On the original "Kosher Jesus" by R. Chaim Volozhiner's grandson, Universalist Dreamer.

Kosher Jesus, Shmuely Boteach, etc.

As already noted by Dr. Marc Shapiro, Rabbi Elias Soloweyczk (Soloveitchik) wrote a sort rabbinic commentary on the Book of Matthew [and also Mark]. Although it was written in Hebrew (titled Kol Kore), I haven't seen it. However, I have seen the French and German translations. (An earlier, anonymously published version exists, but it is different in content.)

I thought it would be worthwhile to print the substance of his introduction to the French edition (Kol Kore La Bible, le Talmud et l'Évangile, tr. par L. Wogue. Évangile de Marc. Évangile de Matthieu Paris 1875). Note that his purpose is to show that the New Testament and the Talmud do not oppose each other.

But before I do, here are some worthwhile images. This is the "haskamah" to his edition of the Mishne Torah printed in England in in 1863, collected in 1857, signed by various rabbis, and written by R. Jacob Oettinger of Berlin. As you can see, it makes mention of his grandfather, "Rabbi Chajim Wolozin."

Here is our author, who was blind and very poor in the period under question:

Here is the substance of his forward to Mark (from the French translation).

In the preface to my first volume of Kol Koreh I promised to show that the New Testament, contrary to popular belief, is neither in disagreement with the Old or even with the Talmud. I fulfilled my commitment regarding the first Gospel, and now I work on the second.

A few words of explanation. Many people of high intelligence of rank applauded my work, either because they agreed with me in advance or were persuaded after having read them. This encourages me.

But what a pity, there are extremists, and also those who laugh at what they think is an attempt to reconcile opposing views. Aside for the positive feedback, I was also assailed by Jews and Christians, and I think it is useful to answer their objections.

My fellow Jews said "To mention the Gospel and the Talmud together? What brazeness this author has! Doubtlessly there are good things in the former, but we do not know its source, or what the authority for such things are. By contrast, in the Talmud nothing is anonymous, everything is stated by name and by tradition, going back to Moses, from God - or else it contains the views of individuals who are known to us, respected rabbis, and tradition tells us their names and [scholarly] lineage, often going back to a very remote period. "All their words are like fiery coals" (Avoth 2:15) and this author is not afraid to destroy it! His book is an attack on the holiness of the Talmud, to blend it with the New Testament; it is sacrilege.

In parallel, my fellow Christians say the same thing. The New Testament is the Word of God, the Talmud is a human work. Not only human, but full of contradictions and inconsistencies. What one doctor disputes, another defends. One says with, the other says black. The New Testament is very different, a single doctrine, very beautful, holy and so beneficial to man that it could only come from God.

This is what they say, and here is what I answer. Jewish Brothers, I know the sanctity of the Talmud, like you. It's value is high. I have been raised on a diet of Talmud since childhood, and I learned to revere it. But believe me, these arguments do not glorify it, and our doctors would disavow them, were they alive. Those men were fair and impartial, they rarely condemned either a man or a book, and even to that which they comdemned, they knew how to do it in a just way. Look at what they say about Ben Sira (Sanhedrin 100b) "It is (generally) not permitted to read books of heretics. Rab Joseph said, this refers to Ben Sira" (Ecclesiasticus, because, Rashi said, foolish and exaggerated things are in it). However, says R. Joseph, the good things in [Ben Sira] may be read and expounded. So a book which the Talmud forbids reading, yet it does not reject that which is good in it, and it even approvingly cites it a number of times, which is evidence that it accepts the good and true whenever it encounters it. Doesn't this [approach] bring peace and harmony between people? The same Talmud which you think is a cause for discord, doesn't it contain the most beautiful sentiments? To cite but one example, we read in Sukkah 53b that ""If, for the purpose of establishing harmony between man and wife, the Torah said, Let My name that was written insanctity be blotted out by the water, how much more so may it be done in order to establish peace in the world!" This is precisely my goal, the goal that all friends of the Torah should aspire, to, every Jew and every man worthy of the name, and you my brothers, you condemn me for my effort? I say, this is not the talk of the wise.

And you, my Christian brothers, who claim that it is an offense to put the Gospel on the same footing as the Talmud, do you not know that the Talmud has a right for your gratitude, and that without if the name of your Christ may have fallen into oblivion? Many famous writers have denied the existence of Jesus Christ, and many deny it today, lacking knowledge of the Talmud which, as we shall say, excplicitly affirms his existence. . .

As for your disdain of comparing the Talmud and the Gospels, you should know that the Talmud is a unique monument of jurisprudence, deep legal reasoning and wisdom? Allow me to explain . . . (He goes on to describe Maimonides and the Mishne Torah - noting that he published the first five sections with a Hebrew commentary and German and English translation [although he doesn't note that the English translation was by Hermann Hedwig Bernard]). He suggests that he is willing to supply a French translation of any part of the Mishne Torah that one would like. One could compare those Talmudic laws with the laws of any European nation on the same subject, and see if the Jewish laws do not fare well by comparison. They will be amazed at what was produced nearly 2000 years ago, by the sheer force of the intelligence of these doctors, so abused by [these] Christians!

He ends his introduction by repeating that the Jews and Christians are unfounded in their attacks upon him. He refers to Ex. 16:8 "(your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord") saying that he is no one, and they are not complaining against him, but against truth and peace, his only goals! He cites David in Psalms "Ani shalom vekha adabber hemmah lammilchama", which he explains as "All my desire is for peace, and even when I make war" it is only for peace. The same with me, he says, if I have come to do battle with the ancient interpreters of the New Testament, it is to bring peace and understanding between people, for false doctrines have long divided them.

He prays that he succeeds in his holy enterprise, that the favor of the Lord descend upon his work, that that it produces much and wholesome fruit in the heart of readers, and that with one spirit they embrace the worship of one God, and that it could help accomplish the words of the Prophet (Zephania 3:9) "For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent."

Rabbi Elias Soloweyczsk

A few years later he printed a German translation, with another preface. In this one, he again addresses critics, but this time he includes a translation of a source which evidently he had discovered, and he feels will adequately answer them. He quotes R. Yaakov Emden ("foremost authority," "known for his tremendous piety and learning") in his edition of Seder Olam (Hamburg 1757):

"For thirty [sic] years the abominable sect of Shabbetai Zevi has newly arisen, and caused more evil than the Flood. God forbid that this accursed sect should ever mix with our Christian brethren. The principles of the Christian religion is a strict morality, even stricter than ours, for it prohibits things allowed by Mosaic law, e.g., marriage among cousins. These principles drive them from excess, self-denial and forgiveness for wrong, and their true saints are characterized by their exemplary virtues. We would be glad if Christians would, as we would, scrupulously observe their own law, if they (as we) would follow the good examples of their virtuous kings and saints and all their ways. People know that I flatter no one, have never lied, and that my zeal for the Jewish religion has never hindered me from acting justly. I will repeat what I have said often, that Jesus has done a double act for manking. On the one hand he has confirmed all the teachings of Moses, he explained that he did not come to abolish them or to change one iota, he claimed with equal vigor that the law is eternal and unchanging."

Although Soloweyczk does not quote the other hand, and I do not have the time to look it up now (but it is on this page, I imagine it says something positive about what Jesus's teachings did for Christians. He continues that he has just developed this idea further, and once again, that his purpose is to effect a reconciliation of the two Testaments, and two peoples, and that we should see the joyful day when Jews and Christians will shake hands and fulfill the words of the prophet, "On that day the Lord and his name will be one."

There may be a part II to this post, where I discuss the content of his work.

Reflections on Kapparot and Talmud translations from an early 19th century Christian critic of Judaism.

From January 1836 to March 1837 a Christian missionary named Alexander McCaul (often written M'Caul, in the period spelling) published a small weekly magazine which he called נתיבות עולם (Jer. 6.16) The Old Paths, which was a withering critique of Rabbinic Judaism. McCaul, who was a competent Hebrew scholar, aimed to demonstrate to the Jews the insufficiency and errors of Judaism ('Rabbinism') so that they could abandon their "Old Paths," and follow the New Paths - Christianity. Although it is a difficult book for a faithful Jew to read without provoking outrage or wounded feelings, it is not a typical antisemitic tract ay all. Although I realize some would dispute this, McCaul took many great pains to demonstrate that he is in no way opposed to Jews. He did not accuse Jews of being exploiters, uncivilized, evil. He added a remark in his introduction that he hopes that "these papers may not be misunderstood, either by Jew or Christian, but that all who read them will carefully distinguish between Judaism and the Jewish people-and a wish, that they may contribute to the welfare of Israel, and the promotion of truth." Reader take note: he said a variation on what we have all heard some Jews themselves say sometimes: Don't judge Judaism by the Jews. Except, that he says the opposite: Don't judge the Jews by Judaism.

This does not, of course, mean that an attack on Judaism is not offensive. However there can be little doubt - at least so I am convinced - that he truly harbored no ill will toward the Jews per se. Not only does he exonerate Jews, but even contemporary rabbis, for the mistakes he sees in Judaism. They are simply following the traditions established for them, but they should not because it is not good for their soul, is his opinion. He also wrote extensively against antisemitism, particularly during the Damascus Blood Libel affair of 1840, and mobilized others to speak out against persectution. Although this type of Love-the-Jews-but-convert-them-all mentality is not hard to find nowadays, this was not generally the case in the 1830s. Furthermore, he espouses what seems to be a deeply held conviction, that Christianity is a Jewish religion, just as Rabbinic Judaism is a Jewish religion. This may be old news today, but not 180 years ago.

McCaul - who after the series had run compiled them into a single volume, which was almost immediately translated into German, Hebrew and Yiddish - writes in his introduction that "It was the author's wish, not to ridicule any man's superstition, but to instruct those, whom Moses and the Prophets would have declared to be in error. He has, therefore, carefully avoided the tone in which Eisenmenger and others have treated this subject." He also writes that he avoided dealing with Aggadah, which Christian writers had loved to ridicule for centuries. Instead, he confines himself to only those things which are mentioned in the Siddur and in the Codes of Jewish law. In fact, he dwells at length about how the prayers reflect the centrality of the Oral Law.



A note about the title: Having previously written about this book (here and here) I noted the irony that although "Netibot olam" can be translated as "Old Paths," the more primary meaning of "olam" is "eternal." Thus, while he meant to say that Judaism is the Old Path, his title was inadvertently also expressing the sentiment that it is the Eternal Path. Putting aside the question whether "old" ought to be automatically equated with "obsolete" - actually, if you look at the phrase in context, Jer. 6.16, here is what the verse says, "Thus saith the LORD: stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said: 'We will not walk therein.' " (JPS 1917) Thus, even where it does, or could mean "old paths," the verse praises the old paths, and implicitly criticizes those who say "we will not walk therein"!

Now, one of the classic Christian principles is that atonement requires blood. Before Jesus this was (or could have been) achieved through animal sacrifice in the Temple. But not long after Jesus these ceased, and Jesus himself is the blood of atonement. Lacking this, there is no blood, and there cannot be atonement. Judaism - Rabbinic Judaism he would say - of course teaches otherwise, that prayer, repentance, charity - achieves atonement. On pg. 142, discussing Yom Kippur (or, an exercise in futility as he sees it) he writes that really the rabbis themselves inadvertently betrayed that they unconsciously realized that prayer, etc. is insufficient, because they added something to make up for it: Kaparot.

He proceeds to quote the Judeo-German and Hebrew text in קהלת שלמה , specifically because the latest edition had been published in 1830. Therefore it shows that it is a custom which is still very much alive and common among the general populace. After translating the passages, he offers that the Jews show that they don't really trust Chazal's assertion that Yom Kippur atones, that personal merit, zechut avot, repentance, etc. Further, it shows that even though they hit upon something worthless, the Kapparot ritual, yet they intuit that something more is needed, and they intuit that for every man, women, child - even the unborn child - every human is guilty and in need of atonement. He says that they declare by this act that atonement by blood is absolutely necessary. And would God leave them without what they know in their hearts they need for forgiveness? I wonder if he was aware of opposition to kapparot in the tradition? (See, e.g., here.)

Here is a link to the relevant passage in Koheles Shelomo in the 1847 Hanover edition: link. The book was first published in Amsterdam 1744. Interestingly, the publisher of the edition discussed here was Solomon Blogg, whom I wrote about here.

In any case, there is much more that could be written about this book, and no doubt I will return to it. In the meantime, here is an absolutely fascinating passage in the introduction to the second edition (1846), where McCaul reflects on exciting, recent developments, such as the rise of Reform Judaism in England. The West London Synagogue, and its prayer book, omitted many of the passages discussed in his book. Secondly, the two Reform rabbinical synods in Germany had discussed many of the topics as he, and come to similar conclusions regarding the Rabbinic Tradition. The Reform Societies in Germany are engaged in formidable attacks on the Oral Law. Naturally he sees these as vindication. Even if he doesn't explicitly suggest that his book influenced these things, it's hard not to believe that he imagined that his book deserved some credit.

McCaul writes that if the German Talmud translation is ever completed - he means Pinner's translation, of which only the first volume ever appeared, and which was endorsed by the Chasam Sofer, who then retracted - then it "must . . . overthrow Talmudism." Simply putting it into any European language would be most fatal attack upon it. "It needs only to be seen as it is, in order to be rejected." He then reiterates his reminder that the reader must not mistake "this discussion of the merits of Rabbinism for an attack upon the Jewish people, or the rabbies of the present day." (On Pinner, see here, here, here, here and here. )

Read McCaul's whole thing:





Speaking of Talmud translations, in Shanu Chachamim Beleshon Hamishnah by the recently departed Rabbi Menashe Klein, in his section (42) on why the correct approach is to bring Jews up to the Torah, and not the Torah down to the Jews, he talks about Artscroll. He writes that "at one of the gatherings of those who are called "Jewish leaders," - he means Agudath Israel - with Cardinal O'Connor [offensive passage omitted, but you can read it on page 98], they discussed antisemitism. They asked him why is there so much hatred for the Jews, and he began quoting Gemaras to them, with many citations from Chazal" - he lists some - and he said, "How could they not hate them?" So they asked him how did he know all these things? So he took them into the next room and showed them a bunch of Artscroll books. That this event - he says that someone told him this - is almost certainly distorted, if not completely imaginary, is not really the point.

Incidentally, in the next section he writes about how the Noda Beyehuda tore keriah when the Torah was translated into German - meaning Mendelssohn. What he doesn't write, or realize, is that the Noda Beyehuda was muskam to another Chumash with a German - yes, German - translation of sorts. The time is not yet right for my post on that Chumash, but here is a small taste.

Note please that this Chumash, published in Prague by Sussmann Glogau, and endorsed by the Noda Beyehuda, name drops Mendelssohn on the title page. It says that most of the translation agrees with Minden's Milim Le-eloah (Berlin 1760), which usually agreed with Mendelssohn's translation. This is the title page. In fact, so misleading was this that the JNUL catalog doesn't list Sussmann Glogau, whose name does not appear, but Mendelssohn, whose name does, for their holding. Apparently Glogau felt that to be competitive he had to mention that this is up to par with Mendelssohn's edition. For his part, the Noda Beyehuda liked that its language was simpler (not Yiddish - German - simpler German) and must have seen this as a kosher alternative to the Mendelssohn Chumash. However, if you actually read the haskamah, you'll see that it doesn't sound like he came even close to tearing keriah over the Mendelssohn Chumash. He writes fairly about what M. said his intentions were, and says that maybe he was sincere. But the problem is that the language is very complex (leshon ashkenaz amuk me'od) and the students aren't used to it and they'd need most of the day just trying to learn the German grammar. By contrast, this is a translation for scholars, not children so it's all good. In fact it is not a complete translation per se, but more of a clarification of selected words and phrases. But more on that in the future post.

Here are the title page, the haskamah, and the first page.







My thanks to Leor Jacobi for acquiring these photos for me. This particular copy was owned by Rothschild - the Rothschild, by the way.

Getting back to Rabbi Menashe Klein, immediately following this is a section on translations for Ba'alei Teshuva. He says the desire for such things is not from ba'alei teshuva, but the yetzer hara; ba'alei avera, not ba'alei teshuva. On the contrary, true ba'alei teshuva would realize his arguments are correct, and therefore why would they wish to contribute to this terrible thing (translations)? Rather, they would realize that all the assimilation came about because of vernacular and translations in the first place. Therefore they will learn Hebrew and then learn Torah. He then concludes with a great story about an Apikores (heretic) in Cracow and a Chazir-Fresser (pig-eater) in Lodz, who discussed with each other how they got their names. The nimshal is that the apikores could well wear tefillin, learn Torah all day, and practice Judaism meticulously. Incidentally, in these two paragraphs I there are many non-Hebrew origin words - German, English, Latin and Greek - as well as the acronym akum, which was invented by Christian censors.

Back to McCaul and his assumption that all you had to do was translate the Talmud and *poof* that's the end of Rabbinic Judaism. While we see that this was not only not true, a writer later in the century had the following to say:



In other words, McCaul's prediction was nonsense, and the case of Mormonism proves it.

The writer was Richard Burton (not the husband of Elizabeth Taylor, of course) and the book is The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam. The book was published posthumously from Burton's papers, and the editor writes that even an appendix on the Damascus Blood Libel of 1840 is antisemitic (apparently Burton thought human sacrifice among the Jews of the East was real) so he omitted it since he didn't feel it was right to mutilate an author's words, but he could not publish it, as it was odious.

Nevertheless, he did include the section on the Jews, even though the tone is also antisemitic, but since it contains much good ethnographic material, in this case the material is too valuable to "suppress[ . . . ] merely to avoid the possibility of hurting the susceptibilities of the Hebrew community." Although he decided not to avoid offending Jews altogether, he says that actually it may well be that the Jews of the East who are not "enlightened" like the Jews of England, who are also "highly favored," aren't exactly that civilized. This accords with the principle that "Every nation gets the Jew it deserves." Hey, he is saying. If the Jews in the Orient aren't so nice, then that's what the people there generated through centuries of oppression. Not their own fault, but facts are facts - if they are facts, of course.

חכמת ישראל : Eat the fruit, throw away the shell

"If you wish to know what brand of tobacco Rashi used, ask Leopold Zunz. If you wish to know the interpretation of Rashi's writings, ask me."

--remark traditionally attributed to...R. Jacob Ettlinger (1798-1871) of Altona (quoted from "Bernard Revel Builder of American Jewish Orthodoxy" by Aaron Rothkoff, pg. 241)

"The great historian of the Jewish past, Heinrich Graetz, got most of his facts right in his monumental work, History of the Jews. But his obvious bias against traditional Judaism and his almost obsessive hatred of the rabbis of Israel spawned a school of Jewish history that did great damage to the Jewish people. They may have known what color shirt Rashi wore, but they ignored what Rashi really stood for and his immortal contribution to Jewish survival and destiny."

--R. Berel Wein, published originally in the Jerusalem Post and reprinted here

Paranthetically, and at the outset, it's worth pointing out that tobacco is native to North America and therefore the brand of tobacco Rashi smoked was none at all. This fact oddly and unwittingly illustrates R. Ettlinger's point in a way he probably didn't intend!

But getting back to the matter at hand: Wissenschaft des Judentums, or חכמת ישראל, and its modern descendent, academic Jewish studies.

R. Yitzchok Adlerstein posts today at Cross Currents about thoughts he had about the media coverage of the Gospel of Judas, one of many so-called Gnostic Gospels, which were texts of early Christian heresies. The Gospel of Judas, for example, presents Judas Iscariot as the most beloved disciple of Jesus who remained faithful to the end, "betraying" his master at his command.

Writes R. Adlerstein, "The general attitude [of Christians and institutional Christianity]I have noticed is, “What, we should be disturbed by a bunch of meshugaim suffering from desert heat-stroke? What makes their version more valuable or authentic than ours? For this you want us to discard a tradition of thousands of years?”

"I’m jealous. In the Jewish world, we often don’t react as calmly and sanely."

Unlike us Jews, who sold our birthright for a small price, by accepting the so-called scientific investigation of Judaism over tradition (that is, those of us who did and who do).

The truth is there is a lot to be said for that point, even though the Gospel of Judas is roughly equivalent to a late Sadduccean document rather than a fragment from a book of J. There is also a lot to be said in defense of חכמת ישראל.

Like most things, there is a lot more nuance to this subject than presenting it in terms of light and darkness, which does no justice to it. It is certainly true that Wissenschaft did violence to traditions. It's also true that many of its favorite sons had motives which one can disagree with, and that the movement spawned, directly and indirectly, plenty of crises for Jews and Judaism. But at the same time, it came about because of historical circumstances (there I go again!). There is a reason why it arose in the 19th century and not, say, the 14th.

A quote from "American Judaism" by Nahum Glatzer (pg. 69). It concerns the title character of Abraham Cahan's novel The Rise of David Levinsky, a young Russian yeshiva student who emigrates to the United States. On the boat he eats only kosher and davens regularly. Once in America he immediately seeks out a shul. But he also cuts his peyot, then shaves, then abandons the synagogue for night school--and "soon nothing is left--and with practically no soul searching":

The case of David Levinsky illustrates the crucial point that Judaism in eastern Europe, as in Germany, tended to ignore everything that might be considered theology. Only the practices of Judaism were taught. One was brought up to observe the commandments, and, for this reasons, as soon as one came in touch with a kind of thought which questioned fundamentals, one was at a loss. In other words, it may be said Jews lost their faith so easily because they had no faith to lose: that is, they had no doctrine, no collection of dogmas to which they could cling and with which they could resist argument. All they had, surrounding them like armor, was a complete set of practices, each presumably as holy as the next (emph. mine).

Whether this happened in America in the 1880s or another version of the same story in Altona in the 1780s or in Vilna in the 1920s, it is what happened. And in fact, the sentence I italicized in the above paragraph was a key element. מנהג ישראל תורה הוא may have been a rallying cry in response, but it was one that just illustrated how the two kinds of Jews couldn't communicate.

Here is worth repeating the reaction of Shadal to the news that Reformers in Germany had eliminated the second "יקום פורקן" from the liturgy: They fulfilled that which is written "וימח את כל היקום" (Gen. 7:23). Shadal, ever the traditionalist--but the irony is that he was also very modern, and very much engaged in his own brand of the scientific investigation of Judaism. In fact, this is one area where the lack of clear lines comes to the fore: lots of talmidei chachamim with yirat shamayim engaged in Wissenschaft, including an original member of the Agudah's moetzes gedolei ha-Torah, R. David Zevi Hoffman.

The question is, why? Is it just an evil way to approach religion? It is useless? Some of the people who would have applauded Shadal's witty remark would say just that, and that its forbidden also. But likely many of those people would have felt that way about some of his writings!

(Parenthetically, on doing some research for this post I came across this statement, by R. Adlerstein: "Alas, it has been a long time since Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman and his headlong charge against Higher Criticism and Jewish Wissenschaft." This is very curious. It's true that R. Hoffman fought against source criticism of the Bible. But he personally engaged in Wissenschaft, and taught it as a core component of his rabbinical seminary. A big part of his personal style of learning Gemara was חכמת ישראל. And not only that, his book "Mar Samuel" was branded apikorsus by R. Samson Rafael Hirsch.)

There are no easy answers. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. אין הכי נמי, R. Adlerstein has a point. To have a healthy Judaism we shouldn't destroy it! But neither should we totally interdict modern methods of study and investigation. Like R. Meir, when we find a רמון then תוכו אכל קליפתו זרק (Chag. 15b).