Jewish Life May-June 1963

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T O R A H W IT H O U T M ITZV O TH •

A BA LA N CED V IEW

IJ& T H E L IG H T O F T R A D IT IO N H E A L IN G T H E W OUNDS OF T H E ¿XI3LE T H E KOLEL: A M E R IC A N P H A S E A V IS IT T O CURACAO • C A N TO R IA L P O T P O U R R I

SIVAN^TAMMPZ, 5 7 2 3 'MAiT-S’P N H 1933

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Vol. XXX, No. 4/May-June 1963/Sivan-Tammuz 5723

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EDITORIALS

Saul B ernstein , Editor M. M orton Rubenstein Reuben E. Gross Rabbi S. J. Sharfman Libby K laperman Editorial Associates Judith B en -H illel Editorial Assistant

FAIR SABBATH LAW: INCOMPLETEVICTORY.........

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AGUDAH’S HALF-CENTURY................................

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ARTICLES HEALING THE WOUNDS OF THE EXILE/ J. Goldschmidt...... ....................................

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THE K0LEL: AMERICAN PHASE/Mendel Rokeach .. 13 JEWISH LIFE is published bi­ monthly. Subscription two years $4.00, three years $5.50, four years $7.00, Supporter $10.00, Patron $25.00.

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A BALANCED VIEW / Isaac L. S w if t................... 23 TORAH WITHOUT MITZV0TH / Reuben E. Gross . . . 30 IN THE LIGHT OF TRADITION / Gilbert Klaperman . 36 CANTORIAL POTPOURRI / Maurice Kaplan .......... 42 A VISIT TO CURACAO/Jacob B e lle r.................. 49

Published by U n ió n of O rthodox Jewish Congregations of A merica M oses I. Feuerstein President

REVIEW FROM FRANKFURT TO WASHINGTON HEIGHTS/ Joseph Grunblatt................ . ...................... 59

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

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May-June, 1963

DEPARTMENTS 2

LIVING WATERS: The Shemoneh Esrey— An Analysis / Hersh M. G alinsky................... 56

Copyright 1963 by U N IO N O F O RTH O D O X JEW IS H C O N G R EG A TIO N S

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DR. JOSEPH GOLDSCHMIDT is director of the Department of Religious Education of Israel’s Ministry of Education and Culture. He is the author of “Martyrdom and Heroism” and “Jewish Identification in Israel” ( J e w i s h L i f e : Cheshvan 5722/ October 1961; Nisan 5718/April 1958).

Born and educated in England, RABBI ISAAC L. SWIFT served as Rabbi in Sydney, Australia before coming to the United States in 1954. The Rav of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, N. J. and formerly spiritual leader of Congregation Anshe Sfard in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, he is lecturer at the Theodore Herzl Institute. In much demand as a lecturer and public speaker, he has addressed audiences in many parts of the country.

RABBI GILBERT KLAPERMAN, who is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Sholom in the suburban Long Island community of Lawrence, holds such other positions of note as: Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yeshiva University, where he received his Ph.D.; Vice-President of the New York Board of Rabbis; and President of the Jewish Book Council. His pub­ lished writings range from several volumes on Jewish history for young people (in co-authorship with his wife) to contribu­ tions to learned journals. During World War II, Dr. Klaperman served as a chaplain in the Canadian Army.

REUBEN E. GROSS’S articles, invariably marked by a dis­ tinctive outlook, have won wide attention. An attorney whose educational background includes degrees from Yeshiva College and Harvard Law School, Mr. Gross is Chairman of the Com­ mission on Regions and Councils of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and in the Israeli Air Force during the War for Liberation.

MAURICE KAPLAN, in this issue, views the role of the chazon from the cantor’s vantage point—with refreshing can­ dor. His article “Operation Taryag” appeared in our Shevat 5721/February 1961 issue. Cantor Kaplan’s community activities have included the presidencies of local units of the American Jewish Congress and the Mizrachi Organization of America.

The Kolel Movement which RABBI MENDEL ROKEACH discusses in our pages is intimately familiar to him after his six years of study at Beth Medrash Elyon in Monsey, N. Y. He is also a graduate of City College and received his M.A. degree at Scranton University.

RABBI HERSH M. GALINSKY, summa cum laude graduate of Yeshiva University and class valedictorian, received his M.A. degree at Johns Hopkins University. He is the Rabbi of Agudas Achim Anshe Sfard Congregation in Baltimore, Presi­ dent of the Seaboard Region of the Rabbinical Council of America, and serves on the National Board of Religious Zion­ ists of America.

The journalistic travels of JACOB SELLER have led him to Spain, Portugal, all Latin-American lands, and Canada, where he now resides. While he writes primarily for the Yiddish press, his articles have appeared also in various English-language publications. Mr. Beller’s graphic portrayals of out-of-the-way Jewish communities have proven popular with J e w i s h L i f e readers.

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Fair Sabbath Law: In com plete V ictory ONG years of effort to secure passage of a Fair Sabbath bill in the New York State legislature have finally achieved a signal, if partial, victory. A bill designed to curtail the dis­ criminatory aspects of the state’s Sunday Closing Law has now been enacted, the first in New York State history to recognize the right of the Shomer Shabboth business concern for equal consideration under this law.

In view of the attenuated scope of the new measure, the desig­ nation “Fair Sabbath Bill” applies to it only loosely. New York City alone, among all the state’s communities, is granted the option of permitting Sabbath-observing commercial establish­ ments to conduct business on Sundays. The further limitation is prescribed that only establishments conducted by “the proprie­ tor and members of his immediate family” fall within the bill’s provisions. In short, this is the most minimal bill that legislative ingenuity, seeking to by-pass an entrenched opposition, could devise. But for all this, the fact of the victory remains and is cause for thanksgiving.

Passage of the bill is to be credited to the combined efforts of a cross-section of Jewish communal forces. Originally pio­ neered, decades ago, by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Con­ gregations of America, which has continued to press the issue Hardy through the years and which brought together diverse groups Perennial under the banner of the Joint Committee for a Fair Sabbath Law, the campaign has gone forward against discouragements and disappointments year in and year out. As is to be expected, all orthodox agencies, Rabbinic and lay, have contributed largely to the effort. It must be recognized that numerous non­ orthodox agencies too have joined actively in the battle. Of signal importance during the past year’s campaign has been the role of the New York City Committee on Jewish Affairs, a recently-launched community relations coordinating body.

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HE acceptance of so restricted a bill can be tactically justi­ fied—as an initial measure—only in the light of the situa­ tion applying on the New York State scene. Under no circum­ stances, though, should this bill be taken as an exemplar for other states. One is tempted to say that rather it should serve

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as a model for the kind of bill that Jews elsewhere should not countenance. Numerous states in which—in ironical contrast to New York with its millions of Jews—closing laws were hitherto free of religious discrimination, are currently being barraged by agitation for more stringent laws. Primarily, the agitation is directed against stores operating seven days each week, but there has developed an ominous tendency to exclude provision for Sabbath-observing firms. A case in point is South Carolina.

N ew -born There a generations-old closing law which permitted Sunday Discrimina- operation for Shomer Shabboth businesses was replaced last year tion with legislation compelling Sunday closing for all. The new law drastically penalizes a number of business establishments in Charleston and other South Carolina communities which have proudly maintained a Sabbath-closing policy, in some cases for several generations. Most of these firms are not the “ma and pa” type of enterprise. For states either threatened or already saddled by such legislation, the type of bill passed by the New York State legislature sets an undesirable precedent.

HERE appears to be a mounting sentiment that closing laws restricted to the sacred days of any religion are—notwith­ standing last year’s Supreme Court decision—contrary to Ameri­ can concepts of civil rights and freedom of conscience. Some states, under this philosophy, have enacted legislation giving un­ restricted option as to the weekly closing day. With others, as noted above, moving in the opposite direction, the issue is emerging as one of the great debates of modem American life.

As in the case of similar issues of our time, Jewish opinion, including orthodox Jewish opinion, is much divided. Some among us see in religion-based closing laws the aspect of re­ ligious compulsion. Therein, they feel, lies an inherent threat Betw een to religious minorities, underscored rather than mitigated by O pposing exemptions granted to them. Others see in the divorce of closPhilosophies ing laws from religious considerations an opening of floodgates to rampant materialism. The consequence they foresee is a com­ plete subjugation of the religious heritage as an irrelevant, rather than focal, factor in the life of man and society.

The Sunday closing laws issue, in its deeper implications, will surely tax the concern of countless Americans of all beliefs for long to come. In the meanwhile, Jews in particular can well agree on this: Legislative impediments of any kind to the ob­ servance of the Jewish Sabbath must be combatted unceasingly.

However constitutionally formulated, they are an infringement of religious freedom and of civil rights alike. They have no rightful place in any democracy, and least of all under the Stars and Stripes.

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JEWISH LIFE

Agudah’s Half-Century HE fiftieth anniversary now being marked by the Agudath Israel world movement is an occasion calling for wider recognition of the movement’s contributions. Through an era of climactic upheaval, this movement has played a key role in the safeguarding of the Torah concept of life.

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In pursuance of its goal of a Torah-true world Jewry, Agudath Israel has worked through diverse channels, ideological and political, educational and economic. A potent force in pre-World War II Europe, the movement has subsequently made itself felt in Western lands and especially in Israel. Its moral influence has everywhere been large, as is to be expected from a movement which, from its foundation, has engaged the support of many Gedoley Hatorah.

It was not altogether fortunate that from the time of its birth the Agudist movement was apt to be regarded, from within and without, as simply in contradistinction to the Zionist organiza­ tion. Identification of Agudath Israel in terms of what it opposed rather than what it was for has inhibited its creative drive. The potential of Agudism is better realized when it focuses on posi­ tive objectives, as the creation of the great Chinuch Atzmai chain of schools in Israel, and of a variety of institutions and development projects, so well demonstrates.

It is an irony of history that the principal field of Agudist endeavor now and for the foreseeable future should be the Jewish State achieved through the Zionist program. Yet it is altogether fitting that Eretz Yisroel, where the Jewish spirit is at home, should provide the Agudah movement continuing opportunity to fulfill its mission. That the mission is crucially needed, none can doubt. From the evidence of positive outlook and constructive trend to be seen today, there is reason for confidence that B’ezrath Hashem, Agudath Israel will make new contributions of historic value in the years to come.

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Healing the Wounds of the Exile

By J. GOLDSCHMIDT

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r p H E last fifteen years of Jewish JL history have certainly taught all of us a great deal about ourselves of which we had not been aware before.

It seems likely, however, that in this process, different areas may have been stressed in Israel and in the Diaspora.

To the Jews who lived and, for the time being at least, have continued to live in the Diaspora, the outstanding phenomenon of the period was the proof that was given to the world of what their people was capable of ac­ complishing both on the battlefield and in rebuilding the old homeland.

This proof was given in the face of the traditional view of the Jew as being devoid of just these powers. To this day, whenever you meet the tourist from the Diaspora visiting at the new towns and settlements, paying his re­ spects to plants and factories, seeing the Jewish policeman, the soldier, the legislator at work—you read at the back of his mind an ever recurring “well, who would have thought . . .”

The Israeli, on the other hand, while by no means immune to that sentiment, which sheds some glory upon himself, has probably been more keenly aware of another transforma­ tion. He has acquired a new view of 6

the composition of his nation. Even in writing the last sentence I may have had in mind, just as you had in read­ ing it, the Israeli who is, of course, an immigrant from Russia, Poland, Austria, or Germany, or even Western Europe or the Americas—in other words, the Israeli who is an Ashkenazi.

But, “the Israeli” of to-day is by no means any longer what you expected him to be: taking all age groups, there is a more than 50 percent chance that he belongs to one of the Oriental communities, while in the lower age groups (in May 1961 those up to fourteen years of age made up nearly 40% of the population) Oriental com­ munities are probably represented by nearly 70%, their birth rate being considerably higher than that of Ashkenazis. The European Jew had known all manner of fine distinctions between the Russian, the Hungarian, the Galician, or the English Jew, but his knowledge of the Jewish com­ munities of North Africa, of Persia, Yemen, the Hadramauth, to name only a few, was very close to nil. And here he has now met them for the first time, and has his bit of adjust­ ment to do, just as the immigrant from the Near and Middle East has to do JEWISH LIFE

his, though the direction of each of those processes is by no means the same.

HEREVER Jews went into exile W they maintained their separate existence by their adherence to the laws and customs of their religion, as even the arch-enemy Haman so clear­ ly formulated: “Their customs are different from those of all other na­ tions.” And Haman is reprimanded by our Sages for his next sentence “and they do not observe the King’s laws,” which, they say, is untrue. The truth is, that not only did the Jews observe, by and large, the laws of the countries in which they lived, nay, they also adjusted themselves con­ sciously or unconsciously to many of the notions, standards, and values of the host-nation in whose midst they lived. Whether you note that Rashi explains the complicated structure of the high priest’s “ephod” by refer­ ence to “a kind of apron worn by ladies of rank when riding on horseback” (Rashi’s commentary to Shemoth 28:4), certainly an experi­ ence outside the life of the Jewish community; or whether you consider the secular poetry of the greatest Jewish poets in medieval Spain; or any other period, old or new, or any country, one cannot fail to realise the interplay of forces between the domi­ nant and the dominated. And while the latter miraculously held their own in many areas, they could not be ex­ pected to do so in all.

Now, the point to note here is, that those influences worked for better and for worse. A high standard of living, of civilization or of culture in the non-Jewish environment aroused simi­ lar aspirations and opened similar possibilities before the Jew. A poor and backward environment necesMay-June, 1963

sarily depressed the conditions ob­ taining in the Jewish community. For the Jew was free to live on the highest standard of ethics wherever he was; but he could not rise above the level of his surroundings in most other re­ spects without arousing suspicion, envy, and open enmity.

EARING these facts in mind we shall realise that being in exile brought with it dangers in more than one respect. There was, of course, always the danger to life and prop­ erty, oppression and the denial of civic rights. But there was also the danger of alienation from the ways of tradi­ tion when the climate of the exile was too mild, and the other danger of degradation through poverty and cul­ tural backwardness, when the hostcountry was itself living at that level.

Now it may be said that those Com­ munities living in exile in Moslem countries from which hundreds of thousands of present-day Israelis im­ migrated are backward, secluded, re­ actionary in nearly every aspect— education, civilization, social and poli­ tical organization, hygiene, child rear­ ing, etc. It is hardly surprising to find that Jews who lived in those countries for hundreds of years ad­ justed in many respects to their sur­ roundings. If men had to learn reading in order to fulfill their religious duties, women could do without, and largely remained illiterate. In the absence of contact with the modern world and its media of mass communication, books were scarce, newspapers un­ known, aims and methods of instruc­ tion limited and largely aiming at mechanical reading and reciting, the picture formed of the world complete­ ly anachronistic. When the operation “Magic Carpet,” back in 1950, brought some 50,000 Yemenite Jews

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to Israel by a regular air-lift it was said that the planes transported those men, women and children within a few hours over thousands of miles in space and over at least a thousand years in time.

This does not apply equally to all communities. Those coming from ter­ ritories controlled by European coun­ tries (parts of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis) had a varnish of modern cul­ ture. There were also marked differ­ ences in their Jewish knowledge, some showing a high standard of Torah study, others completely ignorant.

But the overall picture was certainly such as to arouse serious concern and deep compassion for the ills inflicted by a harsh fate on myriads of our brethren.

The main question was, of course, what could be done to repair the damage that had been done over centuries. And how much time could

we allow ourselves to bring the remedy which both the individual and Israel society so desperately needed in order to normalise and harmonise its func­ tioning. It is in this connection that the Minister of Education and Culture, Mr. Abba Eban, pleading for some measure of patience, laid the responsi­ bility for our plight at the feet of the “genius of history,” whose deeds or omissions could not be undone by a magic wand in a couple of years. But a plea for patience must in no way be taken to show unwillingness to act.

The opposite is true; for the last ten years at least most of the pedagogic energy in Israel, both in theory and in practice, has been directed to some area or other of the problems con­ nected with the mass immigration from backward countries. Let us hear, then, both the analysis and the ther­ apy, insofar as they have been found to this day.

ANALYSIS AND THERAPY

1949 till 1952 about 333,000 Jews immigrated into Israel from countries in Asia and Africa. In July 1953 Aryeh Simon, then Direc­ tor of Education for the town of Beer Sheva, published in Megamoth (a quarterly on problems of childhood, published by the Henrietta Szold Foundation) a survey of schools in his town, from which we shall quote below. In the scholastic year 1952/53 2,019 children were enrolled in Beer Sheva elementary schools, and 1,930 of these had come to Israel since 1948, 1,499 (78% ) within the last three years. Of all pupils 4% had been born in the country, 21% in Europe, 75% in the Near and Middle East. Thus, in the homes of practi­

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cally all children Hebrew was not properly spoken, if at all. If this had one advantage, it was the fact that Hebrew, the language of the school and of the street and of all official institutions, was the common meet­ ing ground for all the youngsters, which reduced to a certain degree the danger of the school being swamped by foreign languages. But the new common language, Hebrew, had to be taught before you could get down to anything like normal work according to age and syllabus, the use of texts and text-books, written homework and the like. Although Israel has been a country of immigration for tens of years, nobody was prepared for a problem of that magnitude. MoreJEWISH LIFE

over, nearly all the teachers that could be recruited for services in what was then “far-away Beer Sheva” (since then the distance from Tel-Aviv to Beer Sheva has been much reduced— psychologically) were young and in­ experienced. It is, then, by no means surprising that the survey painted a heavily clouded landscape, as the fol­ lowing conclusions show: 1) 83% of all pupils attended forms I to IV, but only one quarter of these were of the age normal for that grade.

2) Less than one-third of all pupils attended the grade proper for their age; of the pupils above 8 years of age only 12.6% studied in their proper grade.

3) Less than one-third of the students had a fair chance to complete the eighth grade of the elementary school at the age of 14.

4) Owing to the lag in their studies only 14% of the students in grades II to VIII followed the syllabus of studies appropriate to their age.

5) The socio-economic condition of most pupils was very low. The ratio of persons per room was about twice as high as the national average and reached 4.7 persons per room.

6) In very many cases parents took little interest in their children’s development in general, and in their progress in studies in parti­ cular.

This is only part of the diagnosis.

There were other workers in the field who observed and described the social structure, the organization of the family, and traditions and customs of the immigrant groups and arrived at certain conclusions regarding their ills and needs, especially in the sphere of education. This is what one prominent worker, Dr. Dina Feitelson, had to say at the conclusion of her study on “Causes for the Failures of Children May-June, 1963

in Early School Life,” which was largely based on her observation of Kurdish Jews: 1) School has to take fully into ac­ count the extremely meager stock of knowledge our children bring from home to school. School has to start from the very foundations and to work systematically, with­ out assuming any previous knowl­ edge. Nor should the school be satisfied with doing only part of the job, for there is no other agency which may be expected to complete the work unfinished at school.

2) The school must bear in mind the very limited vocabulary of these children and avoid the use of diffi­ cult language and complex termi­ nology.

SITUATION such as this does not present itself to the eye in its entirety all at once, nor is the path to remedy clear the moment you have become aware of it. The discovery that great Jewish communities could be culturally backward came as a shock to the national pride of many, some of whom may have declared it in a kind of self-defence as merely a marginal phenomenon, which should not demand too much of our atten­ tion. This kind of escapism could point in those years to the overwhelm­ ing need to provide first necessities for the new immigrants—houses, jobs, services; and for the children— class rooms, equipment, teachers. And there was a great deal of truth in that latter argument. This, together with a not unnatural conservatism of the established educational system, ac­ counts for the fact that it took a few more years until there could be reaped first fruit of the educational awaken­ ing that began with the studies quoted above. Taking the tenth year of the

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state as the turning point, we may say now, on completing the fifteenth year, that Israel has taken up the challenge.

The diagnosis, barely outlined ten years ago, has now been generally ac­ cepted as basically sound and apply­ ing not to an isolated outpost alone.

Nobody claims any more that the problem is a marginal one. Official and private opinion concur that Israel must make a supreme effort to cor­ rect what the “genius of history” wronged. This has so far resulted in measures directed at three objectives: a) Laying the foundations—improve­ ment of the teaching of reading; b) Lengthening school life—develop­ ment of secondary education;

c) Deepening the educational influ­ ence—the project of schools for special consideration.

Some of these measures may seem self-understood in other countries. Or else, they may appear unnecessary under other circumstances. But the fact is that they had to be devised here afresh in order to meet the partic­ ular situation we have outlined. Just to make that necessity more plausible to the American reader we mention the serious studies and the prolonged search for suitable means of treatment for the problems that confronted the New York educator when many schools in the city were swamped by Puerto Rican children.

BETTER FOUNDATIONS, NEW APPROACHES

EACHING children to read is quite an old craft, and the Israeli teacher who worked in Tel Aviv or Haifa or Jerusalem before 1948 was quite successful at it. The method most generally used is known as “ana­ lytical” because it starts from the whole word or even short sentence, later analyzing the phonetic elements that are used in the whole-wordpicture and teaching their use in other words and combinations. Most teach­ ers continued to use that method with immigrant children, unaware of the fact that it assumes that the spoken word is known to the child. In the case of immigrant children the method must be adapted and supple­ mented by various devices in order to be useful, or else recourse must be taken to synthetic methods which build reading power on a knowledge of the phonetic value of the letter.

It seems quite obvious and simple to-day, but these improved and ad­ justed methods were only developed

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under the active sponsorship of the Ministry of Education and Culture in 1958, when criticism of the existing practice had been proved valid. Since then several methods have been evolved, books published, and teach­ ers’ guides propagated, and the results in the lower grades that could already profit from them have been most en­ couraging. For the failure to master reading in the first grade easily devel­ ops into an impediment to further progress at a reasonable pace, which is bound up with the intelligent use of books.

Of course, what the children needed was not alone the technical skill of reading. A great deal of knowledge of the world around him, that the child absorbs when growing up in a good, cultured home, had to be provided in the kindergarten or in the first and second grades. It goes without saying that this is not so sim­ ple, for the artificial setting of the school is not as fertile in that respect JEWISH LIFE

as the natural surroundings in which the young child should grow up. But there is no doubt that better founda­ tions are now being laid than was possible ten years ago.

HOUGH it may at first seem paradoxical, it was in fact un­ avoidable that Israel could not wait for the fruit of the improved lower grades to reach the secondary school.

A change made itself felt in all the strata of Israel society in the attitude to education, and more and more par­ ents refused to let their children go out to work at the age of 14. Cer­ tainly those immigrant children who had suffered most in the first years after their coming to Israel were not well enough prepared for life. The need as well as the demand for con­ tinued education was voiced every­ where, in the towns no more than in the development areas, and in many cases the stability of the population in new towns was dependent on the provision for some form of continued education for their children. Thus a number of new types of schools have been developed, many of them really still in the experimental stage.

The first to appear were the twoyear schools with roughly two-thirds of the time given to general studies and one third to some vocational trend. In the field of religious educa­ tion more and more yeshivoth with a secondary department were opened, some of them incorporating a trade school or an agricultural department.

But owing to the strong demand for full secondary education which quali­ fies for university studies, the trend is now for comprehensive schools, which are hoped to allow the directing or re-directing of every pupil to the side for which, in the first years, he

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has proved himself best suited. The number of post-primary institutions has more than doubled since 1949, but while the number of pupils in elementary education has about treb­ led in those years the number of students in all forms of secondary education has grown about four-fold.

All these enterprises are actively promoted by the Government through extensive school fee grants and devel­ opment loans, but local authorities also play a very important part in this development, and the “private” sec­ ondary school has lost much of its former ground.

Of course, putting a boy or girl into a secondary school does not yet solve the problem when he enters the school with a severe handicap of years and a poor home background. It is not surprising, therefore, that many drop out before the four-year course is completed. The authorities are searching for convincing methods of identifying in good time the needs and capabilities of each pupil in order to avoid the great loss of invested energy and the danger to the student of frustration through failing to achieve his aim.

EEPENING the educational in­ fluence during the eight years of elementary school has recently be­ come a main concern of the Ministry of Education and Culture. To devise the means and ways, advise the Min­ ister on further improvements, and organize the application in the field, a special top-level unit has recently been set up at headquarters, the “cen­ ter for schools for special considera­ tion.” The center has developed plans for the following areas: guidance of teachers, provision of additional teaching equipment, lengthening the school day by two to four hours,

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stimulating the production of new textbooks especially adapted to the needs of the schools in question, lengthening the school year, and en­ richment programs for the upper quartile of some of the schools’ pupils.

Not all these programs are in the same stages of progress. In Israel, where the kindergarten ends at 1 p .m | and grades I to V at noon, the length­ ening of the school day has found the liveliest echo, and many hopes attach to this measure. But so far it can be introduced at most in one-third of the schools included in the plan, for the amount of money needed for these extra hours is very considerable, nor is the manpower always available.

Producing new textbooks may appear quite a simple thing, but this is far from being true. For in order to be

really better than what exists already a great deal more should be known about the pupils and their exact back­ ground. Research and pilot studies may be needed before anything worth the effort can be produced. But, here too, no effort is being spared to find a way in reasonable time.

Farthest from realization, to date, is the lengthening of the school year, because of the great difficulties this involves. On the other hand it is clear that a summer vacation of sixty-two days, which is followed by the spo­ radic studies in the month of Tishri, must have a strongly retarding effect on the knowledge, training, learning habits, and general education of many pupils, who pass most of that time devoid of all positive, directed edu­ cational influence.

A VICTORY OF EDUCATION

OOKING upon the whole expanse of the problems discussed, one must say that Israel is on the upward road. What is it that gives rise to hope? There is first of all the fact that the illness has been diagnosed, which is always and everywhere a precondi­ tion for proper treatment. Then, secondly, we note the earnest determi­ nation of the authorities to do all they can in order to assure for every citizen of the state the best possible standard of educational achievement of which he is capable. But we have yet to note a third fact: education has won the heart of the nation. There is scarcely a home in the country where education of the children is not given consideration. There is not a settle­ ment, large or small, up and down the country, where the provision of

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education is not a major item of all planning. There is not a daily news­ paper which has not developed an educational supplement as a regular feature, which the readers expect to find in their paper. The Israel Broad­ casting Service is devoting some of the most valued broadcasting hours to educational topics, which also shows what the general public de­ mands. The general vogue for educa­ tion may even have gone too far, in­ asmuch as over-confidence in educa­ tion may breed over-reliance of the home on the power of the school or may foster exaggerated expectations, not borne out by reality. But, on the whole, this is a welcome development, and one that spells hope that the wounds of the exile may yet be healed in our time.

JEWISH LIFE

The Kolel: American Phase

By MENDEL ROKEACH

MONG the creative developments in contemporary Jewish life, none has been more remarkable and significant than the rise of the “Kolel” movement. In recent generations the Yeshivah, the academy of Torah learn­ ing ranging from elementary level upward, and the Mesivta, or Talmudical college, have become familiar and basic facets of the American Jewish scene. But the Kolel, the fellowship-type institute of higher Talmudical scholarship on the “post­ graduate’* level, was a category of Torah life not to be found in America until twenty years ago, when the Beth Medrash Govoha was founded in Lakewood, New Jersey. Within the two brief decades that have since passed, however, not only has the pioneer Lakewood school grown and flourished but no less than eight other kolelim have arisen and taken firm root.

The unique character of the kole­ lim, their rapid rise and steady growth, the calibre of the faculties and student bodies they have attracted— all of this bespeaks the fact that what we have

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here is indeed a movement—an out­ flow of distinctive purpose springing from Jewish hearts and minds on American soil.

The uniqueness of the Kolel is its selectiveness. Not every student is material for a kolel. It can accept only the student with outstanding qualities of perspicacity and industri­ ousness, many years of learning ex­ perience, idealism in the search for knowledge, and readiness to sacrifice for Torah. The institution is called “Kolel,” which means “inclusion,” for the reason, it may be assumed, that one must attain the highest level of Talmudic scholarship in order to be accepted and “included” as a member of the group.

After twenty years on the American scene, the Kolel still evokes much wonderment. In America, where everything is supposedly measured by the criterion of material worth, where youngsters are educated to material­ istic ambitions, and where the colleges are oriented towards financial success —in this same America one can wit­ ness today hundreds of adult students 13

—many of them married and with families—who after their years of yeshivah study have thrust aside the attractions of the business or profes­ sional worlds in favor of a life de­ voted exclusively to intensive Torah learning. The sacrifice of many com­ forts, the subsisting on bare necessities •—these are not deterrents. Torah, in its purest form, is for them food and drink, clothing and shelter.

Yet the Kolel movement has pro­ gressed beyond the stage of strange phenomenon. It has penetrated to the innermost life of Torah Jewry. It has revolutionized the standards of schol­ arship in all yeshivoth, has brought about the establishment of new yeshi­ voth and mesivtoth by its own stu­ dents, has made Torah scholarship the ambition of thousands of American Jewish youths.

WHENCE DO SCHOLARS COME?

HE following eloquent prayer is recited in synagogues on Mondays and Thursdays: “May it be the will of our Father Who is in Heaven to pre­ serve among us the wise men of Israel; them, their wives, their sons and daughters, their disciples and the disciples of their disciples, in all places of their habitation.” While we suppli­ cate for Divine assistance in the preservation of scholars among us, we have always been cognizant that this Divine help comes only when we ourselves strive toward this goal. An eagerness, thus, had always been prev­ alent among Jews to sustain and to help develop the potential scholar.

Already in the Midrash and the Tal­ mud we find the obligation to support the scholar, enabling him to study without the disturbance of financial pursuits. This is known as the partner­ ship between Zebulun, the merchant, and Issachar, who consecrates all his time to study of Torah (See Yalkut B’reshith 49:13-15). Although many sages of the Talmudic era refused to benefit from anything but the fruit of their own labor, and engaged in var­ ious trades, as for example, Abin Nagra the wood chopper (Shabboth, 23b), Aba Shaul the baker (P’sachim,

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32a), and many others, yet they ap­ parently realized the great benefit of relieving the scholar of financial bur­ dens.

In past centuries, the uninterrupted learning of some scholars was made possible by their fathers-in-law. It was quite a normal procedure for a father with a little more than modest means to come to the dean of a yeshivah to seek out a good student as husband for his daughter, with the understand­ ing that, after marriage, he would be supported by his father-in-law, enab­ ling him to continue his studies for many years without financial worries.

This aspect of scholarly life changed radically in the first decades of this century. Few were the people who were willing to support a sagacious son-in-law with a growing family. The student himself, furthermore, was growing dissatisfied with this kind of financial arrangement which he con­ sidered outmoded. In some Lithuanian yeshivoth a tendency developed among students to continue learning and postpone marriage until after thirty years of age. This situation was dis­ pleasing to scholars of other schools.

This issue had been discussed long ago in the Talmud. One sage said that JEWISH LIFE

first a man must study Torah and then marry. Samuel was of the opinion that first a man should marry and then study, for then the Torah is studied with a pure and holy mind. Argued Reb Yochanan, “A yoke on his neck and you expect him to indulge in the study of Torah?” (Kiddushin 29b).

Both views seem to agree, however, that in the case where financial obliga­

tions are met from some different source, it is better to marry and then study.

Leaders of Torah education in Eu­ rope grew conscious that the mainte­ nance of scholars is a communal responsibility. The Kolel developed as a response to this need. This is the modern version of the sacred partner­ ship of Zebulun and Issachar.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN KOLEL

WO decades ago American Jews “boasted” of but three Americanborn students who had become re­ nowned Torah scholars, and these had studied in European yeshivoth.

Except for these three solitary figures, American Jewry with all its broad resources had totally failed to produce its own scholars of a higher order.

Yet, with European Jewry’s frightful fate at hand, and the Torah wellsprings of Jewish life submerged in the holocaust, it was imperative that American Jewry fill the breach in Torah scholarship, if the heritage of Israel was to endure. There were those who saw the full meaning of the fate­ ful turn of history. They held forth a vision of an American Torah era, and addressed themselves to the trans­ planting of higher Torah scholarship to American soil as the pillar upon which such an era must rest. But it was no small task to convince Amer­ ican baalebatim that America is not only in dire need of higher Torah scholarship but would actually be re­ ceptive to it. Who could believe, then, that lomduth could flourish in the New World climate?

A handful of obstinate visionaries fought against all odds with boundless patience and mighty faith. The illus­ trious architect of Torah in America,

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Reb Faivel Mendelowitz, together with Reb Reuven Grozovsky, and Reb Aaron Kotler—all of them now of sainted memory—were among these few spiritual giants. Their resolute dedication has brought about, in great­ est measure, the metamorphosis in Jewish life.

Today, thank G-d, there are hun­ dreds of American-born Torah schol­ ars, educated at the mesivtoth and reaching their peak at the kolelim, who would have been favorably compared with the best of Volozhin or Grodno, and who could have been the pride of Slabodka or Mir. American Torah academies absorbed the best qualities of these and other European yeshi­ voth which are now in ruins. The American yeshivoth, and kolelim in particular, together with their counter­ parts in Israel, are today the venerated heirs of these sacred institutions. It may be symbolic that the Gateshead Yeshivah in England prides itself, per­ haps humbly, on being the second Lakewood.

Viewing the sweeping changes that have taken place in the American Torah world, to a large degree as a result of the Kolel movement, one realizes with what remarkable pace these institutions have grown.

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OLELIM exist today at the side of almost every major mesivta in the United States. Some of them have developed into separate institu­ tions. Beth Medrash Govoha was founded by Reb Aaron Kotler, who headed the institution until his recent death. His passing left a deep vacuum in the Torah world. Lakewood itself, however, has found new life and new spirit in the shiurim and leadership of Reb Aaron’s son, Rabbi Shneiur Kot­ ler. Beth Medrash Govoha has two hundred students, of whom sixty are married. A new study hall, at the cost of over a half million dollars, is being erected to provide more facilities for the growing number of students.

Beth Medrash Elyon in Monsey, New York, second oldest of the American kolelim, was established in 1943 by Reb Faivel Mendelowitz. His aim was a synthesis of all good quali­ ties of the European yeshivoth—the Lithuanian lomduth, the Polish chassiduth, the Hungarian yirath shomayim.

In December 1944, Reb Reuven Grozovsky became the Rosh Yeshivah of both Torah Vodaath and Beth Me­ drash Elyon. Since his death in 1958, the Kolel has been headed by Reb Gedalia Schorr and Reb Yisroel Chaim Kaplan. Beth Medrash Elyon has a hundred-and-twenty students of whom thirty-five are married. Devel­ oped into an independent institution, this kolel still retains ties with Torah Vodaath. It has built a number of private homes to accommodate some of the married students. This proved to be a notably economical move.

The campuses of these two kolelim were built in the quiet suburbs, away from the many distractions of the city. The Talmud long ago recognized the advantage of not being exposed to the turbulence of city life, (See P’sachim, 112a, Rashi). Ü

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HE kolelim in the metropolises, too, have some advantages. One great asset is their closer contact with the students of the respective mesivtoth which sponsor these kolelim, thereby more directly raising their learning standards. The Kolel Gur Aryeh in Brooklyn, with its fifty scholars, is closely associated with Mesivta Rabbi Chaim Berlin, although it is a separate institution. Telz Yeshi­ vah has a fine kolel on its campus in a Cleveland suburb, retaining the spe­ cial Telz flavor among its scholarly students —- successfully transplanted from the original Telz Yeshivah of Lithuania. Ner Israel Theological Seminary in Baltimore also sponsors a kolel of high calibre alongside its main institution. The Kolel of Tifereth Jerusalem in Manhattan, whose Rosh Hayeshivah is Reb Moshe Feinstein, concentrates more on Horoah, preparing in the knowledge of the four branches of the Shulchon Oruch.

The Kolel Beth Hatalmud in Brook­ lyn was founded in 1948 by the Agudath Horabonim, from which source it receives much financial support.

This institution can be regarded as the continuation, in the United States, of the historic Mirrer Yeshivah of Poland. Its original nucleus consisted of a group of outstanding students of Mir. The story of this group is in it­ self a saga of modern Jewish history, marked by war-time escape from Nazi terror and perilous wanderings across half the world to Shanghai, where they remained, continuing their studies, until finding post-war refuge in Amer­ ica. With the establishment of Beth Hatalmud, the men of Mir placed their indelible impress on this kolel.

The Torah Vodaath Kolel is counted among the kolelim with an urban setting. In addition to its ties with Medrash Elyon in Monsey, Torah

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Vadaath five years ago founded this kolel, twenty strong and located in the Mesivta building, to provide the aforementioned closer contact with the younger students. It is sponsored by alumni of Torah Vodaath.

A kolel of distinctive merit is the Kerem Shlomo in Brooklyn. This in­ stitution, named after Reb Shlomo Heiman, of sainted memory, is an afternoon kolel. The scholars, about twenty in number, serve in the morn­ ings as instructors in various yeshivoth and mesivtoth. Instead of acquiring afternoon jobs to provide additional income for their growing families, they dedicate the afternoon and evening hours to study. The bud­ get of Kerem Shlomo is comparatively small, as each scholar receives not more than fifteen dollars per week from the institution.

It should be noted that each kolel has some scholars who are as yet not married but have earned the privilege of kolel membership by the level of learning they have attained.

OW are the days spent at the Kolel? “M ’est un m ’shloft,” as the Netziv replied to a similar ques­ tion about Volozhin, signifying that except for the time required for meals and sleep, days and nights are devoted to study. Nothing exists besides Torah, just enough food and sleep to keep the scholar keen and vigorous in the study of Torah. To become a lamdon is a long process, requiring many years of assiduous study, demanding one’s total interest and dedication. It can­ not be attained when study becomes secondary. And there is no short cut to scholarship; it is not to be attained by swallowing a capsule of the Tree of Knowledge. Said Reb Shlomo Heiman, “There are many who would desire to

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become lamdonim overnight, and in that period to have a good night’s sleep.” Divine wisdom is acquired rather only through the application of one’s mind, heart and soul, night and day. Said Reb Chaim Brisker, “A true lamdon is the one whom Torah permeates so much that even in his sleep he dreams of a difficult Rambam.

Torah literature has recorded volumes of chidushim, original insights, appre­ hended in dreams. This is quite a curious compromise between the op­ posing views in the Talmud, whether the night was created for study or for sleep (Eruvin 65a).

While learning is the intensive oc­ cupation night and day, there exists an official rigid learning schedule. The following is a typical kolel program: The day begins at 7:30 a.m. with morning services, after which there is a half-hour period of learning Shulchon Oruch Orach Chaim. The morn­ ing session begins after breakfast at 9:00 a.m. and ends at 1:00 p.m. An hour and a half is given for lunch and rest period. Some studious indi­ viduals utilize the free time of this period for learning, or discussing their learning while taking a stroll. The sec­ ond study session is scheduled from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. Interspersed with Talmudic study is a period devoted to works on building good character, the afternoon and evening services, and an hour for supper and rest. At 8:00 p.m. the third learning session begins. Officially, it ends 10:30 p.m., but many students learn until 12:00 midnight or later. The married men do not come to the study hall for the third session, but stay at home. A married student having an unmarried learning partner (it is the custom for two students to study together) ar­ ranges that his partner come to his home to study with him there.

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HE effort and toil that go into the study is characteristic of these fellowships of higher learning. Only by intensive application of the other­ wise relaxed recesses of the mind can one attain the jewels of Divine wis­ dom. The Mishnah “If there is no flour there is no Torah” (Pirkey Ovoth 3, 21) is interpreted by the Vilna Gaon as follows: “If there is no strenuous grinding and granulating of Torah in order to absorb and assimi­ late it well, then that is not real Torah.”

That which is attained through pains­ taking labor is also enjoyed much more, (See Rashi, Betzah 38b). It is the joy in understanding the word of G-d more profoundly that helps link the kolel scholar with the spirit of the sages of the Talmud. Their study is lishmah, for Torah’s sake; the purpose of their toil is to become one with Torah, to bring themselves closer to the Giver of the Torah. That is the highest rung in Torah study.

Even the receiving of S’michah, Rabbinic ordination, is often regarded in kolel circles as conflicting with the pure idea of lishmah, as the S’michah betokens in a sense, personal prefer­ ment and official status. Reb Iser Zal­ man Meltzer, it is told, guided and instructed his distinguished disciples for scores of years in his yeshivah in Slutzk without ever receiving S’michah.

Only after the Slutzk Kehilah pleaded with him to become their rabbi did he accept his Yoreh Yoreh from Reb Chaim Brisker—by telegraph. The K’lal Yisroel has always had a sense of detecting its true leaders without examining their diplomas.

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HE Beth Hamidrash, the study hall of the Kolel, is colorful with its personalities of varying type. There is the Amkan type who delves deeply into the specific subject with a pierc-

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ing penetration, gets to the heart and core of the topic, pondering its com­ plexities with logical precision, and only then builds upon the foundations of those truths. Then there is the Bokki type who absorbs in his mind and memory the many tractates with abundant commentaries, and classifies them, always eliciting proofs and re­ futations from related subjects. Then there is the Charif type whose inven­ tive genius reflects keenly and exuber­ antly, with initiative and originality, examines the similarities and conflicts, analyzes the most intricate subject in its subtlest ramifications, placing each principle in its proper perspective. The underlying rule, guiding all types of students, is the search for the truth, the solid truth, which stands anchored in the turbulent ocean of Talmud with deep-rooted strength.

Great emphasis is placed upon the student’s own treatise. Whether it is a new solution to a contradiction in Talmud, or a new insight into Maimonides, or a new elucidation in a prob­ lem of Jewish law, it is the student’s own approach that is stressed. It is his chidush, his own original idea, that is admired. In the deep sea of Talmud, the discerning student always finds something new. “The house of study is never without newness,” (Chagiga 3a). This creativeness, the new finding in Torah wisdom is the fulfillment of the daily prayer, “And give us our share in Thy Torah.”

Twice a week there is an informal but sparkling discussion and inter­ change of ideas. This is called Chavurah— “group.” The members of the kolel are divided into groups and a member of each group delivers his own dissertation to his colleagues. The individual qualities of each member are here clearly manifest. The Rosh Yeshivah, the counterpart of Rabbi JEWISH LIFE

Yochanan ben Zakkai, who listed the specific attributes of his disciples (Pirkey Ovoth 11, 2)S is the master analyst of the grouped minds. Knowing the particular attributes of each student he organizes the chavuroth with the purpose of having all types repre­ sented in each group, so as to give the dissertation a valid critical evaluation.

At Chavurah time, the Beth Hamidrosh becomes less compact, as many

of the groups repair to side rooms to avoid interference with each other.

The excitement grows as the battle of minds is under way. The lecturer, however is well girded; his scintillat­ ing words reflect the many days of laborious preparation. This gathering of students, attaining the truth of Torah through dibuk chaverim, clos­ ing ranks with colleagues, is a scene only the sensitive soul can appreciate.

HEAVEN ON EARTH — WITH BREAD AND SALT

HE story is told of the sage who pondered the meaning of Paradise.

Once he dreamed of an angel who opened a door and said to him: “This is Paradise.” He beheld a group seated around a table deeply im­ mersed in the study of Torah. The young men at the kolel are indeed enjoying heaven on this earth in study­ ing the divine wisdom on the highest level. The same idea is conveyed by a popular yeshivah song in Yiddish, of which the English version runs somewhat like the following: After-life in Heaven is a vision grand and sweet The study of Torah, however, is still a greater treat Put aside, therefore, every yoke and chore Devote yourself to study Torah deeply more and more.

More than a hundred and fifty years ago the great Reb Chaim Volozhiner said that before Moshiach comes the last exile of the Torah will be in America, (conveyed by Reb Jeruchem of Mir, see Dos Yiddishe Vort no.

76). This prophetic vision of a giant of Torah is being realized before our very eyes, as we witness the anchorage

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of Torah at our shores.

In Pirkey Ovoth it is taught that one of the ways to acquire knowledge of the Torah is “to eat bread and salt and drink plain water and sleep on the floor”—that is* one should be ready to sacrifice all comforts of life for the sake of Torah study, even, if need be, to subsist on the barest es­ sentials. Some kolel members indeed fulfill this teaching literally, at least the American version of it.

A constant problem in the life of the Kolel scholar is how to manage, with a meager income, to support a growing family. A married member of the Kolel receives, in most cases, a stipend of fifty dollars per week, plus five dollars weekly more for each additional child. While this salary does not do great credit to our Zebuluns, it does imply a tribute to the charac­ ter of our Issachars.

PECIAL tribute must be offered to the many wives of Kolel scholars who go to work to enable their husbands to study Torah. These wives are the prototype of the esheth chayil, of whom King Solomon speaks in Proverbs. They are the fulfillment

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of his dreams of the virtuous woman.

If King Solomon were searching today for a woman of the calibre which he so eloquently describes in that chapter, one could humbly advise him to visit Monsey, N.Y. or Lakewood, N.J. where some of the wives of the Kolel members perfectly fit the picture.

They indeed assume, at least partially, the responsibilities of financing the home budget while proudly enabling their husbands “to be known in the gates of learning as they sit with the elders of the land.” In this sense they fulfill the verse “And the law of kind­ ness is on her tongue” (Proverbs 31:17) as it is interpreted in the Tal­ mud: “Which is a Torah of kindness?

The Torah which one makes possible for others to study,” (Sukah, 49b).

How great is the true esheth chayil that the Torah is compared to her.

She personifies both Torah and the ideal wife. Her home enjoys eternal bliss, for the Third Partner, the Shechinah, dwelleth therein.

HE fire of the burning bush is never consumed. At the Kolel, the burning zeal in the quest for Torah wisdom is never calmed or relaxed.

Every success reveals new vistas.

Every achievement unfolds new trea­ sures to be explored. Realizing the

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endlessness of Divine wisdom, the Kolel scholar aspires to make Torah “at least” a life-time project. The Hebrew term for scholar is “Talmid Chochom”—a wise student. If he ceases to be a student, he ceases to be wise. When a tractate of the Tal­ mud is completed—and this is quite a familiar practice at the Kolel—it is immediately followed, customarily, with the beginning of a new tractate, to avoid the feeling of ever being fin­ ished. The circlet which was placed upon the ark which contained the Torah scrolls in the Tabernacle, it is explained, was to demonstrate the endlessness of Torah, symbolized by the circular ornament which has no end or point. On the passage, “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is never full” (Koheleth 1:7), the Mi­ drash adds, “All the Torah which a man learns is in the heart, yet the heart is never full” (Midrash Kohe­ leth 1:17).

Completion and graduation exer­ cises, therefore, do not exist in kolel circles. As the Kotzker would say: “Az m’is fartig is men upgekocht.”

One is always in the midst of reaching a goal, the goal being only a harbinger for a still higher goal. It is for this reason, too, that after five years in the Kolel, the average stay after mar­ riage, the scholar is reluctant to leave.

THE KOLEL AND THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY

EA V IN G . the Kolel, then, does not mean a cessation of study.

The position which the Kolel member usually seeks is that of an instructor of Talmud, the calling which provides ample opportunity for further growth in the knowledge of Torah. At this

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point, however, the main purpose be­ comes to bequeath the acquired herit­ age to the younger students. The endlessness of Torah at this stage is ex­ pressed in bringing the new generation, too, under the banner of G-d, and to inculcate in them the spirit and wisJEWISH LIFE

dom of Torah. It is here that the community reaps immediate benefit from its investment in the Kolel. Rich rewards are gained through the con­ tinuous spiralling of Torah at the yeshivoth and mesivtoth and in the Talmud classes where they serve as instructors.

It is obvious that there is a close relation between the Kolel and the phenomenal growth of the Day School movement. These higher academies were also responsible for the establish­ ment of new, vibrant religious com­ munities centered around these institutions. The town of Monsey for instance, which twenty years ago had not a single Jew among its inhabitants, has developed, since Beth Medrash Elyon took over a beautiful estate, into a pulsating community of close to four hundred orthodox Jewish fam­ ilies. The influence of the Kolel, how­

ever, extends much farther than what can be seen at first glance. It has its impact upon the simplest “Jew in the street.” “If the Vilna Gaon,” the classic explanation goes, “studies Torah eighteen hours a day, the aver­ age Rabbi will study ten hours a day, the pious layman will study two hours, the average Jew in the street will at least keep the Sabbath.”

When a Jew studies Torah, the foundation of K’lal Yisroel, he per­ forms an act of ahavath yisroel, for he strengthens the existence of his people, thereby bringing upon them physical and spiritual blessing. Even the Kolelim in the suburbs, without noticeable contact, exert considerable influence upon Jewry at large. There seems to exist a mystic channel of in­ fluence from the “four ells of Halacha” to the four corners of the world.

Introducing A Three-fold Discussion of the New J.P.S. Torah Translation Among many Jews today, knowledge of things Jewish is acquired only at second-hand. Even among those more immediately in the path of living Jewish tradi­ tion, the environment shared with the general populace has some measure of influence on the pattern of Jewish thought; the process of spiritual and intellectual, as well as verbal, “translation” pervades unprecedently wide areas of the Jewish world.

In such a circumstance, the presentation in the vernacular tongue of the com­ ponents of the Jewish heritage acquires extraordinary significance. To the extent that such renderings transmit faithfully the precise sense, content, and character of the original, to that degree are historic Jewish needs served. To the extent that the trans­ lations may in fact impose upon the original meanings and values drawn from the contemporary environment and foreign to the source, to that degree is the Jewish heritage vitiated and made to serve as a means of de-Judaization.

Especially does the foregoing apply in the case of the Sacred Scriptures them­ selves, Torah, Neviim, and Kethuvim. In an era such as the present, the long-term influence of a Bible translation in the vernacular can be immeasurable.

Accordingly, the publication by the Jewish Publication Society of America of its new translation of the Chamishah Chumshey Torah is an event of much potential consequence for the future of Jewish life in the English-speaking world.

With this in mind, we deem it of timely value to present to our readers, in the following pages, a three-fold evaluation of the J.P.S. Torah translation. While all three contributors to the discussion are alike dedicated and distinguished exponents of orthodox Judaism, each views the subject from an individual standpoint and brings to bear a distinctive philosophy.

— E d it o r

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JEWISH LIFE

A Balanced View

By ISAAC L SWIFT

HE rapturous acclaim with which in place of the older “In the begin­ the Jewish Publication Society’s ning G-d created,” need have oc­ T new translation of the Torah was first casioned none of the caustic reaction greeted in some quarters last fall, and the somewhat hysterical denunciation which it received in others, were both premature. Both were based in some measure on the press releases by the Society before the work was available to the general public, and before it had been in the hands of admirers or fault-finders long enough for a critical judgment to be made. We have now had the new translation for some weeks, long enough to afford us time for examination and scrutiny, and an objective study is now possible.

It is the purpose of this article to attempt such a study, within the limits imposed by space, uninfluenced by the reactions to the early press reports.

The latter, addressed to the readers of the popular press, understandably stressed the “sensational” aspects of the new version, and conveyed to many a false and misleading impres­ sion of the work. It would be well, I think, to dispose at once of some of the hasty condemnations provoked by the rather unfortunate press releases.

Thus, the first verse in B’reshith, rendered “When G-d began to create,” May-June, 1963

shown in some orthodox circles, had they borne in mind that the former accords much more closely with the views of as authoritative a commenta­ tor as Rashi than does the latter.

Likewise, the “Sea of Reeds” in place of the more familiar “Red Sea” in the Sh’moth narrative, is in equal accord with Rashi (on Sh’moth 13:18). Sentimental attachment to “Red Sea” because of long usage— based on an error in the early ver­ sions—need not have caused the flurry of criticism which the new version received on this score.

Equally, the Third Commandment, rendered “You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord . . .’’ in the new translation, is closer to the Tal­ mudic reading (Tractate Shovuoth 29a) than the older “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy G-d in vain,” and again the new version might have been spared the criticism that it received on this account.

HERE are grounds for criticism so much more significant that we need not dissipate our wrath on these

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perfectly legitimate changes to which the first press reports called attention.

Before examining those grounds we do well to mention here that one of the objections to the new translation raised by some spokesmen for Or­ thodoxy is the fact that the Editorial Board consists, with one exception, of non-orthodox translators. I have no quarrel with this point of view, and we shall see later that the hetero­ dox composition of the Board is evi­ dently responsible for some features of the work to which Orthodoxy

should take the strongest exception; but it is not irrelevant to remind our­ selves that the earlier Jewish Publica­ tion Society translation of 1917 (re­ ferred to throughout this article as OJ) was likewise prepared by an Editorial Board comprised almost en­ tirely of non-orthodox translators— yet it is that version which is used in the Hertz Pentateuch and in the Soncino Chumosh, both of which are widely used in many orthodox syna­ gogues in this country and indeed throughout English-speaking Jewry.

THE LITERARY STYLE

HE most striking feature of the new translation (referred to throughout the remainder of this article as NJ) is its literary style. OJ retained the style and manner of the King James Version, “the most splen­ did and the most durable of the many glories of England.” The majestic lan­ guage of that classic, aside from its profound influence on the English written and spoken for centuries since, exerted an immeasurable influence on the reverence in which the Bible was held, for it matches the majesty of the sacred Books. Its augustan elo­ quence, its sonorous cadences, its pro­ jection of the sanctity of the original into the sublimest beauty of which the English tongue is capable, were followed by OJ. Speaking for myself, I cannot but regret the change to the more modern idiom and style adopted

by NJ, which, as it seems to me, brings the Bible’s words down to the level of the average reader’s speech instead of elevating the reader to the lofty Biblical mood. I shall be told, with some justice, that the purpose of a translation is to make the original intelligible to the reader, and that this

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can best be achieved—indeed can only be achieved—by rendering it in the language in which the reader speaks and thinks. Nevertheless, it is more than mere nostalgia or sentiment that moves one’s regret at seeing the older elegance give way to the staccato newness of the present version.

But there are some objections to the change of style that are most seri­ ous. One is the abandonment of “thou,” “thee,” “thy,” in favour of “you” and “your.” That the former are archaic will not of course be gainsaid. Yet they have the pro­ nounced advantage of signifying when the second person is addressed in the singular in the original. This is often of more than academic importance.

Thus, the Decalogue in OJ affirms “I am the Lord thy G-d,” from which a significant doctrinal teaching is de­ rived in Rabbinic literature. This is obscured by N J’s “I am the Lord your G-d.”

Or again, the first paragraph of the Shema (D’vorim 6:5-9) is addressed in the singular, while the second para­ graph (D ’vorim 11:13-21) is addressed in the plural, with homiletic implicaJEWISH LIFE

tions of the highest value. These too are lost in the “you” and “your” of NJ. Or, to take but one more instance, the use of both singular and plural in Vayikra 1:2 (OJ: “When any man of you bringeth an offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering . . .”) furnishes the Rabbis with the basis for an Halachic conclusion which cannot be read into N J’s “When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the Lord he shall choose his offering . * .” in spite of the half-apologetic footnote.

T cannot, of course, be expected that any translation will enable the Istudent to deduce, without a commen­ tary, all the subtle meanings inherent in or implied by the original; but sure­ ly a serious version should not obscure these things where it is possible—-at no great cost—to call the thoughtful reader’s attention to their existence.

There is another, equally grave, fault in the prose style of NJ. The Editors call candid attention to it in the Preface. I refer to the translation —or rather the failure to translate— the Hebrew particle Vov. To take an example at random, the opening para­ graph of the Torah (verses 3,4, and 5) reads in OJ: “And G-d said . . .

And G-d saw . . . And G-d called . . .”

NJ reads: “G-d said . . . G-d saw . . .

G-d called . . . ” I have yet to be con­ vinced that this is an improvement of English style; but even if it be an improvement, something of the origi­ nal has been surrendered, for each verse in the Hebrew opens with the Vov particle.

It may be argued that in these in­ stances and in the hundreds of others like it, we are dealing with a VovConversive, whose role is primarily to change the tense and not to serve May-June- 1963

as a conjunction. In that case, what has happened to the Fov-Conjunctive where the particle has no bearing on the tense or a verb? For example Sh’moth 1:1 begins with “ve-eleh,” while D’vorim 1:1 begins “eleh.” OJ renders the former “Now these are . . .” and the latter “These are . . .,” paying due and proper regard to the presence of the Vov in the one and its absence from the other. NJ gives “These are . . .” for both.

Lest this seem to be hair-splitting, it should be said with every emphasis that Jewish exegesis has, from the earliest times, deduced inferences of great weight and importance from even a seemingly insignificant single letter of the sacred text. The classical illustration is Sh’moth 21:1— “ve-eleh hamishpotim . . .” NJ, ignoring the Vov, renders this “These are the norms . . .’’ Yet this conjunctive Vov gives the Mechilta grounds for in­ ferring a major doctrine of Judaism: “The Vov attached to “eleh” links this subject to the previous subject; just as the commandments previously men­ tioned were revealed at Sinai, so were these too given at Sinai.”

Now it would be folly to expect any translation to convey such an im­ plication of the original; but we must surely expect a serious translation of a text, whose every letter is fraught with meaning, to guard against ob­ scuring that meaning by losing sight of the letter altogether.

HEN these complaints against W the language and style of NJ have been registered, it must be un­ grudgingly conceded that it contains many improvements on the earlier versions, and gives abundant evidence of painstaking care in seeking exact equivalents of the original Hebrew.

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Let one example suffice. In the ac­ count of the spies who reconnoitred the Promised Land, given in B’midbor, Chapter 13 and D ’vorim, Chap­ ter p three Hebrew words are used of the reconnaissance: “losur,” “lachpor” and “leraggel.” OJ renders the first verb variously “to spy out” and “to seek out”; the second “to search”; and the third “to spy out”; as if the three were synonymous—which they are not. How much more effective NJ is. It succeeds admirably in convey­ ing to the English reader that three different terms occur in the original, and in rendering those terms with

remarkable accuracy: the first “to scout,” the second “to explore,” and the third “to spy out.”

Nor is there lack of evidence of the same painstaking care in convey­ ing traditional Rabbinic interpreta­ tions in many passages. Again, one example must suffice. In B’reshith 28:11 “vayiphga bamokom” is trans­ lated “He came to a certain place” (OJ “And he lighted on the place”).

Rashi’s remark ad loc. has clearly influenced the translators, and the improvement cannot but please the traditionalist.

PARAPHRASIS OR TRANSLATION

HE praiseworthy effort of the best of translations of the verb “nishEditors to convey traditional inter­ ma,” but we do at least see clearly pretations leads them sometimes to that two verbs occur in the original. paraphrasis rather than translation— NJ indulges in free translation and a license for which there are august gives “we will faithfully do.” Now and illustrious precedents. Once more, the use of the two verbs and their se­ a single example must suffice. In quence in the Hebrew have furnished Vayikra 19:15 and 19:35 the same grounds for some of the choicest Hebrew phrase occurs: “lo saassu homilies in Midrashic literature. Why ovel bamishpot” OJ gives the same ignore them by telescoping the phrase rendering in both: “Ye shall do no into one verb and its adverb? The unrighteousness in judgment.” NJ, on footnote, “literally ‘we will do and the other hand, faithful to the Siphra obey’ ” reflects a debate between the and basing itself on the words that Editors; but why debate at all when follow the phrase in each verse, no greater accuracy has been achieved renders the first: “You shall not and no greater elegance of style has render an unfair decision,” and the been attained, while the profound im­ second: “You shall not falsify meas­ plications of the original have been ures.” This is altogether excellent, yet obscured? In D ’vorim 5:24 where the it is hardly literal translation. same two verbs are used in reverse Sometimes paraphrasis is used with order, OJ, more faithful this time to less justification. A regrettable in­ stance is found in the translation of the original, gives “we will hear it, the famous phrase “Naasseh V’nish- and do it”^ but NJ, clinging to its ma” in Sh’moth 24:7. OJ, echoing uncalled-for paraphrasis, again gives the King James Version (“we will do, “we will willingly do it,” this time and be obedient”) renders this “we without even a footnote to prompt the will do, and obey.” “Obey” is not the reader to further inquiry.

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JEWISH LIFE

URIOUSLY, this readiness to paraphrase is not consistently maintained, and we find an occasional rigid adherence to strictly literal trans­ lation even where the Talmudic au­ thorities encouraged elasticity. One glaring example is the translation of “veyorkah bephonov” in the Chalitzah ritual (D ’vorim 25:9). The King James translators may be forgiven for rendering this “and spit in his face,” for they may perhaps not have seen the Siphri or the Talmud (Yevomoth 106b) and may be pre­ sumed never to have witnessed the performance of Chalitzah, in which case they would have known that bephonov here means “in his pres­ ence” or “before him.” There is less excuse for the same error by the translators of NJ, who claim in their

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Preface to take into consideration “insights of ancient and medieval scholarship.” Nor is the Talmudic rendering really a paraphrasis, for it accords with a literal translation of the word “bephonov.” Thus, in Eze­ kiel 42:12, “biphney hag’adereth” where the same preposition-foi/i oc­ curs, is translated by OJ as well as by the King James Version as “before the wall.”

The rendering of the Chalitzah procedure as “to spit in his face” is thoroughly objectionable, and has nothing of style, of accuracy, of au­ thority, or of tradition to sustain it.

It makes a ritual, never easy to ex­ plain to the modern reader, needlessly more difficult to comprehend and accept.

THE MASORETIC TEXT

HE claim of the translators that their work is based on the Masore­ tic text is not quite accurate. One departure comes immediately to mind.

In B’reshith 22:13 the Masoretic text reads “. . . ayil achar,” rendered by OJ “. . . behind him a ram.” NJ bases itself upon a change in the Heb­ rew to “ . . . ayil aehad,” and renders simply “. . . a ram,” the Editors con­ tenting themselves with a footnote.

The ingenuity of the emendation cer­ tainly overcomes an exegetical prob­ lem posed by the Masoretic text which has exercised every commentator since the days of the earliest Midrashim; but ingenuity cannot compensate for a reading which is unfaithful to the original text as it has come down to us.

A further departure from the Masorah calls for a word of comment.

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“The chapter and verse divisions found in the printed Bible,” say the Editors in the Preface, “are indispensable as a system of precise reference, but they do not always coincide with the or­ ganic division of the text . . . It is not surprising that Rav Saadia Gaon . . . paid no attention to the chapter divi­ sions, since they did not exist in his day. More noteworthy is the readiness with which he joined separate verses of the Masoretic text (whose author­ ity he did not question) into single sentences when the sense required it.”

This is perfectly true, and on the strength of it many new—and refresh­ ing—changes have been made in NJ in the joining and separation of verses and chapters, hitherto translated on the basis of the divisions as they appear in the printed Hebrew Bible.

But the division of the Torah into 27

paragraphs is of greater antiquity and of higher authority. This has been ignored by NJ. Thus, at B’reshith 2:4 a new paragraph begins in the Hebrew text. OJ, paying due attention to this, reads: (Verse 3) “ . . . He rested from all His work which G-d in creating had made. (Verse 4) These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord G-d made earth and heaven. (Verse 5) No shrub . . . ”

NJ carries the first part of Verse 4 into the earlier paragraph, and reads: (Verse 3) “. . . G-d ceased from all the work of creation which He had done. (Verse 4) Such is the story of heaven and earth as they were created.

When the Lord G-d made earth and heaven, (Verse 5) No shrub . . .”

The result is far from displeasing, but it is attained by doing violence to the authority of the Masoretic paragraph division.

A GRAVE OBJECTION

OR the orthodox Jew, the most serious complaint against the new translation lies less in these con­ siderations than in its departure in some fundamental matters from the interpretations sanctioned by the Oral Tradition and hallowed by long cen­ turies of Rabbinic exegesis. It is here that the challenge to the heterodoxy of most of the Editorial Board, re­ ferred to earlier in this article, as­ sumes its relevance.

The most glaring instance is the translation of the word “mishpot” as “norm” in Sh’moth 21:1, Vayikra 18:4, and many other passages. In each of them, Rabbinic authority and tradition understand the word to mean “commandment” or “ordinance” or “law.” In accordance with that au­ thority, OJ translates Sh’moth 21:1 (already quoted above in another con­ nection) a s :. “Now these are the ordinances . . .” and Vayikra 18:4 as: “. . . Mine ordinances.” NJ, on the other hand reads: “These are the norms . . .” and “. . . My norms.”

The temptation is strong within

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me, by the way, to comment on the extraordinary rendering of chok umishpot in Sh’moth 16:25 as “a fixed rule,” in defiance of the clear sense of the Hebrew, and of the inter­ pretations of the Mechilta and of every commentator since. Under the restraint of lack of space, I must re­ sist the temptation, and confine myself to my sharp dissatisfaction with “norms.”

A norm is defined by Webster as a “standard, model, or pattern.” What is N J’s basis or authority for so marked a dilution of the sense of the Hebrew word “mishpot?” Or should we rather ask, what was the motive of the Editors in introducing this change?

It is true that, for example, in 1 Samuel 2:13, as in some other postMosaic passages, the Hebrew “mish­ pot hakohanim” is rendered by OJ “the custom of the priests.” Yet even there Rashi, Kimchi, Gersonides, and as modern an exegete as Malbim, render the word as “commandment.”

Alone of the major Jewish commenJEWISH LIFE

tators, David Altshul (Metsudath Dovid) translates the verse as does OJ. But as to the word “mishpot” in the Torah, no Jewish commentary— from the earliest Tannaitic Midrashim, through the mediaeval exegetes, down to our own day—renders the word as meaning other than “command­ ment” or its equivalent.

If it should be pointed out that in Vayikra 21:9 the Hebrew kemishpot habonoth” is translated by OJ as “after the manner of daughters,” it must be said in reply that that admir­ able version has here been guilty of a lapse from Talmudic tradition. Onkelos is in that verse, as elsewhere, a more realistic guide.

O make of the commandments “norms” is to hint at their muta­ bility, and introduces an innuendo— to put it mildly—of the utmost danger to the binding character of the Torah.

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No reading of NJ, however objective, and however sympathetic to the avowed aim of the translators to make the Bible “intelligible to every genera­ tion,” can ignore this aspect of the work; and although the merits of the translation are many, this considera­ tion must outweigh them in the ap­ praisals of all to whom Torah Min Hashomayim remains the ultimate criterion by which such work is judged.

If this should be overlooked by readers of the new translation, we may reluctantly have to echo the lament uttered by the Rabbis on the day when the Septuagint version was completed—that that was a moment of misfortune in Israel’s story. If, however, the critical study of this new translation will lead to a reaction against its tampering with cherished and inviolable truths, then Dr. Orlinsky and his colleagues will have placed us deeply in their debt.

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Torah Without Mitzvoth

By REUBEN E. GROSS

N the 9th of Teveth, 5723 I pended JPS Bookmark hardly sustains O received by mail an announce­ his imputed status as a Hebraic ment (presumably mailed the pre­ vious day) heralding the publication by the Jewish Publication Society of the much-publicized New Translation of the “Torah.” Imagine my thoughts the following morning in reading in the Selichoth that day that one of the three tragedies memorialized by the fast of Teveth is the first official trans­ lation of Torah. It was on the 8th of Teveth that the Torah was fully tran­ scribed into Greek at the behest of the great liberal monarch, Ptolemy Philadelphus, for his famous library in Alexandria. Thereupon, according to the Agadah, a three-day darkness descended upon the world. Another version states that it was a day as fraught with hardship for Israel as the day on which the golden calf was made.

Heavily emphasized in this brochure announcing the New Translation is the scholarship of the “Translators of the Torah”—among them Dr. Solomon Grayzel, who doubles as secretary for the committee and who is said to be noted for his “A History of the Jews” and “The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century.”

However, a note by him in the ap30

scholar. In discussing the New Trans­ lation, Dr. Grayzel holds up the translation of Yam Suf as “the Sea of Reeds” as a good example of the con­ tributions of his committee. He states: “No one until now has had the cour­ age—or is it the good sense?—to call this sea by its own name.” But surely every Chumosh student knows from the previous pages in Shemoth that “Suf” means “reeds” or “bul­ rushes.” When Yocheved put the in­ fant Mosheh in the Nile she placed his basket in the “suf” (Sh’moth, 2:3). When Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe she saw the basket in the “suf” (Sh’moth 2:5).

Whoever has learnt Rashi knows that “suf” are tubular reeds—“kanim.” Anyone acquainted with the Bible in almost any language other than English would not have made this error. In German translations, it is referred to as the “Schilfmer”—a sea of reeds. Likewise in French it is “Mer des Jones.” On some old maps the Red Sea is shown as “Reed Sea.” It was evidently through the dropping of an e in the English language name that “Reed” became “Red.” That the Yam Suf is a Reed Sea has always JEWISH LIFE

been common knowledge among Jews, except for those whose reading of the Bible is limited to the English lan­ guage. That Dr. Grayzel is rather limited to English is further indicated by the fact that the only traditional commentary which he mentions is Rabbi Hertz’s Chumosh. Hence, when the New Translators added in their footnote “traditionally, but incorrect­ ly, ‘Red Sea,’ ” intending thereby to demonstrate their superior knowledge, they succeeded somewhat dubiously. lV/iERE ignorance merits silent dismissal. What the New Transla­ tors have done, however, is to invert the very basis of Torah. What the world has accepted as the Word of G-d to Moses they have turned into a secular document. Rabbi Pinchas Teitz has already demonstrated the untenability of the translation of in’kallel oviv v’imo as “He who repu­ diates his father and mother” (Jewish Press 11/30/62). Such criticism does not quite reach to the root of the evil facing us, for it turns up even in areas where the New Translation can be justified on a scholarly basis. For ex­ ample, Bereshith 47:7, vayevorech yaakov eth paroh, normally translated as “And Jacob blessed Pharaoh,” is here given as “Jacob greeted Phar­ aoh.” Now Rashi points out that this was a greeting in the form of a blessing, comparing it to the French expression of his time “saludier,” which is derived from the Latin “salute” meaning “safety.” From time immemorial a greeting has been in the form of a blessing. Note the French “adieu,” the Spanish'-“adios,” the Hebrew “Sholom,” the English “Goodbye,” derived from “G-d be with ye.” Only in modern times with its “hello” and impersonal “goodbye” has there been a separation of the two May-June, 1963

ideas. The selection of the word “greeted” by the New Translators be­ speaks an allergy on their part to words like “bless, “curse,” and “pray” —words indicating direct communica­ tion between G-d and man. In B’reshith 20:7, yithpallel, usually trans­ lated “he will pray,” is watered down to “he will intercede.”

A further example of the New Translators’ repugnance to using words intimating the idea of prayer is their mistranslation of Bereshith 24:63, losuach, which is translated by Targum, Rashi, Talmud, B’reshith Rabbah, Yonathan ben Uziel, Sfomo, and a host of others as “to pray.” The King James version and all extant English translators have “to meditate.”

The New Translation, however, has “walking,” with this footnote: “Others ‘to meditate’ meaning of Heb. uncer­ tain.” Granting the good faith of their doubts as to the meaning of the word, the question arises as to why precisely in an area of uncertainty do they choose to reject the almost uni­ versal consensus of authorities, tradi­ tional and non-traditional alike. The answer, one must conclude, is that the New Translators have the secularist prejudices of the twentieth century against the concept of Revelation and are imputing these prejudices to Moses.

ERHAPS not all the New Trans­ lators should be thus condemned.

Different parts bear the imprints of different hands. Great inconsistency is to be found in the translation of the identical words in identical contexts.

The translator of Shemoth correctly translates mitzvah as “command­ ment” (e.g. 24:12). To the transla­ tor of D ’vorim, however, mitzvah is “instruction” and mishpotim are “norms” (5:28, 6:1, 6:25, 7:2). In

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these two mistranslations the whole concerned. Firstly, Jewish scholarship foundation of Torah is uprooted and recognizes no redundancy in the Bible. overthrown. A “mitzvah” is no longer Every letter, word, and peculiar ex­ a “commandment.” According to this pression has significance. In this new dispensation, it is simply “instruc­ instance the elision of an entire clause tion.” A commandment is disobeyed is particularly unfortunate because at one’s peril. “Instruction” however mitzvothay tishmoru and v’osithem is merely helpful information or di­ othom refer to distinct ideas. One dis­ rection which one is rather free to tinction is that according to Ula’s take or to disregard. oft-cited Talmudic rule, mitzvothay There can be no doubt that the tishmoru is a warning against viola­ New Translators have willfully re­ tion of negative commandments. jected the concept of “mitzvoth maa- V’osithem othom refers to positive siyoth.” In some instances where the commandments. The distinction be­ Hebrew clearly and unmistakably tween positive and negative command­ calls for performance of the mitzvoth ments is basic to Torah scholarship. in a manner admitting of no para­ The excision of an exhortation to phrasing or interpretation, its transla­ perform positive commandments can­ tion is simply omitted. Vayikra 18:4, not be rectified by calling for more which states: eth mishpotay ta’asu faithful observance of negative com­ v’eth chuokothay tishmoru lolecheth mandments. Moreover, this is not an bohem—which literally translated isolated instance of such a basic error. means “You shall perform My decrees The well-known na’aseh v’nishma and you shall observe My statutes, (Sh’moth 24:7) is translated “We to walk therein . . .” is rendered by will faithfully do.” How can any benthese translators as: “My norms alone Torah fail to shudder at such butchery shall you observe, and faithfully fol­ and violence to one of Israel’s most low My Laws.” The “lolecheth bo­ sacred watchwords! hem”— “to walk therein”—is wholly Similarly a “mishpot” is no longer omitted. Similarly Vayikra 26:3, im a “judgment”—an exact sentence im­ bechukothay telechu v’eth mitzvothay posed by an exacting judge. The new tishmoru va’asithem othom,” literally dispensation describes it as a “norm.” translatable as, “If you will walk in A norm is a standard, a target, which my statutes and observe my com­ all do not really observe. Many under­ mandments and perform th em ’’ is shoot the target; some overshoot it; translated as, “If you follow my laws but they all tend to average out and faithfully observe my command­ around the “norm.” The authority for ments.” The “va’asithem othom” is a “norm” is elusive. The authority for completely elided. a judgment is the judge handing it The New Translators apparently down. regard the “v’osithem othom” as re­ dundant and therefore added “faith­ HUS to establish the inadequacy fully” as a modifier of the previous of the New Translation it is hard­ clause to substitute for the intensifica­ ly necessary to detail all errors of mis­ tion which the Hebrew seems to give translation. Rather it is to be won­ by the elided clause. This may be good dered how men with an obviously literary style, but it is very poor Jew­ built-in resistance to words like “pray­ ish scholarship as far as Bible study is er,” “judgment,” and “command32 JEWISH LIFE

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ments” can undertake a translation of Torah and claim to have produced “the most accurate rendering of the true meaning of the Bible ever to appear in English.”

The concepts of direct communica­ tion between man and G-d and of exactingly directed and ordered con­ duct are fundamental to Torah. The New Translation waters one down and questions the other. What then is left of “The Word of G-d”?

Translations have not been want­ ing in Jewish history. We have had numerous translations. Commentaries have been written without number.

Throughout the ages, Jews great and small in learning have freely suggested new insights into the meaning of this or that verse of the Torah. A trans­ lation that would add the insights of the twentieth century to the wisdom of past generations—giving further evidence of the Divine origin of the original—would indeed be welcome.

Traditional translations, however, were offered as aids to the under­ standing of the original text. Signifi­ cantly, they are often printed in the margin and the original text is placed in the center of the page. Commen­ taries are offered in profusion, often in disagreement with each other but never as an emendation of, or im­ provement upon, the text. Peculiari­ ties of the text are examined for the purpose of eliciting hidden meanings, but are never translated out of the text.

HE galley proofs of the New Translations contained the state­ ment that it was “according to the Masoretic text.” That claim was chal­ lenged by this writer in a pre-publica­ tion criticism in the Young Israel Viewpoint of Dec. 14, 1962. The final publication met this criticism by sub-

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stituting “Traditional” for “Masoretic” on the dust cover and by claiming an improvement over the Masoretic text.

Their brochure states: The Masoretic scribes were remark­ ably faithful in their preservation of the original text of the Holy Scrip­ tures. But the spoken Hebrew changed. . . . Modern Bible scholars and stu­ dents of philology, aided by recent archaeological discoveries and new scientific resources, are better equipped than investigators ever have been be­ fore to trace back through the ages the evolution, not only of the Hebrew language, but of the entire Near East, whose society, politics, and laws were intimately related to, and profoundly affected the Hebrew people [italics ours] . . . As a result, more has been learned of the Bible’s true intent in just the last fifty years than had been brought to light in the previous five hundred.

Today one becomes well nigh invul­ nerable in the eyes of the average reader by wrapping oneself in the robe of “modern science.” Clothed in these garments, the New Transla­ tors present a public image of conde­ scending superiority to the bearded rabbis of the last few centuries, such as the Vilna Gaon, the Chathom Sofer, or the Sforno. The Almighty however, jealous for His Holy Word, as to Pharaoh (Sh’moth 18:2), has undone them precisely in those areas where they have shown their arro­ gance.

ELYING on the philology of an Akkadian word, the New Trans­ lators translated “rovetz” as a “de­ mon” (Bereshith 4:7). Rabbi Pinchas Teitz has demonstrated the untenability of such translation. Their crowing over the discovery that Yam Suf is the Reed Sea, as has been demonstrated above, is downright silly.

When A. A. Davidson ( J e w i s h L i f e ,

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May-June 1957) took them to task for rejecting the Masoretic Text and translating calneh (B’reshith 10:10) as “all of them being,” they placed this in a footnote saying, “better vocalized we-khullanah ‘all of them being.’ ” The reason they offered for the latter rendition is that archaeology knows of no city by the name of Calneh. Now if these translators are Bible experts how do they explain their ignorance of the fact that the city of Calneh is mentioned not once, but twice by two different Prophets?

(Isaiah 10:9, Amos 6:2) If they are not experts, how do they undertake a translation without the use of a con­ cordance which would have led them immediately to these two citations?

As indicated above, they would do well to apply a concordance to their own work to eliminate their own in­ consistencies in translation. Interest­ ing, however, is the fact that in one instance in which they sought to har­ monize their translation, they fell into a pit. In Bereshith 46:29, “vaye’sor yosef merkavto” literally “And Joseph harnessed his chariot,” is translated “Joseph ordered his chariot.” Al­ though this is contrary to Rashi’s view, it is supported by Ibn Ezra.

Some may wonder as to how the New Translators acquired authority to be a “posek” between Rashi and Ibn Ezra, yet others will be satisfied that they have a “s’mach” in the Ibn Ezra to translate the passage fig­ uratively. However, when the same expression is used in Sh’moth 14:6, where it says of Pharaoh, vaye’sor eth richbo” and Rashi, following the Mechilta, a Tannaitic authority, under­ scores the literal meaning of the pas­ sage as an emphasis on Pharaoh’s villainy and impatience in pursuing the Jews, the New Translators persist in the figurative translation of “he 34

ordered his chariot”—completely with­ out foundation or justification—unless of course if they have some secret, unreported archaeological finding to justify it.

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N a number of instances the New Translators have preferred the Septuagint where it varies from the Masoretic text. Sh’moth 22:12 in the Masoretc text is read “he shall bring ed haterefah,” meaning “witnesses of the tearing,” The Septuagint reads this with a patach instead of zereh as “ad hatereph” so that it means “he shall bring them (the owners) to the tom animal.” The New Translation has, “he shall bring it (the torn animal) as evidence”—not quite in accordance with either version, but with a clear rejection of the Masoretic text.

The translation in Sh’moth 22:7 and 27 of “elohim” as “G-d” instead of “the judges” is in accordance with the Septuagint instead of traditional interpretation. The translation of Vayikra 18:21 “Do not allow any of your offspring to be offered up to Moloch” is in accordance with the Septuagint which apparently changes the resh of I’ha’avir, meaning “to pass through,” to a daleth.

The translation of D ’vorim 21:12 “she shall . . . pare her nails” follows the Septuagint. Although it is sup­ ported by the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer in the Sifri, the Halochah is in ac­ cordance with Rabbi Akiva who trans­ lates it as meaning that “she shall let her nails grow.”

Significantly, the JPS brochure states: “One must examine and trans­ mit the Holy Scriptures in the context of its own time,” Are we to under­ stand from this that archaeology, not masorah, will teach us the meanings of Torah? Shall Hammurabi’s code to

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his people, not G-d’s words to Mosheh, be our sources of light?

HE sponsors of the New Transla­ tion have asked a quarter-million dollars from American Jewry and will continue to ask more to complete the Tanach in the same spirit during the next twenty years. The New Bible will be a new fund-raising banner to elicit from the American Jewish com­ munity many more hundreds of thou­ sands of dollars which properly be­ long to genuine Torah scholarship.

Many will ask, “Why the fuss and excitement? Haven’t we had errone­ ous translations before?” Unfortunate­

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ly, the translation cannot be consid­ ered as an isolated fact in Jewish life.

A quarter-century or so ago, the in­ vasion of the Kodoshim itself began in full force. Synagogues were taken over and mechitzoth broken down.

This Asorah B’teveth marks the first break in the Kodshey Kodoshim where the Luchoth themselves are kept. Therein lies the true significance of the New Translation. Hitherto, no one really doubted that the Kehunah of learning was in the hands of our Gedolim. But if the modern Madison Avenue buildup can lift boys from obscurity to fame and put unknowns on horseback, may it not also make a talmid chochom of an am ho-oretz?

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4

In the Light of Tradition

By GILBERT KLAPERMAN

N 1955 the Jewish Publication So­ ciety of America launched a revi­ sion of the English translation of the Bible it had published in 1917. This first translation, it was felt, had leaned too heavily on the King James Ver­ sion of the Bible and had, conse­ quently, suffered from its antiquated style and obsolete language, its many mistakes in translation, and some of its Christological implications.

In the early planning stages of the revision, the Jewish Publication Soci­ ety had considered coopting a commit­ tee of Bible scholars to do the work who would be representative of the three branches of Jewry. The Rab­ binical Council of America was there­ fore invited to appoint a representative to serve on the editorial committee.

After considerable deliberation, the Executive Committee of the Rabbini­ cal Council of America affirmed the obvious principle that any translation which the R.C.A. could sponsor would have to be made in accordance with the Masorah and the Oral Law. Without the acceptance of this prin­ ciple, the Council might have conceiv­ ably found itself bound to sanction and certify a translation of the Bible that was untraditional and contrary to

I

the Masorah or the Oral Law. The Jewish Publication Society sub­ sequently relinquished the idea of hav­ ing its Editorial Committee represent the different branches of Jewry. The Committee it then selected to carry out the undertaking was comprised of the following seven scholars: Harry M. Orlinsky, editor-in-chief, Max Arzt, Bernard J. Bamberger, Harry Freedman, H. Louis Ginzberg, Eph­ raim A. Speiser, and Solomon Grayzel, secretary. Their assignment was to prepare a manuscript in modem, easyreading style and to avail themselves of all recent archaeological, philologi­ cal, and other discoveries that could shed light on the original text and make the rendition into English more true and correct.

It was believed that the revision of the entire Tanach would be completed by 1963. However, the committee soon discovered that a complete new translation rather than a revision was necessary and the eight years which had been originally allocated for the whole task saw only the completion of the translation of the Torah. It is anticipated that an additional seven years will elapse before the Neviim and Kethuvim are completed.

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N view of the fact that in the prep­ adds to it is a blasphemer.” (KidImajority aration of the translation, only a dushin 49a) vote of the committee of translators was necessary to adopt any draft or disputed section of the trans­ lation, the position of the Rabbinical Council of America seems to have been vindicated. On the other hand, there are members of the Rabbinical Council who maintain that there should have been adequate representa­ tion of orthodox scholars on the Edi­ torial Committee. They feel that the influence of such scholars might have excluded many of the controversial verses now present in the publication and made it acceptable to the ortho­ dox Jewish community.

The completed translation of the Chumosh, which appeared in January 1963, saw the presence of only one orthodox member on the Editorial Committee, Rabbi Harry Freedman, now of Sydney, Australia, who served in an independent capacity, and like his colleagues on the committee, rep­ resented no institution of learning or organized rabbinical body.

HE New Revised Translation of the Torah is the latest in the series of Jewish translations of the Bible that began-with the appearance of the Septuagint in the Third Century B.C.E. The Rabbis revealed their dis­ pleasure with that translation, observ­ ing that when it was completed, “darkness descended on the earth for three days.” (Megillah 9a) A later source asserted that “the day on which it appeared was as evil for Israel as the day on which the Golden Calf was made.” (Soferim 1 : 7 ) This antipathy to translations of the Tanach was strongly expressed in the generaliza­ tion: “He who translates a verse in its literal sense is a falsifier; and he who

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The Talmud’s bitter antagonism arose from the belief that the Bible could be understood as the word of G-d only in conjunction with the in­ terpretation of the Oral Torah. A lit­ eral translation or a paraphrase could not possibly convey the exact nuance and shade of meaning of each word and idiom of the Bible. The Rabbis cited illustrations of how dangerous a translation could be to the Jewish con­ ception of G-d and the application of the Law as it is found in the Torah.

Only the Aramaic Targum Onkelos —and to a similar extent, the Targum Jonathan ben Uzziel—was accepted by the Talmud with complete favor.

The Rabbis called it “our translation” (Kiddushin 49a) and enjoined Jews to recite it together with the review of the Sidrah, the weekly portion of the Torah. (B’rochoth 8a) Targum Onkelos was given Talmudic endorse­ ment only because it was believed that its composer, the convert Onkelos, had been divinely inspired. Its text was ascribed to the Prophets and to the Revelation at Mt. Sinai. (Megillah 3a) For this reason, Targum Onkelos was considered as the only true vehi­ cle for the transmission of the intent and meaning of the original text of the Torah into another language and its authority was compared to that of the Oral Law. The esteem which the Rabbis of the Talmud and the Gaonic period reserved exclusively for the Targum marked it as the only translation which, in modern terminology, might be considered an “authorized” ver­ sion, and vested it with a measure of that sanctity which only the original Hebrew text could possess completely.

All other renditions of the Bible, be­ cause of their inherent limitations, 37

were viewed with suspicion. These renditions varied in the confidence they enjoyed and the respect they commanded in the orthodox heritage in direct proportion to the extent to which they conformed to the Masorah and reflected the traditionally accepted meaning of the Torah as defined in the Halochah. Thus, Rabbenu Saadia Gaon’s “Kether Torah” ranks higher in the scale of acceptance than Moses Mendelsohn’s “Biur.” Qualitatively, since none but the original Torah— and to a lesser extent Targum Onkelos—is divinely revealed, all other versions of the Bible, regardless of their authorship and whether they purport to be translations or are de­ signed as companions and guides to the study of the Torah, are to be judged by whether they reflect the sanctity of the Masorah and the Halochah.

ECAUSE the final text of the new translation has been avail­ able for only a short time, it is yet impossible to determine how the major areas of the concepts, princi­ ples, and beliefs of Judaism are af­ fected by the translation. Nor has it been possible to make an extensive study of the entire work. This paper represents only a preliminary analysis of several typical verses, selected pri­ marily from the Book of B’reshith, which are illustrative of the larger questions found in the new transla­ tion. Additional illustrations may be found in B’reshith and in the other Books of the Chumosh.

The problems of the new transla­ tion may be grouped under the follow­ ing general divisions:

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a) How they affect the Halochah. b) How they affect the Masorah. c) How they affect the general Jew­ ish tradition of Jewish interpretation.

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d) How they adopt the position of the apologists. e) How they improve the style of the old J.P.S. translation.

Here are illustrations of each cate­ gory: a) In Sh’moth 21:17 the new ver­ sion reads: “He who repudiates his father or his mother shall be put to death.” An alternate reading for “re­ pudiates”, is given a footnote as “reviles” but the preferred reading renders the word “repudiates” for

um’kalel.

HE translation is faulty in the first instance in that “repudiates” has no clear or immediate meaning. Does it mean denial of legitimacy or rejec­ tion of a parent’s love? And does this merit the death penalty? Furthermore, is it proper to represent Judaism as so cruel and barbaric that the death sentence would be prescribed for “repudiation?”

But most critical is the fact that there is an entire legal structure in the Talmud and in the Codes defining the sin of cursing one’s parents, de­ rived from the traditional reading of the verse as “He who curses his father or his mother . . . ” The new transla­ tion, by changing the meaning of the word um’kalel, invalidates the entire Halachic discussion and implies that the Rabbis misread the meaning of the word.

The translators, in responding to this objection, cite an early Near East­ ern document which lists repudiation of parents as a capital crime and rely on that citation for their translation.

But that reasoning accepts the very fallacy that belief in Revelation de­ nies, namely, that Torah law was bor­ rowed from contemporary or earlier sources.

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b) In B’reshith 10:10 the new translation reads, “The mainstays of JEWISH LIFE

his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar.” A footnote to the word “Calneh” reads “Heb. we-khalneh; better vocal­ ized we-kullanah ‘all of them being’ [in the land of Shinar].”

HE suggested reading “we-kullanah” offers an ingenious vocaliza­ tion which could have been most appreciated were the location “Cal­ neh,” as it is presently read, unknown or the word incomprehensible. But, in the first place, the proposed “better” reading is at variance with the Masorah which fixes the present reading.

Furthermore, all the Targumim and th e T a l m u d ( Y o m a 10a) gi ve equivalent names for the location, thereby indicating that Calneh was known to Bible students, in antiquity.

Hastings’ “Dictionary of the Bible” gives the location of Calneh and cites additional Biblical references to prove its existence. The translators, there­ fore, have made a break with the Masorah in a gratuitous attempt to correct that which is not faulty.

A similar though less violent rup­ ture with the Masorah appears in the translation of B’reshith 10:13-14 which in the new version reads, “and Mizraim begot the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim, the Pathrusim, the Casluhim, and the Caphtorim, whence the Philistines came forth.” This is at variance with the accepted reading, “. . . and Caslu­ him—whence went forth the Philis­ tines-—and Caphtorim.” (See Rashi and other commentators.) According to the footnote, Caphtorim is “moved up for the sake of clarity.” From the point of view of traditionalists this dalliance with the text “for the sake of clarity” is most unfortunate. c) In B’reshith 24:63 the new translation reads “And Isaac went out

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walking in the field towards evening . . . ” The footnote mentions that walk­ ing is translated by “Others ‘to medi­ tate.’ ” ERE there is no violation of the Masorah and a number of com­ mentators hold a similar view (see Radak, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra). But there is a question of the overwhelm­ ing Rabbinic tradition in favor of the appropriateness of “to meditate.”

Most of the commentators accept this latter translation. A number of paral­ lel uses of the verb “lo-suach” in the Psalms (102:1, 145:5) and the Tal­ mudic interpretation t’filoh avoth tiknun (B’rochoth 26b), give further support to this version.

One might ask: if there is no com­ pulsion to change the old reading— and there seems to be none—why, again, gratuitously reject an expres­ sion hallowed by tradition in favor of a new reading that adds neither dignity nor character to the Patriarch Isaac or beauty to the majestic sweep of the old reading. If the translators felt the need to offer alternate readings for “lo-suach,” regard for tradition would have dictated that walking should have been relegated to the footnote as a possible variant.

The same lack of reverence for, or at best, neutrality towards tradition is discovered in another innovation.

In the new translation, verse 4:7 in B’reshith appears as follows, “.

But if you do not do right, sin is the demon at the door.” The old transla­ tion reads “. . . And if thou do not do well, sin coucheth at the door.” In the new rendition, the word “rovetz” is converted from a verb “coucheth” into a predicate nominative, “demon/’ which according to the footnote de­ rives from “Akkadian rahsim, a type of demon.” Of all the classical com-

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mentators, only the Radak finds any reference in this verse to an evil power, the “yetzer hora.” But this is implied in the word “chatoth” not “rovetz.”

For him, as for all the other commen­ tators, “rovetz” is treated as a verb meaning to lie or “couch.”

The meaning implicit in the new translation is that G-d’s word, as re­ corded in the Bible, is really a refer­ ence to an Akkadian demon which He accepted as being real enough to threaten Cain with. d) In B’reshith 1:26 the translators repeat an ancient error in translation.

The new version reads “And G-d said, I will make man in my image, after my likeness.” The old version, giving a literal interpretation of the text, reads “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

HE present translation finds no support in any of the commen­ taries who all maintain the plural form— as do the Targumin—despite the problems inherent in the text (who is equal with G-d as a Creator? To whom did He turn? Why was it neces­ sary?) and offer each his own explana­ tion. Oddly enough, however, the new version seems to find its basis in the Septuagint in which, fearful that a literal translation would lead to a mis­ interpretation of the Jewish belief in the unity of G-d, the translators amended the text in their version to read, “7 will make a man in my image.”

The Midrosh describes that Moses, himself, when he first wrote the Torah, raised the very questions that troubled the Septuagint, •and was instructed by the Almighty to retain unaltered the text that He had given him.

The translation of the Septuagint was decried by the Rabbis for pre­ cisely the reason that it contained a

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number of such apologetic divergen­ cies which distorted the text. Certainly a modern Jewish translation need not perpetuate the mistakes and the apolo­ getics employed by the Septuagint.

A notable inconsistency appears even in the application of this prin­ ciple. In B’reshith 32:29, the verse is translated, “. . . for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” The old translation reads “. . . you have striven with G-d and with men . . . ” A footnote to the new version similarly offers “Or, G-d and men.”

The unavoidable question to be posed here is, if Elokim in B’reshith 1:26 is read “G-d” and the entire verse is translated as referring to Him in the singular, why read Elokim in this verse as “beings divine,” in the plural? Although Radak does inter­ pret the word Elokim in 32:39 to mean angel, he nevertheless uses the singu­ lar (since Jacob strove with only one celestial being at this time), so that the rendition should read either “di­ vine being” or “G-d” but not “beings divine” (in the plural) for which there is no basis at all. Furthermore, the latter form improperly construed might lead to the very error which the trans­ lators attempted to avoid in their rendition of 1:26.

ITERARY style is the most diffi­ cult area for valid criticism, and I have no intention to venture into this field which, in the last analysis, has no bearing on the integrity of the trans­ lation. However, one representative illustration of unfelicitousness of ex­ pression may be mentioned. Accord­ ing to the new translation B’reshith 49:22 now reads “Joseph is a wild ass/ A wild ass by a spring/—Wild colts on a hillside.” This is an improve-

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ment over the original draft version which was to have read “Joseph is an onager/An onager by a spring/— Wild asses on a hillside.” A footnote to the present edition offers “Others, Joseph is a fruitful bough,/A fruitful bough by a spring/Its branches run over a wall,” which is the traditional reading.

The justification for rendering “on­ ager” or “ass” is that Jacob compares several of the other brothers to ani­ mals in his final remarks to them.

However, there are others of the brothers who are not so identified.

Why then use so unappealing a meta­ phor for Joseph, the most beloved of Jacob’s sons?

munity appear to be justified. The new translation has not treated the Bible with the requisite veneration.

Despite the fact that the new trans­ lation makes no pretense to be a Targum in the Talmudic sense, does not purport to be an “authorized” version, and makes no claim to sanctity, its uniqueness, it being the only Jewishsponsored rendition of the Bible in English, endows it with these prop­ erties. The average reader who does not know or cannot study the text in the original with the traditional com­ mentaries and Rabbinic interpretation, will in time come to consider the new translation as “authorized.”

Consequently, the new translation should be scrutinized carefully to see whether its formulation is contrary to Jewish tradition and whether it might not mislead the reader. Insofar as criticism is raised on this level, it is valuable and justified. But it should be done calmly and with the under­ standing that mildly expressed criti­ cism does not constitute greater ac­ ceptance than frenzied denunciation.

HE new translation of the Jewish Publication Society is an ambitious and creative undertaking and, by the terms of reference assigned to the translators, a work that needed to be done. It has been greeted with a great deal of favorable comment and warm welcome in the literary world and among students and lovers of the Bible in general. It has also generated HE editors of the New Revised a measure of criticism from orthodox Translation of the Torah are plan­ circles. Some of this criticism, ex­ ning to publish a companion volume pressed even before the new text had of notes to provide the sources and yet appeared, was based on the belief reasoning that determined their con­ that the religious commitments of the clusions. Final judgment on the present translators could conceivably affect work should not be entered until these their attitudes towards the sanctity notes have appeared and are carefully of the Holy Writ, the inviolability of studied. Many of the “offending” pas­ the Masorah, and the validity of the sages may not be renderings to which Oral Law as a Divinely revealed the translators are irrevocably com­ guide to the Torah. Although to char­ mitted. With patient dialogue we may acterize the translation as faulty bring about a further revision of the because its authors are not orthodox text that will be acceptable to Ortho­ is entirely too dogmatic, unfortunate­ doxy as well, thereby making the new ly, from the illustrations cited above, translation more truly representative the reservations of the orthodox com­ of all American Jewry.

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Cantorial Potpourri

By MAURICE KAPLAN

“Vos vainst du?”

HESE words I shall long remem­ ber. They started me off into an experience unique if not satisfying, and comic as well as semi-tragic.

When I was about eleven years old I first “volunteered” to “daven far’n Omud” only after being propelled by a not-too-gentle-gripping-of-my-rightear by our patriarchal Junior Congre­ gation leader. After that first ordeal I came to like it and led the davening pretty regularly thereafter. About seventeen years later, a veteran of World War II, I married and moved to a new neighborhood. The occasion of my first Sabbath visit to the syna­ gogue happened to be Shabboth Rosh Chodesh.

I naturally took a seat in the rear so as not to encroach on another’s seat. A man went up to the Omud for B’rochoth after getting the sign from the beautifully bearded gabbai. Then, just before Shochen Ad, I noticed that he went around the synagogue to various people and all shook their heads negatively. Finally he stretched to his full height and looked around the synagogue searchingly. His eyes dwelt on me. He unhesitatingly ap­

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proached and imperiously raised his finger, first pointing at me and then at the Omud. Since I had been “eartrained” and he really looked like my old mentor, I nervously arose, straight­ ened out my talith which really didn’t need straightening, and went to the Omud.

Ahead I went, and after much clearing of the throat and a wavery start, I settled down and went all the way through to Kel Odon before I messed up their rendition of it. I sang it one way and they responded an­ other way and after the first para­ graph I was lost. Following this, noth­ ing untoward happened until the Kedushah, when I attempted a chazonish Mim-komcha, cracked in the middle of it and floundered to the end. All the way through the davening, the president kept signalling to me to daven louder as those in the back were motioning to him that they couldn’t hear me. As a result, this made me strain and by the time I had finished the Chazorath Hashatz, I was ready to run. But just as I was finishing up Sim Sholom, the congregation auto­ matically took up the nusach and practically forced me to end up on JEWISH LIFE

the traditonal ending before Hallel.

Oy vey! I had forgotten it was Shabboth Rosh Chodesh.

I plunged into my Junior Congrega­ tion-type Hallel, going automatically into the minor key for M’kimi. This is always rendered traditionally in the Freigish and since I wasn’t exactly feeling too good, I guess I overdid it because as I was chanting the second psalm with the congregation, I heard the startling words with which I opened my story: “Vos veinst du?”

I turned and saw the gabbai behind me. I stood there dumbly, not wanting to be mafsik and not knowing what to answer anyway. I shrugged my shoulders in that upward “I don’t know” motion. He then stage-whis­ pered: “You’re saying Hallel, not Un’sane Tokef. Make it a little freilich.”

Herst a ma’aseh? Here I had been “crying” Hallel all my life in the minor key and al regel achas, he wanted me to change, to make an about face. However, I did it! It wasn’t the slight but noticeable note of contempt in his tone which con­ vinced me but the fact that it made sense! I had always had misgivings about the way Hallel was geveint, not sung, as hymns of praise and thanks should be.

Well, the fact that the next psalm ended like the Anniversary Song, that Hashomayim Shomayim sounded like the Pearl Fishers and the Hodus sounded like Afn Pripitchik, was necessity, not invention. At the taking out of the Torah, I was afraid to turn around and face the congregation for the Sh’ma. Much to my very pleasant surprise I received more heartier “Yoshor Koachs” than I had ever received in my life. They came from the other aisles to shake my hand!

May-June, 1963

HIS event (plus a coincidental singing of the Pearl Fishers mel­ ody at a place where I was heard by a budding concert singer who had won the Marian Anderson Scholar­ ship and who took care of all the de­ tails of singing up at the Music School under the G.I. Bill) convinced me that I was going to be a professional Chazon.

After going through the New York College of Music (for only one year, since they couldn’t get me an Instruc­ tor of Chazanuth) I attended the Cantorial Conservatory and finally the Yeshiva University Cantorial Train­ ing Institute. In between time my father played every record he had to give me the feeling of all the old-time Greats in our cantorial field.

This was a lot of instruction, the best instruction, but there was one trouble; a cantor is not made in the studio, or in the living room, or in the schoolroom. He is made on the Omud.

Therefore my father decided that I was to prepare to make my debut in his synagogue, during Pesach.

I davened the first day and the re­ sults were anything but sensational.

I started with the right Shalosh Regolim nusach but a part of the High Holy Days and Shabboth nusachim and a mixture of all three crept in; I lost vocal control occasionally, went hoarse twice, with fuzz that is, and otherwise agonized my father by los­ ing the place twice in switching from my music to the Siddur, at taking out the Torah and Duchaning.

Nobody gave me a “Yoshor Koach” but as I was going outside, one of the women told me it was the most beau­ tiful Hallel she had ever heard.

My father said it sounded like a concert hall, not a shool.

The next day was a little better but

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not much. Between concentrating on the Pesach nusach and proper vocal control and keeping enough breath support on the coloratura, I had to pay special attention to not losing the place again or getting hoarse spots.

I again did a mediocre job. At any rate, this had to do with Shacharith.

The worst was to come.

I had just finished the B’rochah ending Sim Sholom on the traditional Sholosh Regolim note when a man came over to me, told me to wait a minute and went over to the Rabbi.

They exchanged a few words, the Rabbi remonstrated weakly, then they came over to me.

“Anshuldigt,” the Rabbi said apolo­ getically, “the congregation wants me to daven Hallel.”

“Far vos nit?” I said with what must have been a frozen smile because my lips felt stiff, “Siz gringer far mir!” and I stalked to my seat.

Well, don’t you think the Rabbi “cried” the Hallel! Just like Un’sane Tokef. Everybody cried it with him and they were as happy as could be.

“Ahzoy! Dos heist gedavent!” was the consensus of opinion. Do you know that I will regret it as long as I can remember it—why I didn’t have the nerve to walk over behind him and very politely ask: “Far vos veint ir?”

HEN I attended Yeshiva Uni­ versity, they made us miserable by insisting that we, as potential can­ tors, should know the translation of the prayers! “Herst ah niess?” Trans­ lating was the most difficult chore, whether in class, for homework, or on tests, but what revelations!!

For the first time we really knew specifically and in what context we were davening. The workshop courses and lectures on Dinim filled in the

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sources and explained the order of the prayers, how masterfully they were arranged, the bases for each, and each set of prayers, etc. When I think back to the errors in phrasing alone that we used to make—errors that are still being made today—let alone the lack of knowledge of the meanings of the prayer, I believe it is only because of the Chesed of the Almighty that any of our prayers take effect. Incidentally, since the Canto­ rial course in which the special laws of Chazanuth are gone into in detail and the pirush hamilath is stressed is not a required subject for those studying for the Rabbinate, it is not surprising that some rabbis are not overly famil­ iar with them.

To return, it doesn’t excuse me or anyone that we did not “know what we were davening about” when we were laymen but what can you say about the chazonim, let alone the baalebatim who go to the Omud, who cry when they should rejoice, cry when they are quoting prayers from the Torah or Gemorah, cry when they should merely declaim or narrate, cry when in truth they should be actually interpreting the prayers for the Tzibur. To them every prayer, every capital, every shtikel piut is to be rendered as heartbroken pleading whether it be Shevach, Hodoah, or Hallel, let alone the actual joyous songs that make up large parts of our prayers. the tachlis. Have you heard, a “Vechulom Mekablim” lately?

NOfOW, course you have, but the chances are that you have never heard it on a Shabboth as it should be done, pirush hamilath-wise, I mean. By Pirush Hamilath, incidentally, I mean interpreting in music the true mean­ ing and tenor of the prayer. As far JEWISH LIFE

back as I can remember, just as we musical T. When I finished, he waved left Borchu and finished Kel Odon, his hand deprecatorily, and stated al­ the chazon would start to cry. The most contemptuously: prayers began to resemble everything “A ten-year-old in a choir could do from Keli, Keli to Odom Yesode the same. Let me hear something M’ofor. The freigish made its appear­ Chazonish! Do for me a V’Chulom ance and reached the height of im­ M’kablim.” portunity in the V’ofanim. Is this still I did a V’Chulom M’kablim but I true in your shool today? patterned it after a recording of a Yet start with Kulom Ahuvim and really good old-time-great-chazon’s I dare you to find one word that even rendering of Hamaavir Bonov which hints that we are praying for our lives. musically suggested fantasy. The mel­ If you didn’t know the translation you ody had an ethereal quality if you would certainly think so from the will and with the use of the “piano” sound: mournful, pleading with it made it light, high, and gave it a krechtz and tears almost, in the voice heavenly quality which would fit into of the cantor. a scene about angels. I had adapted What leads up to the Kulom Ahu­ it to the V’Chulom M’kablim, phrase­ vim speaks about Ministering Angels, ology and all. all of whom stand in the heights of the “That’s no good, er, er, I mean universe and reverently proclaim in that’s no good for me. I don’t handle unison, aloud, the words of our Living Conservative or Reform. I only handle G-d and Eternal King. Now, follow orthodox chazonim. Look, I’ve wasted along with me: too much time all ready. Goodby, I “All of them (the Angels) are be­ have an appointment with a real loved, all of them pure, all of them chazon.” powerful, all of them perform the will And to think of the jobs I turned of their Creator with awe and trembl­ down because of improper Mechiting; they open their mouths with holi­ zahs. ness and purity, with song and psalm” . . . and so on and so on in a beau­ T’S a dilemma, believe me. On the tiful spiritual picture of heavenly one hand you have the chazonim beauty. It’s unbelievable but true. who don’t know any better and those ’LL never forget the time I was who do but are giving the “public” persuaded by my father to go see what they want; and on the other hand an agent, Hoo, Hah! Well, I appeared you have the congregations who have before this Meyvin-Extraordinaire been conditioned all their lives by the (hereinafter to be referred to as great Chazzonish records and actual M.E.) and rendered a beautiful ex­ renditions of the prayers in this “uncerpt from S’lichoth, the Lishmoah, pirush-hamilath” fashion. Add to this written by a master. I had learned the accent on the voice-less chazonim this in school and I had rehearsed it (musicianship-wise, that is) who ac­ for months for audition purposes. If centuate the improvisation, the col­ I say so myself, it was beautifully oratura tricks, the kvetch, the schmaltz done, perfectly done with pirush to the detriment of the proper inter­ hamilath, breath control, projection, pretation of the real Sh’liach Tzibur production, etc., all coordinated to a and the result is a vicious or well,

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May-June, 1963

45

maybe not a vicious but at least a “tzemishta” cycle.

The word Chazon in Hebrew has three letters: Cheth, Zoyin, Nun, which, according to the congregation and I remember when I was a con­ gregant, stands for C/zazonim Zeinen iVaronim, meaning “Cantors are Fools” (nearest equivalent). Now, of course, being on the other side of the fence, I don’t agree with them. How­ ever, I can see that there is a basis for the statement, because there is a little bit—sometimes a lot—of the exhibi­ tionist in every cantor. In addition, a cantor is in a sense a public per­ former with this further hazard: namely, he must stay “on stage” from beginning to end. No exits or asides for him. Therefore he must think on his feet. What exactly do I mean?

T is peculiar to our profession Icracks, that any mistakes, miscues, tone etc., are held against us. Wellmeaning congregants develop some kind of a wall between us when one of these unfortunate mishaps occur.

Such is the situation that is created that from then on, the congregation is on edge, not knowing when it might occur again and therefore they resent it. It definitely detracts from their en­ joyment of the service, not to mention the more important part of distracting them from the emunah necessary in the prayers, so we can’t blame them.

Then again it all depends when it occurs. If it occurs at the beginning, well, you’re finished. The cantor has not had enough time to build up a sense of confidence in the congre­ gation to allow for this. If it occurs at the high ending of a Chazonish piece, any time, he is also through.

Sometimes the feeling of reliance is never regained from then on. The idea is that a “bad shtikel” (near­ 46

est equivalent) cannot be left in the mind of the congregation. It must be immediately redeemed.

O, here, because of the “bad shtikel,” the cantor must do an unscheduled selection, which, it stands to reason, has not been fully prepared.

The fact that certain commonly ac­ cepted chazonish selections are sung when the congregation is in a standing position doesn’t endear the chazon to the congregation when he is thus try­ ing to redeem himself, especially if the redeeming piece doesn’t redeem if you know what I mean. This poses a problem for the professional cantor.

On the one hand there is the ac­ cepted principle of Lo Tircha Hatzibur, (do not tire the congregation, cause them discomfort), which can­ tors must not violate and on the other hand, he cannot leave the bad im­ pression.

Of course there are solutions, such as to recite a selection for which the congregation is seated and to select a short one, a R’tzey, for instance or the small Av Horachamim. But some­ times—and here is where the think­ ing on his feet comes in—the cantor makes a bad judgment. But once started, he can’t recall it. He can abandon it but that would be worse, so that sometimes a a situation can be compounded and made worse all because he is in a spot. This explana­ tion may not sit well but at least you can, from now on, have a better understanding of our troubles.

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ET’S go one step further into this Cantorial Potpourri and we have the bane of the existence of the truly orthodox chazon.

It starts with a nice Yiddish word: Kamertone. In Hebrew, take your choice: M’kolel, K’ley Shir, K’ley

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JEWISH LIFE

Neginah, M’tzallel, Kohlan, all mean the poor tuning fork in English. This Kamartone when vibrated produces a musical sound, usually A (but can be another), or 440 vibrations per second, to be technical. This sound cannot be heard by anyone but the vibrator and only when the prong end is immediately put to the ear or the butt end applied to the teeth. Even a person standing right next to you cannot hear it. Yet, al pi din one is forbidden to use it on Shabboth.

Specifically, the Shulchon Oruch and the Mishnah B’rurah prohibit the Kamartone unequivocally because they designate it as ‘‘K’ley Shir,” i.e., a musical instrument. On the one hand, though the Shulchon Oruch asks that the cantor have a pleasant, perhaps melodious voice to render the prayers in a proper (musical, I interpret) manner or at least in the proper nusach and or nigun; on the other hand, a musically trained cantor who does not have perfect pitch (and you can count on your fingers the amount of people G-d has blessed with perfect pitch) cannot render any musically written selection with any degree of professional excellence un­ less he has the correct starting tone in the key it was written. An incorrect starting tone in a case like this and the selection can turn into a shambles.

This prohibition of the Kamartone also wreaks havoc with responsive singing at occasions such as the tak­ ing out of the Torah, because some of the results are ludicrous, a caco­ phony of unmusical, off-key sounds of several groups of congregants try­ ing to sing in their own comfortable key but left in a too high or too low one by the cantor, not to mention what happens when led by one of the baalebatim where they do not have a cantor. Ki Mitzion, Av HorachMay-June, 1963

amin, and Hashivenu are all beautiful melodies as we sing them but they are all too often wrecked because of the lack of the proper starting tone.

Where they do sound well, it it because some old-timer has so fixed it in his voice range as to be able to approxi­ mate the normal tone of the majority of the congregation.

NE of the times I became in­ O volved in a Kamartone incident was at a big shool in Boro Park. I arrived for the audition late because of wrong train directions and the Cantorial committee had had a rough evening. It was a hot and humid night in August and they were soaked with perspiration and limp. When the chairman saw me, he stated “no more tonight” and they all proceeded down­ stairs to the hall where cold soda was awaiting them. I pursued and after a heated discussion and under protest they agreed to listen to me right there while they had their soda. I took out my Kamartone and proceeded to de­ liver a Hineni that had each one shushing the other. The smiles on the faces of the committee practically guaranteed me the position. But the Rabbi leaned over and whispered something, gesturing towards the lecturn on which I had put down my Kamartone. Their faces dropped.

“Please leave your card and we’ll call you,” the chairman said with an apologetic look. They all gave me a hearty “Yoshor Koach.” P.S., I didn’t get the job.

I decided to go to the next proba without my Kamartone and without the music. I davened like I used to in my Junior Congregation days and concentrated on vocal perfection only.

I was congratulated on a beautiful davening but “This was chazonus??” they asked.

47

And then I decided to argue the point halachically with the heter of the Oruch Hashulchon as my back­ ground but every rabbi stated the Shulchon Oruch and Mishnah B’rurah were good enough for them.

HOPE that the time will soon come when the exhibitionism will be re­

1

moved from our Chazonim; when well be davening Pirush Hamilathwise first and kinstler-wise second; when the baalebatim will all be real mevinim both as to voice and proper interpretation of prayers; when the problem of the Kamartone will have been resolved to everyone’s satisfac­ tion, Im Yirtzeh Hashem, before Elijah’s return.

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JEWISH LIFE

A Visit to Curacao

By JACOB BELLER

NE hour’s flight from Baran- They bring their produce into the city O quilla, the Flying Dutchman of and take goods back with them. the Royal Dutch Airlines drops down at the Curasao airport. The traveller’s first impression after traveling through one Latin American country after an­ other, all as similar as peas in a pod, is that he is in quite another world.

After immigration and customs for­ malities are over with, all carried on very amiably in the Dutch style, you suddenly see a slice of Holland before your eyes. The pontoon bridge in the very center of town which links the two parts of the city, itself resembles a huge boat. Whenever a large ship passes through, the bridge parts in two and road traffic across it is halted.

Little ferries transport the traveller over to the other part of the city. The architecture for the most part repre­ sents seventeenth century Dutch style: the walls painted with bright colors, the roof covered with red tile; only the windmills are missing. Sometimes in Curasao you have the feeling you are somewhere in a Dutch fishing village, in Vlissingen, Leeuwarden, or Winschoten. Crafts of all kinds abound on every side and in each boat are the owner, his family, and all his worldly goods. These boats are their homes.

May-June, 1963

The two main streets of Curasao, the Heerenstraat and the Breedestraat, give the island the look of a big city.

Here are shops with first-class goods cheaper than anywhere else. Curasao is a free port. With the exception of tobacco and alcohol everything is ad­ mitted at only a small payment of im­ port duties no matter where it comes from: French perfume, Swiss watches, silk and carpets from the Eastern countries, embroidery from Portugal, artistic shawls from Spain, Irish linen, American automobiles and washing machines, Argentine and Brazilian leather, silverware and objets d’art from Peru—all is available in the wellstocked shop windows of both sides of town, Otrabanda and Funda. The official language is Dutch but on every side is heard Papiamento, the local vernacular, a mixture of Spanish, English, Dutch, and Portuguese.

URACAO is 370 square miles in C area and is the largest island of the Dutch Caribbean. Together with the nearby-islands, Aruba and Bon­ aire, it forms the so-called Leeward Islands. It is in the path of the north49

westerlies which come from the edge of the sea and alleviate her sub-tropi­ cal climate. The other half of the island lies facing the Venezuelan coast.

In 1915, when oil was discovered in Venezuela near Lake Maracaibo, only thirty-eight miles from Curasao, a broad and deep waterfront became necessary for the refining and trans­ port of the oil. The Royal Dutch Company, in partnership with several American firms, built up the largest refineries in the world. Every day tankers transport oil to this port where it is processed, refined, and re­ shipped to all parts of the globe. Here and in nearby Aruba the refineries work on a twenty-four hour schedule.

At night the skies are lit up by smoke clouds which in the darkness look like tongues of fire. During World War II these two islands played a vital role in the Allied victory: they were the life nerve of the war and the trade fleets for the armies. The Nazis wanted desperately to cut off the stream of oil which flowed for the war machine from this point.

This remote island today still con­ tains Jewish communities whose his­ tory goes back to the year 1634 when the first Jews came from Spain, flee­ ing from the persecution of the Inquisition. The government of the island welcomed these refugees, giving them full freedom and civil status.

The Dutch governor issued a decree exempting the Jews of Curasao from tax payment for a period of ten years and giving them their own Jewish quarter known as “Joodenwyk.”

HE news that Curasao gave full freedom to Jews soon spread to the various settlements of Marranos scattered in the New World and liv­ ing in constant dread of discovery by

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the ever-present Inquisition. They poured into Curasao, where a large Jewish community soon arose. When the Netherlands lost its war with Portugal and Portugal regained Brazil from the Dutch, many Jews fled Brazil for Curasao. The agents of the Spanish crown, whose mission was to extract as much gold as possible from the colonies, to spread Catholicism, and to pursue those who were practis­ ing Judaism in secret, began to send alarming reports to the head of the Inquisition tribunal. A letter written in 1672 by the archbishop of Car­ tagena (which was the seat of the Inquisition for many of the South American colonies) complains that the detention of Jews and enforce­ ment of laws against them is rendered quite difficult by the existence of the island of Curasao which has become a center for the “accursed infidels” and a source of contamination and heresy to the Catholic faith.

In a second report written a year later, the same archbishop complains that the governor of Curasao has re­ fused to extradite the infidel Luiz Castro who escaped while he was be­ ing taken from Caracas in Venezuela to Cartagena, The boat in which he was being transported had suffered a wreck and had sunk. The guard and the prisoner managed to reach the coast of Curasao. When they wanted to resume their trip the governor re­ fused to give up the prisoner who found himself on Dutch free soil where Jews had full religious freedom.

There was another case of con­ demned Marranos who were making the same prison voyage to Cartagena.

En route they were captured by an armed, unidentified ship, taken to the shores of Curasao and there set free.

An added irritant—so went the comJEWISH LIFE

plaint of the Inquisitorial agents— was that many Negro slaves were brought from Africa on ships of the Jewish infidels and this had an evil effect on them: they became infected with the views of the ship-owners and later when purchased by the Spaniards it was difficult to convert them to Catholicism.

The Jews of Curasao were under­ standably anxious to repay the Span­ iards for the many who died in the autos-da-fé, and in Curasao they had the opportunity to do so. It is likely that they had a part, indirectly, in the liberation of the colonies from the yoke of Spain. Though there is no clear data it is certain that they pro­ vided money for the rebel armies and took part in the action themselves.

S early as 1586 Jews from Hol­ land had crossed the Caribbean Sea, bringing with them various Euro­ pean products in exchange for certain articles which were novel to Europe.

In 1621 the competition among the Dutch merchants was done away with by the formation of the Dutch West India Company, which undertook large scale colonization in the Western Hemisphere. In 1629 the company acquired a section of Brazil. Five years later, under the command of Johannes Van Walbeck and Pierre La Grande—officers of the Netherlands Navy which commanded the seas— the company captured the islands of Curasao, Aruba, and Bonaire and ex­ pelled the Spaniards and their gov­ ernor to Venezuela. It is certain that there were Jews who had fled Spain among those who took part in the action; some were shareholders in the Dutch West India Company. In the officiai bulletin of the Dutch govern­ ment, mention is made of the active and meritorious participation of the

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May-June, 1963

Jews in Curasao. The royal report also refers to the Jewish burial grounds there, stating that many of those buried there were captains of the Dutch fighting and merchant marine. In 1643 Peter Stuyvesant was named governor of Curasao. A year later he lost a leg in an attack on the island of San Martin. Two years later he became governor of New Nether­ lands including the city of New Am­ sterdam—the New York of today.

In 1791 the Dutch West India Com­ pany was dissolved and Curasao came under the rule and possession of the Dutch government.

Among the early Jewish settlers of Curasao were members of such promi­ nent Sephardic families as Aboab, De Mesa, Pereira, Cardozo, Panesca, Fernandez, Messias, Casta Di Nahar.

These are names that one still meets quite commonly in the various lands of Latin America but their presentday bearers are usually devout Catholics.

N old legend still current in Cura­ sao today tells that among the first Jews who came to the island was Rebecca de Castro, who brought with her the remains of an old half-burnt and desecrated Sefer Torah. Upon her death the scroll, in accordance with her will, was buried with her in Cura­ sao’s historic old Jewish cemetery, which is still in use.

There are many interesting tomb­ stones in this 300-year-old burial ground. Many of the stones are broken, others lie flat on the graves instead of being upright—this because of the strong winds on the island. On both my visits to Curasao I went to the cemetery and searched among the stones to seek out the rich Jewish past of this island. Very few stones have remained intact with fully legible in-

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scriptions from which one might learn the names of the dead and their way of life. Some stones, massive and solid, have withstood the onslaught of the Caribbean hurricanes and have fairly clear messages. At the very front is the tombstone of a chazon of the community, who died in 1791.

The inscription starts with the words cut in bold Hebrew type: “We shall sing to the Lord and make music to Him” and underneath is a carving of a harp and another musical instru­ ment. On a second stone, whose date cannot be deciphered, there is a line “And Moses ascended” followed by two hands with fingers bent in the priestly benediction. Here is a tomb­ stone from 1768 which reads in Hebrew: “Beneath this stone lies the body of a truthful and G-d-fearing man, Joshua De Nahar.” Above the inscription in larger letters it reads: “And G-d spoke to Joshua saying T ear not.’ ” And here on the stone of a woman named Esther is a passage from the Book of Esther and scenes from the story so skilfully carved that they are still quite clear and visible.

Here is a tombstone dated 1700 with the quotation: “And G-d remembered Sarah as He had said . . .” The in­ scription goes on to mention that mother and child had died together in childbirth. One scene is carved por­ traying domestic happiness and over this idyllic image is depicted a tree cut in two by an axe—all very clearly carved and visible.

Most of the stones have writing in Ladino, Dutch, and Hebrew, some in English. Only a small percentage have a Hebrew inscription. I saw the stone of a rabbi of the community but it was so eroded that nothing could be deciphered after the introductory phrase “Morenu V’rabbenu . . .”

There are also family vaults of granite 52

with engraven likenesses of the dead.

Baron Abraham De Lopez, who died in 1721, has such a portrait.

Until recently, I was told, right by the graveyard there still stood the walls that encircled the Jewish section where the Jews were required to re­ port after four in the afternoon at one point in the island’s history. There were still signs of old mikvaoth and other community institutions. The local congregation sold the property to the Shell Oil Company, which cleared the ground. Very little now remains; fragments of the wall, bits and pieces of the ferry boats the Jews used to transport themselves to the center of town.

HE Mikveh Israel Synagogue— the oldest in the Western Hemis­ phere—is the congregation of the orthodox Sephardic community of Curasao. It is more than two hundred years old and from the beginning was closely affiliated to the community of Amsterdam. It is built on the model of Solomon’s Temple and resembles in its architecture the Portuguese EtzHayim synagogue in Amsterdam.

When I visited it there was sand strewn on the floor—a symbol of the destruction of the Temple. I had seen sand on the floor in the Amster­ dam Etz-Hayim when I visited there and had the distinct sensation of being in the Spanish-Portuguese Shearith Israel alongside New York’s Central Park—there was the same style of prayers, the same text and melodies —even the worshippers looked alike.

The Amsterdam congregation was the sponsor of both the other two—New York’s and Curasao’s. The Mikveh Israel synagogue contains many re­ markable sacred objects: Torah scrolls, crowns, plates, artistically in-

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JEWISH LIFE

scribed and wrought articles handed down from one generation to the next.

This synagogue, the first in the island, was constructed in 1647. The first rabbi of Curasao, Josiao Pardo, whose tombstone can still be seen in this cemetery, was brought from Hol­ land to lead the congregation. The small Jewish community developed quickly and was even in a position to extend financial assistance to the Jewish congregation in New York, Shearith Jaacob, subsequently called Shearith Israel, to build its first syna­ gogue. In 1765 Jacob Lopez de Fon­ seca became spiritual leader of Cura­ sao, the only rabbi to have been bom in the island. The synagogue is of rare splendor. The entrance doors, the Ark, the furniture of this historic building are all of mahogany. Four large twenty-four candle chandeliers, made of brass and similar to those in the Portuguese synagogue in Amster­ dam, are suspended from the white ceiling.

gations is a relic of the sharp con­ flict that raged there for two centuries between the “Kohanim” and the “Leviim.” It started because a group of Jews in one part of the city— Otrabanda—had formed their own synagogue. This deeply offended the members of the original congregation and a dispute started. Since the cemetery was located in the Otra­ banda section, the Jews of Funda, where the original synagogue was located, were forced to bury their dead in a special spot which had been set aside for paupers. In 1746 a fist fight took place among the Jews, and the governor, representing the Prince of Orange, had to use his authority to settle the squabble. Traces of the debate are still visible, though not a single Kohen or Levi remains today.

What does remain, however, are the two congregations, of which one has remained orthodox while the other has turned to Reform.

NOTHER house of worship in Curasao is the Temple Emanuel, one of the finest structures in the town, located next to the government buildings on Queen Wilhelmina Street in the center of the city. From any point in the city the temple dome is visible, with its Star of David rising majestically over the charming little Dutch-style cottages. The services there, recited mainly in Dutch, are reminiscent in cold formality, accom­ panying organ and choir, and even the tenor of the sermons, of the typi­ cal American Reform temple. Inci­ dentally, the spiritual leaders of both Mikveh Israel and Temple Emanuel are paid by the Dutch government as are all clergymen.

The fact that there are two congre-

URACAO’S Jews today occupy a prominent place in the island’s industry, finance, and transport. Some years ago when the well-known Maduro firm marked its centennial the island’s press featured a number of articles on the important contribu­ tion the Jews have made to Curasao.

This firm was founded in 1837 by Salomon Halevi Maduro. Today it is Curasao’s largest concern, controlling banking houses, shipping companies, transport firms, and import and ex­ port trade. The Maduros can properly be called the Rothschilds of Curasao and the centennial celebration was observed like a national holiday. The newspapers published a portrait of the founder on their front pages. The bank, second in importance, that of Eduardo Henriquez and Co. is also

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May-June, 1963

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Jewish-owned. Other well-known Jew­ ish firms are: De Sola, Curioz, Henriquez, Penha, Delvalle, and others.

In the town’s main street you can read familiar Jewish names from Poland and Roumania: Schneiderman, Ackerman, Grossman, Silberman, Gandelman, and other such “men.” Arriving as impoverished im­ migrants a generation ago, they started as peddlers and then worked their way up to their own stores in the better part of town. From the narrow rooms they occupied when they first came they moved to villas in the fashionable avenues. Curasao’s larg­ est gold business is run by two Jewish immigrants from Galicia, “Spritaer and Fuhrman.” They started a small business selling and repairing watches.

The name of this firm became synony­ mous with both fair dealing and suc­ cessful business, and for their part in making the island known in the far corners of the world, the proprietors were decorated not long ago by the Queen of the Netherlands.

HE 120,000 inhabitants of Curagao, made up of over three dozen nationalities, colored people predomi­ nating, speak four languages: Spanish, Dutch, English, and Papiamento, the native dialect. The economy of the territory is mainly based on its oil refineries and highly developed trade relations. The liberal spirit of the Netherlands, which makes no dis­ crimination in race or in religion, pre­ vails in these islands.

Almost three hundred Jewish fa­ milies now live in Curagao in these different communities: the Sephardi congregation Mikveh Israel, the Ash­ kenazi community Shaarei Tsedek, which also conducts a social club, and the Reform congregation Emanuel, Mikveh Israel has as its spiritual

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leader Rabbi Moshe Ben Ami Amainu, whosucceeded Rabbi Izak Jessuron Cardozo when the latter settled in Israel. The Ashkenazi con­ gregation of eastern European Jews have as their teacher, chazon, and shochet, Rev. ChaimAbramowitz, whom they brought from Israel.

Twenty-five years after they organized their first1 club they celebrated the Chanukath Habayith of their new congregation, Shaarei Tsedek. On that occasion the Governor of the island, the Prime Minister, members of the Curagao Parliament, and representa­ tives of all religious faiths, and politi­ cal and business organizations took part and paid tribute to the contribu­ tion of these immigrants to the island.

This congregation also has a Hebrew school where some fifty children receive teaching in Hebrew and Jew­ ish history. All three congregations are represented on the Central Com­ mittee, formed of two representatives of each.

ALF an hour’s flight away from Curagao is the serene and peace­ ful island of Aruba. It has a popula­ tion of 50,000 living in an area of twenty square miles. The island is the locale of very large U.S.-owned oil refineries. The black gold flows in from the pipelines of Venezuela and is processed here.

Aruba makes an extraordinary im­ pact on the traveller with its pervasive atmosphere of repose and tranquility, a quality strengthened by the essential friendliness of the islanders. Its beauty is particularly impressive in the very early morning when the first streaks of daylight break through the dark­ ness. In these moments before the dawn the tongues of fire flashing from the refineries light up the darkness all around.

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JEWISH LIFE

Thirty-odd years ago a group of Jewish wanderers looking for a home stumbled across this island. First they came to Curasao and then they went on to Aruba where they planned to stay overnight. After a few days the idyllic environment and the hospitality of the islanders won them over and they decided to make their homes there. They started with the classical Jewish livelihood of Latin America— peddling with a pack and selling to the islanders on credit. Their trade prospered. The former peddlers were transformed into small and large busi­ nessmen. What Jews do not have rela­ tives in the U.S.A.? This enabled them in time to have the necessary

May-June, 1963

connections and some became im­ porters of various commodities.

As soon as they felt secure in their new home they rented a house to act as a center for worship and social assembly. They then gave thought to the need for a properly built syna­ gogue of their own. Accordingly two years ago the small community of thirty families carried on a campaign for their own synagogue in addition to the regular fund-raising drives they conduct for central Jewish organiza­ tions abroad and other Jewish needs.

As a result they now have their own traditional synagogue—a handsome modern structure—and they are now planning to bring over a Hebrew teacher for their children.

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The Shemoneh Esrey—An Analysis

By HERSH M. GALINSKY HERE are as many facets to the Shemoneh Esrey as there are B’rochoth— perhaps more. One might dwell at great length upon the inner construction of the Amidah, the reflection of Israel’s experimental and historic ascent from the avduth of yesterday to the sholom of messianic fulfillment. There is, too, the sequential nature of the B’rochoth: introductory shevach (praise), the manifold bakoshoth (pleas), and finally, hodoah (thanksgiving). Indeed, it is impossible to exhaust a depth analysis of that prayer which is in the Talmudic lexicon, the very paragon of all prayer—the T ’filah.

Rather, I think, it would be wiser to seek the motive force of its enduring importance, the secret of its undying relevance to our lives. We shall find this not in an analysis of the entire Shemoneh Esrey, but in a Talmudic reference relating to the opening phrases of the T ’filah. As is so true, so often, in Judaism, from the particular one may proceed to the whole, from the one imperative one may grow to the totality of faith.

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Yoma 69b—“Why were [the authors of our T’filah] called ‘Men of the Great Assembly?’ Because they restored the crown of the Divine attributes to its ancient completeness. For Moses had come and said ‘the great G-d’ the mighty and awe­ some.’ Then came Jeremiah and said, ‘Aliens are destroying the Temple. Where are, then, his a w e s o m e deeds?’ Hence he omitted [the attribute] the ‘awesome.’

Daniel came and said, ‘Aliens are enslaving his sons. Where are his m ig h ty deeds?’ Hence he omitted the word ‘mighty.’ But they [the men of the Great Assembly] came and said, ‘On the contrary! Therein lie His mighty deeds; that he suppresses His wrath, that He extends long-suffering to the wicked. Therein lie his awesome powers; for but for the fear of Him, how could one nation [Israel] endure amongst [all of] the nations?”

NDEED, the Talmud text is staggering in its implication. In T’filah man reaches out unto G-d across the timeless expanse, seeks to scale the infinite Iheights and unilaterally enter into a dialogue with Him. He does so in extra­ ordinary confidence, a confidence born of humility and faith. He knows there is a listening ear, an ozen shoma’ath, on high; he knows that his plaint will pierce the heavenly veil. But, in truth, as a pleader, his expectations have seemingly varied with the generations.

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JEWISH LIFE

On the shove of the sect did Israel cvy out unto G-d. Again in the wilderness and many times more. And the Lord answered, instantaneously, even miracu­ lously (Sh’moth, 14). But, it has not always been so. Jeremiah and Daniel lived in generations of hasether ponim, generations exposed to the darkened visage of G-d. Jeremiah saw the agony of his people, the churbon habayith, the Temple aflame before their eyes. Not out of a lack of faith did he omit “Hanora”—the Awesome—but he felt for his people, who would seemingly be attributing a false aspect unto G-d. How easily one can fall into despair__ with fragile hopes consumed in raging flames!

Similarly, Daniel endured the Babylonian exile, the bondage of his people.

“Hagibor”—the Mighty—was out of place. A faith could not endure “by the waters of Babylon,’’ were it rooted in the mere reminiscence of a majestic grandeur, a g’vurah foreign to the sufferings of a people in Exile.

Indeed the plight of Israel then was not like our own. The churbon am— the Hitlerian holocaust, the pangs of exile everywhere to this day, even in the democracies of the world. The Men of the Great Assembly were perceptive in their wisdom. In prayer we must be taught that awe and might—g’vurah and mora— are not circumscribed by miracles of heroic proportions. The awe of G-d is evidenced rather, by the conquest of His wrath, by His infinite patience,

by His faith in the essential goodness of man. His might is recognized in the perpetuation of His people as a unique entity amongst all the nations and pressures of the world. Despite everything, Israel remains, a testimony to Divine Providence and a people’s faith.

S has been pointed out by our learned teacher, Horav Soloveitchik, our emulation of these facts of Divine g’vurah and mora is manifest not in great victories, nor in sensational strides. As Jews, as orthodox Jews, our stance is a constant one: an awareness of the day to day struggle for Jewish per­ petuity, a war waged on as many fronts as there are moments in a man’s life.

We wage it not only against the would-be assassins, but against those who would demolish yahaduth through attrition and assimilation—be they in our midst or without. We wage it in areas of Shabboth and Kashruth, in Shechitah, in Chinuch—in Chinuch especially—pressing forward with the education of our young, so that they too will pronounce with confidence, “HaKel hagodol, hagibor, v’hanora.”

We wage this battle in our home communities, in our own lives. We wage it in the company of G-d, for the spirit of T’filah is the spirit of our life, the secret of T ’filah is the secret of our strength.

“May the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable unto thee O Lord, our Rock, our Creator, and our Redeemer

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May-June, 1963

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58

JEWISH LIFE

Book Bevietv From Frankfurt to Washington Heights

By JOSEPH GRUNBLATT

A T E R E T H T Z V I - R A B B I DR. JOSEPH BREUER JUBILEE VOL­ UME. Edited by Marc Brener and Jacob Breuer. Philipp Feldheim, Inc., New York, N. Y., 1963. xx + 320 pp. $7.50.

HE “Atereth Zvi” Jubilee Volume was published in honor of Rabbi Dr. Joseph Breuer. This distinctive tribute is more than justified. Rabbi Dr. Joseph Breuer through great erudition, courageous leadership, and personal dedication has made his name synonymous with the “Kahal Adath Yeshurun,” formerly of Frankfurt am Main and for the past two-and-ahalf decades in Washington Heights, New York. To many the name of this German Jewish kehilah is virtually unknown and one speaks of “Breuer’s

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R A BBI JO SE P H G R U N BL A T T, a musmach of Torah V odaath and Beth Medrash Elyon, is the Rabbi o f Congregation Shevet A chim in M ont­ real. H e is a graduate o f City College in N ew York and did post-graduate w ork a t McGill U niversity, Montreal. H e is th e V ice-President of the M ontreal u n it o f The Rabbinical Council of Canada.

May-June, 1963

Shul,” “Breuer’s School,” “Breuer’s Supervision,” etc.

Invariably everything published by the Hirsch Society becomes literary homage to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the great founding father of the “Torah Im Derech Eretz” move­ ment. The imposing figure of Hirsch overshadows everything that is writ­ ten, said, or done by his followers.

Yet at the same time this “Jubilee Volume” gives credit to his eminent grandson, Horav Breuer, who has dis­ tinguished himself in the history of the movement. He greatly strength­ ened the yeshivah founded by his late father, Rabbi Dr. Solomon Breuer, z.t.l., and thusly introduced a greater emphasis on traditional Torah study.

Probably his greatest achievement was the successful transplantation of a kehilah adventitious to American soil, and remote from American living patterns. These facets are brought out in the brief and modest introductions and in the article on the Frankfurt Yeshiva by Dayan Dr. Eliezer Posner.

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HE “Jubilee Volume” is divided into four parts. The first part comprises selections from the prolific pen of Rabbi Breuer himself. One can observe the profound influence of his grandfather in the method of inter­ pretation and in the style of writing.

“German Jewishness” has been ac­ cused of being stoic and frigid. This may stem from confusing disciplined restraint with dispassion. Rabbi Breuer, like his grandfather, writes with fervor and feeling. Their words are the words of valiant warriors, not of detached logicians. Like the Hirschian essay, the Breuer essay is a continuum of Torah text and Torah commentary organically interwoven.

The thoughts move like a stream of sparkling water over the bed-rock of the text, gathering its minerals and bouncing pebbles in its flow.

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The second p art of the book is a series of essays on the basic concepts of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and the practical achievements of the Torah Im Derech Eretz Movement in the field of education and communal organization.

P art three is a series of papers by prominent scholars of the Torah Im Derech Eretz School on a variety of subjects ranging from a schematic synopsis of the Kabolah by Rabbi Elie Munk to a scientific review of the problem of “Sunset, Twilight, and Dawn” according to1the Halochah, by physicist Leo Levi. German Jewish scholarship has prided itself on avoid­ ing casuistry and “pilpul.” Often, though, it lapses deeply into conjec­ ture and “stretching the point.” This occasional weakness is already evident in Hirsch in some of his etymological and symbolical “p’shetlech,” which are still imaginative and intellectually exciting. Conjecture is mixed with 60

fact, at times, in these articles but they are always thought-provoking.

We found Rabbi Simon Schwab’s article on “Comparative Jewish Chro­ nology” particularly daring and original.

An example of the mixture of good analysis and conjecture is an article

by Rabbi Ernest Ehrentreu on “Ash­ kenazi and Sephardi Pronunciation.”

It is a subject of wide interest, and puzzling to the layman and scholar alike. His thesis that the pronun­ ciation of the long “komatz” was originally somewhere between the Ashkenazi o and the Sephardi a is imposingly sound. Rabbi Ehrentreu attempts to trace the historical and geographical factors which engen­ dered the differences and their subse­ quent journeys to the various centers of the Diaspora.

While it is questionable whether the Sephardi “komatz” can be attributed to the Septuagint entirely, I heartily agree with the author that transla­ tions tend to1distort. This problem was brought into focus dramatically by the recent controversy over the new trans­ lation of the Bible.

The fourth section, or if you will the first (since Hebrew begins with the right cover), is a Hebrew section dedicated to commentary on the Tal­ mud and the discussion of modern Halachic problems. its totality the “Jubilee Volume” an underlying unity of pur­ IposeNreveals and method—“German Jewish­ ness” with all its strengths and weak­ nesses. In spite of Rabbi Breuer’s prot­ estations that ultimately there is no difference between “Torah Im Derech Eretz” and “Chassiduth,” the differ­ ences are real and profound and go fa r beyond side-curls and fur hats.

JEWISH LIFE

In Hirschian thinking, the acquisi­ tion of knowledge of the Arts and Sciences is not a concession to the necessity of “making a living” and not even a defensive move—“Da ma shetoshuv . . .” In order to know how to combat the modern assailants of tradition, knowledge of, and par­ ticipation in, all phases of life by the Jewish community is essentially neces­ sary for a Torah-true life. G-d reveals himself in the totality of existence, and Torah, in turn, must refer to every phase of existence. We need religious physicists, not because we need physicists who are religious but because G-d reveals himself in physics too, and Torah has a view in the field of physics.

It is undeniable that Eastern Euro­ pean religious thinking was opposed to this broad concept of Torah educa­ tion and life participation. The col­ laboration of the greats of Eastern Europe with German Jewry in the Agudas Yisroel movement (a fact emphatically underscored in this vol­ ume) was facilitated by the unim­ peachable piety of Torah-Im-DerechEretz Jewry, its uncompromising ad­ herence to the Shulchon Oruch and its adamant opposition to political Zion­ ism in any form. The “worldliness” of Hirsch and his disciples was ra ­ tionalized as a “Ho-roath Shoa,” a temporary measure, which in fact it was not intended to be.

Two seemingly paradoxical corroiaries emerge from this Torah-World View. On the one hand it assumes a more positive attitude to the non-Jew as the possessor of partial truth.

Greater emphasis is placed on the universalistic aspect of Judaism and the role of the Jewish people as the spiritual catalyst for all mankind. On the other hand we find a more paro­ chial approach within Jewish life.

May-June, 1963

Our “choseness” requires a rigorous discipline and total commitment to Torah life which cannot afford com­ promise or sympathetic tolerance of the deviationist. If Torah is all-com­ prehensive, Orthodoxy must encom­ pass the entire Kehilah. It cannot possibly countenance any phase of Jewish life controlled by “liberal” or “secular” Jews, and conducted in a manner incompatible with, or even indifferent to, traditional religious values.

T is regrettable that we do not find in this important manifesto of Torah Im Derech Eretz a confronta­ tion with the problem of the State of Israel in theological-historical terms.

Instead we have the usual noncommital references which resolve them­ selves into exhortations to establish life in Israel on the foundations of Torah. With the exception of Neturey Karta and its fellow travelers who militantly oppose the State, this re­ ticence is common to all orthodox camps. To the knowledge of the re­ viewer, the only bold attempts to tackle the problem intellectually were a brilliant essay by Rabbi Shubert Spero which first appeared in “Per­ spective” in 1959 under the title “Process and Activism” and a highly controversial article in the same issue

by Rabbi Samuel Turk entitled “Is Israel the Jewish State?”

In general the “Jubilee Volume” exudes the optimism and vitality of a creative community. It reveals the story of its achievements from the moment of creation through the trans­ fer of Frankfurt from “the Main” to “the Hudson.” It goes further—it heralds its own role as the prototype of Jewish life in America. “German Jewishness” will become “American Jewishness”—a prognosis we cannot

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JEWISH LIFE

fully agree with. One can hardly con­ tend with the proposition that the basic philosophy of Torah Im Derech Eretz, the organic integration and synthesis of traditional religion and modern thought and living, will form the basis of orthodox Judaism of the future—both here and in Israel. It is questionable though whether the Frankfurt type of kehilah and its brand of Orthodoxy will form the model of orthodox communal life.

There are a number of its characteris­ tics which militate against this pos­ sibility. It is difficult to imagine the well-disciplined “Breuer Gemeinde” outside of Washington Heights.

American life, particularly American Jewish life, is too individualistic and organizationally pluralistic to submit to this form of structural unity. Ger­ man Jewishness is too intellectualized to appeal to American society with its disdain of “eggheads” and intellec­ tuals. Today the masses will not be attracted by the intellectual grandeur of a Hirsch, as was German Jewry of the nineteenth century, and will not flock to the spiritual tower by follow­ ing the beacon of light which ema­ nates from it. What is required today is the ability to go forth into the back alleys of Jewish life, to cross the tracks so to speak, and woo the masses at their level, a task for which Ger­ man Jewishness is ill-equipped.

May-June, 1963

HERE exist some drawbacks at the intellectual level also. The rationalism of Hirsch was a reaction to early Reform which in itself was a creation of the “Age of Reason.”

Since then Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, and others have written. The modern intelligentsia is very much concerned with the irrational experience. There is great concern with Man the subject, and the world as his experience, rather than with Man and Universe as an external reality. This explains the great popularity of existentialist philosophies even in religious circles.

Orthodoxy has already gained new strength in American life and will continue to do so, b’ezer Hashem, but it is still in the state of self-clarifica­ tion. In order to reach wider and deeper into the Jewish community, American Orthodoxy will have to evolve a synthesis of the intellectual sweep of Torah Im Derech Eretz, the moral and psychological insight of Mussar, and the cosmic zeal of Chassiduth.

We wish to recommend “Atereth Zvi” very highly not only for its tribute to a distinguished scholar and leader in Israel, Rabbi Dr. Joseph Breuer, but also to every serious stu­ dent of Judaism who will find this “Jubilee Volume” an authentic docu­ ment of a creative, vital, and living movement of modern Jewish life.

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