העורך Editor

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.

• Excerpted from On The Main Line.

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 some people have called it online, “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.

Taxes leave less money in the productive sector. So less taxes are good and more are bad. Government welfare subsidies, on the other hand are a from of illegitimate income redistribution and social engineering, which especially harms the poor in the long run. Ergo, more welfare is bad and less is good. Here are two old political comic strips by Yoni Gerstein where he makes a crucial error.

One:

Two:

Some Rabbis are clearly corrupted by our decadent culture. How come we have rabbis like Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg “permitting” aborting Down Syndrome babies, “extenuating circumstances”, and the like, apart from danger to the mother? The Gemara is very clear in many places that abortion is part-murder.

But as attitudes worsen around us, Jews learn from the Non-Jew. And pretend the Torah itself permits murder.

I highly recommend Rabbi Brand’s tiny book on abortion here (Hebrew).

Hold on just one minute, lets not confuse Torah and Daas Torah.” Just because the Torah commands us to do something that doesn’t mean we should actually do it. What do our Rabbis tell us?

After all, who are we to try to understand that which is clearly stated in the Torah when some of our lesser teachers (henceforth known as “Gdolim” for the sake of the common vernacular) tell us that they have decided something contrary to G-d’s eternal commandments to the Jewish people on earth embodied by the Torah given to Moshe Rabbenu on Har Sinai?

This concept is known as Daas Torah, the central idea being that Daas Torah is the Guide by which we should lead our lives lest we wander astray following the precepts of the Ol Malchus Shamayim we accepted when we said NaAsseh ViNishma.

Excerpted from Brisk Yeshiva, here.

ראה דברי הרב שלמה פישר בקובץ “צפונות” גליון 3 שנת תשמ”ט כאן לגבי אחד כזה: יוסף אבן כספי.