Mussar Movement was haskala - a man-based vision to revive religion

In my investigation into the Seridei Aish's description of the Mussar Movement as "frum haskala", I have come back to my original understanding. At this point I disagree with Prof. Shapiro that "frum haskala" simply meant concern with spiritual development and fear of G-d. 

 

The Haskala was a man based vision - not a religious one.  I just posted the Seridei Ish's vision of the Jew in the ghetto - not only was it repressive economically and psychologically but most found   religion also to be repressive. http://daattorah.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/seridei-aish-haskala-why-did-religious.html

Mussar was clearly a man based program to revive  religion as was Hirsch's Torah im Derech Eretz. It also involved participation in the world, tikun olam and an awareness of human knowledge and a focus on the individual human being. This is clearly the opposite of Chassidus which is a movement based on ruach hakodesh, revelation and Daas Torah and subjugation to authority. It also is opposed to the ghetto - either of the body or mind and deprivation of wordly pleasures and experience.

Al Dura is a Palestinian Hoax: Israeli government concludes al Dura was alive after gun battle

YNET   The committee, formed in 2012, was first headed by now Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, and concluded its inquiry recently under the chairmanship of Yuval Steinitz. The report itself focuses on the controversial September 2000 France 2 broadcast – in which the boy is seen hiding behind his father while the two were under IDF gunfire – and conclude that al-Dura was still alive at the end of the video.[...]

According to the Steinitz-Ya'alon committee findings, in contrary to what had been published before, there was no evidence that the boy or his father were even injured at the time the video was shot.

In addition, the committee noted there was reasonable doubt whether the IDF was responsible for the bullet holes seen in the wall behind the two.

Furthermore, the Israeli report points a blaming finger at the France 2 news report. [...]

Seridei Aish: Why were religious Jews attracted to Haskala?

 Continuing the investigation into the expression of "frum haskala" that was used by the Seridei Aish for the Mussar movement. In the following letter he describes the miserable life most lived in the ghetto and why Haskala was viewed as a desirable alternative - even though it meant religious compromises and rejection. I just added a comparable quote from Rav S. R. Hirsch's 19 Letters

Seridei Aish (Volume IV page 366 translated by Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Klugman in Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch page 16). The ghetto stood for hundreds of years and produced men of  great stature, righteous people, who devoted their energies to  Torah study and mitzvah observance, men whose entire joy and  pleasure in life was to rejoice in the Almighty. They attained lofty  spiritual levels and merited a degree of Divine inspiration that  raised them high above the bitter darkness of the exile. Such peo­ple's words and deeds were suffused with the sanctity of the  Torah, and its presence permeated their lives.

Nonetheless, within the ghetto's walls there lived also masses of people who were not privileged to taste the Torah's pleasures  and to experience its inspiration. These people thirsted for life,  and their inability to attain it made them depressed. They knew  only difficulty, and the lives of a significant portion of them were  twisted by an ascetic melancholy.

Finally the day came, new winds began to blow and the walls  of the ghetto fell before them. Rays of hope, of light and liberty,  the prospects of life and creativity, wealth and social position, wafted into the darkest corners of the ghetto, to human beings who had been so long deprived of any place in society. The innate thirst for a healthy and complete life which is so natural to every  Jew, a thirst repressed for so many centuries, was reawakened  amid sound and fury.

These radical developments brought the Jewish people to a state of crisis. One-dimensional life-denying; religiosity simply collapsed, totally unable to restrain its children who strayed from its framework, rejecting the indignities of oppression, who strove to break free from their constraints.

Confusion reigned in the Jewish community. On the one side stood the elders, preservers of tradition, who defended with all their might the accepted religious way, which was predicated on a rejection of the pleasures and accomplishments of the material world. On the other side were those drunk and dizzy with their new freedom, who lashed out mercilessly at everything that was precious and holy in the traditional order of Jewish life.
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Rav S. R. Hirsch (Nineteen Letters #18): [The leaders of Orthodoxy] became at first enemies of this philosophical spirit, and later of all specifically intellectual and philosophical pursuits in general. Certain misunderstood utterances [e.g., Bereishis Rabbah 44:1] were taken as weapons with which to repel all higher interpretations of the Talmud . . . The inevitable consequence was, therefore, that since oppression and persecution had robbed Israel of every broad and natural view of world and of life, and Talmud had yielded about all the practical results for life of which it was capable, every mind that felt the desire of independent activity was obliged to forsake the paths of study and research in general open to the human intellect, and to take its recourse to dialectic subtleties and hairsplitting. Only a very few [e.g., R’ Yehuda HaLevi’s Kuzari and Ramban] during this entire period stood with their intellectual efforts entirely within Judaism, and built it up out of its own inner concept [Drachman translation]…. we are left with two generations confronting each other. One of them has inherited an uncomprehended Judaism, as practiced by men from habit, a revered but lifeless mummy which it is afraid to bring back to life. The other, though in part burning with noble enthusiasm for the welfare of the Jews, regards Judaism as bereft of any life and spirit, a relic of an era long past and buried, and tries to uncover its spirit, but, not finding it, threatens through its well‑meant efforts to sever the last life nerve of Judaism - out of sheer ignorance [Paritzky translation].

Israeli economy doomed without Chareidim & Arab workforce participation

Haaretz    The Israeli economy cannot thrive without ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israel's Arabs being more fully integrated into the workforce, the National Economic Council warned the cabinet at a meeting last week.[...]

The most serious problem here, however, is related to working-age populations that are not employed - meaning, the low workforce-participation rate of the country's Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox population. The problem is the product of a lack of desire to be employed, when it comes to the Haredim, as well as low skill levels. (A large proportion of Haredi men choose to engage in Torah study full-time rather than work. )

The council presented the cabinet with a slide, showing that between 1997 and 2012, the poverty rate of the non-Haredi, non-Arab population remained unchanged at 12%, while the rate among Arabs and Haredim skyrocketed from 38% to 58%. As a result, Israel's population consists of three separate countries: Arab Israelis, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and everyone else. And that last segment is actually contracting while the two weaker segments are growing.

In 2009, 71% of those aged 25 to 29 entering the labor force belonged to the third, more highly skilled, group (i.e., the non-Haredi and non-Arab sector ). The council said, though, that this group will decline to just 59% of the newly employed by 2019, and 53% by 2029. Israel is, therefore, moving in the direction whereby if things are not changed, the non-Arab, non-Haredi working population with relatively high productivity will become just over half of the new members of the workforce - a situation that is not sustainable. [...]

The council says that as a result of the situation, as early as next year the country will have a 3% structural deficit - an excess of government expenditures, including items such as social welfare payments to the poor - over government income from taxes and economic growth.

The structural deficit is a reference to a situation in which the government spends more than it is taking in, not as a result of transient factors but rather the entrenched structural characteristics of the economy. Even more alarming, the council says, is the fact that the structural deficit will be 10.5% by 2050, if the current situation is not addressed.

Israel needs to decide, the council says: It can continue down its current path of greater government outlays for the poor at the expense of increased taxes, and reduced government spending in other areas. This will perpetuate poverty among Haredim and Arabs and impose an impossible burden on the remaining working population.

Alternatively, Israel can better integrate the Arabs and ultra-Orthodox into the general workforce, increasing their participation and substantially enhancing their skill levels through education.

The council's assessment is that if the three population groups are indeed integrated into one productive workforce, by 2030 Israel will once more be competitive in the world economy.

Seridei Aish:Need to apologize to maskilim who fought against hypocrisy

The following letter of the Seridei Aish was sent to me by Prof Marc Shapiro. It is from the Otzer HaChochma in the section of שאלות ותשובות של רבני הדור

It is a strong condemnation of the hypocrisy of the religious community and an acknowledgement of desirablity of the efforts of the maskilim to improving society by reducing hypocrisy.

בטיהר רוחני קיום עמנו

ב"ה עש"ק וירא, תשי"ג מונטרע

לידידי מכבובדי הרח"מ והסופר הגדול

מהרש"ז שרגאי שליט"א

שלו' וברכת רפואה שלמה ומהירה

הצטערתי לשמוע שכ"ת כבר עזב את מונטרע מבלי שנפרדנו בברכה כנהוג ומבלי שנתנה לי ההזדמנות לשוח בענינים העומדים ברומו של עולמנו. דבר אחד מעיק על לבי: הירידה המוסרית בתוכנו והסבלנות המופרזה ביחס אל הרמאות המצטבעת בצבע של חסידות ודאגה לעלבונה של תורה. הרמאות מתגברת והולכת. היא עובדת בערמה ובחוצפה ומלעיגה לתמימות המאמינים להם. אלמלי ניתנה רשות לגלות את ערמתם וערמימותם של הרמאים הצבועים הי' העולם נבהל ומשתומם ; אבל הרמאים מפילים את מוראם ופחדם על הכל בכלי נשק של רכילות, עלילת עלילות, מלשינות והלבנת פנים מחוצפה. ויש שרואים ומציצים בין החרכים אבל הם "נכבשים" ע"י חנופה וחלוקת כבוד מזויפת. ובין כך וכך הרמאות מצליחה ובהצלחתה היא מרעילה את האויר וגורמת ליאוש שיתגבר מתוך הכרה כי כן מנהגו של עולם : צדיק ורע לו ורשע וטוב לו. ברי לי כי בטהר רוחנית ובהרמת הגובה המוסרי תלוי' שאלת קיים עמנו וקיום מדינתנו, אלו המדקדקים ,בדיני כשרות, שעטנז, מנהגי ביה"כ וכדומה ועוברים בגליו ובשאט על עיקרי המסר והנימוס האנושי גורמים לריחוק בני הדור מן הדת וקיום מצוותי'. הצרה הגדולה ביותר היא שהעסקנות לשם הרבצת התורה ולשם שמירת הדת נעשתה מקור לפרנסה ולסולם המוליך לדרגא חברותיה גבוהה. יש בתוכנו אנשים שרק בעזרת עסקנות זו זכו לשם ולפרסום. הרגשה שהעולם מתחשב עמהם מפיחה בהם יצר המלחמה. אנו צריכים להשתטח על קברי "המשכילים" שלחמו נגד הצבועים ולבקש סליחתם על פגיעתנו בכבודם. הם לחמו בעד האמת שלהם בחרוף נפש. עכשיו כל אדם רוצה להיות מקובל על הבירות ומשלימים עם החנפים, ועם השוררים עזי-הפנים, ועם חאדמו"רים הקטנים שאין להם בעולמם ולא כלום. נרד לטמיון ח"ו אם לא נתעורר מעפר השקר וההנופה.

שבתא טבא גם לבניו

יחיאל יעקב וויינברג

Interview with the Brisker Rav: Rav Yisroel Salanter tried being a chassid

This was published by Rabbi Leo Jung in Men of the Spirit page 210-211

*This interview, [by Pinehas Biberfeld] published first in Ha-Neeman, the organ of Israeli Ye­shivah circles, is based on the present writer's recording, from memory, his conversations with Reb Velvele. The answers, deeply engraved upon his heart, are offered here.

 

[only the last questions are published here]

QUESTION: I know that the Master considers it more important to conduct a Talmud Torah for boys than to issue the "Hanee­man."

The rabbi, as was his wont, ran to the book-case, fetched a copy of the Rambam, where at the end of the Laws about Leprosy the following passage occurs: "But the conversation of the proper Israelite deals only with wisdom and Torah, therefore the Lord helps them and grants them both, as it is said:  "Then they that feared the Lord spoke one with another and the Lord hearkened."

QUESTION: But the Rambam mentions Torah and wisdom, thus obviously there is room for both?

ANSWER: He remained silent.

QUESTION: R. Israel Salanter, too, issued a monthly called Tevunah (Comprehension)?

ANSWER: This is an argument against your point. He stopped the publication very soon. His stopping it indicates that this was not, eventually, his way. He tried many things, among them also the way of Hassidism.

Kinder Arois: The price we pay to keep our children innocent

Guest Post by R' Mordechai Schiller  Reprinted with permission from  Hamodia Tuesday, May 14, 2013 written as a response to this|    ה' סיון תשע"ג

Years ago, at a tisch in Amshinov in Yerushalayim, a friend saw me drying my hands on my handkerchief. He pointed to the towel hanging by the sink and said, “S’iz gantz triken — It’s pretty dry.”

I answered, “I’m superstitious. I still believe in germ theory.”

He looked more through me than at me and said, “The first people to die in the Warsaw Ghetto were the ones who weren’t used to germs.”

David Phillip Vetter was born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). The disease disabled his immune system. Any exposure to germs would kill him. He lived from 1971 to 1984 — in a totally sterile environment.

It was a time when there was still such a thing as privacy. And, respecting the family’s privacy, the media never mentioned his last name. They simply called him the “bubble boy.”

I was deeply disturbed by “DEBATE: Photos of Tragedies: An important message or an unbearable burden?” We all have a natural need to protect ourselves. Even more so, to protect our children. But do we really need to turn our children into “bubble boys” to protect them from all possible “calamities that may come into the world?”

When we wrap our children in sterile bubble pack, we run a grave risk. Of course we want them to always be b’simchah. But life — real life — is more than just simchos. And they need to be able to deal with that.

I am not a psychologist. And I am not a rabbi. However, I am a father and a grandfather. So I can speak from experience. Yes, the photo on the cover of Hamodia that week was jarring. It was meant to be. But it was far from a sensationalist gimmick. If your child is too fragile, by all means, handle with care. Put the paper away — along with your Eichah and Kinos.

We all know that at Yizkor, they give a klap in shul and call out, “Kinder arois —Children out!”

A first reaction would be that the mourning and crying is too much for children to handle. On second thought, halevai people still cried by Yizkor. 

But I digress. It’s not only the children who leave. It’s anyone who still has parents. And the reasons brought down for the minhag are related to ayin hara, not to protecting the children from seeing the sorrow of their elders. No one sends children out of the shul on Tishah B’Av.

A Chassid once came to the Kotzker Rebbe, zy”a and complained bitterly, “I can’t take it anymore. Everything I hear, everything I read…. It’s just like Shlomo Hamelech says in Koheles: “Yosif daas, yosif mach’ov — the more you know, the more you suffer!”

The Kotzker answered, “Krenken zolst di; abi vissen zolst di — Suffer; as long as you know!”

Knowledge and feeling bring pain. So does learning to walk or to struggle over a Tosafos. But it’s worth it. Don’t deprive our children of learning to feel for others. It hurts, but it’s worth it.

Making of a Godol: Rav Shimon Shkop stayed at YU in order to emulate Rav Yisroel Salanter

In researching the issue of what the Seridei Aish meant that Mussar was a frum Haskala - Rav Triebetz pointed out a passage in his father-in-laws sefer Making of a Godol. This passage indicates that there was more to the frum haskala then personal spiritual growth and yiras shamayim. page 1100-1101

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In fact, R' Shimon shunned the advice of both R' Chaim-Ozer Grodzensky and the Chafetz-Chaim to resign from his 5689 [1929] post as Rosh Yeshiva of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary [RIETS] in New York because he was sure R' Yisrael would have ordered him to keep it. He left the position after half a year only because of family reasons.'" It should be added that when R' Shimon had decided to stay in America, he also did not consider the feelings of his talmidim in Europe, who were heartbroken when they heard that their master would remain in the United States; see Shkop Book  which records R' Yisrael-Zev Gustman's recollection, to wit, "I remember that there were bahurim who sat down on the ground and cried when they heard that R' Shimon was not planning to return to Grodno." R' Shimon obviously intended to emulate what R' Yisrael Salanter did in the last third of his life - that is, to leave the established Torah environment of Russia and function in Western Europe (and relegate visiting Russia to sporadic occasions only). The Salanter had gone to German communities and Paris because, according to Etkes Book o, "he was essentially drawn (there) by the challenge of restoring traditional values and modes of behavior"P. Katz Iq is more dramatic when it writes, "R' Yisrael had a greater design: he was not satisfied with his accom-plishments in Russia. His aspirations encompassed distant worlds and his eyes wandered vast stretches to strengthen Fear of G-d everywhere, and to inject the spirit of Musar, in which he saw the salvation of Judaism, into all corners of the House of Israel. His first glance fell on nearby Germany, where Reform ruled in all its force and swept away every vestige of Judaism. Assimilation was spreading with gigantic steps and soon no remnant of the House of Israel would remain. R' Yisrael moved to Germany and undertook to halt this deterioration and strew the Dew of Resurrection on Judaism [there]." R' Shimon, too, was drawn to the spiritual challenge that America posed in the interwar years . Also cf. The CCL which asserts about the Chafetz-Chaim that "in a certain sense, (he) considered R' Yisrael his mentor and guide in life" - as R' Epstein asserted in regard to R' Shimon Shkop. (R' Mordkhai Karlinsky, who studied under R' Shimon in Yeshivath Rabbenu Yitzhaq Elhanan, related  that R' Shkop, his rosh yeshiva at the time, told him when he left to return to Europe that he considered America the future home of Torah and would gladly have taken a post in another yeshiva had there been one available - at that time, Yeshiva Torah Vodaath consisted of only an elementary level. This is consistent with R' Zelig Epstein's statement that R' Shkop was following a Salanterian stance in remaining in America.

Kolko case: Learning to believe the unbelievable

When we read about a horrible crime, we look for a rational explanation by seeking out the words regarding the accused, "he was a loner", "he was strange". We typically do find this to be true for those who fire automatic weapons in school massacres or cases such as the kidnapping, abuse and murder of women and children. However in the case of sexual abuse by pedophiles - we are stuck with the fact that often the perpetrator is amongst the most beloved of the community. Typically the pedophile picks a lonely child and grooms him for abuse by being his "special friend".  Consequently many can't believe that this distinguished family man, this charismatic teacher, this deeply spiritual clergyman would do such a thing. Many can't accept that the pervasive belief  that a man who abuses and rapes children is  mentally ill, a loner, a stranger - is typically wrong.

Because of the deeply seated belief as to the inherent evilness of pedophiles, we have a hard time accepting that the beloved uncle or neighbor is a child rapist. Consequently even when a pedophile confesses - it is often not accepted as being true. And surely when the accused is convicted despite his protests of innocence. The belief that nice people don't do horrible things conflicts with the fact that this person was convicted or confessed. 

This is the problem of cognitive dissonance - resolving strongly conflicting facts. However this dissonance is difficult to live with and thus we have a need to resolve it. One resolution is that we decide he wasn't so nice after all. That his good deeds were fake and that we really didn't know him. While in fact his accomplishments are often genuine - but viewing him as a phony allows us to accept his guilt.  

The other way of resolving the dissonance is to say that the conviction or even confession is not true. How does one ignore the fact of confession by the accused. One rationalization is that he was being railroaded by lying, vindictive kids who were trying to cover up their own misdeeds. Furthermore the accused could not handle the expenses of years of legal help. Therefore when faced with the likelihood of a life sentence or a plea bargain of 5 to 10 years - the plea bargain is the rational option. Because this does happen - it is possible for a rational human being to discount clear evidence of guilt. However the fact that it is unlikely - should cause the true and faithful believers in innocence to at least have doubts.

The Seridei  Aish notes that for a person to be a believer, the fact must move from being an outside assertion - to being accepted internally. This is true of all beliefs. Therefore there are those who keep externally the facts of confession or conviction. They acknowledge that a conviction or confession has occurred - but it is not internalized. The question then becomes, "What helps us internalize these unpleasant facts?"

The most helpful aid to accepting unpleasant facts is education. As we become more educated about the niceness of pedophiles, the dissonance becomes reduced.  As we learn that genuinely loving and spiritual people can do these horrible crimes - the more readily we will deal realistically with these crimes - both in terms of prevention and conviction. As the dissonance is reduced, the easier is it to accept reality.  It is time to accept reality.

Enlightenment & the Jews: What part should G-d play in secular culture?

This is the first of a series of posts on the relationship of Judaism to secular society and secular knowledge. I had previously mentioned the Seridei Aish's view that the Mussar Movement was a frum enlightenment which I understood literally. Dr. Marc Shapiro corrected me and said that I can not take this literally. Apparently the Seridei Aish simply meant it was enlightenment - but only in the spiritual sense and was never meant to include the issue of secular knowledge or tikun olam. However no one else seems to have characterized the Mussar Movement as frum haskala.  Dr. Shapiro said he would send me a letter from the Seridei Aish that discusses the issue more fully.

However once on the topic - since it is the issue today with Rabbi Lipman and his attempt to bring the chareidi society into the modern secular world with compulsory secular studies in high school, compulsory draft and in general a compulsory interaction with the secular world - I thought it would be of value to explore the historic lessons of the traditional Orthodox world dealing with the secular world. The issues facing Israeli Chareidim now were faced by the Jewish community beginning with the end of the 17th century when the secular enlightenment occurred together with emancipation from the ghetto - and continued to the present day.

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Paul Johnson (A History of the Jews page 298-299): Although the haskalah was a specific episode in Jewish history, and the maskil or enlightened Jew is a special type peculiar to Judaism, the Jewish enlightenment is nevertheless part of the general European enlightenment. But it is, more particularly, linked to the enlightenment in Germany, and this for a very good reason. The movement in both France and Germany was concerned to examine and readjust man's attitude to God. But whereas in France its tendency was to repudiate or downgrade God, and tame religion, in Germany it sought genuinely to reach a new understanding of and accommodation with the religious spirit in man. The French enlightenment was brilliant but fundamentally frivolous; the German was serious, sincere and creative. Hence it was to the German version that enlightened Jews felt attracted, which influenced them most, and to which they in turn made a substantial contribution. For perhaps the first time Jews in Germany began to feel a distinct affinity with German culture, and thus sowed in their hearts the seeds of a monstrous delusion.

To intellectuals in Christian society, the question posed by the enlightenment was really: how large a part, if any, should God play in an increasingly secular culture? To Jews, the question was rather what part, if any, should secular knowledge play in the culture of God. They were still enfolded in the medieval vision of a total religious society. It is true that Maimonides had argued strongly in favour of admitting secular science and had demonstrated how completely it could be reconciled to the Torah. But his argument had failed to convince most Jews. Even a relatively moderate man like the Maharal of Prague had attacked Rossi precisely for bringing secular criteria to bear on religious matters. A few Jews, for instance attended medical school in Padua. But they turned their back on the world outside the Torah the moment they re-entered the ghetto in the evening, as indeed did Jewish men of business. Of course many went out into the world never to return; but that had always happened. What the awesome example of Spinoza had shown, to the satisfaction of most Jews, was that a man could not drink at the well of gentile knowledge without deadly risk of poisoning his Judaic life. The ghetto remained not merely a social but an intellectual universe on its own. By the mid-eighteenth century the results were pitifully apparent to all. As long ago as the Tortosa dispute, early in the fifteenth century the Jewish intelligentsia had been made to seem backward and obscurantist. Now, more than 300 years later, the Jews appeared to educated Christians - or even uneducated ones - figures of contempt and derision dressed in funny clothes, imprisoned in ludicrous superstition, as remote and isolated from modern society as one of their lost tribes. The gentiles knew nothing, and cared less about Jewish scholarship. Like the ancient Greeks before them, they were not even aware it existed. For Christian Europe there had always been a 'Jewish problem'. In the Middle Ages it had been: how to prevent this subversive minority from contaminating religious truth, and social order? No fear of that now. For gentile intellectuals, at least the problem was now rather: how, in common humanity, to rescue this pathetic people from their ignorance and darkness