Jewish Life Fall 1980

row

I Tishrei 5741/Fall 1980

Comments: Torah, Jewish History, and the Boston Fifty-Six / A Proposal: Continued / A Rabbi Writes to His Congregants / Desiderata.

The Teshuva Phenomen: The Other Side of the Coin /A Response to our Teshuva Issue, and an examination of some of the less positive aspects of the "phenomenon/' The Book and I: A Private Adventure /An overview of the explosion in Orthodox Jewish publishing.

Working at Teshuva in a Soviet Prison Camp/Finding Jewish identity, Torah and Mitzvos, where one would least expect to.

The Ethics of Aesthetics in Worship /A stinging critique of what passes for worship in many houses of worship.

Our Literary Section: A Jewish Book Roundup /Zelda: A Poet in Israel.

A publication of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America / Orthodox Union

V olum e I V , N u m b er 3

Tishrei 5741/Fall 1980

Mrs. Linore Ward

Editor Yaakov Jacobs Managing Editor David Merzel

Editor Emeritus Saul Bernstein

Editorial Board Julius Berman J. David Bleich Judith Bleich David Cohen Samuel Cohen Lawrence A. Kobrin David Kranzler George Rohr Sheldon Rudoff Pinchas Stolper Simon Wincelberg

Production Assistant

and Family have established the Jess Ward Memorial Jewish Life Fund to help assure the continued publication of Jewish Life and to continue the dissemination of Torah ideology to English-speaking Jewry A tribute to the sacred memory of Jess Ward who in his lifetime gave of his talents and his means to his fellow Jews.

We pray that these pages shall be a worthy memorial to his committed life.

Fayge Silverman A publication of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America Sheldon Rudoff, Chairman, Publications Commmission

V olum e I V , N u m b er 3

Contents 2

Comments: Torah, Jewish History, and the Boston FiftySix / Personal Comment: A Proposal: Continued / Desiderata / Guest Comment: A Rabbi Writes to His Congregants

15

The Teshuva Phenomenon: The Other Side of the Coin / Ralph Pelcovitz

23

The Book and I: A Private Adventure—With Somewhat Broader Implications / Yaakov Jacobs

35

Working at Teshuva in a Soviet Prison Camp: An Interview

41

The Ethics of Aesthetics in Worship / Leo Jung

46

Books in Review A Jewish Book Roundup: The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage/The Concise Code of Jewish Law/Sefer Ha'Chinuch/Ramban: Writings & Discourses/A Crisis of Identity: Israel and Zionism/The Jew in the Modern World

57

Zelda: A Poet in Israel / Freema Gottlieb

Because of the small staff producing Jewish Life, contributors are asked to send an inquiry before submitting manuscripts, and to be patient in waiting for a response. We regret any inconvenience we may have caused in this regard, and we trust we will be able to increase our efficiency in the future. ©Copyright 1980 by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

Material from JEWISH LIFE, including illustrations, may not be reproduced except by written permission from this magazine following written request.

JEWISH LIFE (ISSN #00-2165-77) is published quarterly. Subscription: 1 year— $10.00, 2 years—$18.00, 3 years—$25.00. Foreign: Add $.50 per year. Single copy $2.50, Editorial and Publication Office: 116 East 27th Street, New York, N.Y. 10016. Second Class Postage Paid New York, N.Y.

Torah, Jewish History, and the Boston Fifty-Six Jewish history is Torah. Not only in the sense of the Talmudic axiom that "Ma'ase ovos si'mon Vbonim," that "the experiences of the Fathers are a foreboding for their sons/' but in the sense that the Jewish response to all that transpires around us becomes a part of our spiritual development, and ultimately expresses itself in halacha. The old-time kibbutznik in Chaim Hazaz s short story Hadvashu, who says, in his maiden speech to the weekly m eeting, "I oppose Jewish history. We have not made our history, the gentiles made it for us..." does not understand this. Surely gentiles have forced themselves upon us, and thereby have "made our history." Ask the Six Million; ask the yeshiva people massacred in Hebron before there was a state and before there were settlem ents in occupied territories; ask the m others and their babies slaughtered by the Palestine Liberation Organization; and ask the Israeli athletes slain in Munich in 1972 at the peace­ generating Olympic games; and ask an honored guest at the current games who was given VIP treatm ent—ask Yassir Arafat, who wants to "m ake" Jewish history by ending it. But nonetheless it is our History, and in the end of days it will not be Jews who will be ashamed.

For thirty years, religious Jews of all varieties, not happy over a secular Jewish State governed by a ruling party which fluctuated between tolerance and outright hostility to Torah and Torah values, have been told, "D o not criticize the Israeli governm ent lest you give aid and com fort to the Arabs and other enemies of the S ta te ." And in varying degrees we listened. Yet three years ago, when M enachem Begin's Likud victory brought tw o-party governm ent to the State of Israel,.

Americans in the White House, in the press, and in the secular Jewish establishm ent, reacted as if a dark cloud had descended over Israel and w hat is vaguely known as the Middle East.

By the conventional wisdom that as the Middle East goes so blows the world, the diminutive M enachem Begin was now the greatest threat to world peace, surpassing the Soviet Union, the Third World, the Trilateral Commission, the right-wing "lu n atic frin g e " in A m erica, and the fic titio u s—yet dangerous— Dr. Strangeblood. An astute observer, Ben J. W attenberg, w riting in Harper's (August, 1977)—now happily rescued as it was about to pass into the tunnel—had this to say: ...the exquisite irony of the immediate postelection clash between Carter and Menachem Begin is that Begin (and the Likud party) won on all the Carter issues. His peanut farm was a modest threeroom apartment in Tel Aviv [to which he hopes eventually to return—ed.], but the issues Begin and Likud used were pure

Carter: traditionalism, religion, alienation, responsiveness, "fedup," time-for-a-change, patriotism, decency, inflation, antiWashington (or anti-Jerusalem, or both, as the case may be).

Begin, W atteberg continues, "w on the election, surprising even...[himself] and got pummeled by Arabs and Jews, Americans and Israelis, press and politicos." And w hat was his crime? "T h ey [Likud] had the m isfortune to step on five loaded words: hard, line, right, wing, and terrorist. The first four, w hen run together, as in: hard-line, right-wing Menachem Begin, have the singular ability to send some American liberal Jews into orbit."

Even a school child knows that "hard-line" is bad, even if one of the issues Begin was "hard-line" on was free enterprise.

Israel's thirty years of Labor Party domination had produced a bureaucracy even the existentialists could not fantasize; a tu rn -off for Americans and others who wished to invest their capital in Israel as a kind of enlightened-self-interest Zionism; and corruption that is inevitable when one party dominates a nation for thirty years. And of course Begin was "hard-line" on the issue all Jew s— even the Labor Party—had taken a hard­ line on: the need for viable borders to insure the survival of a state which had become, as one sociologist put it, "th e Jew of the states," with obvious consequences. "It is easy," W attenberg w rote in 1977, "to sit in W ashington and play the salami-slicing game: cut a slice off the Golan; give back some of the Sinai; return the 'W est Bank.' But when you drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a different set of perceptions takes over. The distance from the border of the West Bank to the Mediterranean Sea, across the waist of Israel, is about the distance from Capitol Hill to Bethesda." (emphasis ours) W hat about Begin "th e terro rist?" Here some American history comes into play. O ur forebears came to the American shores, knowing full well the dangers they faced, to build a "New Jerusalem ," inspired by the biblical example of the Jews who left Egypt for the Promised Land. They soon found that the dangers of British oppression were greater than any they had expected. They tried to reason with their brothers-turnedoppressors; and when reason failed they took up arms against the British. W hen Jews in the Holy Land felt the oppression of the British Mandate power—turning away boat-loads of Jews while admitting Arabs in the thousands to supply cheap labor for their munitions industries, a neglected aspect of British villany—Jews took up arms against the British tyrant. As might have been expected, they differed on the magnitude of the military m easures to be taken against the British: hence, Haganah, Irgun, Lechi. But Menachem Begin's attacks on the British and their military installations, were no more acts of terrorism than those of George W ashington and his heroic band of patriots. Yet in the peculiar language of diplomacy and international affairs—where "w e had fruitful discussions,"

means nothing was accomplished”— George W ashington remains the patriot, M enachem Begin the terrorist.

Now back to Jewish history. At no time in Jewish history did any group of Jews choose to reject the essence of Torah, and survive as Jew s— oras they could create a Torah-less governm ent and a Torah-less society, and remain Jewish. Even under the Labor governm ent, many Jews, intellectual leaders among them (see: A Crisis of Identity, a review in this issue), began to raise "th e Jewish question" in Israel. What, they are asking, really makes us different from the nations and the peoples who are sworn either to destroy us or to help those who are sworn to destroy us? Apart from that, the approach which said to the nations, "see, we Israelis are ju st like you, and now we have our own land, so we w on't be bothering you anymore, and now you can accept us as equals," has fallen apart. Israel has become like the European intellectuals who converted to Christianity as "a passport to W estern society," yet were still called "dirty Jew ."

Menachem Begin and his Likud Party—indeed including his NRP and Agudas Yisrael coalition m em bers—stand for a return to Jewish belief, Jewish tradition, and Jewish values as the only way to assure our survival as Jews.

And so the "Peace-N ow " people—clinging to a bankrupt philosophy that if we show the goyim how nice we are they will be nice to us— have joined with American Jew s—who have been embarrassed by Israel's emerging new Jew ishness; and who are perhaps getting bored of defending a state led by people whose aims make them uncom fortable (unlike the Labor governm ents of the first thirty years)—in an effort to appease an increasingly hostile American governm ent, European Com munity, and United Nations. So far has all this gone, that a mere resolution in Israel's Knesset generates a barrage of criticism of greater magnitude than the response to continuing aggression against smaller powers, and the continuous m assacre of men, women and children in far-aw ay places of the world.

Hazaz's kibbutznik is quite right that the Gentiles "make Jewish history," but it is we who make Jewish responses, and we reject the Uncle-Tom ism of the Leonard Feins, the 56'ers, the Peace-Nowniks, and all those who would barter their Jew ishness, and Israeli lives, to gain temporal approval of the nations of the world. But Jewish experience has taught us not to place our faith in the promises of the nations; nor in the platforms of political parties; nor in UN resolutions. And Jewish experience is Torah, and Torah is halacha, and halacha is the way in which we m ust go toward that day when the M aster of History shall fashion the destiny of all nations and all men.

4

Ian ythig Yet

P O S T SC R IP T : O n the day the above com ments were w ritten (July 2 7 ,1 9 8 0 ), there appeared in The New York Times a letter to the editor with the headline: "A nti-Sem itism , the Principal Foe of Israel," w ritten by M orris B. Abram, form er UN diplomat and form er president of Brandeis University. Abram described an accelerated m etamorphosis of his position from refusing to sign the "5 6 Statem ent," while still opposing "Begin's 'declaratory7 settlem ent policy," to the conclusion "th at nothing Israel does will cause the Arab world as a whole, or the world as represented in the United Nations, to accept the fact of Israel.

If the objection is not to the settlements, it's going to be to Jerusalem.

If not Jerusalem, it's going to be the occupation of the Golan Heights (from which Israeli kibbutzim were shelled for 20 years).

If it isn't Golan, the drumbeat will concentrate on the "racist" nature of the state (Zionism, which is the Israeli form of Americanism, has been declared by the United Nations General Assembly to be racism, a crime under existing international law.)

On the night I left Israel, I spoke to a former Israeli diplomat, an Oxford graduate and surely one of the most urbane and civilized of men. I put to him my puzzlement: "Why is Israel, the one democracy in the Mideast, the one stable and reliable friend of the West, the one state which has created a protective economy and society out of desert scrubland, treated like a leper in the United Nations and judged by its warts rather than its desserts?"

He replied citing papers dealing with Mideast affairs which had recently come to light from certain foreign ministries. Many of these documents, which routinely percolated from the lowest levels up to foreign ministers, prime ministers and occasionally even heads of state, contained anti-Semitic marginal handwritten notes from the most junior officers. Those who inscribed the antiSemitic remarks had to assume that these would not impair their careers no matter who saw them in the upward distribution chain even at the level of the foreign minister or higher.

Upon my return to the United States, I picked up The Times, which had a picture of Yasir Arafat grinning as he was hailed by some Olympic official in Moscow. Is it really possible? The conspirator in the murder of Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972 was receiving plaudits of supposedly respectable people at the 1980 Games? Is it any wonder that the democratic Government of Israel is very wary and deeply troubled?

The headline w riter was quite correct in summing up Mr. Abram's statem ent: antisem itism is what lies at the heart of opposition to Israel. It is a painful fact to live with, but like many such truths it can have a liberating effect on us once we are prepared to face up to it. We commend Mr. Abram for his clear analysis of the problem, and his courage in stating it so directly.

5

A Proposal: Continued In our last issue I w rote about the growing attention being given to O rthodox Judaism in America, with emphasis on the special issue of AmericanJewish America. I said I would elaborate on a proposal for the creation of an institute for Orthodox self-study: for study of its early years, and its current condition. I might not have returned so quickly to the subject, were it not for a very warm letter I received from Dr. Bernard Wax, D irector of the American Jewish Historical Society which publishes American Jewish History. Among other things, Dr. Wax w rote that he looks forward to the elaboration of my proposal. I'm not all that sure that I am ready to offer a complete picture of w hat I have in mind, but sitting at a typew riter may help to crystallize it in my own mind and I pray that w hat emerges will stimulate others to offer their ideas. M y feelings stem from a certain pessimism I sense within me about the condition of Orthodoxy at this critical time in the history of our own community and of the Jewish People as a whole. Yet pessimism, it has been observed, can often be an excellent stimulus to action, and can often be converted into its opposite.

1. American O rthodoxy has no sense of history. Records are not kept; documents go astray; historic figures who make significant contributions to the rebirth of O rthodoxy—and have thereby made significant contributions to all of American Jew ry—are quickly forgotten. M any such people are still among us and little effo rt has been made to record their recollections either in writing or on tape. Oral histories being put together today in some universities and institutes will be a valuable resource for future generations. The American Jewish Com m ittee has begun such a project, but they are not likely to be interested in O rthodoxy per se.

I recently chatted with a prom inent O rthodox attorney who was an active leader in the early years of the tw entieth century. O ver a cup of coffee he told me about his involvement with State D epartm ent officials during World War II; of his own difficulties in finding work as a fledgling Shom er Shabbos attorney; of his difficulties with hostile judges who couldn't understand why he had to leave the courtroom on Friday afternoon—all experiences crying out to be recorded. Because of our remarkable grow th over a short span of years, scores of such people are available to us, but nothing is being done to preserve their experiences. Individuals, like Dr. David Kranzler, a m ember of our Editorial Board, have private collections of valuable documents, but there is no public repository where these collections can ultimately be housed and used by scholars.

2. American O rthodoxy has many problems today. The grow th of yeshivos and their proliferation has been so enriching to the American Jewish experience, that few people are willing to examine them more closely, for fear of hurting our cause. Yet many people I speak to privately, who have them selves learned in yeshivos, as well as people teaching in and heading yeshivos have strong misgivings about the endproducts of yeshiva education. In some circles, it is deemed heretical to suggest that something may be wrong, that there should perhaps be some re-thinking and re-w orking of the traditional yeshiva curriculum. U nfortunately, approaches to these problems become polarized, even politicized, and the level of discourse on the subject descends to name-calling.

There are problems about the survival of our shuts. There are fears that the large congregations which w ere once thriving centers of Yiddishkeit, are threatened by the draining off of their worshippers by smaller groups and W hatever the rationales offered, it is disheartening to see young people brought closer to Yiddishkeit at their local shul and encouraged to broaden their knowledge o f Torah by attending yeshivos— only to then turn their backs on these centers of Jewish life.

There are problems with the spirituality of the religious life, some seeing the wonderful grow th of positive observance of mitzvosas often obscuring the quintessential spirit of the Torah way of life. This is certainly a paradox, but one that was catalogued by our Prophets and Sages centuries ago, and became the stock-in-trade of the great Mussar teachers of the nineteenth century, from Reb Yisrael Salanter to the few remaining adherents of the Mussarmovement today. There are few such teachers outside of our yeshivos today.

It is precisely because one could go on for pages and pages writing about these problems which are spoken of during chance encounters, and in hasty conversations, that a locus m ust be found where they can be discussed in a deliberate m anner by people who can contribute much to identifying the problems, work toward finding some solutions, and stim ulate im plem entation of new approaches.

I therefore propose the establishm ent of an Institute for the Study of American O rthodox Judaism, which would become the center foif dealing with our past as it relates to our present, and our present as it relates to our future. Such an Institute need not be a base for another m ajor fund-raising e ffo rt—nor should it be. The trappings of organizational structure would quickly defeat the purpose of such an institute. It needs to be modestly endowed by a group of men and women who recognize the need fo r preserving our history and our gains, and for seeking solutions to our current problems. It need only 7

be staffed by a small group of people who will in turn draw on the hundreds of rabbis, scholars, and laymen who are themselves the product of the O rthodox renaissance.

The relatively small cost of such an institute would enhance in many ways our great Torah institutions in which O rthodox Jewry has made a tremendous investm ent—an investm ent that is threatened by a failure to confront and deal with the lessons of our past, and new realities of the present.

Desiderata "D esiderata" is a strange word. It's used by scholars when they come close to an area that has not been fully explored, and it sort of means: "W ouldn't it be nice—desirable—if someone studied this area and told us more about it."

Well, who says we can't learn anything from scholars? We have some desiderata too. We receive press releases daily put out by sophisticated "P R " shops about organizations or groups we'd really like to know more about, but what they send us is often ju st puff: such things as "M ax Balebosky Elected Head of Button-M akers D ivision," ad nauseum. But we would welcome serious articles about such entities as—not in any order at all— COLPA , Hatzoloh, Bar Ilan University, the Telzer Yeshiva, the Lakewood Yeshiva, all other yeshivos, Yeshiva University, O hel and M ishkan, the Agudah Library in Boro Park, the "Seed Program " of Torah Umesorah, et al.

While we are at it, we would welcome articles on: Yiddish and Yiddish literature: do they have a future? W hat's happening to secular Jews, Yiddishists, and Jewish socialists: do theyhave a future; do they want to become Jew ry's fourth "denom ination?" W hat about the new alliance of Reform w ith secular Zionists in Israel?—et cetera.

If you would like to write on one of these subjects, send us a note telling us w hat you'd like to write about; tell us about yourself; and if you'd like w ell send you a longer list of Jewish Life desiderata.

A Rabbi Writes to His Congregants The following letter was addressed to two of his congregants by Rabbi J. David Bleich.

My dear Marcia and Avi, Your request to be included on the mailing list of our synagogue as Marcia Levin/Avi Stern rather than as Mr. and Mrs. Stern has been brought to my attention. Since the request seems so trivial you are probably wondering why the change w asn't made promptly. Yet, at times, m atters of

m om ent escape notice precisely because they are clothed in trivia. For this reason—and because your request is reflective of an ever-growing trend—1 feel I should share with you the sentim ents that prompted us not immediately to comply with your request.

It probably seems odd to make a to-do about a surname since there is nothing at all intrinsically Jewish about family names.

They didn't exist until fairly recent times and were not adopted

by Jews with any great enthusiasm . So why all the fuss?

My concern is not the name, but what the name has come to represent. I have no doubt that you have been united in marriage ke'dasMoshe v'Yisrael. Your m anifest observance of other tenets of Judaism establishes a a presumption that you would not be sharing an apartm ent unless you were indeed married. M oreover, if I were to take the time to check our records I would assuredly find an application for synagogue membership in which you have so indicated.

But Judaism applies a different test for m atters subject to public scrutiny: ve-heyisem nekiyim mai’Hashem u-m'Yisrael. O ne's conduct must be blameless not only in the eyes of G-d, but in the eyes of man as well. Society assumes that a couple sharing a single surname is indeed married; use of different family names carries with it a contrary implication. A mere convention, to be sure, but, nevertheless, one which bears a definite moral connotation.

I know very well that you will respond by stating that it is precisely these social conventions which you and others seek to change by the very act of flaunting this usage. If enough people act as you seek to act there will indeed be no assumption to be drawn and, sometime in the future, even a stick-in-themud such as I will have no reason for objection.

To be sure, in another age abrogation of this convention might well be devoid of moral meaning. However, in our time, use of a common family name does serve to promote a moral value which is seriously endangered. O r, more precisely, elimination of a shared family name denigrates that value.

I need not spell out in detail the revolution in sexual mores and the breakdown of the family which is taking place before our very eyes. As believing and observant Jews you certainly find these developments as distressing as I do. Use of separate family nam es—socially, as distinct from professionally—does convey the impression that although the couple shares an apartm ent, w hether or not a marriage cerem ony has taken place is of little import. If people, and particularly if people like yourselves who do subscribe to a moral code—and to the moral code of Judaism at th at—convey the impression (albeit unwittingly) that w hether or not it is publicly known that they 9

are indeed married and not simply living together is of no concern to them , then it will rapidly become of even less concern to society at large than it is at present. In the absence of social censure immoral conduct soon becomes normative.

I assure you that I am fully aware of the positive goals which you seek to promote by maintaining separate surnames. Those goals, so long as they are directed to equality of treatm ent for both women and men and development of individual potential to its fullest are w orthy of support. Assuredly, we should not condone discrimination in the professional or business world on the basis of gender or marital status. But the battle for equality on those fronts should not be allowed to claim diminished moral standards or loss of a sense of family as the price of victory.

I confess that I fail to perceive a change of surname style as a panacea, but there is one change to which, if others perceive it to be beneficial, I find no objection. Since surnames a m atter of convention why should you not adopt a convention which would couple both family names by means of hyphenation?

You would then be known as Mr. and Mrs. Levin-Stern or, just as readily, as Mr. and Mrs. Stern-Levin. Any way you choose to style yourselves is fine, so long as it proclaims to all and sundry that in truth you are not separate individuals who just happen to enjoy an intim ate relationship but rather and ishah eternally bound to each other and to the moral code of Judaism at th at— through the presence of the Shechinah symbolized by the letters yod and heh of ishand ishah respectively the presence of the Eternal which makes your relationship both sacred and permanent.

With every good wish to both of you, J. David Bleich Rabbi

10

In This Issue... ...we return to the subject of Teshuva—as we all should during the m onth of Elul, and on the eve of the Days of Awe. (Copies of our special Teshuva Issue, W inter 1978-79, are still available, and we are pleased that our sister publication, The Jewish Observer, has also published an issue on this subject.)

Believing Jews are wont to think that teshuva is for "th e oth ers;" th at if only our non-O rthodox brothers would return to Yiddishkeit, Moshiachwould soon come. O n more sober reflection it appears that were those of us who are believing, practicing, O rthodox Jews to "do" teshuva, all of Klal Yisrael would come closer to the time of Geula. It is well that during these days we contem plate this thought which bursts forth not from this pen, but from the words of our prophets and sages.

In The Teshuva Phenomenon: The Other Side of the Coin, Rabbi Ralph Pelcovitz perform s a painful but necessary task: he poses questions about w hat is happening in the teshuva world that m ust be confronted if the phenonm enon is to be better understood, if it is to be accelerated and enhanced. As always, responses will be welcomed to these pages.

Working at Teshuva in a Soviet Prison Camp describes the process under seemingly impossible circum stances. The Maharal Mi'Prague speaks of three aspects of Torah life: the com m andm ents bain adam governing m an's relationship with his C reator; bain adam I'chavairo, those governing inter-personal relationships; and a third area (not often talked about) bain adam those which govern man's relationship with himself. Precisely what these mitzvos are is not a subject for casual editorial remarks, but they deal w ith knowing oneself; with acquiring and nurturing a sense of one's identity. Reading about teshuva in a prison camp, apart from its intrinsic value, can only support our efforts to grow and to find new meaning in these three relationships, which perhaps in one sense defines the teshuva process on the personal level.

Following the Ne’ila at the close of Yom Kippur, we enter the new year with a clean slate, having been cleansed of our sins by the day and its experiences. "W hy th en ," someone asked, "do we in the first ma'ariv repeat the standard formula, ‘S'lach lanu...kee chatanu...' Forgive us because we have sinned?" And the questioner answered, "w e ask to be forgiven for the haste w ith which we offered the first ma'ariv." Teshuva is inextricably bound to the introspection of tefila, the essence of Jewish worship. (See: The Program of Prayer, by Rabbi Leo Jung, Jewish Life, Summer/Fall 1978.) In The Ethics of Aesthetics in 11

Worship, Dr. Jung returns to the subject of worship and records his deepest concerns with the externals of traditional worship which reflect what is happening—or not happening— internally. The Soncino Press of London, the outstanding publisher of English-language Judaica in the world, will soon issue Dr. Jung's autobiography. This w riter has been privileged to see some of the original drafts and it promises to be a m ajor contribution to understanding the early years of American O rthodoxy, and a m ajor literary event for American and British Jewry. The current essay is a som ew hat shortened version of a paper cotributed by Dr. Jung to what was to be a festschrift honoring Rabbi Joseph Lookstein, but which became—with his passing—a memorial volume. The Rabbi Joseph H.Lookstein Memorial Volume, edited by Leo Landman, is nonetheless a festschrift: paying tribute to a person only tangentially by words of praise, but primarily by original contributions to scholarship in the honoree's area of interest.

The work is filled with fascinating studies that will interest even the general reader, and it is crowned with a contribution

by Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik on "T h e Synagogue as an Institution and as an Idea." Apart from the stature of the w riter, this essay differs from others in the volume in that it is in effect an exam ination of primary Torah sources brought into play to shed light on the subject, with the deeply poetic sensitivities which mark "th e Rav's" approach to learning.

And this takes us to Zelda: A Poet in Israel. Zelda, as she is known in the world of Hebrew letters, is one of the few Jewish poets who draws on the Torah not only for her poetic substance, but for her way of life as well. Freema Gottlieb interviewed Zelda in her home in Yerushalayim and she offers the results in this issue.

In The Book and I: A Private Adventure, Yaakov Jacobs looks at the "explosion" in O rthodox publishing and finds it wanting.

Some recently published Jewish works are reported on in A Jewish Book Roundup.

From those of us who produce Jewish Life to those of you who honor us by reading it go our w arm est good wishes for a K siva V chasima Tova. M ay we all, in the coming new year, merit the coming of Moshiach, the ultimate resolution of all the problems that beset Klal Yisrael and all of Mankind.

12

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13

Ralph Pelcovitz

The Teshuva Phenomenon: The Other Side of the Coin The Teshuva "m ovem ent," or return to Judaism, by an appreciable num ber of young men and women, and the em ergence of the ba 'alteshuva as an identifiable character on the modern Jewish scene has understandably evoked much attention, com ment and analysis—even to the extent that Jewish Life devoted an entire issue (W inter 1979/80) to this The word teshuva means return phenomenon. In classical Jewish thought teshuva has always hut it also means a response to a been an intriguing mystical experience. We are now question, and it is therefore confronted with thousands of living examples who can be important to ask the correct observed, interviewed, dissected and analyzed. questions.

The ba'al teshuva has captured our imagination and Jewish Life is to be commended for inviting a number of w riters to seriously examine their impact upon the Jewish community.

We m ust, however, not permit our fascination w ith, and admiration of, these new converts to Torah Judaism to blur our perception of them or becloud the clarity of our thinking regarding the teshuva m ovem ent; its strengths and weaknesses, its positive and negative aspects, successes—and failures. We m ust also be aware of the dangers as well as the opportunities which this movement presents to the Jewish community in general and to the Orthodox community in particular.

The word teshuva means "re tu rn " but it also means a "response" to a question, and it is therefore im portant to ask the correct questions. We hope here to ask the right questions which we believe are fair and cogent, troublesome and even irritating though they may seem. Let it be understood that our critique does not apply to all returnees. Rather, it reflects experiences with and observations of certain sub-groupings within the teshuva com munity which bring into question the approach used by some who deal with them and the result of their m ethods. We pose these questions in the hope that they will evoke answ ers which will prove to be beneficial to the Torah com munity as well as to the sincere ba'al teshuva. The intelligent, honest seeker of Jewish identity and Jewish integrity will not be deterred by a frank analysis of his motives, methods and objectives. O n the contrary, it is the returnee who has more questions than answers. A group of Israelis who had recently begun the difficult road of return to Torah rejected the designation ba’alei teshuva. "Anachnu ba’alei she'aila," Ralph Pelcovitz, a frequent contributor to these pages, is the they argued. They insisted they were asking questions; they rahhi of Congregation Knesseth were not yet sure of the answers.

Israel of Far Rockaway—the Among the questions we would like to pose are the following: renowned “White Shul."

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How real and lasting is the com m itm ent to Yiddishkeit of today's ba'alteshuva ? And what of the quality: is it substantial or shallow, solid or superficial?

Will the ba 'alteshuva eventually enter the m ainstream of th Torah society, or remain isolated in his own enclave, clinging A group of Israelis who had to his rebbe and fellow returnees? Does recently begun the difficult road so forever, or does he at some point emerge as simply a Torah of return to Torah rejected the observant Jew ? designation ba'alei teshuva.

"Anachnu ba'alei she'aila," they Has there been an inordinate pre-occupation with the ba’al argued. They insisted they were teshuva at the expense of the born-and-bred O rthodox asking questions; they were not youngster? yet sure of the answers.

Are we neglecting our day-school and yeshiva high-school graduates as they enter their vulnerable years and become ¿xposed to the challenges of a secular society? Are we concentrating our limited resources on the returnees, to the exclusion at times of those who have been reared in traditional homes?

There is, of course, no single ba'al teshuva personality and, therefore, one may not generalize. M any do, however, come to Torah Judaism searching for some kind of a religious experience. They are not necessarily attracted to Judaism per se: they are young men and women who have found their lives devoid of values and lacking direction. Some have been with cults, others with drugs: they seek a safe harbor as well as some meaning and purpose for their lives. They are easily attracted to a religious leader who possesses a charism atic personality to whom they can cling, and lean upon as a pillar of strength and support which they so desperately need. Their ready acceptance into a yeshiva or a group, with its w arm th and sincerity, makes them feel welcomed and wanted.

Since in m ost cases their Jewish knowledge is minimal and woefully lacking in scope and depth, they m ust begin from aleph. To m aster Torah knowledge is difficult and arduous, even for one who has some background; to observe mitzvos is far easier. It becomes a m atter of obedience and im itation; hence they become pious before they become proficient in the" fundamentals of Judaism. As a result, their religiosity is often quite immature and their scale of religious values unbalanced.

To master Torah knowledge is They cannot as yet differentiate between fundamental Jewish difficult and arduous, even for law, and practices which are of lesser w eight; nor can they one who has some background; appreciate the nuances and subtleties of Jewish practice, and to observe mitzvos is far easier...hence they become pious they become prone to a piety marked by superficiality and before they become proficient in observance by rote. This is not to say that they are less the fundamentals of Judaism. As a result, their religiosity is often meticulous in their religious practices or lax in their duties. On quite immature and their scale of the contrary: they are extrem ely—and at times overly— religious values unbalanced. zealous and concerned about the minutiae of Jewish law. The flaw lies in their inability to be selective, to be free, to be natural and joyful in their observance of Judaism.

Torah Judaism is quite demanding even to the native 16

Orthodox. How much more so for one who has come from a non-restrictive and undisciplined milieu. It can become truly overwhelming and, therefore, the ba'al teshuva needs support and reinforcem ent which m ust be intelligently and wisely offered. The Rambam tells us that the ba’al teshuva is by the nature of his condition, humble, contrite, and insecure. His com m itm ent may therefore be tenuous and tem porary as well as shallow and superficial. Those who have been successful in attracting and retaining the loyalty of these returnees to Judaism have done so through patience, love,and very personal attention. They, more than anyone, can attest to the mercurial moods of some of these penitents and the ever-present danger of their leaving us as suddenly and abruptly as they arrived.

The best hope for permanence is to slowly build a firm Externals may attract him at the foundation and not to demand too much from them at the beginning, but it is doubtful whether they can insure his initial stage; to increase their substantive knowledge as time staying power unless they are goes on; and to elevate the quality of their Torah knowledge in strengthened with intellectual order to secure their loyalty and com m itm ent to Jewish convictions and sincere faith practice. In m osteases the ba'al teshuva is bright and intelligent, which can only come through Torah knowledge. with a fine academic background. Externals may attract him at the beginning, but it is doubtful w hether they can insure his staying power unless they are strengthened with intellectual convictions and sincere faith which can only come through Torah knowledge. Proper ch—compansionship and guidance—under the tutelage of sincere, com petent and committed friends, is also of tremendous importance. The teachers m ust possess the skills and wisdom to know how to handle these young men and women who are extrem ely volatile and highly emotional. To what extent this personnel is present in ba’al teshuva yeshivos both here and in Eretz Yisrael is problematic. The attrition rate is not documented but one gets the feeling that it is substantial.

The poor quality of Jewish knowledge among ba'alei teshuva resulting in a lack of m eaningful observance by many returnees is also apparent to observers of the Jewish scene.

Too many of them are maladjusted; worried about their ability to measure up to the requirem ents of their new-found religion; and confused about its true standards. As a result, emphasis is too often placed upon externals—one's garb and m anifestation of ritual appearance and apparel— to which they can relate, but one wonders to what extent there has been an inner transform ation and how authentic and profound it is.

When ba'aleiteshuva were less num erous than they are today, the late-com er to Torah joined in the company of those who were more knowledgeable and sophisticated in their Torah learning and observance of mitzvos. He sought out a com munity where he could learn by observing the practice of others, and w here he could absorb the spirit and rhythm of Jews to whom Torah and mitzvos are as natural as the air they breathe. He was 17

influenced and challenged, for he had role models, and his striving was to adapt and adjust to this norm. With the multiplicity of returnees and the establishm ent of their own constricted circles, they are deprived of this im portant exposure and, as a result, their inadequacies and shortcom ings are reinforced by one another while their grow th is stunted by their isolation from the m ainstream of the Torah community.

We can sympathize with the reluctance of the returnee to seek out the average congregation and social group for fear of being rejected. This fear is unfortunately real and it is a The community professes its difficult obstacle to overcome. The average Torah Jewish man, delight with the phenomenon of woman, and even child is not always overly hospitable to the the return of lost souls, hut they ba'al teshuva:there are doubts and apprehensidns which are not are not that eager to accept the easily dismissed.

O rthodox Jews, in varying degrees, are actual returnee, a phenomenon similar to that of lovers of insular. They are concerned that exposure to those whom they humanity who find it difficult to perceive as "d ifferen t" will affect their own religiosity and it is relate to people. difficult for them to overcome this ingrained anxiety, which often unfairly m anifests itself in shutting out th teshuva.

The ba’al teshuva consequently finds himself more com fortable in the company of his own peers and like-minded individuals who have shared his lapses, experienced the same problems and anxieties, and who can lend a sympathetic ear and a supporting hand. This is not always forthcom ing from the established Jewish com munity when they encounter ba'alei teshuva on a one-to-one basis. The community professes its delight with the phenomenon of the return of lost souls, but they are not that eager to accept the actual returnee, a phenomenon similar to that of lovers of hum anity who find it difficult to relate to people.

As a result of all this, th e ba’alteshuva clings yeshiva and his peers, thereby stifling his spirit to a certain extent and impeding his religious grow th. The m ost tragic aspect of all this is the retention of a title and status that should ultimately fall away. He is, it appears, a " forever—even after he has become no different from other observant Jews, become proficient in the knowledge of Torah law, and should feel as com fortable in the Torah com munity as his "regu lar" brethren. He is ready to enter the m ainstream of the O rthodox Jewish community but is often prevented, strangely, from crossing that threshold and becoming integrated into the established Jewish com m unity. This clannishness could perhaps be mitigated if the negative attitude of the established O rthodox community would be corrected, as we mentioned above. Until a warmer climate of welcome is created, however, the will gravitate to the safer and more secure society of his own limited circle.

We m ust once again emphasize that this is not true of all returnees. There are rabbis, teachers and lay people who have graduated from the ranks of the but 18

unfortunately, there are also far too many who are locked into their roles and frozen into a self-image long after they have earned the right to be regarded simply as Torah observant jew s. There are times when one wonders w hether they are being denied this logical progression and promotion not only The most tragic aspect of all this by their own timidity and lack of self-confidence, but also by is the retention of a title and status that should ultimately fall the reluctance of some of their m entors to let go. Since there away. He is, it appears, a "baal may be no ready replenishm ents, we can appreciate the teshuva" forever... reluctance to allow these penitents to leave; it would diminish the num bers and weaken the base of the ba'al teshuva kehilla, thereby depriving its leadership of its power and influence in the Jewish community. One would hope that this is not so but, unfortunately, many examples can be cited. Perhaps what is needed is a dialogue betw een the rabbinical leadership of com munity synagogues and leaders of teshuva yeshivos, so as to reassure them their talmidim will be welcomed, and they in turn will continue to enjoy the support of the entire Jewish com munity, in their unique and im portant work.

The failure of many ba'aleiteshuva to become part of the general com munity is unfortunate given the intelligence and talents of many of them. It is unfair to have them spend their lives in an atm osphere of limited Jewish intellectual ferm ent and in an isolated segm ent of the Jewish community, closing them o ff to the total Jewish com munity, denying them the exciting and stimulating company of others, and above all, depriving them of the opportunity to contribute their own talents to Klal Yisrael.

In recent years a num ber of national O rthodox groups have become involved with teshuvayeshivos and organizations, as have a num ber of individual philanthropists. The best example would, of course, be the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (N CSY) sponsored by the Union of O rthodox Jewish Congregations of America. N C SY has had phenomenal success with youngsters from non-religious homes thanks to One wonders whether a the fantastic dedication of its professional staff and the combination of the natural attraction of the exotic, coupled readiness of the Union to lend its support and prestige to its with a certain guilt feeling, has activities. Perhaps this has not always been altruistic—youth not resulted in the preoccupation programs are an excellent magnet for financial support, and of the Orthodox community with the fact that these young people are being brought back to the baalei teshuva to the exclusion at times of our Judaism makes it an even more attractive program, which natural, home-grown products. evokes considerable support from the Orthodox Jewish community. N onetheless, one cannot gainsay the glorious accomplishments of the N C SY as well as a number of yeshivos that deal with more m ature young men and women on the college and post-college level both here and in Eretz Yisrael.

One wonders w hether a combination of the natural attraction of the exotic, coupled with a certain guilt feeling, has not resulted in the preoccupation of the O rthodox com munity with the ba'alei teshuva to the exclusion at times of our natural, 19

Kiruv rechokim, befriending and bringing closer those who are far away, is most admirable but we dare not allow the kerovim, those already in our midst1, to become rechokim.

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hom e-grow n products. What troubles many is the fear that we may be ignoring our own youngsters while focusing in on those whom we are trying to bring back. Kiruv rechokim, (befriending and bringing closer those who are far away), is most admirable but we dare not allow the kerovim, those already in our midst, to become rechokim.

Even synagogues have concentrated in their adult studies programs on the education of the Jewishly unlettered who were deprived of the opportunity of Torah learning in their early years. Not only N C SY but other national youth organizations have focused in on Jewishly estranged youngsters. As mentioned above, special yeshivos have been founded both here and in Eretz Yisrael for, the purpose of teaching those who are devoid of Jewish knowledge.

Synagogue and rabbinic conventions have devoted special sessions to the teshuva m ovement. All this is commendable, but are we overlooking the tremendous needs of those of our youngsters who have been reared in Orthodox homes, attended day schools and even yeshiva high schools, and are then cast into an alien, bewildering world which m ilitates against all they have been taught during their younger years precisely at that time in their lives when they are most vulnerable? How much has the Jewish com munity done for these college-aged youngsters in whom we have such a tremendous investm ent? How much effo rt and money has been channeled into insuring the continuity of Torah learning and mitzvah observance for elem entary yeshiva graduates?

W hat percentage of these youngsters go on to a yeshiva high school; and even of those who do, how many remain observant once they begin attending a university? The college campuses have devoured so many of our young people and we have been woefully lax in responding to this challenge. T rue, our resources are limited and to organize on campus takes m oney and trained personnel, but where do our priorities lie, and is the emphasis on developing ba'alei teshuva the result of a carefully-thought-out and intelligent decision? O r could it be that reaching out is simpler—and more dramatic than reaching in?

There is also the problem of young married couples reared in O rthodox communities who move into new communities where there is no proper shul in which to daven and who would welcome the assistance of an organized group to help them establish a beachead for Torah Judaism, but absent this help make their peace with joining the Conservative congregation in their com m unity. O ur resources are limited, our talents are stretched thin, and it is for this reason that we m ust make some hard decisions to determine w hether it is more important to save lost souls or to preserve and retain wavering ones. We

would hope that we can do both. Indeed we must do both to secure our future.

We have not posed these questions for the purpose of weakening our resolve in supporting and encouraging this exciting m ovement of return to the sources of Judaism. We are ra th er concerned fo r the m eaningful ch aracter and substantive success of the returnee's journey back to Torah society. We m ust not, however, shrink from recognizing the problems if they are to be solved, and identifying the w eaknesses if they are to be corrected.

A nother caveat. The thrust of our analysis applies to the post-high school penitents rather than the younger ones whose attitudes and personality have as yet not been firmly shaped. N C SY , and similar organized efforts to save youngsters from Jewish ignorance and assimilation, have proven to be much more effective and less prone to the problems we have presented, than yeshivos, schools and groups that deal with the older returnee.

Finally, in dealing with this phenomenon we should be careful with the term s we use. The term "ba'al teshuva" which is applied to the vast m ajority of today's penitents is really a misnom er. In classical Jewish literature this appellation is reserved for one who has been educated in Torah, brought up in a Jewish environm ent, observed the mitzvos and then walks away to a different kind of life. He is a haul teshuva because he is returning to his beginnings. Today's haul teshuva, who has little or no Jewish training, is more the "tinok she'nishbah,'"'the babe who is taken captive" and denied the opportunity of learning, observing and living as a Torah Jew. In that sense most of the young men and women are not "doing teshuva," nor are they really returning. They are rather discovering and claiming w hat has tragically been denied them and concealed from them. They are Jewishly deprived and m ust make up for lost time. In the process, however, it is imperative that they be carefully nurtured and intelligently instructed and guided. It is the firm belief of many who are concerned, knowledgeable, and supportive that to insure their transition, grow th and ultimate development into committed, constructive Jews, their educational standards m ust be raised, and that they be integrated into the m ainstream of Torah society. But again: We dare not permit ourselves to neglect the young people who have been reared in positive Jewish homes, received a good Jewish education, and been exposed in their formative years to vibrant Jewish com munity institutions. The Torah com munity has come of age and is strong enough, secure enough, and sufficiently prosperous to take care of both elem ents in our midst. We have the skills and the m eans, the question remains: do we have the will?

The Torah community has come of age and is strong enough, secure enough, and sufficiently prosperous to take care of both elements in our midst. We have the skills and the means, the question remains: do we have the will?

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Yaakov Jacobs

The Book and I: A Private Adventure —With Somewhat Broader Implications Ever since I was a teen-ager I have had a passion for books.

Growing up in the netherworld betw een Williamsburg and G reenpoint in Brooklyn, in an upper-class low-income family, my most valuable possession was my library card. I would often go to the Public Library on Leonard Street to borrow books. Among the books that influenced me most were Edmund Fleg's Why 1 am a ]ew, and Everyman's Talmud, by Rabbi A. Cohen of London.

The book by Fleg, a French playright who on the verge of converting to Catholicism decided to give Judaism one last chance, helped me find my Jewish identity as I was passing through that difficult period betw een being a boy and being a man. I didn't know at the time that I was searching for my identity, or that I was passing through adolescence into adulthood. It was only when I finally became an adult that I became aware of my passage and identity struggles. By then I was forever an adult and forever a Jew. Fleg's description of his re-discovery of Judaism is a classic work in the field of Teshuva literature, and was long out of print until it was re-issued a few years ago by Bloch Publishing Company.

Everyman's Talmud introduced me to the world of the Sages. It is a marvelous work which is in effect an anthology of Talmudic wisdom by subject, linked together by the author's exposition. A fter reading it many times over, I was able to quote eruditely on any aspect of the vast Torah literature, w ithout having studied a "blatt gem m orah"—a skill I inexplicably lost after spending close to ten years in yeshiva.

There was yet another book I would take from the library, and return in two weeks, waiting for it to reappear on the shelves so I could borrow it again. This was the Guide of the Perplexed by Maimonides, as I knew it then; the Rambam's Moreh Nevuchim as I was to know it later. When the library introduced "sum m er vacation books" which one could keep through July and August, it was a thrill to me that the Guide was to be mine for eight weeks. T hat summer I worked as a cashier at our local grocer's and when things were slow I took out my treasure and trted to read it.

But summer was soon gone, and I soon became frustrated at having to return my books every two weeks, and vowed that when I could afford it, I would own my own copies of these books. Today I have in my library copies of several editions of

One posek wrote in a responsa, in obvious frustration, that printing was a curse and explained why. In the past, he said, an author would circulate his manuscript among other scholars and only when he had won their approval would he have scribes write additional copies. Now everyone who fancies himself to be an author runs to the press and there is no stopping them.

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After reading it many times over, 1 was able to quote eruditely on any aspect of the vast Torah literature, without having studied a "blatt gemmorah"—a skill I inexplicably lost after spending close to ten years in yeshiva.

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the Fleg book and a copy of Everyman's Talmud, w h ich has recently been re-issued by Schocken Books in paperback. I also have a copy of the Friedlander English translation of the Guide; a copy of the University of Chicago Press7new translation into English, done from the original Arabic, because it was claimed that previous translations into English were far from the mark; and a new translation of Moreh Nevuchim from the original Arabic into Hebrew published by Mosad Harav Kook in Yerushalayim because it was felt that the widely-used translation by Ibon Tibbon was inadequate—and I am still trying to m aster the work.

There were few books on Judaica shelves those days that young people could read—and few shops in which to buy them.

Rabbi Leo Jung's Jewish Library published over a period of years by various publishers, consisted of anthologies of essays by Jewish scholars in various fields, expounding Jewish doctrine and often defending it from attack. These essays were wellw ritten and well-edited, setting a standard which has unfortunately not been maintained by the new w riters, editors, and publishers of O rthodox Judaica today. But more’ about that later.

Young people in those days who wanted to learn about Jewish belief and practice had very few published works to turn to. The translations of Rashi were not available, and the 1917 edition of the JPS Holy Scriptures and the Singer Siddur produced in England were among the very few works available to the English reader.

Through some quirk I still don't quite understand, I had mastered the reading o f Yiddish: In foraging through some sacks of shaimos (torn and discarded Torah works destined for burial in accordance with the halacha's prescription for books containing the holy "jiam es"), I discovered the Chumash Bais Yehudah, which had the text of the Chumash, Rashi's com m entary in pointed H ebrew —both w ith Yiddish translations. Thus I was introduced to the world of Ivre-Taitch, literally "G erm anized-H ebrew ," which is actually Yiddish with varying degrees of the pungency of its Germ an base still quite apparent. I have perfect recall of the hot summer day when I made my way to the O tzar H aseforim —which was literally that: "a treasure of books"—on New York City's Lower East Side with seventeen dollars I had extracted from my sister as a birthday present to buy a set of the Bais Yehudah. I believe to this day that it was the last such set of the original print to be sold in America, since the publisher had disappeared with European Jewry. And as I carried the set back home with me on the threecent-fare "Bridge Local" (it was actually an express since it w ent over the Williamsburg Bridge w ithout making any

stops), I felt, with the immodesty of youth, a little bit like Moshe Rabbeinu must have felt coming down from M ount Sinai.

The Ivre-Tailch stood me in good stead until I was able to fumble through the original texts, and I am forever grateful to the anonymous translators who opened the world of Torah to my Yiddish-speaking forebears—and to me.

At that time, when our brothers and their books were burning in Europe, it was virtually impossible to buy any seforim. I rem em ber with w hat joy the first American reprints of classic Torah "works were greeted by the bochrim in the few yeshivos which existed then. (We used to get to know each other during our tw o-w eek vacation stints at Chaim Berlin's Camp M orris, to which even Lubavitchers would come in those days). They were quickly gobbled up—in the Talmudic expression, were soon "gone from the m arketplace." Some of these early editions were published by the Spero Foundation of Cleveland and New York. When a group of us at Yeshiva C hofetz Chaim heard that one of the works of Reb Moshe Chaim Luzzato had been reprinted by the Foundation, we took the Bridge Local to Feldheim's Book Store, then a small shop on Essex Street, and bought copies—for a dollar or tw o—at the special discount for yeshiva bochrim. Phillip Feldheim was later to become the pioneer publisher in this country of Englishlanguage Judaica. When we heard that the Vaad Hatzalah, the group headed by the sainted Reb Ahron Kotler for rescuing Jews from Europe, had published copies of the Mesilas Yeshorim and Reb Yisrael Salanter's Okr Yisrael for distribution in the post-w ar DP camps, we visited their office on Nassau Street in Lower M anhattan and literally begged for copies. It was impossible to find a complete Shas in those days, in contrast with the situation today where publishers vie for the m arket with various deluxe and plush editions.

There is surely at least one doctoral dissertation in examining w hat then happened in the field of Judaica, both Hebrew and English. It will have to suffice in this context to say that it w ent quickly from a trickle to a stream to a flood. In my early days as a Jewish editor, it was a heady experience to discover that there were people out there who were willing to give me books, in the hope that they would be reviewed, so that I was m yself witness to what was happening. It quickly became apparent to me when I opened the packages that arrived in the mail that I could immediately recognize which books were "O rth od o x." If a book had an attractive dust-jacket and binding; if it was well-printed and designed; if it read well at first glance—in a word: if it looked like a book was supposed to look, and read like a book was supposed to read—it wasn't

Young people in those days who wanted to learn about Jewish belief and practice had very few published works to turn to. The translations of Rashi were not available, and the 1917 edition of the ]PS Holy Scriptures and the Singer Siddur produced in England were among the very few works available to the English reader.

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Painful as it is to say , in the face of what should be a development to warm the hearts of all Orthodox Jews, many of the writers and publishers— it is often not clear if an editor has indeed participated in the process— have failed to introduce into their work an understanding of the English language.

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"O rth od o x." If it had no jacket; if the binding was poor with the title stamped on it as if by the clumsy fingers of a child; if the type was unclear and "typos" abounded—and it had no semblance of design—it had to be an "O rth od o x" book. I took no joy in telling this to publishers, or saying it in reviews. I prayed that the climate would change, and that the Torah world, which was growing in many other areas, would one day produce books w orthy of that sacred name.

Then we discovered the new technology of printing. The photo-offset printing process became easily available, and we saw a rash of cheap reprints of classic seforim. It became simple for any enterprising publisher to—in effect—"clone" any book, simply by cutting up an original copy; "shootin g" each page; printing and binding them . But they were a disgrace to their authors, long since gone and unable to protest; and an insult to those eager to own and study them. It was rem iniscent of what had happened in the Torah world when G uttenberg first introduced moveable type, making possible large runs of books. It created problems for Halachic authorities.

Question: May one print a Sefer Torah? "N o ," said most; "y es," said som e— under certain conditions.

Question: May one use a sacred text printed by non-Jew s?

F o ra long time this question was somewhat academic since the early printers of Hebrew texts were all non-Jew s; indeed in some countries Jews were not permitted to be printers at all.

But the flood gates were opened and books began coming off the presses. One posek w rote in a responsa, in obvious frustration, that printing was a curse and explained why. In the past, he said, an author would circulate his manuscript among other scholars and only when he had won their approval would he have scribes write additional copies. Now every one who fancies himself to be an author runs to the press and there is no stopping them. It then became the practice for authors to seek out rabbinic authorities who would offer their haskamah— their agreem ent that it was w orthy of being published. (This is not to be confused with the Imprimatur as practiced in the Catholic Church, w here if a work was "free of doctrinal error" the word was given: Imprimatur: It may be printed. The haskamah said in effect: it should be printed.) But the haskamah tradition was not fool-proof; many got through the net, as m anifest in the following apocryphal story.

An author came to a rav for a haskamah on his work. The rav looked at it and said "pilah p'laim", "w onder of w onders." The author walked away delighted. But the rav's talmidim, who had been looking over his shoulder at the m anuscript, and were not terribly impressed, asked that he explain his remark. "Pitah plaim ," he repeated. " Ich hub gehert azfun shmates macht men papir,

ober fun papir machen ate-—pilah p'laim." "I've heard of making shm paper from shmates(rags), but making shm ates out of pilah p'laim."

In the last decade or tw o there has been an outpouring of O rthodox Judaica of an un-dream ed-of magnitude. So vast has it been that it is almost impossible fo r an editor to keep up with the new titles. (Micha Falk Oppenheim has recently issued a Outside the Main Branch of the listing of these new works, published by T orah Resources.) It New York Public Library, on 42nd Street, and across the has largely been motivated by the highest ideals: to place in the street from the City University hands of both Orthodox and searching Jews materials not Graduate Center, is a newsstand available previously. It has been furth er motivated by the need I used to frequent—they would for "kosh er" reading material, on the assumption that existing carry some of the "small magazines” l like to look at from Judaica, and titles put out by secular or trade publishers are time to time to learn how the perforce heretical—both suppositions having varying degrees English language is being used, of validity. Much of this literature has benefitted by yet and to help me to improve my another blessing of technology: the computerized typesetting own usage. The last time 1 was there my face pinked when I machines. These m achines, offering greater versatility to the looked at the display. typesetter, combined with a growing sophistication on the part of O rthodox publishers, makes it possible for them to produce books that are physically much more attractive than earlier efforts in the field. Painful as it is to say, in the face of w hat should be a development to warm the hearts of all Orthodox Jews, many of the w riters and publishers—it is often not clear if an editor has indeed participated in the process—have failed to introduce into their work an understanding of the English language. And they have also failed to overcome the great but not insurm ountable difficulties in translating Torah concepts and Hebrew idioms and words into another language. The result has been the development of a "new language" which is often unintelligible except to those already familiar with the concepts and familiar with original sources. A nother result has been that yeshiva students who have the capacity, or should be developing the capacity to deal with original texts and sources, are becoming dependent on w hat used to be called "ponies," literal translations of foreign language school texts, whose only claim to exist was that they helped push a poor or uninterested student into a passing grade.

For reasons that should be obvious and that are certainly unfortunate, we choose here not to cite examples. And this too goes to the heart of the problem. For any literature to grow and to thrive, it m ust pass through the crucible of criticism , a process th at refines it, and helps fulfill whatever purpose it has set for itself.

How often have I been sent books by colleagues and good friends, and then asked, "Please 'review ' it; but if you don't think it's good, don't 'review ' it." O rthodox literature will not grow up so long as it Cannot be subjected to review w ithout

27

ruffling the feathers of friends or associates, or even relatives.

But the reader will here ask, "do not many of these works carry a haskamah from venerable authorities?" This too is a painful point. As one who respects and reveres these authorities, I cannot accept such statem ents as, "I do not have the time to read this work, but its author is known to me as a fine young m an." O r: "I have asked one of my students who is well-versed in the English language to read this work and he tells m e..." O r worse: the vague "endorsed by R abbi..." I cannot, for example, imagine a Rav or Rosh Yeshiva endorsing a musical recording. Yet how often do we see advertisem ents saying, "this record has been endorsed by R abbi..." W hat probably happens is that the person in question has been asked if such recordings are w orthwhile and answered in the affirm ative. This is often true of books. For a commercial entrepreneur, no m atter how highly religious his motives, to so debase the name of a revered leader, is to bring into question the religiosity of the perpetrator of such an act. (Would, however, that this were the only way in which Torah leaders were debased by those who speak in the name of the Torah.)

How often have I been challenged by people telling me: "A re you such a m aster of the English language?**—! am not. "Is language all that im portant—at least we're getting our message across." But for a people which w rites volumes about the meaning of a single Torah verse; for a people which pores over rabbinic texts for hours and days and years, to suddenly reject the importance of language—or to dismiss it, as is so fashionable these days, as being "only sem antics," indicates that there is something more critical lacking in our understanding of Torah than m atters of language alone.

In addition to the ideological problems we are here dealing with, there is yet another problem. From high school economics, or from our experience in the m arket-place, we are all familiar with Grescham 's Law that "bad money drives out good m oney." The existence of translations or other printed m atter poorly done makes it virtually impossible to do it well a second time. Bad literature drives out good literature is a law easily demonstrated. I pray the reader will pardon a grotesque example. Outside the Main Branch of the New York Public Library, on 42nd Street, and across the street from the City University Graduate C enter, is a newsstand I used to frequent—they would carry some of the "small m agazines" I like to look at from time to time to learn how the English language is being used, and to help me to improve my own usage. The last time I was there my face pinked when I looked at the display. "D on 't you...uh...have the...uh...literary magazines anym ore?" I stuttered, turning my face away.

28

"N atl," a gruff voice answered from inside the stand.

Now, as the time comes to tear this sheet out of the typew riter, comes the most difficult part—the after-birth. I cannot escape the feeling that try as I did to avoid it, my words will seem to some readers pompous, self-serving—perhaps even crude. But why w rite at all if you cannot say vossliki ofen hartzen, what lies on your chest, and cries to be released. I have not w ritten these words w ithout discussing them with others, almost in the hope that they would convince me I was wrong.

Few have fully agreed with m e—I am not w ithout some doubt myself. But I have said—albeit only in small part—w hat I set out to say. What more can a w riter ask for?

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An Interview

Working at Teshuva In a Soviet Prison Camp I learned that twelve Jews were to be sentenced to prison in 1970 for conspiring to hijack a plane to Eretz Yisrael. I knew that at least two of them would be sent to my prison camp. That night I prayed that at least one of them would be religious. The very next day Yosef Mendelevich arrived at the camp. He was the only one of the twelve who was a religious Jew, and in the darkness of a Soviet camp he became my Rebbe.

So spoke Shimon Grillius, describing the beginning of his relationship with Yosef Mendelevich.

Grillius grew up, like m ost Soviet Jews, knowing nothing about his People and his Faith. His parents never told him that his grandfather died Al Kiddush Ha'Shem at the hands of Lithuanian m urderers. His father made a deep dark secret of his own exploits in helping Jews escape to Eretz Yisrael through Poland in the days following World War II. "T h ey wanted me to grow up/' he explained, "like a normal citizen of the Soviet Union/' It was not until Khruschev came to power in 1960, and soon denounced Stalin and Stalinism, that some of Shimon's generation were told by their parents that they were Jews.

Unlike the others, Shimon had some semblance of Jewish identity. On Sundays he and some of his friends who shared his feelings gathered at Rumbele, known as a site at which 20,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis. He was only fifteen at the time and looking back he recalls that it was "as if the dead were teaching the living what it means to be a Jew in golus."

Shimon's first activist efforts consisted of petitioning, together with his friends, the Soviet governm ent to erect a m onument at Rumbele. For a year nothing happened. When finally the request came before Khruschev himself, permission was granted to erect a monument. But the m onument simply read "V ictim s of the Nazis," without mention that they had been killed only because they were Jews.

Israel's Six Day War in 1967 found Shimon in the university.

The euphoria it created swept over Shimon as it did over Jews young and old throughout the world. His Jewish awareness reached its highest peak— yet he also recalls his horror at the thought that weapons made by Jews in the Soviet Union had been used to kill their Jewish brothers in Israel.

While the Six Day war stimulated many Soviet Jews to want to leave Russia for Eretz Yisrael, it also brought in its wake a fierce propaganda campaign by the governm ent against Judaism, Zionism, Jewish culture, the Hebrew language—

And so it was that Shimon Grillius found his People, his Faith, his purpose in life, and — paradoxically— he found happiness while confined in a Soviet prison.

This article is based upon an interview of Shimon Grillius conducted by the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, and has been edited by the staff of Jewish Life.

35

indeed, anything even rem otely Jewish. "I soon sensed a pogrom atm osphere," Shimon recalls, "and I knew I had no future as a Jew in the Soviet Union. And since I was firmly resolved to be a Jew, I knew I would have to leave."

The response generated by all this in the hearts of young Russian Jews was for the most part nationalistic, but for Shimon it was coupled with philosophical yearnings. As he recalls it: I knewwhat was happening in the world. 1 knew how it was happening.

But I could not grasp W HY it was happening. It had to be that Co was false. First Stalin was a god... Then Stalin was denounced by Khruschev and he became a god. When Khruschev was toppled from power, Brezhnev became a god.

Shimon was later to compare his search—when he learned more about Yiddishkeit— to that of Avraham Avinu who pondered the universe and its cosmic forces, and concluded that there could be only one primary cosmic force, the Ribbono Shel Olam. Having come to the same conclusion, Shimon had no way of knowing what to do with his new awareness.

I did not know anything about Yiddishkeit. I did not know I ki\ew not a word of Hebrew. Yet my soul thirsted for knowledge.

This thirst led Shimon to a Soviet prison camp.

When Mendelevich came to my camp it was as if Moshe Rabbeinu had come down from the Mountain. His m 'siras nefesh, his self-sacrifice for other Jews was a revelation to me. 1 recall a new prisoner arriving for a one-year sentence—that's a 'vacation' in a Soviet camp—and his wife came to visit, but he was not permitted to see her. He went on a hunger strike. Mendelevich had a heart condition, but he joined his brother in not eating—and he was in for twelve years! Ten days later the new prisoner was permitted to see his wife.

Yosef taught me to believe in G-d. I knew then that 1 had to become a Jew like him. I now had a model—a Rebbe—I saw how a Jew lives his belief, his philosophy of life.

And so it was that Shimon Grillius found his People, his Faith, his purpose in life, and—paradoxically— he found happiness while confined in a Soviet prison.

Yosef taught me to believe in G-d. 1 knew then that I had to become a Jew like him. I now had a model—a Rebbe—I saw how a Jew lives his belief, his philosophy of life.

36

Yosef Mendelevich had been raised in a traditional Jewish home; his uncle had learned Torah with him. He is a gentle, a sensitive person, respected by his fellow prisoners, Jewish and non-Jewish. He gives of his talents to others. Before being sentenced to prison, he had been publishing the Jewish Cultural Journal, an underground periodical. He organized Jewish youth groups, teaching his charges Yiddishkeit and the Hebrew language, writing plays and grammen for them so they could celebrate Purim. When he first m et Shimon in prison he fold him that perhaps the sacrifice of the twelve Jews sentenced to

prison for plotting to go to Eretz Yisrael, would pave the way for thousands of others to emigrate.

Yosef is frequently singled out for punishment in prison. He refuses to work on Shabbos, and although he works extra hours and volunteers for heavy tasks to make up the time lost on Shabbos, he is punished for it, even though prisoners are only required to work any six days of the week. Prisoners are entitled to a three-day visit from their families each year, but Yosef was permitted only a one-day visit and had to work a full eight hours that day. A fter his first few years in prison, he was denied even that privelege. It has been six years since he has had a visitor.

Yet, despite all this, and his ill health, Yosef remains true to his beliefs and to his People. He is close to all the Jewish prisoners and is an inspiration to them , and it was under his tutelage that Shimon Grillius first learned Torah and began observing mitzvos.

It is difficult to observe mitzvos anywhere in the Soviet Union; in a prison camp it is an awesome task. And observing w hatever mitzvos he could helped strengthen and re-inforce Shimon's newly acquired beliefs.

Observing Yom Tov was especially im portant and especially difficult to Shimon and Yosef: im portant because the symbols of the Yomim Tovim are so meaningful; difficult because of their special requirem ents.

Shimon's first real Yom Tov was Simchas Torah. But how does a Jew celebrate the completion of the Torah-reading cycle w ithout even a Chumash? Unlike Jewish prisoners, the Baptists in the camp were permitted to have a Bible. Borrowing their Bible, Yosef divided the last book of the T orah—Seifer D varim — into eight sections: one for each Jewish prisoner. When Simchas Torah arrived, the eight sat together, each reading aloud his section, and in their hearts they completed "th e Torah reading" and celebrated the Yom Tov. Pesach presented the m ost difficult obstacles. Where does one get even the symbols of Pesach, Matzoh and Maror? And celebrating the Festival of Freedom in a prison— while it has been done by all too many Jews over the centuries—presented no small psychological problems to these Soviet Jews. But with all this they never failed to sit down on Pesach night to what in their hearts—and may we say in the eyes of the Almighty— was a true Seder. One year they were forced—at the threat of solitary confinem ent, which would have been counter­ productive—to report for work on the night-shift on Pesach night. T hat night— Shimon insists it was a miracle, and what cold cynic would care to argue with him—the camp's generators w ent out, and the night shift was cancelled.

...how does a Jew celebrate the completion of the Torah-reading cycle without even a Chumash?

Vv^sVrV > ;

37

□ fc q n r ^ ib a s D’n r n ' i s r ^ ^ P V o ^ T T T S i 'i S a t t T T T H r n 1» * b G n sn & n h p a^ r^ rfe q n ro ^ ?

For prisoners to congregate anywhere was a violation of prison rules. To congregate for a Seder was a double felony.

They would therefore m eet outdoors at a table they had first to clear of snow, which they then covered with Israeli postcards they had accumulated as a table-cloth. T hey produced "w in e" by ferm enting apple jam , sugar, and w ater; and with the threeand-a-half ounces of m atzohs allocated for each prisoner—for the entire eight days—they carried out their "seder."

O ne Novem ber—planning the seder was a year-round project—Yosef acquired an onion head . Shortly before Pesach he placed it in w ater and it sprouted—fresh "maror" for their Seder. One year he found a boullion cube which he singed: a "shankbone!"

One Pesach Yosef's ingenuity in providing some symbol of maror simply gave out. At the Seder he told his brothers: "T h e purpose of the Maror is to symbolize the bitterness our forefathers suffered in Egypt. Since we have no M aror, we place our ow n suffering between the two pieces of m atzoh."

"H ow do you make Yom Kippur special," Shimon asked, "w hen we starve all year round?"

The prescribed deprivations were not hardships for us. So we decided not to talk to anyone on Yom Kippur: not to the guards, not to friends—to no one.

And before Yom Kippur we each wrote down those things we would change about ourselves. Doing teshuvah was one experiences we could share with our fellow Jews on the outside.

Today, Shimon Grillius, the disciple, heads a yeshiva for Soviet im migrants in Eretz Yisrael.

Yosef Mendelevich is still in the Soviet prison, three years having been added to his sentence for "bad behavior."

38

JEWISH LIFE A Statem ent of Purposes ... In the pages of Jewish Life we will share with you insights into the Jewish past as they clarify the Jewish present, and as they help us to see into the future. We will examine the Jewish present in the light of the past, and in the light of what must be our future aspirations. We will look into the future, not with any mystical powers-—there are few Jews today who lay claim to such powers^-but with the techniques made available to us by the Jewish mind and the Jewish heart refined by Torah learning and historical Jewish experience ... ... Jewish Life will continue to be a platform for the expression of diverse points of view in the American Torah commun­ ity. Here these criteria alone will gain admittance to the minds of our readers: a commitment to Jewish values, and an articulate expression of a point of view on matters of interest and deep concern to other committed Jews. Surely not all readers will agree with our application of these criteria»and we earnestly look forward to hearing from them. Writing is a mystique I hope to explore in these pages, particularly as it relates to the articulation and in­ terpretation of Torah values and concepts. And reading too is a mystique: but the two can function only in unison... ... Most people who read are aware of the difficulties of trans­ lating from one language into another. When a judge an­ grily said to a Yiddish interpreter that there must be an English word that means " sh ofar," the reply was "it's a horn.'' When asked why he didn't say so to begin with, the interpreter shrugged his shoulders and said, "Because it's not a horn!" But few readers realize that all writing is in a sense " tran slation /' particularly when we try to express Torah concepts in any language other than Hebrew.

All such attempts must, therefore, by definition, fall short of their mark. It shall here be our objective to come as close to the mark as we can in stretching the English language to accommodate Torah categories and Torah concepts as Jews have in the past used other foreign tongues.

In these difficult tasks we solicit your help, your under­ standing, your patience—and your prayers.

Yaakov Jacobs

39

Published in Bombay as a Supplement to " T H E IS R A E L IT E . ”

DABAR BE-‘mO NO IV

ROSH HODESH SHEVAT, 5678.

• •* •

• ,. .

14, JANUARY, 1918.

S ER IE S O F PRIN TS ON

JE W IS H S U B JE C T S .

MOSTLY

M r. PELONI WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF H IS FRIEND

M r. ALMONI Letters to the Editor.

INTENDED FOR THE PERUSAL OF

Messrs. KRETHI AND PLETI.

D ea r S i r ,

I always prided myself on my knowledge of our Sacred services, I may say that the pages of the prayer book have been familiar to me ever since the days of my childhood. But it is not often that the state of my health allows me to go to Synagogue and on a recent visit to one of our places of worship, I was completely puzzled by something which was hurriedly gabbled off—I cannot say read— by the Hazzan. No body could tell me what it was, but after persistent enquiry I discovered that the “prayer” in question was in two parts, the former being the prayer for the Royal Family and the latter, a War prayer.

Now Sir I ask you would it not be better to omit these two altogether than to make such a mockery of them ? Of course the right thing would be to say these prayers with the devotion they deserve. We inhabitants of India, Jews, Christians, Moslems and Hindus, alike, all ought to be truly grateful for being spared the horrors of war and for the enormous material profits that we have made.

Yours etc., Mozelle F . M. S olomon .

Leo Jung

The Ethics of Aesthetics in Worship Why are Jews, who loyally undergo every deprivation Leshem Shamayim (for the sake of Heaven), ignoring the very first paragraph of the first chapter of the Shulchan Aruch, insisting on awareness of the need of reverence for the C reator at all times, and in particular in the house of G-d? How many of us are penetrated by the knowledge that "th e place w hereon thou standest is holy ground"?

This is the introduction to the Jewish way of life (Orach Chaim) as composed and voiced by our illustrious teachers and philosophers:

How many of us are penetrated by the knowledge that "the place whereon thou standest is holy ground"?

"I keep the Lord before me continuously." This is a basic principle of the Torah and among the qualities of the righteous, pious souls that walk before the Lord. For a man's posture, his movements, and his conduct whilst alone in his house are completely different from his posture, his movements, and his conduct when he faces a great king. Nor are his words and his language when with his household or his relatives...as they are in the presence of a king.

How much more so when a person considers in his heart that the Great King, the Holy One blessed be He, whose glory fills the world, ever stands above him and sees his deeds, as it is written: "Can a man hide in a secret place and I not see him, says the Lord," there should come upon him reverence and humble submission out of the awe before the Lord and a steady sense of shame in His sight, and no sense of shame before fellow humans who scoff at him because of his service to Him, and as soon as he rises from his sleep he should rise eagerly to the service of his Creator ever blessed and magnified.

Genuine, true awareness of that admonition offered by Rambam, and quoted by Rama, would surely prevent any Jew from spreading his arms leisurely on the top of the bench he occupies during prayer and beyond doubt prevent him from crossing his legs during worship.

Why the need, from the island of Djerba to the Azores, from Jerusalem to New York City, to warn Jews against conversation during prayer?

Why do some Jews, who love to go too far in the right direction, who are dissatisfied with the normal code of the Torah and insist on extrem e extra burdens, violate the basic law of reverent behavior in the house of worship? The history of the Jewish people offers some explanation and possible excuse in earlier ages and in European or North African countries. For many centuries our folk had no outlet for social energies. They had no meeting places in their poor ghettos.

The only opportunity for social life came in the synagogue. In modern Soviet and before that in Nazi countries, there always

Leo Jung, the dean of the American rabbinate, is the senior rabbi of the Jewish Center in New York City. The Ethics of Aesthetics originally appeared in the Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Memorial Volume published by Yeshiva University.

41

For a man's posture, his movements, and his conduct whilst alone in his house are completely different from his posture, his movements, and his conduct when he faces a great king...How much more so when a person considers in his heart that the Great King, the Holy One blessed be He...ever stands above him and sees his deeds...

42

were spies, mobs and hooligans who created fear and imposed timid silence. But there is no excuse for the violation of that first rule in the freedom of the United States of America. It remains an offense against the Din Torah. It makes the Orthodox synagogue a recruiting office for Reform . It undermines Jewish unity.

There is a wrong kind of traditional loyalty which proclaims: "W hat was good for my father, for my for the old country, is good enough for m e."

It was bad in the case of both, but there were possible excuses, as indicated. It is doubly deleterious in our age and country.

Irreverent behavior in the synagogue is a sin against oneself.

It constitutes a violation of the rights of one's neighbor whose devotion is disturbed, if not destroyed, by the loud behavior of any other worshipper. It is a double offense against the nerves of both businessm en and professionals, who suffer constant assaults by the pollution and noise of the city, quite apart from their business or professional troubles. For their emotional stability, for their peace of mind, for an abiding aw areness of the glorious m ystery of the cosmos, quite apart from the aw e­ inspiring m ajesty of the Lord, quiet worship in the synagogue is mandatory, indeed essential.

The attack of some oldsters of many ages on our youth has not yet subsided. In some corners it still is a favorite them e of pulpit and private eloquence and a convenient substitute for any well-planned, dedicated activity. Disordered synagogue service is a treble sin against the youth of our day. For, to them , reverent worship in the synagogue may prove of great value as an oasis of tranquility in a wilderness of noise. O ur youth shares the shattered illusions as well as other frustrating experiences of these days: official dishonesty, commercial trickery, with organized religion largely insensitive to political ruthlessness; not only a darkening world-horizon, but also the tem ptations of cynical adolescence, with noble examples of inspiring conduct alm ost absent, and noble dreams generally defeated.

All of these prom ote, or add to, their tribulations.

There are powerful enem ies to upset our youth: Russians and Arabs and vile demagogues biding their time. T here are hurtful divisions and subdivisions in T orah-true Israel. There is the menace of incredible Am Ha'aratzus, leading to destructive interm arriages and the allure of the Third-W orld menace.

T ogether they are responsible for "th e failure of our you th."

There are two im portant sources of youthful failure to achieve success, peace, and dignity.

The first is loneliness. Even as a vacuum is a man's and a woman's w orst enemy, so is a feeling of having no comrade or friend. To modern youth has come the morally devastating

feeling that there i? no honesty in the great world. The shameful record of the United Nations, through the ugly chapter of oil scandals, to more local, alas, alm ost family scandals, all have w rought such feeling. It is a bitter m oment in the consciousness of our youth when, in their too fast judgm ent, they say to them selves: kol ha'adam kozev ("all men are liars"), unreliable, hypocritical in their protestations of faith and patriotism . Hence an increasing trend toward total inner abandonment o f the moral and spiritual values of our people; hence an inner slogan, nochal venishteh ki machar namus ("let us have a good time, for tom orrow we shall die. The only thing sure in ou r life is its end").

Against all that, our timeless Torah has preached, taught, emphasized, insisted on, three attitudes and principles: faith, comradeship, optimism.

The second source of youthful failure is lack of faith. What is faith? Not the painfully achieved solution of intellectual problems, nor the lazy acceptance of past ideas and traditions, but a creative determ ination to stay devoted to the idea of the harm onization and humanization of humanity. This is to be the harvest of millennia of dedicated worship, service and loyalty to the C reator, Lawgiver, the Divine Father of mankind, who has chosen Israel to be His ambassador to the nations of the world. Such faith has been the victorious survival-value o f the Chosen People as they marched through the ages, in spite of their having been constant targets of violent hatred, ruthless pogroms, and endless, abysmally cruel, defamation. Such faith postulated and still demands knowledge, constancy, undeviating loyalty. Such faith inspires comradeship.

Loneliness must be overcome by friendliness, by carefully viewed and planned comradeship: Lo niinu hamitzvos le'Yisrael ella letzaref bahen as habrios, (the total purpose of all commandments is to refine human beings and to unite them).

As we pray together, study Torah together, eat together, plan our Jewish record together, we create an abiding fact and sense of unity.

As we pray together, study Torah together, eat together, plan our Jewish record together, we create an abiding fact and sense of unity.

Idle talk destroys that wondrous blessing. Thus the regrettable conversation during the service constitutes also a sin against oneself.

Sins Against Oneself As we enter the house of worship, the community building (Bes haKnesses), we are stimulated by the thought of comrades in the holy cause of spiritual unity, but also of a special precious atm osphere of personal prayer, the sources of divine grace, and of the hope to commune in some way with our Father in heaven. A esthetic milieu y hadr, wareness of His abiding presence ( a ) sustain one's inner felicity. All that is hecin S assailed, diminished, often totally destroyed by meaningless prattle, by self-satisfied conversation, by tacit permission to 43

The hours of prayer raise one above the superficialities of the day and re-create faith in abiding moral and spiritual values...The hour of prayer is blessed by potent awareness of His mercy.

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others, how much m ore, by encouraging and joining in tattle— during divine service.

Through concentration on the total meaning and the individual teaching of Holy W rit, one conquers the im perfect, often deeply discouraging, effect of the life w ithout, of the m eanness of some, the disappointments caused by others, the problems and trials of the working day. One is profoundly moved by deep aw areness; one is inspired beyond words. The hours of prayer raise one above the superficialities of the day and re-create faith in abiding moral and spiritual values.

Through silent m editation, the creative faith, the challenge of the Kaddish,the Jewish C onstitution, one's mind is enriched by the m em ory of parental devotion even as by the precious duty of dedication to one's children. The hour of prayer is blessed by p oten t aw areness of His m ercy. Stead fast kavannah, concentration, unity of heart and mind during prayer, and wordless listening to the congregation's responses feed heart and mind.

Idle talk destroys that wondrous blessing. Thus the regrettable conversation during the service constitutes also a sin against oneself. It makes the man or woman leave the synagogue after a thoughtless conform ity to mere ritual. They leave, totally deprived of spiritual experience, hence of the right attitude in business or profession, hence for upright, compassionate conduct in the coiffée of the day, or the week, or, w here, for causes unm entioned, the visits to the house of G-d are very rare, for the m onths of the year to follow. O nly total hadar (aesthetic service), prepares for acceptance of prayer for His grace. Only through concentration on prayer does one forget, conquer the superficialities of life and strengthen one's attachm ent to abiding moral values.

Treasure it, bestow it, wear it with pride.

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A Jewish Book Roundup

The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage, Maurice Lamm, Harper & Row, New York, 1980, $ 12.95 The mikva is one of the institutions indispensable to Jew ish life since it is a prerequisite to the observance of ha'mishpacha, the laws governing marital relations. The presence of a mikva in a community and its use has long b recognized as a barom eter of the vitality of a Jew ish community. In the tw enties and thirties they were few in num ber as were those who used them. has also been the butt of jokes, and in th at sense also a barom eter of one's intelligence, or at least Jew ish sensitivity. It is today an integral part of the lives of growing num bers of young American men and women, though precise figures are difficult to obtain.

The grow th of acceptance of taharas ha'mishpacha can be measured in a sense by the literature which evolved to interpret its concepts and to propagate its observance. Some of us rem em ber the book by the late Rabbi David Miller, The Secret of Happiness, which was distributed free on request— with few takers even at that "price." Later came Jewish Family Life: The Duty of the Woman, a small paperback by the late Dr. Sidney Hoenig, published by the Spero Foundation, and to this day a valuable little guide to this area of halacha. A nother milestone in this literature was A Hedge of Roses by Norman Lamm (Feldheim, New York), now president of Yeshiva University.

This work is a poetic polemic addressed to those not yet convinced of the value of this area of observance. Now Maurice Lamm—they are brothers—has published The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage which is the m ost definitive work on the subject, and goes beyond the specifics of mikva to encompass the entire realm of the intim ate aspects of marriage. He deals with mixed dating and dem onstrates how easily it leads to mixed marriage. He deals with pre-marital relations and all other forbidden unions in the light of Torah law, and with their historical and communal implications.

W ithout stating it explicitly. Rabbi Lamm makes it clear th at a shared com m itm ent to all aspects of Torah law by husband and wife is no assurance by itself of a harmonious m arriage, though it surely is its first requisite.

Building on those who came before him — his bibliography is staggeringly com prehensive—Rabbi Lamm has taken the subject into the 1980's with the w arm th, the wisdom, and the perceptions th at today's searching generation so desperately needs. Above all, in this reader's view, he has achieved all this w ithout the apologetic tones that often accompany exposition of m atters of halacha that are alien to the American m entality.

M ore: Rabbi Lamm has produced a model for all who would expound Jewish belief, Jewish law, and Jewish concerns. His style is smooth and clear— and modest. He allows his subject to speak for itself w ithout personal intrusions. He has wisely called upon a select group of scholars, researchers, and stylists to assure the production of what will remain for many years the m ost authentic exposition of its subject. We commend Rabbi Lamm for his obviously great labors; and we commend Harper and Row for publishing a work which they surely knew would not be a blockbuster, but adds great dignity to their list.

Every Jewish man and woman who is about to be married, already married, or the product of a Jewish marriage, should read this book at least once.

The Concise Code of Jewish Law (Compiled from Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Traditional Sources), Gersion Appel, Ktav/Yeshiva University Press, New York, 1977.

Many Jews, unable to deal w ith halachic handbooks in the original, have over the years turned to the English translation of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch: some to be edified, others to be confused. The "Kitzur," while still an authoritative text and widely used in the original, was w ritten for a different time, and even in the original should be used by the layman with care. Rabbi G ersion Appel, drawing on his years in the rabbinate and as an instructor at Stern College for Women, has produced an English text that is much more palatable to the English reader, not because he has compromised any halachos, but because it is w ritten in the modern idiom and he was not constrained by a need to be faithful to the original. He has also added rulings not extant when the Kitzur was w ritten, based on contem porary responsa, and has provided source listings for the reader who is able to turn to them. For the beginner in the field of halacha, this work is an excellent introduction and handbook. All such a reader need bring to it is a willingness to abide by Torah Law. Rabbi Appel earlier published A Philosophy of Mitzvot (Ktav, 1975), sub-titled The Religious-Ethical Concepts of Judaism, Their Roots in Biblical Law and Oral Tradition, an excellent companion volume to the Code—or better still a prologue, since it lays the groundwork for an acceptance of mitzvos as the only means of leading an authentic Jewish life. This work draws heavily on the classic Sefer HaChinuch, and devotes chapters to the long­ standing dispute among Torah scholars as to the wisdom of attem pting to "explain" the reasons for mitzvos—the Chinuch being the classic example of the positive approach to that question. T he work furth er deals extensively with the ethical imperatives of Yiddishkeit, and their implications for society.

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(It is interesting to note th at Rabbi Appel's has b e n e fite d by the m ajor im provements in editing and style instituted by Ktav's publisher, Bernard Sharfstein.

Sefer Ha'Chinuch, the Hebrew text (with points) with a translation and notes by Charles Wengrov, Feldheim, Jerusalem/New York, 1978.

Sefer H a’Chinuch is an old favorite in the world of Torah learning, w ritten by an anonymous sage in 13th century Spain.

The work lists the mitzvos of the Torah as they first appear in the Chumash; adds the com ments of the Talmudic sages; touches on the opinions of his predecessors; and then offers the author's own understanding of the meaning and intention of each mitzva. The editor/translator has produced a carefully corrected Hebrew text, and a faithful rendition, into readable English. His publisher obviously gave him free rein to utilize his talents in the graphic arts and the result is an object of beauty, appropriate to the classic work it is wedded to.

The question of the need fo r—indeed the wisdom of— translating classic works into English m ust here be only raised.

T here are such texts which do not lend them selves to translation, and whose translations lend them selves to misunderstanding. All the more credit to Rabbi W engrov for having produced not only an adequate translation, but one which fills a need for the reader who would otherw ise be deprived of the wisdom of the Chinuch.

The book has only one "shortcom ing"—it ends with the second book of the Chumash, and we pray it will soon be completed.

Ramban: Writings & Discourses, Translated and Annotated

by Rabbi Charles B. Chavel (two volumes/boxed), Shiloh Publishing House, New York, 1978.

Rabbi Chavel has done the near impossible; he has combined a career as a pulpit rabbi with a life of devotion to scholarship, emerging as the world's greatest authority on the works of Rabbeinu M oshe ben Nachm an—as he is known to us; Nachmanides, as he is known to the non-Jew ish world. Rabbi Chavel's first m aster w ork was the definitive text of the Ramban on the Five Books of the Torah, since translated into English. In addition to providing an authentic Hebrew te x t— the text used for years being replete with copying and typographical errors— Rabbi Chavel's edition is complemented with copious notes clarifying even those sections of the previous text which were accurate. Later, Rabbi Chavel repeated this effo rt in Kol Kisvai Ha Ramban, the smaller works, many of which were not in print at all. He now has crowned this life-long dedication to his m aster with an English translation of the W ritings and Discourses.

Translating the work of the Ramban has its own special set of problems: Ramban, in contrast to his contem porary, the Rambam, leaned heavily on the mystic elements of Torah. (It is said that the Rambam, known as the rationalist excellence, regretted his neglect of the mystical, going so far as to say he would have withdrawn his Moreh, had he been able to.) Rabbi Chavel's translation has amply m et the challenge, though there are some unfortunate lapses at times in English syntax.

His publisher has done justice to this sublime m asterpiece by clothing it in a finely printed and bound set of volumes, and boxing it in a tradition th at has all but been lost in contem porary publishing.

A word of caution is here in order. While such works have opened new possibilities for the English reader who wishes to study Torah on his own, they do not—they dare not— eliminate the need for a m aster. Even one who has no time to attend classes or to have system atic contact with a Torah teacher, should at the very least be guided by someone who will pilot him through a system atic program of individual study. While a "reader's guide to Torah literature in English" might now be desirable, it too would need the living words of a human guide in the ancient tradition of the relationship. Nevertheless: Rabbi Chavel, and others, have opened the door to a growing number of Jews who thirst for the word of G-d, and can now begin to slake their thirst in a creative learning effort, which m ust always be directed to ultimate contact with the sacred texts in Loshon Ha'Kodesh. As one m aster put it: the name " LHa' Kodesh" (The Sacred Tongue) appears to be grammatically incorrect, since the word "loshon" is fem inine and the adjective should be “lc'dosha." He explains that "kodesh," as here used does not modify "loshon," but that the phrase means " oshnS L H EL Kodesh," the "language of kedusha," the one language, excluding all others, in which the ultim ate of holiness can be expressed. And so all learning must be a striving toward the kedusha that awaits us in Loshon Ha'Kodesh.

A Crisis of Identity: Israel and Zionism, Dan V. Segre, Oxford University Press, New York, 1980, $14.95.

The Jew in the Modern World, Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, editors, Oxford University Press, New York, 1980, $ 25 .0 0.

O xford University Press is the most prestigious publisher in the English-speaking world. While they have in the past produced esoteric works of Judaica—as for example Gesinius's Dictionary of the Hebrew Language—they are not known for their Jewish "title s." Y et two of their newly-published works are of special interest to Jews who wish to understand what is happening in Israel and the Jewish world beyond w hat they

"Zionism," he tells us, "has added a new challenge to the old one of traditional Judaism: how to defend both the right to be like the others, and at the same time the duty to remain different.”

read in the daily or weekly press—which we hope is to say, to readers of this journal. The average Jew today, w hatever his w ork or profession, for example, has virtually no awareness of w hat is happening in the intellectual world of Israel. We m eet the "intellectuals" as opponents to religion in public life; as proponents of abortion and indiscriminate use of post-m ortem procedures; or as members of the "Peace N ow " movement.

Dan Segre is a Professor in the D epartm ent of Political Science at Haifa University. At first glance, Segre's book seems to be yet another of the cold, highly objective sociological studies Israeli academics are fond of producing. But in his introduction he states unequivocally his purpose—and his bias. "Z ionism ," he tells us, "has added a new challenge to the old one of traditional Judaism: how to defend both the right to be like the others and at the same time the duty to remain d ifferen t." Segre quickly makes it clear that the two objectives are mutually exclusive, a condition which he finds in his study of other "em erging nations," and w hereby he attem pts to deal with the influence of Israel on the world scene beyond proportion to its size and population—an influence, however, which still offers "n o logical justification for Russian propaganda," for example, "condemning the Chinese for being Zionist fellow travellers."

Segre introduces a critical concept, which many have dealt w ith, but which he crystallizes by naming it. "T h e 'Jewish question' in Israel... is not new, since there has always been a strong tendency w ithin the Jewish people 'to throw o ff the yoke of the law,' to assimilate to the non-Jew ish world, and to break away from Jewish particularism ." He examines this problem as a political scientist, but only secondarily. He views it first as the point of view of: a person—myself—who, as an assimilated, non-Zionist Jew, has searched and not without difficulty found in traditional Judaism reasons for identification with a Jewish past and an Israeli present.

W hether this has made Segre a ba'al in the conventional sense is not here critical— though it is critical of course for his own neshoma. Y et it is good that an Israeli social scientist should question w hether a secular Israeli society can long endure. Perhaps such intellectualizing is not the stu ff of which conversions are made, but surely a growing awareness of "th e Jewish question" in the continuing debate on the role of religion in a Jewish state will help to project thinking Israelis toward the Torah as the only sturdy basis for one's personal life as a Jew, and for Israeli society. A Crisis of Identity is one of the m ost stimulating studies of the question that this reader has seen, as only a careful reading of the entire work can dem onstrate. However the below should convince everyone the least bit concerned with the future of the State of Israel of

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the importance of this work. Going back to the struggle in 1958 over the definition of a Jew, Segre writes: ...The religious parties, however, refused to recognize as valid any definition of nationality for an Israeli Jew other than the one determined by rabbinical law, Halakha, according to which only a person born of a Jewish mother, or converted to Judaism according to Orthodox practice, is considered a Jew (even against his will). In practice there were two problems confronting the Government: one was the definition of the Jew with reference to the competence of the religious courts in matters of marriage and divorce. By virtue of the Islamic Ottoman law, which Israel had inherited from the British and which (though for different reasons) neither Orthodox Jews nor Muslim Arabs wished to see changed, these courts had sole jurisdiction in restricted but important fields of private law...Ben-Gurion's decision to ask the advice of the 'wise men' of Judaism was in itself an extraordinary move. Not only were these sages not part of any organized Jewish body, but some of them were scholars of renown only in secular fields of learning. Yet the very fact that they were asked to give their opinion, and that almost without exception they answered, underlined the unique character of the link uniting the Jewish 'family/ and the singularity of the concept, or at least the feeling, of Jewish identity. No less interesting is the fact that the great majority of answers, including those of non-Orthodox Jewish scholars, called on the secular authority of the state to respect the religious-national principles by which Jewish nationhood had been traditionally defined...Once a person is a Jew, either by birth or by conversion, he cannot cease to be one whatever he does, including conversion to another religion. It is curious that secular Israeli legislators have imposed some religious restrictions on the definition of Jewishness which had not occurred to the most Orthodox rabbis. For the Israeli state, a Jew is not only a person born to a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism according to the rabbinical law, but one who at the same time does not profess another religion...

Segre ends his chapter on "T h e Crisis of Identity and Legitimacy/7 sounding more like the preacher than the social scientist: ...The alternative to Judaism now is not another value system: it is a void. "The option for us Jews is much reduced and very clear," says a distinguished Jewish scientist. The option is the acceptance of the Covenant, which apart from being the distinguishing factor of Jewishness, is an unbreakable link, according to the biblical statement which says: "I will rule over you, even against your wishes; I shall be yours, whether you wish it or not."

The Jew in the Modern World is an anthology of major documents and w ritings which bring to life the period of Jewish history that shaped our tim es—leading to the defection of countless Jews from tradition; the Holocaust; the creation of the State of Israel; and the Kulturkampf which appears deceptively to have been stilled in response to external pressures on Israel, but still exerts a strong influence on

Once a person is a Jew, either by birth or by conversion, he cannot cease to be one whatever he does, including conversion to another religion. It is curious that secular Israeli legislators have imposed some religious restrictions on the definition of Jewishness which had not occcurred to the most Orthodox rabbis.

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political views among the Israeli masses, as Dan Segre demonstrates in his work. The anthology makes available some material never before translated into English, and the selection generally results in an objective stock of historical source material which should be of interest to the general reader. A somewhat random listing of several of the more than two hundred documents only begins to tell the story: Judaism as Revealed Legislation; Hebrew as the Language of Prayer; Religion Allied to Progress and A Sermon on the Science of Judaism (both by S R .

Hirsch); From Prague to Belz; The Volozhin Yeshiva; Yeshiva; A Debate on Zionism and The First Zionist Congress Manifesto (The Mizrachi); Founding Program (Agudas Yisrael); The Balfour Declaration; What the Zionist-Revisionists Want (Jabotinsky); The International Jew: The World's Problem (Henry Ford); and an astounding document issued by the Reichsvereinigung Der Juden in Deutschland; the organization of German Jews formed under the infamous Nuremberg Laws, called "A Proposal for Jewish Education in the Face of Catastrophe," which declares among other things that "Hebrew as the language of the Jewish people and its religion is an essential component of every (sic) Jewish education"; and that "the aim of this education is to prepare for life in the Jewish settlement...which it is our wish be realized in the Jewish land of Palestine."

This work is well worth its price, but Oxford would do well to issue it in paper or in a cheaper student's edition.

ISRAEL NEEDS PEOPLE THE MITZVAH OF ALIYAH IS ACHIEVED BY PERSONAL ALIYAH FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO THE STATE IS SECONDARY The Aliyah Department of the Orthodox Union is available to help all of those who are thinking of making their final household in Israel.

Contact Aliyah Sheliach, Rabbi Michael Starr, Director of Israel and Aliyah activities.

Orthodox Union, 116 E. 27th St., New York, NY 10016 - 212-725-3400 52

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Books fo r th e New Y ear I Hebrew Calligraphy A Step-by-Step Guide Jay Seth Greenspan The first comprehensive guide to Hebrew lettering for beginners of all ages written by a master calligrapher and teacher Having this book is like naving a teacher at your side to guide and help you. With 75 illustrations including 40 full-page plates. $14.95 hardcover/$7.95 paperback.

Available in October, order now.

21 The Alphabet of Creation

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An Ancient Legend from the Zohar Ben Shahn A legend from the Zohar, or Book of Splendor, a classic of Jewish mysticism, is retold by Ben Shahn in words and pictures. "A medieval Spanish legend turned into a thing of calligraphic beauty!’— Saturday Review $2.95 paperback/fllus. by Ben Shahn

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History and Observance Hayyim Schauss The kind of book you will find yourself referring to again and again as the various holidays throughout the year approach. The development, origin and background, rich symbolism, ritual practices, and use of ceremonial objects are colorfully detailed. With a calendar of all major Jewish holidays through 1992. $5.95 paperback

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S. Y. Agnon Translated by I.M. Lask “ What makes Agnon so remarkable and an appropriate recipient of the Nobel Prize is that he is able to embody in his talmudic world so much of our common humanity, and even of our common morality, so much of ironic humor and ironic but touching pathos, that he can be read, I should think, with appreciation by anyone.," ’ — Edmund Wilson in Commentary “There is no writer quite like him!’

— The New York Times $8.95 paperback

Memories of My Youth Gershom Scholem Among the great innovators in Jewish thoughtfn the twentieth century, Gershom Scholem stands on the highest level. Now after fifty years of scholarship, he offers a memoir that is at once a portrait of his life, the story of an intellectual odyssey, and a first-person account of the origins of modern Jewish thinking. Scholem carries his memoir through his student days in Germany and his rediscovery of Jewish mysticism, through his decision to emigrate to Palestine, and his career as one of the greatest Hebrew scholars of the modern era. It is a book peopled with such notable figures as Ernst Simon, S.D. Goitein, S.Y. Agnon, Franz Rosenzweig, Hermann Cohen, S.H. Bergman, Zalman Shazar, and Waiter Benjamin. Perhaps more than any other scholarly figure, Scholem’s life is at one with the growth of Zionism and the Jewish state. His narrative is rich, provocative, and a moving record of a great life of the mind.

“The very struggle between past and present brings out Scholem’s integrity all thé more clearly and makes this work a monument to a man and his unalloyed Zionist allegiance!’

— Lionel Kochan in the Times Literary Supplement With 6 photographs, $12.95 hardcover

1 « In the H eart of the Seas A Story of a Journey to the Land of Israel S. Y. Agnon Translated by I.M. Lask Drawings by T. Herzl Rome “A simple story, a beautiful blending of reality and imagination, a dream-like atmosphere depicted in the matter-of-fact way, imbued in a poetic naivete combined with mystical religious longings. The narrative is immersed in humor analove to the devout Hasidlm on the one hand, and to Jerusalem, as the highest possible achievement on earth on the other hand. The translation of this story does. .. justice to the genius of one of the greatest writers of our time.”

— Los Angeles Times $4.95 paperback

8 Image Before My Eyes A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864-1939 Lucjan Dobroszycki and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett “ Seven years in the making, the volume draws on the 10,000 pictures in the Polish collection at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Over 300 photos are introduced and explained in a lucid large-print text....Th ere are actors and school children, rabbis and seamstresses, peasants and scholars, craftsmen and business magnates. As a social and cultural record of a community moving creatively and politically into modern times— and then suddenly extin­ guished— this is a book to be seen, read and treasured by concerned readers.

— Publishers Weekly “ If you’re Jewish and looking for your roots and the world of your grandfathers, this is the book for you. If you’re not Jewish, but just curious, this book is for you, to o ... It is not just another coffee-table item, but a book to read and relish!’

— Lucy S. Dawidowicz ih The New York Times Book Review “ IMAGE BEFO RE MY EYES is a beautiful book and would be a treasure in every house as it is in mine!’

— Issac Bashevis Singer With over 300 photographs, $12.50 paperback

s The Jewish Holiday Kitchen s I I Da/s of Awe v s s s s s s s 9 A Rabbinic Anthology s s s Scftocken Books s 8 A Dictionary of Jewish s Names and Their H istory loan Nathan Illustrated A rich array of recipes for Rosh Ha-Shanah and the eve of Yom Kippur from many Jewish traditions: German, Russian, Sepnardic, Moroccan and Greek.

The first recipe is for the round hallah, symbol of life. Then come recipes for soups, fish dishes, meat and chicken dishes, vegetables, and desserts, including teyglakh. Also, contains recipes for all other Jewish holidays. All recipes are kosher All dishes are marked meat, milk or pareve. $ 12.95 hardcover

Edited by C. G. Monteflore and H. Loewe.

A vast compendium of passages of Talmudic and Mldrashic literature.“ No Jewish home, school or library should be without it.”— The Jewish Advocate $ 15.95 paperback

A Treasury of Traditions, Legends and Learned Commentaries Concerning Rosh Ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur and the Days Between S.Y. Agnon The Israeli Nobel Laureate drew on thousands of texts to compose this anthology of Jewish wisdom arranged to follow the order of the service of Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur.

From the first section, on “ The Motive of Rosh . Ha-Shanah” to the last, on “The Close of Yom Kippur,” DAYS O F AWE offers a profound understanding of the High Holy Days. “ From the moment of its appearance the volume seemed as though it had always been there, as though it had always been the companion of the Holy Day prayer book.”

—Judah Goldin from the Introduction $5.95 paperback

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FOR SALE Original ink sketches h a n d w a t e r c o l o r e d b y the artist

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Freema Gottlieb

Zelda: A Poet in Israel "Yes, many people whom I don't know come to visit me," said Zelda. "Not all, I regret to say, out of a real appreciation of my poetry. Some come to gape, as if I were some kind of curiosity.

Because I am religious, because I wear a sheiteL.." What at first glance strikes the eye about the woman and her surroundings is their complete unpretentiousness. In the tranquil Shaarei Chessed quarter of Yerushalayim where she lives, Zelda is indistinguishable from any other modestly dressed religious Jewish woman. What is far more significant than a gossipy interest in the "picturesque" flavor of particular styles in headcovering is the fact that a poet with so personally anguished, original, and modern a voice should—where externals like dress and her immediate environment are concerned—choose to be so conventional.

What was noticeable to me as I was greeted by the poet was not what she was wearing, but the child-like mischievous quality of her smile, the liveliness that could make this woman in her sixties seem to be any age. We sat in a room dominated by a table covered with a plastic cloth. Near us were the silver candlesticks ready for Shabbos, and the heavy leather-bound volumes of the Talmud which belonged to her husband. The decor was dutifully, functionally laid out except for the framed splashes of Impressionistic watercolor on the walls—a tribute to art—and an earthenware pot of some very dewy fresh­ looking flowers that seemed to have come straight from the earth. Certainly no haunt of Bohemia this! Rather the home of a deeply religious woman who happens to love natural things, beauty and art, and who also—the many objects around her testify—has many friends.

The paintings on the walls are valuable to her because she likes them or because she likes to be reminded of the people who had given them to her. There were many line-drawings of Yerushalayim, as if she delights in tracing and retracing those familiar features; a snow scene of Paris (an artist friend of hers lived there, presumably); a portrait of a man reading; a picture entitled "Holocaust"—one sculpted face of pain—done by a survivor.

Zelda brought in refreshments—one single bowl of golden oranges. From where I was sitting my eye rested on a small balcony, filled with a mass of greenery. The railing was traced in very delicate fretwork of corona shapes and arabesques caught up in the boughs of a giant tree. The effect was of some Eastern retreat. "Ah, you are looking at my garden," said Zelda. "I only need one single tree to remind me of the Russian forests of my childhood."

Freema Gottlieb is a free­ lance writer living in New York City. In the course of a recent visit fo Israel, she met and spoke to the famed poet who goes hy the name "Zelda."

Zelda is one of the few well-known poets writing in Hebrew today who is committed to Torah belief and practice. The selections in the text have been translated by the author.

57

She remembered her first night in Yerushalayim as she rattled along in a street car together with her family. The sky was so dark that she could not see anything and she had the terrible sensation of riding in the sky. "I tumbled into Yerushalayim as if into the ocean/' she said.

From the days of her Russian childhood, Zelda has retained an absolute passion for nature. Part of the hardship she had experienced in coming to Yerushalayim as a girl of eight, had been this love for the scenery in which her childhood memories were rooted. Russia was so completely different from the starkness and the aridity of Yerushalayim. She had loved the forests, the rivers, the snow of Russia. "To come to Yerushalayim was to change the nature to which I had grown accustomed. That is the tragedy of our people..." she said. "And for a poet the landscape of childhood is especially magical."

She remembered her first night in Yerushalayim as she rattled along in a street car together with her family. The sky was so dark that she could not see anything and she had the terrible sensation of riding in the sky. "I tumbled into Yerushalayim as if into the ocean," she said. "It was dangerous, even. At that time the city was completely dark at night; night was really night. Now the day has been extended and the City wears a smile even at night. Shops are lit up. Then there were only stars. As day advances, the stars retreat. The stars were closer to me in the Yerushalayim night of my childhood." And in the daytime there were colors—mainly gold, sun on earth and stone. Guardedly she admitted that, in the building of a thriving metropolis, something had been not lost, but driven into retreat—the mysterious and nighttime side of the City that had so terrified an impressionable child. "Really, this is the eternal reality of the City," she said. "It is there all the time.

The night and daytime side of Yerushalayim exist side by side always..." Both during the daytime and at night there is a visible Yerushalayim and a Yerushalayim that the heart can only guess at. Everyone has his own Yerushalayim: She speaks in all languages. Then she said reluctantly: "But, yes, Yerushalayim has changed since I came as a child from Russia.

Now many Jews have come to live here. That is wonderful. But there are skyscrapers. It cannot be helped!"

Within the first year of her arrival in the Holy Land first her father and then her grandfather died, so that the City became associated in her mind with these events: A fter his death we remembered That in his eyes beauty was full of secrets The frail beauty of the nights of Yerushalayim.

For Zelda, far beyond the sensuous life and bustle of a modern metropolis, beyond even, the historical and religious impact of the "Tem ple-City," Yerushalayim remains symbolic of the swallowing up of personal identity by the grandeur of natural and godlike forces. As a poet, just as a human being, Zelda finally fell in love with the sensuous aspects of the City. Yet a doubt invades her: 58

Can it be that delight...

Is part of the principle of mortality in me?

And that pleasure taken in spicy aromas and the moment of return To the sterner aspect of Yerushalayim skies, To the loftiest above all— Is this part of the principle of mortality?

She is afraid that the delight she feels in the beauty of Yerushalayim and in the physical reality of created things may be an obstacle between her and the Infinite. So much is she in love with the sensuous world that it is agony for her to realize that she will have to part from it as body from soul. There is a Yerushalayim that goes beyond all the aromatic smells that she has learned to love and that will blot all of them out, an "invisible Carmel" which will one day take leave of the Carmel visible to the eye: When I shall die To pass over into another substance— The invisible Carmel which is all, all mine Will take its leave, All of it the quintessence of joy, Whose pine-needles, cones, flowers, and cloud Are carved into my flesh— From the visible Carmel With its row of pine trees y leading down to the sea.

When I asked her about the mystical element in this poetry and the urge towards a transcendence of the physical contained in it, she objected to any such interpretation. "I actually lived on Mount Carmel for a time. It is a real place for me." But she did admit that the "inner Carmel" was a symbol for her own personal inner life.

As we talked, physical pain was etched on her face, also mental suffering. Zelda came into her own as a poet only after her husband's death, and mourning for a lost companion is the theme of many of her romantic elegiac verses. I pointed to the flowers and the bowl of fruit and quoted a verse in which personal grief gives way before such daily pleasures: In the morning I shuddered.

The glow of life, it will not return again It will not return.

Suddenly the sun is in my house A living force for me And the bread upon the table Gold And the flower on the table and the cups Gold That which had been sorrowful In sorrow, too, is radiant.

For Zelda, far beyond the sensuous life and bustle of a modern metropolis, beyond even, the historical and religious impact of the "Temple-City", Yerushalayim remains symbolic of the swallowing up of personal identity by the grandeur of natural and godlike forces.

59

Her face lit up: "O h —that is reality. That is what we can feel, we can touch, we can taste. That is what is important!" Then her face fell into shadow. "Night also is reality; pain also...we are not the only things that exist. Night is also real. G-d is the G-d of night as well as of flowers."

"Death seems a central preoccupation in your poetry," I asked her gently, but she rejected that: "No, it's life that is important to me, above everything. Haven't you read my poem: 'Not Like a Graven Im age...'" The revelation in that poem is that art must not become an instrument with which to embalm a dead love and make it into an idol "immune from the cold." On the contrary, art must identify with the most vulnerable, mortal, pulsating, bird-like part of a human being, the "blood of a hot heart" refusing to take either the aesthetic or the mystical way, and, by attempting to merge with Beauty, submerge its own humanity. Rather than opt for self-oblivion with any postulate of an Absolute, it is the "froth of life" itself that sings, thanking the Creator on its way to extinction.

I then asked whether the whole concept of Torah as a kind of ideal abstract of reality ("G-d looked into the Torah and created the world") was not a form of escapism and alienation from the immediacy of experience, the blueprint of reality substituting for reality itself. "Torah is not only learning, but experience too," she said. People who learn Torah also carry on normal activities of human life, also love, get married, have children, but Torah pervades everything.

"But how could laws governing the minutiae of mixing meat and milk be important," I asked, "when faced by the Infinite that could be found in Nature?" Take the Stalagmite Caves at Bet Shemesh, for instance, or the Sinai Desert. The geological strata of countless ages and innumerable deaths that do not take the human element into account at all. Upon all this we try to superimpose some structure, while realizing that it is only a human projection. How then could such details be important when man himself is dwarfed by such immensity?

"But human life is important," she stressed.If Only Torah tells one how to live with all\the richness of life, how to live with the whole world and the whole pattern of nature day by day. We must not simply marvel at the beauty which G-d created. We must live ourselves!"

Zelda shyly intimated to me that she was in continual correspondence with the Lubavitcher Rebbe who reads all her poems—her maiden name is Schneerson, and they are closely related. She is reluctant to call herself an adherent of Lubavitch only because she does not like labels. She vehemently denied my suggestion that the Chassidic principle of the "negation of sensuous existence" was contrary to the affirmation of life that all her poems celebrate. To support her

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60

argument, she told a Chassidic story. "Someone knocked at a door. The person inside inquired: 'Who is there?' 'I am/ came the reply. Only G-d can say 'I am/ " said Zelda. "He is the True Existence. Man, nature, all that we love is only a part...G-d is the sum-total of everything—and nothing. But that is not the subject for a conversation," she finished hurriedly, and we continued with more literary subjects which she seemed to consider safe ground.

"Between art and life I always choose life. I do not write poetry because it is a truer form than life, more complete, more intense, but simply as a tribute to the dead, as it were, to catch the experience of the moment on its way. But it is that experience that is all-important. And there is a lot that I have to let go..." On her face there was pain, giving way to acceptance.

Her taste in literature also illustrates this preference for reality as against what she seems to consider an over-indulgence in aestheticism and the fantastic: "Reality is the supreme fantasy," she declared. "Isn't life in itself a fantasy, with all its infinite interconnections? It is fantasy, and it also contains fantasy within it. But I love the life, the reality of things!"

Of American writers, she preferred Malamud to Bellow.

"His people are real," she said, while Bellow's all belong to the monotonous introverted consciousness of one single alienated individual. Not enlightening, she seems to think. Above all literatures she loves Russian, and Tolstoy more than Dostoïevski: "Tolstoy is not 'good style' or 'great art/ but actual life. In him, we meet people. For me style is always less important than actual living. I never had an ambition to be a poet. I just lived: I taught for a living and Hiked to write poetry.

Friends suggested, only eleven years ago, that I try to publish some of my work. People like my poetry—I don't quite know why!" she finished on a note of mystification and a fleeting smile.

Although she puts great stress on realism, her brief poems seem rather to pierce to the quick of reality than to simply mirror it. "I always wanted to write stories," said Zelda regretfully, "but they came out as poetry, the distilled essence of experience. For my poetry I don't have to sit down and discipline myself to write every morning. That's for something more diffuse, like prose. First, the lines sing in my mind as I go about my other activities. Then, when I cannot help it, I put them down on paper. Although it's not as laborious as writing stories, writing is never easy. It's like an operation: painful but necessary—I don't know why—as long as one is alive. Other people seem to get along very well with eating and sleeping but I have this strange biological compulsion to get my feelings down on paper. Yes, in time of stress, after I have written, I do feel at peace..."

Zelda came into her own as a poet only after her husband's death, and mourning for a lost companion is the theme of many of her romantic elegiac verses.

Although it's not as laborious as writing stories, writing is never easy. It's like an operation: painful but necessary—I don't know why—as long as one is alive. Other people seem to get along very well with eating and sleeping but I have this strange biological compulsion to get my feelings down on paper. Yes, in time of stress, after I have written, I do feel at peace..."

61

"Between art and life 1 always choose life. 1 do not write poetry because it is a truer form than life, more complete, more intense, but simply as a tribute to the dead, as it were, to catch the experience of the moment on its way. But it is that experience that is all-important. And there is a lot that 1 have to let go..."

62

She was not prepared at all to talk about her husband, her feelings. According to the Chassidic concept, her "light" is all contained in simple "vessels." Self-expression is not her ideal.

She talks to friends about their problems and does not dwell on herself at all. In few lines, with few images, and with consummate restraint, she expresses all she wants. Yet, even with this minimum of means, it is in her poetry, and not through an interview that the inner life is revealed. On my suggesting that this was so she recoiled slightly as if caught, then laughed: "Thank G-d there are symbols, images, to veil my meaning a little..."

The gentle note in Zelda's poetry is deceptive; beneath there is an edge that undercuts the complacent orthodoxies of any Establishment. In "Mephivoshet" she celebrates the nobility of one who refused to compromise his principles in. order to obtain worldly advancement. Mephivoshet was the son of Yonatan, and grandson of King Sha'ul, and directly in line for the throne. Although Yonatan was warned by his father that Dovid was after his Kingdom, he gave up his claim in favor of the latter who was his personal friend, and in so doing became the prototype for all time of disinterested love. After the deaths in battle of both the King and the Crown Prince, Dovid composed the beautiful elegy for his friend, recording their love for history. On coming to power, however, the new king did not treat the son of his great friend very magnanimously.

The tragedy of Mephivoshet is that he is a man too noble for power. While Dovid can manipulate people to his advantage, aristocracy of feeling belongs to Yonatan and his family. A sense of all this is what lies behind Zelda's brief lines: When you weep The King did not hear When you fell The world was not restored to original chaos.

Mephivoshet you dreamt Of an even more perfect friendship still Rejecting the cunning of the Primeval Serpent (self-interest and the motives of expediency that govern most people.)

O son of Yonatan!

In "The Wicked Neighbor" the complacency di-much of bourgeois "religious" society is exposed. The immediate pretext for the poem is the religious ritual of burning the last vestiges of leavened bread before Pesach. A speck of ash falling on the dress of a stranger-woman is enough to set her cursing: Do not imagine that your goodness is true goodness, Shrieked the savage laughter Do not imagine that your prayer is true prayer.

It is notable that, not only does the rite set the whole poem in

motion, but that the quality o f religious feeling and a true sense of community is questioned by the stranger's unredeemed longing for acceptance. Rejected by mediocre society, this outsider comes to represent, for the Poet, a wilder, freer, more truthful way of life: In vain had her curses spread arms of smoke To embrace your tepid souls devoid of all imagination.

In vain had the wretched creature waved her own red flags at me to draw me out of the enchanted circle of my being and led me to the hidden point of her existence.

When the stranger-w om an leaves town, the community breathes a sigh of relief. Not so the Poet. T hat her society should "speak of [the stranger's] soul, alive as if it were a stumbling block!" reduces them in her eyes. The poem's ending is strangely disquieting, returning to the Poet herself who, by her identification with what was inimical to normal social conventions in the stranger-w om an seemed m omentarily to exemplify some of those qualities herself. When the "outsider" is hounded out of town, that bond is broken, the poet left as ...one of the bowed women One of the mass of gray-haired women And not a trace was left in me of that splendid courage.

All colors of red, of flame, and of passion the stranger-w om an takes to herself, whereas the gray ash of mediocrity belongs to the Poet and her circle.

Despite the misleading conventionality of her dress and environm ent, for Zelda, true religion does not preclude doubt and a spiritual searching so intense that it sometimes involves a sense of alm ost complete abandonment. Then all she loves is called in question, not only the delight she takes in the sensuous life, but even the poetry that is her lifeline: Do not hide Thy face from me. and when I awake to ponder If the tales were really so sweet Which the senses all tell To my soul...

(Could it be that tales are my stronghold?)

For was it not in an hour of smouldering grief That I was touched into heartless phrasemaking By the tender fairness of a flower.

When I awake all weeping If only I knew Whether my life is being led By the heavens.

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