Torah Under
Wraps
by Yoav Sorek
translated by Daniel Tabak
Their
publications are not allowed to get out. Their roiling Internet forums are
blocked by filters. The articles they publish omit the names of professors
considered verboten. A cohort of Haredi scholars [1] challenge the academy and
their natural surroundings, unafraid to deal with subjects deemed taboo in the
yeshiva world. Few Religious Zionists have penetrated this alternative ivory
tower, but one of them—Eitam Henkin, may his blood be avenged—succeeded in
breaking down barriers.
*
“One needs to strengthen oneself with faith; one should not
entertain philosophical questions nor even glance at the books of
philosophers,” said Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav already at the end of the
eighteenth century. This motto is particularly popular today, in the post-modern
era of “religious strengthening,” in which religiosity is perceived as
synonymous with simplicity and unsophistication. Yet that very approach also
runs counter to the Jewish mind, which is by its nature anything but naive. The
legacy of Jewish erudition constitutes part of the DNA not only of the academy,
but of even the most Haredi sectors of the yeshiva world, and it finds
expression in the spirited Jewish Studies scholarship flourishing under the
radar in circles that are presumed to recoil from it.
Israelis
distant from the world of Jewish Studies were offered a glimpse of it in the
amusing film “Footnote,” but it portrayed only the nerve center of the field’s
academic milieu, when in reality a great deal more is out there. In the reading
rooms of the National Library, and in many houses in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem,
many scholars sit and study the same topics as academics but without academic
degree, without traveling to conferences, without aspirations toward an
academic appointment. The history of
medieval and modern rabbinic authorities, the stories of their compositions,
the manuscripts and their provenances, variant customs, disputes both ancient and alive—all of these preoccupy a
non-negligible group of yeshiva graduates,
Haredi in dress and behavior, who publish articles in “non-academic”
journals of Torah scholarship and produce corrected editions of sacred texts,
some of which can even be considered quasi-critical editions.
They number
Hasidim and Mitnaggedim, the truly God-fearing and those trapped in the Haredi
lifestyle who cut corners, those lacking any academic title and others who have
earned one—sharp and knowledgeable one and all, still faithful to, and actively
participating in, the intra-Haredi discourse. Some of them evidence a dual non-conformism
in their lives: on the one hand, they have opted to put distance between
themselves and the safe space of the yeshiva, pasturing in the treacherous
fields of scholarship; on the other hand, they are Haredim who hail from
circles thoroughly suspicious of academia and would not dream of lending
credence to its guiding assumptions. Nearly every remarkable personality in the
field originates in the circles of Ashkenazi religious zealots, yet the
scholarly discussion—which takes place not only on journal pages but in the
lively Internet forums of Be-Hadrei
Haredim and Otzar HaHochma—is not
private, and sometimes a handful of others participate. Rabbi Yoel Catane of
Yeshivat Sha‘alvim, editor of the journal HaMa’yan,
is one of those others, as his home is in the Religious Zionist world, and his
publication represents the enlightened German Zionist Orthodoxy of bygone
years. The late Eitam Henkin also was one of them—a Torah scholar and
brilliantly wide-ranging scholar who took prominent part in the back and forth
of these torani scholars.
In
National-Religious society, there are, to be sure, many others involved in
Jewish Studies scholarship, but one would be hard-pressed to find the same kind
of polemical verve that exists amongst Haredi scholars. According to K., a
young Haredi scholar, the passion attests to the fact that the scholarly
endeavor is for them an existential need:
“The Haredi does his research
in order to mask his own crisis of faith in a world that forbids thinking.
Those who try to identify the composer of a liturgical poem or the copyist of
an unknown manuscript, and those who uncover a forgotten rabbinical position
held by R. Joel Sirkes, and those who wade through tomes to reconstruct a
partially extant word in an Akkadian inscription, are all really fleeing
forbidden thoughts. They release the tension between the silent extinguishment
of faith in the Haredi world and the soul aflame with newly forged ideas by
running for the hills of manuscripts and book archives.”
K.’s criticism begins with the Procrustean bed of Haredi yeshiva
education:
“The Haredi kollel fellow is
force-fed a diet of Torah study characteristic of the Lithuanian yeshivas of
the previous century. Should he not be of a mind to rebel completely, the only
somewhat legitimate pursuit open to him is Jewish Studies. In that way he can
edit the novellae of the Rosh to tractate Nazir
without raising too many eyebrows. For that reason Haredi scholars, at least
initially, are more involved in editing and less with research or writing
articles. And if they are open to producing scholarship, the closer the subject
matter is to our time, the better: better on the modern rabbinic authorities
than the medieval ones, better on the medievals than the Ge’onim, and God forbid not on the Talmud—don’t even mention the
Bible. Preference is given to writing biographical pieces and endless discussions of historical chronology, such as
clarifying the years of rabbi X’s rabbinic post in town Y, rather than anything
deep about his method of study.”
Not everyone agrees with K.’s psychological diagnosis. “Some
have ventured into the academic world not out of frustration with the kollel
world, but because they were introduced to
scholarship in minute doses and became enchanted by it,” says R. Yosef
Mordechai Dubovick, a Boyaner Hasid
who recently completed his doctorate on Rabbenu Hananel. He says that this
field presents something the young prodigy would find difficult to resist.
“We have been taught and
trained to question, explore, plumb the depths and not be satisfied with a
superficial reading or understanding. When the intellectual yeshiva student is
exposed to new tools and unfamiliar hermeneutical lenses and modes of
understanding, his natural curiosity—nurtured so well—gobbles them up.”
“It’s ‘spontaneous academia,’” says Rabbi J., who would
prefer to avoid equating it with academia. “It develops independently, without
institutional bodies to dictate rules and regulations. It is anarchic,
autodidactic, and exhilarating. It is a breathtaking demonstration of
unfettered intellectual ability.”
A Scholar is
Born
Rabbi Dr. Zvi Leshem, Director of the Gershom Scholem Library
at the National Library of Israel, has occasionally bumped into scholars from
the very heart of the Haredi world. “They are not the typical kollel fellow
because the scholarly approach is not that of yeshiva students,” he says. He
continues:
“Look, when I began working
here I met a senior rosh yeshiva from a respected hesder yeshiva, and I told him about those who come from the
yeshiva world to do research here. He was at a loss. “What sort of thing do
they research?” he asked me, and I responded in turn with the example of Hemdat Yamim.[2] “Why would they
research Hemdat Yamim,” the Torah
scholar asked me, “when they can buy it in any seforim store?” That is the mainstream
approach. Those who embark on scholarship are atypical.”
They may be exceptional and individualist, but one
unmistakable quality binds them all together: they are autodidacts. This is evident in how they handle
material in a foreign language. Some of these scholars have never studied
English or German systematically yet refer to non-Hebrew sources in their
articles. Each apparently bridged the gap in his own way.
Anyone
interested in this phenomenon is invited to open, for example, a volume of Yerushaseinu, an annual tome published
by the Institute for German Jewish
Heritage (Machon Moreshet Ashkenaz). Some of the articles published therein
would be perfectly suitable for any standard academic journal; among the
numerous footnotes adorning the pages one finds references to scholarly
literature in Hebrew and other languages. Other publications include Yeshurun, Moriah (published by Machon Yerushalayim, which for decades already
has been involved in the professional editing of medieval and modern rabbinic
literature), the Chabad journal Heikhal
Ha-Besht, and others. Torani
scholars fondly remember the journal
Tzfunot, which met its demise over a
decade ago, and in the meantime they publish in Torah supplements to Haredi
newspapers, primarily in Kulmos of
the newspaper Mishpacha. Likewise,
the new scholarly journal Chitzei
Gibborim - Pleitas Soferim, published in Lakewood, NJ, is at the moment
taking its first steps.
Prominent
names in the field include Mordechai Honig,
a Hasid from Monsey who is extremely knowledgeable in medieval rabbinic literature; Yaakov Yisrael Stahl, a scholar
of Franco-German Jewry forced to lower his profile in connection with academia;
Moshe Dovid Chechik, a historian who until recently co-edited Yerushaseinu and currently co-edits Chitzei Gibborim; Yehudah Zeivald, a
Boyaner Hasid who is quite busy with philosophy and Hasidism; Yitzchak
Rosenblum, who had to move from Kiryat Sefer to Bet Shemesh on account of the
library he opened, and currently teaches at the Haredi yeshiva high school
Nehora; Yaakov Laufer, a scholar who
focuses on linguistics and on the conceptual mode of Torah study; Betzalel Deblitsky, a prodigious
zealot from Bnei Brak who runs the forum associated with Otzar HaHochma (the monumental digitization project of the Jewish
library); Nachum Grunwald of Lakewood, NJ, a Chabadnik who grew up a
Satmar-Pupa Hasid and serves as editor of Heikhal
Ha-Besht; Aharon Gabbai, a rising star from Bnei Brak who graduated from a
Lithuanian yeshiva, of course; Yechiel Goldhaber, slightly older than the rest,
a historian and bibliographer whose scholarship is famous, and for whom the
National Library is a second home; and Avraham Shmuel Taflinsky, who has toiled
for the past few years in uncovering the sources of the aforementioned Hemdat Yamim.
Once we are
mentioning the denizens of the National Library, mention must be made of the
all-important tool in their scholarly work—the Internet. The global web of
knowledge enables Haredi men from conservative yeshivas, whose library holdings
are what you would expect, to come in contact with Jewish Studies scholarship
and its historical-critical mindset. Most Haredi scholars have a home Internet
connection, but not all. Zvi Leshem relates that some come to the library not
to peruse ancient manuscripts or converse with the university’s scholars who
use it as their place of study, but simply to work at a place that provides
Internet access.
“In the
digital age, Jewish Studies scholarship has successfully managed to wiggle its way, however constrainedly, into
Haredi and yeshiva circles via databases such as Otzar HaHochma,” Mordechai Honig relates. “Until recently, it was
the books. The birth of a Haredi
scholar was generally triggered by incidental exposure to academic scholarship
that invitingly charmed him. For me, it was Ephraim Urbach’s The Tosaphists, which I purchased at age
fifteen.”
No one can
deny the love story between digital media and the world of Haredi scholarship,
with the latter exercising its acumen also in its use of technology. Along
those lines, a weekly Internet journal popped up several years ago which, in
the course of a couple years, became an especially favored forum for the group
of torani scholars. It bore the name Datshe (ДАЧА), a Russian word that made its way into yeshivish slang, which
evokes a leisurely space in which people enjoy life, a kind of rare legitimation
of self-indulgence and letting loose a bit. The journal, founded and edited by
Yitzchak Baruch Rosenblum, was, according to its subtitle, “where sages of
Israel come to relax.” The
publication insisted upon respectable discussion and high-caliber argumentation,
but one also could find among the directives to its readers and writers the
following note of caution, which furnishes an additional explanation to the
choice of digital format: “Please preserve the low profile of this publication.
One can print it for ease of reading but should not show it to just anyone.
Wisdom belongs to the discreet.”[3]
Instead of Polemic, Shock
Along with Internet databases and online journals, forums
also have an important place in the discourse of these scholars. After many
long years in which the forum Soferim
u-Sefarim on the site Be-Hadrei
Haredim served as the water cooler for
torani scholars, the baton was passed
to the forums of Otzar HaHochma. A
lengthy, fascinating thread recently began there, for example, whose purpose is
to generate a list of “dissenting opinions [made by lone rabbinic scholars],”
that is, halakhic positions taken by well-known decisors over the generations
when their colleagues were of a different mind. The thread reveals the
foundational analytic-halakhic erudition of the discussants, expert not only in
bibliography and history but also in a wide range of positions expressed by
medieval and modern rabbinic authorities on scores of issues.
The
administrator of the Otzar HaHochma
forums is, as was said above, Betzalel Deblitsky (under the username “Ish Sefer”). What had been permissible
on Be-Hadrei Haredim the fearless
zealot Deblitsky bans, censoring
discussions and silencing voices he deems unworthy of being heard. But even
those who miss the great openness that marked the forum of yore understand that
the change is permanent—discussions of relevance within the scholarly community
take place principally on the new forum.
Zeal,
parenthetically, is a relative matter: the strict filter Netiv, which runs according to the guidance of a confidential
rabbinic board, blocks the Otzar HaHochma
forum on account of its content being deemed subversive and problematic. To
take but one example, the forum has an intense, politically-charged discussion
surrounding one of the veteran decisors of the Edah Haredit in Jerusalem—R. Yitzhak Isaac Kahana. A broadside that
circulated in Jerusalem against R. Kahana’s book Orhot Tohorah and his lenient rulings on questions regarding
menstruation inflamed not only the physical Haredi street but the virtual one
as well, engendering scathing posts on the forum in support of each side. A
symptom of one of the forum’s pathologies is partially manifest in this case:
the deletion of threads by the moderator, who perceived them as deviating from
the Haredi party line. Over three pages of posts inexplicably disappeared from
the site, only to return the next day, redacted.
Rabbi Eitam Henkin was among those disappointed by the limits
set on the forum’s discourse as compared with past fora, but he nevertheless
realized that this was the place to be. Under the username “Tokh Kedei Dibbur,” Henkin took part in
discussions on the forum, and at the same time carried on extensive personal
e-mail correspondence with scholars who were active on it. This became the
gateway through which Israeli reality penetrated the Haredi ivory tower—users
discovered that the man murdered together with his wife, in front of his
children, in the middle of Sukkot,
was none other than “their very own” Rabbi Eitam. The forum was filled with
emotional threads of eulogy and anguish, memorial
initiatives and activities to be done in his merit, and the revelation of the
many connections that Henkin had weaved amongst his Internet friends.
It is
difficult not to resort to superlatives when speaking about Eitam Henkin.
Anyone who had followed his abundant Torah publications — which were marked by
eloquent prose, intellectual honesty, and the self-confidence of someone on
home turf — had trouble believing the subject of conversation was so young.
Even the conversation about him on the forums sketches
a fascinating profile. The user known as “Meholat
Ha-Mahanayim” wrote:
“The distinguished victim, may
God avenge his blood, was wondrously knowledgeable about the entire history of
our people, and specifically the history of Lithuanian Torah scholars and their
writings. I merited corresponding with him a bit here, and as much as he was honest,
fair, and truth-seeking, he was also intensely and diligently exacting […] None
of his responses contained any triviality;
his prose was shot through with words of Torah and wisdom, brimming with
old wine […] One could discern his constant drive for the truth from his
responses. He was never too flustered for a retort, and he always based what he
said on the most solid of foundations. Even when he argued for an alternative
position, he was a fair and honest opponent, unafraid to admit he was wrong when
necessary.”
None other than Deblitsky (“Ish Sofer”), who is so distant from Henkin’s worldview and rarely treats anything with a
velvet glove, eulogized Henkin at length. The forum’s moderator wrote:
“His statements stood out in
their richness, sharpness, and precision—they have no equal. The wide range of
people who corresponded with him is astounding. Despite their working in
various fields, his correspondents unanimously attested to the immense benefit
they gained from him and to the rich sources with which he magnanimously and
pleasantly inundated them. Many a time in answering some inconsequential
question, he would—as soon as you could say Jack Robinson[4]— whip out one of his many lists,
chock-full and cornucopian, while noting that he was collecting additional
material on the matter and it would have to wait until a future opportunity […]
Many have mentioned honesty
and artlessness among his noble
qualities. I would like to emphasize one thing that no one like me realized
until they fell prey to it: his sharp and resolute style tended to invite
polemic, but anyone who responded harshly as a tit-for-tat comeback found
himself embarrassed and pathetic upon discovering the affable and unpretentious
man behind those words.”
Further on, Deblitsky touched on Henkin’s transcendence of
the entire sectoral framework. According to him, Henkin noted in a personal
communication “that his unique pedigree as a son and grandson of American
rabbis who did not fit in with any of the specific groups of Torah-observant Jews enables him to view himself as free of the
shackles of sometimes artificial classification and group affiliation. One
could say that this feeling largely allowed him to cast a critical eye upon and
evaluate phenomena from all sectors without bias.” Deblitsky claimed this to be
evident in the independent stance Henkin took in a slew of polemics, in which
his misgivings and speculations were spelled out numerous times in private
messages, as he took pains to publish in the forum only those things that he
could wholeheartedly stand behind.
“I, for one,
find exaggeration on both sides,” wrote Henkin to Deblitsky regarding the
polemic within the forum surrounding the figure of the late Rabbi Aharon
Lichtenstein. “Be it the disparaging vitriol about him […] or, on the other
side, those feigning innocence, as if he was just another link in the chain of
Torah sages throughout the ages, some of whom have always engaged to some
degree in general culture.” Henkin conceded to Deblitsky that even within the
National-Religious community opposition to Rabbi Lichtenstein had existed: “It
was undoubtedly quite grating for a regular yeshiva student (excluding those
from Har Etzion and to “the left”) to see citations from non-Jewish culture and
the like in a Torah article. In this case (of criticism within the
National-Religious community—Yoav Sorek), however, opposition to that approach
was disjoined from ad hominem
attacks.”
“We should
be very sad that ‘sectoral’ boundaries
make no exceptions for Torah giants,” wrote Henkin in another e-mail to
Deblitsky.
“The definitive assignment of
each person into specifically this community or that one is often artificial.
It is absurd that the public
considers many comedians, musicians, and low-brow entertainers (for purposes of this example) as
“Haredi” because they attended heder
and wear a hat in the synagogue, while thousands of families who give their all
for Torah and are punctilious about every jot and tittle (not to mention that for them television, secular newspapers, and
the like are not even up for discussion) are “not Haredi" because they
wear a colored shirt and also rejoice on Yom
Ha-‘Atzma’ut. Although people can only see externals, they can ascertain
what they will have to account for in the Heavenly court, whether they will be
asked about Torah study, honesty in business, and hoping for the redemption,[5]
or whom they cast their vote for in national elections.”
Henkin wrote the following when describing Rabbi Dov Lior’s
Torah greatness. “I can say unhesitatingly that we are talking about a serious
heavyweight in Torah erudition and jurisprudence who has the entire Talmud and Shulhan Arukh in his head—incredible!”
Still, he noted that the Haredim do not respect him simply because his stance
on Zionist matters “meant he was to be associated with only one camp and
perforce rendered off-limits for the other camp, even if for him the only thing
in his world is Torah, pure and simple. (Elements of Western culture or academia,
which are accepted in large segments of his camp, he derides at every turn.)”
In these
citations of Henkin one can hear the Haredi lilt. As Deblitsky and others in
the forum pointed out multiple times, Henkin had the ability to converse with
various people in language they were comfortable with. In private communication
with another user in the forum,
Henkin disclosed that when he would write on Otzar HaHochma, he would adopt the appropriate style and cautiously promote topics close to his heart.
What motive
could there be for entering this lion’s den? Henkin had faith that every place
has its bright spots, and he was happy to become acquainted with people he
would not have otherwise met. He described himself as “attempting to pursue
peace, even in a place where they pursue the likes of me.” As he wrote another
time under the username “Tekhelet Domah” in the somewhat-calmer forum of Be-Hadrei Haredim: “I try my utmost not to hate anyone and not to
write off any community that believes itself to be doing God’s will, even those
which, in accord with their own aforementioned belief, would write me off and
disparage my Rebbe in an unacceptable way.”
Professor in
All But Name
After
Henkin’s murder, a debate arose between his acquaintances and family over the
the respective value he assigned to the two antipodes of academic study and
religious study. Not surprisingly, the tension between the two constantly taxes
many torani scholars. In the Otzar HaHochma forum and others, it is
not uncommon to find a venomous and disparaging treatment of classic academics,
who are caricatured as wasting their time on the trivial or unnecessary because they do not know how to study
Torah, plain and simple. In the
acerbic language of one forum contributor: “they are incapable of studying a
page of Talmud without Schottenstein and a dictionary.”
In this way,
the methodology of the elderly professor David Halivni, for example, has been
pilloried and subject to sharp ridicule, perhaps also on account of his past
affiliation with the Conservative movement. Along the lines of the approach
with which he is associated (which presumes that most Talmudic passages were
edited by a generation of anonymous sages, termed stamma’im, during the
Savoraic period), the user “Afarqasta
De-‘Anya” writes that he read Halivni’s introductions to two tractates and
concluded: “Halivni did not write them himself; rather, he composed specific
passages in which even he did not fully understand what he was writing or what
he intended. His editor and publisher added stammaitic passages, thereby
integrating the scattered pieces into what appears to be a single, unified
text.”
This
derision may, of course, result from an inferiority complex afflicting those
with no proper academic training, or from the ignorance of those whose
intellectual horizons do not extend beyond the narrative in which they were
raised. In any case, it is far from being the consensus of the community of torani scholars: some have integrated
into academia in recent years, others recognize that the yeshiva world’s
disdain toward Jewish Studies is outdated. As Dubovick notes, Jewish Studies of
this past generation is not what it had been previously, when scholars had no
connection to the traditional study hall, and their scholarship at times
revealed their ignorance and at other times
could not sort the wheat from the chaff. In this generation, the preeminent
scholars in the field are also serious Torah scholars.
Yet, anyone
who publishes in Haredi journals or seeks legitimacy from the Haredi street
cannot write without inhibition. “They must be careful about how they write,
whom they cite, and even what titles they bestow,” explains Zvi Leshem. “I
recall someone here who wanted to cite Rabbi Saul Lieberman’s Tosefta Ki-Feshutah, but he could not
figure out which was the worse option—writing Rabbi Lieberman or Professor
Lieberman. In the end he simply omitted his name.”
Though many
of them already bear the title Dr., generally the torani scholars are not in the academic race for positions and
recognition, and that fact profoundly impacts their lives. “The disconnect from
the academic world and all its rivalry makes it easy for a scholar to share his
wisdom with his colleagues, without having to worry about material or future
scholarship being stolen, as well as to partake of his colleagues’ wisdom,”
says R. Yoel Catane. “At the same time, the pressure to publish quality
articles in the academic world, and the need to subject one’s research to peer
review, occasionally yields excellent results that cannot be achieved in torani scholarship.”
“The fact
that we are not part of that competition,” explains G. to me, “grants us peace
of mind, intellectual freedom, the freedom to choose our areas of research
without the need for prerequisite courses that are not entirely necessary, and
the freedom to develop our ideas as we see fit. I see Haredi scholars
benefitting from the sort of freedom enjoyed by the first generation of
scholars in the Wissenschaft des
Judentums movement.”
Between
Seclusion and Entrenchment
The heightened awareness of Jewish sages to the development of their tradition preceded by
centuries the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement,
which set the critical modern gaze upon the Jewish library. Across the
generations there were Ge’onim,
medievals, and moderns engaging in textual criticism, historicizing customs,
unearthing deep-rooted errors, and looking askance at what the ignorant
perceived as a “Judaism” that could not be questioned.
Even from
the narrower, more modern perspective of relations between the academy and
Haredim, the group that forms the subject of this article certainly cannot
claim originality. The “Bibliography of the Hebrew Book,” a superb academic
project that catalogs all titles printed in Hebrew and other Jewish languages
through the ages, is currently led by Yitzchok Yudlov, an erudite Haredi with
no academic schooling. Among the founders of the project Rabbi Shmuel Ashkenazy
(Deutsch), raised in Batei Ungarin,
stands out. Ashkenazi, one of the most famous Haredi scholars of the book,
serves today as an honorary member of the Mekize Nirdamim Society, a
venerable publisher identified with the Wissenschaft
movement. Two Haredi scholars also stand out among the employees of the
National Library: Yehoshua Mondshine, an independently-minded Habadnik known
for his scholarship on Hasidism, who passed away this past Hanukkah[6] after a
terrible illness; and Meir Wunder, may he live a long life, a bibliophile and
historian who wrote, among other things, his monumental project Meorei Galitziya (Luminaries of
Galicia). A similar undertaking for Hungarian sages was brought into being by
the late Haredi scholar Yitzchak Yosef Cohen, who worked within the framework
of Machon Yerushalayim, the most famous of the Haredi publishers with a
scholarly inclination. Also worthy of note are Yitzchak Yeshaya Weiss and Moshe
Alexander Zusha Kinstlicher, both prolific scholars in the field of rabbinic history, who edited the
now-defunct Tzfunot.
What, then,
distinguishes the members of this young group from all their predecessors?
Perhaps it is the fact that the integration that had once seemed so organic has
become more complicated as a result of two parallel processes: the seclusion of
Haredi society, and the entrenchment of
the academy’s formality. The world of the learned, from all walks of life, for
whom knowledge and curiosity are essential, has been replaced by the reality of
evaluative categories within the halls of the academy, and an
inflexible, censorial “hashkafah” within the Haredi camp. Few are those
who seek to restore the former glory of scholarship, back when its throne did
not have to be an academic chair nor its crown a black hat.
—————————
A DUAL DESTINY
The
doctoral advisor of Eitam Henkin, may God avenge his blood, was convinced that
his student had chosen academia over the halakhic discourse of the yeshiva.
Others attest that Henkin viewed halakhic discourse, in fact, as paramount.
*
Although his world was built upon foundations quite different
from those of his Haredi interlocutors, Eitam Henkin had no difficulty finding
a shared language with torani scholars.
An autodidact to the core, he also held fast to the truth, was intellectually
curious, loved profound discussion, and was prepared to swim against the tide.
And as can be expected from anyone who has an independent love for knowledge,
it turns out that he also wrote for—or at least corrected and made changes
to—the Hebrew Wikipedia. On his user page, under the username “Shim‘on Ha-Eitan" (which he used in
other contexts, such as on the site Mida), he opted for a pithy self-description
that speaks volumes: “a Jerusalemite with diasporic roots, whose world is Torah
and whose occupation is writing and
research.”
Henkin began
his doctoral research under Prof. David Assaf of Tel-Aviv University. He
dedicated it to the biography of R. Israel Meir Ha-Kohen of Radun, the Hafetz Hayyim (1839-1933), one of the
mythic personalities who have exercised incredible influence on contemporary
Orthodoxy. Assaf, who deeply admired Henkin,
published a eulogy on his blog Oneg
Shabbat that aroused immediate contention. He wrote:
“Eitam was a wunderkind. I first met him in 2007. At the time he was an avrekh meshi (by his own definition), a
fine young yeshiva fellow, all of twenty-three years old. He was a student at
Yeshivat Nir in Kiryat Arba, with a long list of publications in Torah journals
already trailing him. He contacted me via e-mail, and after a few exchanges I
invited him to meet. […] We spoke at
length, and I have cared about him ever since. From his articles and our many
conversations I discerned right away that he had that certain je ne sais quoi.
He had those qualities, the personality, and the capability—elusive,
unquantifiable, and indefinable—of someone meant to be a historian, and a good
historian at that.
I did not have to press
especially hard to convince him that his place—his destiny—did not lie between
the walls of the yeshiva, and that he should not squander his talents on the
niceties of halakha. He needed to enroll in university and train himself
professionally for what truly interested him, for what he truly loved: critical
historical scholarship. […]
Eitam, hailing from a world of
traditional yeshiva study that is poles apart from the academic world, slid
into his university studies effortlessly. He rapidly internalized academic
discourse, with its patterns of thinking and writing, and began to taste the
distinct savors of that world.”
In the continuation, Assaf heaps praise upon his young
student. The sharp opposition that he posed between “the niceties of halakha”
and critical scholarship, however, engendered grievances on the part of several
Oneg Shabbat readers, particularly
those familiar with Henkin’s other side. His brother Dr. Yagil Henkin
criticized Assaf’s piece relatively delicately. “He believes Eitam saw himself
primarily as a scholar, not a rabbi with plans to fill a rabbinic post,” he
told Yosef Ehrenfeld in the
newspaper Shevi‘i. “I have a
different take on the matter […] His first and foremost desire was to be a
Torah scholar, but he also wanted to be an academic scholar. In everything that
interested him and everything he engaged in, he strove to do his best, to go
the extra mile.”
Rabbi Dr.
Michael Avraham protested Assaf’s
denigration of Torah discourse, leading with the following cynical preface:
“I am unable to restrain
myself from making the objective academic comparison (apparently the product of
systematic methodology and critical-historical scholarship) between
“squandering one’s time on the niceties of halakha” and “entering the precincts (heikhalot)
of the academy.” I won’t lie: a quiver of holiness washed over me upon reading
those words, but I nevertheless summon my courage and dare to murmur something
in the heart of the sanctuary (heikhal).
May its priests, Levites, and prophets forgive me after kissing their sacred,
perfumed feet.”
Offended, Assaf responded with a stinging riposte of his own,
explaining that he was not deriding the yeshiva’s methods of study; rather, he
was convinced that Eitam, as a young man who had needed to choose his intellectual
path, was inclined more towards academic methods of study and writing. This
assertion would seem to fit the activity of Eitam’s final years, but it
somewhat contradicts the testimony of Deblitsky, according to which Henkin
viewed his thoroughly halakhic composition about Sabbath law—a book that has
yet to be published[7]—as his most important work.
Translator’s Notes:
This article was
first published in Hebrew in Mekor Rishon (30 October 2015), and is translated
here with permission of Mekor Rishon and the author. The translator would like
to thank Shaul Seidler-Feller for his invaluable assistance. A groysn shkoyekh!
[1] A preliminary terminological distinction in order to
forestall confusion:
●
A
hoker is someone with the skills to
conduct sustained research on a topic of interest and produce noteworthy
scholarship. Such a person may have academic training and credentials, but the
subjects of this article, for the most part, do not. I translate ‘hoker’ as ‘scholar.’
●
A
hoker torani is such a scholar who
happens to be firmly ensconced in the world of Torah, and whose research
interests center around topics related to that world. Owing to the lack of
suitable English adjective, I will leave the adjective in the Hebrew, yielding
“torani scholar.”
●
A
talmid hakham is someone with
measurably significant Torah erudition, but that knowledge does not necessarily
have any bearing on his ability to produce scholarship. I will retain the
standard translation of ‘Torah scholar.’
[2] A compilation of customs, prayers, and kabbalistic
practices printed about 300 years ago that has had tremendous influence ever
since. It nevertheless generated controversy regarding its author’s identity
and its content due to suspicions of Sabbateanism.
[3] Cf. Prov 11:2.
[4] The closest idiomatic equivalent of tokh kedei dibbur, Henkin’s username.
[5] cf. Shabbat 31a.
[6] Hanukkah 5775 (24 December 2014). A tribute has been
published on these pages by Eli Rubin, “Toil of the Mind and Heart: A Meditation
in Memory of Rabbi Yehoshua Mondshine,” the
Seforim blog (13 December 2015), available here.
[7] The book, Zeh Sefer
Esh Tamid, has since been published by Mossad HaRav Kook in April 2016.
