Jewish Life April 1959

Nisan 5719

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in this issue

Settling Israel's N ew Immigrants

Jew ish Writers of English

Sabbath O bservance and the Civil Service

To Reach the Seekers

Yaakov Ben Asher

Crossing the Red Sea a poem

Holiday or Holyday?

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Vol. XXVI, No. 4/April, 1959/Nisan, 5719/

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EDITORIALS Saul Bernstein , Editor

THE HIGHER SUMMIT .. ....................................

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M. Morton Rubenstein Reuben E. Gross Rabbi S. J. Sharfm an Libby Klaperman Editorial Associates

SHECHITAH DEFENSE COAST TO COAST......... ....

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Thea Odem , Editorial Assistant

JEWISH LIFE is published bi­ monthly. Subscription two years $3.00, three years $4.00, four years $5.00, Supporter $10.00, Patron $25.00.

All rights reserved Editorial and Publication Office: 305 Broadway New York 7, N . Y. BEekman 3-2220

Published by U n io n of O rthodox J ewish Congregations of A merica

Moses I. Feuerstein President Benjamin Koenigsberg, Nathan K. Gross, Samuel L. Brennglass, M. Morton Rubenstein, Vice Presidents; Edward A. Teplow, Treasurer; Herbert Berman, Secretary.

Dr. Samson R. Weiss Executive Vice President

Second class postage paid at New York, N . Y.

ARTICLES

HOLIDAY OR HOLYDAY IN ISRAEL/Aryeh Newman

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A NOTE ON JEWISH WRITERS OF ENGLISH/ Ward Moore............................................... 11 THE STUDY OF PRAYER/Emanuel Rackman.......... 17 SETTLING ISRAEL’S NEW IMMIGRANTS/ I. Halevy-Levin.................

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SABBATH OBSERVANCE AND THE CIVIL SERVICE/ Abraham Goldstein........................................31 TO REACH THE SEEKERS/Zalman M. Schächter......43 YAAKOV BEN ASHER/Meyer Waxman.................... 47 POETRY

CROSSING THE RED SEA/Howard Harrison............ 38 BOOK REVIEWS

BARON’S MONUMENTAL HISTORY/Irving A. Agus. .. 55 NEW HIRSCHIANA/Leo Jung.............................. 63 DEPARTMENTS

AMONG OUR CONTRIBUTORS............................

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.................................. 67 EXCERPTS selected and translated by David M. Hausdorff ILLUSTRATIONS by Hovav Kruvi

April, 1959

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JEWISH LIFE

WARD MOORE is a novelist and critic whose works have ap­ peared in five languages in ten countries and all continents but Africa. He has contributed extensively to the Anglo-Jewish press, and is presently at work on a lengthy novel based on a Jewish theme. This is his second appearance in JEWISH LIFE. RABBI ZALMAN M. SCHACHTER came to this country from

Europe in 1941. He received semichah at the Lubavitcher Yeshiva in 1944. Rabbi Schachter is director of the Hillel Foundation at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

HOWARD HARRISON is a writer-poet-educator who teaches

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English and Creative Writing at Long Beach High School in Long Beach, N. Y. His educational articles have appeared in national and state journals, and his poetry has been published in Jewish periodicals and the New York Herald Tribune.

among our contributors

RABBI EMANUEL RACKMAN is president of the Rabbinical

Council of America and spiritual leader of Congregation Shaaray Tefila in Far Rockaway, N. Y. Ordained at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Rabbi Rackman is also a gradu­ ate of Columbia University Law School. He is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Jurisprudence at Yeshiva University.

ABRAHAM GOLDSTEIN works for the New York Board of Education. He is active in the Young Israel movement, in Hapoel Hamizrachi, and is one of the organizers and officers of Sabbath Observers in Civil Service.

DR. MEYER WAXMAN, eminent author of “A History of Jewish

Literature,” has made important contributions in the field of Jewish Scholarship; his most recent work is “Judaism: Religion and Ethics.” In this issue Dr. Waxman continues his series on great Jewish thinkers.

ARYEH NEWMAN, well known to the readers of J ewish L ife , is assistant editor of the Torah Education Department of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.

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H a s h k o f a h : Dr. Samson R. Weiss’ series of essays in this department has been interrupted for this issue due to his absence on a special mission to Israel. The series will be resumed, mK in our next issue.

Cover Photograph: H erbert S. Sonnenfeld April, 1959

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The Higher Summit ITH mingled hope and apprehension, the world sees a ripening of moves to bring together the heads of the great W Powers in a “summit” meeting. In its setting of nuclear weapons, intercontinental missiles, outer space travel, and an unending series of new devices for the conquest of nature and the destruc­ tion of life, the prospective summit conference would seem to hold the key to the world’s fate. Will the summit m ee tin g should it finally transpire-—bring peace? If it fails to achieve this g o a l. . . what then?

It is the menace of this “what then?” rather than the likeli­ hood of a basic concord that offers the more realistic hope for an accommodation between the rival Powers. All, apparently, realize that a “shooting war” with today’s weapons would spell utter destruction. And yet, mankind more and more senses that an accommodation based only upon mutual fear cannot lastingly resolve the problem. A meaningful peace must be built upon a passion for peace itself. And this, in turn, may spring only from ideals which not abstractly but dynamically engender the sense of sanctity of life and of its Divine origin.

Recognizing the foregoing as valid, we still remain with the “what then?”, for there would seem little grounds for the hope that the negotiations afoot will find spiritual dictates replacing considerations of material power. But the Jew, viewing the affairs of today as well as those of past history through Torah perspec­ tives, will nonetheless adhere to such hope.

Long ago, in ancient Egypt, there was held a summit meeting Balance c f another sort, that of Moses and Pharaoh. Quite unlike the of situation of today, the confrontation was not one of equally Power matched forces. As against the might in the hands of Pharaoh, supreme in his world, Moses bespoke the cause of helpless, un­ armed shepherd tribes, enfeebled by enslavement. But the bal­ ance was more than redressed, not by the tools of war but by a “mighty Hand and an outstretched Arm”.

In all the succeeding ages, even unto today, the cosmic im­ pact of that original Pesach has continued to assert itself in his4

JEWISH LIFE

tory. Manifest in the indestructible life of the Jewish people, it is echoed in lesser degree in the lives of peoples in all corners of the world. It is to the continuing impact of the Purpose which was made known at the summit meeting in ancient Egypt that the world must look for succor, rather than to the deliberations of the summit meeting of the earthly powers of today. . I And the Lord heard our voice”— so again, out of the depths of the human heart, may a great cry go forth, and so again, with Divine favor, may the cry be heard.

Shechitah Defense Coast to Coast RECISELY as was foreseen by orthodox Jewish leadership, the passage of Federal “Humane Slaughter” legislation has paved the way for the hasty introduction of similar measures in state legislatures across the country. With the Federal bill but newly enacted and its pioneering processes not even initiated— the bill goes into effect in July, 1960—it is obvious that any state legislation now must be inexcusably premature. Such haste gives added grounds for the fear that the proposed bills present a potential menace to Shechitah and religious freedom, rather than authentic promise of humanitarian advance. Thus, whereas pre­ viously the threat could be combatted at a single point, namely in the U. S. Congress, it has now become necessary to mount defense in every state of the Union.

As yet, only a single state, Washington, has actually passed a Humane Slaughter bill. In many other states, like bills have either been defeated outright or have remained tied up in committee.

We may have no doubt at all that the sponsors of these measures will maintain unceasing effort to achieve their purposes. We may likewise have no doubt that equal effort will be applied towards the elimination from the state bills of the safeguards for She­ chitah written into the Federal bill.

Henceforth, the energies of the Jewish community will be heavily taxed to meet this danger. It is encouraging to see that national and local community agencies in all parts of the country are now awake to the situation and are applying concerted de­ fense. The Joint Advisory Committee of the National CommuN at ion- n jty Relations Advisory Council and the Synagogue Council of W id e America has been entrusted by the leading national Jewish orD e fe n se ganizations with the coordination of defense, and has been giving effective guidance to all affected areas. The state and local com­ munity groups, in turn, have risen to the unity of action which

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April, 1959

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is so obviously vital under the circumstances. How unfortunate it is that equal concentration on the problem was not brought to bear at the earlier stage!

It is patent that the intent of the Humane Slaughter move­ ment to rush through bills in each state is designed to foreclose the workings of the Federal act. This bill, besides applying only to sales to the Federal Government, provides for an Advisory Committee to maintain continuous study and research, by which the Secretary of Agriculture may be guided in implementation of the legislation. Since the methods of animal slaughter advocated by the Humane Slaughter groups have been viewed askance by scientific authorities and experts in the field, continuing study of the practical workings of the bill may conceivably lead to con­ clusions not in line with the contentions of the said groups.

Hence the plan to ring the Federal legislation with a complete network of state bills before the former has had the slightest chance to demonstrate the degree or manner of applicability of any such legislation.

HE Federal Humane Slaughter Advisory Committee includes representatives of all interested parties, including the Humane Societies, the packing industry, the livestock growers, and the Jewish community. It is pleasing to know that the Jewish com­ munity representative on the Committee is Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, eminent Talmudic authority. In making himself avail­ able for this appointment, Dr. Soloveitchik has rendered a twoA fold service. He brings to bear upon a crucial public issue the Two- mastery of Halochah for which he is famed, and forges a link Fold ke*ween the realm of Torah scholarship and that of Jewish public affairs. For long these two were inseparable in Jewish life and a Service step towards their re-unification must be welcomed as bearing promise of closing a gap incompatible with Jewish interests. In Dr. Soloveitchik’s participation in the Advisory Committee we may surely count with confidence upon his contributing the in­ formed judgment, acumen, and considered expression so requisite in the effective representation of American and Jewish interests in the fields under study.

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JEWISH LIFE

Mmmmm Holiday or Holyday in Israel

By ARYEH NEWMAN

HE State of Israel has brought to all of us not only glory but per­ plexity, not only thankfulness but per­ turbation. Some see the wonder and miracle of it all, others the gap be­ tween vision and reality, yet others the light and shade inextricably mixed.

When last year I took a group of rabbis and educationalists around the country within the framework of a “study tour” or “seminar” or call it what you will, sponsored by the Jew­ ish Agency Torah Department, I felt this perplexity and even perturbation most keenly. What should Israel give these Torah leaders? Were they just another batch of tourists, a little more distinguished, a little more learned, or were they pilgrims? Were they holi­ daying in Israel or holy day ing?

The constant dissatisfactions with the program, the tears of joy and vexation, the criés of exultation and wonder, reverence and awe inter­ mingled with the groans of disappoint­ ment and disapproval and even dis­ gust strengthened my impression that my rabbinic fellow travelers from the New World shared my perplexities.

We were all mixed up. And this hap­ pened every year. The most careful planning did not seem to help. Each person had his own private dream of Israel, and saw himself wafted from one historic site to another on the magic carpet provided by the benefi­ cent institutions which he had worked for. It was a holiday and a holyday, but neither definition was satisfied. If a holiday, the service, comfort, con-

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venience, and board and lodging were often below accustomed standards; if holyday, the scenes of squalor and mixture of superstition and filth that reigned in the holy or pseudo-holy sites that were visited were pervaded by the odor rather than awe of sanc­ tity. And yet there were moments of supreme satisfaction, unforgettable im­ pressions . . .

When the breathless hustling of these bright rabbinic worthies up and down the country from Dan to Beersheba was over and the pilgrim-tour­ ists had no doubt unloaded on their friends, relatives, congregants, and pupils their impressions, I found no other means of evaluation and com­ parison but by going back two thou­ sand years and more and recalling the statutory festival pilgrimages of Bible times and the role of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in pre-Destruction days as pictured in the Mishnah and Tal­ mud. Surely our Sages of old must possess the answers to our perplexities.

66 A LL ERETZ Israel is holier than all other countries. Wherein lies its sanctity? That only from there can the Omer (Vayikra 23:10), the Two Loaves of Shovuoth, (Ibid. 17), and First Fruits be brought . . . Je­ rusalem is holier than all other walled cities; for within its walls may the Lesser Holy Things (the Paschal lamb, thanksgiving offerings, etc.) and Sec­ ond Tithe be eaten.” (Maimonides, Code Beth Habechirah 6.) The whole of Eretz Israel is thus endowed with

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special sanctity—kedushah—of which there are ten degrees, the Temple and the city of Jerusalem constituting the highest. What is meant by kedushah?

The Mishnah from which Maimonides draws his material understands kedu­ shah in terms of mitzvoth—religious duties and precepts. The Jew becomes holy through the medium of the 613 Divine precepts. Mitzvoth are both the cause and effect of kedushah. They signify constant and unconditional loy­ alty to the Legislator who ordained them. The holy man is one intensely aware of G-d every moment of his ex­ istence. That awareness is not con­ templative or theoretical but expressive in action. Mitzvoth governing every facet of existence cultivate that aware­ ness.

There are many types of mitzvoth covering the dimensions of both time and space. Sabbaths, festivals, statu­ tory prayers are those of time, stimu­ lating holiness at chosen moments of our daily existence and having spir­ itual repercussions beyond these mo­ ments. Thus the holiness of Yom Kippur can affect the individual’s life the whole year through. There are space mitzvoth—those limited to a particular physical location, to Eretz Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple pre­ cincts. The Jew felt the presence of his Creator in these places, to which special Divine precepts applied over and above the ordinary ones. The im­ pact of the sacred rites of the Temple service which he witnessed in conse­ quence of his performance of the duty of pilgrimage thrice yearly to Jerusa­ lem fortified him spiritually for the rest of the year. He was in a holy place—indeed the holiest—the Temple on a holyday, on Sabbath and festival, a concentrated dose of “space-time” mitzvoth keeping him fit for the rest of the year.* 8

Jerusalem was the only place to which a Jew could bring bis tithes and statutory sacrifices and partake of them: And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy G-d in the place He shall choose to cause His name to reside the tithe of thy grain, thy wine and thine oily the firstlings of thy herd and flock in order that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy G-d, (D’vorim 14:23). Tosafoth comment on this text is instructive. It occurs in a dis­ cussion of the enactment of the father of Jewish day schools, Rabbi Joshua ben Gamala, in selecting Jerusalem as his education center (Bova Bathra 21a). “As a result of witnessing the extraordinary atmosphere of sanctity and the priests engaged in the Temple service, he [the child] was instilled with greater piety and paid greater heed to his Torah studies, as written in the Sifri on the text that thou mayest learn to fear” . . . “Great is the power of the Second Tithe [Maaser Sheni] in that it promotes study, since the pilgrim who brought it had to stay in Jerusalem until he had eaten his Second Tithe (or spent the money with which he had re­ deemed it)— (D’vorim 14:24-27) and he would see all engaged in perform* In this connection I cannot forbear quoting an explanation I heard from that great Torah scholar of our day, Dayan Yecheskel Abramsky (author of Chazon Yecheskel) on Elisha ben k Abuya’s answer to Rabbi Meir’s call to repent­ ance. Elisha ben Abuya or Acher, the renowned heretical sage, declared that he was past repent­ ance because “once I rode on an ass in the vicinity of the Temple on the Sabbath which fell on Yom Kippur”. So what! we may query.

After all, riding an ass on the Sabbath is a vio­ lation mid’rabbonon; there are far more serious Sabbath violations. What Acher was emphasizing was how far gone he was if he could commit such a violation in the holiest place that exists for Jews on the holiest day that we have, if neither the sanctity of space nor time could affect him, then he was lost. Even the most estranged Jew must feel “something” when treading the site of the Temple or listening, shall we say, to the strains of Kol Nidrey in shod on Yom Kippur. If he doesn’t there’s little hope for him.

JEWISH LIFE

ing sacred tasks and the Service. He would likewise be moved to fear Heaven and devote himself to Torah.”

HIS then was the function of the Holy Land and City in the Jewish scheme of things. It sounds very holy, very utopian and far removed from our everyday life. Yet we know that it once was a living reality, it once worked when the millions of pilgrims flooded Jerusalem and their lambs covered the Temple mount on Passover eve. Indeed we find some very practical rulings reinforcing the su­ preme purpose of making Jerusalem the center and heart of the Jewish people. Jerusalem formed no part of any tribal inheritance but was regard­ ed as belonging to all Israel, a kind of neutral conclave where all had

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equal rights. The families settled there were a representative selection of the whole people constituting guardians of the city for the nation as a whole.

The myriads of people gathering there for the thrice yearly pilgrimage were put up free of charge in every avail­ able room and courtyard and it was one of the wonders wrought for our ancestors in Temple times that “no man said to his fellow, there is not enough room for me to lodge in Je­ rusalem,” (Pirkey Ovoth). No house­ holder had a right to charge the pil­ grim for his lodging since the house was not his own but belonged to all Israel.

Here is the list of special rulings applying, inspired by concern for the sanctity and purity of the city, for the preserving of its amenities as thè cap-

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ital of the Land of, Israel and the Jewish people: “No corpse may be left to tarry there, no human bones may be brought through its midst and no houses may be let and no places given for an alien and no burial grounds maintained there save the tombs of the House of David and the grave of Hulda which were there from the days of the For­ mer Prophets. No gardens or orchards may be planted, no sowing or plowing so as not to cause an unwholesome smell (from the fertilizer), no trees may be allowed to exist there save the rose gardens that had been there from the time of the Former Prophets and no dung-hill because of the ver­ min. No projections or balconies may overhang into the street on account of the tent of defilement (Ohel hameth, Bemidbor 19:14), and no fur­ naces may be set up there because of the smoke. No hens may be kept because of the Holy Things . . . and no house can be permanently leased and there is no Scriptural defilement from disease. It cannot become a city given up to destruction (Devorim 14:13) and no beheaded heifer (Ibid.

21) may be brought there because it was not divided among the tribes,”* (Maimonides, Code Beth Habechirah

7).

O FAR our traditional sources. I felt that somehow or other we must translate these measures and con­ cepts into contemporary terms. We must find some way of bringing not the hundreds of pilgrims here but tens of thousands, and surely it is easier to travel from New York to Jerusalem today than it was from Lydda to the Holy City two millenia ago. But more important, we must discover the right prescription for spreading the holiness of Eretz Israel and Jerusalem, just as it was spread in ancient time by the tithes and sacrifices and study of To­ rah. We have no sacrifices but we have

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* The source of all these enactments is to be found in the Talmud, Bova Kamma 82b, where the reasons are explained.

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prayer and study, as well as those pre­ cepts still applicable in Eretz Israel even in the absence of the Temple.

There are Torah communities in Israel which have no parallel elsewhere, there are Torah centers and scholars, not to be surpassed in any Diaspora.

Perhaps we would be truer to our­ selves and to our tradition if we were to envisage a totally different kind of holiday or study tour of Israel, far removed from the hectic tourism of the travel bureaus, the doing of “holy” sites and places of “interest”.

Perhaps our perplexities would evaporate if, one day, religious Jews from the Diaspora, rabbis and laymen, just “holydayed” in Israel, spent a month in Torah study in such a re­ nowned institution as Ponviezh Yeshiva at Bney Brak (already famous for its Yarcha Dekalla)—its vacation courses in Torah study (attended by hundreds of Israelis), or of work and study at one of the religious village communities such as Yavne or Chofetz Chayim. Perhaps one day it will be a familiar site to see at festival periods and vacations, the temporary camps of such “holydaymakers” or special pilgrim hostels in various parts of Israel where have foregathered pil­ grims from all parts of the world not to offer the bullocks and lambs of sac­ rifice (though we look forward to that as well in G-d’s good time, with the restoration of our Temple) but “the bullocks of our lips” meditating in the Torah of Israel on the land of Israel.

Jerusalem cannot and must not be a substitute for the Catskill Mountains nor Israel for Miami Beach. Such an expectation does injury to both the pilgrim and the Land. As the Talmud (Bovra Bathra 21a) has it: “What is the text: ‘For from Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of the. Lord from Jerusalem’.”

JEWISH LIFE

A Note on Jewish Writers of English

By WARD MOORE

T IS not always easy to remember There are two ways in which a how very young Anglo-Jewish lit­ writer can proclaim (or betray) his Ierature is. While it is possible to push background: by the selection of his its initial date ever a little further back by research which brings to light letters and journals kept by Jews in English during the Eighteenth and even the Seventeenth Century or the issuance for the first time of memoirs like those of Daniel Mendoza (17641836 — the boxing champion who wrote with an elegant simplicity), such discoveries cannot place these isolated efforts in any continuity. It is not the chronological moment of composition but that of publication and circulation which dates the en­ trance of a work into literature.

So even if we include editors like Isaac DTsraeli or baptized persons like his son Benjamin and Francis Palgrave, Anglo-Jewish literature is little over a hundred and fifty years old, and the greatest activity has been dur­ ing thé past seventy-five. In that time Jews contributed critics, novelists, short story writers, poets, historians, biographers, playwrights, and humor­ ists to the ranks of English authors.

Legitimately, one asks how if any did these contributors differ from their non-Jewish fellows, what influence they had, either singly or collectively, on other writers and on their readers, what did they add, and how important is their place?

April, 1959

material (and the ease with which he uses it) and the use of a style which can be traced to a speech-pattern as­ sociated with a particular culture. To take as an example two “slick” writers who have certainly not made a point of their Jewishness, Edna Ferber has occasionally written of people who are unmistakably Jews without identify­ ing them as such, and Fannie Hurst’s otherwise undistinguished prose carries the rhythms of uncultivated Jewish English.

Only a handful out of the hundreds of Anglo-Jewish writers are not iden­ tifiable as such by this test. Even those who turned on Jewry and Juda­ ism with venomous attacks did not-— like Karl Marx—write as though there had never been any connection be­ tween them and the objects of their malice. A result has been the accre­ tion of a mass of fiction, most of it ephemeral, a number of plays, some history—not general but specifically Jewish—a little poetry and less biog­ raphy, fitting smoothly into the diffuse pattern of English literature which has consistently been hospitable to “local color”, “regionalism”, and de­ scriptions of different folk like Yorkshiremen, Cornishmen, Cajons, de­ cayed Southerners, Negroes, Yankees, 11

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mountaineers, or nesters. Whether the Anglo-Saxon gentile knows more about his Jewish countrymen than peoples of other languages is un­ known, but if he doesn’t it is not for lack of available popular material.

AS A very small part of the, EngJ \ . lish-speaking world, the Jews stand almost precisely midway be­ tween the “invisible” and the “visible” minorities. Negro authors (with the single exception of a novelist who has made a successful business of turning out bestsellers for what used to be called the hammock trade) are vio­ lently concerned with the situation of their people. Since by far the larger proportion of their readers is “white” the tone of their work is often accus­ ing and sometimes shrill, and far more non-Negro writers have used Negro material than non-Jews have depicted Jews. On the other hand, the number of Jewish readers is greater than the ratio of Jews to nonJews, so that the Jewish writer has not the same compulsion to defensive­ ness and aggression. The result is that the Negro writer is a hero to his own people for having told off the whites.

Negroes who have never read Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, or Langston Hughes (except in his journalistic “Simple” stories) admire these men as forty years ago Jews who never attended a prizefight admired noted Jewish boxers.

Conscious of using the language of the King James’ translation of the Bible and living under laws and insti­ tutions which conflict less with Jewish tradition than any outside Israel, the Jewish writer has lost both the neces­ sity to justify himself and the—child­ ish if you wish—pride of achievement as a Jew rather than as an individual.

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man may hold themselves straighter because the white world acclaims a new book by Saunders Redding; the merchant or dentist is no more spe­ cifically interested in Bernard Malamud than in Hemingway.

Yet while sophistication plays its part it is not the whole story. Though Emma Lazarus’ lines are on the Statue of Liberty and Dorothy Park­ er’s wit is still legend, we have pro­ duced no Shaw, Joyce, or Mark Twain. Our enthusiasm (if any) for such writers as Weidman is tempered by our knowledge of their lack of distinction. In vain we run back and forth over the list: Zangwill, Cahan, Laski, Hecht, Lewisohn, Henry Roth (who had probably the greatest worth and who significantly quit after one book) Meyer Levin, Elmer Rice, Louis Golding, Nathanael West (whose reputation is being posthumously in­ flated), Michael Blankfort, Odets, Fast, Irving Schulman, Budd Schulberg, Irwin Shaw, Albert Halper, Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Norman Mai­ ler, Delmore Schwarz, James Yaffe, Sarah Gertrude Millin, Hortense Calisher—names can be added and add­ ed until the catalogue is impressively long—without coming across one whose deletion we can honestly say would make English letters significant­ ly poorer.

It is true that the great Yiddish writers were lesser artists than their famous gentile contemporaries. Yet if they had not lived or if their work were irrevocably lost, a cultural vacuum would exist as serious as if the Irish-born writers of English had never existed. Furthermore a com­ munity of spirit pervaded even those whose ideas and positions were op­ posed so that the east European lit­ erary Jews between, say, 1840 and 1916 formed an historical group as JEWISH LIFE

distinct as the Lake Poets or Dr. Johnson’s circle. This group influ­ enced and #as influenced by the Jews of the Pale as symbiotically as the Nineteenth Century American humor­ ists influenced and were influenced by their contemporaries. It is no acci­ dent that Sholem Aleichem has been so consistently compared to Mark Twain.

O SAY that Anglo-Jewish writers are part of the mainstream of English literature rather than a dis­ tinct, tributary branch is not con­ demnation but description. Given the circumstances it could hardly have been otherwise. Feudalism and its by­ product, the ghetto, never took full hold on American soil, and the pe­ culiarly English method of permitting resettlement in Britain by ignoring it did away with outside pressures in­ sisting on Jewish singularity.

At the same time the social pres­ sures in the Anglo-Saxon countries were sufficiently different from those elsewhere — even France with its emancipatory convention — to per­ suade the aspiring writer that the ve­ hicle of the rich and diverse English tradition was the only one suitable to his use. The British, being gener­ ally an ill-mannered nation, have been and largely still are both rude and crude in their verbal address to­ ward colonials, foreigners, Catholics, Dissenters, Hindus, Negroes, and Jews.

Nevertheless this almost absentminded uncouthness is constantly tempered with what the continentals insist is hypocrisy but which the English themselves call fairplay. With the ex­ ception of George Eliot, Joyce, the minor novelist Howard Spring, and (arguably) Shakespeare, there is not a gentile writer from the British Isles who has not revealed an antisemitic

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April, 1959

bias. Yet this snobbishness has nothing in common with the provincial inso­ lence of the armed central European boor or the mad blood-lust of the Russian pogromnik or the celebrated Gallic tolerance which twice within fifty years turned itself inside out to reveal a hideous medieval face.

On this side of the. Atlantic philosemitism was fashionable in the early days of the Republic; even when it faded and overt incidents like Grant’s order of expulsion and the Seligman case succeeded it, the revolutionary American contribution to the organ­ ization of society — the sublime con­ cept of “the pursuit of happiness” which Jefferson deftly substituted for Adams’ “property” as a fundamental r i g h t l ^ S remained to sweeten the bitterness.

So those Jews who wrote in Russian became advocates of assimilation, those who were French simply ig­ nored their background, those who embraced the tradition of central Europe either fell into despair like Heine and Stefan Zweig, fled to fan­ tasy like Kafka or to Palestine like Arnold Zweig or to another language like Koestler, or became unabashed hacks like Remarque or Feuchtwanger. American and English Jews were not faced with such insistent choices.

HE Jewish critic who is not satis­ fied to be only a bibliographer or compiler of a literary Jewish Who’s Who must find something wrong with the picture. That Anglo-Jewish writers should be so undistinguished, should turn out masses of books easily (and often thankfully) forgotten, is not readily explicable. They have proven themselves competent craftsmen, sen­ sitive, perceptive, imaginative, often more capable of using narrative and poetic techniques than more famous

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gentiles (compare Zangwill with Ben­ nett or Wells, Ben Hecht with Fitz­ gerald, Lewisohn with Sinclair Lewis, Wouk with Couzzens). This same Jew­ ish critic remembers that in every other field Jews have in the past hundred years been among the most distin­ guished. The three men who shook the Twentieth Century were Einstein, Freud, and Trotsky. In jurisprudence, a field to which English-speaking Jews came much later than they did to letters, Brandeis, Cardozo, Frank­ furter, Pikelis, Rufus Isaacs are names eclipsed by only one or two of their fellows. Epstein restored the dyna­ mism of Michaelangelo to sculpture after it had fallen into the hands of parlor knicknack-makers, Modigliani rediscovered the art of El Greco, Schoenberg jolted musicians as they had not been jolted since the last quartets of Beethoven. Despite numerus clausae Jews have a dazzling rec­ ord in medicine, and in architecture we have made a respectable showing.

Even in the disused arts of statesman­ ship we have done well, and in the still farther-fetched unJewish business of war we have the admiration of gentile professionals. Why then in lit­ erature, the practice closest to the Jewish tradition, heart, and mind, have we fallen short? And in English literature, the one which has been most hospitable, not merely to our persons but to our ideals and culture?

One can only grope for even the most tentative answers. In the process it seems proper to recall the peculiar nature of Jewishness. The arbitrary Nineteenth Century attempt to break it down into component parts labelled “religion”, “culture”, “nationality” (or “ethnic grouping”) so that any one or two of the three could be discarded at convenience while leaving “the Jewish spirit” intact was bound to 14

fail (equally for the reformer of the Mosaic Persuasion, the agnostic folk­ lorist, the secular Zionist) because Jewishness is indivisible. Any endeavor to lop off a limb or two does not result in a more symmetrical or more mod­ ern body but in a crippled condition, and though cripples have performed remarkable feats it is in spite, not because, of deformities.

HIS speculation is almost certainly too pat and oversimplified, and it leaves many questions unanswered.

Clearly personal and communal in­ tegration are not the only factors in­ volved in the production of literary figures; if they were, one would ex­ pect it where it has never been and be surprised where it has. Even if we add other elements which we know are necessary to cultural renascence: expanding horizons, social restiveness, new or rediscovered forms and ma­ terials, we have accounted well enough for, say, the Elizabethan and Restora­ tion Dramatists, the Victorians, the great Russians, the fin de siecle, the Celtic Renaissance, even the American 20’s, but not for the times and peoples where a proliferation of great books did not take place under analogous circumstances.

Still, the hypothesis seems to have merit that a failure to utilize an inheri­ tance fully — specifically, in the case of Jewish writers, “separation from the community” in any of its functions — is bound to limit the legatees. But why are novelists more affected than phyicists, essayists more than bacteriolo­ gists, poets more than chemists? It can hardly be true that what prevented Zangwill from being a Butler or a James was no drag on Steinmetz or Schick, that what keeps Bernard Malamud from achieving the stature of Mary

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JEWISH LIFE

McCarthy does not operate on Oppenheimer or Salk. Or that the “cre­ ative” mind is tenderer than the sci­ entific.

However, a scale or spectrum could be constructed with pure mathematics at one end, moving through physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, with architecture roughly in the middle, the arts represented by music, sculp­ ture, painting, with literature at the end opposite mathematics. By using such a scale it could be seen how, while all the degrees on it are equally subject to the same laws, they gradu­ ate from apparent imperviousness on one end to extreme susceptibility on the other.

Letters, and particularly poetry, drama, and fiction deal with material subjectively and selectively. What an author writes about, how he writes about it, what he includes and what he leaves out, are matters of personal choice which is as wide as any choice can be. Not only does the writer re­ veal himself more completely than any other artisan by the exercise of these basic choices but the manner and techniques he employs — indeed, the preference of any single word over another — continue the revelation im­ placably. It is impossible for the writer to hide his shortcomings, his beliefs and doubts, his sympathies or malice. Every line is a signed con­ fession.

So while integration and spiritual wholeness is no less vital for the mathematician than for the novelist, the mathematician’s algebraic sym­ bols, his equations and formulae re­ main constant and apparently objective (which only means the scientist’s work does not use all his faculties) whereas the novelist is more manifestly and tightly tied to his background and April, 1959

deals with shifting times and circum­ stances.

OW a voice is heard saying, “Soandso I personally happen to N know is an observant Jew, yet what he writes is not merely fourth rate, it gives a false and invidious picture of Jewry and Judaism.” The informa­ tion is interesting and the verdict just, but it is bad critical practice to go outside immediate internal evidence.

We have every right to condemn T. S. Eliot’s bigotry as it is exposed in his poems and essays; we cannot palliate it on the ground that his personal life is known to be gentlemanly and kind.

What the printed word does not show — and of course, to the careful read­ er it shows everything — is not evi­ dence. If, instead of bringing in ex­ terior knowledge our informant had looked closely at the work of this particular writer, he might have dis­ covered a compartmentalization, a restriction of Judaism to a circum­ scribed area which reveals, if nothing more, a concept of observance which is personal and private and hence apologetic.

However, to posit a flourishing Anglo-Jewish literature on the involve­ ment of observant Jews in the pro­ duction of books or conversely on the return to Judaism of non-observant Jewish writers is, in the end, to ask for tracts and sermons or even con­ trived fictions to be used as examples.

A whole and healthy Jewry would de­ mand a literature to satisfy its needs, and such a Jewry would produce in­ dividuals capable of and eager for the task. This was what happened in the “Golden Age” in Spain.

Yet it must not be forgotten that we are far removed in almost every way from the times of Yehudah Ha­ levi, For one thing, the authority and 15

influence of the writer—even the TV writer—has diminished almost to the vanishing point. Whether advertising will evolve into a wider art-form as the morality plays of the Middle Ages evolved into the theater is still un­ known. In the meantime the anti-intellectualism of our age, which affects Jews as well as gentiles, discourages all writers and most particularly those who have little hope of achieving fashionable status.

F there should arise in the Diaspora — and where else but in the AngloSaxon countries— a Jewry thoroughly

I

self-assured and relaxed enough to discard all apology, then all need for wondering and questioning will auto­ matically disappear. Such a Jewry could hardly help but express itself “with new songs”.

But to anticipate this desirable end mechanically would be to fall into the totalitarian error. Jewish culture is a means of endurance but it is an organic means, not an artificial weapon to be forged mechanically and put in the hands of those trained by rote._ When the Jewish community deserves it, it will have a literature it can be proud of.

“On the eve of the 14th of Nissan, search must be made for the 'chometz' by the light of a candle." Just as leaven caused dough to ferment, so does the evil inclination (yetzer ha'rah) ferment in the individual, corrupting and putrefying him. It is therefore obligatory for man to destroy this evil inclination from his makeup. Nor shall he delay until he is matured and old; but do it on the eve of his 14th year—that is, after he has completed 13 years and one day of his life—which is the beginning of his 14th year, at which time the good inclination (yetzer tov) asserts itself. And “by the light of a candle" —his soul—whose rays are the good inclination. “He must make a scrupulous search in every corner where 'chometz' is custom­ arily found." And the evil inclination must be sought out in and eradicated from those places where this “spiritual cho­ metz" customarily lodges—the mind, the eye, the ear, the mouth, lips, tongue, the heart, the hands, the feet, and all other organs which may lead to sin. Repentance prayer, and charity are the means of destroying this “chometz" Ha'Alshich (Moses the Elder) on the Hagadah

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JEWISH LIFE

The Study of Prayer

By EMANUEL RACKMAN

3$

*

NE of the unique insights of Juda­ ism is that it regards study as a form of worship. For that reason, the traditional prayer-book offers the wor­ shipper many passages from Biblical and Talmudic sources for his study during the hours of prayer. However,

not enough Jews realize that the prayers themselves require study. By study I mean concentration on the precise meanings of the words, the logic of their arrangement, and the application of their message to personal behavior and attitudes.

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I No prayer is heard more often, nor cherished more, than the benediction which the Bible ordains for the blessing of the people of Israel by the priests: “The Lord bless thee and keep thee.

“The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee.

“The Lord turn His face unto thee and give thee peace”.

What do the words mean? What do the “shining and turning” of G-d’s face connote? Do the three verses involve a crescendo of ideas? Do the three to­ gether constitute a “gestalt”? The bene­ diction may be euphonious. The music­ al accompaniment may be moving.

But what thought are the priests to convey? And what stimulus to action is a Tew to derive from being blessed?

It has been said that in the original Hebrew the fifteen words are “clothed in a rhythmic form of great beauty and fall with majestic solemnity upon the ear of the worshipper”. In their English translation, however, the an­ thropomorphisms are very pronounced and one wonders whether a philosopher would not even find them repellent.

Moreover, it may be that the words April, 1959

“mount by gradual stages from the pe­ tition for material blessing and protec­ tion, to that for Divine favor as a spiritual blessing; and, in beautiful cli­ max culminate in the petition for God’s most consummate gift, shalom, peace, the welfare in which all material and spiritual well-being is comprehended”.

But while the term “shalom” is the climax, how do the other phrases lead to, and connect with it so that it is more than a reaching out for peace as the ultimate good?

A study of the Oral Law proves to be most enlightening, thereby revealing how important it is to study our prayers.

HE FIRST verse of three words invokes G-d’s blessing upon us, and the word “bless” is understood to refer to material things. Wordly goods fulfill our sustenance requirements.

However, with wordly goods there come two evils—the threat to our lives from those who are have-nots and the threat to our health and well-being em­ anating from prosperity itself. Abund­ ance makes for overindulgence; it also breeds envy and the “evil eye”. That

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is why the verse ends with the prayer that G-d guard or keep us. Our physical safety is meant.

The second verse of five words brings us to a higher rung—that of intellectual attainment. We ask G-d to shed His light upon us. In the reflection of His intelligence may our intellects also shine. Our Sages tell us that the socalled shining face is the “Ma-or baTorah”, the illumination of the Law. But also, some who are learned are not necessarily gracious, warm personali­ ties. There are to be found sometimes luminaries who repel with their per­ sonal traits. Therefore the blessing for intellectual achievement is coupled with the invocation that G-d be gra­ cious unto us that we too may become gracious in our own imitation of Him. Several Rabbis even interpret the He­ brew word “vi-chuneka” literally to mean, not that G-d be gracious to us, but rather that He make us gracious.

Yet, how does one achieve this bless­ ing of wisdom and character? The third verse reveals the method—a method understood by our Sages long before

the age of depth psychology. Learned men, as well as the less erudite, can become disturbed personalities when they suffer from feelings of guilt, con­ flicts, and frustrations. We therefore ask G-d to “forgive” us. The correct translation of the Hebrew phrases “nasa panim” is not to turn a face or to incline a countenance but to forbear.

If G-d will but allay our feelings of guilt, thereby giving us peaces—peace of mind and soul, then our wisdom will help to make us gracious. Thus the first verse of the priestly benediction involves physical security; the second verse seeks intelligence with character; but only through the emotional security described in the third verse is blessed­ ness complete.

The more learned, even as those of us who are less learned, need ponder all phases of the benediction and re­ solve to make possible their fulfillment.

It is not only the euphony of the words or the appeal of the melody that is im­ portant. The words themselves call for meditation, introspection, and firm re­ solve on the part of the blessed.

II

RACE AFTER MEALS”, birv T chath hamozon, consists of three paragraphs, rather than three verses, and while a fourth paragraph was later added, the original three are regarded as a composite from the point of view of their argument. First, G-d is thanked for sustaining all of humanity with bread and a prayer is uttered for the continuance of His beneficence. There is no reference in the paragraph to Jews or Judaism. The second paragraph expresses gratitude for uniquely Jewish gifts—the land of Israel, the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the To­ rah— as well as for the gifts of life and 18

food. It is in this paragraph that there is cited the Deuteronomic verse enjoin­ ing the people of Israel upon their entry into the Holy Land to eat unto satiety and then to thank G-d for their blessings. Tradition tells us that Moses composed the first paragraph before the conquest of Canaan and Joshua added the second thereafter. Through­ out all the centuries that elapsed after Israel lost all its land, Jews nonetheless continued to thank G-d for it, through these paragraphs, upon conclusion of every meal. Their ultimate hope was ever to derive bread from the land of their dreams. And the fulfillment of this JEWISH LIFE

T T IS the third paragraph, however,

craving for self-sufficiency is more properly associated with man’s aware­ ness of life’s purpose and his self­ esteem rather than with his sense of belonging.

JL that warrants even more careful study. In the third paragraph we pray not for the land but for the Temple in Jerusalem, the Beth Hamikdosh, and the advent of the Messianic era. In­ cluded is a prayer also for G-d’s support of us but the principal request is for that spiritual fulfillment symbolized by the concepts of Jerusalem and Messiah.

What connection have these with bread? And why is it precisely in this blessing that we add a moving request that G-d make us self-sustaining and never cause us to be in need of the gifts of fellow humans? Wouldn’t this plea have been more proper in the first and second paragraphs wherein the em­ phasis was on bread and soil?

It would appear that here too we have a crescendo of ideas. The lowliest manner of eating involves eating for survival only. We Jews are human and in the first paragraph of the Birchath Hamozon we thank G-d for satisfying this fundamental requirement of ours, as He does for all humanity. But there is a higher form of eating—eating with a sense of belonging to Him who dis­ penses all gifts and the Jewish sense of belonging was ever heightened by at­ tachment to the land of Israel and to Torah. To this we refer in the second paragraph. However, beyond that there is an even sublimer manner of ingestion —ingestion with a sense of dignity born of the feeling that one’s existence has a purpose—a goal— a vision of a fu­ ture. The third paragraph expresses this yearning. And it is as we ponder this aspiration that we become most sensitive about the possibility that we may become beggars from G-d’s crea­ tures instead of from G-d alone. The

EWISH history seemed to fulfill the insight of this prayer more than is usually realized. For bread we Jews were frequently dependent upon the good-will of non-Jews. Even for the reclamation of the Land we are in the debt of many who do not share our faith. But for the fulfillment of our messianic vision we stand alone. Not only haven’t we had the cooperation of mankind but we have had their unfal­ tering opposition.

Indeed this is also true of the per­ sonal lives of individuals as well as of the life of a people. One may sometimes have to take a hand-out for bread or even for work. But who wants religious identification and motivation to ema­ nate from anything other than the au­ tonomy of one’s own soul!

The fourth paragraph of the Grace After Meals is a general affirmation of G-d’s goodness. However, it was added in the second century when after the destruction of the last vestige of Jewish autonomy and the massacre of all the heroes of the last fortress, Betar, the Jewish people found it possible to bury their honored dead. For this blessing they gave thanks and in commemora­ tion of it we recite the fourth para­ graph unto this day. Perhaps we who in our own generation were not privi­ leged to bury our six million dead can appreciate how our forbears felt when Betar fell and they were able to inter their martyrs properly. Yet who can gainsay that here is a magnificent daily reminder that we should count our blessings—even little ones—even the thinnest silver lining to the thickest cloud! Who knows but that the survival

hope which we have beheld in our own day was very much the product of this millenial aspiration.

April, 1959

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of our people may have been due to this very capacity to make the best of the worst possible situation. Having

lost everything Jews at least gave thanks for the privilege of being able to bury their dead.

Ill

HE LAST group of benedictions next blessing makes it clear. In it we which I cite to illustrate how re­ thank God for having made man, and T warding the study of prayer in prayer can be is the group known as “Sheva B’rochoth”, the seven blessings chanted for every bride and groom under the canopy, at the wedding feast, and dur­ ing the week thereafter. The first of the seven is for the fruit of the vine, since a cup of wine is used in the ceremony.

This is not unique, for many ceremo­ nies such as Kiddush and Havdolah on Sabbath and the festivals start with a blessing over wine. It is the remaining six, however, that confront us with a crescendo of ideas that ought to excite the imagination of persons who are be­ ing wedded to each other. Even if they are too preoccupied on their wedding day to engage in the study of prayer, they might indulge themselves this treat before or after.

After thanking G-d for the fruit of the vine we bless Him for having cre­ ated everything to reflect His glory. At no other time in the religious calendar of the Jew do we pronounce such a berochah—not even on the New Year festival which commemorates Creation!

Only when a man and a woman be­ come one do we feel that G-d’s work has reached fulfillment—that Creation has reached its climax and then we bless Him for His Creation! “Twere also as if with marriage the miracle of Crea­ tion is to begin all over again for what greater miracle is there than the mir­ acle of ‘life begins’!”

And lest anyone fail to associate the blessing for all of creation with its cli­ max—the creation of man, the very 20,

it is followed by a blessing thanking Him also for the creation of Eve. Strik­ ingly enough, however, Eve is described as having been moulded from Adam and is also called Adam. In their union to reenact the miracle of creation, they are a unity.

HEN, before continuing with this theme the composer of the bene­ dictions introduced a prayer for Zion.

Long ago Jews had vowed never to forget the desolate Jerusalem even on their most joyous occasions. A wed­ ding day is most certainly such an oc­ casion. But even with reference to Zion’s tragedy the mood and the theme of the benedictions are not broken. For Zion in her misery is described as a barren woman and the children she once had are no longer with her. The bliss of motherhood and the family tie is indirectly suggested even by the prayer for Zion’s restoration. But the miracle of life should be reenacted, and the unit of the family created, only in love and joy. Love and joy are, there­ fore, the themes of the last two bless­ ings.

In the first of these we implore G-d to make the two lovers as happy as were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. A very popular explanation for the reference to Adam and Eve is that since in the Garden of Eden Adam could pour out his affection only upon Eve, so it is to be hoped that the groom will forever be the bride’s alone. A much profounder view is that Adam

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JEWISH LIFE

loved Eve as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. After all, she was con. stituted of his own rib as was indicated in the fourth blessing. However, we pray that grooms shall love their brides, even when they have no relationship of consanguinity, as if the brides were part of their own physical being. It is the aim of monogamous marriage as advocated in the Bible that husband and wife shall be “one flesh”. In con­ cluding this blessing we hail G-d who brings happiness to Chothon and Kalah.

T IS, however, in the last blessing that we discover one of the most remarkable insights of all. It is the climax of the entire prayer. For just as Judaism ordained a festival dedicat­ ed principally to the concept of happi­ ness— a festival on which we ponder the nature of “Simchah”, so Judaism ordained a special tribute to the Cre­ ator of joy in all its forms. The last blessing hails the King of the universe who is responsible for gladness. Yet, who can be happy when his co-religionists are in distress! Consequently, we pray also that the day is not distant

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when there will be gladness throughout Judah and Jerusalem.

This blessing, however, which can only be recited in the presence of a quorum of ten, identifies the nuptials with the ultimate in joy, and praises G-d in whom bride and groom in their togetherness can achieve the greatest happiness. The festivity is to be shared with others for the joy of two in their togetherness must be the springboard for the bringing of happiness to others.

People who are mindful of each other’s gladness will also seek to gladden the hearts of persons outside their circle.

A couple, each of whose members is more concerned with the other spouse’s happiness, is more likely to contribute to the advent of the messianic era than self-centered individuals. And thus, in the seven benedictions, we have a crescendo of ideas with respect to mar­ riage and its importance for personal happiness and social amelioration that distills the essence of Jewish thought.

AYE, one should study prayer. For -TX prayer is more than the service of the heart. It requires also the service of the intellect.

It was on the eve of Passover that Adam said to his sons: On this night in the future, Israel will offer Paschal sacrifices; so do you likewise to your Creator. Cain brought the remnants of his meal of roasted grain and the seed of flax, while Abel brought the firstlings of his sheep, their fat, and the first shearing of their wool—and Cain's ignoble offering was re­ jected. And that is one of the reasons we are not permitted to wear "shaatnez"—garments made of mingled flax and wool . . . so that never shall the offerings of Cain and Abel be intermingled.

Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer as quoted in “Yalkut Chodosh" April, 1959

21

Settling Israel’s New Immigrants

m

By I. HALEVY-LEVIN

Jerusalem: HE Rumanian Government has stated that its motives in permitting Jews to leave its territory for Israel are purely humanitarian—to enable the re­ unification of families, divided when the gates of exit were shut eight years ago. Though talks to allow the Jews of Rumania to emigrate had been in prog­ ress intermittently over a period of years, no intimation was given either to the Jewish Agency or the Israel Gov­ ernment of Rumania’s new emigration policy. The only sign that the prohibi­ tion had been lifted was the growing number of Rumanian Jews reaching Vi­ enna, the principal transit centre en route to Israel. All contacts with the Is­ rael Legation in Bucharest have been blocked. Instead group visas are issued by the Legation to the special depart-

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ment of the Rumanian Government handling Jewish emigration. The emi­ grants are required to leave their apart­ ments—which they cannot transfer—in good order, involving sometimes con­ siderable outlay for repairs, etc. Heavy charges are made for the issue of pass­ ports and railway tickets to the Ru­ manian border. Luggage is restricted to ninety-nine pounds of personal ef­ fects, which must be packed in special Government-supplied crates to prevent smuggling. To this day the Jewish Agency cannot know beforehand how many emigrants it must expect and provide accommodation for in its camps and hostels. It is only when the convoys are beyond the Rumanian border that their size is known.

Problems of Absorption

NDER these circumstances, con­ sidering the unfriendly and unco­ operative attitude of the Rumanian Government, the charges made regard­ ing the lack of preparation in Israel to provide for the newcomers is hardly fair. Taking into account the state of the Government’s and the Jewish Agency’s finances (for the latter, 1958, when large sums of money had to be

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earmarked for debt-redemption, was one of the most difficult years on rec­ ord) little more could have been done than was done—saving, of course, a state of emergency, which stimulates the flow of funds both in Israel and abroad. Today that state of emergency exists.

Nevertheless, though it already is clear that a major effort will be necesJEWISH LIFE

sary to raise the vast sums of money to finance the transfer and initial ab­ sorption of the new wave of immi­ grants, at first sight as least it seems a task that can be undertaken with con­ fidence. In the current year one hun­ dred thousand immigrants are expect­ ed, equivalent to about 5.5 per cent of the present Jewish population of Israel.

This is no small figure (for the United States the equivalent would be an influx in a single year of 9.5 million immi­ grants) , but for purposes of comparison we may recall that in May 1948 the Yishuv counted less than seven hundred thousand Jews and that in the course of forty months it absorbed more than its own number of newcomers.

The quality of the Rumanian immi­ grants is one favorable factor in this process of absorption. Unlike Jews from Poland who preceded them in 1956 and 1957 they are “Jewish” Jews, unencumbered by complexes of social­ ism and assimilation, who have never denied their Jewish origin nor acquired gentile wives. Somehow, notwithstand­ ing the rigors of the Communist regime they lived under, they retained their Jewish traditions and the Yiddish lan­ guage. They are of a more proletarian character than the Polish Jews—many of them are carpenters, smiths, barbers, waiters, industrial and even agricultural workers—though of course, the whitecollar and the liberal professions are also much in evidence. Above all they are comparatively young—fifty per cent of them are under forty, seventyeight per cent under fifty—ready to do anything, except join the kibbutzim.

Ninety per cent of them, however, are completely destitute. They have come without the rugs, the furs, the carpets, the crockery and crystalware, the sale of which provided the Polish immi­ grants with a little capital to ease the process of settling down.

April, 1959

CLEAR distinction must be drawn between short-range and longrange absorption. The former is re­ stricted, practically, to the first year, in which the newcomer must be pro­ vided with an apartment and minimum furniture, must acquire a knowledge of Hebrew and be assisted to maintain himself until he is able to fend for himself.

Short range absorption is planned in terms of families, and in view of the small size of the latter among the Ru­ manian Jews— an average of less than three persons—provision must be made for 34,000 families. Ten per cent, it is estimated, will be able to make their own arrangements, while a similar per­ centage will be assisted by relatives, though not perhaps to the extent of providing permanent accommodation.

Plans have accordingly been drawn up for the construction of 29,000 housing units.

Up to the present Israel has en­ deavored to ensure a wider dispersion of its population by diverting immi­ grants away from the congested Coastal Plain, between Rehovoth and Naharia.

Partly because of its ill-success in settling the immigrants from Poland in the development areas (from which they soon gravitated to Tel Aviv), partly because of the unexpected nature of the present influx and the hope that for the time being at least, the new­ comers will find some sort of livelihood that will take them off relief, officials have reduced the percentage to be sent to the development areas to fifty per cent. Until last year it was seventy per cent. It is proposed to build 13,800 housing units in Galilee, the Negev, and Jerusalem and* its Corridor, 11,700 in Haifa, Tel Aviv and the intervening area, and 3,000 in the kibbutzim and the moshavim.

Housing construction, which requires

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such manual labor, will also make an important contribution towards solving the immediate problem of employment.

Under absorption rules new immigrants are entitled to two full months of em­ ployment and subsequently to a min­ imum of twelve days per month at a wage of IL. 5.910 (roughly three dol­ lars) per day. The construction of a single housing unit of the standard for immigrants provides the equivalent of six months of work for one person.

The 29,000 units scheduled to be built mean, accordingly, a year’s employ­ ment for 14,500 workmen. Somehow the immigrants must be fed, clothed, etc., and the increased production of consumption goods and services, such as transport, schools, hospitals, and the like, will also provide their quota of jobs.

But even on paper the reckoning is far from satisfactory. There is always

the time-lag to be considered, funds must be raised, plans must be prepared.

Thus despite the ambitious housing plans, the individual apartments are anything but ambitious; those of con­ crete will be put up for IL.5,000, as against IL.6,700 last year, while no more than IL.3,500 will be invested in the asbestos-cement pre-fabs — nine ma’abaroth, which the Jewish Agency and the Government were pledged to clear, have been renovated and re­ opened to provide housing for the new Israelis. In economic integration the time-lag is much wider. It takes years for a projected industrial plan to pass from the drawing board to the produc­ tion line, while in agriculture until the water of the Jordan fructifies the plains of the Negev years fnust pass, and no large-scale agricultural expansion can be contemplated until it does.

The Eshkol Beth Plan

T IS a desperate situation. After all, in terms of economic independence Israel is still far from full and proper absorption of the immigrants who came years ago. It is in the light of this situa­ tion that the agricultural settlement project known as the Eshkol Beth Plan must be evaluated.

No one—least of all Mr. Levi Esh­ kol, its sponsor—would deny that the Plan is born of counsels of despair.

This latest Eshkol Plan seeks to find room for eight to ten thousand families in the nooks and crannies of the exist­ ing agricultural economy, with the aid of sub-economic projects like land-im­ provement, road-building, and affores­ tation.

Fifteen hundred families are to be settled in existing moshavim in which

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a certain number of settlers, the less successful, will have to be moved, to ensure the communal homogeneity which, experience has shown, is vital for successful settlement in this coun­ try. Another fifteen hundred will be settled in Galilee as part of the plan to Judaize Israel’s northern province.

But it is clear from the outset that however essential the objective may be in itself, these new moshavim will add nothing to Israel’s national output. On the contrary, they may even decrease it, for they will consume water urgently needed in the Southern District, where utilization of available land and equip­ ment is limited by the volume of water for irrigation. Another 3,500 families are to be settled in “work towns” in Galilee and the Jerusalem and Carmel

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JEWISH LIFE

districts. The newcomers in these more or less derelict areas will be provided with Government employment and the decision whom and where to settle on the land will only be taken at a much later date, when the funds are available.

This section of the Eshkol Plan is a revamped version of the unsuccessful Adullam Project in the vicinity of Je­ rusalem. But one of the causes of the failure of that project was the refusal

of the immigrant families to remain in a state of semi-destitution, eking out a meagre livelihood from soil-improve­ ment and afforestation, and their in­ sistence upon the parcelling of cultiv­ able land so that they could develop small holdings (for which, however, the Jewish Agency did not have the neces­ sary capital to invest in what is eco­ nomically a very dubious area).

A group of new arrivals deplane at Lydda. Their appearance gives little indication of the fact that the clothes they are wear­ ing and the 88 pounds of luggage they are permitted to bring are their only material assets.

The Kibbutzim and the Immigrants

HE ESHKOL PLAN also takes into account the settlement of five hundred families in the kibbutzim, and the absorption of another thousand as wage employees in the kibbutz fac­ tories.

The kibbutzim, it has been estimated, could quite easily and with a little extra

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April, 1959

investment absorb another ten thou­ sand settling families. They have the land, the water, the equipment, and above all, the managerial experience.

But the newcomers have no stomach for kibbutz life—it reminds them, they say, of the Russian kolchoz— and the kibbutzim have a strong distaste for* 25

hired labor. Under pressure of a bouyant market for farm produce, and to a certain extent, perhaps, of a con­ sciousness of their own responsibility in the absorption of new immigrants, they have permitted minor deviations from their self-labor principle, in their factories and in building construction.

But these constitute only a fraction of their absorptive potential. One example will serve to illuminate this quandary— it is a quandary of the kibbutzim no less than of the national economy, for it is obvious that not for long will they be able to persist in this dog in the manger policy. Either they must find some way of employing the immigrants or they must relinquish the unused re­ sources, which in any case in the large part, were allotted originally by the national settlement authorities.

Israel must seek out crops which re­

quire a large labor input in relation to capital input. Cotton is such a crop; it requires a lot of manual dabor. But manual labor can be replaced by ma­ chines. The picking of the cotton crop provides a large amount of employment in the early autumn, one of the slack­ est season, otherwise, in the agricultural year. But the kibbutzim do not want to be employers of hired labor. So they are moving heaven and earth to obtain import permits for mechanical cotton pickers—which the Government is loath to grant. Each picker saves 6,000 days of manual labor. But, say the ex­ perts, besides costing valuable foreign currency, it leaves ten per cent of the crop in the fields, damages the fibre and in the long run is probably not even cheaper! Most Israeli kibbutzim of course, have long ago installed milking machines, another labor saving device.

Prospects in Industry

N THE long run, it is now being realized, industry offers a more hopeful prospect for immigrant ab­ sorption. But even in the short run, granted a measure of drive and initia­ tive and well-placed Government as­ sistance, thousands of productive jobs can be created in the factories. Indus­ trial equipment, Pinchas Sapir, Min­ ister of Trade and Industry has stated, is utilized only to an extent of sixty to seventy per cent. By raising the pre­ mium on exports he hopes to create a virtuous circle. Increased production—

I

more effective and economical use of machinery—will lower costs, and low­ er costs will make Israel’s products more competitive in markets abroad.

In the past two and a half years Israel’s industrial labor force has risen from 121,000 to 145,000, he declared in the Budget Debate in the Knesseth. Within the next five years industry can pro­ vide another fifty thousand jobs. Pro­ portionately, another ten thousand jobs in the current year would go a long way towards solving our more urgent absorption problems.

Finance

N HIS speech in the Knesseth on the Supplementary Budget (to be used specifically to finance the absorp­ tion of immigrants) Mr. Eshkol out­

I

lined the main items of expenditure.

IL. 97 million will be spent on the erection of 25-30,000 concrete and asbestos-cement dwellings. No more

26

JEWISH LIFE

Dita Daital and Moshe Moscovitz, two Rumanian youngsters, at moshav Kfar Yavne. Mrs. Daital brought Moshe to live with them until his parents are settled.

Dita and her doll seem pleased with their new surroundings.

precise estimate is possible at the pres­ ent stage; the figure of 100,000 immi­ grants in 1959 is hardly more than an informed guess, based upon trends in the first quarter of the year. IL. 35.3 million have been earmarked for em­ ployment schemes and for the expan­ sion of essential services for immi­ grants. IL. 20 million will be invested in agriculture and industry, mainly to expand their absorptive capacity, and a similar sum will be allocated for the Jordan, Kinnereth, and Beth Shean irri­ gation schemes, also to a large extent basic components of future absorption projects. These sums do not include the costs of transportation, mainten­ ance in transit, and initial equipment (beds, blankets, a little furniture, food, etc.), all of which are borne by the Jewish Agency and will aggregate IL. 30 million (for 100,000 immigrants) in the current year.

New taxation, higher customs duties and a IL. 40 million Compulsory Loan, linked to income, have already been imposed to cover all these new expen­ ditures.

Last November, when immigration was already on the increase but its fu­ ture volume could not be predicted, a decision to raise a IL. 20 million Voluntary Loan was taken. For wage and salaried employees in Israel the difference between a Compulsory and a Voluntary Loan is purely semantic.

The principle and degree of participa­ tion in the latter are resolved by the Workers Councils, under the inspira­ tion of the Histadrut. At that time the response of the self-employed sector,

who retain a wider range of choice, was not satisfactory, and there was a spate of letters to the press bitterly criticizing the Government’s constant choice of the line of least resistance in solving its financial problems by new impositions, its improvident handling of the vast sums received from the Ap­ peals and the Bond Drives, the Amer­ ican grants-in-aid, and the German res­ titution payments, the inefficiency of the public service, and the waste of the political parties. A specific demand re­ iterated in many letters was that the political parties conduct this year’s Knesseth elections on an austerity basis and devote the money saved to immi­ grant absorption. It is significant that contrary to existing practice in regard to letters to the press raising matters of wider public importance, no replies have been forthcoming from either the Government or the parties.

It is doubtful whether Israel’s leaders appreciate these expressions of resent­ ment for what they are— a danger sig­ nal. The Yishuv has consistently shown a mature sense of responsibility in the successive calls made upon its very meagre resources. Many have grum­ bled but all have paid. The Defense Fund Levy, three years ago, which be­ gan as an entirely spontaneous effort and raised IL. 18 million voluntarily, is an eloquent case in point. The main burden of complaint is not that such calls are made but that the funds raised are not used effectively to bring the country closer to economic independ­ ence.

The Arab Reaction

HE ARAB states, with Egypt in the van, have raised an outcry against the present influx of immi­ grants. Any increase in Israel’s popu-

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28

lation, they protest, must inevitably lead to expansionism and an explosion in the Middle East. It is not irrelevant to recall that some of the Arab states JEWISH LIFE

most virulently hostile to Israel—Iraq, Yemen, and most recently, Egypt it­ self—of their own free will and for reasons of their own, have made invalu­ able contributions to Israel’s growing population. Moreover Egypt’s immense natural increase—half a million every year— and particularly Nasserist im­ perialism, which has kept the whole of the Middle East and North Africa in a turmoil for five years, show where the real danger of expansionism lies. Abdul Nasser in his new role of anti-Communist protagonist (since the Soviets demonstratively transferred their affec­ tions to his Iraqi rival, Abdul Karim Kassem)— a role, incidently, which does not prevent him from flooding his country with a horde of Communist experts and specialists—has declaimed that the influx is part of a Zionist-imperialist-Communist plot to infiltrate Communist agents into the Middle East via Israel.

The statement of the Rumanian Government on Jewish emigration is

designed to pacify the Arabs, but it is obvious that it does not take Arab pro­ tests too much to heart. After making the customary genuflection towards Israeli-Zionist propaganda, emanating in this case from the Legation in Bucha­ rest, it denies that there is any such thing as mass emigration. Permission has merely been given, on humanitarian grounds, to a number of Jews to leave Rumania under a family reunification scheme.

Even on this issue, however, the Arabs have not been able to surmount their differences. There have been the usual routine statements about the growing Zionist peril, and talk of lodg­ ing complaints with the Security Coun­ cil and the United Nations Assembly —to which Dag Hammerskjold has re­ plied that immigration is Israel’s own business. But at the special meeting of the Arab League called to discuss this peril its Secretary General, Abdul Halek Hassuna, complained of the mem­ ber states’ lack of interest.

Rum ania’s Motives

HE immediate and major concern partaient, that the exodus constitutes of Jews throughout the world is the pressure to bring Abdul Nasser back T proper integration of these new Israelis. into line and to keep the Middle East­

It is only natural, nevertheless, that the motivations of the Rumanian Govern­ ment should continue to intrigue ob­ servers. Since 1952, when the gates were clamped tight, the number of immigrants from Rumania has num­ bered no more than a few hundreds every year, and most of these aged and infirm. The sudden change in Ru­ mania’s Jewish emigration policy is sufficient in itself to give rise to specu­ lation. Humanitarianism alone, of course, is not an edaquate explanation.

One theory, attributed strangely enough to the United States State DeApril, 1959

ern cauldron boiling, does not hold much water. After all, not only Egypt regards itself as affected, but Iraq, too, which at present, at least, is much closer to Russia. Moreover, to judge

by Abdul Nasser’s reactions, Abdul Karim Kassem is a sufficiently effec­ tive instrument in Soviet hands to pre­ vent relaxation of tension in the Middle East.

A more reasonable explanation seems to be the powerful though latent Antisemitism of the Rumanians— and also, perhaps the passive anti-Communism of the Jews—-exacerbated by the 29

comparatively large number of Jews holding key positions in the professions, the public service, and economic enter­ prises. The departure of the latter, cre­ ating new openings for the young Ru­ manian academicians and professionals might be expected to gain popular sup­ port for the existing regime.

Speculation about Rumania’s moti­ vations, however, are not purely ab­ stract. In Israel it is part of an effort to divine whether the present move­ ment will continue and whether the exodus presages a more liberal attitude on the part df Soviet Russia.

Estimates of Rumania’s Jewish pop­ ulation before the present migration began varied widely. The official figure was 146,000. Jewish sources put it at 250,000 and even as high as 300,000.

Will this movement continue until all those who want to go have gone? Or is another disappointment, like that of 1952, in store for us, the Jews of this country are asking.

It cannot be assumed that Rumania is acting independently on this issue.

Such an assumption would be com­ pletely contrary to the known pattern of relations between Russia and her satellites. Certainly on a question so closely linked to the Soviet drang into the Arab east, Russian approval would

have been essential. Mr. Ben Gurion was not indulging in rhetoric when he said that successful absorption of the Rumanian Jews would determine the future of immigration from Russia.

Signs of a cold— and not so ^cold Antisemitism in post-war Russia, ag­ gravated perhaps by Israel’s affiliations with the West, have not been wanting!

Mr. Khrushtchev himself from time to time has given vent to anti-Jewish sen­ timents. A process of “de-Judaization” of Russia’s political institutions, public services and economic enterprises has been in progress for years. For Russia the movement of Rumania’s Jews may be in the nature of a pilot-experiment.

It might choose to follow the same road to make room for its own rising in­ telligentzia. Evidence that Russia’s rulers suspect some of their Jewish subjects of wanting to go to Israel is provided by the publication of pamph­ lets and articles in the press purporting to describe conditions in Israel, but which we know to be travesties of the truth. Russia’s motives in permitting Jewish emigration from Eastern Eu­ ropean countries, seem to her to be sufficiently important to override Arab protests— at a time when she is intent upon winning and retaining Arab friendship.

Would you do things secretly and conceal them from mankind who cannot understand them, and be ashamed and confused —afraid that they will think lightly of you . . . yet not be ashamed and afraid before the Almighty Who understands your secret actions and their obligations?

Y'sod ha'Yirah

30

JEWISH LIFE

Sabbath Observance and the Civil Service

By ABRAHAM GOLDSTEIN

HE observant Jew may not con­ sider civil service as a field in which to seek his livelihood, particu­ larly after the recent publicity result­ ant from the New York Post Office discriminatory regulation involving Sabbath observers. The regulation, imposed in mid-1957 by an acting Postmaster, required prospective em­ ployees who had already passed a Civil Service test to sign a form agreeing to work Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays if assigned.

This administrative directive applied only to the Manhattan and Bronx post office; no similar regulation ex­ isted in any other New York City post office, including Brooklyn, Flush­ ing, Jamaica, and Long Island City.

The Rabbinical Council of America intervened in the matter with the newly appointed Postmaster Robert K. Christenberry. They pointed out that of the 13,000 Jews reported to be employed within the New York Post Office, only 500 to 600 wished to be off duty from before sundown Friday to after sundown Saturday, if necessary at a loss of pay. They also requested that the form for prospec­ tive employees be revised to eliminate the commitment for Sabbath work; the employees would arrange for substi­ tutes for that day.

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April, 1959

Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield then entered the scene. He indicated that the heaviest New York mails were on Fridays, requiring work by all distributors on Friday evenings and a substantial force from midnight through Saturday and Sunday. Other religious groups and employees’ or­ ganizations were seeking Saturdays or Sundays off, and it would be unfair to give such privileges, to new men, he felt. And there the matter rests.

The apparently ineffective efforts to remove this prejudicial and unconsti­ tutional regulation contrast sharply with the results obtained by Sabbath observing postal employees, when they fought for their rights themselves.

ABBATH observers in the New York Post Office once before ran into discriminatory tactics at the end of 1941, but were successful in com­ batting them at that time. A clerk who absented himself on Friday evenings had charges preferred against him for “absence from duty without leave”.

He and his colleagues appealed to the organization Sabbath Observers in Civil Service for assistance. Interces­ sion by the SOCS with the postmaster resulted in a change in work location and hours of duty. Similarly, in June 1943, when a new superintendent re-

S

‘31

fused to continue arrangements per­ mitting Sabbath observers to absent themselves on the Sabbath, representa­ tives of SOCS and of the Young Is­ rael National Council effected a change in the hours of duty or work location.

Although there has long been a considerable number of Jewish Sab­ bath observers in New York City Civil Service fields the first move in the direction of organization was made only in 1935. In that year a group of Sabbath observers in the New York City Home Relief Bureau began to discuss mutual problems, such as the loss of a full day’s pay for absence on Saturday mornings or on Saturdays during the summer months when the entire staff was off. Formal organiza­ tion came as a result of a threat in March 1938 to bar these Sabbath ob­ servers from employment when civil service appointees replaced the pro­ visional workers of the Home Relief Bureau. The Sabbath observers were given to understand that they must either agree to work on Saturdays or decline appointment. The prompt ex­ posure of this situation through the medium of the Jewish Morning Jour­ nal brought immediate community pressure upon the Commissioner of Welfare, who found it necessary to release a statement that he “at no time issued any order which would prohibit a Sabbath observer on the civil service list from securing employment in this department”, and “that all Sabbath observers who are certified to us from the civil service eligible lists will be employed”.

The Sabbath observers, now fully organized as “Sabbath Observers in Civil Service”, continued to press for correction of their grievances. They pointed out the inequity of loss of pay for every Saturday, even when the 32

Saturday was a legal holiday, and the unfairness of suffering the loss of a full day’s pay for the Saturday 9-12 day.

The organization was determined in its efforts, and in 1940 prevailed upon the then City Councilman Walter R. Hart to introduce a bill amending Section 885 of the City charter. Prior to the scheduled hearing on the bill, the organization was offered some ad­ justments by the Commissioner of Welfare and decided to accept them— pay for vacation Saturdays and for Saturdays which were legal holidays.

However, a full day’s pay was still to be deducted for the other Saturday mornings.

HEN a new problem arose. Sab­ bath observers were absenting themselves fifty-two Saturdays during the year, and the department therefore refused to grant the annual salary in­ crement at the anniversary date of appointment, but proposed to delay such increments until the next fiscal period. Recourse to the Mayor brought about a favorable interpreta­ tion of the increment law, and depart­ ment heads were ordered to pay the salary increments without delay. Nev­ ertheless it took more than two years before the group had cleared away all the red tape in which the Comp­ troller’s office and the Department of Welfare had entwined the payments due Sabbath observers.

A final grievance was corrected during the fall of 1943 when the De­ partment of Welfare put into effect the plan whereby Sabbath observers could make up time by doing “produc­ tive work for an additional three hours from Monday to Friday” in lieu of working on Saturday. With the advent of the five-day week, this provision was no longer required except to make

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JEWISH LIFE

up the time taken off on Friday after­ noons during the winter months.

T N the Brooklyn Navy Yard a conJ- siderable number of orthodox Jews found employment during the war years. A group of employees who had absented themselves on Rosh Ha­ sh onah of 1942 were suspended for ten days without pay, and were given demerits as well — this despite the Navy’s orders to permit such absences.

Sabbath Observers in Civil Service ob­ tained an interview with the rear ad­ miral who had issued the local direc­ tive prohibiting absence during the Holy Days. He decided that the de­ merits were not to affect the future work records, service ratings, or pro­ motions of the individuals involved.

The Assistant Secretary of the Navy explained, in answer to further in­ quiry, that a rush of work had neces­ sitated a discretionary application of the policy set forth in his telegrams of instructions concerning the Holy Days.

This “watchfulness of the conimunity” brought about a more liberal policy in 1943 and 1944. In the latter year the Brooklyn Navy Yard invited the SOCS to assist them in screening the orthodox employees who desired leave for both days of Rosh Hashonah — one day had already been granted.

By means of a . questionnaire ap­ proved by Rabbi Herbert S. Gold­ stein, honorary president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, it was possible to select the observant and orthodox Jews and about 1500 employees were given leave on both days.

In April 1943, the University of the State of New York, which examines applicants for license as Certified Pub­ lic Accountant, had scheduled a threeday examination series, to begin on April, 1959

the last day of Passover. Communica­ tion by representatives of the Sabbath observers with the Chief of the Bu­ reau of Qualifying Certificates and Professional Examinations effected af­ ter sundown testing arrangements for the Sabbath-observing applicants.

N connection with examinations given by the New York City Civil Service Commission, Sabbath observ­ ers protested as early as 1938 against the scheduling of tests on Saturday.

Ultimately it became possible to take city examinations without desecrating the Sabbath. Now one can leave all necessities in the examination center on Friday, stay Friday night in a hotel within walking distance of the examination center, and report there on Saturday morning to remain under supervision all day. The examination commences after sundown, when the applicants indicate that their Sabbath is over. An extra fee is charged the Sabbath observer for these arrange­ ments.

The New York State Civil Service Commission has allowed Sabbath ob­ servers to take tests after sundown on Saturday without the payment of extra fees. Early in 1944 an abortive attempt was made to refuse such arrange* ments. Spokesmen for the Sabbath observers saw the Director of Exam­ inations in Albany and received tfre assurance that the privilege would not be withdrawn from bona-fide Sabbath observers.

In connection with Federal exam­ inations, Sabbath observers in New York City may now arrange directly through the Second District, rather than through the Washington office, to take an examination on a day other than Saturday if the test is admin­ istered in more than one section.

Make-up examinations for tests sched­

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34

uled on Saturday may be taken by the Sabbath observers on a subsequent date, when the examination is sched­ uled for a single day.

N the spring of 1942 Sabbath ob­ servers in New York City were re­ fused an opportunity to compete for positions as subway conductors be­ cause the work schedule called for 24hour duty, and the Board of Trans­ portation claimed that the Sabbath ob­ server could not be employed in that capacity. The New York City Civil Service Commission therefore felt that it could not “place a Sabbath observer on a list unless he is fully qualified to take a position in any department to which he may be certified”. At a conference with the Sabbath Observ­ ers in Civil Service organization in August 1942, the Commission agreed to nullify the precedent-setting poten­ tialities of its original decision. Assur­ ances were obtained that if any other city department refused to have Sab­ bath observers participate in exam­ inations, the SOCS would be notified in time to be able to discuss the matter with the department in question.

However, the problem arose once more about ten years later when the Transit Authority requested of the NYC Civil Service Commission that Sabbath observers be barred from tak­ ing an examination for change clerk.

The SOCS brought the matter to the attention of the Council of Jewish Organizations in Civil Service, of which the SOCS had become a char­ ter member organization in 1946. The Council’s committee met with the Commission and again obtained their admission that the barring of a candi­ date for religious reasons was uncon­ stitutional and would not be permitted in the future. The Commission’s di­ rector of examinations pointed out that

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JEWISH LIFE

he would be very pleased to be able to give all civil service examinations on weekdays only, but that the budget did not provide for the rental of quarters large enough to seat about 500 candidates. Were such quarters available, the Sabbath observer would be unknown during the candidate stage, and would be identifiable as a Sabbath observer only at the time of actual appointment to a specified de­ partment. The adjustment would then have to be made for the appointee, and the Commission itself would not be involved.

The organized group of Civil Ser­ vice Sabbath observers have therefore set themselves the goal of finding a way of providing the NYC Civil Service Commission with adequate testing quarters, so that examinations in which many applicants are involved need no longer be given on the Sabbath. It is to be hoped that when this is accom­

plished more and more Sabbath observ­ ers will become interested in the field of civil service.

There are undoubtedly Sabbath ob­ servers who may be found in Civil Service in major communities through­ out the country, who have not mani­ fested any organizational attempts such as in New York City. The ma­ terial set forth above is presented in the hope that such Sabbath observers might see the value of organization as a means of self-protection and growth.

Perhaps too, more and more Sabbath observers would become interested in the field of Civil Service when they realize that adjustment of conditions is possible when proper measures are taken. Of course, there may be indi­ viduals who have been successful in achieving adjustment on a personal basis in their Civil Service positions.

It is these very individuals who could provide the core for organization.

There seems to be a vast difference between these injunc­ tions (the Seven Noachide Laws according to the Oral Torah) and the Biblical verse (Genesis 2:16) from which they are derived. Yet when we taken into consideration the wisdom, piety, zealousness, and the number of the Sages which pre­ cludes a common plan, it is our duty to follow them. If there is any doubt on our part, ascribe this not to their words, but to our meagre understanding. And the same procedure ap­ plies to the Torah and what It contains. We must ascribe our lack of understanding to our own deficiences.

Sefar ha-Kuzari Search and inquire and admit—after investigating all science, old and new—is there any joy like the joy of the heart, or any wealth like the wealth of the soul? -t!, ' Shekel ha-Kodesh April, 1959

35

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14

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by Dr. Aron Barth A b rillia n t analysis of the principles of Judaism and their application to contemporary life, by a prominent modern Israeli thinker and popular author. Translated from the Hebrew “ Doreinu Mul She’eloth Ha’Netzach.” $ 3.00

JEWISH LIFE

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by Rabbi Dr. S. M. Lehrman This book, by the well-known London Rabbi, in addition to explaining the various laws and customs associated with each festival, stresses their ethical values and national significance. Fifth fully revised edition. $3.00

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37

By HOWARD HARRISON I New York City was never, yet ever was, a challenge to me.

No illuminated clock against the sky as Frost wrote of, Nor hog butchers as gentle Sandburg called them, But bridges and blocks and tenements and mansions And walks through concealing night when I was fifteen, And through the blaze of evening revelation When I was ten years further dulled by gold and steel.

II When I first walked through the city at night I Was a furnace of inordinate ideals and visions And all of me was one huge safety valve Which made me, to myself, a thing of danger.

On Friday nights, ten years ago, I walked past Yankee Stadium and headed west with money in my Pockets. And yes, I was a discoverer. I saw the Handball courts and watched them bottle milk at Two in the morning; at four A.M. I saw the trucks Unload at the Terminal Market in the Bronx. I bought Coffee with the men who drove the trucks and I, I too, was a man, a boy of fifteen with money 3S

JEWISH LIFE

In his pockets. Money in his pockets. I saw the Night as a garment of loveliness that covered The dirt of day, for all life was a thing of Horror that only the joy of desire could push aside And then only for a moment. And I felt the money that My father had given me, and on Friday nights I walked through the city; I was nine-tenths ego, And the rest, conceit, and I was fifteen.

Ill Ten years later I walked again. I started from A different place.

IV Fire posed, fell, rose, all east of the Greenpoint Bridge. Oil cracking furnace. So what?

At twenty five I walked again to find out why A people could live in a life unchanged by All the answers I thought I had found.

Do you know Queens? East of the River, South of the Bay, North of Brooklyn, West of the Island! That’s Queens.

On the Passover holydays, on the seventh night, I had heard of these people, creators of the Golem, Believers in the Dybbuk, Chasidic males With strands of hair and hats of fur Refusing to conform in a fragmentary world Who, on the seventh night of Pesach, Gathered together, and crossed the Red Sea. Yes, that’s what I said. They crossed the sea On the seventh night and would again this night.

I walked from Queens, for even though I had sold my soul to indoor plumbing, To television and all wool carpeting, I had learned to walk, whether on Friday night Or on days of other holiness, without the dollar That on other days I scrambled to earn.

Where are these Chasidim? These twenty or so Thousands of people, remnants of the four Million who were given eternal timeliness By a generation no doubt older than Adenauer?

They have gathered, many of them, near the East River, near the Bridge, in Williamsburg.

April, 1959

39

From thirty-first Avenue, I walked to Queens Boulevard and knew that at nine-thirty at night I had no business going farther. My son Was asleep, my wife, with him, thought I was crazy, and I began to know it. Why not return?

To the questioning of my brain. Why not return?

By then I had wandered down Greenpoint Avenue And had said farewell to, tall luxury apartment Buildings and I knew that Brooklyn could not Be much farther. There was no wind, no East Wind that from the Red Sea bed ripped back The watery covers. No Chasidim danced before My eyes as I sat down on a curb and watched Careening cabs and speeding cars race down The wide street. Were there no other lunatics Around? In a dark doorway, a boy and a girl Did not know I passed. Stale smell of beer From a bar, but no other walkers.

Let me turn back now, now that I have reached The bridge. There is Brooklyn on the other side.

Hello. Goodbye. My right sock is torn, My feet have blisters. Chasidim don’t dance.

But there is the fire moving in air, east Of the Greenpoint Bridge. Sign: Welcome To Greenpoint. What a dirty street. Strange Offices on the left. All night guards and Closed, truck-filled driveways. Manhattan Avenue straight ahead.

“Could you tell me where, I know it’s to the left, Bedford Avenue is?”

“Take this bus.”

“But I’m walking.”

“Yes, it’s a way down there.”

Always the question: Why not return? Too late To escape paralyzing weariness. I couldn’t Walk back. Too tired. Too tired. If I had Money with me, would I ride? Against the law On this holy night. And I knew, without really knowing, It was against my law. A law of my life that I don’t remember passing: therefore, a law That couldn’t be repealed. North Fifteenth Street I found is sixteen blocks away from South First

Street. And now, I had to go back.

I had even forgotten the address of the synagogue To which I had been directed. But my feet had Forgotten how to turn, and I stood still, just stood.

Out from the right came a bearded man, A fur hat on his head and he seemed to be skimming Ahead down the street. I hobbled and called out to him.

“Shool? Are you going to a Ghasidic shool?”

“Yes. Yes. Gut Yomtov. Wischnitzer Rebbe.”

“No. I want to go to Rabbi Moshe . . . Moshe . . .”

“Ah! Levinson?”

“Yes. Yes.” And I knew that I was learning what I was Learning I didn’t know, so tired, yet I ran Along with him, and hundreds of years disappeared.

Fur hats . . . shtreimels, they are called. And they All were walking “Gut yomtov. A Yid from Queens.”

“From Queens? Gut yomtov.”

At South Twelfth Street I saw a building and knew Here was where my feet had made me come to.

And I went inside.

V I stayed ten minutes, for I had to return Or my feet would have stiffened and refused To return. I could fancy them saying to my brain: “You there . . . you intellectual. . . teleport yourself, Imagine yourself to be home. Go ahead. I am just A thing physical, and I shall stay where I am.”

No, this would not do. And so I left. And I left Because I had seen too much in ten minutes. Ten Minutes on Mars, in Hell, or behind the Kremlin’s Most secret doors would tell plenty to those who Knew what to look and listen for. And I had the Mind of a sponge, there were worse, just as better, And ten minutes would unravel visions before My mind for years. And I can not tell you what I saw. For only one infinitely small and infinitely Great thing has yet been unravelled. And I will Say what that one thing is that I know that I saw.

April, 1959

41

It was not age, not a thing of ancient years, Nothing that Wells or Huxley calls “Future:” I saw—and you may laugh or not believe or See whatever you would see—I saw the one Thing I had not expected to see. I saw life.

Take it for what you will. Think of beards that Can not be cut, if you will, or think of candles That shall see no dying out. I saw life and I know I did.

VI When I left, I could not go back, for my legs Were stiff, and my soles were sore. Yet I Counted each block, counted each step, and By two in the morning I climbed the stairs And drank some wine and went to sleep.

VII I had walked looking in when I had walked Looking out, and I knew and I loved The ten year younger boy, But I was not he, And he was not I.

42

JEWISH LIFE

To Reach The Seekers

By ZALMAN M. SCHÄCHTER

RTHODOX JEWRY has quite of­ dox Jew on the contemporary scene ten been diagnosed as suffering is to become an “oisgehorreveter oved O from a mechanistic outlook. We are Hashem,” a Tzaddik, a soul aspiring accused of saying, “Perform the Mitz­ voth, never mind spirituality and val­ ues!” We are accused of extolling the forms, and forgetting the content. They, the non-orthodox, claim to essence, spirit, and meaningfulness. | In a sense these accusations have a measure of truth. We must work to­ wards an acceptance of Mitzvoth Ma’asioth, deeds of religious observance, by the largest number of Jews. All the spiritual considerations, even Gan Eden and Olam Haba, are of lesser importance than the actual observance of the Mitzvoth. Did not our Sages state: “One hour of T’shuvah, repent­ ance, and Ma’asim Tovim, religious deeds, in this world, are better than all the life of the World to Come.” In as­ serting our distinctive difference, we have always had to assert the import­ ance of Mitzvoth Ma’asioth. Not only did we so assert, but we actually en­ gaged in living in such a form, as if the distinctive difference were the only basis of our Torah-true Judaism. In our emphasis, many of us do tend to neglect the “duties of the heart”, lead­ ing lives which skim around the bor­ ders of the Shulchon Oruch but are not saturated by what is truly meant by Torah and T ’fillah. While we can boast of an ever-increasing number of young observant Jews in all walks of life, we cannot yet say that the characteristic ambition and motivation of the ortho­ April, 1959

to Ruchniyuth. When we do direct our­ selves to these dimensions, we all too often fail to assign real life space to them.

While we concentrate our emphasis on deeds, those of other persuasion steal the march on us, in preaching the “living values of the spirit.” Chasidism especially has become their favorite.

They write Chasidic anthologies on prayer, humility, and compassion. We, when looking for contemporary an­ swers to Existentialism on the Jewish side, are still busy parading our Aris­ totelian answers, in a time when the Aristotelian questions are not being asked. They occupy the fields of Jewish broadcasting, with Chasidic dramati­ zations on the coast-to-coast programs.

We are hopelessly behind. We have not yet made it clear to all that there can be no Chasidism without a living relationship, that Chasidism is predi­ cated on the observance of Mitzvoth Ma’asioth, while they tell the world of a Judaism, and show where it differs, making it into a “religion without supernaturalism”, and claim to have become the spokesmen for Judaism in the modern age. We have remained timid to talk about what we believe.

OST of us had undergone a real M struggle with our souls before we decided to live as orthodox Jews.

It was not complacency that turned 43

us towards the Torah way of life. Ours was a conscious decision. Had we de­ cided to slide along with the outer directed, and had we not overcome the inertia in ourselves, we would have been part of them, but out of struggle with our ourselves, we have become committed to a way of life which takes ever-conscious effort and decision making, a way of life which takes the overcoming of obstacles as a matter of course. Yet in most of us the sharp­ ness of our decision and our sensitivity have become dulled. Having fallen into such a state of insensitivity, we lack the necessary understanding and sympathy to help those who still are in the process of struggle, or worse, are as yet uncommitted seekers.

If only we could, from time to time, project ourselves back to the time when the struggle with ourselves was that which stood byrumo shel olom, we could lend them a hand, and this we must do, for once we were just like they, the seekers and those we have to attract. Their motivation still runs high in the direction of striving towards the living of the good and true life. The seekers are still hearing the voice which says, “Your ideas are desirable, but not your deeds”. If made at home with us they can prove to be our strongest power, in the kulturkampf for our G-d-given way of life. They would again sharpen our own vision. For their sake as well as our own, we must seek spiritual direction.

NLY the most tenacious of the “seekers” break through our ap­ athy, into yeshivoth and other centers which give them spiritual direction.

But this only holds true for young men.

As yet we have not yet devised a real­ istic program for our young women.

Only recently a young woman of strong spiritual tendencies asked me if there

O

44

was a yeshivah for girls. She was not interested in a finishing school course for aspiring rebbetzins, but'in a place where she could grow in spiritual Jew­ ish learning and devotional experience.

She seemed quite ready to accept on herself the “yoke of the command­ ments”, but she needs a hospitable en­ vironment, a place where she could be directed, and where she could experi­ ence and live that to which she wanted to devote herself. Contemporary Or­ thodoxy is without its T’chinoth and Tz’enah Ur’enah, and Sheveth Mussar, presented in our contemporary vernac­ ular. We do not have much sympathet­ ically written material which will help to meet a modern woman’s spiritual needs. On Mitzvah practice we have perhaps enough, but not enough ma­ terial is available for inner edification.

To our chagrin, we have found out that apologetic rationalizations are power­ less to produce the active movement and commitment in persons to bring about significant changes in life.

As steps towards remedying this un­ inspiring situation, the following sug­ gestions are made. They are, of course, not intended as a final answer; a great deal of thinking, discussing, and ex­ perimenting will be necessary before we find basic formulae for perpetuation and, G-d willing, progress. It may be that we must become conquering and militant, evangelistic if you will, in order to live up to the dictum: “All of Israel are responsible one for an­ other.” Of course, there will be those who will think that even the sugges­ tions offered cannot be implemented with any degree of practicality. Let the doubters look about, and see how many of these suggestions have already been implemented by others. Even if we would not become successful in at­ tracting others, these suggestions would meet a dire need of our own.

JEWISH LIFE

Atzaroth

E NEED “Atzaroth”, weekend re­ discussion and evaluation. Perhaps the treats, for our men and for our retreat ought to extend through Sunday W women. The object of these Atzaroth in order to present an extension into

would be to become re-acquainted with one’s inner self, and with one’s early struggles to live a G-d-directed life.

There we could become acquainted with an enlarged repertoire of Jewish experience and striving. There we could relearn how to davven with Kavonah, and how to learn Torah. There we could sharpen our spiritual sensitivities.

Representatives of the entire large field of Jewish orthodoxy, from Novorodoker Mussarim to Lubavitcher Chasidism, from Torah Im Derech Eretz sophisticates to Sephardic simplicity, would each take a turn in leading and conducting these retreats. The Atzaroth could be held on Shabboth at an easy to reach location.

The Atzaroth program might begin with a briefing, a spiritual houseclean­ ing, to be followed by an earnest Minchah. A half hour of representative study could be followed by a joyous Kabbolath Shabboth. After Maariv all the participants would then gather at a Tish; with the exception of conversa­ tion pertaining to Torah or prayer, silence would be desirable. Now zemiroth could be introduced. The Tish would take up the entire evening. In­ struction as well as questions and answers could take place right there.

After the bentshen the group would re­ tire right on the premises. In the morn­ ing Shiur, a time for meditation before the davenning, the service in the style of the representative leader (no ser­ mon), Kiddush with another Tish.

After the second meal a silent rest period with books would be desirable.

Another Shiur, and the third meal with Ma’ariv, and Havdolah. A Melaveh Malkah would provide an outlet for April, 1959

the week of the renewal of the spirit.

A group might perhaps wish to experi­ ment with other modes of inner expres­ sion, thus bringing to light some of the gems contained in our spiritual store­ house.

Perhaps, and this is not such a re­ mote possibility, we could again in­ fuse the observance of Yom Kippur Koton with contemporary relevance. A Yom Kippur Koton retreat would serve as a periodic stock-taking experience.

Most of our self-employed professional and business men can and do, when they so desire, take a day off for what­ ever purpose they choose. They could convene at the retreat house in the eve­ ning, eat in silence, in fact impose si­ lence for the entire stay, while someone reads to them a passage of let’s say, the Mesillath Yeshorim. After a period of Torah study, they could as a Minyon, and taking their time, with K ’riath Sh’ma Shel Hamittah, retire, awake at about 5:00 a.m. and, perhaps for the first time in their life recite the Tikun Chatzoth (for most of us the Tikun Chatzoth has the emotional connota­ tions of a romantic legend.) Then after reciting the T’hillim they could study some more, davven without hurry, and return to study. They could fast during that day, spend some time on Cheshbon Hanefesh, meditation, and proceed with the Yom Kippur Koton liturgy at Minchah time. Ma’ariv and supper could be followed by a discussion, after which they would return home.

The spiritual lift that such an experi­ ence only three times during the year might stimulate, is only limited by the power of our imagination. The 45

idea behind the Atzaroth is not only to give a one-time experience, but to demonstrate the practicality of incorporât-

ing in one’s own home and synagogue observance some of the dimensions experienced during a retreat. ,

Publications

: Q Bj

ANY soft-covered books of ex­ publishers would soon find it profitable M cellent content are now on the to issue low-price editions, as well as market. Could not arrangements be benefiting by the increased sale of the made to publish some of our own classics at a low price? For instance if one Seder of the Mishnah were to be published in English per year, a person could then spend his travel to and from his daily occupation as a time of his daily Shiur of Mishnah. Besides, there is a whole host of books in English offering expositions of Jewish law, teaching, and practice. The present

higher-priced ones. Thus anyone would be able to own a large number of books in English, through which he could fulfill his Torah study obligation. Per­ haps this would stimulate establishing a reading room section containing English Judaica in each Beth Hamidrosh, so that the worshipper may study these works before and after the service.

NCE a determined start is made tion, to learn to utilize them and O with these undertakings and through them to reach out to the indi­ others of similar character, many other possibilities will present themselves to our stimulated vision, and prove prac­ tical means to our purpose. The mod­ ern world, with its radio, television, motion picture, and innumerable other means of communication, with its un­ precedented mobility and facilities for transmission of ideas, ideals and ex­ periences, offers resources for the propagation of Torah potentially no less fertile and pliable than it offers anti-Torah. It is our task, our obliga­

46

vidual Jew and the Jewish community, to those near and far.

Only by a creative approach, deriv­ ing from the source of the Jewish soul, could increased opportunities for those already in our camp, and those inter­ ested to enter, be made available. With the process of growth in spiritual stat­ ure, according to a given person’s own choice of approach, we can hope to progress ourselves, and to attract seek­ ing souls to Avinu Sh’bashamayim.

JEWISH LIFE

nsf'

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fu rl -t> f

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I ie?Xsher

By M EY ER WAXMAN

HE MIDRASH asks: “Why is Jeremiah likened unto a sheep? for Jeremiah says, ‘Israel is a scat­ tered sheep,” (Jeremiah 50:17). And the answer is, “When a sheep is struck in one place of its body, the entire body trembles. Similarly, when Jews in one country suffer, the Jews in other countries feel the effect.”

(Vayikra Rabbah 4:15.) It thus hap­ pened that when the Jews of Germany underwent great suffering, in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, through false accusations brought against them in a number of cities, the effect was felt by the Jews of Spain. Fortunately the effect turned out to be for the good and brought about a rise in the spiritual state of Spanish Jewry.

The numerous pogroms, attacks, and massacres which resulted from such accusations aroused a number of Jews to leave Germany. Among the migrants was Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel, the Rosh, leading disciple of Germany’s leading Jewish scholar, the last of the Tosafists, Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg. Rabbi Asher and his eight sons wandered for a time through Italy and France, and wher­ ever Asher came he was received

T

April, 1959

with great honors, for his fame as a scholar preceded him. Finally journeying to Spain, Rabbi Asher accept­ ed the invitation of the leading Jewish community of that country, that of Toledo, to become its spiritual leader.

The settlement of Rabbi Asher and his eight sons, all of whom were dis­ tinguished by learning, stimulated the process of spiritual and intellectual rapprochement between the two lead­ ing Jewries, the Franco-German and the Spanish. In fact, this process had begun earlier, from the time of Moses ben Nachman, the Ramban, during the first half of the thirteenth century and was strengthened by the activity of Solomon ben Adreth, known in abbreviation as Rashba. The great learning of Rabbi Asher, his masterly compendium of the Talmud, which he wrote in Spain, gave an especially vigorous impetus to the harmony be­ tween the two Jewries.

From that time on, the spirit and method of the Franco-German schol­ ars who delved deep into Talmudic learning, and made its mastery the goal of their lives, were adopted by most Spanish scholars. Also of im­ portance was the activity of a num­ ber of Asher’s sons, such as the old47

est, Rabbi Yechiel; Yehudah, who suc­ ceeded his father in the rabbinate of Toledo; and also that of the other brothers whose responsa and legal de­ cisions regulated the spiritual life of Spanish Jewry. But the leading role in the welding of the spirits of the two Jewries was played by Rabbi

Asher’s son Yaakov who compiled his great code of Jewish law, Sefer haTurim, popularly called the Tur, which became the code of practically all Jewry for several centuries and served as the foundation of the final code of Joseph Karo, the Shulchan Aruch.

Life

R

abbi

yaakov

ben

a sh er

was born in the year 1269 and was trained in the Academy of his father according to the Tosafist meth­ od of the study of the Talmud. He left Germany with his father in the year 1303 and first settled together with his family in the city of Barce­ lona. When two years later Asher was invited to be the rabbi of the com­ munity of Toledo, Yaakov, with his older brother Yechiel, remained for a time in Barcelona. Finding it diffi­ cult to earn a living for his family there, in the year 1314 Yaakov came to Toledo with several of his brothers.

It seems, though, that his material po­ sition did not improve even then, for in one of the sections of the Tur we find the following statement: “Many times I asked my father whether I— who have so little of my own and fre­ quently need help from others— am allowed to follow the dictum of Rabbi Akiva, ‘Conduct yourself on the Sab­ bath as on weekdays, and do not seek help from others, and eat thè same poor meals as on weekdays.’ But I never received a definite answer.” His father tried to help him but Yaakov refused to accept any assistance.

When his father died, Yaakov ben Asher filled his position for a time, but refused to take a salary from the community, and founded an Academy, 48

which was attended by many students, a number of whom gained fame in the Jewish world. It seems that toward the end of his life Yaakov left Toledo and settled in some other Spanish city, but after his death in the year 1343 he was brought there for burial.

Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher had little material goods and wealth to leave to his children, but he was anxious that they should inherit the spiritual riches which he possessed and imitate his exemplary life as much as possible.

In his Testament he urges his children to cultivate the love of G-d to such a degree that they should be ready to accept even martyrdom with cheerful­ ness in order to sanctify the Divine Name. He commands them also to be very careful to observe the Mitzvah of distribution of charity and perform all manner of loving-kindness, espe­ cially that of hospitality to wayfarers.

The performance of these acts, he adds, especially the distribution, of charity, must be done for the glory of G-d and not for the gain of per­ sonal honor or to win a reputation for generosity.

Similarly, says he, the study of the Torah must be carried out for its own sake, so that one should know how to properly observe the Mitzvoth. For this reason, though Yaakov himself JEWISH LIFE

was trained in the dialectic method of the Tosafists which dwelt much on keenness of mind in finding answers to proposed difficulties, he advised his children not to employ this method, but to concentrate on deriving the right decision of the law. He also urges them to help their brethren in

following the right way of conduct and to observe the commandments of the Torah. If Jews stray from the way of the Torah, it is their duty to admonish them and call them to re­ turn. He warns them, however, to be gentle in their admonition and not to abuse those who are chided.*

Contribution: The Tur

N HIS own life and work Rabbi sources and reasons for the decisions Yaakov ben Asher carried out all as well as quotations of the views of the teachings he urged upon his chil­ other scholars. Besides, there were dren. We have noted how exemplary differences in views between the was his life, and how it was saturated Spanish scholars and those of France with love of G-d and Torah and the and Germany. As a result, even schol­ observance of the Mitzvoth for their ars found it difficult to find a clear own sake, without any thought of per­ decision on many points. sonal advantage. The purpose and aim Rabbi Jacob aimed at removing all of his scholarly activity was in like these difficulties. As was noted, Rabbi vein. He strove to present to his Asher paved the way for diminishing people as a whole a work which would the differences between the Sephardic show in the clearest way how to ob­ and Ashkenazic views. The son fol­ serve the religious commandments in lowed the father, and thus succeeded all aspects of life. He aimed that this in producing a legal code which could work should be of use not only to be accepted as authoritative by the scholars, but also to any Jew who various Jewries of the world. As a possessed enough learning to read and foundation for his code he compiled understand a code. tables of the legal decisions of his True, there were many works in father, derived from his Compendium, his time which aimed to offer de­ under the name of Piske ha-Rosh cisions of the law. There was the (Decisions of Rabbi Asher) and ap­ Compendium of the Talmud by Isaac pended them to each tractate of the Alfasi, the great Code of Maimonides, Talmud. He then wrote his code, and the second Compendium of the which he named Sefer ha-Turim (The Talmud by his own father, the Rosh, Book of the Rows). The name alludes besides many partial codes. But in to the four rows of stones which were order to make use of the two Com- placed in the breastplate of the high pendiums, one has to be versed' in priest (Shemoth 28:15-16) which in the entire Talmud, or at least in the Hebrew were called Turim, and were larger part of it which deals with all used, according to tradition, as oracles the Mitzvoth practiced even after the for decisions in judgment. destruction of the Temple. There was also some opposition to the Code of Ethical Wills, ed. Israel Abrams, Voi. Maimonides on account of its lack of *Hebrew II, pp. 202-205.

J

April, 1959

49

Y

AAKOV BEN ASHER, like his father, was concerned with the laws practiced at all times, and did not include those which ceased to op­ erate after the destruction of the Temple. These laws are divided into four classes: (a) those which affect the daily life of the Jew and which every Jew can decide for himself with the help of a proper manual; (b) those relating to prohibited and per­ mitted things (Isur Ve-Heter) which are of a more difficult nature and need the decision of a scholar, such as the dietary laws, laws of marital purity, and kindred matters; (c) those which deal with family relations, such as laws of marriage and divorce, as well as to Levirate marriage ( Yibum ) and Chalitzah; (d) laws that bear on civil

calendar and the way to calculate the exact days of the months on which the festivals fall in various years.

The second volume, named Tur Yore Dea (The Teacher of Knowl­ edge), deals with the laws of the second class, whose decision, as men­ tioned, requires a mastery of scholarly knowledge. It is also divided into two parts, the first embracing all laws which bear on Kashruth and aim to make Jewish life distinct and sancti­ fied, while the second part deals with a variety of laws and ends with the laws concerning mourning. The third is called Tur Eben-Ezer (The Stone of Help). The name is taken from I Samuel 4:1, and is an allusion to both the stones of judgment of the high priest’s breastplate, and to the

life and dispensation of justice in all its phases and aspects.

Accordingly, the code is divided in­ to four parts or “rows”. The first is named Tur Orach Chayim (The Path of Life), subdivided into: laws relat­ ing to daily religious conduct such as those governing prayer, benedic­ tions, synagogue ritual, Tzitzith and Tefillin, and the reading of the Torah; laws of the Sabbath; and laws of the festivals. This part includes also a section on Rosh Chodesh, as well as a set of rules on the fixation of the

fact that woman is called in Bereshith 2:2 an ezer, a helpmate, since this part deals, as mentioned, with family laws. The fourth is called Tur Chosen Mishpat (The Breastplate of Judg­ ment), the name given in the Bible (Shemoth 28:15) to the breastplate borne by the high priest, as the divi­ sion deals with all phases of civil law for which a judgment is required.

50

AAKOV BEN ASHER spent many years in the preparation of his code. He began the writing of the

Y

JEWISH LIFE

first Tur while his father was alive.

Apologizing in his preface for daring to undertake to write such a work while still young, he says: “I have noted that there is much confusion regarding decisions of laws. Some argue one way, and others the other way, and the result is a great division in views, and therefore I dared, in spite of youth and little knowledge, to undertake the writing of such a code.” But when he wrote the last Tur his father was dead, for he al­ ways mentions him there with the words, “my father of blessed mem­ ory/’ and he does not apologize for his daring but only tells the need for such a code.

The great value of Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher’s Sefer ha-Turim does not consist in discovering new material for the decisions or deriving them from the material at hand, but in arranging the material for the decisions in a logical manner, and in the method employed in presenting the decisions of the law on all matters. He states the laws in a brief and concise man­ ner and quotes the sources. If there is total agreement by authorities, he merely states the decision, but if there is a difference of opinion, he quotes the various authorities, concluding, as a rule, with the view of his own father. Yaakov indicates his predilec­ tion for an opinion by saying, “I am inclined to accept this view,” or “this view is to be followed,” thus allowing the student to choose another opinion if he so prefers. On the whole, the code is based on the decisions of his father, yet in a number of codes he differs with him, and accepts the opinion of another authority against that of his father—for his love of truth, or what seemed to him to be true, overbalanced any personal feel­ ing of reverence for his father.

April, 1959

HERE IS much originality in the inner arrangement of the ma­ terial of the code. The various sub­ jects follow each other in proper order, and often Rabbi Yaakov con­ nects the groups of laws by a number of statements indicating the transitions from one subject to another. At times, his arrangement is more logical even than that of Maimonides. Thus, while the Rambam places the laws of ju­ dicial procedure at the very end of the section of his code dealing with civil and criminal law, Rabbi Yaakov in the Tur Choshen Mishpot, which deals only with civil law, begins with the laws of procedure. It is reasonable that before we study the way of dis­ pensation of justice, we should first be told the procedure of that dispen­ sation, namely, who are qualified to act as judges, their powers, and also details about the basis of that dispen­ sation, whether the testimony of wit­ nesses, or other proof.

The author of the Tur went even further than his father in his endeavor to mediate between the views of the Spanish and the Franco-German scholars. His general rule in accepting a decision was to follow the view of the majority of authorities, irrespective of whether they were Sephardim or Ashkenazim. When no majority view prevailed, he was more inclined to accept the views of the Ashkenazim in certain matters. Thus, in the Tur Orach Chayim, dealing with laws of prayer, benedictions, Sabbath and festivals, he is inclined to accept the views of the Franco-German authori­ ties, while in the Tur Choshen Mish­ pot, dealing with civil law, he follows mostly the Sephardic decisions. The reason for such choice can be seen in the fact that he himself was trained in the spirit of deep piety of the German Jews, who were scrupulous

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in performing the pure religious laws, while in Spain that type of piety was not as prevalent among the masses as in Germany. In fact, he says in one place in his code, “The Sephardim are not anxious to pursue a Mitzvah.”

But in regard to the dispensation of justice in civil law, Spanish Jewry had a much wider autonomy. It follows that Spanish scholars were more ex­ perienced in the dispensation of civil as well as criminal law, hence Rabbi Yaakov accepted their views in the Tur which deals with civil law.

NOTHER aspect of this great work which contributed to the diminishing of differences in the re­ ligious practices of the various Jewish communities was the fact that the author paid great attention to the re­ cording of customs, in addition to legal decisions. In this he made no distinction of value as between cus­ toms originating in France, Germany, or Spain, evaluating all with equal emphasis as Jewish customs. As a result, a spirit of universal Jewishness prevails in this code.

Among other features which en­ hance the value of the Tur is the ex­ tensive use made of the Agada. Al­ most every group of Halachic deci­ sions is opened by Agadic statements from the Talmud and Midrashim which express the value of the laws contained in them. The statements contain great emotional warmth and arouse the reader not only to care in the observance of Mitzvoth but to love their performance and to be eager to fulfill them. Another feature is the attention paid to the traditional pray­ ers in giving their sources, the time when they were introduced and by whom, as well as elucidating the special meaning which certain pas­ sages intend to convey.

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Within a short time the Sefer HaTurim of Yaakov ben Asher was ac­ cepted by the Jewish world as the most authoritative of all codes. We are told

by Abraham Zacutta, the author of Sefer Yuchasin, a famed historicalbiographical work, that in all Spain the decisions of the Tur were con­ sidered the most authoritative, with the exception of the province of Cata­ lonia, where the authority of Solomon Ibn Adreth (Rashba) prevailed. A number of partial codes written by scholars in Italy and in Germany are based on the Tur. We can gauge the popularity of the code from the fact that its first part, that of Orach Chayim, was the second Hebrew work to appear in print, appearing in the year 1475 in Pieve de Sacco.

ABBI YAAKOV BEN ASHER also wrote a commentary on the Chumosh, a part of which, due to its character, became very popular and was printed in every edition of the Pentateuch from the year 1500 on, under the title Baal ha-Turim, i.e. a commentary by the author of the Tu­ rim. I say “a part” for the reason that the comments printed in the Chumosh formed originally a special section in his larger commentary which con­ tains much of Peshat, based primarily on the explanations of Nachmanides (Ramban) in his own commentary, to whom he gives full credit for the material he borrowed from him. To the main body he added what he called Parparothy peripheral or addi­ tional remarks. They consist of inter­ pretations of passages by means of Notarikon and the numerical value of words.

In this work his method is to note that a certain expression or word is found a number of times in several passages, and to find a common JEWISH LIFE

thought running through these words, no matter in what context they may be found. Another technique which he employs quite frequently is the “Notarikon,” that is, constructing words or passages either from the initials of words in a verse or from their final letters. He often employs also the “Gematria”—calculating the numerical value of one word to be equal to that of another, and conse­ quently including the meaning of the latter in that of the former. To illus­ trate these devices we will quote a few examples. On Bereshith 1:14, which contains G-d’s command to the two luminaries, Rabbi Yaakov re­ marks: “The word Vothoth (for signs) is found only twice in the entire Bible, in this verse and in Isaiah 8:18 where the prophet says, Behold I and the children whom the Lord hath given men are Uothoth and for won­ ders in Israel. And, says Rabbi Yaa­ kov, we must understand that the children in the verse in Isaiah refers to scholars, for as the word Vothoth in Bereshith refers to the luminaries, so does it similarly refer in Isaiah, for the scholars are the luminaries in the community.

Rabbi Yaakov’s use of the Gematria is illustrated by his comment on Bereshith 19:1 which tells of Jacob’s dream in which he saw a ladder (Heb. sulam) set up on the earth with its top reaching heaven. The Rabbi says, “The numerical value of sulam equals that of Sinai, both being

April, 1959

120. It denotes that G-d showed Jacob the revelation at Mount Sinai, the high ladder by means of which His children will rise to an exalted de­ gree of spirituality.” Filled as is this part of Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher’s commentary with such fine thoughts, it is not surprising that it gained great popularity in a very short time.

We are told by Chayim David Azulai in his biographical lexicon, Shem haGedolim, that as early as the year 1389, the Baal ha-Turim was brought to Eretz Yisroel and distributed in many copies.

ENTURIES have passed since the death of this scholar who valued C his work so little that he apologizes in his preface to the commentary for daring to write it. Says he, “I am repeating the words of Agur (Prov­ erbs 30:2) ‘I am ignorant more than any man and have not learned wis­ dom’.” Yet, his spirit is still with us.

His Tur not only served as the foun­ dation for the final code accepted by; all Jews—that of the Shulchon Oruch —but has continued to be studied and delved into by Rabbinic scholars to this day. Many are the Jews who on the Sabbath pore over the Baal haTurim while studying the Biblical por­ tion of the week and enjoy its keen insights and derive deep pleasure from the glimpse into the wide spir­ itual vista it opens before all the gen­ erations of our people.

53

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JEWISH LIFE

Booh Beviews Baron's Monumental History

By IRVING A. A GU S

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS HIS­ TORY OF THE JEW S by Salo W. Baron, Vols. I-VIII, Columbia Uni­ versity Press, New York, N. Y. HE second edition of Dr. Salo Baron’s “A Social and Religious History of the Jews” is not a mere revision and enlargement of the first edition, but indeed a completely new work. Thus it has fully outgrown its title. It is no longer limited to the social and religious facets of Jewish history, but contains a full and elab­ orate discussion of the political, eco­ nomic, and cultural aspects of that h isto ry as well. This m onum ental work, or rather the part that has ap­ peared so far, is clearly divided into two parts. The first two volumes deal with the Biblical period and the ap­ proximately one thousand years im­ mediately following that period; while the last six volumes encompass the High Middle Ages, or the years 5001200 of the common era. Altogether the work comprises some twenty-two hundred pages of text and about a thousand large pages of notes—a tre­ mendous effort indeed!

T

DR. IRVING AGUS, Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, is the author of “A History of the Jewish People,” and a winner of the Lamed Prize for a work on Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg.

April, 1959

The great number of volumes and pages, however, is but partly indica­ tive of the enormous labor and the prodigious scholarship applied by the author to his stupendous task; be­ cause every page is indeed the result of a lifetime of study, and every note an elaborate excursus of high schol­ arly merit. Thus the author has here undertaken the gargantuan task of considering, reviewing, and condens­ ing the many thousands of multi­ lingual and bewilderingly complex scholarly studies of the sources, the literature, the experiences, and the thoughts of a very unique and his­ torically a very important people— studies made by hundreds of scholars and specialists on every conceivable facet of modern historical research.

His work is therefore of unbeliev­ ably vast proportions. The field of historical research has grown tre­ mendously in the past one hundred years, or since the publication of the monumental work of Heinrich Graetz.

In the Biblical period especially the archeological discoveries of compara­ tively recent years have brought to light a veritable flood of contempor­ ary documents that have thrown abundant light on the national ori­ gins, the culture, the religions, and the mores of the people of the Fertile 55

Crescent and Egypt during the fifteen centuries following the days of Abra­ ham’s forefathers. The meaning of ancient and long-forgotten languages had been rediscovered, and tens of thousands of inscriptions on stone and clay were deciphered, and critically studied. A similarly intensive search for new sources and for a critical réévaluation and restudy of the old sources was also carried on by thou­ sands of scholars in the periods of the Second Temple, the Talmudic period, and the early Middle Ages. The whole field of Jewish history and the history of the countries and empires in which the Jews have resided, have under­ gone most intensive scrutiny by thou­ sands of specialists. It is obvious therefore that the work of Graetz, and even the Weltgeschichte of Dubnow, for the period under discussion, are now completely antiquated, and possess as much value for history as a nineteenth century chemistry text for a modern study of chemistry.

ROF. BARON has therefore per­ formed a singular service to Jewish historiography in abstracting, reviewing, condensing, and epitomizing practically all the important original research, in the field of Jewish history proper and even in related subjects, that has appeared in hundreds of books and thousands of monographs and articles in the past fifty years.

The work proceeds along two distinct levels : practically every paragraph of the text describes a particular phase of the subject—a single important in­ cident, a facet of the political, social, or religious relationship of the Jews of a particular period to their environ­ ment, the evolution of an institution, the composition of a book, the emerg­ ence of political or religious parties and sects, or the establishment of new

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settlements—while a note at the end of the book lists the names of the scholars who dealt with this particu­ lar subject, gives full bibliographical data, discusses the conflicting views of these scholars, and expresses _a judgment on their validity.

To the trained historian who is well acquainted with the scholars and the books thus cited, Prof. Baron’s work appears as a marvel of rigorous condensation. A single sentence thus summarizes the lifetime labor of an internationally famous scholar; a single bibliographical reference often alludes to an epoch-making publica­ tion. References to Theodore Reinach, Emile Schuerer, Ludwig Geiger, Momsen, Albright, Aronius, G. Caro, L. Baeck, S. Kraus, L. Ginzburg, S. Zeitlin, J. Mann, A. Neubauer, Z. Fraenkel, Migne, Hefele, Boehmer, to mention but a few—every name rep­ resents a singularly successful career of stupendous scholarly achievement.

The work of Prof. Baron thus opens the gates of historical scholarship to the professional historian as well as to the tyro. Anyone who is interested in a particular problem in Jewish history can find here references to practically all the books, monographs, and articles that deal with that sub­ ject. Even the general reader who is interested in gaining an understand­ ing of the vast proportions and enor­ mous proliferation of modem histor­ ical research, will be singularly served by this monumental work.

ITH all due regard to the great erudition of the author and to his enormous application and concentra­ tion, one must nevertheless take issue with his claim that he has produced a “scholarly synthesis” of Jewish his­ tory (Vol. Ill, p. vii). His work is indeed a “comprehensive review”, but

W

JEWISH LIFE

not a -“scholarly synthesis”. Thus in contradistinction to the human brain that synthesizes the two slightly dif­ ferent impressions it receives from two distinct points of view into a three-dimensional perception of the truth—Prof. Baron sees, perceives, and evaluates each point of view in isola­ tion, and then, through the use of the sadly overworked (by Prof. Baron) word “however”, turns to the opposite point of view which, in turn, is even­ tually also cancelled out by another “however”. On numerous occasions he views with favor the original and brilliant work of a scholar (the effect of whose work is completely to shatter all previous opinions on that subject) only to proceed with the fatal “how­ ever” and slowly to return to the well-entrenched, though clearly erro­ neous, “accepted” view. At best, Prof.

Baron compromises between two op­ posing points of view. Truth, how­ ever, is not the result of compromise, nor does it issue from viewing alter­ nately two opposing points of view.

Practically on every page opposing theories and sharply clashing opinions and reconstructions are alternately described, mildly criticized, and just as mildly praised. His statements are so contradictory, therefore, and his declaratory sentences so vague, that one can rarely divine what is his real opinion.

Indeed the serious reader is often at a loss when attempting to fathom the author’s real meaning. Consider, for example, the following sentences (Vol. II, p. 67): “At any rate, Jesus appears as an essentially Pharisaic Jew . . . From the beginning he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils. His religious healing, exorcisms, and other mir­ acles were as much taken for grant­ April, 1959

ed as was the intervention of an­ gels who are mentioned some 170 times in the New Testament. On one occasion he complained that his disciples’ heart was hardened, be­ cause they were not sufficiently im­ pressed by his miraculous feeding of five thousand men on five loaves of bread,” What does it mean? Indeed, one cannot accuse the author of historical naivete, nor of base sycophancy. This is merely a perfect example of his method of throwing into the hopper clearly formulated though widely di­ vergent points of view, without any attempt at a clear and rigorous for­ mulation of the truth. h r o u g h o u t this vast work it is quite obvious that the author merely aimed at “a comprehensive review” of the work of modern schol ars, but made no attempt at synthesis, at formulating a unifying conception of evolving Jewish, history, and at drawing the proper perspective. Thus the enormous amount of material ac­ cumulated and epitomized by the eru­ dite author contains overwhelming evidence to the truth of the following conclusions: A. The history of the Jews is in es­ sence the story of an amalgamation of a people and an idea. In every suc­ cessive generation the zealous devotees of that idea, those who had made su­ preme sacrifices in order to attain a high degree of comprehension and mastery of the idea, in order to pat­ tern every detail of their lives in ac­ cordance with the dictates of that idea, and in order to transmit faith­ fully to others such comprehension, mastery and pattern of life—these zealous devotees were few in number.

Nevertheless throughout the ages the pattern was always the same: those

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who faithfully followed these de­ consisted of a healthy core, which votees, remained Jews; while all those alone endured from period to period whose loyalty and devotion faltered, and from century to century,’' and of eventually were lost to the Jewish large groups of withering branches on people. the periphery that constantly fell A study of Jewish history, there­ away from the main body of the Jew­ fore, must concentrate primarily on ish people in its see-sawing march a full understanding of this unique of the past 3,000 years (cf. vol. 1, p. and vitalizing idea, called Judaism -R 23f.). To take full cognizance of this or more precisely the Judaism of the tremendously significant phenomenon Chachomim—and on the lives, activi­ constitutes genuine historical synthe­ ties, teachings, and influences of these ses. Apparently our author attempted zealous devotees, the Chachomim and no synthesis. their students. Although in the study B. Prof. Baron is greatly im­ of the history of a tree one cannot pressed with the health, the vigor, and wholly disregard the withering leaves even the explosive vitality of the Jews and branches on its periphery, nor in the Roman empire. He skillfully completely ignore the great number depicts the tremendous expansion of of such appendages that have already the Jewish people, in the little more fallen away, the abundantly vigorous than 600 years, from a tiny group and healthy foliage of the main body clinging (in the year 500 C.E.) to of the tree should be the main subject the barren hills of Judea, to the most under consideration — providing of powerful, most virile, and most in­ course that one is interested in a dispensable national group in both the living tree and not primarily in dead Roman and the Parthian empires branches. (Incidentally, it is quite (600 years later). He even gives sev­ obvious th at one cannot gain a true eral cogent reasons for this most re­ understanding of Judaism from the markable phenomenon in world his­ studies of Christian scholars, to whom tory: healthy family life, social and Judaism is an alien, misrepresented, economic cooperation, and devotion to and misinterpreted entity. One of the Talmudic Judaism. Nevertheless he most serious weaknesses of Prof. misses the full impact and tremen­ Baron's work is that he takes such dous significance of this remarkable studies seriously.) Nevertheless, our historical phenomenon. For it was the author is mostly concerned with the zealously faithful devotion to, and withering branches of the Jewish the almost fanatically meticulous ob­ people, even with those who have servance of, the entire complex of fallen off and have decayed, while the Jewish law and Jewish religion, by the most important part of the people— Jewish people, that was solely and the only part that has survived as completely responsible for their tre­ Jews^—is often treated as an alien mendous vitality and phenomenal survivalability. group.

Nowhere in this vast book does the The above-mentioned successful en­ erudite author point out or even no­ durance of the healthy core of the tice this clearest, boldest, and most people throughout the ages, the re­ important historical phenomenon: markable expansion of that tiny core namely, that throughout the years the into a nation of millions on several Hebrews, the Israelites, and the Jews occasions, and the comparative lack 58

JEWISH LIFE

of such endurance and expansion qualities on the part of the Samari­ tans who, in 500 B.C.E. greatly out­ numbered the Judeans — all clearly and emphatically prove that it was the very rigidity of Judaism, the very insistence on wholehearted, zealous, and stubborn adherence to every de­ tail of the Law, and the spirited and complete rejection of any compro­ mises, any “reformations”, any “syn­ cretisms”, or any syntheses with for­ eign cultures, th at comprised the very source of the power of Judaism, the very secret of its abounding energy, and the very fountainhead of all its life-giving qualities. Prof. Baron, however, often adopts the prevailing Christian view of criticizing this total devotion, this insistence on full and wholehearted allegiance to a single ideal, and this failure to compromise, to assimilate, and to syncretize. Thus he states (Vol. II, p. 151) : “The syn­ thesis of Judaism and the GraecoRoman cujture, in its religious re­ formation by Paul and his successors, was a great historical necessity.” He often contrasts Christianity's ability to compromise, to adapt itself to ap­ parent necessity, and to absorb for­ eign elements, with Jewish rigidity and inflexibility (p. 154), not to the latter's credit — thus exhibiting his failure to comprehend the meaning, the purpose, the nature, and the very essence of Judaism. For the statement of Wilhelm von Humboldt (quoted by Baron, Vol. II, p. 215) that the entire historic position of the Jewish people is “such an extraordinary phenomenon in world history and the history of religion that many a fine mind has doubted whether it can at all be ex­ plained in merely human terms”, is indeed a sound and correct historical judgment as long as the tremendous life-giving power of a total and comApril, 1959

píete adherence to every little detail of “the Judaism of the Hahamim” is not fully appreciated. A true synthesis of Jewish history is the awe-inspiring realization that such history should be viewed as a reaction, a by-product, and an effect, on the world scene, of the continuously faltering attempts of an entire people fully to amalga­ mate with the greatest and poten­ tially the most powerful idea in the world: “the Judaism of the Ha­ hamim”.

NE SHOULD not, however, judge O such a monumental work as the “history” of Prof. Baron by what it is not, but rather by what it is. Thus its eight volumes contain a fairly complete condensation of the important scholar­ ly research done in the field of Jewish history in the past century, it surveys every nook and cranny of such his­ tory; it epitomizes every important study on Hebrew language, Hebrew grammar, Biblical Masorah, lexicog­ raphy, sects, movements, philosophies, literary compositions, social organiza­ tion, communal cooperation, and po­ litical status of the Jews; it furnishes full bibliographical information; and it places in bold perspective the nu­ merous problems modera Jewish his­ torians are concerned with. The pres­ ent reviewer would not go as fa r as to say that one can learn Jewish his­ tory from this book—the text is too vague, too contradictory, too often modified and remodified by innumer­ able and totally confusing “howevers”, and completely lacking as an histor­ ical synthesis—but it is the serious work of an erudite, profound and even great historian, and is a veritable treasurehouse of inconceivably nu­ merous details of information on the history of the Jewish people.

Whatever shortcomings this enorr 59

mously elaborate work possesses stem from the fact that Jewish history is so vast and so complicated, so significant for world history and so all-embrac­ ing, that no single individual could ever hope to master it, or even fully to comprehend every period, every

movement, and every facet of its total reality. In the above-described limits the misnamed “A Social and Religious History of the Jews” is a monumental work, the result of tremendous effort, stupendous energy, and highly praise­ worthy historical talent.

"It is therefore incumbent upon us to give thanks and praise . . . to Him Who wrought all of these miracles for our fathers and for us: He led us forth from slavery to freedom, from sor­ row to rejoicing, from mourning to festivity, and from dark­ ness to wondrous light, and from subjection to redemption."

"From slavery to freedom"—this represents the exodus from Egypt; "from sorrow to rejoicing"—at the Sea, which was a time of great trouble; "from mourning"—at Mount Sinai, where it is said: "And the people heard this disastrous declaration and they mourned, and no man donned his orna­ ments"; "to festivity"—the day of Yom Kippur, when Moses descended with the Second Tablets, and it said that there were no festivities for Israel like unto those on the 15th of Av and on the Day of Atonement; "from darkness to wondrous light"—from the dark and death-shadowy wilderness to the Holy Land of Israel which is a wondrous light; "from subjec­ tion to redemption"—from the subjection in the days of the Judges to the redemption in the days of David and Solomon, when they lived in safety and it was complete redemption.

Hagrah (Elijah of Wilna) on the Hagadah

Women are required to participate in the commandment of drinking the four goblets of wine at the Seder Service, for they were included in the miracle of redemption as were the men. But should not this same theory also apply to the com­ mandment of Succah? No, because although women were also included in the latter miracle, the Almighty released them from this obligation. And certainly the King Who insti­ tuted these regulations has the right to include or exclude anyone He desires.

Maharal (Judah Loew of Prague) on the Hagadah

60

JEWISH LIFE

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Edited by RABBI LEO JUNG • Essays and biographical appraisals on the lives and works of Jewish religious leaders, scholars and sages during the past two centuries.

Introduction: The Rabbis and Free­ dom of Interpretation, by the Editor • The contributors to this classical work represent noted Jewish schol­ ars & journalists from world Jewry.

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JEWISH LIFE

New Hirschiana

By LEO JUNG

THREE GENERATIONS (The In­ fluence of S. R. Hirsch on Jewish Life and Thought), by Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld, Jewish Post Publications, London, 1958.

ceremonies, observances, unorganized emotions, and unsystematic thought, through S. R. Hirsch and his dis­ ciples, in three generations, revealed itself as a philosophy of life, based on clear principles, co-extensive with HIS is a straightforward, unem­ the whole realm of thinking and liv­ bellished account of Samson Ra­ ing. The well-nigh inevitable imper­ phael Hirsch, the man, the scholar, fections of the Ghetto community had the prophet, the founder of a global to yield, because of his preachment movement. From the extreme left to and example, to the combination of the extreme right, his inspired work loyalty to the Din Torah and modern­ has received encomiums. Any believing ity of method and approch; though Jew (that excludes those completely Hirsch would go out of his way to sunk in the contemporary scene and emphasize that constant awareness of unable to see beyond their own ho­ esthetic principle and systematic ways rizons), no m atter what his denom­ of living are not only in accord with, ination, has derived great benefit but demanded by, our religious tradi­ from the study of HirschV commen­ tion (a point the sainted Chofetz taries on the Chumosh and on Te- Chayim would stress at every oppor­ hillim; from absorption in his Horeb; tunity, as may be seen from his an­ from pre-occupation with the six vol­ imadversions about infants in the syn­ umes of his Gesammelte Schriften. agogue in Hilchoth Purim and in his Hirsch was human enough to know warning against superstitious prayers, wrath with heedless destroyers of our in Hilchoth Rosh Hashonah). Hirsch faith and wise enough to dedicate his thus not only offered a new key to great energies to positive work. The the Torah, and stressed how timecombination of piety and wide aware­ hallowed it was; not only indicated a ness, of originality and reverence, lent new way to promote Torah-true Juda­ his life and letters great significance ism and showed how it was anchored in the millenial heritage; he showed beyond his century.

What to the uninitiated had ap­ to his disciples, as to the larger com­ peared before as a maze of unrelated munity, how one could meet the chal­ lenges of the day, not by reducing the claims of our faith but by en­ DR. LEO JUNG is Rabbi of The Jewish Center in Manhattan, Professor of Ethics at Yeshiva Uni­ deavoring to convey to one’s contem­ versity, and President of the Jewish Academy of poraries a glimpse of its spiritual Arts and Sciences.

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April, 1959

63

power and ethical beauty. That keeps Hirsch’s teaching fresh in 1959 and assures its relevancy for years with­ out end.

In the present work, Dayan Grunfeld, beyond the array of names of cities and persons, the enumeration of famous professors, artists, series of books, or well-managed institutions, shows the concretization of the Hirsch movement almost all over the globe, its design as well as its procedures, its handicaps as well as its flowering.

Dr. Grurifeld is the brilliant trans­ lator of choice essays, culled from Hirsch’s Gesammelte Schriften (pub­ lished as “Judaism Eternal”). Just now he completed the very delicate and painstaking job of rendering the classic Horeb into very good English.

He has known many of Hirsch’s dis­

ciples, now in three continents, and the story he unfolds is enlightening and truly inspiring. Isaac Brener has labored not only to spread his grand­ father’s ideas, but to battle against their misinterpretation (see his ar­ ticle in “Jewish Leaders”). Dayan Grunfeld has added to his marked achievement by this book. We recom­ mend it warmly to the attention of Torah-true Jews who would fain catch a glimpse of their own back­ ground, of the glory of the Torah and its promise for a happier chapter in Israel and all over the Jewish world.

“Three Generations” will be of his­ torical value to many more, as it will prove a source of Jewish piety, devotion, and—last but not l e a s t unity to our people today—Two fine indexes enhance the author’s merit.

Unfortunately# there are men who marry irreligious girls— and vice versa—and they are astonished when religious duties are meaningless to their mates, even though they themselves are not scrupulous about fulfilling command­ ments. Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar once cited a parable on this very subject—which is quite timely: A man married a proselyte. He would sit and caution her, saying, "My dear, do not eat bread when your hands are unclean; do not eat fruits from which the tithe has not been taken; do not profane the Sabbath; do not break vows; do not go with another man —for if you violate any of these, you will die/' Yet this same man, in her very presence, ate bread with unclean hands, ate fruits which had not been tithed, profaned the Sabbath, broke vows, had extra-marital relationships. What did the proselyte say to herself? "All of the things about which my husband cautioned me are false." She therefore transgressed all of theml Ovoth d'Rab Nathan

64

JEWISH LIFE

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66

JEWISH LIFE

Letters te the Editor

NEW SQUARE: SEGREGATION?

he had to do was to go outdoors, walk down the street, go to school, etc.

Kew Gardens, N. Y. Antisemitism was there, it was liter­ I have just read the article about ally an integral part of the Polish New Square and Monsey in J e w i s h Jew’s existence. While not denying L i f e (“Torahtown Is On Its Way,” that Antisemitism exists here, it is December/Teveth) and would like to most definitely not an integral part bring up certain points. of the American Jew’s life.

I certainly hope that Chasidic seg­ Having some acquaintance with the regation for all observant American techniques of journalism, especially Jews is not advocated in this article. when it deals with controversial issues, One most certainly caw keep up ob­ I believe people like to write things servant Judaism to the fullest extent for the sake of argument. I simply in a non-segregated community. The cannot believe that Dr. Sigelschiffer is Chasidim may be colorful but that’s advocating the total segregation of about it. The article says that they the orthodox Jew from the general are living their segregated existence American milieu. And I cannot think like many other sects in this country, of a better justification of that state­ comparing them with the Mennonites. ment than the fact that he chose to Not that it matters here, but being be the principal of a public school. quite well acquainted with the Penn­ If he advocates segregation, why does sylvania Dutch, I could compare the he not choose it for himself?

Chasidim with the Amish, who are A person who truly sticks to his quite different from the Mennonites. religion and all its practices can do Both are colorful, but that’s about so everywhere . . . I personally feel it. Their contribution to American life that a Jew who grew up among gen­ is nil. tiles (providing, of course, the at­ Total segregation and complete vol­ mosphere was friendly) is richer for untary separation from American life his experience: after all, if you are are bad. The orthodox Jew in Poland observant, it is a little more difficult and other Antisemitic countries was to observe everything when you are segregated by circumstances. His way surrounded by neighbors who don’t. of life there was a natural develop­ In fact, a child growing up in an ment from the terrible conditions he orthodox Jewish neighborhood feels was forced to live under, the very left out if he is not as strict in his conditions which áre absent in this observances as his playmates. country. An average Jewish child A child growing up in a Jewish growing up in Poland did not have neighborhood completely isolated from to be taught at home that he was gentiles is apt to grow up in the be­ living in a hostile environment: all lief that all gentiles are our avowed April, 1959

67

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JEWISH LIFE

enemies. Is it healthy for a child to grow up in America in the belief that 97 per cent of the people in the coun­ try he lives in are his enemies? Of course not.

Now, I think th at the Monsey com­ munity is a healthy one. I am certain that proximity to non-observant Jews and gentiles will not affect them ad­ versely; in fact, if anything, it will increase their pride in their way of life. Squaretown, if it is here to stay, will merely be an oddity, an interest­ ing “quaint” anachronism in Amer­ ican life like the Amish, the Hutterites, the Shakers, etc. Their contribu­ tion to American life at large will be nil . . .

Now a few more questions: Is Eng­ lish taught at all in the Chasidic yeshivoth? Does the author advocate school on a year-round basis; doesn’t the Jewish child deserve a vacation?

With reference to Monsey: do they teach English subjects? Are the Battey Midrash there high schools or strict Talmudic seminaries? Do Mon­ sey orthodox Jews wear beards and peyoth?

Mrs. John Edelman

From Saul Sigelschiffer : I thank Mrs. Edelman for her interest in my article. I am afraid, however, that she has misread it. I conceive of Torahtown as a self-con­ tained community of modem Torahobservant Jews who are integrated into American life. Traditional Juda­ ism is vibrant and adaptable. There is nothing incompatible between strict observance of the Torah and full par­ ticipation in American life. I pointed this out in detail in my first article ( J e w i s h L i f e , June, 1957) on Torah­ town.

April, 1959

Several other misconceptions have been expressed in Mrs. Edelman’s letter. She says, for instance, that a child brought up in conformity with strict Jewish practice will very likely talk about “goyim being our enemies,” and will therefore reciprocate this feeling. This, of course, is false.

There is no place in Judaism for hate.

The command to “love thy neighbor as thyself” is a Jewish contribution to world morality. There may be in­ dividual violators of this concept, but as a group, none has been more faithful to this injunction, as to the rest of G-d’s commands, than the Torah-observant Jew. In spite of bit­ ter persecution throughout the cen­ turies, the Jew bears no animosity toward the gentile world. His tradi­ tion enjoins him to live in the present and future, in order to teach mankind the eternal truths of the moral law.

According to the way he has been taught, the “righteous goy” has a share in the World to Come just as much as he.

Which leads to the second miscon­ ception, regarding the Chasidim.

Psychologists have termed the atti­ tude expressed in the above letter as an evidence of “self-hate.” Why is it that so many so-called “liberal” and “tolerant” Jews are themselves sub­ ject to feelings of hate toward their own kind (though they would un­ doubtedly deny it). They just don’t like beards and “peyoth,” they say.

Strange garb, strange customs. And subconsciously they hate the things these “strange” Jews stand for. How­ ever, they are quite tolerant and im­ pressed when they see a bearded Greek Orthodox priest, or a visitor from India in exotic dress.

Like all feelings of hate, this atti­ tude is destructive of the individual himself. This happened in Germany.

69

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JEWISH LIFE

1

The “modern” German Jews scorned the Polish Jews who had migrated into the country. But Hitler made no distinctions between the assimilated Jew who looked and acted like an “Aryan” German, and his brother whose manner and appearance were “foreign.” Things might have taken a different turn if the “superior” German Jew had bestowed on his Polish brother a little of the esteem in which he held his Gentile neighbor.

The Chasidim as a group, whether or not integrated into the American scene, are the most precious Jews we have. Think about it; try to probe beneath the superficialities of dress.

What do the Chasidim stand for?

They testify to the greatness of the human spirit which can see through the delusions and protest against the vanities which, in each generation, are boastfully held up as the ul­ timate, desirable goals of life. They make us pause to evaluate the current scene. What is the worth of our me­ chanical civilization and the atomic age? Do modern clothes, speedy com­ munications, television, and handy gadgets make us love our neighbor more, reduce crime, and relieve ten­ sions? Think also about the fact that crime and delinquency are non-exist­ ent among the Chasidim and you will!

not form conclusions based on ex­ ternals so readily.

And now to answer Mrs. Edelman’s inquiries. The Yeshivoth teach Eng­ lish. That is a state requirement. As for institutions like the Beth Medrash Elyon, these are Talmudic sem­ inaries, but if you met the young men who study there you would not be able to tell them apart from grad­ uates of any college or university.

This supports my points th at Amer­ icanization does not require the bar­ tering away of one’s heritage.

As regards summer schooling for children, I think anyone would agree that the mind does not stop function­ ing when July rolls around. College and high school summer sessions are filled to capacity by people eager to learn. While I do not favor formal classroom schooling for young chil­ dren during the summer, I do favor a worth-while substitute activity like a day camp in place of unconstruc|tive idleness, which is meaningless and boring to the child himself.

Finally, do Monsey orthodox Jews wear beards? Yes, some of them do.

In fact, beards are becoming popular again all over the world. Many young men are growing them in this coun­ try. And* in Cuba, all the important people are wearing them!

The punctuation and the cantillations of the Written Torah are words of the Oral Torah.

Yalkut Chodosh A man may acquire wealth through wisdom, but he cannot acquire wisdom through wealth.

Y'sod ha'Yirah April; 1959

71

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Each year at this time we publish a reminder to make sure there is no mistake, no misunderstanding about the © seal on so many Heinz food labels. As you know, the © is the seal of the union of J ew ish congregations OF America , a guarantee that the products bearing it are Kosher. Strictly Kosher, but for year ’round use only—NOT FOR Passover ! The © guaranty definitely does n o t include Passover.

May you and your families and friends enjoy a happy Passover!

H. J. Heinz company , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania MAKERS OF THE

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