Reviewing: “Books of the People: Revisiting Classic Works of Jewish Thought,” edited by Stuart W. Halpern. Maggid Books. Hardcover, 372 pages, 2017. ISBN-10: 1592644708.
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Jewish thought, machshevet Yisrael, or Jewish philosophy, grapples with the eternal Jewish questions of faith and redemption, prayer, prophecy, reward and punishment, as well as Jewish ideas of religious belief, worldview and attitudes, Divine providence, free will, miracles, redemption and messiah, to enumerate just a few. All of them are questions our elementary school teachers (at least mine) shied away from answering.
In every generation, the questions are similar, but our answers evolve.
In a new book, a thousand years of Jewish thought are explored in a series of thought-provoking essays that deserves a place on the bookshelf of every reader. Englewood’s Dr. Stuart Halpern carefully assembled 13 original essays on Jewish thought, including a foreword by Rabbi Dr. Lord Jonathan Sacks, all written by noted authors who are subject-matter experts. Nearly every one of them is deserving of being reviewed individually.
Published by Maggid Books, an imprint of Koren Publishers Jerusalem, Ltd., Israel’s largest publisher, this book was published together with Yeshiva University’s Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, for which Dr. Halpern served as assistant director before assuming his current responsibility as chief of staff to Yeshiva University’s new president, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman. As we have come to expect from Koren, the production quality and typography are outstanding.
“My hope is that this volume inspires the reader to make each of the works featured in its chapters a permanent part of his or her personal library, if they aren’t already, and if they are, to dust them off the shelf and revisit them with a new perspective,” said Dr. Halpern, who also served for two years as deputy managing editor of YU Press. “I fervently hope that this volume contextualizes while contemporizing, losing neither the vitality of the original works nor the concerns of today’s readers.”
Dr. Halpern’s work seeks to represent a thousand years of Jewish thought—seen through the lens of modern thinkers—in one accessible volume. Major contributions from some of the leading philosophers of Jewish thought are competently discussed, beginning with “Emunot VeDeot” by the philosopher and exegete Rav Saadia Gaon (882-942), the penultimate of the Geonim. His work is explored by Rabbi Yitzchak Blau, a rosh yeshiva at Yeshivat Orayta, a yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem, who discusses why Saadia’s philosophy, though much different from that of Maimonides, remains relevant today, especially to help us deal with issues of epistemology (the nature of knowledge, justification and the rationality of belief) and skepticism (any questioning attitude or doubt toward one or more items of putative knowledge or belief).
The second work explored is “Sefer HaKuzari” (completed in 1140) by the physician, poet and philosopher Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi (c. 1075-1141). In his erudite essay, Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik, rabbi of Shearith Israel, America’s first congregation, and director of YU’s Straus Center, focuses on the universalist ideas illustrated by a fascinating discourse on linking the time of Shabbat in Japan with Eretz Yisrael, and pointing out that HaLevi is notably less rationalist than Maimonides.
As we would expect, the “Moreh Nevuchim” (“Guide to the Perplexed”) of the Rambam (Maimonides, c. 1135?-1204), his major philosophical work, written in Judeo-Arabic in 1190, is included. Its essence is revealed by Dr. Warren Zev Harvey, a prominent scholar of Jewish philosophy and laureate of the Emet Prize. He views the Moreh as “an enchanted Book of Puzzles.”
Dr. Shira Weiss of Stern College completed her PhD in medieval Jewish philosophy on the concept of choice in the philosophical exegesis of Rabbi Joseph Albo (c. 1380-1444), author of “Sefer HaIkkarim,” a classic, today sadly understudied, on the fundamentals of Judaism—its dogma—a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. Here, she explores Albo’s notion of free choice, arguing that there may have been more philosophical depth to his work than he’s previously given credit for.
Rabbi Shalom Carmy, editor of “Tradition,” wrote on Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague (c. 1512-1609), who despite the 19th-century rabbi legend, had nothing to do with the Golem of Prague (it was, in fact, a legend about R. Elijah Ba’al Shem of Chelm (c. 1550-1636). The Maharal was much influenced by Hasidism, but is credited with preventing the Balkanization of Jewish thought. Carmy writes about “Gevurot Hashem,” Maharal’s second philosophical work, nominally about Pesach, written in 1582.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), founder of the Chabad movement, and known as the Baal HaTanya, is discussed by Harvard-trained Rabbi Dr. Ariel Evan Mayse, director of Jewish studies and visiting assistant professor of modern Jewish thought in the Hebrew College in Boston. The work, first published anonymously in 1797, was lost; we only have the 1814 edition, technically known as “Likkutei Amarim” and more widely known as the “Tanya.” It deals with Jewish spirituality and psychology from a Kabbalistic point of view, and philosophically expounds on such themes as the Oneness of God, Tzimtzum, the sefirot, simcha, bitachon (confidence in God), among many other mystical concepts.
Professor Jeremy Dauber, who grew up in Teaneck, contributed an article on the mayses (tales) of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810), the very spiritual founder of the Breslov Chasidic movement, whose grave in Uman in the Ukraine is annually visited by tens of thousands of Chasidic Jews from around the world in a pilgrimage known as the Rosh Hashana kibbutz, based on his vow: “If someone comes to my grave, gives a coin to charity and says these ten Psalms (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137 and 150) [the Tikkun HaKlali], I will pull him out from the depths of Gehinnom! It makes no difference what he did until that day, but from that day on, he must take upon himself not to return to his foolish ways.”
Rabbi Dr. Moshe Y. Miller, a professor of modern Jewish history, writes about Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s “Nineteen Letters on Judaism.” Rabbi Hirsch (1808-1888) is often called the inventor of Modern Orthodox Judaism. He is best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Certainly, his philosophy, together with that of Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer (1820-1899), had a considerable influence on the development of Orthodox Judaism.
Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (1816-1893), known by the acronym Netziv, was the dean of the famed Volozhin Yeshiva, the largest in Europe. He favored Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl, chief academic officer of the Kohelet Foundation, head of school of the Kohelet Yeshiva High School in suburban Philadelphia and author of “The Pillar of Volozhin: Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin and the World of Nineteenth-Century Lithuanian Torah Scholarship,” discusses Berlin’s “Ha’amek Davar” as a work of Jewish thought, a curious choice, as it is, in fact, a commentary on the Pentateuch. Essentially, Perl imputes and extracts the Netziv’s philosophy from his commentary.
The mystic Rav Abraham Yitzchak haKohen Kook (1865-1935), was the founder of Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav. Rav Kook was a major Jewish thinker, halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar who especially resonates with most readers. In his youth, he studied with the Netziv. In Israel, he is often referred to as HaRav, Rabbi par excellance. He was the spiritual founder of modern religious Zionism. His main philosophical work, the “Olat Re’iyah,” is not easy reading. Dr. Daniel Rynhold, a professor in modern Jewish philosophy at Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University, and a Teaneck resident, wrote about Rav Kook’s “Orot HaTeshuva: Repentance as Cosmology,” about which Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik wrote: “In this, Rav Kook’s most philosophically developed work, his most significant innovation is that teshuvah (‘return’) is not connected to sin per se but is comprised of of man’s returning to himself, returning to his source.” Rabbi Jeffrey Saks quotes the great poet Uri Zvi Greenberg (1896-1981) who told him, “There is more machshava (thought) in a single chapter of ‘Orot ha-Kodesh’ (another of Rav Kook’s works) than in whole volumes of the greatest secular philosophers.”
Rabbi Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993), the major American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist and modern Jewish philosopher, is often called simply “The Rav.” A scion of the Lithuanian Jewish Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty who originated the Brisker method of Talmudic study, he also earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Berlin; his dissertation was about the epistemology and metaphysics of Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), a leading neo-Kantian philosopher (and non-Orthodox). His work “Halakhic Man” propounds the centrality of Halacha in Jewish thought. Rav Reuven Ziegler is director of research at the Toras HoRav Foundation, chairman of the editorial board at Koren Publishers Jerusalem, and founder and editor-in-chief of Yeshivat Har Etzion’s Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash. He authored “Majesty and Humility: The Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.” Rabbi Zeigler describes the 1944 “Halakhic Man” as “a sprawling, dense and riveting work” that he also contrasts with Rabbi Soloveitchik’s later philosophical essay “Lonely Man of Faith” (1965).
Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner (1906-1980) was long-time head of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, a Haredi Lithuanian-type yeshiva, named at the suggestion of the son of the Netziv for Rabbi Chaim Berlin, the chief rabbi of Moscow who settled in Jerusalem in 1906. Rabbi Hutner did not oppose college studies (his only child, Rabbanit Bruria David, earned her doctorate in Jewish history from Columbia). Rav Hutner’s philosophy is explored by Dr. Yaakov Elman, a polymath and rabbi, who founded a field now known as Talmudo-Iranica. He is a Talmudist, meteorologist, editor, Genizah scholar and exegete. Rav Hutner’s eight-volume magnum opus, “Pachad Yitzchak,” which Dr. Elman describes as a blend of Hasidic and musar approaches, along with deep psychological insights, is in essence an application of the Brisker method of analysis to questions of Jewish theology.
In closing, I must note that the volume is “glatt kosher.” Only thinkers who are today considered non-controversial are included. While some were quite controversial in their own times, (Maimonides, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe and Reb Nachman of Breslov immediately come to mind), today the controversies that surrounded them during their lifetimes are largely forgotten. However, even great and personally observant thinkers like Rabbi Hirsch’s contemporary Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer, Rabbi Nachman HaCohen Krochmal (1785-1840), author of “Moreh Nevichai HaZman” (“Guide to the Perplexed of our Times”), Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) and Prof. Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) are entirely absent, as are “heretics” like Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) and Martin Buber (1878-1965), despite their profound impact on Jewish thought. It would be nice to understand on what issues the included and excluded thinkers agree, and where they differ. Perhaps this is a topic for Dr. Halpern’s next book.
“Books of the People: Revisiting Classic Works of Jewish Thought” is the newest addition to the growing list of innovative and substantial joint projects undertaken by Yeshiva University and Koren Publishers Jerusalem. Over the past seven years, the partnership has released “The Koren Yizkor: Memory and Meaning,” the ultimate guide to Yizkor (the memorial prayer for the departed); a 20th-anniversary edition of Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm’s masterwork, “Torah Umadda”; the “Derashot LeDorot” series, a selection of essays based on the weekly sermons delivered by Rabbi Lamm early in his rabbinical career; “The Philosophical Quest of Philosophy, Ethics, Law and Halakhah,” a collection of essays by Rabbi J. David Bleich on a variety of topics relating to Jewish philosophical thought; a multi-volume set on topics of contemporary Jewish law, authored by Yeshiva University’s roshei yeshiva; and five volumes of the “Mitokh Ha-Ohel” series, a collection of original essays on the parshiot (weekly Torah portions), haftarot (weekly selections from the books of the Prophets) and weekday, Shabbat and festivals prayers, authored by rabbis and professors from every division of Yeshiva University.
By David E. Y. Sarna
David E. Y. Sarna is a writer, retired entrepreneur and a contributor to The Jewish Link. He has eight published books, including “History of Greed: Financial Fraud from Tulip Mania to Bernie Madoff,” “Evernote For Dummies,” “Implementing and Developing Cloud Computing Applications,” hundreds of articles and has nearly completed his first novel about the Jewish treasures in the Vatican’s secret archive. He is hard at work on a book about the Internet of Things, and also on a book on the Talmud for general readers. He and his wife, Dr. Rachel Sarna, are long-time Teaneck residents.
