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Rabbi Malinowitz: The Rationalist Approach Is KOSHER, and You Need NOT Always Listen to the Gedolim!

A Rav with Strength and Integrity

The news of the passing of Rav Chaim Malinowitz – senior editor of the Schottenstein Talmud (Bavli and Yerushalmi), rav of Beis Tefillah in Ramat Beit Shemesh – came as a great shock. He had been seriously ill for a while, but it was not thought to be life-threatening. But more than that – Rav Malinowitz was a larger-than-life figure, and it seems impossible for him to not be alive.

In the years 2004-2006 in particular, he was one of the most important people in my life. Over the last few years our relationship unfortunately broke off, when he became involved in political campaigning for the Abutbul administration in Beit Shemesh and took stances in various other community issues to which I (and many others) deeply objected. Fortunately, in the last few months we were able to patch things up on a personal level.

My relationship with Rav Malinowitz goes back over twenty years, before he was appointed rabbi of Beis Tefillah in Ramat Beit Shemesh. I was twenty-four years old, single, learning in yeshivah in Jerusalem, and publishing a weekly parashah sheet. In one of those essays, I penned a criticism of a popular icon in the wider Jewish world. A barrage of complaints ensued, and being a sensitive person plagued by self-doubt, I issued a public apology and retraction. Whereupon I received an email from someone who identified himself as one Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz. He wrote that my original article was absolutely correct, that I shouldn’t have buckled under criticism, and that my parashah essays won’t have much value if I just pander to the demands of others.

From his email, it was apparent that he thought I was much more senior than I actually was, so I wrote back to him and explained that I was just a 24 year old yeshivah bochur. Next thing I knew, he showed up at my yeshivah to chat with me. I was a bit puzzled at this special visit, but things became clearer when, a few days later, it turned out that he was proposing a shidduch for me! It was truly an honor, even though that shidduch was not meant to be. And subsequently we kept in touch.

A few years later, I was married and living in Ramat Beit Shemesh, and our shul at the time, Beis Tefillah, was searching for a rabbi. I suggested hiring Rav Malinowitz, as did a few other people. While there are very different views as to whether this appointment turned out to be good for Beit Shemesh (due to his political involvement), it certainly turned out to be incredibly fortuitous for me.

The story of the controversial ban on my books is well known. Perhaps not as well known is the role that Rav Malinowitz played in this story. While there were a number of rabbanim that supported me in various ways, probably none were as significant as Rav Malinowitz.

When the ban happened, which caused my family and I over a year of torment, I still saw myself very much as being a part of the charedi world. While there were rabbanim from the Centrist/Modern Orthodox communities inviting me to be a part of their world, I wasn’t psychologically/socially ready to do that. And I was receiving hundreds of letters of support from people within the charedi world, so I wasn’t ready to portray the controversy as being a charedi vs. non-charedi dispute (I have since mostly changed my mind on that). So it was crucial for me to have rabbinic guidance and support from within the charedi world.

Now, there were rabbis in the charedi world who were supporting me. My own mentor in the topic of Torah and science, Rav Aryeh Carmell, stood by his approbations for my works and issued a further letter of support; but by that point he was too old and weak to be dynamically involved. There were other rabbanim in the charedi world who were giving me moral and strategic support, but they were understandably too afraid to be public about it. (Reminder: don’t judge people until you are in their place.) And they weren’t necessarily people with big-name authority anyway.

But there was Rav Malinowitz! He played a crucial role in so many ways. He was an outstanding Torah scholar with bona fide credentials in the charedi world, and with a prominent position as editor of the Schottenstein Talmud. He made himself available by phone and by email to guide me and support me at every step of the way. He helped me draft letters and develop strategies. He gave me crucial guidance in the topic of rabbinic authority.

Rav Malinowitz had a very sensible, traditional, grounded approach to Chazal and science. He once shared with me an interesting insight – “According to those people who think that Chazal had divinely-inspired knowledge of modern science, why would it be limited to the science of 2005? It would mean that Chazal knew every scientific discovery that will ever take place in the future!”

Interestingly, although Rav Malinowitz had written an approbation to my work, he himself did not agree with all of my approaches to Torah/science topics, with regard to Bereishis. (He had no particular expertise in science, and was deeply skeptical of it.) But this made his support for me all the more potent. When people would tell him that my approach to various topics was wrong, he’d say to them: “I agree with you! But that doesn’t mean that it’s beyond the pale of acceptable opinions!”

Importantly, he maintained that it was completely acceptable for people to dispute my approach. People were entitled to firmly maintain that the Gemara did not contain anything scientifically inaccurate, and that Bereishis is to be interpreted entirely literally. But what they were not entitled to do was to claim that I was not allowed to take a different view and that I was alone in doing so. They were entitled to condemn my approach, as long as they made it clear that they were also condemning Rambam, Rav Hirsch, and so on.

Rav Malinowitz was the one who explained to me exactly why I was not under the slightest obligation to obey the ban. He explained to me both why the rules of rabbinic authority do not require one to always listen to the Gedolim, and why their opposition to my work was mistaken. But it wasn’t just personal guidance that he gave me – there was no shortage of people doing that. Rav Malinowitz was one of only a handful of people in the charedi world who actually went on record as publicly supporting me.  He wrote an official letter, on shul letterhead, explicitly reiterating his support.

The significance of this should not be underestimated. In the charedi world, publicly going against the Gedolim is virtually unthinkable; the strength of character required is immense. It wasn’t just a matter of people badmouthing him (though, for people outside of the charedi world, it’s hard to conceive of just how much pressure this can create). Rav Moshe Shapiro called him in to castigate him for undermining his stance against me – and Rav Malinowitz stood his ground. Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz at ArtScroll – Rav Malinowitz’s primary employer – threatened to fire him if he didn’t repudiate his support for me. At that point, I told Rav Malinowitz that he could sell me out, as I didn’t want him to lose his job. But he told me that on principle he could not do such a thing. (Fortunately, as he predicted, the threat fell through.)

As the controversy over my books stretched out beyond a year, the toll became unbearable. My wife and I went to meet with Rav Malinowitz together to discuss the situation. He said to us: “Why not just leave the charedi community? Switch your kippah, send your kids to different schools, and that’s that! You’ll be much happier.” We took his advice and were immensely better off for it. (Ironically, a few years later, Rav Malinowitz told me that he was upset that I followed his advice so completely as to even leave his shul – he hadn’t meant for me to go that far!)

As I mentioned, several years later, Rav Malinowitz took positions on various communal and political issues that aroused much opposition in the non-charedi religious community, including with me. At one point, our dispute became very public. And yet, consistent with his own approach to rabbinic authority, he had no problem with my publicly disagreeing with him. He continued to email me over the years with various sources of interest. And while I was still upset by the communal positions that he had taken, and his public claims about there being a “War on Torah” in Beit Shemesh, I always told him that my gratitude for what he did for me in my hour of need would never falter.

Will there ever be such a figure in the charedi community again, with such integrity and strength of character? Rav Malinowitz’s passing leaves a great void. May his memory be for a blessing.

From Rationalist Judaism, here.

Exposing the Kiruv Cons in Rabbi Zamir Cohen’s ‘The Coming Revolution’

Is this Torah-true Judaism?

I was looking at Rabbi Zamir Cohen’s book The Coming Revolution today. In it, he claims that Louis Pasteur developed his cure for rabies after first reading a French translation of the Talmud. Cohen writes:

While living in Paris, Rabbi Dr Rabinowitz began translating the Talmud into French When his friend, Louis Pasteur, saw a copy of “Seder Mo’ed” – the tractates dealing primarily with the Jewish holiday cycle – it roused his curiosity. To his amazement he read there the following statement:

“If someone is bitten by a mad dog [affected with rabies], he should be fed the lobe of that dog’s liver.”
The doctor was amazed at this healing method, which used part of the infected animal itself. He concluded that the Sages knew that an infected body produces antibodies, which attack an invading infection. Moreover, it seems that the antibodies, which concentrate in the liver, could actually help heal a person who was bitten by a rabid dog. Doc. Pasteur immediately began a series of experiments that eventually resulted in the saving of millions of human lives.

It really bothers me when people use falsehoods to try and make other people religious. To me, this seems like a complete distortion of both history (and science) and – more importantly – of Torah. Let’s have a look at the facts:

About Rabinowitz, I only know what google tells me. Apparently Dr. Israel Mikhl Rabinowitz was originally from Grodno and eventually came to Paris where he qualified as a doctor. But he gave up medicine to devote himself to translating the Talmud into French (the international language of the time). According to this website

Between 1871 and 1880… he published excerpts of the sequence: זרעים, מועד, נשׁים, נזיקין, קדשׁים, טהרות [six books of Mishna: Seeds, Holidays, Women, Damages, Sanctity, Purification] accompanied by forwards and comments.

It is perhaps conceivable that he knew Louis Pasteur. But Pasteur had begun work on vaccination in the mid 1860s. While his vaccine for rabies was first used only in 1885, the concept of vaccines went back to Jenner’s work in 1796. Furthermore, Pasteur did not use livers to obtain his vaccine, but saliva from rabid dogs. It is possible that the story Cohen tells is true, but to my mind extremely unlikely that reading the Talmud led to his discovery of the vaccine.

Now let us look at the Talmud:

The Mishna (Yoma chapter 8 number 6) tells us that the idea of eating the lobe of the liver of the diseased dog was actually forbidden by the majority of the Rabbis. Only Matia ben Cheresh permitted it. Soncino translates thus (Yoma 82b):

IF ONE WAS BIT BY A MAD DOG, HE MAY NOT GIVE HIM TO EAT THE LOBE OF ITS LIVER, BUT R. MATTHIA B. HERESH PERMITS IT

As Rabbi Dr. Fred Rosner points out, he lived in Rome and was thus acquainted with the wisdom of the ancient physicians such as Dioscorides, Galen, and others. In other words, not only is the ‘cure’ not agreed to by the Rabbis, its source is not actually Jewish, but from the Greeks. In fact, “Vegetius Renatus (3rd century) recommended that cattle bitten by a rabid dog could be protected by making them swallow the boiled liver of the dog.” Perhaps he learnt this from Rav Matia ben Cheresh, but it seems to me equally possible that Rav Matia learnt it from him. It is possible that Matia lived earlier (2nd century) which means that we should credit him with the cure. But I am not convinced that his cure was discovered from his knowledge of Torah, but rather from the medicine that was being discovered in Rome at that time.

If we look at the Talmud (84a) that follows this Mishna, we see that the Rabbis’ ideas of cures were very different from those of modern medicine.

‘One whom it bites, dies’. What is the remedy? — Abaye said: Let him take the skin of a male hyena and write upon it: I, So-and-so, the son of that-and-that woman, write upon the skin of a male Hyena: Hami, kanti, kloros. God, God, Lord of Hosts, Amen, Amen, Selah, Then let him strip off his clothes, and bury then, in a grave [at cross-roads], for twelve months of a year. Then he should take them out and burn them in an oven, and scatter the ashes. During these twelve months, if he drinks water, he shall not drink it but out of a copper tube, lest he see the shadow of the demon and be endangered. Thus the mother of Abba b. Martha, who is Abba b. Minyumi, made for him a tube of gold [for drinking purposes].

According to Zamir Cohen, the Rabbis of the Talmud knew all of modern medicine and should be thanked for inventing vaccines and saving lives. Do you think that even he would go to a doctor who prescribed this kind of treatment? The Rabbis of the Talmud thought that rabies was caused by either witchcraft or an evil spirit:

Where does it come from? — Rab said: Witches are having their fun with it. Samuel said: An evil spirit rests upon it

Is it not dishonest to claim that the Rabbis understood that “infected body produces antibodies, which attack an invading infection.” Would Pasteur really have been impressed by this scientific knowledge?

Why does any of this make a difference? Apart from the fact that I think it is a perversion and distortion of Torah (which bothers me a LOT), it has major implications for halacha. The next sugya in the Talmud there is about the definition of death. Do we check the nose (for respiration) or the heart (from cardiac activity)? If the Rabbis of the Talmud knew all of modern medicine and received their knowledge from the Torah, then there is no possibility that modern medicine knows better than they about things like deep brain stem death. If, on the other hand, the Rabbis were telling us the wisdom of their time, then perhaps we can update Jewish views on medicine to take into account modern medicine and techniques.

עוני ללא ‘תרבות עוני’ – החרדים בישראל

פרדוקס בני ברק

פרדוקס בני ברק הוא כינוי לסתירה שבין מצב הבריאות ותוחלת החיים הארוכה של הציבור החרדי יחסית למגזרים אחרים שנמצאים במצב סוציו-אקונומי דומה.

רקע

בדרך כלל נמצאת התאמה בין המצב הסוציו-אקונומי של חברה מסוימת לבין תוחלת החיים באותה חברה, התאמה הידועה כבר שנים רבות ונבדקה במקומות רבים בעולם. התאמה זו נכונה הן בהשוואה בין מדינות שונות, והן בהשוואה בין ערים שונות. חוקרים הצביעו על כמה קשרים אפשריים בין התופעות, בין היתר: נגישות פחותה לשירותי בריאות, חוסר במשאבים המפריע לשמירה על בריאות תקינה, מתח, מגורים בשכונות צפופות, היגיינה ועוד.

תוחלת החיים בציבור החרדי

מחקרים שנערכו בישראל ובארצות הברית מצאו שתוחלת החיים בריכוזים חרדיים גבוהה יותר. רובע ברוקלין בניו יורק, שבו ריכוז גדול של יהודים חרדים ובו כשליש מהאוכלוסייה מצוי בעוני, נחשב לאחד מהמחוזות מאריכי החיים בארצות הברית, וריכוז האנשים שעברו את גיל מאה בברוקלין הוא מהגבוהים בעולם. חוקרים נטו לייחס תופעה זו למטען הגנטי השונה של היהודים, אך ממצאים דומים נמצאו גם בהשוואה בין תושבים יהודים בישראל. בסקר החברתי של הלשכה המרכזית לסטטיסטיקה מ-2012, דיווחו 73.6% מהחרדים שבריאותם כ”טובה מאוד”, לעומת כ-50% בקבוצות אוכלוסייה אחרות. ורק 18.7% אחוז מהחרדים דיווחו כי הם סובלים מבעיה בריאותית כלשהי, לעומת שיעור כפול ויותר בקבוצות אחרות. האוכלוסייה החרדית צעירה יחסית, אולם גם לאחר ביצוע התאמות לפי גיל, נותרו פערים משמעותיים: 64.6% מהחרדים הגדירו את בריאותם כ”טובה מאוד”, לעומת 55%–51 בקרב קבוצות אחרות בחברה היהודית.

במחקר השוואתי שערכו דב צ’רניחובסקי וחן שרוני, השוו השניים את תוחלת החיים בערים בישראל הכוללות מעל 50,000 תושבים. בעוד שבכל הערים נמצא קשר ישיר בין המצב הסוציו-אקונומי לתוחלת החיים, שלוש ערים חרגו בהרבה מהמגמה – ונרשמה בהן תוחלת חיים ארוכה בצורה משמעותית מערים בעלות מצב סוציו-אקונומי דומה. שלוש הערים הן ערים בעלות ריכוז גבוה של אוכלוסייה חרדית: בני ברק (95%), בית שמש (46%) וירושלים (31%). הפרדוקס מתרחש על אף שהאוכלוסייה החרדית מודעת פחות מזו החילונית לרפואה מונעת, תזונה בריאה ופעילות גופנית – שהן אבני הדרך בהמלצות לאריכות ימים. מובהקות סטטיסטית לאריכות ימים אצל חרדים בישראל נמצאה גם בדו”ח של המוסד לביטוח לאומי משנת 2017. אך צויין בהסתייגות כי המודל לפיו הם מודדים מי הוא חרדי עלול להיות בעייתי בגילאים מתקדמים.

מחקר זה מצטרף למחקרים קודמים המראים כי אנשים מאמינים מאריכים ימים יותר מאנשים לא מאמינים.

הסברים לתופעה

צ’רניחובסקי ושרוני הציעו להבין את התופעה בתוצאה של ה”הון החברתי” של החברה החרדית. לדבריהם, החברה החרדית בנויה על מעגלי תמיכה חברתיים המקהים את תחושת העוני, ומסייעים לפרט שנקלע למשבר. להון החברתי של הקהילה החרדית השלכות נוספות שעשויות להשפיע על תוחלת החיים, כגון: דיווח נמוך על תחושת בדידות, ושביעות רצון מהקשר עם המשפחה. בנוסף לכך למבוגר החרדי הממוצע יש תחושת משמעות רבה יותר לחייו בהיותו עוסק בפעילויות המשמרות את פעילותו הקוגניטיבית והחברתית כגון לימוד תורה ותפילה במניין. מעבר לכך, ישנו היחס המכבד של היהדות לאדם המבוגר במצוות “מפני שיבה תקום והדרת פני זקן”.

חוקרים אחרים קושרים נתונים אלה גם לעובדה שהחרדים מועסקים בשיעור נמוך יותר מכלל האוכלוסייה במקצועות צווארון כחול כגון בינוי וחקלאות, ובכך נחשפים פחות לתחלואה מקצועית. גורם נוסף לדבריהם שעשוי להשפיע על תוחלת החיים הגבוהה במגזר היא היחשפות נמוכה יותר לגורמי סיכון אחרים, כגון שירות צבאי, עישון סיגריות וצריכת סמים ואלכוהול.

הסוציולוגית חיה שטייר הסבירה את הפער באי-הדיוק של הגדרת עוני בהסתמך על מדדים כלכליים בלבד. לטענתה, למרות היות החברה החרדית ענייה על פי מבחנים כלכליים, היא איננה “תרבות עוני” מבחינות סוציולוגיות. להפך, התרבות החרדית מעודדת במידה רבה את העוני הכלכלי, וממילא תוחלת החיים שלה מתאימה לחברת רווחה. טענה דומה מופיעה גם במחקר שערכה ניצה (קלינר) קסיר. משכך אין זה מפתיע שלא נמצאה התאמה בין המצב הסוציו-אקונמי של בני ברק ותוחלת החיים של תושביה.

המשך לקרוא…

מאתר ויקיפדיה, כאן.

SHORT PROVERB: If the Shoe Fits…

A Man and His Dogs

Once upon a time, there was a man who owned vicious and aggressive dogs. But, he was a strict, sometimes cruel master, and the dogs soon learned to control their aggression and to behave. While they chafed under the man’s cruelty, the man also cared for the dogs with love. Their bellies were full, and they wanted for nothing.

One day, a stranger came by. Because the dogs were under the man’s control, the dogs appeared docile and tame. They licked the stranger’s hand and offered their belly for the stranger to pet and rub. Then the stranger noticed the strict way in which the man controlled the dogs. He protested, but the man said he did not understand the nature of the dogs, and the stranger should mind his own business. The stranger became more and more agitated.

Unable to bear it any longer, one night the stranger, released the dogs, helping them to escape. The dogs, now free, first attacked their former master, killing him. The stranger looked on, confidant that, though it was a tragedy, the man had gotten what he deserved, for had he only been kinder to the dogs, then they would have appreciated all he had done for them.

The stranger was sad but resigned. But as he died, the man looked at the stranger and smiled, as if he held a secret that the stranger couldn’t comprehend.  This disconcerted the stranger, but he tried to put it out of his mind.

The stranger continued to come to the man’s home and visit the dogs, with which he had developed such a fondness for. He assumed they loved him, especially now that the stranger had helped to liberate them from the cruel master.

Then one day, the dogs, unrestrained by their former master saw something in the stranger, something they despised.  When the stranger came closer, full of love and charity, the dogs attacked him.

The stranger protested, how could they do such a thing? But the dogs didn’t listen. The stranger tried to explain how it was he that had freed them – they owed him, but this only angered the dogs more. They soon tore him to shreds. Before he died, the stranger remembered the man, and his smile, and cried a bitter cry.

From Jewish Nation עם היהודי, here.