Our Complete Torah vs. Their Idle Chatter – Influences Of Secular Law and Politics On the Halachah

I gave a lecture with this title earlier today; audio and source sheets, in various file formats, are available at the Internet Archive.

Many of the sources that I discuss have been previously discussed on the blog (here, here, here and here) but there is also novel material. Of particular interest are a couple of responsa on rent control that approach the question from very different perspectives: Rav Dovid Menahem Manis of Tarnipol’s skepticism is a model of economic conservatism / libertarianism, and he refers scathingly to the law in question as being the product of

איזו נבחרים חפשיים שיש בהם דיעות ושיטות הקאמוניסטען וסאציאליסטען. ללחוץ את העשירים ולקחת ממונם שכל אלו השיטות הם נגד דעת תורה.

while Rav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, on the other hand, is quite favorably disposed toward such legislation. His remarkable analysis of the specific question, as well as the broader issue of דינא דמלכותא דינא, has not received the attention that it deserves.

Art and Literature In the United Kindgom

I recently returned from a visit to the United Kingdom, where I saw a matinée performance of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 at the reconstructed Globe theater. In two key scenes, Falstaff eloquently declares his preference for life over honor. The first occurs on the eve of the climactic battle:

Honor prickes me on. But how if Honour pricke me off when I come on? How then? Can Honour set too a legge? No: or an arme? No: Or take away the greefe of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in Surgerie, then? No. What is Honour A word. What is that word Honour? Ayre: A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that dy’de a Wednesday. Doth he feele it? No. Doth hee heare it? No. Is it insensible then? yea, to the dead. But wil it not liue with the liuing? No. Why? Detraction wil not suffer it, therfore Ile none of it. Honour is a meere Scutcheon, and so ends my Catechisme.1

He reiterates this sentiment during the battle, upon encountering the corpse of his ally, the eminently honorable Sir Walter Blunt:

Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot heere: here’s no scoring, but vpon the pate. Soft who are you? Sir Walter Blunt, there’s Honour for you: here’s no vanity, I am as hot as molten Lead, and as heauy too; heauen keepe Lead out of mee, I neede no more weight then mine owne Bowelles. I haue led my rag of Muffins where they are pepper’d: there’s not three of my 150. left aliue, and they for the Townes end, to beg during life. …

If Percy be aliue, Ile pierce him: if he do come in my way, so: if he do not, if I come in his (willingly) let him make a Carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath: Giue mee life, which if I can saue, so: if not, honour comes vnlook’d for, and ther’s an end.2

Faithful readers of this blog will realize that Falstaff’s attitude is the exact antithesis of Abravanel’s (see here and here). Falstaff would no doubt argue that his view is explicitly endorsed by the wisest of all men:

כִּי-מִי אֲשֶׁר יבחר (יְחֻבַּר), אֶל כָּל-הַחַיִּים יֵשׁ בִּטָּחוֹן: כִּי-לְכֶלֶב חַי הוּא טוֹב, מִן-הָאַרְיֵה הַמֵּת.3

but on the other hand, many have maintained that some of the opinions mentioned in Ecclesiastes are not actually correct, but are citations of the views of the wrongheaded. Indeed, Rav Saadia Gaon says just this about our verse:

והפן השלישי מה שאמר הכתוב:

כי מי אשר יבחר אל כל החיים יש [רכו] בטחון, כי לכלב חי הוא טוב מן האריה המת, כי החיים יודעים שימותו והמתים אינם יודעים מאומה, ואין עוד להם שכר כי נשכח זכרם. גם אהבתם גם שנאתם גם קנאתם כבר אבדה, וחלק אין להם לעולם בכל וגו’

שלשת הפסוקים הללו, ואף על פי שהם דברי החכם, לא אמרם דעת עצמו, אלא סיפור מה שאומרים הסכלים. …4

Later that day, I visited London’s National Portrait Gallery, which has an entire room dedicated to representations of one of the most sympathetic and attractive of all the British monarchs, Lady Jane Dudley (née Grey) (The Nine Day’s Queen). As William Hone says:

Young, beautiful, and learned Jane, intent
On knowledge, found it peace; her vast acquirement
Of goodness was her fall; she was content
With dulcet pleasures, such as calm retirement
Yields to the wise alone;–her only vice
Was virtue: in obedience to her sire
And lord she died, with them a sacrifice
To their ambition: her own mild desire
Was rather to be happy than be great;
For though at their request she claimed the crown,
That they through her might rise to rule the state,
Yet the bright diadem and gorgeous throne
She viewed as cares, dimming the dignity
Of her unsullied mind and pure benignity.

One particularly interesting portrait is actually a direct reference to her “intentness on knowledge”:

Interview between Lady Jane Grey and Dr Roger Ascham in the Year 1550

As the curators explain, this is a depiction of a celebrated anecdote related by Roger Ascham in his The Schoolmaster:

This print illustrates an episode recounted in Roger Ascham’s treatise on education, The Scholemaster (1570). In 1550, the royal tutor Ascham visited Lady Jane and found her reading Plato’s Phaedo in Greek while the rest of the household were out hunting. Ascham contrasted the joy that this ‘sweet and noble’ girl took in learning with her fear of her cruel parents. In the nineteenth century, Lady Jane’s reputation as a gentle and modest scholar made her a preferred role model for the education of girls.

Ascham:

Before I went into Germanie, I came to Brodegate in Leceter- shire, to take my leaue of that noble Ladie Iane Grey, to whom I was exceding moch beholdinge. Lady Iane Hir parentes, the Duke and Duches, with all the Grey. houshould, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, were huntinge in the Parke: I founde her, in her Chamber, readinge Phædon Platonis in Greeke, and that with as moch delite, as som ientleman wold read a merie tale in Bocase.

After salutation, and dewtie done, with som other taulke, I asked hir, whie she wold leese soch pastime in the Parke? smiling she answered me: I wisse, all their sporte in the Parke is but a shadoe to that pleasure, that I find in Plato: Alas good folke, they neuer felt, what trewe pleasure ment.

And howe came you Madame, quoth I, to this deepe knowledge of pleasure, and what did chieflie allure you vnto it: seinge, not many women, but verie fewe men haue atteined thereunto. I will tell you, quoth she, and tell you a troth, which perchance ye will meruell at. One of the greatest benefites, that euer God gaue me, is, that he sent me so sharpe and seuere Parentes, and so ientle a scholemaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merie, or sad, be sowyng, plaiyng, dauncing, or doing anie thing els, I must do it, as it were, in soch weight, mesure, and number, euen so perfitelie, as God made the world, or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened, yea presentlie some tymes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other waies, which I will not name, for the honor I beare them, so without measure misordered, that I thinke my selfe in hell, till tyme cum, that I must go to M. Elmer, who teacheth me so ientlie, so pleasantlie, with soch faire allurementes to learning, that I thinke all the tyme nothing, whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because, what soeuer I do els, but learning, is ful of grief, trouble, feare, and whole misliking vnto me: And thus my booke, hath bene so moch my pleasure, & bringeth dayly to me more pleasure & more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deede, be but trifles and troubles vnto me. I remember this talke gladly, both bicause it is so worthy of memorie, & bicause also, it was the last talke that euer I had, and the last tyme, that euer I saw that noble and worthie Ladie.5

[See also here, and see here for many other depictions of this conversation.]

The Lady’s custom is reminiscent of Rema’s, as per his autobiographical note:

ומכל מקום אומר שסהדי במרומים שכל ימי לא עסקתי בזו [חכמת הפילוסופיא] רק בשבת ויום טוב וחול המועד בשעה שבני אדם הולכים לטייל, וכל ימות החול אני עוסק כפי מיעוט השגתי במשנה ובתלמוד ובפוסקים ובפירושיהם ושרי לצורבא מרבן לאודועי נפשיה כו’:6

[We have discussed this responsum of Rema here.]

Another interesting portrait that I saw in the Gallery is Thomas Jones Barker’s The Secret of England’s Greatness’ (Queen Victoria presenting a Bible in the Audience Chamber at Windsor):

'The Secret of England's Greatness' (Queen Victoria presenting a Bible in the Audience Chamber at Windsor)

The curators:

This group epitomises the Victorian concept of the British Empire, which was seen as conferring the benefits of European civilisation, and Christianity in particular, on the peoples over whom it ruled. Prince Albert stands to the left of Queen Victoria, while on the right in the background are the statesmen Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. In the foreground Victoria presents a Bible to a man wearing African dress. Although the portraits of the British sitters are accurate as is the setting of the audience chamber at Windsor, including Benjamin West’s large painting of The Institution of the Order of the Garter carefully indicated in the background, no actual occasion for the picture’s subject has been identified. It was engraved under the title The Bible: The Secret of England’s Greatness in 1864, suggesting that it was conceived, in part at least, as an allegory of Empire.

This compares favorably to a story told of Ben-Gurion, who at a speech at Yeshiva University once declared:

הִנֵּה לֹא-יָנוּם, וְלֹא יִישָׁן– שׁוֹמֵר, יִשְׂרָאֵל.7

A member of the audience challenged Ben-Gurion: “Who is the שומר ישראל, God or the Haganah?” According to one version of the story, Ben-Gurion did not answer; another has him muttering “The Haganah, of course.” In any event, the heckler was forcibly removed from the room, protesting all the way.

The next day, after a repeat visit to the Portrait Gallery, I visited the National Gallery. I was only able to spend a very brief time there, as it was almost Shabbas, but one painting that caught my attention was Peter Paul Rubens’s The Brazen Serpent:

Image removed at the behest of the censor, due to the dishabille of a woman therein.

The curators:

Moses at the left, with the hooded Eleazar beside him, calls to the people of Israel who are being attacked by a plague of serpents that God sent them because of their sinfulness. He tells them to look at a bronze serpent he has set up on a pole, upper left, because ‘everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live.’ Old Testament (Numbers 21: 6-9).

Several days later, I visited the National Museum of Wales at Cardiff, where I saw three more representations of Hagar and Yishmael:

Andrea Sacchi’s Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness:

Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness

Thomas Gainsborough’s Rocky Landscape with Hagar and Ishmael:

Rocky Landscape with Hagar and Ishmael

Jan Victors’s The Dismissal of Hagar:

The Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael

[The image of this last one taken from here.]

  1. Act V Scene I – link. []
  2. Ibid. Scene II. []
  3. קוהלת ט”ד – קשר []
  4. הנבחת באמונות ובדעות (תרגום של רב קאפח), מאמר שביעי פרק ג’ – קשר []
  5. From here. []
  6. שו”ת הרמ”א סימן ז []
  7. תהילים קכא:ד – קשר []

Two Epsteins On the Agunah Problem

I have previously suggested that Abravanel’s declaration that “death with honor is better than a life of shame and ignominy” is grounded in the Iberian culture in which he flourished. Today, however, I saw the attribution of quite a similar sentiment to the product of a very different era and culture – Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein (Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Kenesses Yisrael (Slabodka / Hevron)), who learns this lesson from, of all things, the grim determination of Imperial Germany to wage World War I against “the entire world”, in defense of its national honor:

שאלת העגונה היא אחת מנקודות המלחמה בין הדת והחיים, וכבר הראתי מה דל כחנו במלחמה זו, הנשים הולכות ונישאות והגט היהודי נשתכח. אבל זה לא כלום לגבי הרבנים החרדים, סוגרים את חלונות בית המדרש ודורשים פרק בהלכות גיטין, ובידעם שמאחורי חלונות סגורים החיים הסואנים לא יפריעו אותם עולה על רוחם להאמין שהם גברו על החיים.

בבקורי הראשון בארץ ישראל בשנת תרפ”ט בקרתי את הרב המובהק שלי, הגאון ר’ משה מרדכי עפשטיין ז”ל בביתו בחברון על יד הישיבה שם. הכתב-יד של מחברתי “הצעה למען תקנת עגונות” היה אז תחת ידי ובקשתי ממנו כתלמיד מרב לעבור על המחברת כדי שיחוה את דעתו על הצעתי בכלל ועל פרטי ההלכה שכתבתי, ולא רצה אפילו לנגוע במחברתי ודרש לפני פרק בהלכות מסירת נפש בהתלהבות עצומה:

“מדוע אתה מתאונן כל כך על גורל המר של העגונות? תהיינה עגונות ותתקיים היהדות. הרי הגרמנים יצאו למלחמה נגד כל העולם. האם לא ידעו מראש שיפלו חללים וישארו יתומים ואלמנות ואף על פי כן לא הטרידה אותם ידיעה זו מלהלחם במסירת נפש, משום שהכירו שכבוד האומה דורש קרבנות והביאו את הקרבנות האלו מבלי להתאונן. הכבוד של עם ישראל היא התורה שלנו ולמענה נקריב קרבנות כל מה שצריך, קרבנות של הרוגים, יתומים, אלמנות, ועגונות”.1

“Why do you complain so much about the bitter lot of the Agunos? Let them be Agunos and Judaism shall survive. The Germans waged war against the whole world. Did they not know in advance that they would suffer casualties and that there would remain orphans and widows, and even so this knowledge did not disturb them from battling with the utmost dedication, for they recognized that the honor of the nation demanded sacrifices, and they brought these sacrifices without complaining. The honor of the nation of Israel is our Torah, and for its sake we shall offer as many sacrifices as are necessary, sacrifices of [men] killed, orphans, widows and Agunos.”

It must be noted that the narrator of the above is Louis Epstein, a prominent Conservative Rabbi who was engaged in a heated polemic against what he felt to be the insufferably reactionary Orthodox. Adam Mintz summarizes the affair thus:

Rabbi Louis Epstein, a leading Conservative rabbi from Boston and the president of the Rabbinical Assembly and its Committee on Jewish Law, suggested that prior to every marriage, the husband should appoint his wife as an agent to execute a divorce on his behalf. Thus, if the husband disappears or refuses to grant the get, the wife can, in effect, divorce herself. In that same year, Rabbi Epstein published a volume entitled Hatza’ah Lemaan Takanat Agunot that attempted to prove the halakhic foundation for this proposal. In 1935, the Rabbinical Assembly, the rabbinic body of the Conservative movement, initially voted to accept this proposal.

In his volume, Rabbi Epstein described how he sent copies of his book to close to 1,000 rabbis asking for their opinions on his proposal. He explained that he received very few responses. While one of the letters was critical of his work, most of the letters were complimentary but argued that he could not proceed without the consensus of the leading halakhic authorities. He seemed encouraged by the nature of these responses inasmuch as they were not critical of his halakhic reasoning. Among the letters that he received was a letter from Rabbi Henkin dated February 18, 1931. In this letter, Rabbi Henkin apologized for not having the time to study the book carefully. While Rabbi Henkin proceeded to make certain halakhic suggestions to Rabbi Epstein, the letter was in no way dismissive of his efforts. He even concluded the letter with the practical advice that if he wanted to send copies to all the rabbis of Europe as he proposed, it would become a very expensive undertaking.

The Orthodox rabbinate responded to Rabbi Epstein’s proposal with disapproval and the Agudath HaRabbanim convened a meeting of rabbis during which various halakhic presentations were made arguing that Rabbi Epstein’s proposal was both impractical and halakhically unsound. In 1937, a volume was published by the Agudath HaRabbanim entitled Le’Dor Aharon which included correspondence from leading rabbis around the world opposing Rabbi Epstein’s proposal. In 1940, Rabbi Epstein published Le’Sheelat Ha-Agunah in which he attempted to support his view in light of the strong rabbinic opposition. The Orthodox rabbinate did not respond to this second volume and Rabbi Epstein’s proposal was never actually adopted in practice by the Conservative movement.

For more information about the Epstein controversy, see the references cited in Mintz’s footnotes and Rav (Professor) Yitzchak (Irving) Breitowitz, J.D., Between Civil and Religious Law: The Plight of the Agunah in American Society2, cited by Rabbi (Professor) Michael J. Broyde in his Marriage, Divorce and the Abandoned Wife in Jewish Law.3

  1. יהודה ליב עפשטיין, לשאלת העגונה, עמוד 34, מועתק מפה. ועיין ישורון חוברת י’ עמוד תשי”א והלאה. []
  2. pp. 64-68. I have not been able to check this myself, and I am relying on Rabbi Broyde’s citation. []
  3. p. 161 n. 8, available here. []