Month: July 2016 – ב׳ בתמוז תשע״ו

The ‘Brisker Method’ Does Not Grant Purity!

The Ridbaz’ attack on the Brisker method is well known. In the introduction to his responsa, Beit Ridbaz (Jerusalem, 1908), Ridbaz writes as follows:
A certain rabbi invented the “chemical” method of study. Those in the know now refer to it as “chemistry,” but many speak of it as “logic.” This proved to be of great harm to us for it is a foreign spirit from without that they have brought in to the Oral Torah. This is not the Torah delivered to us by Moses from the mouth of the Omnipresent. This method of study has spread among the yeshivah students who still hold a gemara in their hands. In no way does this type of Torah study bring men to purity. From the day this method spread abroad this kind of Torah has had no power to protect its students. . . . It is better to have no rosh yeshivah than to have one who studies with the “chemical” method.
In his ethical will, printed at the end of his responsa, Ridbaz returns to this criticism and directs his sons: “Be careful, and keep far away from the new method of study that has in recent years spread through Lithuania and Zamut. Those knowledgeable in Torah refer to it as ‘chemistry.'”

Excerpted from Seforim Blog, here.

Here is the Hebrew text of the ethical will from HebrewBooks here:
מהלימוד החדש שיצא בשנים האחרונות בזאמוט וליטא אשר המביני תורה קוראים לה כמיאה הזהרו מאוד, והתרחקו ממנו.

Reconstructing Originalist Judaism

Here’s a summary of the famed “Rupture and Reconstruction” essay by Rabbi Haym Soloveitchik:

Following the Holocaust, Soleveitchik argues, there has been a (really radical) shift to an Orthodoxy that is not mimetic, but one that gets its norms from texts. Which is not to say that Jews didn’t look into halakha seforim before 1945 or anything like that. But the specific issue that he raises to illustrate his point, that of shiurim is illuminating. Basically, before WWII the issue of what is the proper size of a kizayos (and how it pertains to, say, matzah) didn’t exist. One knew exactly how much matzah to eat. Every year since you could remember you attended your family seder. Your father ate matzah. His father was their too, or his father-in-law. Everyone knew how much to eat.

While he does a pretty good job of explaining the history, I disagree with Rabbi HS’ implied stance (yes, he does have one). The sad truth is: Jews today lack reliably accurate and detailed traditions (or “Masores”). We are all basically Gerim (converts). We must wake up and learn seriously and independently. “Mimetic culture” (that is, certain Halachic actions, or silence upon observing certain actions, by “Vasikin”, or scholars) is logically reducible to merely one more source-text, just as though the scholar in question had written out his view and got it copied or printed. And each Jewish text is assigned a different weight, of course. We pay less attention to Rabbi Akiva Eiger than to a Gemara; so too must we pay less attention to custom by a lesser authority than to that of a greater one. And sufficient proof from many Rishonim can beat a widespread custom.

We lack absolute knowledge of the Holy Alter’s location, which animals and birds exactly are Kosher, the Arba Minim, Maror, coinage, Tereifos, and much more. Yes, we do know some things, but this was never enough, and reality is thankfully forcing us into making numerous decisions about Jewish matters left unplumbed for thousands of years.

The shift is positive. Thank God, we have done some Teshuvah and are now more faithful to our texts. Or as Forthodoxy calls it, “meqoriyuth” (or mekoriyut). Yet there is still much work to be done. By the way, the Chazon Ish deserves a lot of the credit for this revolution.