiel chapter 9 teach us about protest?

How does it apply to the case of Joab?

Re: Kiddushin 43a + Radak 1 Samuel 12:9:

What is the limitation placed here on the law of “agency” (shelihut)?

What bearing does it have on the case of David and Uriah? On Joab?

Whose is the ultimate responsibility for morality in warfare?

Re: Rambam Hilkhot Melakhim 3:9:

Which of our sources is Rambam’s, too?

Does he agree or disagree with Radak?

Would he have convicted Joab as charged?

Re: 2 Samuel 24:1 ff., and 1 Chronicles 21:1 ff.:

What does 1 Chronicles 21:3 add to 2 Samuel 24:3?

Why did David’s census invite “guilt”? (Cf. Exodus 30:12 and commentaries)

What conclusion(s) may we come to regarding obedience to doubtful orders?

Notes

   Some Spanish Sepharadeem, refugees, made their way to Aleppo and Damascus early in the 16th century; and many more to Constantinople, Salonika and Izmir. In Damascus, where they had arrived in larger numbers than in Aleppo, they established their own synagogues, houses of study, and burial grounds, alongside colonies of Karaites, Samarians, Iraqis, and the native Jews (the Musta-Arab-een), we are told by Rabbi Moshe Basola of that period. With time, they abandoned the use of the Spanish language and before long became acculturated, an integral part of the native Jewish community. Their more worldly education saw many of them in a prosperous state and in the leadership of Jewish life, positions they maintained for centuries. Aleppo’s Spanish refugee Sepharadeem, fewer in number, had also been received with cordiality and the respect due their scholarliness. A separate section of the Great Synagogue was reserved for them. This too passed away as the ‘Spaniol became embodied in the Jewish life of the city, although they continued to be distinctive. Among them were members of the Kassin (Qaaseen) and Laniado (Langiado) families, who contributed leading rabbis to the city for hundreds of years and to the present day, in Aleppo-in Flatbush and other Syrian colonies. The Dayan family, also distinguished scholars in Aleppo for centuries, had originated in Baghdad and lay detailed claim, generation by generation, descent from King David. It was the Dayans who established the revered House of Study — and prayer — Bet Nasi, “The House of the Prince.” It functioned in Aleppo until the “days of trial” in 1947, a harrowing period which the testimony of refugees now in Flatbush will reveal to us.

   Yet another wave of European Sepharadeem came, a small one, mostly from Italy, who were to be continually distinguished and prestigious in Near East Jewish life. Perhaps among the first of them to come was a maternal forebear of this writer, Signor Isaaco Silvera from Livorno (Leghorn, Italy), earlier from Gibraltar and Spain.

   His presence in Aleppo was uncovered to me by Gershom Scholem in his biography (1973) of Shabbetai Sebbi (Sevi), the false Messiah. Scholem relates that among the foremost advocates of Shabbetai prior to 1666 the date of enunciation of Shabbetai’s ‘Messiahood’, were”. . . Signor Hakham Shelomo Laniado and Signor Isaaco Silvera.” To Hakham Laniado, Shabbetai had awarded the “Kingdom of Aram Soba” (The Hebrew term for Aleppo, Psalms 60:2), and to my ancestor Silvera, the “Kingdom of David.” No doubt Silvera had contributed importantly from his considerable wealth to the Messiah’s mission. With Silvera’s presence in Aleppo, other wealthy Italian Sepharadeem had followed, to form a small but eminent group.

   Soon after the Crusades, Aleppo had become increasingly important in commerce with Europe. Earlier, such trade had been small although continuous for many centuries. Thanks to the sharpened appetite for Oriental spices and silks and the like, brought back with them by the returning Crusaders, and with the advancing decay of the feudal system, the rise and the influence of the Towns, and the revival of a money economy in place of barter, European trade with the Orient began to grow and to become a source of great wealth.

   It was largely to Halab (Aleppo) that the early Venetians, the Dutch, and the French had arrived to establish trading colonies; “Alep”, as the French 15th and 16th century traders had labeled it; the Italians had transposed it to “Alep-po,” the name used by the English. How to negotiate this trade with Aleppo’s merchants, since the English spoke no Arabic and the Aleppoans no English? Through local Aleppoans with a knowledge of Italian, French, or Spanish, largely the Spanish Sepharadeem and the Italian Jews. In addition to the Jews, Armenians and native “Byzantines” (Greek Orthodox Catholics) also participated.

The English Levant Company

  Consul North tells us of the importance of the Aleppo Jews in their relations with the English and others. Said North: “The factoring trade is in the hands of the Jews, dominated by them.” Further, he states that, “When a European began to trade through a Jew, no other would take his ‘commission,’ for by a compact among themselves no other was permitted to accept the client.” The Jewish agents earned the esteem and confidence of their clients, they were highly spoken of and their reputation spread in England for their uprightness and trading skill.

   The privileges of their foreign patrons sometimes rubbed off on to the Jewish agents, who were thus placed in particularly high regard in their community. They became Nafs Firmanli, an Ottoman-Decree (Protected) Individual. In some few instances their patrons bestowed on them full foreign national status, including Extra Territorial Rights, endowing them with greater prestige.

   In addition to the migration into Aleppo of the refugees from Spain as was noted, there were the Italian Jewish merchants. The Italians sent younger sons to serve their needs at first hand. They came on buying ‘visits’, but instead stayed, and soon married the daughters of Spanish and Musta-Arab-een (indigenous) Jews. They become known as “Francos” (French) and “Franj,” enjoying the rights and privileges of Extra- Territoriality. They were always referred to as Signors, (“Sir, in Italian; “Signor-eem” is the Hebrew plural term for this Italian title). Through their wealth and aristocratic status they became the most distinguished of the local Jews. Their piety, scholarliness and generous support of community organizations placed them at the pinnacle of their co-religionists’ esteem. The leading family among them was that of Picciotto; who were to become De Picciotto when they received titles of knighthood from the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, whom they served as consuls. Picciotto, Belilos, Bigio, Farhi, Ancona, Silvera, A1tar and a few others constituted the Franj group in Aleppo. In Damascus it was the families of Angel — (“Shemaya), Pinto, Molcho,  Farhi, Attieh Lisbona and others, who were the elite Franj.

   Late in the .18th century Shalom Ha-Cohen of Aleppo ventured into India and with the assistance of others from Halab, members of the Shaib, Tebele, Duek, Laniado families, two Settons/Suttons, as well as several Baghdadians, served to found the Calcutta Jewish community. It flourished for almost 150 years, until the British left India in 1947.

Everyday Jewish Life

   From the many recent spoken histories of individuals who recounted to me memories of life experience in Aleppo/Halab and in Damascus, we are further able to reconstruct the everyday life of the Jews there from some years before the beginning of the 20th century. In many ways it was typical of Jewish life throughout the Near and Middle East. Arabic was the universal language (except in Turkey, and some European countries under Ottoman rule.) Arabic was the common language from Iraq (Mesopotamia) on the East, to Morocco, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Culturally, too, there was broad commonality characteristic of almost all Fertile Crescent lands.

   At the crest of Aleppo and Damascus population early in this century, each city had perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 Jews. In Aleppo, everyone Jewish lived within the confines of the old and virtually invisible city-wall lines (the inner city), until about 1900-1905, when a small movement began to the-then outskirts of the city, to the Quarter called the Djamil-iyeh (named after Djamil Pasha), with broad streets and fresh air. (In the last three or four decades almost all Jews had moved there, except the direly poor.) The community was firmly ruled by the Bet Deen, the religious Court, supported by the Comite (Fr.), the community committee, formed of leading individuals— ah-kalz-behr, “notables” which administered the Jewish institutions. It was self-ruled, as was previously observed, in accordance with Ottoman and earlier, Roman and Arab regulations, which gave due recognition and respect in most periods, to each of the religious communities. This permitted an orderly and stable life over the centuries, one in which the Aleppo and Damascus Jewish populations led a generally satisfying life — constrained only by personal economic limitations.

   The Hakham Báshi was the Chief Rabbi, an institution established in Istanbul/Constantinople some four hundred years ago, largely a political one. The local Hakham Bashi was appointed by the Chief Hakham Bashi, an influential Ottoman Empire official in the Capital — with the consent of the city’s Jewish elders. He was frequently a non-native of Aleppo or Damascus, hailing from Smyrna, Istanbul, or Salonika. Often he did not match the scholarliness of the cities’ native rabbis or their religious authority, although his Office was held in much awe by the populace. The Bet Deen, the religious court, set the rules and standards for rigid religious and civil observance for the mass of Jews. They ruled in disputes between Jews, and so universally and highly were they regarded, that a Muslim with a civil complaint against a Jew preferred to have it adjudicated by the Bet Deen. He was confident that the ruling would be unbiased and just. Leading rabbis were highly respected by the Muslim leaders and their counsel was often sought.

   Rabbis of the city were also highly esteemed by fellow Jews in Palestine, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and other parts of the Ottoman Empire; respected for their learning and devoutness, from the days of Saadia, Maimonides and earlier. Over the centuries only a few had succeeded in having their scholarly religious works published. Some with valuable texts did not possess the means and know-how to achieve publication in one of the principal Sepharadi centers, in Livorno, Istanbul, Amsterdam. Only now are some of these early works being uncovered and published.

   In Syria, relations with Islamics were amicable, but formal. A state of inward uneasiness always marked the sentiments toward those of the dominant religion. The Muslims were generally friendly, but “no one put complete trust in goyeem” (Hebrew maxim) or in their continuing peacefulness, since not all Muslims were educated, or well-mannered.

The Dhimmis: ‘Protected’ Jews and Christians

    What is the reality of conditions under which the Dhimmi, the so- called ‘Protected’ people, lived? Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians who believe in one God, had special status following the teaching of Muhammad. They were known as Ahhl il Dhimmi [ pronounced “thzimmeh”], People of Faith, Conscience. They were to be protected, allowed to lead a self-ruled life, following their religion, unmolested both in their faith and in their civil rights. However, because they would not accept Islam, they were to have measures of humiliation shown to them, they were to regard themselves as “inferiors.” A special small tax was imposed on them, a jizya (a penalty). In other ways too in some periods, they had to have their inferiority made evident — through dress, restrictions on the height of their houses of worship, the lowly animals (donkeys, etc.) they were permitted to ride, the need to give way before a Muslim, and similar means of indicating their inferiority. In everything else their rights were to be protected. The Covenant could be annulled at will by Muslims when they alleged violations on the part of a minority, to be replaced with still greater severities, sometimes demanding conversion to Islam, on pain of death.

Good Relations with Muslims

   The Muslims of Aleppo were indeed of a more peaceful character than those of Damascus. No uprisings, no massacres of Jews in Aleppo have ever been uncovered by this writer. Jews accepted their role of submissive inferiors, but with dignity. They knew their own worth, and their economic importance in the metropolis, a bustling city of traders.  Aleppo Jews seldom had to submit to more than petty abuse, and only from individual ignorant and fanatic Muslims. Such elements had created riots and massacres in Aleppo in 1659-1860, but directed against Christians, with no major disorders since that time.

   In earlier periods, prior to the advent of surging nationalist Zionism in Palestine, many commercial Jewish partnerships existed with Muslims and Christians, often in enterprises involving agricultural products; Jews were partners with herders, in large-scale operations involving sheep, etc. The Jews had confidence in the integrity of their Muslim partners, their courteous friendliness and their faithfulness to their religion. Sometimes the partners were bedu (bedouins), nomads.  Jewish Murad Faham and members of the Jemal/Djmal families owned huge herds consigned to Muslims, or were partners with them; both were important manufacturers of cheese. Faham is the hero who was later to rescue the ancient and sacred Aleppo Codex: the Codex of ben Asher, spiriting it out of the country to Israel at considerable risk to his safety.

   With educated Muslims a cordiality, somewhat formal, could exist, formed perhaps through commercial transactions. However, intimate friendships with Muslims were not common. Despite cordiality with some, there was little social interaction, Jewish and Muslim families did not exchange visits; men customarily socialized in cafes. Nevertheless, on respective holiday occasions the men would sometimes pay courtesy calls to their friends of the other religion. The Governor, too, the Pasha, would pay such a courtesy call to the Chief Rabbi. In turn, the Hakham Bashi would acknowledge an Islamic or governmental holiday by a visit to the Pasha.

Everyday Life in Twentieth Century Syria

   Everyday activity in the early years of the twentieth century in Aleppo and Damascus continued the traditional and unhurried life in the midst of the countless minarets and the many large and important souks. Earlier, Jews lived — by choice — in their separate Quarters, the Saha, il Illeh, Bah-seeta, and Harrit il Yahood, the Jewish Quarter and other nearby neighborhoods, sometimes neighbors of Muslim families, but never of Christians. They occupied residences with an inner courtyard, with chambers around it, rooms not interconnected in most instances. Outhouses provided the sanitary facilities (which were periodically — sometimes tardily — emptied by the cesspool cleaner). Wealthy families occupied a private residence; others had contained two or three families, each occupying one or two rooms to accommodate their usually large numbers.

   The rooms necessarily served as living quarters by day and as bedrooms at night. They were sparsely furnished. In the poorer homes the furniture consisted of a low table with a mansaf, a large tray, and cushions, dishaks, on which they sat, close to the floor. One or two large armoires, chests, held their clothes and household wares. A deewaan, a sofa, was found in most homes, reserved for visitors. Except for the wealthy where beds were used, bedding consisted of mattresses placed on the floor. These were aired in the morning, then piled in a corner of the room, freeing it for daytime use. For those in modest circumstances and the poor, heating the chamber was by means of braziers in which a few sticks of charcoal were burned. Illumination was provided by one or more wan-a-seh, a pan filled with oil, with lighted wicks, or by kerosene lamps. Some rooms had a small raised alcove, a m’rah-bah which added to the useable space. A small deep cellar, m’gha-ra, usual in every home, provided an area where perishable food was kept somewhat fresh.  A floor covering was a necessity. Those who could afford them had rugs on the floor, from  Ajam, (Persia), or from Turkey. Others laid down a haseereh, a large woven mat of vegetable fibers.

   Housewives whose husbands had means could employ domestic help. For the majority — the poor and the near-poor — the housewife was responsible for restoring the sleeping room into a sitting room, airing the bedclothes and storing them in a corner. She washed the clothes, cooked the meals, drew water from the cistern for the family needs, and sewed or repaired the clothing. In addition, of course, she attended her many young children. She saw to the grinding of her wheat at the local mill and prepared the dough for the bread, a large part of every meal. This was sent out usually twice a week — to a nearby baker, a soo-sahnie.

   Those in the middle and upper classes usually retained a Jewish female domestic worker, who went to her own home at the end of a demanding day. She, too, washed, cooked, kneaded dough, and looked after her other household chores. Servants were often, but not always, married women. The poor provided the wet nurses for those who could not nurse their own children.

   Since clothing factories did not exist, tailors and dressmakers often gave sewing work to be performed in the home — at niggardly prices. Some women were skilled seamstresses; others, makers of wigs and hair-pieces, etc., who spent individual days working in the homes of patrons, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. (This contradicts the popular belief that wives of Oriental Jews did not work gainfully like Jewish matrons in Eastern Europe; there, it was not uncommon for some women to be actively engaged in commerce.)

   For the poor, breakfast usually consisted of bread and white cheese; some could afford only bread and inexpensive zatar, a combination of tangy herbs. (Bread was dipped into oil and then into the zatar.) A piece of halava served as ‘dessert.’ Lunch and supper often comprised the leftovers of the food of the previous day or else of an omelet, prepared with cheese, potatoes, eggplant or other available vegetables. Laban, yoghurt, was a staple, widely consumed, in addition to cereals and beans of every description; they were cheap.  The principal meal was in the evening. Few meat dishes were available, they were too expensive for most, but were served at the Sabbath meals.

   Most Jews were either lower-middle class or (the greater number) — were poor. They were craftsmen, stall-keepers, cobblers, clerks, peddlers, porters and others without skills.The life of the middle-class Jews and the wealthy permitted comfortable homes and enabled them to live well in all respects, enjoying a wide variety of foodstuffs, meat, fish, seasonal vegetables and delectable fruits.

Marriages

   Jewish marriages in the Orient were almost always arranged by the parents, usually with the aid of a semi-professional, part- time broker, a khat-ahb. He knew most families, and thus could recommend suitable mates; it was important to find spouses of suitable lineage — those of the same social class. A marriage could sometimes be arranged with another, but only one class level above or below.  Among the poor, marriages were more expeditiously arranged, without the need of an intermediary — and negotiations.

Entertainment

   Rich and poor delighted in the Sabbath, a day of complete relaxation. Some relished the occasional Sabt, the festive mid day elaborate celebratory Sabbath breakfasts after synagogue service. These often were accompanied by the singing of traditional pizmoneem, non-ritual religious songs. Aleppoans are very fond of music, outstandingly so.

   Entertainment in earlier years — 70 or 80 years ago was quite limited. Apart from visits to cafes, family and friends, public entertainment was narrowly circumscribed. Once or twice each year there was a gala concert of Arabic music. A little music was available publicly in some cafes, mostly by means of phonograph records. The “Shahh-bandar,”, a large cafe on what was then the outskirts of the city — it has since been absorbed by the exploding city — featured vocalists and a live musical ensemble. Those who could afford it thronged this green oasis in a city denuded of trees (cut down for fuel during World War I, and never replanted). On a pleasant evening, one of the residents, usually among those in humbler circumstances, would produce an ood, a lute, to be joined by neighbors in his courtyard, and often by those of an adjoining courtyard, who would enjoy and contribute to the quiet entertainment.

Community Organizations

   The community had several social institutions in addition to the kteh-teeb, the Hebrew Schools. Mohar  u-Mattan was concerned with facilitating marriages for the poor. A few gold pounds were made available to a poor couple, to permit them to buy the minimum household needs. Without the means to buy these articles, marriages could be delayed indefinitely. Sedaqa u-Marpeh, “Charity and Healing,” looked after the needy sick. It maintained a clinic and a couple of ‘hospital’ beds, the part-time cooperation of a trained doctor, as well as a drug dispensary. Mattan ba Seter was a fund which assisted the genteel poor who would not openly accept charity. A large Fund saw to the needs of the many poor families who were regularly allotted small sums to keep them from starving. A pittance was doled out, too, to dozens of poor rabbis, to allow them adequate Sabbath meals.

   There were many orphan children, numerous offspring of impoverished, undernourished parents who died young; outbreaks of tuberculosis or cholera, plague, typhus or diphtheria, were common in some earlier years. A sizeable orphanage was maintained, whose support was made barely adequate by appeals to Syrians living in New York, Manchester, Egypt and Buenos Aires. “Joe” Duek, a successful businessman, retired early to devote his time and efforts to the needs of “his” orphans.

Jewish Commerce and the Souks

   Aleppo’s merchants, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, are traditionally serious-minded men, in a city which lacks the heady, irresponsible effervescence of Damascus. Halab had less politics and less fanaticism. While Damascus is the town of the “Arab,” Aleppo is the city of the merchant.

   A large part of trade and commerce was dominated by the Jews of Aleppo. A small number were private bankers, called sir-eh-feen, ‘changers’, money-changers (sar-raf, sing.). In a country and city where its residents had no faith in paper money — their confidence was in dahab-at — gold pieces!. Some of their trade in silver and gold pieces was international in scope. Their activity and that of the many Jewish merchants dealing in textiles and a variety of other important commodities permitted them the acquisition of impressive fortunes, very discreetly held, and most ‘modestly’ spent.

   The merchants of Aleppo carry on their activities in the khans and souks. A khan is a caravanserai (a “palace”  for caravans). A souk is a trading street or lane, in some countries referred to as a “bazaar.” But not all souks are alike. Those who visited Jerusalem and its souk (“shouk,” in Hebrew) can little imagine the size and scope of Aleppo’s souks. The latter are roofed, and constitute a sizeable “town” extending for many miles; souks which are deemed more important than those of Damascus and Cairo. Off the principal souks are found the many khans. In several of them our Jewish merchants carried on their trade, principally in the huge Khan ii Gimrog — “the Customhouse Khan” and the vast Khan il Qassabiyeh — the “Khan of the Gold Threads.” There they maintained their offices, attached to which were their sizeable warehouses.  Each craft, in traditional fashion, is established in its own “street” and thus the visitor progresses from the leather workers to the smiths, to the merchants of silks and cotton cloths, or to the souks which sell spices, with their curious haunting fragrances. Aleppo has more than 150 hammams, ‘Turkish baths’, whose beauty and luxuriousness were highly praised.

Jewish Schools

   In Aleppo as in Damascus, in the unhurried and traditional life of old, few influences of the Age of Enlightenment had penetrated or were available to the people of the cities and to the Jewish population. Exceptions were the relatively small but important number of Jews who were able to attend the schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. With the self-esteem and self-satisfaction with which they lived, Jews (and Muslims), lacked the quest and thirst for secular education, which characterized the Jews of Europe. Jewish education, except for Alliance students, was in the ktehteeb (kittab sing.) elementary Hebrew schools, for boys. When boys “graduated” at about age thirteen “they went down to the souk” to seek gainful work. Children of families with some means remained in the Alliance until they achieved ‘senior’ graduation at ages 17 to 20.

   Traditional early Jewish schooling taught the male children prayers, and the Bible — which was taught in Hebrew of course, but with some chapters memory-instilled in formal (archaic- classical) Arabic translation, very likely the translation of Saadia Ha-Goan, achieved almost one thousand years ago. The boys became familiar with AinYaacob, a simple recounting of rabbinic aggadah (parables, legends), and other similar works. Most students, with their bar mizva, went out to seek work; but children of wealthy parents, if not at the Alliance school, continued their studies, going on to instructions in the Talmud and other rabbinic works, in batteh midrash, halls of study. They attended there for a few years, before going on to the serious business of gaining money, in order to permit them to marry and to establish their own families. Newlyweds without much means lived with “his” or “her” parents, depending on their relative means, for a few years. A few wealthy men with large homes maintained several married sons and their families in a patriarchal pattern, as a truly “extended family.”

   In addition to study of religious texts in the kittab, the traditional Hebrew elementary school, an hour or so every other day was devoted to learning to read and write Arabic and write the customary cursive Hebrew Script known as nus’alam (‘half a pen’) somewhat similar to Rashi script. This is a medieval form of the written Hebrew coming down to us in the Cairo Geniza fragments of the 10th to 14th century. The men of ancient Cairo, like present-day Jews in Aleppo and Damascus, used the Hebrew script to write letters whose texts were often in Arabic. The students, particularly those whose learning years were limited by the need to work, left the kittab without much ability to write either Hebrew or Arabic — but, were of course, able to read Hebrew printed texts.

   The overwhelming majority of both Jews and Muslims — particularly the latter, had no mastery of writing, although every Jewish child submitted to some schooling with the consequent ability to read (Hebrew), and perhaps to read and write some Arabic. Limited writing lessons introduced into “senior” classes in the kitttab left the boy little time to master writing before he left school at age thirteen.

The Alliance Israelite Universelle and other Schools

   Alliance Israelite students did acquire the ability to write French, some Arabic and Hebrew. They received a Western style education which included a few hours every week of Hebrew prayers and some Biblical texts. Very religious parents provided private tutors for additional religious studies. Otherwise, most Alliance education was in French. Advanced students who deviated by speaking any Arabic in the school were made to pay a small fine for infractions.

   The Paris-based Alliance had its European-trained Sepharadi Jewish teachers. “Sophisticated” and “not very religious,” they were looked at with some suspicion by the ultra Orthodox.  They had little regard for the religious element, although they were careful in Aleppo not to flout the orthodoxy of the community.  Despite some mild disapproval on the part of some unsophisticated Aleppo rabbis, parents continued to send their children to the Alliance. Commercial advancement was impossible without the education the Alliance Israelite was able to provide — in a community of merchants.

   The brightest Alliance graduates were offered tuition-free advanced study in the Alliance schools in and near Paris. These were teacher-training schools, which required graduates to take teaching posts for a period of several years at the discretion of the Alliance in any Near/Middle East country where the Alliance had schools. Not enough can be said, or is acknowledged, of the benefactions that the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools brought to the Jews of the whole of the Near and Middle East, Turkey and Greece, (and some Balkan countries). This blessing is taken for granted, even by many who gained immeasurably by attending. The Aleppo school was established in 1869 for boys, a school for girls was instituted few years later. The lives and careers of Alliance students were affected, to benefit them for many years, in the Near East, and when many went to distant lands and new endeavors.

   In later years some Jewish families eager for more intensive education for their male children enrolled them in the superior school operated by the monks, girls at the convent schools of the the Sisters — the nuns. Jewish and (the fewer) Muslim students there were excused from attendance at Mass and from classes in Christian theology.  In Aleppo, no Jewish children were ever known to have converted to Christianity. A recently-arrived reliable informant stated that in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, 20 percent of Jewish families had given their children such Catholic school education — families which were regarded as of ‘normal’ Jewish observance.

   With the installation of French Mandatory rule in 1922, the French authorities had established the Mission Lycee, the Laique, the secular school of high caliber. The curriculum began where the Alliance ended. Graduation from the Laique school enabled students to qualify for college or university education in Beirut or in Paris, for such as wished to pursue a career in law, medicine, or other professions. A few Jewish Laique graduates did so, to become lawyers and physicians.  

A-political Jewry

   Jews in Syria and in most other Ottoman countries were entirely a-political. They could not participate in partisan politics because of the delicacy of their situation in a Muslim world. Content to lead their separate community life without molestation, they were grateful for the privilege of being left to live in peace. Thus they did not have the urge of fervent Zionism, like the oppressed Jews in Czarist countries. As I witnessed in a 1933 visit to Aleppo, the Jewish community leaders were required by the Muslim authorities to publicly “disavow any sympathy with Zionism.”  It was only in the mid-to-late 1930’s that Zionism began to grow in Aleppo — although not to flourish. Zionist-influenced sports and cultural activities on a small scale began then, manifested by the “Maccabi Football (soccer) Club” and small Zionist discussion groups. Jewish recruiters from Palestine visited Aleppo in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s; they influenced a small number of young people to move to the Holy Land. The majority, however, were satisfied to continue their accustomed pattern of life, although they became increasingly uneasy. (Some Aleppoans and Damascenes who later located in Egypt and Lebanon tell us in their oral memoirs of bustling but discreet Zionist interest and activity there.

Beginning Migrations

   With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, some Aleppoan and Damascene Jews migrated to Egypt seeking better economic opportunities. Others, merchants, had gone to Manchester, England to represent their partnerships and family enterprises which had been importing English cotton goods through commission merchants.

   Toward the end of the 19th century, a few intrepid pioneers set out from Syria, seeking the opportunity to earn enough money to provide them with a small capital, and to return to their native cities. The incentives for travel were World Fairs, the Expositions in Paris in 1859 and the Columbian Exposition in 1893. At the end of the Expositions, alas, none had made their fortune. Some returned to their native city; others stayed on waiting for the next Fair — the Pan American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, or the St. Louis World’s Exposition of 1903. Except for one individual, none had settled in the United States before 1903, when several Aleppo and Damascus Jews decided to stay and make their home in New York.

The Nucleus of Mass Migration

Dire need in many Jewish families in Syria was aggravated by the several economic crises, worldwide depressions which affected Aleppo’s commerce as well. 1903 saw such slack in trade, to be repeated in 1907. Commercial houses went bankrupt or were compelled to discharge employees — who were left destitute, with no income or the means to secure food. Having heard of the few Jews who had migrated to the Americas, pioneers who wrote back reporting their ability to work and earn in New York, Mexico, and Buenos Aires, an emigration trend, a small tide set in, inducing men with hungry homes to leave their cherished families and friends and the accustomed orderly Jewish life, to seek a livelihood elsewhere. Most of them left with little more than the clothing on their backs to go to distant and strange lands where they arrived like deaf-mutes, unable to speak the new languages, to understand and to be understood. Since an alternative to the helpless misery of their life in Aleppo and Damascus presented itself, they had seized it, those with courage enough to embark on the unknown. Still another factor encouraged emigration.

   The “Young Turks” movement of army officers had forced the abdication in 1908 of the despot Sultan Abd il-Hamid II, who had clung to the politics of an earlier and antiquated era. Turkey was humiliated by defeats in several small wars, because of the archaic and thoroughly corrupt official government structure. With the overthrow of Abd il-Hamid the Army sought greater strength — and large numbers of soldiers. This was a calamity for Jews under Ottoman rule. Under the old regime Jews and other minorities were “not desired” to mingle with the Muslim soldiers; with the payment of a f’kehk, a “release,” a small tax, non-Muslims were considered to have made a substitute contribution. The need for a new and larger army ended this exemption; every able bodied ‘young’ man was made subject to conscription. As soon as conscription appeared imminent, Jewish men quietly disappeared, to make their way to a new and strange land.  

   Encouraged by the reports from New York from the early immigrants who were sending money to their impoverished families, many more made their way to New York’s Lower East Side.  Buenos Aires, Mexico, and New York were equally known in Damascus and Aleppo as the “goal” for those compelled to emigrate. (Some who were denied entry at Ellis Island also turned to Argentina or to Mexico.) The years 1908-1913 saw the nucleus of a Syrian community in Mexico as well as in Buenos Aires and New York.  

When Worlds Collide[1]: Why Observant Student Teachers Refuse to Teach in the Mamlachti Dati School System?

     During the past several years as an educator in the fields of Tanakh and Jewish studies, I have come across a prevalent and disturbing phenomenon: most of the religiously observant student teachers whom I have met  are not at all  interested in teaching in the mamlakhti-dati school system (the religious public school system in Israel). When the time comes for them to decide on a professional placement, they apply to secular schools, or to the new model of specialized dati-hiloni schools (religious/secular schools), or to pluralistic religious schools. Several years ago, as the head of the Tanakh department of such an experimental dati-hiloni high school, I found that more than half of the Jewish studies faculty was comprised of incredibly dedicated and talented religious young people. When I asked them to describe the thought process that brought them to an experimental framework, (in our case, a particularly demanding one), the majority of them admitted to never having even considered Mamad (religious public school system) as a professional option, for reasons that will be discussed in this paper. Some had tried to teach in the Mamad system and had given up.

     Why is this true?  Why are these bright, highly motivated, religiously observant young people, who are extremely knowledgeable in both Jewish and general studies, opting out of the mamlakhti-dati school system?  And if they are opting out, then who is teaching our children?

     In this article I would like to address these questions by relating several stories that reflect the changes that are taking place in the Mamad schools and in the teachers colleges. I want to examine how and why these changes, which are occurring in both the formal and informal frameworks of the Mamad, are alienating many young, committed and engaged religious student teachers out of its educational system. In addition, I would like to suggest conceptual and practical changes to improve an ever worsening situation.

Observations from the Field: Primary School

A Story about Matisse

     When our daughter was in fifth grade at the local Mamad (religious public school), she decided to do her personal project on Matisse. We went to do research at the Israel Museum art library and spent several hours reading his biography and examining books of Matisse’s paintings.  Some weeks later I bumped into the teacher in the school hall, and couldn’t resist asking her what she thought of my daughter’s project. Well, she said hesitating, it was a bit skimpy. Skimpy?!  I cried in disbelief. She’s in fifth grade. She could have chosen “Water” or “Color” or “Why is the Sky Blue?” Instead she picked a difficult topic and handed in work she did herself. What do you mean by skimpy? Well, she said quietly, the truth is… I have never heard of Matisse.

     After recovering from the sad implications of this story, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions: Why is a person with so little intellectual curiosity, or basic professional self-respect, hired to teach school children? Once hired, why are such teachers maintained?

     The status of teacher knowledge in the secular primary schools is, unfortunately, not much better than that of the teachers in the Mamad system. It is unlikely, however, for a teacher in a secular school never to have heard of Matisse, implausible that she would not refer to an encyclopedia while grading her student’s work, and inconceivable that she would look the student’s parent directly in the eye and say: “I have never heard of Matisse."

     Why are so many Mamad teachers like this, particularly--but not exclusively--in the younger grades?  And why does a teacher in the Mamad system feel safe in doing this?  The answers are not pleasant. One: Matisse was not Jewish.  [In the eyes of the narrowly Orthodox] non-Jews don’t count.  Two: Matisse was an artist. Art is irrelevant.  If the fifth grader’s paper had been a biography of a great rabbinic sage, the teacher would certainly have done her homework.  Three: Matisse painted nudes. Nudity is immodest and immodesty is the cardinal sin, greater than ignorance and intolerance (more on this later). In fact, the teacher had asked my daughter to remove one of Matisse’s abstract line drawings of a nude from the paper. The principal insisted that it stay in. Poor Matisse, he never had a chance.                                 

     So why is this person permitted to teach our children?

     The answer lies in the ever changing face of the Mamad teacher. Whereas once the Mamad teacher and principal were observant Jews who prided themselves on their abilty to combine love of Torah with love of all knowledge, today more and more Mamad teachers pride themselves on their insularity, and yes, their ignorance of all things not Jewish.

     I would like to underscore this point with 3 stories from my recent experience in Mamad teachers colleges.

Observations from the Field of Teacher Training

     Recently, I taught at a well-respected college for primary school educators, considered for years a pillar of dati leumi (religious Zionist) Judaism. For administrative reasons, the college hosts students from an influential hareidi –leumi midrasha (hareidi Zionist school) who pursue their B. ED at the college. They are excellent students, and their influence on the school is great—as are their demands.

Feminist Research

     Early on in the semester, in a course on pedagogy, I referred to a research study by feminist scholars on a gender related educational issue. After class, some of the students approached to further discuss my conclusions, but questioned my reference to feminist scholarship. 

     That night, I received a call from a faculty representative from the midrasha.  His official job was liaison between the midrasha and the seminar; his unofficial job was to be a watchdog for religiosity. He asked that I meet him the next day in his office allotted to him by the college.

      I was told the following: academic research is not important to us. Please avoid referring to it. Feminist research is anathema to us. If you happen to teach Tanakh, do not teach comparative parshanut a la Nechama Leibowitz. We don’t evaluate the great parshanim (classic rabbinic Bible commentators) - they are all equally great. We don’t compare and contrast. Who are we, after all?

A Trip to London

     Wanting to prevent further such confrontations, I avoided all areas of controversy--not my natural inclination. During a class exercise demonstrating varying approaches to planning, I asked my students to plan a trip to London. I noticed one pair sitting and not working. I approached to ask if they needed help. The following conversation ensued.

We have never been to London.

OK, I said, make believe.

We don’t want to go to London.

Ok. I said, (thinking perhaps that they were Anglophobic). How about Paris?

We don’t want to go to Paris either.

OK. Where do you want to go?

They thought for a moment and said, To the Golan.

Literary Analysis

     Soon after, I began teaching at another dati leumi College intended for junior high and high school educators, also a prominent institution in dati leumi education.  The school was eager to develop into an Israeli model of Yeshiva University, a degree granting religious university. In this vein, the school held a half day conference on the topic of literary approaches to teaching Tanakh. All the presenters were religiously observant. I delivered a paper on the topic of thematic reading. When I returned to class, I found my normally compliant students up in arms. How could I apply literary tools to the reading of Tanakh? Tanakh is a sacred book, not literature.  It is forbidden to apply literary text analysis to the Torah.

     This was compartmentalization at its best. Literary analysis, a gentler cousin of Biblical criticism, has a way of unnerving some religious people.  The students’ instincts were right; this material is sensitive and troubling. But what struck me most was the fear, a near panic, at what they had heard, and a refusal to have a discussion.  In a house of learning, the response to ideas that challenge our assumptions cannot be flight or fear. That is the hareidi way; it is not meant to be the approach of classical dati leumi education. In addition, these were students preparing for high school teaching. Certainly the day would come when one of their students would question them on this topic. What will their response be?  

     The colleges and students alluded to are not marginal or atypical. They serve as major feeders of teachers to the Mamad school system.  Those students are the teachers of our children today.  

     What the above stories have in common is that they all reflect the growing influence of the hareidi ideologies on Mamad education via hareidi-leumi teachers and attitudes: lack of curiosity bordering on disdain  for all things not Jewish; distrust of academia--even while earning an academic degree; distaste for feminism- even while benefiting from the contribution of feminist activism to the equality of women in the workplace; fear of critical thinking; refusal to recognize and grapple with issues of modernity and post-modernist humanist thought; extensive use of  the advances of modern research in areas of medicine and technology, along with an unwillingness to admit or to acknowledge the central role of the university in bringing about these advances.   

     The hareidi-leumi worldview, while clearly one I do not share, has the right to its input into the religious and political discourse of the State of Israel. But the legitimate place for the dissemination of its values is within its own schools and communities. The dati leumi school system, once the pride and joy of the dati leumi world, is emptying at a frightening rate, because the liberal dati leumi establishment refuses to acknowledge that, despite a shared commitment to the observance of (certain) mitzvoth and to the state of Israel, what divides us is greater than what unites us.

     On Sukkot 2005, Ne’emanei Torah V’Avodah hosted a joint conference with Edah,[2] an American organization associated with religious Zionism and modern Orthodoxy.[3] In a keynote address, Rabbi Saul Berman delineated the major ideological issues on which the hareidi world and the modern Orthodox world differ: pluralism/tolerance, the religious meaning of Medinat Israel, Jew and Gentile, da’at Torah, Torah u’maddah, humrah, women in halakha, outreach, and activism. On the majority of the issues listed, the hareidi- leumi attitude is closer to the hareidi attitude than to the dati leumi attitude. [4] Aside from the approach towards the State, we differ on the central, most significant issues of modern Jewish life.

     These ideological differences weigh heavily upon the young students with whom I have contact. Humanistic in their orientation and pluralist in their outlook, they do not want to teach in the Mamad schools, because they do not want to instill values that are not theirs. They all (women and men) have academic degrees, some in Bible and in Talmud, as well as in literature, history, music, and art. They embrace the world because it is awesome, and they are curious. They cannot teach honestly without alluding to all that they know, nor do they want to.

     These dati students have been to China and India, some even to London! They believe Jews are special, but they don’t believe that everyone else is devoid of values. They go to concerts, they know who Matisse is, and they know a thing or two about wine. The men know how to cook… and most of the women wear slacks.

     They are rigorous in their thinking, but not rigid in their outlook. They struggle to find the interface--often through reexamination of religious sources--between the yeshiva/midrasha and the university, between Levinas and dati leumi, shiurim and shira, Carlbach and Kleinstein. Their challenge is to make these worlds overlap, not to compartmentalize them.

They represent the oft alluded line between dati and leumi, between modern and Orthodox. These are the students who should be teaching our children. Most of them will not.

The Dress Code

     A disturbing corollary of hareidi- leumi influence that threatens the caliber of teachers in the dati leumi schools system is the growing obsession with the dress code relating to women. Part of the reason why the teacher in the Matisse story continues to teach in our schools is because she looks the part.  She and hundreds like her are teaching in our schools, despite the fact that they may be inferior teachers, because her elbows are covered, her skirts are long, and in the case of married women, her head is covered.   

     Over the past 10-15 years, the dati-leumi establishment has become obsessed with the dress code of women. Prominent rabbis write outrageous articles measuring centimeters on the neck and on the arms. While the suitability of male teachers is measured in how much they know and the quality of their prayer, in the case of women, the skill of pious dressing can override the skills of good teaching.

     Modesty is a significant tenet of Jewish life, but we have begun to lose all sense of proportion. When appearance is secondary to talent in a school system, the big losers are the children. 

     A case in point: Several years ago a new Dati Leumi academic school opened in our neighborhood to address the needs of our predominantly liberal dati-leumi population. Most of the parents, working people, professionals and academics, were eager for a superior local school for their children that could compete with excellent schools outside the neighborhood. The girls’ school, however, was headed in a different direction. From its inception, it insisted that homeroom teachers wear head coverings at all times, that is, outside of school as well as in. All non- homeroom teachers, that is, art, history, math, were requested to wear a head covering in school,  even if they didn’t do so in their personal lives. Thus, with one swift religious stringency, the eagerly awaited alternative dati-leumi school committed to excellence, disqualified all outstanding religious teachers who didn’t "look the look.”[5]  While the boys' school, instituted at the same time, searched for the "best and the brightest," the girls’ school front line concern was attire.  Not only did the students have a dress code, so did the teachers.

     It is not within the scope of this paper to discuss the halakhic ins and outs of these dress demands.  The point of emphasis here is that this stringent dress code does not reflect the norms or the values of the religiously observant parent body.  The vast majority of the mothers in this school do not cover their hair and many wear slacks. At the opening ceremony of the school the number of mothers counted with head coverings was 10 out of 150! Thus the unstated message conveyed to girls is that their mothers are not qualified to be their religious role models. [6] 

     The ever increasing insistence on a dress code for teachers is another reasons my religious students avoid teaching in the Mamad system. It is important to note that some of my married dati students do in fact wear head coverings, but some do not. Some wear head coverings and slacks and want to continue to do so, not because they are rebellious, but because slacks are comfortable and efficient. These young women are halakhically committed, and halakhically informed, many are well versed in Talmudic texts. They know that the ban on slacks is a sociological issue, not a halakhic one[7], and that head covering has become the sociological equivalent of a kippah only recently.  Graduates of midrashot and yeshivot, they spend countless hours examining the sources. Thoughtful and honest, they are looking for ways to be true to halakha and true to themselves.

     Thus these young dati-leumi teachers opt for schools that will let them wear what feels comfortable, while retaining their personal sense of modesty;  schools that will focus on their thinking abilities, their pedagogic skills,  and their ability to touch the hearts and minds of their students. They are not going to the Mamad system.

     Yet, aren’t these the very teachers we want teaching in our schools? 

Conclusion

     The Mamad school system has lost its sense of identity; it is no longer responsive to the needs of its community.  The vacuum created is being filled by ideologies that do not reflect the vision and the values of the majority of the pupils’ homes and communities. By allowing vast hareidi leumi influence on our schools, we abrogate our responsibility to our own community. Not only are young teachers leaving the system, so are the children. 

     Talented teachers with a more embracing attitude to the modern world as well as to its challenges will find work elsewhere, in the secular public school system and in other frameworks mentioned in the opening of this paper. But who will teach the thousands of children from liberal dati leumi homes? For now, the majority of dati leumi parents are not looking for alternative frameworks, although with each passing year, more and more are doing so. They are still eager for a neighborhood school that reflects their combined commitment to Torah and general wisdom, in the broadest sense of the word. 

     In the final analysis, it is the teachers who make a school. In order for children to return to the Mamad system, we need to make spiritual room for the many talented young religious teachers who are grappling with the same issues as the families,  teachers whose intricate approach to the world is similar to that of their students.

A Practical Suggestion for Change 

     The past few years has seen the development of several excellent academic programs throughout Israel which support promising young students financially in exchange for a commitment to teach Jewish studies in the religious public school system for a stipulated number of years.  I would like to see the creation of similar programs that would prepare bright and motivated religious university students for teaching in the Mamad system. In exchange for tuition and financial support, perhaps by the religious branch of the Ministry of Education, as well as private donors committed to liberal religious values, they would be asked to commit to several years of teaching in the Mamad.

      In addition to the regular courses in disciplinary knowledge and in pedagogy, there would be classes and workshops devoted to issues such as: the implications of the past 100 years’ of Biblical research; recent Talmud research; issues related to women; national service; conflicts arising between Synagogue and State; democracy and Judaism; attitude toward non-religious Jews, and so much more. As of now, most of these issues are discussed only in informal youth programs like Gesher. Their place is in the schools.

     In order to accomplish this, we need teachers who are not afraid.

     There are many options for such a program of study, worthy of a separate paper. But in order for such a program to be effective, there needs to be more than specialized education for students. Just as the general public school system is reevaluating its attitude toward Jewish studies and therefore training teachers to spearhead that movement, so does the dati leumi school system need to do some serious self- reflection. Only then will they be able to bring back young dati teachers who think out of the box, who are committed to halakha and to academic research, who are rethinking old approaches--not rejecting them--who love children, love knowledge, and embrace the world.  

Or ha-Hayyim: Creativity, Tradition and Mysticism in the Torah Commentary of R. Hayyim ibn Attar

By: Ariel Evan Mayse[i]

God’s Torah lay written before me; it awakened me and gave me expression. It illuminated my soul in the sweetest of lights, and my soul felt as if she had seen its secrets. She will eat and become sated of its savory delights, though many remain yet untasted; in the light of the countenance of the living King.

                                                           - R. Hayyim ibn Attar, Hakdamat ha-Rav ha-Mehaber

            A few years ago a friend of mine spent the weekend in a Hasidic enclave in upstate New York. When he entered the beit midrash early Shabbat morning, he noticed a young Hasid poring over the Or ha-Hayyim commentary on the Torah with obvious fervor and reverence. My friend walked over and asked why he had chosen to learn a Sephardic Torah commentary at this time, since many Hasidim have the custom of studying Hasidic books of mystical thought before the morning prayers. With surprise and horror, the lad looked up and immediately replied: Neyn! Vos zogstu?! Dos iz a khasidishe seyfer! [No! What do you mean?! This is a Hasidic book!]

This story is indicative of the great affection felt for R. Hayyim ben Moshe ibn Attar (1696-1743) even outside of the immediate Sephardic world.[ii] This scion of the Moroccan Jewish community penned important works in both halakha and aggada, but the commentary on the Torah entitled Or ha-Hayyim is undoubtedly his most influential book.[iii] It was originally published in 1742, alongside the traditional triad of biblical text, Rashi, and Onkelos’ translation, and within a few decades had captured a relatively large readership among among European Jewish communities. Or ha-Hayyim rose from popular to canonical status when it became the most recent commentary to be included in many standard printings of the Mikra’ot Gedolot, some of which have since replaced the works of classical Rishonim with additional supercommentaries to Or ha-Hayyim itself.

            R. Hayyim’s commentary is a demanding but extremely rewarding study. His explanations are conceptually complicated, stylistically perplexing, and often more verbose than any of the other commentaries on the page.  Yet there is a depth and profundity in his words that emerges from amidst their difficulty. As I hope to demonstrate, at the core of R. Hayyim’s commentary stands a beautiful double helix of two seamlessly integrated approaches to interpreting the Torah: the search for the verses’ plain-sense on one hand, and the quest for their deeper mystical significance on the other. R. Hayyim has outspoken affection for peshat and often explains verses according to their plain-sense, contextual and literal meaning. However, his commentary is also a tremendous repository of creative mystical thought, informed by the kabbalistic tradition but not bound to the teachings of any particular school. While for some exegetes these goals have proven mutually exclusive, R. Hayyim maintained that both a verse’s peshat and its mystical significance are equally important and true. The primary goal of this study is to bring into sharper focus several of the most important mystical themes of his commentary, and to offer a few remarks on their potential relevance to contemporary Jewish conversations.[iv]

R. Hayyim ibn Attar was born in 1696 in Salé, Morocco, into an illustrious family descended from Spanish exiles.[v] The young R. Hayyim was educated in the traditional manner by his grandfather, but his early years were peripatetic and he was often forced to move from city to city on family business or to escape persecution. After marrying into a wealthy family that was distantly related, R. Hayyim devoted himself entirely to his studies for a number of years. Yet difficult times returned with the death of his father-in-law in the early 1720s. Without patronage, the combined hardships of economic crises, plagues and famines forced R. Hayyim into a series of relocations that eventually led him to Jerusalem.

R. Hayyim moved first to Fes, followed by a brief stay in Algiers, and then settled in Leghorn, where he once again found monetary support and made his home for several years.  There R. Hayyim began to teach Torah publicly and served as a communal leader, but by 1740 he and a small number of his close friends and students had resolved to immigrate to Israel in order to establish a new yeshiva. They disembarked in Acre in 1741, where they spent a full year before the epidemics in central Eretz Yisrael abated. After moving to Jerusalem the group founded the yeshiva Kenesset Yisrael, whose  students included the renowned polymath R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai (the Hida, 1724-1806). R. Hayyim ibn Attar died in 1743, and was subsequently interred on the Mount of Olives. The synagogue named for him in the Old City of Jerusalem is still an active place of worship, and to this day R. Hayyim’s literary legacy remains quite influential in many religious circles.

Creativity, Tradition, and the Nature of Torah

            Before embarking on our exploration of the mystical aspects of Or ha-Hayyim, briefly examining two related issues will help us clarify a more fundamental question: how R. Hayyim understood the role and limits of biblical interpretation. First, examining his attitude toward the classical commentators will demonstrate to what extent he felt himself at creative liberty to offer interpretations, both mystical and plain-sense, that contrast those adduced by earlier sages. Second, illustrating R. Hayyim’s conception of the nature of the Torah itself will reveal the underlying principles upon which his interpretive approach is based. These two questions were first analyzed in an enlightening book in Hebrew by the late Professor Elazar Touitou, yet since to my knowledge his important findings have never been made available in English, nor have they been subsequently challenged or developed, it will surely be of worth to present and expand upon them here.

R. Hayyim was a latecomer to the stage of Jewish biblical interpretation. By the early eighteenth century the “golden age” of exegesis by Western European Rishonim had long since ended. R. Hayyim is counted amongst the Sephardic Aharonim, whose literary works represent a vastly different stage of Jewish history. They wrote in a time after the major centers of learning in Spain had been destroyed and their leaders exiled to Christian Europe, North Africa, and Eretz Yisrael, forever transforming the intellectual centers of gravity of the Jewish world. Kabbalah, specifically the Zohar and later the works of R. Isaac Luria (d. 1572), had overtaken philosophy as the only other primary focus of Jewish study in the Sephardic Diaspora other than the Talmud itself, thus ending a centuries-long debate over the merits and demerits of rationalism and mysticism. The second half of the seventeenth century witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of the false messiah Shabbatai Tzevi, whose conversion to Islam left much world Jewry in shambles. Aharonim are generally thought of as far less daring than their early medieval counterparts, and this deferential shift in attitude is often attributed to the political and geographic turbulence. However, as we shall see, R. Hayyim’s commentary is bold and innovative in a manner largely uncharacteristic of this period. He was unafraid of disputing the interpretations of authorities that predated him, even those articulated by the revered Talmudic sages themselves.

            R. Hayyim notes that Hazal frequently offer homiletical (derash) interpretations of verses, which often come at the expense of the plain-sense meaning of the text. In some instances he agrees with their derashot and comments upon the verse in accord with their reading.[vi] However, in many cases R. Hayyim insists that the verse must be understood according to its peshat despite the Sages’ homiletical interpretation; though he does not deny the  legitimacy of their derashot, he presents an alternative reading that conforms to the plain-sense of the passage.[vii] R. Hayyim was fiercely committed to rabbinic legal norms, and in one case writes that he is unwilling to offer an otherwise valid interpretation that conflicted with halakha.[viii] Yet he reminds his reader that even Hazal agreed that the Torah would be interpreted in many different ways in the future,[ix] and as long as the law remains unchanged, students of biblical exegesis have nearly unlimited freedom.[x]

            R. Hayyim’s stance toward the classical medieval commentators is similarly complex. Despite having been deeply influenced by Rashi’s commentary, R. Hayyim gently disagrees with him on linguistic grounds, for misunderstanding statements of Hazal, and for giving original interpretations not in line with the peshat.[xi] In some cases R. Hayyim agrees with Abraham Ibn Ezra, while elsewhere challenging his reading of a verse; at times  R. Hayyim Ibn Ezra's opinion altogether.[xii] The same is true of his attitude toward Ramban, even though the latter's commentary includes a combination of peshat and Kabbalah not dissimilar to R. Hayyim's own style.[xiii] However, perhaps most striking of all is the relative infrequency of his engagement with the works of the Rishonim. Hoping to avoid plagiarism of any kind, he claims to have closed their books before sitting down to write his independent commentary, selectively citing earlier authorities from memory.[xiv] Only later did he compare his text to theirs, occasionally using their words to support his interpretation or contrasting earlier traditions with his own understanding of the verse.[xv]

We might thus characterize R. Hayyim ibn Attar’s attitude toward earlier interpreters as one of intermittent contradiction, or to be more precise, respectful contradistinction. While he repudiates their remarks when he deems them insufficient or not in keeping with the plain-sense of the verse, he does not deny the validity of their interpretations, nor does he attack them with any of the invectives wielded by the Rishonim against one another. R. Hayyim’s commentary itself offers a prepossessing blend of different homiletic styles, and it is immediately clear that he believes in no single correct explanation of a verse to which all readers must be obeisant. He often offers multiple interpretations of a single passage, occasionally deriving several dozen possible and correct meanings. This alone sets him apart from many of the earlier medieval commentators, with Ramban’s commentary the possible exception.

            R. Hayyim asserts that the Torah has myriad layers of meaning, and careful study of its polysemous words can yield any number of valid interpretations.[xvi] R. Hayyim  invokes the adage commonly found in mystical literature and explains that each of the four primary modes of interpreting the Torah (peshat, remez, derash, sod) corresponds to one of the kabbalistic worlds (asiya, beriya, yetzira, atzilut).[xvii] Elsewhere he writes that the Torah itself has an outer, plain-sense meaning, which surrounds and embodies its deeper mystical dimension (penimiyut).[xviii] This description does not simply proscribe how a reader should interpret the biblical text, but describes the very nature of the Torah itself. Furthermore, many intricacies of halakha were passed down as oral traditions, connected to the biblical text but found nowhere explicitly in its words, and the same is true of its kabbalistic significance. The Torah alludes to deeper mysteries that cannot be captured in writing and must be transmitted from student to teacher. Some of these are outside of the boundaries of language and are comprehensible through experience alone.[xix] In sum, while other exegetes have assumed that peshat and penimiyut are mutually exclusive ends of a spectrum, R. Hayyim’s belief that the Torah is multi-faceted and thus able to yield many coterminous explanations is the bedrock of his mystical approach to interpreting the biblical text.[xx]

Mysticism and Kabbalah

            R. Hayyim’s North African community retained much of the peshat sensibility beloved by the Andalusian Rishonim.[xxi] By the early eighteenth century this intellectual milieu was steeped in Kabbalah as well, and by R. Hayyim's time mystical approaches to interpreting the Torah coexisted alongside the quest for its plain-sense meaning. It is thus unsurprising that in addition to establishing peshat, Or ha-Hayyim's other raison d’être is to explain the mystical significance of the Torah’s words. As noted above, R. Hayyim does not see his mystical interpretations as necessarily contradicting the biblical text’s plain-sense meaning, but rather amplifying and often complementing it.[xxii] He often refers to this dimension of his exegesis as remez (allusion) or sod (secret), but from his commentary it is immediately apparent that R. Hayyim did not feel constrained to the symbols of one theosophical system alone. Instead, he synthesized different threads of earlier kabbalistic traditions and wove them together into a tapestry of mystical interpretation not beholden to any single tradition; this is a departure from the rather structured Kabbalah included in the commentaries of Ibn Ezra, Ramban, and Menahem Recanati (d. 1310). Indeed, though mystical ideas permeate nearly every page of his commentary, much of its depth is accessible to those with even an elementary background in Kabbalah.

R. Hayyim seems to have drawn the majority of his kabbalistic inspiration from the Zohar, which he assumes dates back to the early centuries CE. Sometimes he cites its passages as teachings of Hazal, others as words of the holy Tanna Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai,[xxiii] and quotes the Zohar by name in several dozens of passages.[xxiv] By contrast, R. Hayyim refers directly to the teachings of R. Isaac Luria a handful of times,[xxv] and only occasionally cites an oral or written tradition received in the great kabbalist’s name.[xxvi] While R. Hayyim refers to Lurianic ideas more subtly in other places, he never employs such specific keywords as tzimtzum or partzufim, and it is reasonably clear that his kabbalistic framework was  primarily non-Lurianic. This is rather surprising given that Luria’s was the dominant mystical voice in seventeenth and eighteenth century Jewish mystical discourse. Perhaps this trepidation reflects fears of association with the Sabbatian heresy based on a dangerous yet creative rereading of Lurianic Kabbalah. In a few allusive comments R. Hayyim expressed apprehension about revealing too much; he steadied his pen and refrained from writing down secrets that he felt could not be revealed to a popular audience.[xxvii] However, it is also possible R. Hayyim had limited primary-source exposure to the more theoretical complexities of Lurianic Kabbalah while writing the majority of his commentary.

            While the precise origins of his mystical thought require further clarification, it is indisputable that R. Hayyim's cosmology was deeply influenced by medieval Kabbalah.  In his description the spiritual plane and the physical world are not entirely distinct realms, and while there is a perceptible boundary between the human and divine spheres, a bifurcated division between “spiritual” and “corporeal” is anathema to his worldview. R. Hayyim understood the physical world as an intertwined composite of material and spiritual. All corporeal phenomena are animated by a core of divine energy; each aspect of existence is infused with an essential element of divinity, from the highest spiritual worlds to objects that which we perceive as fundamentally inanimate, .[xxviii] Mankind’s sins only have the capacity to lessen the flow of this divine energy, but they can never truly obstruct it. Without exception, all reality is sustained by God’s effluence.[xxix]

            This theme of divine immanence is developed throughout Or ha-Hayyim, but R. Hayyim treats it most fully in his comments on the creation narrative. To explain the seeming banality of the verse, “The heavens and the earth were completed in all their array” (Gen. 2:1), he writes:

We were at a loss as to what this verse is supposed to teach us, but its intention seems in accord with what the Sages taught, “God is the place of the world” (Bereshit Rabbah, 68:9). We find mentioned [in Scripture] that He also permeates the world, as it says, “the world is full of His glory” (Is. 6:3). Hence, the light of the blessed One both surrounds the world and is its inner essence.  

We must understand, why did God do things in this way? I received an oral tradition from the elder scholars of Torah that God created the world as a sphere so that it could continue to exist, since His powers are equally distributed. This should be explained as follows: Know that no yearning could be sweeter, dearer, more precious, beloved or desired amongst the created beings, especially their inner spiritual elements that recognize and know the light of God, than cleaving to the blessed One’s illumination. The vital core [of all creation] pines for Him, striving to apprehend the radiance of His light in some small way, craning to catch a glimpse of God’s pleasantness.

Know also that God imbued an element of illuminated wisdom and discernment in every aspect of creation, each according to its nature. Creatures that can speak and animals that cannot, as well as plants and minerals, all have the capacity to know their Maker in their own way….

… His sweet and yearned for light surrounds the spheres of the world uniformly, and each and every spot in the world’s rotation ignites the burning desire to draw close to the Tree of Longing equally…

… For this reason the world exists within the light of the Creator; His light fills the physical and surrounds it as well. The world continues to endure because of its great longing for God. [The word for “completion” used in] “The heavens and the earth were completed (va-yekhulu) in all their array” should be understood along the lines of “my soul longs and desires” (kaleta, Ps. 84:3). This is what truly completed and sustains creation.[xxx]

For R. Hayyim, this verse alludes to several important spiritual truths. First, God’s simultaneous immanence and transcendence may seem paradoxical, but it is precisely this tension that grants the physical world its perpetuation. The generative longing of creation for a transcendent God is made possible by their innate divine quality, the indwelling of a divine spark that sustains the world. Second, R. Hayyim believes in the capacity of all finite created beings to know God, albeit to varying degrees. The Divine remains beyond the absolute grasp of any of His creations, but the inner spiritual quality hidden within the physical means that everything has an unseverable capacity for connecting to the Divine.

            R. Hayyim demonstrates remarkable creativity and sensitivity in his ability to find mystical significance in the biblical text. In many cases these deeper messages actually represent his understanding of the plain-sense meaning of a verse, and do not come at the exclusion of the peshat he so values. For example, R. Hayyim connects the notion of a world infused with divine energy with the initial Shabbat of the creation story:

God created the soul (nefesh) of the world on the Sabbath day. This is the deeper meaning of the verse: “And on the seventh day He rested (shavat) and infused (va-yinafash)” (Ex. 31:17). From this the Sages’ taught that the additional soul mourns when the Sabbath departs (b. Beitza 16a), but theirs is only a homiletical interpretation… the plain-sense of the verse is that… “and infused” refers to God’s vital effluence pouring into all created beings, since before Shabbat everything lacked a soul.[xxxi]

R. Hayyim does not read va-yinafash as a reflexive description of God desisting from formative work, as it is often understood. Instead, his believes that its plain-sense meaning is an active verb demonstrating that God instilled a necessary current of metaphysical energy into the world through the creation of Shabbat.

            R. Hayyim adds that the deep yearning and love felt for God by His creations is entirely mutual. Identifying an interesting parallel between the words va-yekhulu in Gen. 2:1 and va-yekhal (“and God finished”) in the following verse, he comments:

Just above I translated the word va-yekhulu as referring to longing and desire, and we should translate the present [phrase] va-yekhal Elokim along the same lines, in accord with the verse, “You will long for the works of Your hands” (Job 14:15)… The Lord yearned for and desired His world, and thus through the Seventh Day the world is sustained…[xxxii]

The love between God and the physical world is thus reciprocal, cementing the bond between the created world and the Divine. However, R. Hayyim often focuses on an expression of God’s love that is more particularistic: His exceptional affection for the Jewish people. It was this love for Israel and His burning desire to wed them to the Torah that led to their redemption from Egypt. The delay of three months before reaching Mt. Sinai gave the Jews time to prepare themselves, as a bridegroom must during the period of his engagement. From God’s perspective, the ideal would have been to deliver them to the wedding canopy immediately.[xxxiii]

            Another prominent mystical theme found in Or ha-Hayyim is the mandate to redeem the “sparks of holiness” trapped within the physical world. This idea is closely related to God’s sustaining of  physical existence by the reinfusion the world with divine energy. However, the relationship between the sparks and corporeal realm differs in one important respect: the sparks also reflect the inherent brokenness of the world and its partial disunity from God. This condition began with the edenic sin and has only been exacerbated by mankind’s subsequent iniquity. The “husks” of physical reality that surround the sparks are described in distinctly negative terms:

Because of our abundant sins, many sparks of holiness are now bound within the husks, and … evil and good are all mixed together. For this reason one must separate the good from the bad, and the light from the darkness in which it has become entangled. However, it is known that the husks derive their vitality from holiness itself, and without this they would have no life force. Therefore, when God separates the light, which is the holiness, the discarded evil is left it without any place from which receive sustenance and will be nullified all on its own… this is similar to chopping down a tree and removing it from the very roots which give it life; it will become dried out and wither.[xxxiv]

Only a few decades later Hasidism would employ the vocabulary of the sparks to articulate an optimistic view of engaging with physical world, and as we have seen, in many cases R. Hayyim displays a similarly positive outlook. However, in others R. Hayyim tends more toward the dualism commonly found in the medieval kabbalistic tradition, which opposes coarse physicality with sublime spirit. Even the most impure corporeal matter is sustained by the holy sparks, but it cannot endure once we achieve the goal of returning them to their Source.[xxxv]  

            The sparks of holiness were originally scattered because of mankind’s sin, and R. Hayyim maintains that it is the task of the Jewish people to gather the sparks and remove them from the husks that surround them. He writes:

Primordial Adam was the tree upon which all holy souls were affixed, including all that had entered the world from its inception and all that ever will. When Adam sinned, [the side of] evil became much stronger and took countless [souls] captive. Since becoming a nation God’s [chosen] people have constantly striven to separate and remove them from whence they were swallowed up. They do this by means of the font of holiness that God planted in our midst: the Torah and mitzvoth.[xxxvi]

Mankind’s sin plunged the physical world into a state of fracture. The holy aspects within it, referred to alternatively as sparks, souls, and even aspects of God Himself, are now concealed behind veils of impurity.[xxxvii] However, the picture is not so bleak and all is not lost. Israel is charged with redeeming the trapped sparks and “returning them to a state of complete unity” through immersion in Torah study and performing their religious obligations with fervor and intensity.[xxxviii] This capacity is what defines Jewish people as a “nation of priests.”[xxxix] Even their most mundane actions are also reframed as spiritual activities; that we could have been created without the need for physical sustenance proves that eating and drinking must serve the higher purpose of uplifting the sparks trapped within the food.[xl] It was in order to fulfill this very responsibility that the Jewish people were dispersed across the world. Israel was thrust into exile in part because of their sins, but more importantly, they were they enjoined with task of uplifting the scattered sparks and freeing them from their corporeal prisons.[xli]

            R. Hayyim devotes very little space to the complicated and often obscure symbolism that characterized earlier Jewish mystical thought. He rarely refers to the sefirot by name, and I was able to find only one instance in which the term “sefira” itself appears in Or ha-Hayyim.[xlii] However, leaving the technical vocabulary of Lurianic Kabbalah and the Zohar does not mean that R. Hayyim shies away from a mystical conception of God. He discusses the Divine indwelling in the physical world (shekhina) at great length. For R. Hayyim, the shekhina is not the hypostatic entity conceived of in medieval Kabbalah, nor is it simply an abstract attribute of the Godhead. Instead, he describes the shekhina as a finite (if incorporeal) instantiation of God, fully united with Him but within the ken of physical beings and their limited faculties.[xliii] Israel met the shekhina on Mt. Sinai,[xliv] and it is with this the aspect of God that the angels can interact.[xlv] He notes that there are an infinite number of gradations of the indwelling of the shekhina. One particularly intense manifestation the can only be revealed to the fullest assembly of 600,000 people,[xlvi] but to a lesser degree God’s immanent presence may be found in the synagogue, the study hall, and with all who learn Torah together.[xlvii] Indeed, each Jewish individual can be transformed into a dwelling for the shekhina through performing the mitzvoth and  cultivating a sense of awe of the Divine [xlviii]

It should come as no surprise, then, that R. Hayyim sees mankind as the pinnacle and purpose of creation.[xlix] The unique qualities of the human soul connect them to the Divine in a manner that far exceeds the fundamental ability of all creations to recognize God mentioned above. Before entering the world, the human soul is a part of God that is incorporated into the supernal and sublime divine Light.[l] The soul maintains its permanent connection with the Divine even after being fused with a physical body; this bond allows the soul its lasting vitality even after the body has died.[li] The human soul also serves as a channel for divine energy into the physical realm. R. Hayyim describes it as the nexus that links upper spiritual worlds to the four elements, thus allowing corporeal matter to be infused with God’s effluence.[lii] The human soul is the ladder of Jacob’s dream, bridging between heaven and earth and uniting the two realms. The angels “ascending and descending upon it” are the mitzvoth; they are actions with the capacity to uplift the “supernal lights” (an allusion to kabbalistic theurgy) and bring down a “cascade of brilliant illumination” into the physical.[liii] Indeed, in observing the commandments  the righteous throw open the heavenly conduits through which divine energy enters the world.[liv]

R. Hayyim’s understanding of the nature of the soul is not democratic, and he clearly believes that non-Jews have a different metaphysical structure.[lv] Spiritual facility remains a spectrum even amongst the Jewish people. The soul is an innately holy spark that is given as a divine gift, but it must be continuously refined and polished in order to increase its capacity for illumination.[lvi] A soul is able to apprehend holiness and becomes a prism for refracting divine effluence into the world only to the degree that it has been consciously prepared for this task.[lvii] Prophecy is similarly a function of spiritual refinement.[lviii] The mitzvoth are beacons along this journey, since performing a mitzvah cloaks one in the light of the shekhina and banishes negative desires and cravings.[lix] It is the quest for devekut that gives the spirit within a person the strength to rule over the matter of the body, thereby willfully turning a heart full of earthly passions into an extension of the soul. This transformation is always possible, even for individuals who have become totally sunken in corporeality, since their soul is an expression of the divine light of the shekhina.[lx]

Mankind has a singular pneumatic capacity, yet one is only able to perceive God’s light while still a part of the physical realm. True divine essence remains forever beyond the threshold of human perception.[lxi] This might seem to incline one toward longing for death at the expense of valuing this world, and in some passages R. Hayyim does express a yearning for God that borders on asceticism.[lxii] When the Divine spoke directly to Israel’s souls on Mt. Sinai, they were so overwhelmed with love that they fled from their bodies in order to reunite with their Source.[lxiii] This intense longing for communion with the Divine even at the expense of one’s own life is best illustrated by R. Hayyim’s explanation of the fate of Aaron’s sons in Lev. 10:1-7:

Their death was the result of having come too close to God. With great love they approached the supernal Light, and in doing so they expired; this is the “kiss” with which the righteous die. It is the same for all righteous individuals, though while the kiss comes to some of them, others go forth and pursue it… even the feeling of their death drawing near cannot hold them back from the dearest and most pleasant devekut, beloved intimacy and sweetest affection, until their very souls expire.

The nature of this [experience] cannot be grasped. It lies beyond intellectual comprehension and cannot be expressed in words either spoken or written. It cannot even be imagined. In order understand it even to some small degree, one must remove the Evil Inclination that is holding him back. [Growing spiritual awareness] will allow one to see the signs of the accursed Inclination, and he can then nullify it and prevent it from getting in his way… as this ability increases within him, his soul will despise his flesh and will depart back to the house of its Father.[lxiv]

R. Hayyim’s warning about the dangers of intimacy with the Divine is quite powerful, but the continuation of this passage one of the most remarkable and untranslatable descriptions of mystical experience that I have ever seen. He repeats words built from the same linguistic root of s.k.l. over twenty times in quick succession, forging an assonantal matrix of expressions that simultaneously connote intellectual, spiritual and experiential illumination. This literary panzer-thrust must be meant to shatter the reader’s assumptions about the boundaries of human consciousness; mystical communion with God is indeed possible without being entirely eclipsed within His infinitude, but it cannot be described with words as they are ordinarily used. Put differently, R. Hayyim employs language in a non-rational way to refer to an ineffable but experienceable degree of mystical attunement that lies outside the frontiers of expression.[lxv]

The rapture of devekut is too powerful a siren’s call for some to resist, and they surrender themselves to death’s divine kiss. However, R. Hayyim’s overall understanding of mortality is a bit more complicated. His remarkable interpretation of the plain-sense of Deuteronomy 14:1 will help clarify this point:

“You are children of the Lord your God; do not gash yourselves nor shave the front of your head on account of the dead.” It seems to teach us that it is no great tragedy when a person dies. This may be likened to a person who sends his son to another city on business. After a time the father sends for his son, and the son loses nothing when he leaves the place to which he was sent. On the contrary, it is a boon for him to return to his Father, who is the Source of all Life. Therefore, the verse teaches us not to rend our flesh [in a display of excessive mourning].[lxvi]

The second half of the verse reiterates that death is certainly no occasion for rejoicing, but remembering that the soul is simply returning to its natural unity with God should temper the grief we experience. Elsewhere, he likens the departure of the righteous to a precious jewel being lifted from its case and affixed to the crown of the King.[lxvii]

            Given this understanding of departure from the physical world as a blessing, is there anything positive to the soul’s brief sojourn on earth? In accord with a major current of the rabbinic tradition, R. Hayyim reminds us that death must always be bittersweet, for it is only this world that we are able to perform mitzvoth:

“If the servant declares, I have loved my Master and my wife and children and do not wish to go free… he will be his servant forever” (Ex. 21:5). This verse refers to a Jewish servant who burns with fiery passion to serve his Maker. Even after his physical powers have dwindled, he still longs and yearns to serve his Master. This is the meaning of “I have loved Master and my wife and children,” which are the soul and the mitzvoth that he performs in this world. He has no wish to leave the world, becoming free of obligation like the dead. This teaches us about his desire and longing for his Master. God promises such a person that he will be called a servant of the Lord and his deepest desire will be fulfilled, but not now. At the moment he has no further connection to the world. “And he will be a servant forever” means that God will chose him from amongst the angels to be His faithful servant in the world to come.[lxviii]

There is an element of sadness that accompanies the release of death. The soul is conflicted by its desire to remain in the physical world where it can serve God through observing the commandments, to the extent that God must promise it that it will be able to do so once more, presumably referring to the time of bodily resurrection. Furthermore, the brief marriage between body and spirit is mutually fructifying. On one hand, the soul is itself refined by the time spent in a physical body. On the other, the spiritual energies with which it imbues our performance of mitzvoth enable us to leave a positive impression upon the physical world around us that extends far beyond our own death.[lxix]

In keeping with his beliefs in the cosmic centrality of man and the eternal relevance the Torah’s narrative, R. Hayyim often interprets biblical passages as sustained metaphors that shed light on the dynamics of the spiritual life and the power of the mitzvoth.[lxx] Indeed, his understanding of the relationship between the physical world, biblical text, and human consciousness dovetails with the ideal of mankind as summum bonnum of creation:

Know that all physical existence is but an analogue (dugma) for the spiritual. Just as earth needs to be worked, requiring seeding and rainfall in order to bring forth food, so must a person guard himself from anything damaging and negative that prevents him from blossoming. Today the ground of the soul, rather than the corporeal body, has taken the place of the Garden of Eden. It requires work and protection of a type befitting its spiritual nature. The rainfall [it needs] is the study of Torah… and the seeds are the mitzvoth that one performs.[lxxi]

The physical world takes on an added layer of symbolic meaning when reframed as a source of inspiration for spiritual growth. The corporeal realm has limitations, but since it is the only plane on which the mitzvoth can be performed, humans can attain a level of divine awareness beyond the reach of even such purely spiritual beings as angels.[lxxii]

R. Hayyim frequently describes the general mystical significance of the commandments, but devotes little time to outlining their specific kabbalistic undergirding.[lxxiii] As we noted above, the shekhina literally dwells upon one who is performing a mitzvah. Paraphrasing of a teaching in the Tikkunei ha-Zohar, R. Hayyim adds that the very word “mitzvah” is a permutation of the ineffable name of God; observing a commandment is thus a way of tapping into the spiritual energy held within the holiest of divine names.[lxxiv] Physical actions like bringing sacrifices return the sparks of holiness, tiny fragments of the Divine splintered by Adam’s sin and trapped in physical world.[lxxv] Following God’s will by performing the mitzvoth can even bring one to the state of devekut, or intense communion with the Divine.[lxxvi] In one of his slightly veiled allusions to the sefirot, R. Hayyim notes that “performing the mitzvoth opens up the pathways of effluence and unites the supernal midot,” drawing on the popular kabbalistic tradition that the commandments affect the upper realms as well.[lxxvii]

Though total immersion in Torah study receives special accolades,[lxxviii] R. Hayyim writes that all mitzvoth have deep mystical significance.[lxxix] This includes those mandated by logic (such as refraining from murder), or given explicit justification in the Torah (keeping the Sabbath). Hence, once cannot be selective in their observance.[lxxx] These reasons were revealed to Moses and his generation, but since then have been discerned only by rarefied individuals.[lxxxi] Ordinary people must endeavor to comprehend the secrets according to their ability, yet R. Hayyim says explicitly that the mitzvoth are spiritually efficacious even when performed with the simple intention of doing what is commanded.[lxxxii]

Concluding Remarks

R. Hayyim ibn Attar calls to mind Whitman’s famous quip, “I contain multitudes.” As an interpreter of Torah he was simultaneously bold and conservative, innovative and traditional. He was unwilling to entertain any deviation from rabbinic norms of halakha, but believed in absolute freedom of interpretation in the realm of theology and parshanut. R. Hayyim was a self-proclaimed pashtan concerned with explaining the biblical text according to its plain-sense, yet at the same time he believed that the Torah contains infinite layers of mystical significance awaiting discovery. For R. Hayyim, the banks of the biblical text hold an endless river of possible of interpretations, or in metaphor employed by the author himself, the Torah is a veritable garden of divine words ready to be sown and harvested.[lxxxiii] He saw no contradiction between these two different exegetical modalities, and felt comfortable harnessing them alongside one another under the yoke of his pen. With these interesting points in mind, let us ask how R. Hayyim’s Torah commentary may be a significant contribution to modern Jewish intellectual life and a remedy for the rote ritual observance all to common in contemporary religious communities.

First and foremost, R. Hayyim’s approach teaches us a balanced posture navigating between tradition and innovation. He was legally conservative and humble in his reticence to declare earlier commentators on the Torah incorrect, but at the same time R. Hayyim knew that the text could and should be reinterpreted in new ways. R. Hayyim’s understanding of the nature of Torah and the flexibility of its interpretation will serve as a useful model when asking our students to read and comment upon the Torah. Creativity is an indispensable asset that we should be cultivating, one that is often occluded by offering classes on pre-digested “hashkafa” instead of teaching our students to think nimbly and critically about our tradition. R. Hayyim's model  will foster pluralism of interpretation, without for a moment forgetting that interpretations of the text running counter to our established legal norms ultimately cannot be maintained.

Second, educators must balance another set of important goals when teaching  students how to interpret the Torah and other Jewish texts: we ask our students how to plumb their words for spiritual significance while remaining ever cognizant of their plain-sense meaning. Establishing the peshat of a passage is necessary for determining its literal and contextual explanation, as well as understanding its halakhic reverberations. This is an essential prerequisite for seeking a verse's deeper meaning. However, lest one object that abstract Kabbalah lies beyond the intellectual palette of our students, the next stage of looking for spiritual significance need not involve recourse to opaque theosophy. As we have seen, R. Hayyim’s creative style of mystical interpretation employs the language of our kabbalistic heritage but goes beyond its complicated symbols, and his explanations are compelling precisely because they bring spiritual meaning into the realm of human experience. Concentrating exclusively on either the peshat or mystical at the expense of the other will be far less likely to hold the intellectual and spiritual commitments of our students than a judicious combination of the two.

Studying R. Hayyim’s commentary is a particularly useful way of sparking classroom discussions of important spiritual issues that are grounded in close textual readings. When teaching  parshanut it can be tempting to gloss over Ramban's terse kabbalistic references when we happen upon the words “al derekh ha-emet;” one will still learn much from Ramban's commentary even while ignoring over his Kabbalah, though a subtle and fundamental dimension of his perush will be lost. However, exploring the spiritual and mystical dimensions of the Torah are an integral part of Or ha-Hayyim and cannot be skipped. Some of these ideas will be a freeing corrective to the skeptical and sterile hyper-rationalism found in many Modern Orthodox communities. Grappling with other mystical themes will be difficult, but ultimately rewarding. For example, the essentialist understanding of the Jewish people, our inherent division from the nations of the world, and the negative picture of gentiles offends many of our modern ethical sensibilities.[lxxxiv] It contradicts the more universalistic elements in our tradition, but is a voice that has been a part of the Jewish conversation for nearly a millennium and must be confronted. The same is true of gender imbalance found in the kabbalistic symbolism.[lxxxv] Nothing will be gained by avoiding these issues, and we have everything to lose by either sweeping them under the rug or accepting them without refusing to acknowledge their difficulties. 

Students approaching the end of their high school education, whether about to go off to college or a year of learning in Israel, should first be confronted by fundamental questions such as the following: What does it mean, both practically and theoretically, to transform yourself into a dwelling for the shekhinah? What is the Torah, and what else does it contain besides the words of its text? Given the freedom we have in interpreting the Torah, how do you know when you cross the line? What is the nature and origin of evil? Where does reincarnation fit into our tradition? What does our tradition say about life after death and the World to Come? What is the status of miracles? What is the nature of our relationship to God, and what does it mean to cleave and connect ourselves to Him? How can performing mitzvoth be an intensely spiritual and meaningful experience? As they develop, our students will be confronted by questions of this type whether or not we have prepared them to think about such issues in an intelligent manner. Therefore, exploring them should be a primary goal of our educational system from the moment our students begin to think more abstractly and maturely about their religious praxis. They need a vocabulary with which to discuss matters of existential and spiritual import, and they deserve to know that it can very easily be found in the Jewish tradition.

There are several possible options for teaching R. Hayyim’s work. Or ha-Hayyim can be included as one important voice amongst the concert of biblical interpretation on the page of the Mikra’ot Gedolot. This integrated approach has the advantage of allowing students to see R. Hayyim as part of an intergenerational dialogue focusing on Torah commentary and spiritual exploration. However, many schools assign the Torat Hayyim edition of Mikra’ot Gedolot, whose publishers focused only on the works of the Rishonim and thus excluded R. Hayyim’s commentary. The inclusion of important neglected commentaries like that of R. Saadya Gaon and the careful deployment of manuscripts make Torat Hayyim a phenomenal tool for studying humash, but educators should be aware that using it precludes Or ha-Hayyim from having a place in their curriculum.

R. Hayyim’s commentary may also be taught as a stand-alone work, perhaps as an optional habura to students interested in spending time getting to know his parshanut in greater depth. Dr. Aryeh Strikovsky assembled an excellent compendium of Hebrew language texts about and by R. Hayyim as a part of the Israeli Ministry of Education’s series on culture and Torah, but to my knowledge there is not yet a North American equivalent of this valuable resource.[lxxxvi] When focusing on Or ha-Hayyim exclusively, some recourse to the supercommentaries composed to elucidate his text will doubtless be quite helpful; R. Isaac Meir Hazenfratz’s Or Yakar has proven a particularly accessible and helpful guide in my own studies.[lxxxvii]

            Finally, as a parting word, we would do well to remember that our relationship with God is the very heart of our encounter with the Torah. This is true of the written text of the five books of Moses, and it should be equally true of our study of Torah She’Be-Al Pe. Dry sophistry and polemics should never be substituted for an honest and passionate engagement with the Torah and the search to know its Author, to the best of our ability. In R. Hayyim’s words:

I trained my heart and my mind’s eye on the Light of Life… and began with a prayer before the Source of all Wisdom… I titled this book “Light of the Life” because the Torah itself is called a light, as in the verse “the commandment is a lamp and the Torah is a light” (Prov. 6:23). Since light is associated with many things, such as a candle, the sun, the moon and the stars, I called it the “Light of the Life,” which can only refer to the Creator of the world…[lxxxviii]

Let us remind our students, and ourselves, that the goal of our conversations must be the quest to gaze upon the Or ha-Hayyim, the true Source of all Illumination and Life.

     I’d like to begin by quoting to you a passage from Rabbi David Hartman, from his book, The Living Covenant. He writes:

Traditional Judaism has always contained a vital dialectic between [“Ze Keli v’anvehu”] “This is my God and I will adore Him” and [“Elokei avi v’aromimehu[DEA2] ”] “The God of my father and I will exalt Him” (Exodus 15:2). Loyalty to the God about Whom our fathers told us does not exclude the discovery of new insights and experiences that lead one to say, “This is my God.” The past does not exhaust all that is possible within one’s covenantal relationship with God. When Moses asks God how he should announce God’s “name” to the community, he is told to say that he was sent by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also the God Who is worshipped through the new possibilities that the future may uncover: “I will be what I will be” [“Eheyeh asher eheyeh”]. One loyal to Sinai does not only look backward. (Living Covenant, 8–9)

In the past year and years, members of the JOFA community and its sympathizers have made great strides taking ownership over and elevating “elokei avinu.” We have appropriated the Torah of our fathers into our own batei midrash, adding the Torah of our mothers. We’ve gotten to know the God mediated through Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaacov—and countless other men—as we shared our own voices, and those of our matriarchs, through learning and through ritual. We have faithfully inherited our tradition, struggled with it where necessary, and have—to a large degree—rendered it accessible to girls and women everywhere. While there is certainly work yet to be done, we have widened the halakhic path, so that all members of the Jewish community who want to can participate in the ongoing journey from Sinai. In so doing, we have certainly exalted God.

     Yet, with gratitude for all that we have accomplished and with a strong awareness for the battles that remain, I would like to pose a different question: Have we taken sufficient time or made sufficient space for “Ze keli”? Has all the permission and all the inclusion helped us in the project of identifying and reifying a personal God? With all our holy and rightful reverence for our past, are we any more capable of opening ourselves to the unfolding of Eheyeh, of a self and a God in the process of becoming? To what might we point and say, “This is my God”?

     Hartman’s concern accents the temporal—Can the God of our past be made present? My concern accents the spiritual—Can God, as mediated through our tradition, be made personal?

     I am charged with the task today of addressing the nexus of spirituality and Orthodox feminism. I come to you not as a guru or even as an enlightened practitioner; not as a rabbi nor as a rabbah, but simply as a woman, Jewish educator, and seeker eminently committed to expanding the possibilities for religious life in the Modern Orthodox community. I want to enlarge the sphere of our religious concern, to place at the center of our religious discourse and our religious experience the cultivation of spirit.

     To give shape to this call, I’d like to sketch for you two entry-points to spirituality—two among many, no doubt—that are captured by the phrase, “Ze keli,” “This is my God.” Recall that these words are part of shirat haYam, the song sung after the splitting of the Red Sea, in celebration of the miraculous liberation from Egypt. Rashi, quoting the Mehilta, famously writes on these words:

God revealed Godself in His glory to [the Israelites], and they pointed at God with their finger. By the sea, [even] a maidservant perceived what prophets did not perceive.

     What was available to all of Benei Yisrael—and Benot Yisrael—at the moment of great salvation was the gift of transparency: Ze keli. They could point to their immediate experience and say, “This is the hand of God.” After years of toil in the land of Egypt, after generations in which God was eclipsed from their lives, they were blessed with a moment of absolute clarity. They could perceive with certainty the urgent, unmistakable presence of a God who heard their cries and who delivered.

     I submit to you that one central impulse in the spiritual quest is the longing to be able to say “Ze,”—that is, to encounter God in ways that are immediate, powerful, palpable; to invite experiences of kedusha, or of devekut, that fill a person with awareness of transcendence. The spirituality of “ze keli” demands a relationship with the divine that is intense, real, urgent. It asserts that there is a live Other to whom one can point.

     How? In the absence of sea-splitting pyrotechnics that testify to God’s power, we might yearn in our times for more subtle moments that testify to God’s presence. “Ahat sha’alti me’et Hashem ota avakesh: Shivti beBeit Hashem kol yimei hayyay, lahazot beNoam Hashem u’livaker beHekhalo,” says the Psalmist, a seeker of God if ever there was one. “I ask one thing of God: Let me sit in Your home all the days of my life, to see your glory and to visit your inner sanctum” (Psalm 27:4). We cannot hope for supernatural miracles that will lift the veil of the world. That is not the reality in which we live. We can, however, try to sit quietly with sanctity and even to encounter deep holiness from time to time. The cry of “shivti beBeit Hashem” reminds us that spirituality—so often associated with experiences of ecstasy—can also just be found in the simplicity of everyday living, of sitting with what comes our way and dwelling with God there.  Only then might we be blessed with a visit to the hekhal, to the place of innermost depths.

     This is one way that we might reclaim “ze keli”—through the cultivation of a compelling relationship with God. Just as our ancestors could see God at the sea, so our generation is charged to figure out, where is it that we see God? As individuals and as a community, what might we do—

• what spiritual practices might we adopt?
• what intentions might we set?
• what spaces might we share?
• what texts might we learn and how might we learn them?
• what prayers might we pray?
• what goals might we privilege?

—that will allow us best to dwell in the house of God? What are the religious pathways that will speak to our souls? What will be our avenues to the hekhal?

* * *

     Beyond the explicitly spiritual agenda of getting to know a God to whom one can point, there is a second dimension to “ze keli” spirituality. Experiences like the kind at the Red Sea rarely last, of course. It is not the nature of the divine mystery to remain disclosed. The moment that Benei Yisrael exit the miraculous space—literally and figuratively—they are struck with fear, with a lack of trust in their future. They worry about whether the God who just dramatically and spectacularly saved them from their enemies can also sustain their humdrum, everyday needs. “Ma nishte?” they ask (Exodus 15:24). What will we drink in the desert? What will we eat? In other words, what will nourish us now? No amount of spiritual enlightenment could save them from the vulnerability of being human.

      A second impulse in the spiritual life can be located here, not in the ascent to the divine, but in the descent to all that is inescapably human. In those moments when life—in all of its complexity—intrudes and awakens and unsettles, those are the moments when we might open to a world beyond—beyond self, beyond what we thought, maybe beyond words. It is a strange truth that when we feel most raw and vulnerable, when our skin is thinned by the wild unpredictability of the world, we are that much more available to the touch of the other. Like a body burned by the sun, we feel more—more fear, but also more tenderness. “MiMa’amakim keratikha yah,” “From the depths, I call out to God”—not just from the place of despair, but from within the arresting grip of life laid bare.

     Joy and pain, fulfillment and disappointment, compel the deepest, hardest, most fundamental existential questions:

• In what can I trust?
• For what am I grateful?
• How can I cope with loss?
• How can I honor love?
• What is intimacy?
• For whom or what shall I sacrifice?
• Where does my integrity lay?
• How can I live in the face of fear, uncertainty, and doubt?

Like Benei Yisrael thirsting for water in the desert, we too might wonder: What will nourish me?

     I submit, it is the task of spirituality to take on these challenges too, not to answer them, but to help us live without answers; to help us cope with and embrace mystery; to live in the world as it really is. A Jewish path that accents these questions seeks to reframe the stories we tell ourselves. It seeks to help us make meaning out the mess of our colorful, wonderful, unpredictable, uneven existence. It seeks to help each and every one of us to find our way toward a God that is truly our own. Ze Keli. This is my God—a God who speaks to my personal issues, my deepest needs, the cravings and confusions of my own soul.

     For this task, the language of halakha alone won’t do. Seekers of these forms of spirituality need a wider, more varied pathway—through Aggadah, Midrash, Mussar, Hassidut; through prayer, meditation, song, and silence; through modalities of religious engagement that are neither systematic nor systematizing in their nature. To meet the cries of our explosive, expressive souls, we’re going to need to privilege those texts, those teachers, and those techniques that help reify God in the world, and in the core of our beings.

* * *

     Is this a project for Orthodox feminists? Absolutely. As a community that has valiantly fought to expand ritual access, leadership roles, learning opportunities, and social justice, it is our duty to clarify what it is that animates these struggles altogether, what mission under girds the religious life, and what makes the effort worth it. It is also our privilege—the privilege won from years on the periphery—to speak to the core and to enlarge and elevate the conversation, to expand the possibilities for a spiritually vibrant existence for all Jews.

     Let us be not just inheritors of tradition, but active shapers of it. As we honor Elokei avinu veImenu, let us commit—today and always—to cultivating lives full of a profoundly present and personally meaningful God, so that each one of us might be blessed to say, “Ze keli veAnvehu.”

We continue to reach thousands of people annually through our National Scholar program, combining classes, teacher trainings, and publications to promote the core values of our Institute.

            There are several upcoming classes and programs in February:

On Wednesday, February 14, 7:30 pm, there will be a book reception for my latest book, The Keys to the Palace: Essays Exploring the Religious Value of Reading the Bible. It will be held at Ben Porat Yosef Yeshiva Day School, 243 Frisch Court, Paramus, New Jersey. I will give a talk on “Building Bridges in Scholarship and Jewish Community.” Books will be available for purchase and signing. For the flyer with more information, please see https://www.jewishideas.org/keys-palace

Since the beginning of September, I have served as the Tanakh Education Scholar at Ben Porat Yeshiva Day School, in Paramus, New Jersey. I am developing a new Tanakh curriculum for grades 1-8, that reflects our core religious values at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. I also have given lectures to the Ben Porat Yosef parent community in this capacity.

I also will be giving several classes in various locations:

On Mondays, February 5, 12, 26, March 5, 12, 19: Mondays 1:00-2:15 pm, I will teach a six-part mini-series at Lamdeinu Teaneck on: The book of Chronicles: A Glimpse into the Mind of the Prophets. Classes are held at Congregation Beth Aaron, 950 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, New Jersey.

For more information and to register, go to http://www.lamdeinu.org/

On Shabbat, February 9-10, I will be a scholar-in-residence at the Baron Hirsch Synagogue in Memphis, Tennessee (400 South Yates Rd, Memphis, TN).

The classes are free and open to the public.

On Sundays, February 18 and 25, 7:30-8:30 pm, I will teach a two-part series at the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates in Queens (83-10 188^th Street, Jamaica, New York) on Megillat Esther: What They Didn’t Teach in Yeshiva Day School.

The classes are free and open to the public.

Our University Network, which I now coordinate, continues to do incredible work to promote our religious ideology and vision on campuses across the United States and Canada. We have added several new campuses and fellows this semester. Please see my December report on our Campus Fellows on our website: https://www.jewishideas.org/article/campus-fellows-report-december-2017

As always, I thank you for your support and encouragement, and look forward to promoting our core values through these and many more venues.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel

National Scholar

Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals

Rabbi Hayyim Angel's Latest Book

Keys to the Palace

Essays Exploring the Religious

Value of Reading the Bible

I can still hear the voices of my grandparents, parents and elder relatives speaking and singing in Judeo-Spanish. Although they have passed away years ago, I still feel their presence especially on Shabbat and holidays and at family celebrations.

I grew up in Seattle among Jews who had come from Turkey and the Island of Rhodes and whose mother-tongue was Judeo-Spanish. It did not occur to me to ask: why were people from Turkey and Rhodes speaking a Hispanic language? Why did they carry themselves with such self-respect and pride, even though many of them were simple laborers with modest formal education? What was the link between my relatives and medieval Sephardic Jewry in the Iberian Peninsula? What was the nature of the Judeo-Spanish civilization of the past centuries that produced the worldview and practices that imbued the lives of the elders of my family?

As I grew older, it began to dawn on me that my generation is the last to have lived among people who spoke Judeo-Spanish as their mother tongue, and whose lives were thoroughly shaped by Judeo-Spanish civilization. The language and many of the cultural characteristics are coming to the end of their historical lives. The new generations no longer speak Judeo-Spanish as their native language, and do not live in a communal context that is conducive to maintaining the language and traditions.

And yet, the voices of our elders stay with us and want to be heard. They-and their ancestors going back 500 years and more-were part of a vital, thriving and powerful Sephardic civilization that spanned the Ottoman Empire and stretched into Europe and the New World. This civilization produced great sages, poets, writers, journalists, dramatists, intellectuals; it fostered a lively, optimistic folk culture. Judeo-Spanish civilization is a treasure not just for members of our group, but for the entire Jewish people. But so little scholarly attention has been given to Jews of the Judeo-Spanish tradition, to trying to understand who they were, what they felt and believed.

It is not possible to bring Judeo-Spanish civilization back to life. Yes, there is a resurgence of interest in Ladino folk songs; there are Ladino chat rooms on the internet; there is more scholarly attention being given to the language and literature of the Sephardim of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, none of these things can restore the old civilization as a natural, living communal organism.

If I still hear the voices of my ancestors, the echo of those voices will diminish with each passing generation-as children and grandchildren will not have had the direct experience and interaction with these ancestors. But their story is not over; it is only transitioning into a new phase.

Judeo-Spanish civilization has fostered significant ideas and values. Our task is to study that civilization as deeply as we can, and to draw out and transmit that which is meaningful to us and future generations. Some of the lasting teachings relate to personal pride and self-respect; humor; a natural, healthy view of religion and our relationship with God; optimism; aesthetics and proper comportment; love of life.

In my book, "Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire", I present a study of Judeo-Spanish civilization-providing historical context, but focusing on the inner life of our people-the ideas, values and traditions that shaped generations of Sephardic Jews-and that can still help shape future generations of our people. I call my book "a nostalgic history", since it is written not as a scholarly outsider, but as one who is himself a product of the Judeo-Spanish tradition.

My grandfather, Marco Romey, used to say-based on a kabbalistic teaching-that each person was put on earth to accomplish a unique mission. I think this is true not just for individuals, but for civilizations. The Judeo-Spanish era thrived for five centuries and has now entered its historical sunset. Yet, its mission is far from over. As we study and ponder the manifold aspects of Judeo-Spanish civilization, we will find that it has much to teach us-and much to give to future generations. The voices of our ancestors are not silenced, and will not be silenced.

We can get a glimpse of a people's values through their everyday proverbs. Here's a small sampling of Judeo-Spanish proverbs, originally collected by my Uncle Dave Romey in the 1950s among the Sephardim of Seattle.

Self-worth, Self-reliance

El rey es kon la gente—The king is with the people-- true nobility is characterized by closeness to the people, not haughty aloofness

En lo ke estamos bendigamos—We bless God for what we have—enjoy what you have, don’t be greedy or jealous

No es este banko, otro mas alto—If not this bench, another one even higher—don’t be frustrated by failure; next time you’ll do even better.

Poko ke sea mio ke sea—Let it be little but let it be mine.

Un dia en la siya del rey es un dia— One day on the throne of the king is one day. All people are essentially equal.

Good Manners, Concern for the Feelings of Others

Un bukado un dukado—One mouthful is worth one ducat—a nice compliment to someone who has served you tasty food

El harto no cree al hambierto—The one who is sated does not believe the one who is hungry—have empathy for the less fortunate

Va ande te yaman y no ande te keren—

Go where you are invited, not where (you think) you are wanted…don’t impose yourself on others.

Observations on Human Nature

Muncha miel bulanea—Too much honey nauseates. People who try too hard to be sweet…are repulsive.

El prove piedre tiempo en kontando la rikeza del rico—

The poor man wastes time counting the wealth of the rich.

Una piedresika ke no pensas rompe la kavesa—

A tiny pebble which you don’t think about-- can break your head. Pay attention to seemingly small dangers

De los ocho fina los ochenta—From eight to eighty—one’s character doesn’t change from childhood through old age.

Humorous Witticisms

Kuando te yaman azno, mira si tienes kola—

When they call you a jackass, look to see if you have a tail. Perhaps there’s truth when people criticize you.

Fuyi del prexil me kresio en la nariz—

I ran from the parsley, it grew on my nose!—you try to get away from someone or some problem, and all of a sudden you confront it in spite of your efforts to escape.

• Min HaMuvhar
• Rabbi Marc D. Angel

“I waited for some answers to many theological questions but answers not as abstract as in a theological treatise, just on that border between the intellect and our imagination, a border so rarely explored today in religious thinking.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           —C. Milosz, in a letter to Thomas Merton

I.   Introduction: Religious Sensibility

Abraham Joshua Heschel sits comfortably between philosophy and poetry. His classic, God in Search of Man, provides lyrical perception and insight, religious and philosophic, not to be forgotten. A critic, skeptical of Heschel’s preference for poetry over theology, remarked, “You think it’s all just poetry?!” He responded (roughly), “Just poetry? What could be more elevated.”

Some years back, having returned to religious life in part inspired by Heschel, I was attending some lectures on Maimonides at UCLA. The contrast between Heschel and Maimonides, a philosopher’s philosopher, was stark. With Heschel I was exploring themes in Midrash, its parables and imaginative flights, some by way of biblical interpretation, some by way of reflection on religious life, religious ideas. For the midrashic imagination, God is anthropomorphically conceived: He nurtures, bestows gifts of love, He forgives, He judges righteously…. On the darker side, He is subject to anger, sometimes rage, to jealousy (for example, in Hosea, directed at Israel and her lovers). These lists can of course be lengthened.

Heschel’s view of prophecy is especially pertinent to the contrast with Maimonides. The prophet is, for Heschel, in a unique position vis-à-vis God and humanity. The prophet “gets” us; he knows from inside, as it were, what it’s like for us, what we think, what and how we feel. But, unlike the rest of us, he also gets God (much better than we do); the prophet understands, empathizes with, the divine pathos. The costs of such dual empathy are substantial. The prophet lives in painful elevation; despite his blessings he is appreciated by few, resented by many.

I’m not sure it’s accurate to report Maimonides as taking such views of God and prophecy to be heretical. But it’s not off by much. Maimonides is an Aristotelean; he takes Aristotle’s God and the Jewish God to be one and the same, surely not subject to any such human ways. Maimonides’ anti-anthropomorphism is as strict as it can be, on a par with that of the modern arch-naturalist Spinoza. The comparison with goes deep. Maimonides’s great philosophic work, Guide of the Perplexed, is in part a translation manual, one that reveals the anthropomorphic biblical imagery to be nothing more than what Bishop Berkeley called “speaking with the vulgar,” (all the while “thinking with the learned”).[1]

The Maimonides lectures at UCLA were given by Rabbi David Hartman, z’l. Hartman painted a vivid picture: The religious outlook of the Guide rejects the idea of God as caring, loving, forgiving, or angry, vengeful, and the rest. God was beyond all that, a Perfect Being, remote rather than available, for example, for interaction. God’s remoteness was not that of someone hiding (the Bible speaks of God hiding His face). God’s remoteness was more like that of a mathematical equation. Perhaps impersonal would be more to the point.

How in the world, I wanted to know, might these two conceptions reside in the same religious tradition? How could Maimonides fail to engage in a more human way, a less reductive way, with the powerful anthropomorphic text of Tanakh, not to speak of the sometimes hyper-anthropomorphic Midrash, the rabbinic religious imagination? Seeing God as loving, as caring about us, about justice—these are no throwaways; they seem central to Jewish tradition, and more generally to religious life.[2]

Hartman responded that Maimonides and the midrashic imagination represent different “religious sensibilities.” The phrase, not common currency in my experience, seized my imagination. The idea increasingly took on importance. One might pray—in the same pew—with one who inhabits a very different religious sensibility. One might experience the world through the biblical religious imagination; one’s fellow might eschew anthropomorphism. Or, one might see the divine in terms of the metaphysically supernatural and the other’s approach might be more naturalistic. At the same time, one’s religious sensibility might well be shared by another in a very different religious tradition. Religious sensibility seemed to me, and still does, important, and relatively underexplored.

Religious sensibility, as I conceive it, is analogous to musical sensibility.[3] “Sensibility” is related of course to “sense” (think: sense organs, but also “my sense of him”) and “sensation.” It’s something like a way of sensing or a taste/preference in the realm of sense, as with musical sensibility. There is some resonance here of the bodily, something I appreciate in connection with my thinking of faith as a stance, an attitude (in an almost nautical sense) of the whole person, this as opposed to a matter of cognitive assent to a proposition. As William James suggests, religion is largely a matter of the gut, surely not purely of the head.

II.Rabbinic Sensibility and the Rabbinic Project

Maimonides’s religious sensibility, at least as suggested in the Guide, is grounded in a philosophic outlook. It’s from philosophy, thinks Maimonides, that we know that God could not really be human-like, as described in Tanakh and Midrash. Maimonides suggests at the end of the Guide that the moment of solitary philosophic contemplation is the religious moment. This is striking; the contrast is with thinking of paradigm religious moments as standing before God in prayer—often communal prayer— or deeply engaged with talmudic issues.

The Rabbis of the talmud, skeptical about philosophy, inhabited a different sensibility, one to which Heschel’s outlook is closer. Max Kadushin, in The Rabbinic Mind, presents a compelling sketch: The Rabbis did not begin with a concept of God. In a way, they had no such concept, certainly not a philosophically well-developed one. What they had was their experience of God (of course against the background of the tradition and the biblical text). And that experience was of a God who loves, who provides, who cares, who is sometimes remote—at a great distance—and sometimes almost immediate, who may be angry and inscrutable; in short, the God of biblical imagination. But—and here’s the rub—that same experience yielded the sense that somehow God was altogether beyond all of this, that He could not be so like us.

Their touchstone experience thus yields two incompatible ideas. How does one live with such paradox? Is there a resolution in the offing? And what does such paradoxical experience yield by way of religious sensibility?

There is a wonderful scene in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters in which a Jewish mother responds to her son’s question of where God was during the Holocaust with this remark: “Max, you tell him.” Max’s response: “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the can opener works!” It goes deep in our tradition that our understanding of God’s ways is severely limited, that seeing God’s back—perhaps in a rear-view mirror—is about as close as anyone gets. Buber perhaps exaggerates when he writes that while everyone can speak to God, none can speak (coherently) about Him. In in important sense, we don’t know of what we speak. Accordingly, the Rabbis did not presume to resolve the paradox; nor even to address it. They had no pretensions of being theorists of God—the word is “theologian.” They appear to have had little patience for (what they knew of) philosophy. They were more akin to craftsmen or artists. They lived in the throes of the paradox.

The Rabbis were developing what we now know as Jewish religious practice. After the destruction of the Temple, their task was to find a way to reclaim Jewish religious life in the absence of its former central modes of worship. They were also practitioners of that life. They were thus craftspeople/artists in two senses: first, constructing and embellishing forms of worship, and second, creatively engaging in the practices. Their faith played a vital role in both of these modes. In the first, developing the practices, their ear, their sense of what it is to serve/worship/love/stand in awe of God, was foundational. In the second, the creative engagement with the practices, they were not unlike us, their descendants, seeing the life as a vocation and attending to it in that spirit.

To see the life as a vocation is to bring to bear great focus, imagination, and energy, to engage with it with the seriousness one (ideally) brings to one’s intimate relationships. No one loves quite the way anyone else does, but each (again ideally) brings himself to it with care, nuance, and focus. No one is a mother or father in quite the way others are. Parents, at their best times, do it creatively, with great attention to detail, with art one might say.

Needless to say, any such creativity—as craft or as art—requires solid grounding in the basics. In the case of actual art, say painting, one needs to know a great deal: about paint and its properties, the history of the art, and lots more. Much of the day to day, minute to minute, work tends toward the mundane. And so too with religious life. It’s at the odd moment that insight hits; insight, creativity, powerful realization and the like.[4]

I believe that the analogy with artistic endeavor goes deep. My teacher, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, used to speak of a virtue of deep engagement with Talmud: One learns to navigate life in terms of God’s categories.[5] A great artist like Cezanne tries with all his soul to capture a vision. Looking back on his work he may point to various paintings, some coming closer, others not as close. Hazal, steeped in the tradition, were trying to capture the taste, the feel, the spirit of the Torah they inherited. 

I’ve been describing a religious sensibility that is suggested by much in rabbinic tradition. Unlike Maimonides’s way, it is not attendant to, almost a consequence of, a philosophic outlook. Rather it takes its leave from religious life and experience. From this perspective, the medieval philosophical turn will seem paradigmatic of what Wittgenstein takes to be an occupational hazard of philosophy: the attempt to illuminate by reinterpreting the subject matter in terms we are equipped to handle. Faith then gives way to belief: cognitive assent to propositions. Mystery, the sense that we are over our heads in theorizing about God, gives way to doctrine.[6]^{, [7]}

III.Truth

The dominant conception of truth among philosophers is “truth as correspondence.” The idea is that a thought or a sentence is true just in case it corresponds to, matches the facts. The sentence “John is seven feet tall” (or the thought it expresses) is true just in case the person in question, John, is actually that height. Nothing mysterious here; it’s very intuitive and understandable. The question is whether such an idea of truth can apply to a religious position. And if it can’t, where does that leave us? We certainly want to think of our religious ways as capturing the truth.

Paramount here is what appears to be the unresolvable paradox: God’s anthropomorphic properties and His being beyond any such human-like properties. Logically speaking, you can’t have it both ways. But which is it? If Maimonides had his way, and our God became the God beyond anthropomorphism, we would have resolved the paradox. But then we lose the God who cares, forgives, with whom we live and share intimacy. Might we go the other way? Might we deny God’s radical otherness, His being beyond human ways? We would still have the anthropomorphic God to whom we relate. But in denying this far side of God, as it were, we sacrifice another aspect of our relationship with God, our standing in awe in the presence of mystery.[8] God’s transcendence is not any more optional than is his closeness. This is not a paradox to be resolved! Each of God’s incompatible aspects is absolutely essential to religious life. Giving either of them up, or reducing one to the other, no matter the intellectual attractiveness of resolving paradox, would cripple religious life. So the intellectual puzzle persists, thank God, one might say. But how then might our outlook be seen as a candidate for truth? The reality that is God cannot both have and lack anthropomorphic properties.

Perhaps the concept of truth does not always function in just the way the philosopher’s correspondence idea suggests.[9] When we speak of the truth of our vision of God, perhaps we are coming at truth in a different way. We speak, after all, of a “true friend,” and “true” there has nothing to do with correspondence; we mean a genuine friend. And it’s said that our concept of truth derives originally from expressions like “true saw” and “true North.” The root notion may be something like straight ahead, or one-to-be-trusted, or without distortion. (“Yashar” in Hebrew works here.) If we give pride of place to that idea, we might see a true thought as one that is to be trusted, one that does not distort. Still, in many contexts the idea of correspondence works well. But for the general case, there is no such simple formula.  

This way of approaching truth is perhaps on the road to something satisfactory, but more needs to be said. As Maimonides and friends will be happy to point out, we are still living with paradox. But the situation vis-à-vis truth is even more dire. If Maimonides’s theological view were seen as canonical in Jewish tradition, if it were seen as the only legitimate Jewish outlook, then paradox would evaporate. The cost would be the loss of anthropomorphism. I can’t myself fathom it, but Maimonides seems fine with it in the Guide. However, Maimonides’s philosophical view never did become canonical in our tradition. Jewish tradition is rich in diverse religious sensibilities and their attendant theological directions. There is no felt need to have a canonical theology, something that seems to go deep in the tradition’s sense of itself.[10] That is not to say that advocates of particular theological ways necessarily see themselves as advancing an optional outlook. I’m certain that Maimonides did not see his own view in that light. But still there are a multiplicity of ways to proceed and in the end, they are all available for purchase, so to speak. It’s as if the tradition overrules any claim to exclusivity.

The extent of theological diversity is almost astounding. I’ve spoken of Maimonides and the contrast with Hazal. But there are also the approaches of the Kabbalists, their elaborate theologies. And then there are lots of views that cut across these already mentioned differences, like the contrast between the Hassidim (a number of approaches there) and the Mitnagdim. And the view of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, those deriving from the Mussar movement, and the existentialism/phenomenology of Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik, not to mention the various trends in modern Sephardic thought.

Jewish tradition has an intriguing way with unresolvable halakhic differences of opinion. In the face of fierce reasoned opposition about the correct outcome of a legal dispute—where each seeks the truth and may oppose his opponents view as simply wrong—the tradition in its overview of the situation has it that both are “the words of the living God.”[11] It’s perhaps even more intriguing to contemplate the application of that idea to the philosophic/theological disputes in question. While none of these theological approaches is taken by the larger historical religious community as the correct one, each reflects something that itself approaches a vocation, a kind of calling, something to which its adherents pour their energies, l’shem shamayim, to come to grips with God and religion. Each represents a distinctive inflection of religious life, each with its own insights. Each is a reflection of the living God, in the sense that when one fully lives the tradition, one brings to it one’s own imagination, emotional life, and distinctive intelligence, this in the context of the contingencies of one’s family, one’s education, and prior influences.

If I am on the right track here, then the problem about truth reappears in a more general way. The paradox about God’s anthropomorphic properties made it difficult to apply the notion of truth, what I called “correspondence truth.” But now, even putting aside the paradox, given the multiplicity of legitimate theological orientations, how might truth apply? If each represents “the word of the living God,” where can the truth lie?

It’s tempting to suppose that what’s really true is what they all have in common, basic theological doctrines like the thesis of monotheism. If we were to go in that direction, this would apply as well to the paradox discussed above: While the paradoxical overall outlook cannot be true (in the sense of correspondence truth), it shares with all these theological orientations the basic thesis of monotheism. But here things get even more complicated. First, this approach—what the various views have in common—does not rescue the truth of a full-blooded religious outlook but rather a thin slice of such an outlook, like the idea of monotheism. In this way, it is reminiscent of people who say, “I’m not an adherent of a religion but I do believe in a God.”[12] Second, perhaps more significant, do these divergent outlooks really mean or think the same thing when they say that God exists and is unique? For example, Aristotle’s God—the Active Intellect, with which Maimonides identifies the God of Jewish tradition—may well not be that of Yehuda HaLevi. And the Lurianic Kabbalists seem to go in quite another direction.

At this point, I am not sure how to proceed. One might say that even if their conceptions of God differ, it’s the same God of whom they speak, the unique God about whom they offer different conceptions. Or in philosophic parlance, their concepts may differ but the intended divine referent is the same. Maybe. But the matter seems less than clear.

My inclination is to think about truth in another key, one suggested above in my discussion of Hazal. When we think of our religious outlook as capturing truth, we gesture toward something very large, something toward which we  can only gesture: toward how deep the religious vision goes, how it underscores, alerts us, sensitizes us, to features of reality that are as significant as they are elusive; how it can play a key role in constructing a life characterized by genuineness, yashrut. This is not truth as correspondence, but a way of thinking about truth that connects it more closely with the way literature and the arts capture truth.

If this is correct, we give up on the claim that our theology is true, that we have the true theory in this domain. But wasn’t it always part and parcel of our outlook that God is beyond our ken, that our privilege extends only to seeing his back, as it were? Why then suppose that we can get any closer than one or another of these attempts, l’shem shamayim, to bring to bear the best of our thinking and feeling on the subject. Nor can we get beyond the by-now well-rehearsed paradox, thank God.[13]