Tsvi Bisk – Are The Haredim Not Authentic Jews
In the Mishnah Yehoshua ben Perachia says, “Make for yourself a Rav. Maimonides (the Rambam) and the Maharal both explain that the Mishnah is careful to say “make” for yourself a teacher, not to “acquire” one; just like you “make” for yourself a sukkah. The Haredim (Hasidic and Litvak) do not make for themselves a Rav, rather they acquire one by being born into or joining a community where the Rav is an absolute ruler – a kind of spiritual North Korea, more a cult than a true expression of Jewish tradition, a Jewish version of the Moonies!
Haredi Judaism is a recent iteration of Jewish identity, with little resemblance to traditional rabbinic Judaism. Organizationally it began in 1912 when the World Agudath Israel was established. Ignorance as a Jewish virtue is a 19th-century Haredi invention. The Haredi reaction to modernity was to build an ever-rising wall to keep Enlightenment principles and scientific knowledge out – anything that might encourage critical questioning of so-called “traditional” religious observance. Rav Elazar Menachem Shach, a dominant figure in the non-Hassidic Haredi world, likened the study of ‘worldly wisdom’ (secular subjects) to apostasy and labored tirelessly to keep the hundreds of yeshivas and schools under his spiritual influence completely ignorant of science, math, technology, history, philosophy, and languages.
Historically this is a perversion. The Rambam despised ignorance and believed that Jews required the knowledge of the nations in order to serve God – that to be great in Torah, one had to be great in the worldly knowledge of the time. In The Guide to the Perplexed, he specifies that the highest human achievement is the perfection of the intellect, which is impossible without the pursuit of truth, which is the only way to fully comprehend the Torah. He felt we were obliged to understand Torah in a way that was compatible with the findings of ‘worldly wisdom’ which is why he called on each generation to reinterpret the sources. He studied Muslim philosophers such as al-Farabi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina,), and Averroes (Ibn Rushd). His thinking influenced St. Thomas Aquinas who referenced the Rambam’s views (as ‘Rabbi Moses’) in his great work the Summa Theologiae, which has been the basis for Catholic theology until this very day. He was a physician, a jurist, and an astronomer. If he were alive today, Rav Shach would have condemned him as a ‘muksa’ – an outcast, an apostate.
Even the concept of the 613 mitzvot as a compulsory precondition to being considered a good Jew is an invention. Saadia Gaon did not endorse it. In Yesod Mora, Ibn Ezra denied it was an authentic rabbinic tradition. Nahmanides (the Ramban) argued that the very concept of 613 was in dispute; that rabbinic opinion was not unanimous. Rabbi Simeon ben Zemah Duran (the Rashbatz) likewise rejected the dogma of the 613. Gersonides (the Ralbag) held that the number 613 was only one rabbi’s opinion. Even the Vilna Gaon suggested that there were more than 613 commandments, else much of the Torah would be unexplainable. Prior to the Middle Ages, no discussion of Jewish law depended on the 613 system. To make it a standard of Jewish authenticity today is both logically absurd and historically inaccurate.
Therefore, non-Orthodox Jews not adhering to the 613 does not make them less authentic and certainly not less moral or ethical. Indeed, given modern concepts of morality following the 613 to the letter would make one a borderline psychopath. For example, do we really want to turn the Temple Mount into a giant slaughterhouse; a MacDonald’s for the Levites in order that an anthropomorphic God’s olfactory senses be pleased by the fragrance of burning animal flesh?
Contemplate, also, the contempt the Rambam would have had for those making a living from the Religion Business. In the Mishneh Torah, he wrote:
Anyone who occupies oneself with Torah and not working, but supporting oneself from charity, desecrates the Divine name, dishonors the Torah, extinguishes the light of faith, brings evil to oneself and forfeits life in the world to come because it is forbidden to benefit from the words of Torah in this world. Our sages say, “All who benefit [materially] from the words of Torah forfeit life in the world.” …And they also commanded, “Love work and hate the Rabbinate and all Torah that is not accompanied by work, in the end, will be negated and will lead to sin. The end of such a person will be that he steals from others.”
All the early Talmudic sages worked and made their living from non-rabbinic occupations. Hillel was a woodchopper, and Shammai the Elder was a builder. Others made their livings as field laborers, gravediggers, launderers, cotton dealers, schoolteachers, scribes, tanners, shoemakers, blacksmiths, merchants, tailors, vintners, farmers, and cattlemen, beer brewers, salt traders, silk merchants, and doctors. Moreover, the greatest rabbis were fully involved with the intellectual, cultural, and social life of their time, and did not conceal themselves within self-imposed ghettos.
Yitzhak ha-Yisraeli (c.832– c.932) was the first to combine the Neoplatonic idea of emanation with the traditional Jewish doctrine of ‘creation from nothing’. He was famous as a physician in the Arab world and had as his patient the Caliph ‘Ubaid Allah al-Mahdi. Several of his medical works were translated into Latin in 1087 (150 years after his death) by the Christian monk Constantine of Carthage and used as textbooks in Christian Europe for centuries.
Saadia Gaon (892– 942) wrote the first Hebrew dictionary (in Arabic). He translated the entire Bible into Arabic. His four proofs of God’s unity were based on Islamic traditions. He is considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature. His philosophical work The Book of Beliefs and Opinions represents the first systematic attempt to integrate Jewish theology with components of Greek philosophy. He established a new school of Biblical exegesis characterized by a rational investigation of the contents of the Bible and a scientific knowledge of the language of the holy text. Intellectually, he would have been more comfortable in a Conservative synagogue than in a Haredi Yeshiva.
Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1022-1270) was an Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher in the Neoplatonic tradition. He published over one hundred poems, as well as works about the Bible, philosophy, ethics, and satire. He wrote The Fountain of Life in Arabic which greatly influenced the Catholic world and was translated into Latin as the Fons Vitæ.
Ibn Ezra‘s (1092-1167) religious and philosophical writings were also based upon a Neoplatonist and rationalist (Aristotelian) framework. His rationalist commentary of the Bible anticipated the methods used by both the Reform and Conservative movements. He was a major figure in the history of mathematics. He helped spread Indian numbers and other mathematical ideas in Europe – especially the concept of the zero. George Sarton’s monumental and seminal Introduction to the History of Science is the fundamental text of the field. The second volume is entitled From Rabbi Ben Ezra to Roger Bacon. The Abnezra Crater on the Moon is named in his honor as a mathematician.
Rabbi Levi ben Gershon (Gersonides) (1288–1344), the Ralbag was a philosopher, Talmudist, mathematician, physician, and astronomer. As a strict Aristotelian, he rationalized many of the miracles in the Bible, explaining them by natural, not supernatural means. His commentaries on Aristotle and Muslim philosopher Averroes’ commentaries about Aristotle are included in the early Latin (Christian) editions of Aristotle’s works. His treatise Sefer Milhamot Ha-Shem, (“The Wars of the Lord”), contained an elaborate survey of astronomy as known to the Arabs. It was translated into Latin in 1342 at the request of Pope Clement VI. He wrote Maaseh Hoshev in 1321, which dealt with the extraction of square and cube roots, various algebraic identities, and other very complex mathematical issues. In 1342, he wrote On Sines, Chords, and Arcs, which examined trigonometry, in particular proving the sine law for plane triangles and giving five-figure sine tables. Later, at the request of the Bishop of Meaux, he wrote The Harmony of Numbers. He is credited with inventing Jacob’s Staff, an instrument that measured the angular distance between celestial objects. He is the only astronomer before modern times to have estimated stellar distances correctly. He estimated the distance to the stars to be ten billion times greater than the accepted ‘wisdom’ of the time, refuting Ptolemy’s model in what the prominent physicist Yuval Ne’eman considered as “one of the most important insights in the history of science”. His theories were verifiable by experiment. Rabbi Levi developed tools for his measurements, including pinholes and the ‘camera obscura‘. Rejecting Ptolemy’s model, he tried (unsuccessfully) to improve on it. It took another three centuries for Copernicus to succeed. But Rabbi Levi preceded Copernicus in falsifying the Alexandrian dogma – the first known instance of modern falsification philosophy. The lunar crater Rabbi Levi is named after him.
The Rashbatz (Rabbi Simeon ben Zemah Duran) 1361–1444; was a student of philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine.
The Vilna Gaon (1720 –1797) encouraged his students to study natural sciences and had geometry books translated into Yiddish and Hebrew.
Today’s Haredim would condemn all these rabbinical giants as apostates, enemies of the faith, to be treated as outcasts by the community.
They also conveniently ignore the fact that Daniel Bomberg (c. 1483 – c. 1549), a Christian printer in Venice, printed the first complete Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds (under the supervision of Rabbi Chiya Meir b. David, Dayan on the Venice rabbinical court). The Bomberg Talmud is still standard today, including the layout of the commentators of Rashi and Tosfot. Bomberg also printed the first Mikraot Gdolot. He was the first to number chapters and verses in the Hebrew Bible. The Catholics had already adopted this practice in the 13th century, and Jews (actually Bomberg) followed in the 15th century. Bomberg’s publishing house printed about 200 Hebrew books, including prayer books affordable to the common man. He made an incalculable contribution to Jewish civilization. High schools and highways in Israel should be named after him.
The Haredim choose to be ignorant of all the above, and above all to make sure their children continued to remain ignorant, thereby, for the first time in Jewish history, turning ignorance into an ideal. They have ensured this ignorance by cocooning themselves in ghettos; the first time in Jewish history that self-imposed ghettos have become an ideal. They are the outliers of Jewish history, not its authentic expression. The Jews have always interacted with other cultures and peoples – absorbing from them and contributing to them. There is no such thing as pure unadulterated Judaism and never has been. To dismiss Reform and Conservative Jews because they have absorbed elements of other cultures is unhistorical. From the time of King Solomon, we have interacted with general human history. These interactions have been intellectual, commercial, social, and cultural – as well as religious. Without this interaction, the Jews would not have survived. Ironically, the Haredim survive today only because non-Haredi Jewry (the products of the Enlightenment) support them directly and indirectly. Non-Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, are not only independent but contribute to the support of other Jewish and non-Jewish communities, including Israel (and thus, indirectly, to the Haredim). The historical truth is that when Haredi Rabbis ban the study of secular subjects and celebrate ignorance of ‘worldly wisdom’, it is they that are antagonistic to truly authentic Jewish history.
The Haredim shrewdly exploit this ignorance to raise money to sustain their unproductive, dependent way of life. Reform and Conservative Jews donate huge sums to Haredi Yeshivas in order to assuage their ‘guilt’ at not really being ‘authentic’ Jews. They even contribute to Yeshivas that teach that the Holocaust was God’s punishment for the Reform Movement. I have been told by Reform Rabbis that when Reform Jews visit Israel they contribute twice as much to Haredi Yeshivas than to Reform institutions. This is a phenomenon analogous to the equally stupid ‘Gays for Palestine’. I might even compare it to a fictional ‘Negroes for Apartheid’. How otherwise intelligent people can support their enemies – people who are doing everything in their power to deny them their unalienable right of freedom of religion in the Jewish State – is beyond comprehension. Please Reform (and Conservative) Jews, straighten your backs and walk proudly – you are the authentic representatives of Jewish tradition.
Tsvi Bisk is an Israeli Futurist who has published extensively about the Jewish People. His books include: Futurizing the Jews, The Optimistic Jew, and The Suicide of the Jews.
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