“Financial Hero-Businessman and broker Haym Salomon was responsible for raising most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution and later to save the new nation from collapse.”
— United States Postal Service’s ‘Contributors to the Cause’ series of commemorative stamps -March 25, 1975 (American Bicentennial)
Just who was this Haym Salomon?
Is his significance to the revolution over-exaggerated or undervalued?
By Rabbi Moshe Taub for Ami Magazine, Summer 2026
I. Nusach, Origins, & Mystery
My curiosity regarding the life of Haym (Chaim) Salomon began innocently. While researching another matter, I stumbled upon many of Haym’s papers and records that are preserved by the Smithsonian.
I was amazed to discover that even his kesuba (Jewish marriage contract) still survives.
Haym Salomon’s kesuba- religious marriage contract
Among the items I perused were the Salomon family siddurim (prayer books), including one titled ‘Prayer book for the Fast Days, according to the custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ (published in 1810; it likely belonged to his wife, Rachel, niftara/dying in 1818). This seemingly inconsequential discovery of sefardisiddurrim (Spanish prayer books) unleashed for me a wave of questions, and only deepened the enigma of Haym Salomon.
For starters, Haym hailed from Lissa, Poland – far from a bastion of Sefardi Jews.
Now, one may be tempted to brush this curiosity off, explaining that the Solomon family simply followed the customs of their new shul on their new land – the Mikveh Israel synagogue in Philadelphia. After all, most synagogues at the time were comprised of Jews with Spanish or Portuguese pedigree and customs.
However, Mikveh Israel was founded already in 1740 by Nathan Levy, a German who imposed ashkanazinusach on the congregation. In fact, they only switched to nusach sefard in the late 1770’s, around the time when Haym joined.
While this is all, perhaps, an innocuous anomaly, I then learned how this prayer book is used as a lynchpin in a layer of myth-making surrounding Salomon.
For example, both Wikipedia and The World Encyclopedia assert that Haym’s family actually derived… from Spain! His sefardi ancestors, however, were forced to flee that home in the late 15th century, due to the Inquisition.
Some go even further, adding colorful and detailed ‘historical’ elements to this tale, such as how, in 1588, his ancestors accepted the invite to Poland from Jan Zamoyski, the powerful Catholic nobleman who encouraged sefardi merchants/professionals to move to his newly founded ‘renaissance city’ of Zamosc (Poland). Motivated by what he perceived as Jews’ expertise, Zamoyski granted Jews special privileges and safety.
This Salomon legend concludes that the family indeed settled there, all the while preserving elements of their sefardicminhagim/nuschoas/heritage…hence the Sefardi prayer books. (Perhaps they would also argue that this is the reason why this Philadelphia shul changed its liturgy to sefard around the time of his arival!)
However, many historians – such as Max Kohler (d. 1934, vice-president of the American Jewish Historical Society) – reject this claim, writing that there is “not a particle of evidence” for such a history. As for the sefardi prayer books, Kohler explains that Salomon was, as I initially thought, simply following the nusach of his new American shul (see ‘Haym Salomon, the Patriot Broker of the Revolution-His Real Achievements and Their Exaggeration’ 1931; It should be noted that some of Salomon’s later descendants promoted this Spanish tale).
In a contemporaneous obituary, the Independent Gazetteer (Philadelphia) mentioned only his Polish background:
“Thursday last, expired after a lingering illness, Mr. Haym Salomon, an eminent broker of this city; he was a native of Poland, and of the Hebrew nation.”
After this unexpected research, I decided to discover just who this Haym Salomon was, and how his legend came to be.
II. They Don’t Make Socialist Like They Used To!
From the USPS’s commemorative stamp, it’s seems Haym’s vital role in this country is largely settled, However, Haym’s legacy was once the subject to great debate.
Among those who supported the more fantastical accounts of his legend and footprint was one Charles Edward Russell (d. 1941).
Russel was a fascinating American, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1928, being the editor of several newspapers, working as a journalist, and becoming one of the founders of the NAACP, and was aligned with the early Democratic Socialists – known as The Social Democratic League of America.
Charles Edward Russell
In fact, he famously ran for Mayor of New York City, as well as governor, and then for senator of that state – all on the SDLA ticket (while losing by large margins, his running elicited fear among the establishment that he could bring an air of legitimacy to socialism). The SDLA of Russel’s day greatly differs from today’s social democratic organizations. While they would agree on the evils of capitalism, his SDLA prioritized robust American patriotism and, amazingly, pushed for global military intervention.
Russel was also different than today’s Democratic Socialists in that he was an admirer of Jews. As we will see in the upcoming weeks, he would play a large role in revivifying the contributions of Haym Solomon, writing the 1930 blockbuster bestseller ‘Haym Solomon & The Revolution’.
I recently stumbled upon his daring 1931 op-ed titled ‘Wanted: Jews In Politics’. Inspired by the love of Salomon, he wrote:
“…Historically, Jews have always been closely interwoven with America, from the first movement to finance Columbus down to the present moment…As a rule, Jews in America have been exceedingly capable, diligent and useful public servants. What I am plugging for is to have more of them there…Certainly, there is no higher code of public affairs than the Decalogue of Moses and the methods of governmental uprightness revealed in the Book of Judges…the principles of honesty and ethics laid down by Moses and cherished by all the generations of Jews ever since…I don’t mean that the Jews should come forth and announce that they know how to run the machine better than anybody, in accordance with the fictitious Jew that prejudice and malice have imagined, but that is not in accordance with the real Jew as I have known him…”
He then shares the following anecdote:
“They need never fear that to do so can be in any way derogatory to their religion or inconsistent with its exercises. The story of Haym Salomon shows that a man can be an ardent patriot and a devout Jew, careful to perform every religious duty.”
“We need in public affairs the strong asset of Jewish ethics…the spirit of democracy that breathes through the Jewish sacred writings and is apparent in the Jewish history and traditions… wherever there has been a struggle against oppression, Jews have been on the side of liberty. They were so conspicuously in the immortal conflict that founded this nation…the addition to American politics of people that have this background and tradition would be an asset of inestimable value. I hope to see it realized.”
-Published in multiple papers, our version is from The Detroit Jewish Chronicle, January 2nd 1931).
Russel is one of the few historians from whom Haym’s story is known, with many details below and in the coming chapters derived from his – and his interlocutor, Max Kohler’s – research.
We will share Haym’s story, also utilizing some of Haym’s own writings, below.
To give the fullest picture, we will begin with the discomfort and fear that galvanized young Haym to sail across the Atlantic in search for a Land of the Free.
III. The Birth of ‘Galicia’…and Haym
From the mid-13th century until the late 18th century, Poland was a uniquely (and mostly) safe harbor for Jews. It was during those years-in 1569- when Poland and Lithuania united into what would become known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
But this all changed almost overnight.
In 1772 Poland was vulnerable. With its king weak and its army depleted, her three powerful neighbors -Russia, Prussia, and Austria- swiftly and easily took control of almost one-third of the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth. Austria took parts of the south, renaming the region ‘Galicia’; Prussia took parts of the north, calling it ‘West Prussia’; and Russia took parts of the east, territories already known as ‘Belaya Rus’/Belarus, and now officially so (Brisk [Brest-Litovsk] would remain part of Poland until 1795, when it was partitioned as part of Russian Belarus).
What is now known as the ‘First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’, took place on August 5th, 1772, during the ‘Nine Days’’, corresponding to 6th of the month of av (see note for the significance of this date).
For non-Jewish readers, some helpfull context:
When the spies caused panic in the desert (Book of Numbers), Jews cried in fear, a trepidation in defiance of Gd’s promise to protect them in battle. In the bible, months are named simply by number, making the date of that event the ninth day of the eleventh month, or 9/11.
[It would not be for another thousand-or-so yearsuntil our numbered months were also given proper names – this tenth month would be called ‘av’].
The Talmud shares how in response, Gd punished the Jews, marking this as the date that will cause true tears throughout our exiles. Indeed, both temples were destroyed during these days, and other painful events occurred then, or during this month, as well, such as the The First Crusade; the 1290 expulsion of Jews from England; the 1306 expulsion of Jews from France; Germany’s entrance into World War I; the order for the ‘Final Solution, etc.
For this reason, every year, the first of that month until the 9th -known as ‘Tisha B’av/The Ninth of Av – is treated as an ominous time, when Jews avoid dangerous acts, extra pleasures, while also fasting and mourning both temples.
Negative events in Jewish history that fell during this period are often, therefore, highlighted.
Back to Haym:
Haym’s First Escape
This was the backdrop of Haym Salomon escape to America. Historians debate if he arrived at New York that same year or, three years later, in 1775, but agree that his motive for leaving Poland was this treacherous takeover, with Russel writing, “In 1772, when Haym Salomon, insubmissive to the destruction of Poland, was looking for a freer world…”
He was either thirty-two or thirty-five years old and multilingual from years of travel across Europe. Most saliently, he was skilled in the art of moving money between merchants of different lands. His knowledge of French, Polish, Russian, Italian, English, German, Yiddish (and, likely, lashon hakodesh/ancient Hebrew) allowed his reputation as a polymath to quickly spread.
Haym soon went to work as a broker. In those days there were almost no real banks. Trade and government business ran on what was called ‘bills of exchange’; written promises (often by governments, like France) to pay money. Now, writing such promises was easy; the hard part was finding people willing to trust its value and buy it for actual cash or goods, especially when times were uncertain.
This became Haym Salomon’s expertise.
Already the Talmud discusses the sale of similar promissory notes (see bava metzia 20ff), and the mishneh (56b) teaches that certain aspects of the prohibition of onah (price gouging/severely over-or-under-charging) are curtailed for such sales. Buying such notes comes with inherent risk -e.g. the debtor may not pay, or claim it was already paid, or the debt could be forgiven, etc. – therefore these bills/debts – then as now -were well below sold below market value.
Haym’s Second Escape
Haym quickly joinedNew York’s Spanish-Portuguese synagogue and settled into the merchant world. As the conflict with Britain deepened, he sided with the Sons of Liberty (a secretive patriot resistance network of the likeminded) and others who desired independence from Britain. Such a public stance in his new home was perilous (especially in British-run New York), and some Jews even desired the status-quo, siding with the loyalists. However, it seems to me that Haym was influenced by his rabbi, Rev. Gershom Seixes, one of the most vocal patriots in New York (R. Seixes would soon go as far as shutting down his synagogue when he thought the British were about to win -not wishing to lead a flock under tyranny!).
Rabbi Gershon Seixes
In the summer of 1776, the British – reinforced with hired German troops known as Hessians – soon captured New York, becoming the main British base in North America. Even after the Declaration of Independence, the British held the city, too valuable to surrender. It would not be until the treaty of November 25th 1783 that the last of the British troops left, a day known as ‘Evacuation Day’.
Salomon stayed in occupied New York, and soon the British rounded up all those suspected of patriot sympathies.
Haym was arrested as a suspected spy.
According to Haym’s own account, he was taken up by General James Robertson, the British military commander of New York, and locked in the Provost, their dreaded, dirty, and dangerous army prison.
James Robertson
Luckily, Lieutenant General Heister, the senior Hessian commander, needed someone who spoke French (and other languages), as well as someone who understood business. He requested the British to release Haym to his watch, putting Haym to work in the Hessian commissary.
Haym soon began using his relative freedom to aid American and French prisoners with money, information and, sometimes, escape. He even convinced some exhausted Hessian officers to desert!
Haym’s Third Escape
By the summer of 1778 the authorities were on to Haym’s clandestine activities and arrested him again. Then, on August 11th, 1778 (the 18th of av) he escaped, but not before the British seized all of his money and property.
Haym arrived in Philadelphia with almost nothing.
In a 1840 manuscript from Haym’s son, there’s a more dramtic telling of these events (A Sketch of Haym Salomon –from an unpublished manuscript in the papers of Jared Sparks, 1894):
In this telling, in 1778 Haym received secret orders from none other than General Washington to burn the British fleet and destroy their storehouses! Haym attempted to carry out the mission and caused significant damage, leading to his second arrest, which was made by General Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander In Chief! Haym was then formally sentenced to death. Awaiting his execution, Haym used smuggled gold to bribe a guard, and escape under cover of darkness, fleeing to Philadelphia, where he wold later bring his family.
IV. Penniless in Philadelphia
On Tuesday the 11th of August 1778, Haym Salomon slipped out of British-occupied New York and arrived in Philadelphia, nearly destitute, two weeks later.
He immediately composed a letter to congress detailing his experiences, which was submitted on August 25th, 1778. This memorial remains the single most important primary document for this stretch of his life. It is noticeably free of the perhaps exaggerated stories that later generations would add, although it may be argued that Haym, in this letter, was more focused on getting to his central points.
Writing in the third person, however, it seems clear that he wished this to be seen as the authoritative telling.
To the Honorable the Continental Congress,
The Memorial of Haym Salomon late of the City of New York Merchant humbly sheweth [shows]:
That your Memorialist [Haym] was some time before the Entry of the British Troops at the said City of New York, and soon after taken up as a spy by General Robertson committed to the Provost. That by the interposition of Lieut. General Heister he was given over to the Hessian Commander who appointed him in the Commissary Way as Purveyor chiefly for the Officers. That being at New York he has been of great Service to the French & American prisoners and has assisted them with money and helped them off to make their escape. That this and his close Connexion with such of the Hessian Officers as were inclined to resign and with Monsieur Samuel Demeres has rendered him at last so obnoxious to the British Head Quarters that he was already pursued by the Guards and on Tuesday the 11th inst. he made his happy Escape from thence. This Monsieur Demeres is now most barbarously treated at the Provost’s and is seemingly in danger of his life and the Memorialist begs leave to cause him to be remembered to Congress for an Exchange. Your Memorialist has upon this event most irrecoverably lost all his effects and credits to the amount of five or six thousand Pounds Sterling and left his distressed wife and a child of a month old at New York waiting that they may soon have an opportunity to come out from thence with empty hands. In these circumstances he most humbly prayeth to grant him any Employ in the way of his business where he may be enabled to support himself and family. And your Memorialist as in duty bound to be etc.
Haym Salomon Philadelphia August 25, 1778
I was unable to discover anything about this Demeres character (sometimes spelled Demezes). He likely was not Jewish. It is testament to Haym’s passion for justice that although now penniles and worried for his family back in New York, he pushed congress to aid this poor and suffering Frenchman patriot.
Absent from this letter is any claim of a secret commission from Washington, a dramatic prison break, and even his death sentence. More saliently, Haym makes no demand for compensation for past services -as others would later do. He states only the facts of his arrest, the help he gave prisoners, the pursuit that forced his flight, the total loss of property, and speaks of his family still trapped behind enemy lines. He requests but honest work “in the way of his business.”
In response, Congress gave him no formal post or job.
From late 1778 through early 1781 Haym sought to rebuild his brokerage business from almost nothing in a city already crowded with refugees and merchants. Slowly, and using his language skills, he re-established commercial networks, and his wife Rachel and their infant child eventually reached him. Soon, a second son was born, and the family settled into the small but active Jewish community centered around Congregation Mikveh Israel.
Their kehilla (congregation) at the time was itself still finding its footing, with no permanent building of its own. In 1782 the decision was made to purchase land and construct a shul.
Salomon left a manuscript account of this project, still held by Congregation Mikveh Israel (a facsimile is available through the Philadelphia Congregations Early Records Project). In it he records his own major pledge of one-fourth of the total cost, “be it what it might”. He also describes serious conflicts with Jonas Phillips, then serving as parnas (sextan; see post relating to Phillips’ own fascinating life and his ties to many founding fathers) According to Salomon’s account, these grew severe enough that it almost led to Phillips’s nidui (excommunication). Phillips had written objections to the proposed building plan, of being too close to neighboring houses, an inconvenient door placement, etc.
Mikveh Israel
In fact, a year later, Jonas was noticeably absent from the December, 1783 Mikveh Israel petition to the Pennsylvania Council of Censors protesting Pennsylvania’s religious test oath (it seems that those historical sources that list Jonas among the petitioners are in error).
As mentioned in our separate post discussing the patriotic life of Jonas Phillips, Phillips had sent his own letter to Washington relating to these matters -specifically, the requirement in Section 10 of the 1776 Pennsylvania Frame of Government that every member of the General Assembly must swear: “I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the old and new testament to be given by divine inspiration”, effectively barring observant Jews from serving in the state legislature.
As for the letter sent by Salmons inter alia, here is an excerpt:
To the honourable the Council of Censors, assembled agreeable to the Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania.
The Memorial of Rabbi Ger. Seixas of the Synagogue of the Jews at Philadelphia, Simon Nathan their Parnass or President, Asher Myers, Bernard Gratz and Haym Salomon, in behalf of themselves and their brethren Jews.
…By the tenth section of the frame of government of this commonwealth, it is ordered that each member of the general assembly of representatives of the freemen of Pennsylvania, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe a declaration, which ends in these words, “I do acknowledge the scriptures of the old and new testament to be given by divine inspiration,” to which is added an assurance, that “no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this state.”
Your memorialists beg leave to observe, that this clause seems to limit the civil rights of your citizens to one very special article of the creed…it is asserted without any other limitation than the professing the existence of God, in plain words, “that no man who acknowledges the being of a Gd can be justly deprived or abridged of any civil rights as a citizen on account of his religious sentiments.” But certainly this religious test deprives the Jews of the most eminent rights of freemen, solemnly ascertained to all men who are not professed atheists.
May it please your honors: Although the Jews in Pennsylvania are but few in number, yet liberty of the people in one country, and the declaration of the government thereof, that these liberties are the rights of the people, may prove a powerful attractive to men, who live under restraints in another country.
Your memorialists beg further leave to represent, that in the religious books of the Jews, which are or may be in every man’s hands, there are no such doctrines or principles established as are inconsistent with the safety and happiness of the people of Pennsylvania, and that the conduct and behaviour of the Jews in this and the neighbouring States, has always tallied with the great design of the Revolution; that the Jews…have distinguishedly suffered for their attachment to the Revolution principles…The Jews of Pennsylvania in proportion to the number ..have served some of them in the Continental army; some went out in the militia to fight the common enemy; all of them have cheerfully contributed to the support of the militia, and of the government of this State…
It was signed by:
Rabbi Gershom Mendes Seixas
Simon Nathan (Parnas / President)
Asher Myers
Bernard (Barnard) Gratz
Haym Salomon
The matter was largely ignored until in 1790, when this oath was finally removed.
It was at this point when the government called upon Haym Salomon’s financial expertise, as we will now share.
V. Was He Important to Our Founding?
As we have seen, Haym was in-and-out of prison from 1776-1778. By the time he was a free man in Philadelphia the Declaration had already been adopted. This being the case, how did the myth of Haym Salomon as the financial savior to the American Revolution ever maturate? Any aid provided from this point on may make him a patriot, but not a hero!
However, as a point of fact, when Haym Salomon arrived in Philadelphia in late August 1778, the Revolution was far from secured. The British still held New York, Svananh, Charleston, etc. Making things more precarious, the Continental currency was collapsing, leading to soldiers being unpaid and cuasing real fears for a mutiny. Worse, the foreign loans to the patriot cause was not easy to turn into usable currency. The Revolution was being held up by a house of cards.
It is here where the legend of Haym was born in earnest, and from which it is still debated.
To understand the varying views of Haym’s importance, we will center on these years, and the one man who brought Haym into the fore.
Get Me The ‘Jew Broker’!
Robert Morris is one of only two men (along with Roger Sherman) who signed all three of the nation’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution.
Robert Morris
Morris was born in Liverpool in 1734 and raised in Philadelphia. By the 1770’s he built one of the largest and most successful mercantile businesses in the colonies and widely regarded as one of the wealthiest men in America and,in 1775, Pennsylvania sent him to the Second Continental Congress. Interestingly, he initially voted ‘absent’ regarding the Declaration, thinking that this step was premature, only later signing, explaining that a good citizen should support the final vote.
In congress, he quickly became vital in dealing with procurement, serving on the Secret Committee and the Committee of Secret Correspondence, which helped arrange for armaments.
As the Revolution was in severe financial danger, in February of 1781 Congress created a new executive office, Superintendent of Finance. They unanimously elected Robert Morris to fill this role, a forerunner to the Secretary of Treasury. There, he created the Bank of North America and repeatedly used both public and private means to keep the army supplied and paid.
It was during this period that he frequently turned to Haym Salomon as a broker to sell foreign bills of exchange, thus raising needed cash.
Morris kept a meticulous diary that remains the single most important contemporary record of Revolutionary finance. Beginning in mid-1781, the name Haym Salomon appears in it more than any other broker. So much so, that by 1782 Morris formally authorized Salomon to title himself ‘Broker to the Office of Finance.’
Some excerpts: On August 26, 1782, the diary records: “I sent for Salomon and desired him to try every way he could to raise money.” Two days later: “Salomon, the broker, came and I urged him to leave no stone unturned…” These entries continue through 1782 and into 1783, the critical years after the ‘Siege at Yorktown’, when military victory had been won but the financial urgency continued.
In addition, Haym also advanced personal loans. On August 27th, 1782, James Madison wrote to a friend “I have for some time been a pensioner on the favor of Haym Salomon, a Jew broker.” A few weeks later (September 30th, 1782), Madison referred to Haym again, added a better picture:
“The kindness of our little friend in Front street, near the coffee-house, is a fund which will preserve me from extremities, but I never resort to it without great mortification, as he obstinately rejects all recompense.”
Madison is sharing the fact that Haym would not take interest from him!
This is the entire record of Haym’s aid. While significant, it only began in the 1780’s, ending with Haym’s untimely death in 1785.
But just how significant?
VI. Numbers Game
“Thursday, last, expired, after a lingering illness, Mr. Haym Salomon, an eminent broker of this city, was a native of Poland, and of the Hebrew nation. He was remarkable for his skill and integrity in his profession, and for his generous and humane deportment. His remains were yesterday deposited in the burial ground of the synagogue of this city.”
– The Independent Gazetteer (Philadelphia), January 1785
Sadly, Haym died destitute, perhaps due to him asking for no or little interest.
The official inventory of Haym Salomon’s estate, filed in the Philadelphia probate court on February 15th, 1785, recorded the following:
Loan-office certificates -$110,233.63;
Treasury certificates-$18,244.88;
Continental liquidated dollars-$199,214.45;
Commissioners’ certificates-$17,870.37;
Virginia State certificates-$8,166.00.
This comes to the total of $353,729.43, perhaps owed to Haym.
A few decades later, Haym’s son would claim an additional $211,678 advanced to Robert Morris, and $92,600 in promissory notes.
The total now comes to $658,007.43.
However, even if we accept this number, the total estimate for Continental spending in the years of 1780–1783 were about $12 million. Meaning, at most, Haym aided in providing between 5-6% of all funds.
While certainly no small figure, it would not make Haym the most essential fundraiser for the cause.
However, even this figure is questioned by many. Where these securities evidence that Salomon had personally advanced his own money, or were they securities he acquired in the ordinary course of his business as a broker? he was holding on to in order to exchange, or, what was given to him in payment for a bill? Either way, this would mean these monies were not Haym’s but rather owed back to the government.
This distinction is the heart of the argument between noted historians Charles Edward Russell and Max J. Kohler. Russell’s 1930 book Haym Salomon and the Revolution saw the sheer frequency of Morris’s diary entries as evidence of near-dependence on Haym, thus portarying Salomon as an indispensable figure who kept the financial machinery moving. While Kohler’s accepted that Salomon was a capable and patriotic broker, he rejected the larger claims. Using estate records and Bank of North America accounts, Kohler showed that Salomon had not personally lent vast sums from a private fortune, as his estate was insolvent at his death. Rather, he was a middleman.
Later scholarship has largely settled somewhere in the middle: Salomon was not the legendary personal financier, but he was a real and significant broker upon whom Morris relied at the most difficult moments.
Haym Salomon coin – The Skirball Museam
VII. Haym’s Last Word
Haym’s life and influence still echoes today, in our new age of antisemitism.
In early 1784, Philadelphia was in the middle of a sharp public argument over banking. A proposal to create a new Bank of Pennsylvania had drawn criticism, some of which turning antisemitic.
A Quaker lawyer named Miers Fisher attacked Jewish brokers, implying they charged excessive interest and were harmful to the public interest, painting Jewish merchants in general as greedy outsiders.
A reply to this charge appeared in the Independent Gazetteer on March 13th 1784, and signed “A Jew Broker.” Most historians believe Haym Salomon either wrote it or was closely associated with it.
He stated:
“I am a Jew; it is my own nation; I do not despair that we shall obtain every other privilege that we aspire to enjoy along with our fellow-citizens.”
The writer states how Fisher’s words had injured not only him personally but “every other person of the same religious persuasion,” and insisted that this new country and its principles allowed him to live openly as a Jew.
How Jews, Judaism, and Torah Played a Role In Democracy’s Birth
Rabbi Moshe Taub – Ami Magazine, June 30, 2026
I. Huckabee Hucksters
America’s Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, recently set off a firestorm among the usual suspects when, speaking to a Jewish crowd, he stated:
“It is your heritage, without a doubt [Yiddishkeit / Judaism]. But it is also the heritage of the United States. Without Israel, without the Jewish foundation, there would not be America. We owe our very existence to what happened in this land.”
Admittedly, I bristled when I heard this.
One can certainly argue that this was an overstatement. One may also quibble with the shrewdness of making such a hyperbolic philosemitic comment publicly during this precarious time of mass anti-Jewish hysteria.
However, no dispassionate student of American history can ignore the shadow of truth peeking through his remarks.
John Adams famously remarked:
“I will insist the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.”
He also stated:
“They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison with the Jews.”
More directly related to the formation of America, Samuel Langdon—New Hampshire’s delegate to the convention to ratify the Constitution, as well as Harvard University’s president—preached:
“The Jewish government, according to the original constitution which was Divinely established, … was a perfect republic … some principal laws and orders of it may be copied, to great advantage, in more modern establishments.”
Even the Liberty Bell, as early as 1751, bore a pasuk [verse] from vayikra [Leviticus]:
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (25:10).
In fact, the only thing surprising about that engraving is that it wasn’t in Hebrew, since one of the Founding Fathers, James Madison, went so far as to deliver his valedictory address at Princeton in that ancient lashon [language]!
But this does not even scratch the surface.
The connection between Jews, rabbanim [rabbis], and our Torah to the founding of America is extraordinary. Every time I sit down to write, new research opens several doors of endlessly unfolding fractals of connections—whether an important Jew, a prominent talmid chacham [Torah scholar], or a classical Torah source. So much so that my initial draft of this article was close to ten thousand words.
II. The Sugya That Sparked a Revolution
In January 1649, the English Parliament did something that had never been done in the history of Western civilization: it put its king on trial, found him guilty of tyranny, and executed him. England would now become a Commonwealth. This experiment lasted barely eleven years before the monarchy was restored, but a fascinating debate emerged from the ashes that would help shape a document signed in Philadelphia 127 years later.
The king’s execution stunned every royal court in Europe. Someone had to respond in defense of monarchy. That someone was Claude de Saumaise, known by his Latin name, Salmasius. The exiled son of the dead king—the future Charles II, whose own connections to Jews were discussed in my latest book—reportedly paid him a hundred pounds to write a defense titled Defensio Regia pro Carolo I. Written in Latin, it argued that monarchy was a divinely ordained concept and that the English republicans were therefore murderers.
To defend their actions, the English Commonwealth turned to John Milton, who in 1651 published Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio. This is where the Jewish foundation comes back into the picture. Salmasius had cited a chazal [teaching of the Sages] as proof for his royalist position.
Rav Yose, together with Rav Yehuda, in Sanhedrin 20b, argues that both Devarim and Sefer Shmuel show that malchus [monarchy] is a positive commandment. Salmasius wrote:
“In hanc sententiam recte omnino de R. Iose in Gemara Sanhedrin scriptum est” [In this opinion, what is written in the Gemara Sanhedrin concerning Rabbi Yose is entirely correct.]
In response, Milton turned to that same chazal, as well as to the peirush [commentary] of the Abarbanel [Don Isaac Abarbanel, 15th century Spanish chief treasurer, later exiled in 1492]. After Am Yisrael [the Nation of Israel] demanded a king, Hashem [God] told Shmuel [Samuel]: “They have not rejected you; they have rejected Me from ruling over them” (I Shmuel 8:7).
The Gemara in Sanhedrin 20b seeks to resolve the tension between Devarim—which seems to indicate that appointing a king is a mitzvah [commandment]—and Sefer Shmuel, which implies it is an aveira [sin]. While Rav Yose indeed argues that it is a mitzvah, Rav Nehorai argues there that the allowance in Sefer Shmuel was only a hora’as sha’ah [temporary decree], a reluctant—but sadly necessary—concession, “kneged tarmatan” [corresponding to their complaint].
Milton marshaled the Abarbanel, who followed Rav Nehorai’s approach and wrote that monarchy is inherently a displacement of the malchus Shamayim [Kingdom of Heaven]. In other words, the Torah’s ideal is a nation governed directly under Divine law, never surrendering its freedom to a lower human power. If this sounds like saying that only Hashem endows us with certain unalienable rights, you would be correct.
It was this argument, transmitted through Abarbanel’s writings into the Milton-Salmasius exchange, that Harvard political philosopher Eric Nelson, in a landmark 2007 article in The Historical Journal and in his 2010 book, identified as the birth of “republican exclusivism.” This is the idea, entirely new to the Western world in the seventeenth century, that monarchy is not merely an inferior form of government, but an inherently illegitimate one. This concept was previously unheard of in Europe, and it came directly from this Gemara, among other sources.
One of Milton’s ideological allies was Algernon Sidney, a seventeenth-century English republican who developed this anti-monarchy argument further in Discourses Concerning Government, a work for which King Charles II eventually had him executed in 1683.
It was this same Sidney whom Thomas Jefferson explicitly cited, alongside Locke, as a primary source for the Declaration of Independence.
So the next time you read those words—that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by Hashem with certain inalienable rights that no human king may touch—think of Shmuel HaNavi [Samuel the Prophet], the Gemara in Sanhedrin, and the Abarbanel.
{Milton and Sidney also heavily relied on classical Roman history (Cicero, Livy) and Deuteronomy 17. The Gemara provided the spark that allowed them to call monarchy a sin, but it was not their sole source. In addition, while Harrington, below, explicitly used the Jubilee framework to argue for agrarian laws, Jefferson’s concept of “inalienable rights” in the Declaration was much more directly influenced by John Locke’s secularized theories of natural rights. Connecting it strictly back to the Rambam would be an overstatement.}
III. Deeper Roots: From Medieval Debates to Modern Liberty
Jews, Judaism & America’s Founding
In medieval England, Christians were forbidden by the Church from lending with interest. Consequently, Jews filled the gap by necessity, effectively becoming England’s bankers. However, when a Jewish lender passed away, his loan books automatically reverted to the Crown. This meant that wealthy barons would borrow from Jewish financiers, only to eventually owe those debts directly to the king.
A prominent Jew, Aaron of Lincoln (d. 1186), was the wealthiest man in England. When he died, the Crown inherited an estate so vast that it had to create a dedicated government department just to manage it.
The king’s growing control over these debts became a massive source of tension between the monarchy and the barons. Those financial strains, alongside disputes over royal authority, taxes, and military failures, culminated in the barons’ army overtaking London in 1215. Under immense pressure, King John sealed the Magna Carta that year.
The Magna Carta is often cited as the genesis of modern law and civil liberties, establishing the principle that not even the king is above the law, alongside an early version of due process. It also planted the seed for Parliament, composed of the “Lords” for nobility and the “Commons” for landowners. While far from representative government in the modern sense, it allowed the king to borrow money in a more open and equitable forum.
However, the Magna Carta was a brutal document when it came to the Jews. For example, clause ten affirmed:
“Si quis mutuo ceperit aliquid a iudeis…”
[If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies, then no interest is accrued.]
That same year, the Fourth Lateran Council mandated that all Jews and Muslims across “Christian Europe” wear distinguishing badges. This was finally enforced in England by King John’s grandson, Edward I, in 1275.
This Jewish badge consisted of two yellow felt tablets shaped like the Luchos [Tablets of the Covenant]. Five years later, in 1280, he banned Jewish lending entirely.
Economically ruined and no longer useful to the kingdom, the king expelled all Jews from England in 1290—close to twenty thousand Yidden [Jews]. Naturally, the Crown confiscated all their remaining assets.
IV. The Reformation and the Hebrew Scholars
The spread of civil liberties remained stunted by the Church’s power over European kingdoms until the Reformation in the early 1500s, when kings were able to break away from papal authority.
This shift brought both positive and negative consequences.
On the positive side, by the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell could quietly allow Jews to return to England and practice privately, as the Pope’s restrictions no longer applied (see my book, Jews in the New World, for a more detailed account).
On the negative side, the newly created Church of England led monarchs to believe they ruled by divine right. Kings began dissolving Parliament, sparking a civil war that culminated in the 1649 trial and execution of Charles I mentioned above.
With the people expressing a clear desire for self-government, political theorists began searching for new models, turning directly to ancient Jewish jurisprudence.
V. “Mishpat HaMelech” Enters Europe
In 1625, a German minister named Wilhelm Schickard published a small Latin book titled Mishpat HaMelech [The Law of the King]. Schickard (d. 1635) was a professor of Hebrew at the University of Tübingen and a close friend of the scientist Johannes Kepler. Kepler himself was close with Dovid Ganz, a prominent talmid [disciple] of the Maharal of Prague. This intellectual connection likely helped shape the extensive rabbinic sources Schickard would soon marshal.
In Mishpat HaMelech, Schickard carefully examined the chazal and peirushim [commentaries] regarding malchus [monarchy], compiling them so a European reader with no knowledge of Hebrew could follow the internal Jewish debate. He fairly presented both sides of the Talmudic dispute:
Those who held that requesting a king was a mitzvah [commandment]: Rav Yose, as well as the Rambam [Maimonides] and Radak [Rabbi David Kimhi].
Those who held that it was a sin: Rav Nehorai, Rabbeinu Bachya [Rabbi Bahya ben Asher], and various midrashic texts.
For the first time, the full range of rabbinic political thought was accessible to European thinkers. Among them was James Harrington, an English scholar who would soon build the century’s most systematic blueprint for self-government from these sources, and Algernon Sidney, who synthesized these ideas for the generation that inspired Jefferson.
Midrashic and Halachic Contributions to International Law
Schickard’s compilation prominently featured a passage from Devarim Rabbah 5:9 [a homiletic commentary on Deuteronomy]. This midrash’s position on malchus was even more stringent than Rav Nehorai’s:
“When Bnei Yisroel [the Children of Israel] saw what befell them under the rule of their kings, they began crying out: ‘We do not want a king, we want our original King: “For Hashem is our King; He will save us”’ (Yishayahu 33:22). Hashem responded, ‘By your lives, I will do so.’ From where is this derived? “Hashem will be King over the entire earth…” (Zechariah 14:9).”
As Eric Nelson documents in The Hebrew Republic (2010), while previous European political theorists hesitated to label human monarchy itself as inherently sinful, this midrash, transmitted via Schickard, gave John Milton the explicit theological backing to cross that line.
Aside from Schickard and Milton, two other towering scholars used Jewish law to frame modern political systems:
VI. Hugo Grotius and John Selden
Hugo Grotius (d. 1645)
In 1621, Grotius’s wife smuggled him out of prison, and he spent the remainder of his life in Paris producing works that defined international law. Grotius read rabbinic literature in Latin translation and cited it extensively. His De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace, 1625)—written the same year Schickard published Mishpat HaMelech—became the foundational text of international law. In it, Grotius used the Rambam’s sections of Hilchos Melachim and Hilchos Sanhedrin to reconstruct the constitutional structure of the ancient Hebrew republic, arguing that political theorists should look to Hashem’s model of government to understand legitimate civil authority.
John Selden (d. 1654)
Selden went a step further, learning Gemara in its original Aramaic. John Milton called him “the chief of learned men.” Extant notes show that he was in direct contact with Rav Menasseh ben Israel or his printing company: “In libris venalibus apud Menasseh Ben Israel Amstelodam iuxta catalogum impressum” [In the books for sale at the house of Menasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam, according to the printed catalog].
The Library of Congress explains Selden’s surprisingly sympathetic approach to rabbinic studies:
“At a time and in a country in which the average man believed Jews to be misanthropic, usurious and dishonorable, John Selden set out to research the sacred texts of rabbinic Judaism with sympathy and interest… His work, De Jure Naturali et Gentium Juxta Disciplinam Ebreorum (1640), was an examination of the concepts of natural law and the ius gentium as they were taught in the rabbinic tradition.”
At the heart of Selden’s work is a detailed analysis of the Noahide laws (see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Melachim uMilchamos 8:9–10:12). From the Noahide mandate to establish courts of law, Selden generated a universal template for ethics, family law, government, and international law.
Furthermore, Selden expressed open hope for the Bayis Shlishi [Third Temple]. He believed, correctly, that the Temple of Jerusalem was structurally designed to permit the children of Noah—the mass of mankind who observe the Noahide commandments—to participate in Temple worship alongside the Children of Israel. The detailed engravings illustrating his 1665 Strasbourg edition demonstrate how the Temple served as an inclusive, welcoming place of worship for all nations.
VII. The Chain to the American Founders
Through these works, Selden, Harrington, and Milton gained direct access to the Talmudic debates and the midrashic material Schickard had introduced. James Harrington fully absorbed this, drafting a systematic constitution for the seventeenth century in his masterpiece, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656).
In his 1658 work, The Stumbling-Block of Disobedience and Rebellion, Harrington explicitly sorted the views of the rishonim [medieval rabbinic authorities] into specific political camps, translating them by name into English for constitutional debate:
“…Nachmoni [Nachmanides/Ramban], Gerschone [Ralbag / Levi ben Gershon], and others. Kimchi [Radak / David Kimhi], it is true, and M. Maimonides [Rambam / Moses Maimonides] are of opinion, that the people making a King, displeased Gd not in the same matter…”
Harrington sided firmly with the anti-monarchy camp, famously concluding:
“He that is for the government of laws is for the government of Gd, and he that is for the government of a man is for the government of a beast.”
Algernon Sidney synthesized Harrington’s constitutional arguments with Milton’s theological ones in Discourses Concerning Government. As noted, Charles II had him executed for this in 1683.
Thomas Jefferson later named Sidney explicitly as a primary source for the Declaration of Independence, and John Adams quoted Sidney’s summary of the Hebrew republic verbatim in Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787), written while the Constitutional Convention was actively sitting in Philadelphia.
The chain of transmission from Schickard’s Mishpat HaMelech (1625) to Adams’s Defense (1787) is unbroken and direct.
VIII. The Ultimate Foundational Truth
Harrington did not stop at the kingship debate. In Oceana, he turned to an entirely different section of the Mishneh Torah: Hilchos Shemittah v’Yovel [The Laws of the Sabbatical and Jubilee Years].
What he discovered within those halachic frameworks directly influenced the concept behind the Liberty Bell and guided Jefferson’s definition of “inalienable” rights. It established the core constitutional principle—derived from the biblical concept of “ki li ha’aretz” [For the land is Mine]—that certain fundamental human rights cannot be bought, sold, or permanently extinguished by any human power.
That profound legal connection, iy”H [with Gd’s help], will be the focus of next week’s column.
Just as Ambassador Huckabee publicly voiced appreciation for our legacy, we owe a deep debt of hakaras hatov [gratitude] and admiration to this great country for everything it has given us. May its days as a lighthouse to the civilized world continue, and may it long remain a safe haven for Jews and all peoples.
Who Invented, Named,& Separated the “Parshios HaShevua“?
Visiting Eretz Yisroel When They Are A Week Ahead
Why Do We Wait So Long To Re-Align With Eretz Yisroel?
Why Is Our Siyum of Our Yearly Cycle On Shemini Atzeres and Not On Shavuos?
Rabbi Moshe Taub
A Merger Of Several Articles Published In AMI MAGAZINE in 2016, 2019, & 2026
I. Parsha vs. Parsha
A young member of my shul approached me during the simchas torah hakafos one year and asked, “Wouldn’t Shavuos be a more apt time to complete our siyum of the Torah?”
An adult member overheard the question, and I could only guess he had been overwhelmed with the simcha of the day when he offered: “It’s because today is SimchasTorah! How could we not finish now! Imagine SimchasTorah without a siyum of the Torah!”
As soon as he completed his ‘answer’, he realized he was in no state to offer teirutzim.
Indeed, Simchas Torah is often misunderstood.
The history behind how we came to commemorate the completion of the Torah on (the second day of) shemini atzeres is fascinating, beguiling, and furnishes us with a unique opportunity to appreciate certain rudimentary arrangements of our Torah lives.
How old is this minhag of Simchas Torah?
Is not this siyum haTorah interfering with our separate Torah obligation of simchas yom tov (based on the rule, ‘ein ma’arvin simcha b’simcha‘, we don’t intermingle certain simchos)?
Why don’t we complete the Torah on a Shabbos, the day we had leined it until now?
Most saliently, who divided our parshios of the week into the names and partitions with which we are so familiar, and through which this special siyum was created?
I once published a lengthy post titled Chapter and Verse, where we explained the halachic and hashkafic the Christian-introduced divisions of the ‘chapters/perakim’, as well as their dividing of sifreimelachim, shmuel, divrei hayamim and ezra, each, into two separate books; even naming the ‘second part’ of Ezra into a newly-named sefer called ‘nechemia’ (Cf. Sanhedrin 93b where chazal explain why Nechemia was not to have a sefer named for him!).
Our mesorah already gave us divisions of our own, called ‘parshios’. These are not to be confused with what we colloquially call the ‘parshas hashavuah’. Rather, these mesorah ‘parshios’ are breaks/spaces found inside sifrei Torah and come to represent a new subject, event, or simply the pause Moshe was given when being taught by Hashem (see Rashi to Vayikra 1:1 with Toras Kohanim; neviim and kesuvim also have such breaks). There are two types of such breaks/spaces in Torah: pesuchos (represented in most standard chumashim with a large letter pei), and setumos (represented in chumashim with a large letter samech).
A Stumah: when the new section continues on the same line as the last, but with a space (of nine-letters);
A Pesucha: where the new parsha begins on a new line, but with a space of the same size.
These parshios are significant, and a sefer Torah without them, or where they are placed incorrectly, would be pasul.
Many are already aware of this, and that our parshios hashavuah have nothing to do with the halachic concept of ‘parshios‘. In another post, I discussed the weeks known as ‘Shovavim’ (from shemos–mishpatim) and shared that the parshios hashavuah became universally adopted – along with a yearly Simchas Torah—only about 800 years ago (see megillah 29b and sofrim 16:10, with Rambam, hilchos tefillah 13:1).
Furthermore, Rav Shlomo Luria (d. 1573) shares that for those in eretz yisroel who were observing a triennial cycle, Simchas Torah would be celebrated once every three-and-a-half years, and that this siyum would veer from city-to-city! (Yam Shel Shlomo, end of bava kama, kuntrus ‘chilukei denim bein bnei e’y u’vein bnei bavel’. See also Otzar Plios HaTorah, emor, p. 931)
II. Blunders & Parsha Names
Here is a ubiquitous example of how confusion regarding the above may even lead to real blunders:
A well-known Rashi – and a favorite of children’s parsha sheets – is found in the beginning of ‘parshas’ Yisro. Rashi quotes a chazal listing Yisro’s many names and their meanings.
“Yeser [to add]: as Yisro added a parsha of the Torah” (shemos, 18:1)
This is often erroneously repeated as meaning that Yisro received the zechus to have this parshas hashavua named for him –parshas ‘Yisro’!
This is a misconception. Rather, what chazal meant, is that Yisro’s urging of Moshe to set up court systems ‘shaped’ a new parsha/section/inyan/subject inside the Torah -along with its own breaks before and after it (setuma/pesucha), i.e. the ‘parsha’ of courts!
Rebbeim certainly teach this accurately, yet some misunderstand or misremember their words, when in truth it is unlikely that Rashi even ever heard of ‘Parshas Yisro’ as we know it!
There are more examples, but I trust that the reader now appreciates that this distinction between parsha and parsha is substantial.
IIa. Parsha ‘Names’
Some may now assume the other extreme: the parshios hashavuah, while wisely divided so as to complete the Torah once a year, are capricious in nature.
Rav Tzadok Hakohen teaches that just as our parents gave us personal names – which form/describe our essence -so too the names we have given and accepted for the weekly parshios carry their essence (Resisei Layla, ois 44).
In fact, the Chasam Sofer (Drashos, Sukkos, p.52; likuttim Tehillim, p. 157) teaches that one should look at the parshas hashevua to find the answer to personal life-questions. This is especially true of the aliya one may receive (see ‘Melech B’yofiuv’ p. 5). Amazingly, Rav Yair Chayim Bacharach (d. 1702) named his famous sefer ‘Chavos Yair’ based on an aliyah he received (Bamidbar, 32:41)!
Metzorah, mattos, shemeni and more are not named for their first word (‘v’elah shemos’ is indeed how Rav Saadia Gaon referred to shemos), and these accepted names are to be deemed kodosh.
While we do find some names of our current weekly parshios already in chazal (e.g. ‘kedoshim’ – see zevachim 28a), most names evolved over centuries, many in the days of the geonim (Rav Chaim Kinievsky, Derech Sicha, p. 3; see Yesodei Yeshurin, 4:363ff).
In fact, we used to divide parshas mishpatim into two parshios on certain years, the latter half with its own name (see Sefer HaChinuch).
There are some who posit, that our present-day parshios hashevuah were passed down from Moshe or Ezra, and were always seen as the optimal way to read the Torah (see Ohr Zarua, hilchos shabbos, siman 45, Meiri, Kiryas Sefer, maamer 5 perek 1, and Tanchuma to Ki Sisa 3; see also sefer ‘Toldos Simchas Torah’).
Some go further, asserting that the triennial completion of the Torah was a temporary aberration (Rav Reuven Melech Schwartz, Yemei Shovavim).
We will delve further into this in V. below.
III. Why Sukkos?
Whatever the history, there is no doubt that great sagacity was applied to our current system. So, we must ask: Why do we choose to finish the Torah at this time of year?
When I was younger, I would surmise that this was because the luchos rishonos of Shavuos were broken, then we did teshuvah, and on Yom Kippur Hashem forgave us making our kabalas hatorah complete with our receiving the luchos sheniyos. The first ‘available’ day after Yom Kippur to venerate this kabalas hatorah – when all are gathered without additional/special mitzvos of the day – is shemeni atzeres.
Later, I grasped a far simpler solution and, chasdei Hashem, I now discovered that Rav Gedalya Felder (d. 1991) makes the same point (Yesodei Yeshurin, chelek 4, p. 355-365).
Chazal share that Ezra obligated us in two specific leinings on two precise Shabbosim of the year -no matter the cycle of Torah reading one may be utilizing. We must read the tochecha found at the end of sefer vayikra (in ‘bechukosei’) before Shavuos, and those found at the end of sefer devarim (in ‘ki savo’) before Rosh Hashana (as to why we today lein these tochechos two Shabbosos before these yomim tovim, see tosfos to megila 31b).
For those that observed the triennial cycle, then, during these two Shabbosos, they would have likely paused their cycle and instead read these tochechos, returning the next week to their cycle. Or they may have read their regular reading and simply added these special readings as a maftir.
However, for our current yearly cycle of parshios, it not only works out perfectly with this gezeira of Ezra, but it seems to have been arranged around it! We place bechukosei before Shavous, and ki savo before Rosh Hashana, and everything falls where it falls -including our yearly completion happening right after sukkos.
There are many questions we have yet to answer, such as why do not why to make this siyum on the Shabbos following shemini atzeres, why this isn’t a concern of ein maavirin, who introduced the positions where we stop for aliyos, who decided which parshios are sometimes combined, and how we developed various fascinating minhagim on simchas torah.
IV. Misaligned Parshios
I often share that one of the great maalos of rabbanus is the interesting questions one receives. While we all hear great kashos from time to time, only rabbanus demands one to give at least some effort in finding answers.
I was recently asked a question which I would venture every reader has had in their back of their minds. Even those who have verbalized it may have not taken the time to search for an answer.
Thankfully, I do not have that ‘luxury’.
This morning, after shachris, a young member asked”
“Whenever the 22nd of Nissan fall on Shabbos a strange situation is created. In eretz yisroel it is just a regular Shabbos, although issru chag, and they read the parshas hashavuah. For us in chutz l’aretz, it is acharon shel pesach, which has its own special kriah. Meaning, the next week we read the parsha they had read the Shabbos before.
“We are out of sync!
“This continues so that the week you are reading this article, if you are in chutz l’aretz the parsha is Emor, and if you are in eretz yisroel, the parsha is Bahar!”
This can happen due to Shavuos as well, see Biur HaGr’a and Biur Halacha siman 428 s.v. bamidbar for all the ways the parshios can fall out each year, and why. See also Shaarei Yitzchak end of klal 11. See Magen Avraham ad loc. sif katan 6 and Mishna Berrura 10.
Before revealing his central concern, we should point out that this observations leads to numerous isues, many of which will be discussed below. For instance, those who were here for Pesach will return to eretz yisroel and suddenly be one parsha behind! What should they do?
IV. The Visiter
Let’s pause to discuss this issue. What should a visiter to Israel from America do about his missed parsha should he arrive after such a Pesach or Shavuos?
Should they make a minyan of bnei chutz l’aretz?
If so, should they lein then both nasso (which chutz l’aretz is reading) and bahaloscha the same week?
How would they divide those aliyos?
What about the reverse -where over the next few weeks, an Israeli visits America?
The Strict View
The Chida discusses a case where people are stuck in a city without a Torah -missing that parsha completely, ruling that they need not make up this missed parsha the next week.
While a tempting comparison to our case -and the American visitor should just skip nasso -many reject the connection. In the case of the city without a Torah, the next week will not be the time for the missed parsha, while in our case, the missed parsha may be seen as related to that Shabbos since it’s read that week back home!
This is indeed how many poskim see it. They compare our case, rather, to the shul that read the wrong parsha one week, where we rule that the next week they read the missed parsha plus the parsha of the week (siman 135, Rema based on the Ohr Zaruah).
In our case, then, a visiting American should read both parshios if when he arrives we are still not aligned (Yesodei Yeshurin, 4, p. 388).
While the poskim seem to say that in such a case we would read the parshios in order -the missed one and then the regular one -some suggest otherwise (based on the Shu”t Maharsham 1:213).
Nevertheless, the leining by mincha and Mondays and Thursday will remain like eretz yisroel’s (see shu”t Btzel Chachmah, 1:2-8 where every permutation of these questions are discussed in great detail).
This is also the view found in Piskei Teshuvos (285:9).
The Leneint View
Rav Moshe Feinstein was often quoted agreeing with the above view, obligating Americans to read a make-up leining the first week in Israel.
However, Rav Fried of Dallas, the author of Yom Tov Sheni K’Hilchoso heard from talmidim of both Rav Shach and Rav Aurbach that they struggled to accept Rav Moshe would ever rule this way.
He then reached out to Rav Dovid Feinstein who confirmed that this was indeed a false rumor, and that Rav Moshe ruled that there is no need for any leining make-up, as one is to simply to follow the leining of the place one is presently in (as for learning the missed sidreh -a rav should be consulted).
Rav Sholmo Zalman Aurbach and Rav Elyashiv agreed (see ibid. at length, p. 238-240).
While Rav Elyashiv looks favorably on such a person hearing a make-up leining of the missed parsha, he says it’s not an obligation.
For those that are machmir, Rav Elyashiv gives the following procedure – the missed parsha is read first; the first aliya should be for that entire missed parsha; this is followed by the ‘real’ parsha, divided into six aliyos (or with a seventh hosafa).
As for the Israeli visiting America during these misaligned weeks, he may lein, get an aliyah, and should certainly attend this leining as part of the kehilla.
These questions are complex, and a rav must be consulted. For instance, must such a make-up leining only be performed if there’s minyan of Americans, etc.
V. Why The Long Wait?
But there is a deeper, non-halachik question that this creates, and it was this that the young man this morning wished to know.
In some years, we wait until the parshios of matos–massei to catch up! (In that, that Shabbos in eretz yisroel they lein only massei while outside lein both are read).
There are certainly are earlier candidates! For example, in the year of this writing, chutz l’aretz could have caught up the very first week following yom tov – by merging achrei mos and kedoshim!
If for whtever reason this was not an option, what about behar–bechukosei -which this year was not merged, but could have been for this purpose!?
Why then do we wait all the way till the summer? It seems that we are going out of our way to stay out of sync for some time.
Strange.
To get an understanding of all of this, we first have to review our unpacking above of the history of the parshios.
Historically, finishing the Torah once a year was not a universal custom, with some communities completing it only once every three years-three and a half (see Megilla 29b).
Still in the year 1170 there were two shuls in Egypt –one that leined what we know today as the parshios of the week, and the other that read at a third that pace (Masoas Binyamin M’Toledo, Adler edition, p. 63)!
Yes, this means that the latter group did not have ‘Simchas Torah’! (See Toldos Simchas Torah, ch. 1)
At some point, around eight-hundred years ago, everyone began to complete the Torah cycle once every year.
The system still went through certain revisions, for instance the Avudaram gives us one double parsha that we no longer observe –shelach–korach!
In fact, the Chida quotes from the Rosh that “The purpose of the divisions of parshios is simply so as to finish the Torah once every year. Each leader of every community separates and combines the parshios as he sees fit, for these are not halachos rather minhag (shu”t Chaim Shaal, Chazah HaTenufa; Kitzur Teshuvos HaRosh 54. See also shu”t Ohr Zarua 2:45 for an interesting communal case where he echoes the same point as the Rosh).
However, certainly at our point in history we are obliged to follow minhag yisroel.
With all of this in mind we get an answer as to why we wait so long to be in sync with eretz yisroel.
[See CHART at the end of article of all possible outcomes]
The Maharit (d.1639) in a teshuva (2:4) asks this question. He first quotes the above gemara about takanas Ezra, and reminds us that we follow the view of Tosfos (s.v. kelolos) to lein the kelolos two shabbosim before those yomim tovim, so that we have a buffer of one stam parsha in-between.
Now we can understand why we wait so long to join eretz yisroel. Because of the way Pesach fell this year they will be leining the kelolos with a two week buffer before Shavous. While they have no choice in the matter, we certainly do not wish to join them in being so distant from the takana of Ezra!
But why this long? We could easily accomplish the above without going through almost all of sefer bamidbar missaligned!
First note that chukas-balak is only read together outside of eretz yisroel, as it’s an invention solely as a means to catch up.
In a play on ‘yom tov sheni shel golios’, my predecessor in Buffalo, Rav Yirmiyahu Kaganoff, calls that double parsha: ‘parshios shel golios’.
Aside for a Friday Shavuos, the other scenario when we become misaligned with eretzyisroel is when acharon shel Pesach falls on Shabbos.
However, it is when that occurs during a leap year that we wait until matos-massei to conjoin, even though there seems to be many options to combine prior to matos–massei.
Why?
The Maharit explains that we do not wish to alter the norm. Since in most years matos–massei are leined together – and chukas and Balak are leined separately – we seek to maintain this.
Another approach comes from the Bnei Yissoschor (maamreichodeshtammuz–av, 2). He wonders why we generally leinchukas and balak separately, while matos and massei are almost always read together.
He explains that we strive to lein the parshios that speak of chalukas ha’aertz – the division of eretz yisroel – specifically during beinhametzarim, the Three Weeks as a means of hope.
Since the chalukas ha’aretz is also discussed in parshaspinchas, we separate chukas and balak so that pinchas could also be leined during the Three Weeks.
This logic of the BneiYissoschor may also explain this long wait of conjoining when the last day of Pesach occurs on Shabbos during a leap year. If chukas and balak would be read together -and thus allowing a quicker catch up to eretz yisroel – then pinchas would be read before the Three Weeks.
In fact, in eretz yisroel, all the parshios during such a year must be read separately to allow for this.
However, in chutz l’aretz, we avoid this by simply refraining from combining parshios until matos–massei.
The result is that pinchos, with its topics of chalukasha’aretz, will be lained during the Three Weeks here and in eretzyisroel, and we will also then catch up.
Ah, the beauty of halacha and minhag!
Below:
While doing research for this topic, my chaver Dr. Shlomo Dalezman, was very helpful. He was also kind enough to prepare the following chart:
1 –
Shavuos on Friday1 – Shavuos on Friday
In Chu”l shabbos is second day Shavuos , in E”Y it is isru chag and they lein naso
Date – Chul- EY
7 Sivan – Shavuos – Naso
14 Sivan – Naso – Behaloscha
21 Sivan – Behaloscha – Shelach
28 Sivan – shelach – Korach
5 Tammuz – Korahc – chukas
12 Tammuz – Chukas& Balak – Balak –
19 Tammuz – Pinchas – 1st of 3 weeks
(note it doesn’t matter if was a leap year or not)
2 –
Pesach on shabbos in a leap year
In chu”l acharon shel Pesach is on Shabbos, in E”Y it is acharei mos.
Date – Chul- EY
22 Nissan – Acharon shel PEsach – Acharei
29 Nissan – Achaeri- Kedoshim
6 Iyar – Kedoshim – emor
13 Iyar – Emor – Behar
20 Iyar – Behar – Bechukosai
27 Iyar – Bechukosai – Bamidbar
5 Sivan – Bamidbar – Naso (Erev Shavuos)
12 Sivan – Naso – Behaloscha
19 sivan Behaloscha – shelach
26 Sivan – shelach – Korach
3 Tammuz – Korach – chukas
10 Tammuz – Chukas – Balak
17 Tammuz – Balak – Pinchas
24 Tammuz – Pinchas – Matos (1st 3 weeks)
2 Av – Matos + MAsei – MAsei (2nd 3 weeks)
9 Av- Devarim – (3rd 3 weeks)
3 –
Acharon Shel Pesach falls on Shabbos in non-leap year
In chu”l it is acharon shel Pesach, in E”Y they read shemini.
Ramban (Nachmonides, d. 1270h, after settling in Jerusalem, writing to his son a description of its ruins, circa 1263:
“I write this letter in ir hakodesh Yerushalaim. For, thanks and praise unto Hashem, I was privileged to arrive safely there in elul, and stayed till the day after Yom Kippur. Now I intend going to Chevron, to maaroshamachpelah, to daven…
“But what shall I say to you concerning the country? Great is the solitude and great is its devastation…The more sacred the places, the greater their desolation. Yerushalaim is more desolate than the rest of the country: AreiYehudah more than Galil. But even still in its destruction it is a blessed land…
“[Yerushalaim] has a total of around two-thousand inhabitants, three-hundred of which are Christians who live there after escaping the sword of the Sultan.
“There are few Jews. For, after the arrival of the Tartars [Muslims], some fled while others died by the sword. There are only two brothers{!}, dyers by trade, who must purchase their ingredients from the government. There [at their shop] the minyan meets, and on Shabbos we daven at their home.
“But we encouraged them, and we succeeded in finding a vacant house that we took for a shuland built pillars of marble with a beautiful arch. For the town is without a ruler, so that whoever desires to take possession of the ruins can do so. We gave our offering towards the repairs of the house. We have sent already to Shechem to procure sifrei Torah. These had initially been brought there from Yerushalim upon the invasion of the Tartars.
“Continually people crowd into Yerushalaim ,men and women, from Damascus, Zobah[Aleppo], and from all parts of the country, to see the makom hamikdosh and to mourn there.
“May He who thought us worthy to see Yerushalaim in her desertion grant us that we witness her when rebuilt and restored, when Hashem’s glory will return to her. And you, my son, your brothers, and the whole of our family, may you all live to see the salvation of Yerushalim and the nechama of tzion.”
Director General of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, writing to his colonial bosses of the Dutch East Company back in Amsterdam on September 22, 1654.
He composed the following letter just two weeks after the arrival of the first group of Jews to arrive to North America:
(See my book Jews of the New World for a discussion of the few Jews who preceded them, as well as a suggested genesis for Stuyvesant’s rabid antisemitism)
“…The Jews who arrived would nearly all like to remain here. But learning that they-with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians-were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates…we have, for the benefit of this weak and newly developing place and the land in general, deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart; praying also…that this deceitful race-such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of C- -be not allowed further to infect and trouble the new colony…”
This letter was given greater purchase when Domine Johannes Megapolenis, New Amsterdam’s chief minister and clergyman, composed a letter supporting such ugly sentiment, writing later, on March 18, 1655:
“Last summer some Jews came here from Holland in order to trade… they came several times to my house, weeping and bemoaning their misery…”These gdless rascals, who are of no benefit to the country, but look at everything for their own profit, may be sent away from here…”
The following diagnosis comes from David Lloyd George 1863-1945, who served as British Prime Minister (1916-1922), speaking on the cancer that is antisemitism:
“Of all the bigotries that savage the human temper there is none so unwise as the anti-Semitic. It has no basis in reason, it is not rooted in faith, it aspires to no ideal-it is just one of those dank and unwholesome weeds that grow in the morass of racial hatred. “How utterly devoid of reason it is may be gathered from the fact that it is almost confined to nations that worship the Jewish prophets and apostles and revere the national literature of the Hebrews as the only inspired message delivered by the Deity to mankind, and whose only hope of salvation rests on the precepts and promises of the great teachers of Judaism. “Still, in the sight of these fanatics Jews of today can do nothing right. If they are rich, they are birds of prey. If they are poor, they are vermin. If they are in favor of war, that is because they want to exploit the bloody feuds of Gentiles to their own profit. If they are anxious for peace, they are either instinctive cowards or traitors. If they give generously – and there are no more liberal givers than the Jews-they are doing it for some selfish purpose of their own. If they don’t give- then what would you expect of a Jew? “If labor is oppressed by great capital, the greed of the Jew is held responsible. If labor revolts against capital as it did in Russia-the Jew is blamed for that also. If he lives in a strange land, he must be persecuted and pogrommed out of it. If he wants to go back to his own, he must be prevented….
The following was composed byRav Chasdei Crescas (d. 1410), writing to the community of Avignon, on the 12th of Cheshvan/19th of October 1391.
Here he details the Spanish massacre of the summer of 1391.
Aside for the ten-of-thousands of slaughtered Jews, hy”d, this event led to the conversion of many, and was the prelude to the Spanish Inquisition, which took place one-hundred-years later.
He opens the letter by sharing how is only son was among the martyred, Hy”d:
“Among the many who sanctified the name of the Lord was my only son…If I were to tell you here all the numerous sufferings we have endured you would be dumbfounded at the thought of them.
“I will therefore set before you only in brief detail the table of our disaster set with poisonous plant and wormwood [see devarim29:17], giving you a bare recital of the facts so that you may state yourselves on the bitterness of our wormwood and drink from the wine of our grief! …
“On the day of the New Moon of the fateful month tamuz in the year 5151 [July 1391] Hashem bent the bow of the enemies against the populous community of Seville where there were between 6,000 – 7,000 heads of families, and they destroyed their gates by fire and killed in that very place a great number of people; the majority, however, changed their faith. Many of them, children as well as women, were sold to the Muslims, so that the streets occupied by Jews have become empty. Many of them, sanctifying the Holy Name, endured death…
“From there the fire spread and consumed all the cedars of Lebanon [talmidei chachamim] in the holy community of Cordova.
“And on the day of misery and punishment, on which the sufferings were intensified…in the community of Toledo…the priests and the learned were murdered.
“In that very place the rabbis, the descendants of the virtuous and excellent R. Asher of blessed memory, together with their children and pupils, publicly sanctified the Holy Name….
“On the 7th of the month av the Hashem destroyed the community of Valencia, in which there were about a thousand heads of families; about 250 men died al kiddush Hashem the others fled into the mountain, yet some changed their faith…From there the plague spread…. On rosh chodesh elul, the bloodthirsty villains came there, profaned, plundered and robbed them and left them like a net in which there are no fish. Three-hundred died al kiddush Hashem…
“On the following Shabbos Hashem poured out his fury like fire, and destroyed the community of Barcelona. The number of murdered amounted to 250 souls; the rest fled into the castle, where they were saved.
“The enemies plundered all streets inhabited by Jews and set fire to some of them. The authorities of the province, however, took no part in this; instead, they endeavored to protect the Jews with all their might. They offered food and drink to the Jews, and even set about punishing the wrongdoers, when a furious mob rose against the better classes in the country and fought against the Jews who were in the castle, with bows and missiles, and killed them in the castle itself. Amongst the many who was mikadesh shem shomayim was my only son, who was a chosson and whom I have offered as a korban without blemish; I submit to Hashem’s justice and take comfort in the thought of his [his son’s] excellent portion and his delightful lot. Amongst them were many who slaughtered themselves and others who threw themselves down from the tower and whose limbs were already broken before they had reached half-way down the tower. Many also came forth anddied al kidush Hashem in the open street. Many. Others changed their faith… Because of our many sins, there is none left in Barcelona today who still bears the name of Jew…
“In the town of Gerona, where knowledge of Torah could be found combined with humility, the Rabbis of that place publicly died al kidushHashem, and only a few changed their faith. The majority of the community escaped to the houses of the citizens…”
(Translation of Franz Kobler, A Treasury of Jewish Letters, 1953, p. 272ff)
Rav Chasdei ends by quoting from eichah “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath” (3:1), and with the following words of hope, some chizukupon which we will too will conclude:
“In spite of this our eyes are directed towards the Father in heaven, that He may be merciful to us and may heal us of our wounds, and keep our feet from wavering. May this be His will, Amen.”
A 19th Century American Patriot From Derby, PA who Converted in Yerushalaim
Written by Rabbi Moshe Taub for Ami Magazine November, 2012
He arrived on the shores of eretz yisroel in the summer of 1844 holding a dove and an American flag.
After receiving approval to be the first American Consul to Jerusalem, Warder Cresson was unaware that the President of the United States had revoked his status while already Israel bound.
Yet this is by no means the most fascinating part of his story.
‘Who was Warder Cresson?’ you may ask.
Well…who wasn’t Warder Cresson!
Polymath, convert, source of halachic battle, mevakesh, man of history, the list goes on.
Several years ago my predecessor in Buffalo, HaRav Yirmiyah Milevsky, published a wonderful article researching the life of Warder Cresson. His discovery was passed around rabbinic circles as it resolved an old halachic history that we shall soon discuss.
Warder was born July 13, 1798 to a deeply devout Quaker family. After some business success, by the age of thirty he began to question his faith. According to the historical research of Dr. Yitzchak Levine, “By the 1840’s he had become, in turn, a Shaker, a Mormon, a Seventh Day Adventist and a Campbellite.”
Like Yisro, or the King of Kuzar of the sefer Kuzari, who had examining many faiths until discovering Torah and yiddeshkeit, Warder was a searcher, a mevakesh.
Inspired by the writings of some of the rabbis of his time, his heart began to pine for avira d’arah. Before embarking on this journey he somehow convinced the American government to give him the official title of American Consul to Israel. There were men who knew of Warder, and viewed him as a religious fanatic (we can only imagine how many faiths he had angered by this point!). One man, Samule D. Ingham, who had served as President Jackson’s Secretary of Treasury ten years earlier and who knew Warder wrote to President Tyler’s administration to have Warder’s title revoked. They concurred. But it was too late for Warder to find out before his arrival.
In time he became dismayed at what he saw. Missionaries living in luxury while the Jews and others lived in utter poverty.
He also strongly criticized the church’s overt desire to convert Jews. He wrote a parody titled ‘The Society Formed in England and America for Promoting Sawdust, Instead of good Old Cheese, amongst the Jews in Jerusalem’
In it he compared Cheese to Judaism and sawdust to his and the missionaries’ faith that may look like shredded cheese and be sold as such but was a ruse and not the real thing.
A few years after, and now almost fifty years of age, Warder Cresson became a ger.
He wrote: “When I became fully satisfied that I could never obtain Strength and Rest, but by doing as Ruth did, and saying to her Mother-in-Law, or Naomi ‘Entreat me not to leave thee … for whither thou goest I will go’…. In short, upon the 28th day of March, 1848, I was circumcised, entered the Holy Covenant and became a Jew….”
After a short visit to America, he returned to Israel under the name Michael Boaz Yisroel Ben Abraham, married, had two children and lived the life of a sefardi. He died in 1864 and was buried on har zeisim. His burial spot was only discovered last year.
While Warder Cresson’s life still had even more fascinating turns –his autobiography detailing his life choices titled ‘Key of David’, his divorce from his first wife and loss of much of his American estate, his likely 1857 meeting with Herman Mellville, author of Moby Dick – it is his halachic legacy that I wish to share.
The shu’t Binyan Tzion (91) by Rav Ettlinger –better known perhaps as the Aruch L’ner –discusses the case of a Moroccan convert in Israel.
Here is the shailah that was posed to him (translation from Rabbi Milevsky):
“Here in Yerushalaim on Tuesday the twenty third day of the month of Adar Sheni of the year (5)608, a non Jew came from Morocco and had a bris for the sake of geirus, and accepted all the mitzvos. On the following Shabbos, he had not fully recovered from the circumcision and thus not entered the Mikvah…a rabbi claimed that due to the fact that he did not yet enter the Mikvah he must not observe Shabbos and must perform a melacha…Consequently he violated Shabbos by writing a few letters. After Shabbos when the Rabbis in town heard of the ruling they disagreed claiming that after his bris he is considered a Jew and must not violate Shabbos.”
The question is a fascinating one. What is the status of a ger between the stages of bris and tevilah? Many teshuvos have been written about this case throughout the years from all over the world.
The Binyan Tzion has a remarkable approach that while not yet a yid, once convalescing from his bris and before tevila he is also no longer a gentile, and the prohibition on gentiles in keeping Shabbos no longer applies! This seems to be the understanding of the Chasam Sofer (oh’c 116) and can also be inferred from the TosphosYeshanim (Yevamus 48b).
The Sochachover rebbe takes this even further (AvneiNezery’d 352), that not only may someone in this ‘quasi’ state observe Shabbos, but they must! Basing himself on the Zohar, we know that the Jews received the mitzvah of Shabbos in Marah –after mila but before the tevila of Sinai (See also shu’t EretzTzvi 1:41). He even goes so far as to say that even if earlier sources would seem to argue on this quasi status it may only be due to the fact that the Zohar was not yet known in their time.
In fact, the Midrash would imply (DevarimRabba 1:20) that this prohibition on a gentile to observe Shabbos is only until “one accepts mila” clearly indicating that this ger should not have been instructed to write on Shabbos after his mila (see shu’t Divrei Yosef 3:24).
What about the rav from Yerushalaim who had this quasi convert write on Shabbos, what was his basis?
The name of this rav was Rav Asher Lemmel, who indeed rejects many of the proofs brought.
But a greater mystery has always been who this convert was. Keep in mind that this was at a time when very few became geirim.
Rabbi Milevsky took the date of the geirus found in Rav Ettlinger’s teshuvah and calculated the equivalent secular date and…lo and behold it was March 28, 1848 the exact same date that Warder Cresson converted! He was the source behind this famous debate!
As for his being called Moroccan, in Hebrew America has the exact same spelling save for one letter.
When Artscroll published their new English MidrashRabba (Ibid. 213 note 241) they seem to have fully accept Rabbi Milevsky’s contention that the man behind the story was Warder Cresson.
One Quaker from Derby PA began to search, became a ger tzedek and had an impact still being felt today.
– Benjamin Franklin’s (real!) Mussar Studied in All Yeshivos!
….And Much More…
Published In Weekly Installments, Summer of 2023, Ami Magazine
By Rabbi Moshe Taub
Chapter I.
Welcome to Buffalo
Rav Yona Landau is a fascinating individual. When I was a rav in Buffalo, the shul would see many daily visitors, so, at first, seeing his chassideshe levush (attire) did not bring any specific attention. After davening, he approached and gifted me with a sefer he had written. I still have this Yiddish volume, about the ‘early’ rabbanim and shuls of America. At the time, this topic was not even remotely on my radar. For whatever regretful reason -likely due to many other guests that morning- I did not ask him why he was in town. However, serendipity would soon take care of that.
Several weeks later, while driving home from a meeting, sudden horrid blizzard conditions began to deluge my car (not a surprise for Buffalo!). The storm caused such low visibility that I became utterly lost, finding myself in the township of Cheektowaga. This was around 2004, so I pulled out my trusty printed (!) New York State map and worked-out a route home through safer side roads. As I was driving in this remote area, suddenly, through the furious flurry, I saw what appeared to be a chassideshe yid -not a common site in these parts!
The certainty that my eyes were deceiving me was quickly dashed when I then saw another such yid, and then another. I began to pull over – to ask if they need help, and, to quench my curiosity as to why they were there – when I noticed this street aligned a cemetery. As a kohein, I had to park up the road on the other side of the street, get out of my car and walk through the intense sleet that was smacking my face, all the while calling out to them. “Are you here on business and now lost? Do you have a great-grandparent buried here?”
It was only at this moment when I became informed that this was the cemetery which housed the ohel of the holy Rav Eliyahu Yosef Rabinowitz.
Rav Yonah Landau is responsible for bringing this burial spot to broad public attention. Since his own group- trips began, pilgrimages to this site have been made by tens of thousands across all streams of the Torah world -from cholim, to those in need of a zivug or parnasah.
Even before this, my shul in Buffalo had a flyer for visitors to take which contained the standard visiting information regarding kashrus, the eruv and mikveh, etc. The flyer concluded with brief information about Buffalo’s Jewish history, including an image of a contemporaneous announcement of this Rav Rabinowitz’s petirah.
The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger was a national Jewish magazine which began in 1879, and which still exist today (after various exchanges and transactions) as The Washington Jewish Examiner.
In its November of 1910 edition, in their ‘Buffalo’ section, they wrote:
“Rabbi Joseph Rabinowitz, of the congregation Brith Sholom, Anshe, Russia, died last year at the age of fifty-four years. His death has caused a great deal of grief in the orthodox community, for the deceased rabbi was beloved by a large circle of friends, and was noted for his piety, his modesty, and his exceptional learning. He was officially connected with B’rith Sholem congregation, but was also greatly interested in the general religious and educational welfare of the Jews of his section.Although only a few years in Buffalo, he at once made his influence felt in many directions. “Rabbi Rabinowitz was born in Justingrad, province of Kiev in 1856. His father was a famous rabbi. He came to Buffalo in 1908 and at once became popular and beloved by all the Jews in the city. He passed away Monday evening November 14, at his home, number 67 Walnut Street.”
In the next chapter we will iy”H share more about Rav Rabinowitz’s amazing life and his present-day connections to Buffalo.
Additionally, we will share other ‘secret’ burial spots which may surprise even the history-literate reader.
Chapter II.
Family Trees & the Steipler Gaon
The First Rebbe in America
In the last chapter we wrote about the first rebbe to reside in America, Rav Eliyahu Yisef Rabinowitz. Let us pick up from there.
While a rav in Buffalo, I once received the following email:
“Dear Rabbi Taub,
I am travelling to Buffalo and heard that there is an ohel for one RabbiEliyahu Yosef Rabinowitz. I was told he was a rebbe, perhaps the first inour country. Is this true? Was he really a rebbe? How do we define thatterm? And, how do we know he indeed was one?”
Ah, the questions rabbis receive!
However, i understood the cynicism behind the request, as exaggeration in tourism is not unfounded.
Let us start with this rebbe’s amazing yichus, which is itself a story of galus:
One of the Baal Shem Tov’s prime disciples, of course, was Rav Yaakov Yosef (d. 1781), whose sefer Toldos Yaakov Yosef is one of the main sources of the Torah of his rebbe and founder of chassidus.
One of Rav Yakov Yosef’s students -and a student of the Maggid of Mezritch as well, and also a pupil of the Baal Shem Tov -was Rav Gedalya of Linitz (d. 1804). Rav Gedalya was the son of a dayan and was a great-great grandson of the Maharsha (His great grandmother was the Maharsha’s daughter, see source in the sefer Toras Avos below).
Many stories known today about the Baal Shem Tov were transmitted through Rav Gedalya (see, e.g., Shivchei Baal Shem Tov).
He himself authored the sefer Teshuas Chein.
When Rav Gedalya was niftar, his son, Rav Shmuel Yehudah Leib, took over as admor of Linitz. He was niftar in 1818, at just forty-six years of age.
His brother, Rav Yitzchak Yoel, assumed the role of admor next. He had learned under the holy Apter Rav (d.1825) together with ‘DerHeiliger Ruzhiner’, Rav Yisroel (d. 1850), who said about Rav Yitzchok Yoel, “If one desires yiras shomayim, go to him” (Toras Avos, p. 24 note 13). Rav Yitzchak Yoel was niftar in 1828.
He was followed by his son, Rav Gedalya Aaron who was married to the daughter of Rav Shmuel Abba, the grandson of Rav Pinchos Koritzer, a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov. It seems that he only accepted becoming admor in 1840, a dozen years since his father was niftar.
With this background, we can now begin to zoom-in a little.
For unknown reasons, in 1848, he would move his court to the town of Sokolivka, at the outskirts of the city of Linitz (known today as Illinitsy), both just about thirty-five miles from Uman.
As his fame grew, he would soon need to hide from the Russian authorities, escaping to the Romanian town of Podu Iloaiei. The last ten years of his lilfe was spent here. It is here where his talmid Rav Eliyahu Rosenthal would publish his rebbe’ s teachings in the sefer Chen Aaron.
Now away from their holy father, it is likely at this point that his four sons began to adopt the last name ‘Rabinowitz’, which is Slavic for ‘the son of the rabbi’. It seems probable that this surname was then pronounced as its Russian equivalent, Rabinovitch.
His eldest remaining son was Rav Yitzchak Yoel – who initially took over as admor, yet sadly was niftar at forty-five, in 1885, just eight years after his father’s petira.
His brother, Rav Pinchos, then took over as the rav and rebbe of Sokolivka. Rav Pinchos was tragiclly killed al kiddush Hashem in the pogrom on zayin av, 1918, hashem yinkom domo.
Mrs. Chayah Shuman of Buffalo, whose four brothers were among those killed, recalled,
“The Gentiles refused to bring the [dead] bodies to the shtetl.
“The Jewish population rented horses and wagons from them, and themselves brought back the dead. My father was among those digging graves for my brothers. Nachum the apothecary tried to help him digging. My father said to him, ‘Take it easy, Nachum; let me take care of my children.’ My brother Baruch who was killed was married and the father of a little boy. Reb Pinchas was seventy-six at the time he was murdered.”
Chaya’s grandson, Rav Avraham Meir Shuman, lives in Buffalo today, and makes a siyum every year on that date l’zecher nishmasum.
The next Rabinowitz brother was Rav Eliyahu Yosef, our focus, who would soon arrive in Buffalo, NY.
Rav Eliyahu Yosef would marry the daughter of Rav Meshulam Zusha Aurbach. Rav Aurbach’s son -the Buffalo rebbe’s brother-in- law- was the famed Rav Mordechai Dov Twersky, the HornesteiplerGaon.
That the Hornesteipler took his mother’s -Rebbitzen Shterna Feigeh’s – maiden name was not uncommon of many Jews of the time (see my post regarding Jewish surnames -the history behind this practice was, often, so that a second son can be claimed as the eldest, thus getting out of the army, while the true firstborn was said to be the oldest from a previous marriage, carrying the maiden name. This may explain Katz’s that are Yisroelim, et al.).
For the litvaks, like myself, who are reading, take note of the following:
Rav Yaakov Yisroel Kinievsky -the great gaon and tzadik, and the father of Rav Chaim Kinievsky – was also known as the ‘Steipler’ or the ‘Steipler gaon’ – a name that comes from that same town. Indeed, the Steipler’s parents were chassidim of Rav Mordechai Dov Twesky, and named him Yaakov Yisroel after Rav Mordechai Dov’s grandfather, Rebbitzen Shterna’s father – the Magid Meisharim, Rav Yaakov Yisroel Twersky (d.1876).
Rav Mordechai Dov’s son, the Buffalo rebbe’s nephew, was Rav Bentzion Yehudah Leib, who would take over as the official admor of Linitz.
His son, the Buffalo rebbe’s great nephew, was Rav Yaakov Yisroel Twersky -named for the same zaide as was the Steipler! -would famously move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1927.
After first arriving to the Lower East Side in 1899, he soon discovered that many of his brother’s mispallilim had relocated to Buffalo. It was only a matter of time until they excitedly invited him to be their rav, in the Jefferson Street shul. The reader should keep in mind that Buffalo was one of the largest cities in the country at the turn of the century.
He arrived there just a few years after President McKinley was assassinated at the world fair held in Buffalo.
His kever at the Pine Ridge cemetery was beautifully redone with an ohel and a special room for kohanim. A plaque was installed giving special honor to those killed al kiddush Hashem from his hometown.
Thousands of yearly visitors come to daven at his kever.
So… was he a ‘rebbe’? Of course!
(The following image is taken from Yiddish Kezetzung, November 25, 1910)
Chapter III.
Gaons, Goons and Designations & The 13 Middos of…Benjamin Franklin?!
As a kohein, I have never been to Rav Rabinowitz’s ohel near Buffalo. When I asked a friend to share its image with me, he also shared an additional matzeiva, asking “Have you ever heard of this rav?”
This other matzeiva read as follows [translation]:
“A man great amongst his brethren// A shepherd of a holy flock// a posek, advisor, and orator// Who judged and was charitable to his nation// Harav Hagaon Avraham Meir [bar Yitzchak Zev] Franklin// Av beis din of Buffalo and before this outside of Vilna (!)// Niftar 4th of cheshvon …[born] tuff reish chuff kimmel (1882/3)- [niftar] tuff reish tzadi gimmel (1932)”.
I was not immediately familiar with this rav, and initially wondered, “A rav with an American-sounding name such as ‘Franklin’ was formerly a rav outside of Vilna?!”
I would soon discover that his surname was originally ‘Frankel’, and that he later Americanized it to Franklin.
Such a change -especially in a surname – is not new in our long galus, especialy when showing gratitude (see Eicha Rabbasi, 2:13, with Beis Ahron, chelek beis, p. 519).
But why choose, specificly, Benjamin ‘Franklin’ to honor?,
To answer this question, I will share something extraordinary with the reader:
Reminding us that they don’t make politicians like they used to, Benjamin Franklin’s writes in his autobiography:
“I conceiv’d the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection. I wish’d to live without committing any Fault at any time; Habit took the Advantage of Inattention. Inclination was sometimes too strong for Reason. I concluded …that it was our Interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our Slipping, and that the contrary Habits must be broken and good ones acquired and established,…
“I propos’d to myself… Thirteen Names of Virtues…
“1. Temperance-Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. Silence- Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. Order -Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. Resolution-Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5.-Frugality – i.e., waste nothing. 6.Industry-Lose no time; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. Sincerity- Use no hurtful deceit; 8. Justice-Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. Moderation- forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. Cleanliness 11. Tranquillity- Be not disturbed at trifles. 12. Chastity- Rarely use venery. 13.Humility…”
Many who went to litvishe yeshivos may find this list very similar to the ubiquitous “Thirteen Middos of Rav Yisroel Salanter” chart that used to hang in the back of many classrooms.
It is possible -if not likely-that this list was composed not by Rav Salanter, but rather Franklin himself!
I will very briefly explain: In 1812 -twenty years after Franklin published his list – a famous sefer was first published –Cheshbon HaNefesh. Its author explained that he borrowed the idea of 13 middos from a ‘secular moralist’, writing:
“Recently, a new and pleasing method was discovered, this invention innovation will spread quickly im yirtz Hashem”
–Cheshbon HanefeshMerkaz hasefer ed., p. 31 (See also article by Rav Nissan Waxman, Sinai, 1961, as well as a 5780 monograph by Shai Asafi).
In a recent edition of this sefer, Rav Mordechai Shmuel Edelstein writes a hakdama where he mentions this list’s original source coming from “The gentile sage […] Benjamin Franklin [in whom] there arose a powerful yearning to reach moral perfection,” (translation; see Asafi, ibid.).
This is not, chalila, to minimize the value of this list, which can be of great value, irrespective of its origin. Indeed the 1812 mechaber sought to improve upon Franklin’s list by changing its order, as well as modifying some of the middos themselves -i.e. omitting Franklin’s #1 and #12 for and exchanging them kavod and savlanus.
So, how did the provenence of this list become misplaced, and, how did this list become so popular in the litvish world?
When R. Yizchok Blazer zt”l (Peterburger) published Ohr Yisroel – the celebrated collection of writings and letters from his rebbe, Rav Yisroel Salanter zt”l, he makesno mention of these thirteen principles. However, in an 1845 edition of the 1812 Cheshbon HaNefesh the publisher mentions in his introduction how Rav Slanter urged this re- issue and (according to my friend Reb Moshe Friedman of Toronto, who shared this theory with many gedolim), this caused readers to assume this false attribution to both the sefer and its list.
Back to Rav Franklin:
In the archives of The New York Times from November 5th, 1932 we find on page 1 that they report on Rav Franklin’s death on page 15. Exasperatingly, their archives were incomplete and, at first, all I could access was with this odd and confusing headline (emphasis mine):
“BUFFALO CHIEF RABBI, A. M. FRANKLIN, DIES-Descendant of ‘The Great Man of Goon’ – Was an Official of Rabbinical Association”
Great man of…what?! Later, when looking at the actual microfilmed image I discovered that the digitizer made an error. The headline actually reads:
“…Descendent of the great man of Gaon”
While clarifying the word ‘Goon’, their sentence still made little sense. However, the explanation may be simple: They erroneously transposed the translations of the words Vilna and gaon, assuming ‘vilna’ meant great man/genius, and that ‘gaon’ referred to his city!
Perhaps this error is due to the fact that ‘Vilnius’ -and not Vilna – is how gentiles refer to this city (although, see below where they use the term ‘Wilno’).
As a fascinating aside, the word gaon, meaning genius, is not found anywhere in Tanach! There, it always means ‘pride’ or ‘heights’, etc. It was only in the Geonic era (700-1000) when ‘gaon’ took on this new connotation (see e.g. Halachos Gedolos, 31).
It is interesting to consider how this came to be. Some suggest that in the late middle-ages we crowned our rabbanim with gaon based on the pasuk ‘gaon yaakov-pride of Jacob’ (Tehillim 47:4). Others posit that their given title was actually ‘reish kalla’ (leader of the shiurim), or aluf (meaning general/leader –perhaps the etymology for the English word ‘aloof’), and that gaon was simply a sobriquet. This is because gaon’s gematria equals sixty -in that they comprehended all sixty mesechtos of shas!
Back to Rav Franklin…
Here is the rest if their memorial (brackets are mine):
“The Rev. Abraham Mayer Franklin, chief rabbi of Buffalo, died last night at Buffalo General Hospital after several weeks’ illness…Rabbi Franklin was born in Wilno, Poland seventy-two years ago. At the age of six he began studies under Rabbi Isaac Elohanan [Rav Yitzchak Elchanan Spekter], one of the greatest of the modern rabbis, and from him he received his degree and diploma [semicha] after examinations lasting several days, an honor given to few men. “Rabbi Franklin was a descendent of the Vilna Gaon, ‘The Great Man of Gaon’, a rabbi revered for his piety and his wisdom. “He and his wife came to Buffalo at the turn of the century. There were several congregations in the city at that time and Rabbi Franklin was made chief rabbi, going from one to another each week… “In 1930 he was elected vice president of the Rabbinical Association of America. He was offered a post recently by the Beth Hamidrosh Hagodol in New York but declined it.”
We discussed a few years ago how the term ‘Chief Rabbi’ was commonly used for a number of rabbanim of major American cities, and became a contentious matter. To be sure, such a title was not taken by Rav Franklin, or, for that matter, even voted upon, rather it was thrusted upon him, likely by the press (see ‘From Ararat to Suburbia: The History of the Jewish Community of Buffalo’ Adler, 1960, p. 220).
When Emenuel Chaim Nachman -later known as Leon Dryer – wished to give his rav, Rav Rice of Baltimore, this same imprimatur, it caused an uproar, although, to be fair, he demanded the title ‘Chief Rabbi of the United States’! Leon Dyer even made a special banquet in honor of Rav Rice’s new title and invited the press to participate. He and his board meant well, appropriating this title only to offset the rising threat from the reformers. Indeed, when The Baltimore Sun and the New York Herald obliged, some in the burgeoning reform movement were livid.
One reformer wrote to the Baltimore Sun:
“There is reason of suspicion that some busy-body [Leon Dyer], ignorant meddler of said society has mislead the editors into this most inconsistent and ridiculous idea of a Grand Rabbi or Chief Rabbi of the United States. The fact is that Mr. [!!] A. Rice in not a Grand Rabbi of the United States, or the several societies of this city, but in truth not even a rabbi official of this very society where it represented that he was officiating…”
Other communities gave this designation even more freely. On Purim in 1839, the kehilla in New Orleans asked one ‘Rolly Marks’ to lein the megillah. A local actor and fireman, he was the only one who knew how to read Hebrew. Soon, he was elected as the ‘Reader of Prayers’, then became known as ‘Rabbi’, and soon enough many–Jew and Gentile alike – referred to him as ‘Chief Rabbi’ of the city (refer to The First Rabbi, p. 67)!
In 1845 we even find this term by none other than famous reformer Max Lilienthal (a man discussed at length in past summer series).
It was not until the late 1850’s through the late 1870’s when the desire to create a serious, substantial, and sustainable office of Chief Rabbi (of New York) reached a critical mass.
One of the leaders of Reform wrote contemptuously of this idea:
“The Jewish Messenger of New York wants a Chief Rabbi, a sort ofAmerican Jewish pope, or something like it…”
Ignoring the cynics, R’ Hirsh Shuck (Chuck), president of Beis Medresh Hagadol, would soon form an official committee for this cause. Eventually, this job would go to the Malbim. It was only when the Malbim sadly-and-suddenly predeceased his move to New York, that the job would go to RJJ, Rav Yaakov Yosef (see bleow regarding his last name).
We have so much more to discuss about Rav Franklin, including how Coca-Cola ties into all of this!
In the next chapterwe will finally arrive at that part of the story.
Rav Avraham Franklin
Chapter IV.
The Yeshiva Bochor & The Fainting Stranger
In the last chapter we began to examine the life of Rav Avraham Meir Franklin who, after serving as a rav in Vilna, became a rav in Buffalo, New York until his passing in 1932.
We concluded with The New York Times’ obituary for him, and their description of his title as ‘Chief Rabbi’ of Buffalo. Let’s pick up from there.
The sefer Ohalei Sheim was first published in Pinsk in 1912 and bears the haskamos of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, Rav Chaim Ozer, and Rav Dovid Karliner. This fascinating sefer chronicles cities and their rabbanim. It is in here (p. 295) that I discovered that Rav Franklin not only received semicha from Rav Yitzchak Elchanan Spector -as the NYT had correctly reported -but also from Rav Shlomo HaKohein of Vilna!
It should be no surprise that they shared this prized talmud, as these two gedolim were extremely close. Once, when Rav Yitzchak Elchanon turned seventy-five, Rav Shlomo sent him a letter (the topic of commemorating birthdays was discussed in a prior column). It stated: ‘Birchas kohein l’kohein-one kohein’s blessing to another kohein’. When Rav Yitzchok Elchanan’s students read this note, they thought it peculiar, as their rebbe was not a kohein! Their rebbe smiled and said, “You have to understand his language –‘kohein’ is gematria seventy- five!”
As opposed to the NYT, The Buffalo News had a more accurate description of Rav Franklin’s life in Vilna (emphasis mine): “He was one of Vilna’s famous sons. At the age of six, and for the next twenty years, he studied as a yeshiva bochor[!!!]”. This may be the first time that term had been written in English press!
Rav Franklin served as the rav of Kehillas Anshe Emes on Buffalo’s East Side, which was founded by Russian expatriates of chassidesh stock and nusach. Interestingly, it was, of all places, the Buffalo Evening News that pointed out the irony of a Lithuanian rabbi serving a shul with chassideshe leanings (November 4th 1932)!
In 1912 they purchased a larger building and Anshe Emes became known as the ‘Little Hickory Shul’. In 1918, their president, Morris Simon (1880- 1952), helped establish a committee of all the Buffalo frum shuls called ‘The Jewish Kehillah of Buffalo’ whose mission was to support other Jewish organizations and charities, most notably the Rosa Coplon Jewish Old Folks Home, which is still in existence today (under a larger umbrella group).
I quietly chuckled to myself when I read how Morris served as shul president for his eleventh term when Rav Franklin was niftar, and how he was incessantly elected to this role until his own passing in 1956 (Adler, From Ararat to Suburbia, 1960, p.196). I wasn’t being crass in my amused reaction, rather my quiet laughter was elicited due to my own Buffalo memory and experience: When I arrived in Buffalo, Richard Berger was our shul’s president…and he still is today! When an assembly finds someone worthy, why take it away from him?
To understand the need for such a unified group for tzedakah, the reader should note that the number of Jews who arrived in America from 1815-1930 was larger than the total population of world Jewry at the time of George Washington (The Writings of American Jewish History, 1957, 366-403)! The city of Buffalo, specifically, was going through its own unique Jewish growing pains in the eyes of the Gentile public (The Foreign Population Problem in Buffalo, 1908, pamphlet). Therefore, an organization that could represent these new immigrants was vital.
One humorous tale that speaks to this need goes back to Buffalo in 1847. It was Yom Kippur, and so the twenty-four, or so, Jewish families in town rented an office area and spent the day in teffila –its first such minyan (for my number of ‘twenty-four’, see ‘The Forerunners: Dutch Jewry in the North American Diaspora’, p. 340-352)
“It was the Day of Atonement Itzeg Moses Slatsky stood in the synagogue the whole day in his white linen robe and white cap, and with a white girdle. Toward dusk he began to officiate. The congregation could no longer read without lights; but it being strictly forbidden for the Israellites of the Orthodox school to kindle a light or touch a candlestick on such a day, they sent for a non-Israelite to light their hall {leaving aside if this was or was not allowed}. He {the Gentile}, upon entering the synagogue and seeing Mr. Slatsky with his pallid face and long white beard, in full keeping with his white attire…was seized with terror- he {the Gentile} ran out as quickly as he could- and reaching the stairs, fell headlong down the whole flight, causing quite a sensation by his precipitate exit”! (Adler, ibid. p. 56).
I have been unable to discover more about this one ‘Itzeg Slatsky’ (see ibid. p. 58), other than that he served as a mohel, baal koreh, chazzan and shochet in Buffalo for an annual salary of $200 (about $8000 today). It is also reported (in 1860) that he would stay up to ‘watch the dead’, i.e. act as a shomer. He died in 1875. It also seems he was fired and rehired numerous times. Today, this temple -Beth El -is reform, and my guess is that they could not withstand his orthodoxy.
Such committees that Morris wished to start were also beneficial for the yidden as well. When Rav Aaron Selig arrived in America to collect for the poor of eretz Yisroel, Sir Moses Montifure had already sent hamlatzos to some of the wealthier communities anticipating his arrival and encouraging them to take part in this holy collection.
However, upon arriving in Albany, their reform leader, Isaac Meyer Wise -the first in our history to allow for mixed seating, a story we told in detail in an Ami sukkos feature, 5782 – wrote him a glowing letter, and that is all (see The First Rabbi, p. 503). Lamentably, banks do not accept that as currency.
These collections would improve with time. For example, the president of a shul in Sacramento, California -one Colonel Abraham Andrews -wrote the following note accompanying his shul’s donation of $250 (about ten-thousand dollars in today’s currency!):
“Our little congregation has been painfully impressed by an appeal from Jerusalem…It will not be overlooked by our brethren at home, that we have been peculiarly sufferers in the floods and flames which have so often desolated our own city {likely referring to the flood of January 1850, and to the fire of November 4, 1852 which destroyed close to ninety percent of Sacramento}…the suffering of Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberius. This bitter time for Israel will pass, and the people shall be gathered together and Messiah will come…”
The Jews of Buffalo, and Rav Franklin in particular, may have seen the need for such a committee after the pogroms of April 19, 1903 – Easter for Christians – and the last day of Pesach for us. In the towns of Kishineff and Bessarabia forty-seven Jews were killed, hy”d; the result of a ghastly Passover blood-libel.
In response to this news, Rav Frankel(lin) held a mass meeting at the Pine Street Shul on Sunday, May 17th. Rav Franklin spoke in yiddish and the Europeans in the audience wept (The Buffalo Express, May 18th).
But then Rev. Israel Aron -a reform leader at Buffalo’s Beth Zedek, and a graduate of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati -entered the assembly. He began to shout in English how there is only one refuge for the Jew -America. He oddly argued that these Jews should just arrive on these shores to save themselves.
A direct quote from his speech: “The highest ambition for a Jew is to be an American citizen”! He concluded by maintaining that American Jews should not get involved in foreign matters!
Yet, ironically, it will be Rav Franklin, the rav from Vilna, who would both stand for Torah and mesorah…and to be the one to help secure one of the most American of things for the future.
As we will see in the next chapter.
Chapter V.
A Coke and a Smile …and a Hechsher
More on the Life of Rav Franklin
One encounters odd protest and objections when operating a vaad hakashrus.
I was once contacted by a small local upstart. Their focus was on producing one specific famous condiment, a kitchen staple, and one with many brands already saturating the market. So, as to level the playing field with their many national competitors, they were investigating the feasibility of becoming certified.
I answered their many questions, giving them basic primer of what such certification may entail. We then set-up an in-person consultation at their plant. After waiting in their lobby for over an hour -those in kashrus know the unique discomfort of long-term wearing of those hair and beard nets – the two owners finally came out. They had clearly been intensely discussing a particular matter for some time and came out looking defeated.
They got right to the point. “Rabbi, you won’t be seeing the production area after all”
“Why not? Is this not why I’m here?” I asked.
“Rabbi, we have reconsidered becoming kosher. You see, our product is so unique [it wasn’t] and special [again, no]. We fear sharing our secret formula with you and your organization. We simply cannot risk it getting out.” While corporate spying is a reality, this small operation in North Tonawanda had nothing to fear.
I tried assuaging their distrust. “In the history of kashrus, proprietary material has never been broken.”, to my knowledge.
They remained incredulous, and after a tiresome back-and-forth, I gave up, saying:
“Look, my job isn’t to persuade you or any factory/company to convert to kosher; in this regard, I operate as a service, not a business. However, I feel compelled to remind you of something, in defense of my industry.
“The greatest secret within the food industry – a mystery that has reached almost mythical status – remains the veiled formula to Coca- Cola. They have been kosher certified for close to one hundred years without their secret(s) ever once being betrayed”.
The condiment company still didn’t budge, and today their product no longer exits – thus assuring their great secret remain forever secure and protected from both mind and mouth.
On January 3, 1992, the Jewish Telegraph Agency blared the headline: ‘Israeli Rabbi Learns What It is That Makes Coke the ‘real Thing’
“The giant Coca-Cola Corp. has yielded to an Israeli rabbi a secret hitherto known only to the soft drink’s founding family and a handful of the corporation’s most trusted executives: the formula for making Coke. ‘There was a need to know’, says Rabbi Moshe Landau of Bnei Brak”.
The kashrus history of Coca-Cola has been well-documented, and it seems that every several years at least one Jewish publication will include a feature on this remarkable story.
Even the secular press -from The New York Times (April 22, 2011) to The History of Science Institute (Distillations -Unexpected Stories from Science’s Past, January 2013 issue), is charmed by this tale. Although, sometimes, they venture beyond their breadth-of-ken, like when the latter states:
[A]n important kosher principle known as blios—literally, taste—that applies to the materials touched by food and food ingredients”.
To be sure, blios doesn’t mean taste – a more accurate translation would be ‘infused transfer’; and ‘touching’ alone doesn’t, regularly, cause blios.
But beyond this, even their history portion is incomplete.
In fact, virtually all the articles about Coke’s kashrus miss one component of the story. They all, rightly, hail Rav Geffen of Atlanta for making this product kosher year-round and for Pesach, in 1935 (see Karnei HaHod, ‘Teshuva Concerning Coca-Cola’).
But there is more to this story, and in fact, the story of Coca-Cola becoming kosher is a who’s-who of the rabbanim in America of the time. (see Adam Mintz’s Is Coca-Cola Kosher; Rav Yehudah Spitz’s article at Ohr Sameach on the subject).
Back in 1925 antisemitism was on the rise -largely due to the Leo Frank affair (a painful episode, for another time).
Remarkably, this was when one of America’s newly iconic brands certified many of its products as kosher. “
The first major coup scored by OU Kosher was its agreement with Heinz that its vegetarian baked beans, and twenty-five more of its famous 57 varieties, merited the kosher stamp of approval.”
Although it is now reported that Heinz’s made-up the 57 number as a marketing ploy (e.g., CNN, Feb, 2022), I was able to locate an advertisement from around that time where Heinz itemized all of their 57 offerings (The Birmingham News, May 22, 1925, inter alia)! In fact, had Joe DiMaggio’s still unbeaten 1941 56 game hitting- streak extended just one more game -to 57 -Heinz promised a $10,000 prize!
In any event, kosher was now in vogue, with Heinz reportedly even helping the OU design their now ubiquitous, simple – and importantly to Heinz, Hebrew-less – logo (see How Heinz and Coca-Cola Made America More Kosher, by Nicholas Mancall-Bittel, in Taste).
Now it was Coca-Cola’s turn.
Some already assumed this beverage was kosher, and it is reported that due to prohibition – when even cheap wine was not easy to come by –some were using Coca-Cola for kiddush/havdala (ibid.; As to its halachic status, see Igros Moshe, oh”c 2:75)!
Well before Rav Geffen’s 1935 teshuva certifying Coke, rabbannim from around the country -such as Rav Elihu Kochin of Pittsburgh- would petition Rav Geffen, asking for his opinion -as he lived in Atlanta, near Coke’s headquarters. Rav Geffen maintained it was not kosher due to certain problematic ingredients.
But, strikingly, Rav Shmuel Aaron Pardes of Chicago had already publicly announced Coke’s kosher status in his renowned yarchon HaPardes…in 1930!
It would be another five years until Rav Geffen’s famous Coke hashgacha would be born!
So, we are left with two questions:
What information could Rav Pardes have had to assert Coke was kosher five years before Rav Geffen’s 1935 detailed teshuva?
What does any of this have to do with Rav Franklin in Buffalo?!
Rabbi Yaakov Bienenfeld, rav of the Young Israel of Harrison, NY was recently by my office.
He is a sixth generation American rav (!) and a reservoir of American Jewish and rabbinical history.
Among his many collections was a bottle cap. But it wasn’t just any bottle cap. It was a Coca-Cola kosher for Pesach cap…from 1931! (See Image Below)
The plot now thickens!
Rabbi Bienenfeld then shared a page The American Heritage Haggadah whose author was granted access to Coco-Cola’s vaults (a grandson of Rav Geffen). Gathered on one page are any number of early certifications for Coca-Cola, interlacing each other.
The earliest is from 1931, stating, (translation) “Enjoy every seudah
this Pesach with Coca-Cola! Only if the bottle cap says Kosher forPesach, J.B., 1931…under the certification of Rav Yaakov Bienenfeld”
This was Rabbi Bienenfeld own grandfather and namesake!
(See Pic)
In any event, it now becomes clear how Rav Pardes could state it was kosher:
Rav Bienenfeld, a native English speaker, was easily able to converse with the manufacture and owners of Coca-Cola so as to collect the needed information. Rav Pardes, whose yarchon began in pre-WW1
Europe, was far from a native speaker, but was able to take this information and write to Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, asking about its then treif glycerin.
Now for the crescendo of all this information: If one looks even closer on that page they will see another stamp of kashrus approval, also from 1931, from the vaad of Rochester, New York…and Rav Franklinof Buffalo! (See Pic)
Meaning, Buffalo and their rav Rav Franklin -along with Rochester -were the very first city vaadim in the world to officially certify their local Coca-Cola plants, four years before Rav Geffen.
What follows are images from the aforementioned Haggada, as well as Rav Bienenfeld’s ‘cap’:
Chapter VI.
A Tale of Two Mordechais
America’s Jewish ‘State of Israel’
Part 1
History is a long and interlacing fabric. Nothing ever stands alone, and every element is tethered to another. We will see this play out in this chapter.
We opened this monograph discussing the fascinating life-and-times of the first rebbe in America – Rav Eliyahu Yosef Rabinowitz of Buffalo (d.1910) – which then led us to discover Rav Avraham Meir Franklin from Vilna (d. 1932) – whose tenure in that same city overlapped with the rebbe’s – all culminating with last chapter’s discovery that the city’s vaad made their Coca-Cola plant kosher and Pesach certified already in 1931 (under guidance from Rav Chaim Ozer) -several years before Rav Geffen of Atlanta gave his famous imprimatur.
Long before these rabbanim arrived to this area, a major American Jewish episode took place within miles of Buffalo. We would be remiss to ignore this story, iy”H returning to other prominent early rabbanim following our chronicling of this event.
The first recorded mention of Buffalo among Jews may be from 1814, made in a sermon delivered by Hazzan Gershom Seixes, the first native- born Shul leader. Gershom’s father Yitzchak came to the New World from Lisbon, Portugal, settling in Rhode Island. Already at the tender age of five, young Gershom gave a derasha in shul! (The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 6, ‘Biographical Sketches, 1904-1905 /5665, p. 40-51; see also Otzar Zechronosi, Eisenstein, p. 12). At the young age of just twenty-one (some historians posit he was twenty-four) young Gershom became the leader of the famed Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in New York City.
In 1814, during the ‘War-of-1812’, Toronto -then known as York – was captured by the Americans, while the-then village of Buffalo was destroyed by the British.
In response to this, R’ Gershom gave a derasha appealing to his congregants to donate funds to help their brethren in Buffalo. He spoke of “the distressed situation of our fellow citizens in the northern boundaries of our state” and emphasized the “piercing cold” of Buffalo. Its good to know even back then Buffalo was made fun of nfor its weather! R’ Seixes then declared that the shul would commence of special teffilos/Tehillim to be said daily on their behalf after mincha.
Remarkably, during that war, a frum soldier was stationed just outside of Buffalo.
From his barracks, this soldier wrote to his friend Naphtali Phillips. Naphtali was the son (one of twenty-one siblings) of Jonas Phillips (d. 1803), among the founders of the famed Mikveh Yisroel shul in Philadelphia, and fought valiantly in the American Revolutionary War. In fact, on July 28, 1776, Jonas wrote a letter from Philadelphia –talk about a time and place in history! -to his friend Gimple Samson in Amsterdam where he described the war and wrote the entire Declaration of Independence in Yiddish! He assumed the British would not intercept such a prejudicial dispatch if written in this language. Sadly, that ploy did not work, which is why we have this letter today.
His son Naphtali was a childhood friend of Mordechai Myers, who was born in 1776. In 1813, the now twenty-three-year-old Mordechai was stationed with his troop near Niagara Falls and wrote the following (I have retained, with great reluctance, his spelling and syntax):
Naph, I find I am Indebted…It being marked Kasher induces me to believe you are one of the Proprioters. If so please continue to send it to me…the time has arrived when the nation requirs all its advocats. Sum must spill there blud and others there ink. I expect to be amongst the former and I hop you are amongst the latter…I have wrieten you a long letter from Buffalo in February I shuld feel a grate plausure to here from you of alloccurences since I left the city …It is a fine thing to abandon the persute of welth, I never ware hapy in Persute of Riches and now that I have abandoned it I am much more contented. My Situation is not unpleasant…I am considered in a favorable light by my superior officers and Treated with respect by my Equals and Inferiors. I have a Compy that both respect & fear me. I keep but little Compy, give my whole attention to Duty… the most our trups being at Buffalo and Black Rock; a grate man once sayed he would rether be the first in a small viledge then second in rome. …My best respects to Mrs P and all the children, remember me to all friends.
Yours Truley,
M. Myers
This same Naphtali, to whom Mordechai Myers was writing, was connected to another, more famous, American Mordechai. Naphtali had a sister named Tziporra who, in 1784, would marry a German expatriate named Manual Noah. Noah had fought in the Pennsylvania Militia during the Revolutionary War. In July of 1785 their bachor, Mordechai Menachem (Manual) Noah, was born. Sadly, his mother was niftarah when he was just seven years old, in 1792, and with his father eking out a living in the deep-south, young Mordechai was raised by his grandparents -Naphtali’s parents – Jonas and Rivka Phillips.
We have mentioned Mordechai Noah in passing several times in past summer series, and now is the time to illuminate to the reader how he played a prominent, although curious, role in Jewish American history, and how he related to this same area where Mr. Myers was stationed.
As Mordechai Noah matured into a young man, he began to long to create a Jewish haven and settlement. He would eventually settle his gaze upon Grand Island, New York, the third largest island in the State, sitting at about 28 square miles.
Any reader who has driven to Toronto, or even to Niagara Falls, would have had to have driven through/over this island, on Highway 190.
In 1815 -just a year after the above letter was sent!- the Americans purchased this island from the Native Americans, and allowed Mordechai Noah to purchase a third of it, with an option to buy more. By Tishrei of 1825, Mordechai Noah led a procession through Buffalo and into Grand Island, where he laid the cornerstone -still there till this day – that states:
“‘Shemah Yisroel Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad’.
Ararat: A City of Refuge for the Jews.
Founded by Mordecai Manuel Noah, in the month Tishrei, September
1825, and in the 50th year of American Independence.”
He chose the name Ararat due to his own last name, Noah. The pasukstates: “And the tevah came to rest in the seventh month, on theseventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat” (Bereishis 8:4).
We could only imagine the significance Mordechai likely placed on the serendipity of the month of Ararat’s founding, being that Noach’s tevah also came to rest in the month of tishrei (see, machlokos, in Rosh Hashana 10b ff).
Who was this Mordechai Noah exactly? Did the non-Jews or the American govenrmnet support his plan for a Jewish State? Was it met with any success? We will answer these questions in the next chapter.
In addition to independent research, much information found above wasgarnered from the following two books:
‘From Ararat to Suburbia’
1960
by Selig Adler and Thomas E. Connely
&
‘Jacksonian Jew’,
1981,
by the inimitable Dr. Jonathan Sarna.
Chapter VII.
Mordechai Noah
America’s Jewish ‘State of Israel’
Part 2
To best understand Mordechai’s passions and goals we need to understand who raised him -his grandparents Jonas and Rivkeh Phillips (after his mother’s early death). We already mentioned Jonas’ fighting in the Revolutionary War as well as his Yiddish translation of the Declaration of Independence. Let us now share his letter to none other than George Washington.
Jonas was deeply troubled concerning a Pennsylvania law demanding an oath on any and all official government business and/or hires. This pledge forced a statement of legitimacy to the ‘New Testament’, R”l. (I kept Jonas’ spelling, only hyphenating names for Hashem):
Philadelphia, 24th Ellul 5547 or Sepr 7th 1787 …I being one of the people called Jews, of the City of Philadelphia, a people scattered and despersed among all nations, do behold with Concern that among the laws in the Constitution of Pennsylvania… By the above law a Jew is deprived of holding any public office or place of Government which is a contradectory to the Bill of Rights that all men have a natural and inalienable right to worship A-mighty G-d according to the dictates of their own conscience and understanding… It is well known among all the citizens of the 13 united states that the Jews…have been foremost in aiding and assisting the states with their lifes and fortunes, they have supported the cause, have bravely fought and bleed for Liberty which they can not enjoy. Therefore if the honourable Convention shall in their Wisdom think fit and alter the said oath…then the Israelites will think themself happy toive under a government where all Religious societys are on an Eaquel footing… My prayer is unto the L-rd—May the people of this states rise up as a great and young lion, may they prevail against their enemies, may the degrees of honour of his Exceellency the president of the Convention George Washington raise up, may everyone speak of his glorious Exploits—may G-d prolong his days among us in this land of Liberty— may he lead the armies against his enemys as he has done hereuntofore, may G-d Extend peace unto the united States…May the almighty G-d of our father Abraham Isaac and Jacob endue this Noble Assembly with wisdom, judgement and unamity in their Councills… the ardent prayer of Your Most devoted obed. servant, Jonas Phillips
Jonas led a life of influence, and young Mordechai would demand no less of himself.
While Mordechai would become a famous character in the annals of American Jewish history, many historians incorrectly assert that Mordechai’s Jewish/real middle name was Emmanuel – due his English middle name, Manuel – with some contemporaneous newspaper accounts using the middle name Menashe (e.g.The Whig Standard, June 11, 1884; Vermont Telegraph, May 11, 1842, et al.). However, Mordechai signed his name in lashon hakodesh ‘Mordechai Menachem’, in the one extant of such documents (Sarna, ibid. notes, 162:3).
His burning desire to live a life of consequence was also aided by his uncle, Ephraim Hart – one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange (then the ‘Board of Stock-Brokers’; Ephraim was married to Mordechai’s father’s sister). Ephraim would even write to President Madison on his nephew’s behalf.
Mordechai himself was an imposing figure. Grover Cleveland’s uncle, Lewis F. Allen, described him as:
“A man of large muscular frame, rotund, with a benignant face and portly bearing…the lineaments of his race were impressed upon his features. He was a Jew, through and thorough and accomplished”. (Publication of the Buffalo Historical Society, 1879, p. 305-328)
At twenty-eight old, Mordechai would borrow money from his other uncle, Naphtali Phi Phillips from the last chapter, and head to Washington to meet with President Madison face-to-face. Mordechai supposed it significant to “prove to foreign powers that our government is not regulated in their appointment of their officers by religious distinction” and that if Jews of foreign lands witnessed “one of their persuasion appointed to an honorable office” would lead Jews of other lands to emigrate to America.
Madison would indeed appoint young Mordechai as consul to Tunisia, in their capitol city of Tunis in late March of 1813 (not 1811, which many biographical resources claim).
Once he arrived in Tunis, much of his energy was spent with the local Jewish community, which, according to him, made-up one-fifth of Tunis’s one-hundred thousand citizens.
After many successes -and some failures -Madison’s Secretary of State, James Monroe, revoked Mordechai’s consul duties two years later, on April 25th 1815. The reason James Monroe offered Mordechai for his discharge has baffled historians:
“…It is known that the religion which you profess would form an obstacle to the exercise of your Consular functions…”!
It’s entirely conceivable that the Madison administration took note of the time Mordechai dedicated in dealing with and aiding the local Jewish population.
However, this letter would soon haunt James Monroe. The next year Monroe would be running for (and win) the presidency, and this letter, and Mordechai’s anger, could potentially harm his chances with both the Jewish and concerned-citizen’s vote. No less than both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams already shared their disgust that religion was the stated cause for Mordechai’s dismissal.
Monroe reversed himself, telling Naphtali, “The religion of Mr. Noah, so far as related to this government, formed no part in the motive of his recall”.
For his part, and to protect his reputation, Mordechai published “Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Barberry States, 1813-1815”, a book praised by the secular press then, and prized today by yidden for its description of Jews of that time.
Mordechai would move to New York where he founded a number of newspapers. This too opened him up to attacks (this time from his competitors), which became viciously antisemitic – a list of examples would take up many pages. Unlike others of his time who have faced this scourge, Mordechai never denied his faith, rather viewed it as a badge of honor.
In 1817 he bravely openly attacked missionary efforts in Russia, and in 1820 would do the same concerning a missionary society and movement founded in America.
It is only with this background that we can venture to understand what Mordechai proposed to do next.
In the summer of 1825, Mordechai turned thirty-five years old. He accomplished more than most by this young age, but he also observed more – from the Muslim treatment of Jews in Tunisia to his own government’s – as well as private and public – antisemitism in the land- of-the-free; all conspiring with his unique personality to develop a radical plan.
On January 16, 1820, Mordechai travelled to Albany and shared with the Legislator his scheme:
The island of Grand Island, New York (nesteled between Buffalo and Niagara) – should be sold to him so as to fashion there a new refuge and safe haven for the Jews of the world; a secure colony built by-and- for this tired nation!
As one historian points out (Sarna, ibid. p. 62), Mordechai could have just requested acquisition of this land without revealing his ultimate goal. However, Mordechai was a wizard at publicity, even if it meant infamy. He understood that for this proposal to triumph ‘the street’ had to be in on it, and, for the idea to spread b’arba kanfos -to Jews everywhere – he needed as much free press he could muster.
Chapter VIII.
The ‘City of Refuge for the Jews’
America’s Jewish ‘State of Israel’
Part 3
For this final installment of Noah’ s story, we arrive in 1825, Noah’ s fortieth year, when he designed to create a colony for all the world’s
Jews… on Grand Island, New York, which sits between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
He called this refuge ‘Ararat’, We will now conclude this beguiling chapter of American Jewish history.
One of the earliest examinations into Noah’s life and this plan was delivered on March 5th, 1866 by Lewis F. Allen, speaking before the Buffalo Historical Society, where, intriguingly, many distinguished individuals were likely in attendance:
Millard Filmore – the twelfth President of the United States – had retired to Buffalo a decade earlier, and was honored with giving this society’s opening address (see Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society, 1876, volume 1, pp. 1-15).
In addition, this Lewis F. Allen was the uncle to Grover Cleveland – soon become the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States. In 1855, eighteen-year-old Grover moved to Buffalo from New York to live with his Uncle Lewis. Lewis found Grover a job at the very same law firm for which President Filmore worked! Incredibly, by 1882, Grover would become Buffalo’s mayor; a year later he would become the Governor of New York; and one year after that he would be elected as President of the United States!
With his likely audience now illuminated, here is what Lewis shared:
“{Noah] had warm attachments and few hates…was a pundit in Hebrew law, traditions, and customs. He was loyal to his religion; and no argument or sophistry could swerve him from his fidelity or uproot his hereditary faith”. due to Noach who found rest for his teva on ‘har ararat’ (Bereishis 8:4).
Lewis shares a story of a Christian who had written Noah seeking his opinion about a new missionary movement whose goal was converting Jews, R”l. Lewis admiringly describes Noah’s response:
“He replied, elaborately setting forth the principles, faith, and the policy of the Jewish people, their ancient hereditary traditions, their venerable history, their hope in the coming of the Messiah; and concluding by expressing the possibility that the modern Gentiles would sooner be converted to Jewish faith, then the Jews would convert to theirs”.
This was a stunning statement for the time, when, lamentably, so many married and ‘converted’ outside the faith. Mordechai Meyers, mentioned in the last chapter, sadly took this path, and his children even took the their mother’s last name -becoming Bailey-Myers –so as to appear more Americanized (Ararat to Suburbia, p. 6).
After painstakingly detailing the events leading to Noah’s plan, and relating the events on the day Ararat’s foundation stone was laid, Lewis shares the text of Noah’s proclamation. Here are excerpts, enough to get a sense of Noah’s heart, but also his naïveté:
“…announcing to the Jews throughout the world, that an asylum is prepared… an asylum in a free and powerful country, where ample protection is secured to their persons, their property, and religious rights; an asylum in a country remarkable for its vast resources…where industry Is encouraged, education promoted, and good faith rewarded “….The asylum referred to is in the state of New York, the greatest state in the American confederacy… The desired spot …is called Grand Island, to be called ARARAT…It is my will that a census of the Jews throughout the world be taken… Those who prefer remaining in the several parts of the world …are permitted to do so. It is, however, expected, that they will aid and encourage the emigration of the young and enterprising…
“The annual gifts which, for many centuries, have been afforded to our pious brethren in our holy city of Jerusalem, to which may God speedily restore us, are to continue with unabated liberality; our seminaries oflearning and institutions of charity in every part of the world, are to be increased, in order that wisdom and virtue may permanently prevail among the chosen people. …
“A capitation tax of three shekels in silver per annum, or one Spanish dollar, is hereby levied upon each Jew throughout the world… for the purpose of defraying the various expenses …
“A judge of Israel shall be chosen once in every four years …I do hereby name the most learned and pious Abraham de Cologna, knight of the Iron Crown of Lombardy, grand Rabbi of the Jews, and president of the consistory of Paris, likewise the grand Rabbi Andrade of Bordeaux, and also our estimable grand Rabbis of the German and Portugal Jews, in London, Rabbis Herschell and Mendoza…
“… ‘Keep the charge of the Lrd thy Gd, to walk in His ways, to keep his statutes and commandments, judgments, and testimonies, as it is written in the laws of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself’ {from Melachim 1, 2:3}…Given at Buffalo…Second day of Tishri, in the year of the world 5586, corresponding with the fifteenth day of September, 1825, and in the fiftieth year of American independence. A. B. Seixes, Sec’y. pro. tem.”
Noah’s signing secretary, Avraham Binyamin Seixas, was Chazan Gershom Seixes’ nephew. Both he and Mordechai grew up listening to Reb Gershom derashos where he commonly reminded the audience of our one true refuge. Although a celebrated American patriot, Reb Gershom affirmed this many times, e.g., in a 1789 derasha, he said:
“We are still in captivity among the different nations of earth. And though we are -through Divine goodness- made equal partakers of the government in these States, still we cannot but view ourselves as captives in comparison to what we were formally and expect to be hereafter…gathered together, as its says in Yishayahu 27:13 (‘Beholdon that day, a great shofar shall blast, those lost in the land of Assyriaand those exiled in Egypt shall come and prostrate themselves before theHashem on the holy mount in Yerushaklim’)”. (For more of such derashos of Reb Gershom, see Louis Ruchames, American JewishQuarterly, vol. 64, 1975, pp. 201-203).
In fact, this same pasuk was consistently repeated in their shul, in
their teffila for the government, composed by Rabbi Hendla Yochanan van Oettingen, a local shochet from Amsterdam:
“…As Thou hast granted to these thirteen States of America everlastingfreedom,
so mayst Thou bring us forth once again from bondage into
freedom, and mayst Thou sound the great horn for our freedom [Isaiah27:13] . . . May the Holy One, blessed be He,restore thepresence ofZion and the order of service to Jerusalem. And may we be granted togaze on the beauty of the Lrd and to behold His sanctuary…”
Noah’s plan would ultimately fail, within months from its establishment. Grand Island was then purchased by…Lewis F. Allen!
Noah mentions one Rabbi Avraham de Colgona, who served as Napoleon’s chief rabbi (successor to the Yad Dovid, Rav Joseph David Sinzheim, who once held this same Napoleonic position -a story for another time). However, Rav Colgona warned that while Noah was a “visionary of good intentions” his idea was “an act of high treason against the Divine Majesty”.
While some in America were intrigued by the idea, many laughed it off. The Charleston Mercury (October, 4, 1825) published a blistering critique of Noah’s plan, signed it ‘Common Sense’, and thereafter this editorial was published in many other papers. Opening with a quote from the Merchant of Venice (a bad sign) and ending with the incongruousness of Noah wishing for both a refuge in America yet also praying for the restoration of Jerusalem – it seems the toxic idea of ‘dual- loyalty’ now entered American thought.
Today, all that remains from that day in 1825 is the three-hundred- pound cornerstone. The frum historian, Dr. Sarna, succinctly concludes this odd chapter of American history by sharing how the “glass coverwhich (now) ‘protects’ the stone is also symbolic. It bespeaks the chimerical unreality and deep inner contradictions which doomedArarat from the start” (Jacksonian Jew, p. 75).
Chapter IX.
YOUston, HOWston, We All Scream for Houston!
Gittin: A Map of History
“Yom chamishi of parshas emor, 5688 (1928), To my dear friend Rav Yechezkal Abramsky, shlita, the av beis din of Slutzk:
I have received the get from the city of Houston in America on behalf of an agunah here [in Rav Moshe Feinstein’s town of Luban]. This get has many problems…”
After seeking and finding an allowance for this questionable get, Rav Moshe concludes:
“Nevertheless, there is still what to investigate, as it is clear that this rav is not proficient in these halachos…I am sending this rav (in Houston) a basic primer on hilchos gittin, for I fear that perhaps some/many other American rabbanim do not know the halachos of correct gittin…Your dear friend, Moshe Feinstein” (shu”t Igros Moshe, ev”h, 1:142)
Rav Moshe then shared with Rav Abramsky a sharp letter he – Rav Moshe – composed and sent to this rabbi in Houston (ibid. 143):
“ To Harav…of Houston, Texas, shlita
I received the get, yet I have yet to deliver it for [quoting from mishlei, 24:31 – thistles had grown all over it; nettles had covered its face’] regarding matters where one should be more careful…but for an agunah we may perhaps allow it bdieved…I will judge you lkaf zechus, excused due to not having a proficient sofer nearby, and perhaps there are other reasons…but I’m confused in that you honor yourself as a ‘baki’(proficient) in gittin’ yet still asked that I send you a primer of its basic laws and then treat it as a joke, clearly [from the get Rav Moshe later received] not even looking at it…”
Rav Moshe then methodically shares with this rabbi each of the many halachic concerns with this get, including how even some of the names in the get were spelled incorrectly. Rav Moshe concludes the printed teshuva with a rare afterward:
“After waiting a long time -until adar of 5689/1929 -and never receiving [anything from this rabbi], because she is an agunah, I relied on what I wrote [to Rav Abramsky]…and she may now marry…may Hashem aid me in never stumbling, heaven forfend, in a matter of halacha, ever”
A noted posek shared with me a fascinating postscript to the above:
Rav Nota Greenblatt – himself a talmud muvhak of Rav Moshe – told this posek that this Houston rav “Iz nit gevein ah ‘katil kanya’ (see Shabbos 95a); eir iz geven ah gantz feiner Talmud chacham -he was no simpleton, but a real talmud chacham”.
Issues with gittin and local rabbanim can still arise. In 2008, I composed the following invitation to all Young Israel rabbanim:
“Rabbanim Chashuvim, “It is a seminal moment for a young rav when HaRav Nota Greenblatt is called upon to assist in a get…having a competent posek on ‘standby’ -willing to fly out at a moment’s notice – is an invaluable resource…one small error on our part can, for example, create a get me’usah, R”l.
..We have arranged a ‘shiur klali’ on the topic of ‘Gittin L’Maaseh’ to be delivered by Rav Greenblatt, and open only to rabbannim…primarily focusing on matters critical for the ‘local rav’. This is an exceptional opportunity…”
Aside for the obvious, the patient reader will be rewarded with a deeper connection the above -and what follows – has with the history of our early rabbanim.
In gittin, exactitude and meticulousness are indispensable; an error of omission or commission in any number of details can void the divorce contract in its entirety, possibly leading to the sullying of kedushas Yisroel, R”l.
Simply determining the name(s) and spelling(s) can be mystifying to even the most erudite masmid.
For instance, does ‘Monsey’ derive from the Munsee Indians (thereby necessitating an aleph)? Why is Muncie, Indiana spelled differently? (For the full story behind Monsey’s first get, The Jewish Observer, kislev 1976, by Rav Aryeh Kaplan, ‘A Get In Monsey’, p. 15- 19)
Related confusion was found in Brisk, which was known by three different names! (On Brisk, see Pischei Teshuva, even haezer, siman, 128:31)
It is astonishing to consider that even the uncommon expertise of ‘historical etymology’ becomes indispensable in writing gittin – ‘hufuch buh’, indeed!
I will share two examples, which will both show its complexity and serve the reader in understanding the connection these halachos have with our history.
A get will include both a city’s name and the name(s) of its water sources (see shu”t HaRan 42 with Shulchan Aruch, ibid.; cf. shu”t HaRosh 45;21). Not only does this remove the concern of confusing a get with that of another other city of the same name, but also because of consistency, as water sources will often maintain their original designations, even if/when its nearby city changes its name in the future.
Nevertheless, shailos abound, for instance, Queens and Brooklyn include the phrase ‘…al nehar east river…’EDITOR-keep ellipses, as more waters are named before and after. While this seems redundant – as ‘nehar’ already means river or lake, thus translating to ‘East River river’, Rav Moshe Feinstein asserts that ‘east’ is not seen as a descriptive alone, but part of its title (Igros Moshe, even haezer 4:101, end).
What about Houston, Texas -the city Rav Moshe mentioned above, in 1928? On the one hand, its pronounced youston, so yud, vav, samech, tes, nun would be its get spelling. On the other hand, on the Lower East Side is the famed ‘Houston Street’, which is pronounced howston! This shift in pronunciation derives from their two distinct origins. The street is named for one of America’s founding fathers, George Houston (d. 1813), who indeed pronounced it howston. The southern city is named for the Texas revolutionary general Sam Houston (d. 1863), who pronounced it youston!
While we spell it in a get ‘youston’ (yud, vav, samech…), in Rav Moshe’s first teshuva above he first spells it ‘howston’ (hei, vav, yud…), switching in a later teshuva to the way we spell it today.
In the sefer Ha’aretz L’Areha, the posek and get expert Rav Menachem Mendel Senderovic, shlita, shares a 1963 get from Houston still spelling it ‘howston’, although he agrees with the ‘you’ spelling utilized today (p. 36, s.v. ‘houston’).
All of the above should make the point that to discover who the early talmidei chachamim were in any given city, one can start by discovering said city’s earliest get. Indeed, this sefer is one of my ‘go-to’ references for this summer series.
In Buffalo -the city we have spent this summer discussing – some of the earliest gittin were written by Rav Dov Ber Zuckerman (see ibid. p. 9, s.v. ‘buffalo’).
Who was this gaon? And who were the others that served this city after the passing of the already discussed rebbe, Rav Rabinovitch, and Vilna’s Rav Franklin?
The reader may be surprised…
Chapter X.
Kotler/Kotler, Singer/Singer The Cycles of History & Men of Mystery
“‘Singer’ iz g’bleibin en ‘Sing Sing’” – {Singer’ is now in Sing-Sing [a New York prison] – February 26, 1935 edition of Der Morgon Journal}
The above is one of the quirkiest headlines I have come across, and signifying the perils encountered when researching records. This ‘Singer’ is not the Rav Singer about whom we will be discussing below. Similar sounding names from a focused time-period can often lead to error or confusion.
I was researching one R’ Yehoshua Heschel (Halbert) Singer, a chazan from Riga who arrived in Buffalo, New York in the 1890’s, where he served as chazan in the Bnei Brith Shul on Hickory Street (Buffalo Jewish Review, September 30th 1931, p. 48).
Why research a turn-of-the-century Buffalo chazzan? Well, as we shall see, R’ Singer was a massive talmud chacham, publishing amazing sefarim during his Buffalo tenure. Additionally, these sefarim had haskamos from the likes of the Aderes and Rav Shlomo Nosson Kotler (more on the latter below).
We seem to encounter a version of ‘maaseh avos siman l’banim’ when learning about our Torah history, and poignantly this is not the first ‘Cantor Singer’ and a ‘Rav Kotler’ we have examined. Three years ago, I had the privilege to write a cover feature for Ami about Rav Shlomo Singer, familiar to any talmud of HaRav Meir Stern, zol gezunt zein, as this retired ‘cantor’ -today the rosh yeshiva of PTI in Passaic – would attend every shiur. I shared how he and Rav Shneur Kotler found a reel-to-reel recorder, created a surreptitious hole in the ceiling, and lowered a microphone into Rav Aron’s shiur room – allowing bachurim the amazing opportunity to chazer until they ‘got it’. A plan was conceived to let the rosh yeshiva know about these recordings. On Purim, with Rav Aron in attendance, a bachur delivered a shiur mimicking the rosh yeshiva’ s style and speech patterns (all in good humor). What Rav Aron didn’t know is that instead of speaking this bachur was mouthing a recording of Rav Aron from a covertly recorded shiur! Rav Aron commented that this was far from ‘Purim Torah’, rather substantive material! Coming from Kletzk, such technology wasn’t on his holy mind. The bachurim watched as it suddenly it dawned on their rosh yeshiva that he was listening to himself! Rav Aron didn’t get upset, rather had them assure him that they would protect all such recordings. It is from these reel-to-reel tapes that BMG publishes much of Rav Aron’s writings (i.e. Mishnas Rav Aaron)!
I find it amazing, maybe Providential, that seventy-years earlier, another Cantor Singer and Rav Kotler helped Torah flourish in America.
Before Buffalo, our turn-of-the-century R’ Singer spent significant time in the city of Poneviztch. Rav Eliyahu Dovid Rabinowitz-Teumim, known by his acronym the ‘Aderes’ shares this fact in his glowing 1903 haskama to R’ Singer’s sefer Mishneh Zikaron. The Aderes was then living in Yerushalaim, serving as the sgan to Rav Shmuel Salant. Woefully, although the Aderes arrived to eventually take over for the aging Rav Salant, he would pre-decease him; niftar at just sixty-two years old, in 1905.
The Aderes there writes: “Although I do not write haskamos for works on derush and agada -as they demand serious review and I do not have that time -I have here made an exception…for the great darshan and one crowned with a good reputation, Rav Yehoshua Heshel Singer, now serving as chazan in the city of Buffalo, in America. I know him and his family as yorei shomyaim from my time in Ponevitzch, where I served for thirty-three years…What I have seen from this volume is sweet and his insights distinctive … this sefer’ s goal is to bring our brethren close to avinu sh’ bshomayim…”
Several years earlier, he published another sefer from Buffalo titled Zikaron B’ sefer,, where one of the haskamos came from Rav Shlomo Nosson Kotler (d. 1945), who HaRav Lazer Gordon of Telz called the ‘Ketzos’ of our generation.
Even more peculiar -and surprising that no one points out – is that in 1896 this Rav ‘Kotler’ would become the first rosh yeshiva of… Yeshivas Yitzchak Elchonon! Rav Spector was niftar in the early spring of 1896, and the graduates of Yeshivas Eitz Chaim (an elementary school) wanted to continue their learning in a formal setting, and deciding to name their new yeshiva in this gadol’ s name.
That two major institutions in America had a founding rosh yeshiva by the same rare surname is…odd? Serendipitous? Coincidental? Meaningless?
Before that, and at the time of his haskama, Rav S.N. Kotler moved from Lita to New York to serve as the sgan for Rav Yaakov Yosef. Speaking of last names, Rav Kotler writes the following in his haskama for R’ Singer’s fist Buffalo sefer:
“Behold, I come as the messenger for the great gaon Rav Yaakov ‘Yozuhf’, the rav hakollel of the state of New York”. Rav Kotler’s odd spelling of Rav Yaakov ‘Yosef’ may resolve a question I’ve had for years: what was RJJ’s last name? R’ Kotler’s spelling ‘Yosef’ as yud, aleph, zayin, ayin, peh – יאזעף – may demonstrate that ‘Yosef/Yozuhf was his last name: Yosuhf, Rav Yaakov!)
R’ Kotler mentions that Rav Singer was a chazan in Buffalo, and then writes that this sefer will “…inspire/light the hearts of bnei yisroel toward avinu sheboshamiym”.
Rav Kotler then displays his own lomdus. “To prove that I perused this volume, I will share a thought on Rav Singer’s theory as to why eat dairy on Shavuos -suggesting it’s because until matan Torah dairy was forbidden, considered eiver min hachai. This is ostensibly, a brilliant peshat.”
He then proceeds to uproot this theory, demonstrating a tautology in Rav Singer’s assertion:
“But the truth is that even before matan torah dairy would be allowed, for the entire discussion in the gemara (bechoros 5bff) of ‘kolhayotzei min hatmaei etc’ (what comes from a non-kosher animal is not kosher, and what comes from a kosher animal is kosher) is only learned from the Torah itself, and is the very rule that could cause one to even condsider milk as an eiver …meaning that only before mattan Torah was its permissibility clear”!
I was unable to discover more about Rav Singer. He was niftar on the 8th of teves 5685 (1925) and is buried near the Buffalo rebbe. (As for the life of Rav Shlomo Nosson Kotler, this will have to wait for another time, iy”H)
Another Buffalo personage from around this period is one R’ Aron Yosef Bloch, who also wrote several sefarim in Buffalo, and is a mystery. His sefarim are powerful and poetic. In 1924 the shaar blatt to his sefer Hamavchin states that he has dwelled in America already for thirty-two years!
Before this sefer he wrote an anonymous sefer titled Likutei R”iav (an acronym for Rav Aron Yosef Bloch).
Rav Heschel Greenberg, who has served as a shliach in Buffalo for the past fifty years, showed me from his vast library another sefer written by this same Rav Bloch. It’s an edition of the Chayay Adam by Rav Danzig with Rav Bloch’s commentary, titled Lev Adam. I have been unable to find this sefer anywhere else, nor have I been able to discover any more information about this enigmatic Rav Bloch.
While this column’s circles of history have been exorbitant enough, I would be remiss not to point out the fortuitousness that Rav Greenberg’s library aided me in writing this chapter. In the 1930’s, Rav Greenberg’s father, the gaon Rav Meir Greenberg zt”l, contacted the-then Scranton-living Rav Dovid Yehudah Singer – the father of presnt-day’s, Rav Singer, shlita of Passaic- urging him to move to a makom Torah so that his children can become bnei Torah!
It all comes full circle! While we have not yet arrived at the more recent rabbanim of Buffalo-and the mesadrei gittin alluded to in the last chapter -this will have to wait until the next monograph, iy”H.
We are all taught as children about the heroine within the story of Chanukah, Yehudis. As we will show, there is a lot more here than meets the eye.
I. THE KARTOFFEL KERFUFFLE Take a poll on what is the most common Chanukah food staple, and
latkes would come in at number one, with sufganiyot nipping at their heels. However, fried potatoes are a very recent addition to Chanukah. While most assume that potatoes were first brought to Europe either
by the sixteenth-century conquistadors or by Sir Walter Raleigh, either way they only reached widespread use during the mid-1700s. Indeed, the fact that most of us make the berachah Ha’adamah on potatoes proves how late potatoes entered Jewish kitchens.
Briefly, some argue that the proper berachah should be Shehakol, like mushrooms. This is due to several halachic factors, and especially the fact that close to one thousand years ago the Aruch used an odd term to refer to these truffles: “tartfulls” (which I always assumed was simply a transliteration of “truffle.”)
Some, especially early Chassidishe poskim, asserted that the Aruch was referring to a kartoffel, a term used for the lowly potato. While there are a number of reasons that most poskim argued with Shehakol being the berachah for potatoes, an important factor was the point that the Aruch could never have been referring to a potato, as he did not even know what they were back then.
If latkes, while a nice minhag, do not and could not have any provenance in classic minhagei Yisrael—and are certainly not brought in the Shulchan Aruch—is there any truly halachic food on Chanukah? Yes, there is!
II. CHEESE, PLEASE
The Rama makes an interesting aside in the Shulchan Aruch.2 While discussing the lack of an official obligation to make a seudah on Chanukah, the Rama adds that there is an inyan to be marbeh b’seudos and to eat cheese on Chanukah. We have finally found a clear minhag relating to food on Chanukah.
The explanation for this minhag is likely familiar to many. Cheese was one of the foods Yehudis fed the enemy so as to later trap and kill him. The Mishnah Berurah fills in the rest of the story: “Yehudis was the daughter of Yochanan Kohen Gadol and there was a law…so she fed cheese to a leading general so as to tire him. She chopped off his head [causing] the enemy to flee.”3 This is no small matter, and it is more than a story.
The Gemara teaches that women are also obligated in mitzvas neir Chanukah because “they, too, were in this miracle.”4 While many Rishonim, like the Ritva,5 understand this simply to mean that they, like the rest of Klal Yisrael, were in turmoil, Rashi understands the reasoning differently. He explains that it means that they were at the center of our salvation. Without mentioning Yehudis by name, he gives us this same story as the reason that women are obligated in Chanukah lights.
The Ran6 goes one step further, quoting an unknown Midrash. While he, too, does not mention her name, he does add to the story by claiming the heroine was the daughter of Yochanan Kohen Gadol. A few years later, the anonymous sefer Kol Bo puts it all together as we know the story today, resulting in the heroine being identified as Yehudis the daughter of Yochanan Kohen Gadol.
In fact, Tosafos7 takes women’s centrality to Chanukah one step further. In the name of the Rashbam, it is stated that on both Chanukah and Purim, we were only saved because of the two famous women in each story, and for this reason, all women are obligated in these days, even though they are mitzvos bound by time. Rav Eliyahu Hakohen M’Izmir, the Orah V’Simchah, even wonders why, then, it doesn’t say in Al Hanissim
“Bimei Mattisyahu v’Yehudis”!8
III. A CHANUKAH CHUMRA FOR WOMEN
Because of the above, another halachah is codified. The Shulchan Aruch9 brings a minhag that women should refrain from doing melachah (accord- ing to most this only includes that which would also be forbidden on Chol Hamoed) during the first half hour that the Chanukah neiros are burning. Many wonder why this halachah/minhag is codified to apply specifically to women. While the Be’er Hagolah and many others simply explain that this is because it is more common that they are home at that time and therefore should have a reminder that they cannot benefit from these lights, others give another reason.
The Mishnah Berurah explains: “This minhag is unique to women be- cause the neis happened through them!”10 Again, we see their centrality to this Yom Tov.11
IV. WHO WAS YEHUDIS? WHO WAS YOCHANAN?
If Yehudis was the daughter of Yochanan Kohen Gadol, would that not make Mattisyahu her brother? After all, we say in Al Hanissim, “Bimei Mattisyahu ben Yochanan Kohen Gadol.” In addition, which Yochanan is this? The Gemara teaches that one should not trust in himself until he dies, for Yochanan was a tzaddik and served as Kohen Gadol and then became a Tzeduki at the end of his life!12 Could this be the father of Mattisyahu, the father of Yehudis? If so, why would we mention him in a tefillah of praise? He left Toras Chazal!
The Imrei Noam13 brings from the Vilna Gaon, and the same is brought in the Seder Hadoros, that in truth there were two Yochanans. The first is the one we mention in Al Hanissim. Mattisyahu would then have a grand- son that he would name after the baby’s great-grandfather, Yochanan. It was this second Yochanan who would go on to become a Tzeduki.14 There are still others15 who say that this Yochanan was indeed one and the same as the Tzeduki, and they each offer varying explanations as to why we still mention him by name in such a lofty tefillah recounting this neis.
But the mystery is not yet over. Many wonder—like Rashi and others who assert that Yehudis’s story is so central to the neis—why Chazal do not mention it at all. It’s not even found in Megillas Antiochus. (Although, I would answer that the Ran indeed did seem to have a Midrash that discussed the story.)
The Ben Ish Chai suggests that the story of Yehudis took place many years earlier and is only being remembered on Chanukah. This explana- tion requires further study, for it would make her father being named Yochanan Kohen Gadol a tremendous coincidence. It would also call into question Rashi’s view regarding the women’s obligation in mitzvas Chanukah being due to the story of Yehudis being so central to the neis. However, even the Ben Ish Chai still maintains that this story—although not during the classic Chanukah story—took place during the Greek rule over us.
This is as opposed to Sefer Yehudis (of unclear origin, see below), which places her events in the time of Nevuchadnetzar. Indeed, Rav Yaakov Emden also states that this event took place during Bayis Rishon.16 Even if, according to other sources, this incident indeed took place during the Chanukah story, the piyut for the second Shabbos Chanukah names her Chanah, brother of Yehudah Hamacabi, continuing to add to the confusion.
The Aruch Hashulchan combines many versions of these events and says that (as the first piyut for Shabbos Chanukah teaches) the Greek king was livid when he heard how the Jews killed his general after the wedding of the daughter of the Kohen Gadol; at a later time in the story, there was a woman named Yehudis who fed the enemy dairy. Like the Ben Ish Chai, he is asserting that these events did happen around the time of Chanukah, although not necessarily during the main events.
In Megillas Taanis (the earliest work of Torah She’baal Peh), the story of Yehudis is recorded (by the date 17th of Elul) without her name, only describing the woman as the daughter of Yochanan Kohen Gadol. It also states that it was her brother Mattisyahu who avenged an evil act against her. This, to me, seems most authoritative and is also in line with the piyut mentioned by the Aruch Hashulchan. As for Yehudis, as he states, she must have been another woman who later took matters into her own hands.
As we say each Chanukah and Purim when we delve into their various mysteries, there is so much more to minhag Yisrael than meets the eye. One thing is for sure: this Yom Tov, like Purim and geulas Mitzrayim, could not have ever occurred without nashim tzidkaniyos.
NOTES
2 Shulchan Aruch 670:2.
3 Mishnah Berurah, ad loc., seif katan 10.
4 Shabbos 23a.
5 See also Tosafos to Pesachim 108b.
6 Ad loc. Megillah 4a.
8 See also Yafeh L’Lev 5:682:2, as brought in Shiltei Gibborim to the Mordechai on the second perek of Shabbos.
9 Shulchan Aruch, ad loc., seif 1.
10 Mishnah Berurah, ad loc., seif katan 3.
11 See also Pardes Yosef, Chanukah, pp. 149–50.12 Berachos 29a.
13 Ibid.
14 In a later chapter, “Chanukah’s Many Bracketed Words: Part II,” we further discuss who this Yochanan was and how his name—and perhaps more—can be included in our siddur.
15 The B’nei Yissaschar as brought by the Klausenberger Rebbe in Divrei Yatziv, Orach Chaim 282; Divrei Shaul; Rav Sternbuch in Moadim U’Zemanim 2:137.Mor U’Ketziah 670.
For more on this theme, see link for: “Jews and ‘Dual Loyalty’“
Rabbi Moshe Taub
Published in Ami Magazine, 2024
“I’m no Nazi. I am an idealist!”
So asserted on Wilfried Böse, one of two Germans who, along with two Arab Palestinians, hijacked Air France Flight 139 on its way from Tel Aviv to Paris in 1976.
His preposterous comment was made even more ludicrous by the fact that is was said to a Holocaust survivor.
Böse was separating the Jewish and non-Jewish passengers (naturally, they were not separated by Israeli vs non-Israelis, mind you; rather by ‘Jew’ and ‘non-Jew’), when this older survivor rolled up his sleeve to display the numbers the Nazis had tattooed on his arm. This forced Wilfried Böse to come face-to -face with his native country’s past evil -an evil he was now perpetuating, causing his above remark (see: Time Magazine, “Hitler’s Children,” August 8, 1977).
One would imagine that similar machinations of self-delusion and cognitive dissonance go through the minds of some of the modern protesters at our universities as they lay down to sleep each night. Even if they are informed that some of their Jewish brethren on campus are in fear, they comfort themselves with the soft lullabies of—“I am but an idealist”.
I challenge the reader to guess which ‘crime’ committed by the Jewish State led to the following (an excerpt) notes of consideration undertaken against Israel by the United Nations Security Council:
“The Security Council considered the matter at five meetings held between 9 and 14 July 1976. The representatives of Cuba, the Federal Republic of Germany, Guinea, India, Israel, Kenya, Mauritania, Mauritius, Qatar, Somalia, Uganda, the United Republic of Cameroon and Yugoslavia were invited, at their request, to participate in the discussion without the right to vote. The case before the Council raised a number of complex issues… He hoped that the Council would find a way to point the world community in a constructive direction…”
What had Israel done this time?
One may think this incident involved the Yom Kippur War and the lands that had not yet been exchanged. Or maybe it was about the unverified-yet-well-known nuclear developments in Israel.
No.
The above was from July 9-14, 1976, when the United Nation’s many voting members were aghast at Israel’s miraculous rescue of the hostages in Entebbe!
Here is an excerpt from the United Nations yearbook (emphases mine):
“The representative of Qatar, who spoke on behalf of the Arab group of Member States, said the Council was concerned not with the hijacking but with the fact that a Member State had violated the territorial integrity of another Member State by flagrantly landing its troops on that State’s territory and menacing its population and security forces.
“While the Israeli murderers were preparing for their aggression… [In] its surprise attack on this unsuspecting, peaceful country in the heart of Africa…[an] illegal act of state terrorism…flagrant violation of international law…[and] called upon the Security Council to condemn Israel in the strongest possible terms…and consider sanctions against this longtime violator of the United Nations Charter and of international law.
“A number of speakers—Benin, China, Cuba, Guinea, Mauritius, Romania, the USSR, the United Republic of Tanzania, and others—made the point that it was inadmissible to react to terrorist acts of individuals or groups, which had been condemned by the international community, by another terrorist attack. Israel’s action, they said, was a premeditated and naked act of aggression committed against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda; they called on the Council to condemn the action in the most vigorous manner and compel Israel to pay compensation for the damage inflicted on Uganda…
“The Chinese representative [!!} said that…the Israeli Zionists had subjected the Palestinian and other Arab peoples to frenzied aggression and brutal massacre. Whatever excuses they might find to justify and whitewash their criminal acts of aggression were completely untenable and of no avail…”
Yearbook of the United Nations, Vol. 30, 1976, pp. 315-320
———————
Many Jews today are experiencing growing anxiety as they watch young Americans show support for those who brutally target and kill Jews. Even the events of October 7th -we are now told -must be given ‘context’, as if the world should ever not respond with disgust and fear from such actions.
No Jew that I know, for instance, would support someone escaping a Nazi death camp to only then go inside the town of Auschwitz and butcher children, or hold them in tunnels for years.
For Jews it is easy: should Israel support the sanctioned rape, baby-hostage-taking, and targeted murder of Palestinians then virtually every synagogue will take down their Israeli flags. No one would be angrier than Jews at having their faith spit-upon in such a manner, having children created in ‘the image of Gd’ used for land-sport. We would be the first to protest.
A small part of me believes that the world deep down is aware that the very things that many are now falsely libeling Jews with are the very actions Jews have been at the forefront of fighting against and protecting the world from. More than projection, they are inverting our nature and watching us twist and turn, dizzy with how to even respond to such horrid lies.
+_____________________________________
Alas, they don’t make antisemties as they used to.
The level of ignorance found among modern day Israel-haters is astounding (I’m not reffering to Israel-dislikers, disagree-ers, policies, or the like; indeed there are more of those among Jews than Gentiles!)
From my experience, most protesters are not even informed to the most basic of October 7th being an attack not on disputed territory or land.
Regrettably, that information would anyway often not change minds, as, to most arguments, they often simply retort, “All of the land belongs to the Palestinians…”, or, “What did you expect they would do when treated the way they are by Israel for all these years?”?
Forgetting the sheer sophistry of such a position for a moment, one has to wonder where their agreeable professors and mentors are. Have they never prepared these shepherded interlocutors with basic facts, or a map? Have they not stress-tested their arguments, if only to make them more persuadable to the genuinely curious?
When confronted with such hatred and ignorance, I seek to distill my points down to the following 7 questions:
“Even if you believe it is all Palestinian land, is everything and anything allowed in such cases, and against civilians, even against those citizens dedicated to this very struggle (as was the case regarding the victims of Oct. 7)? If not, which tactics would be off the table? Why?”
“May all peoples who argue or feel to be in a similar position respond in kind, in the same manner? -E.g. Kashmir, Rwanda, Western Sahara…Native Americans, etc. – If not, why not? And, if not, how will you now prevent that after offering your support here?
May Israeli’s who argue or feel that Arabs are on their land now target Arabs for killings, rapes, and the maiming of innocents? If not, why not? (The interlocutor would often be shocked to learn that two million such Israeli citizens exist).
If they argue, “But this is different…”, explain that this is why we have set and pre-stated morals. For example, “Just because you understand that the father who killed his child’s victimizer is different than other cases does not mean your support to let him walk will not open a pandora’s box of other, less moral, vengeful acts, nor will such posturing and equivocating prevent your justifications to lead to a far more dangerous society”.
“If you get your way, would Jews be able live on Palestinian land, as Arabs do on Israeli?”
“Why did the Israelis remove the remains and graves of buried Jews when they annexed Gaza in 2005?” (If they even know Israel gave them all of Gaza then)
“How would you want America to respond to the exact same circumstances, with hostages, held in an urban area, aided by citizen protection, tunnels, etc.?”
____________________________________
In one of the schools where I teach, a student approached me and said anxiously, “There is so much chaos. It’s so scary!”
I asked the students in the class to take their seats and spoke to them all. I told them that in Shemoneh Esrei, we offer thanks in Modim. It is easy to relate to the gratitude described there, except for one line: “Al chayeinu hamesurim b’yadecha v’al nishmoseinu hapekudos lach”—we thank Hashem for our lives, which are in His hands, and for our souls, which are entrusted to Him.
It would be understandable if this statement appeared in Tachanun or in U’nesaneh Tokef, but why here? Are we thanking Hashem for the fact that He may decide to take us to the Olam Ha’emes at any moment?
The answer seems to be that this part of the tefillah is for moments like the ones we are experiencing now, when we are at war and our enemies abound, when life seems capricious, when the arbitrary nature of suffering keeps us up at night. At times like this, we thank Hashem that He is in control. Chazal state that only Hashem has the keys to life and death, and He gives them to no one else (Taanis 2).
Although we may not understand the reason for what is happening, we do know He has a plan.
Hostage-taking is not new to the Jewish people. A number of people in Chumash experienced this horror—Lot, Sarah Imeinu, Dina. (Interestingly, the Rambam, the Ramban and the Maharal, among others, discuss the issue of allowing civilian casualties during a war, one purpose of which would be to save even a single hostage.)
And then there was Yosef. Last week was the yahrtzeit of Rachel Imeinu (according to many; cf. Rashi on Bereishis 48:7 with Pesikta Rabbasi).The following Chazal, which discusses the initial moments of Yosef’s capture by the Yishma’elim, is fitting for this moment(Sefer Hayashar, Vayeishev, ch. 8).
“And the Yishma’elimcontinued their journey and passed Efrat, where Rachel was buried. Yosef ran to the grave, falling and weeping upon it. He cried out upon his mother’s grave, saying, ‘Oh, my mother! My mother, you who gave me birth to me! Awake! Arise now! See how your son has been sold into slavery with no one to have compassion upon him. Oh, arise! Look at your son! Weep with me in my affliction!…
“‘Oh, my mother! Rouse! Awaken! [I have been] torn away from my father… Bring my complaints before Hashem! See…who is to be condemned. Arise! Oh, my mother, awaken from torpor! Distinguish my father, whose soul is with me this day, and comfort him and console his heart.’
“Yosef continued to cry aloud and to weep bitterly upon his mother’s grave. From the bitterness of his heart, he finally became silent, like a stone upon the grave.
“Yosef then heard a voice speaking to him, answering him in a voice of weeping and prayer: ‘My son! Yosef! Oh, my son! I haveheard the voice of your weeping and crying, and I haveseen your tears, and I haveseen your affliction. Oh, my son, I amgrieved for your sake… Now a new sorrow has been added to my sorrow.
“‘Now, my son Yosef, place your hope in Hashem… Do not fear, for Hashem is with you to deliver you from all trouble…’”
The navi informs us (Yirmeyahu 31:14, 15): “So says Hashem: A voice is heard on high, a lamentation, a bitter weeping; it is Rachel weeping for her children, and she refuses to be comforted for her children while they are not comforted. ‘Know that there is hope for your future,’ says the Lord, ‘and the children shall return to their own border.’”
Chazal (Pesikta #24 on Eichah Rabbah) share Rachel’s tefillah with us. She reminds Hashem, “It is revealed before You that Your servant Yaakov treasured me greatly and worked for my father seven years for me. When those seven years were completed and the time for my marriage arrived, Lavan plotted to exchange my sister for me. This plot was very difficult for me, and I gave Yaakov a signal. Afterward, I regretted what I had done, and I had mercy on my sister…”
Immediately Hashem’s rachamim was aroused, and He said, “For you, Rachel, I will restore Israel to its place.”
On Simchas Torah this year, we were expecting a chasanTorah; we were looking forward to dancing after weeks of teshuvah and hard work. Instead we were met with tragedy and pain.
Perhaps this is the reason we choose Rachel as our advocate in galus. She understands the feeling of hope and excitement, of trust and anticipation—and she understands what it means to have her hopes torn asunder.
May Hashem accept her cries once more and bring the yeshuah we so desperately need. ●
The Books of Megillos, Maccabees, Antioches and More
December, 2023
Rabbi Moshe Taub
There is something about the story of Chanukah.
Of all the events that we commemorate each year, there is no doubt that Chanukah is the one that many know the least about.As a child, I vividly recall my initial confusion when I first discovered that the events of Chanukah took place well after the story of Purim, and then, as I got older, discerning the dearth of a record of the events surrounding these events that are recorded by chazal. It only became more confounding from there. Famously, the gemara only discusses, briefly, the ness of the oil (Shabbos 22b), while in al hanissim only the milchama is mentioned -and again, very pithily. Due to the ambiguity of these days in general, and its story in particluler, we have used this time of year to discuss these days’ many, many obscurities, largely choosing topics based on the most common questions of Chanukah I was receiving in shul each year. We have discussed the history of fried foods, the story of Chana/Yehudis, who was Matisyahu koheingadol, etc.
There has been one subject, however, that I have thus far avoided. While questions relating to this subject are always from the most common I receive – and although its more basic answer is known – I have avoided it as it nevertheless opens a pandora’s box of intrigue and history.
“Why is there no sefer in tanach detailing the events of Chanukah?”.
Of course, the answer is rudimentary: Chanukah took place after the era of neviim and long after the sifreitanach had been canonized and concluded, therefore such a sefer would be an nonstarter.
But here comes the natural follow-up question: “So where do we get our mesorah on these events?”
This is a complex question that will take (at least) the next two weeks of Chanukah issues to uncover.
Let us start with megillas taanis, which may be from the earliest recording from our mesorah of the events
Chazal share that Chanukah -along with many other celebratory dates initially found in megillas taanis -were nullified after the destruction of the second beis hamikdosh. Remarkably, chazal explain in the name of Rav Yosef that it was only due to an unexpected anomaly that the klal decided to nevertheless keep Chanukah for generations (rosh hashana 18b).
Megillastaanis was written during the time of the second beis hamikdosh, andcompleted by the tanna Chananya ben Chizkiya and delineates more than thirty joyous dates and salvations that have occurred to the our nation.
Before sharing what is stated there about Chanukah, it is critical to share with the reader that, according to the Chasam Sofer, megillas taanis was written before torah sh’baal peh was chronicled. It was therefore only written like a luach; divided into the months of the year, with a sentence or two by certain dates. It was only later, during the period of the (later) tennaim, that the events behind these brief words were expounded upon in greater detail. For this reason, he explains, the gemara will quote from this megillah with the words ‘d’ksiv’ (as is written) – a phrase usually reserved for text from tanach or other holy catalogue. However, he continues, when quoting from the fuller sections of this megillah, the gemara uses terms like ‘tanya’, which is reserved for braissos and other tannaic writings (see Chasam Sofer to rosh hashnah 18b and Maharitz Chiyus, maamer Divrei Neviim, Divrei Kabala; see the introduction to the Oz V’Hadar edition of megillas taanis for further views).
With this in mind, the earlier prose reads simply as follows:
“On the twenty fifth of the month is Chanukah, eight days on which we do not offer hespeidim”.
The added section by early chazal expands on this, as says:
“When the Syrian-Greeks entered the heichel they made all the oil impure. Then, the chashmonaim overwhelmed them, and defeated them. They searched and could not find any [oil] but one container, that rested with the kohein gadol’s seal, and that was not made impure. However, there was only enough for one day, yet a ness happneed where it lasted for eight. The next year, the established this as a yom tov…At the time of the ness they sang praises of thanksgiving…Since the Syrian-Greeks had defiled all the vessels, there was nothing with which to light. When the chashmoniam were victorious, they brought seven spits of iron and covered them with tin and began to light [as a makeshift menorah]…”
It goes on to record the obligation in the recital of hallel for each day, how we light the menorah in our homes, and the time frame of ‘mishetaka hachama ad sh’tichelh regel min hashuk’. According to the meforshim, the few references in shas to Chanukah are taken directly from here.
However, the reader may still not be satisfied, as they surely have heard more details regarding the Chanukah vents than those recorded above.
Where did these details come from?
Recently, a retired couple in my shul sold their empty-nest home after several decades in the neighborhood. They called me to offer that I look through any sefarim before being sending them to shaimos. I was delighted to discover disparate items such as first-issue records of Yosseleh Rosenblatt, manuals for Jewish soldiers in World War II, and cheder volumes from pre-War New York.
One sefer in particular caught my eye. It was a pocket size book, black, and very thin -maybe fifty pages -in size. Its back jacket translated into English what was written on the front. “Megillas Antioches; Ness Chanukah – Scroll of Antioches -Miracle of Chanukah”.
Now, many readers may be aware of this ‘megilla’ (and, if not, we will explain below), but what was even more fascinating about this volume is what is written underneath its title: ‘Mesivta Tiferes Yerushalim, 145-147 East Broadway New York City. 1936’.
While most would associate this yeshiva with Rav Moshe Feinstein, this volume was published about twelve months before Rav Moshe would arrive in America (the following kislev, in fact). The leader of MTJ at that time was Rav Yosef Adler, who wrote a historical introduction to this volume for this yeshiva publication.
A talmid of Volozion, Rav Adler was a massive talmudchacham who arrived in America around 1910 (Toldos Anshe Shem, p. 1). While serving as a rav in New York, in 1924 he began teaching at Torah V’Daas. It was in 1931 when he was hired by MTJ. Soon before his shocking death in 1938 (by drowning) he hired Rav Moshe Feinstein, explaining to his talmidim that “No matter how much you continue to grow in their learning, you shall never surpass him!”
He writes (translated):
“The chacham Tzvi Fillipowski discovered the manuscript of an Aramaic megilas antioches in the British Museum in London…Now the Mesivta Tifferes Yerushalim in New York accepted upon itself to distribute among the Jews this megillah in an Aramaic, lashon kodosh and a new English translation. This so that we may know the true events of the miracle of Chanukah and the miracle of the oil from its most original source, from this megila whose ancient kedusha hovers above it. For it, and only it, has been seen through the eyes of our chazal…therefore it is a great mitzvah to print and publicize this volume, so that Jews do not follow the apocrypha…Perhaps it is due to the long-suffering exile, and our beaten down spirit, that this sefer is not known to most..”
Just what is megillas Antioches? Who wrote it? Why do we not read it publicly on Chanukah? And, what about The Books of Maccabees?
While Rav Adler references a specific edition of this sefer (from Tzvi Hersh Filipowski, London), this ‘megillah’ had been known-and used-for millennia.
It opens with the familier refrain borrowed from esther: ‘Vayehi bi’mey antioches melech yavan, melech gadol v’chazak hayah v’sakif b’memshalto, v’chol ha’melachim yishm’u lo-And it came to pass in the days of Antiokhus, king of Greece, the great and mighty monarch, firm ruler over his dominion, to whom all kings hearkened”
first maamer to Chanukah (Pachad Yitzchok, 1). There, Rav Hutner first asks an additional question: why didn’t the anshei knesseshagedolah allow parts of the story of Chanukah to be canonized in tanach?
Some may feel that this question is far simpler to answer than our first: the books of tanach may only include those written in the era of nevuah. Since all prophecy ceased at the beginning of the second beishamikdosh, there was no way to include the Chanukah narrative together with other sifreikodesh written with nevuah/ruachhakodesh.
Yet, Rav Hutner points out that it is deeper than that. Chazal tell us “Why is Esther compared to the morning (Tehillim 22:1)? To teach us that just as morning ends the night, so too Esther was the end of miracles.” In response to this teaching, the gemara asks, “But what about Chanukah?” The gemara answers cryptically, “We meant to say that Purim was the last of the Nissim to be recorded in writing” (Yoma 29a).
With this gemara, Rav Hutner answers both questions. When the gemara shares that Chanukah was not given to be written down, it is describing the very essence of this yomtov.
The Greeks failed because while one can try to besmirch the value of the written Torah by watering it down with their translation (the Septuagint) and with their cultural influences, one can never take away our true secret of survival –Torah sh’baal peh, and mesorah. Because this is the very element that saved us -saves us still! -we represent this fundamental part of the story of Chanukah by maintaining a largely oral tradition regarding its own events -both in tanach and in mishneh! The Sefas Emes has a similar idea (year ‘684)
One of my father-in-law’s rebbeim in high school is the prolific Rav Yitzchak Sender. In one of his sefarim, he shares something remarkable.The term ‘Chanukah’ is given many meanings, such as chanu choff hei –they rested (from war) on the 25th (of kislev), however it also represents something deeper.
There are twenty-four books in tanach, the anshei knesses hagedolah ‘rested’ for the 25th book -the story of Chanukah! In fact, there is even a greater allusion to this. ‘Chanukah’ stands for ‘cheis’, eight (books) in ‘nun’ nevium; ‘vav’, six (books) in ‘choff’ kesuvim, and finally, ‘hei’, five megillos!
In any event, all of the above serves to explain why chazal wished to keep Chanukah limited in writing, both in tanach and shas.
The Secret Mesechta
We know that there are certain mesechtos of gemara in the Talmud Yerushlami that were written yet are no longer extant. In a similar vain, both the Vilna Gaon (in his son’s hakdama to Midrash Agadas Bereishis) and the Ben Ish Chai (hakdama to Rov Peolim) teach that there was a mesechta of mishnayos on Chanukah that has since been lost!
On a related note, the Chida (Devarim Achadim, derasha 32) points out that megilas taanis -written before the mishneh and containing many celebratory dates along with their histories and practices -already shares with us the story and halachos of Chanukah. For this reason, there was no need to add its own tractate.
Part 2
In the last section, we began examining a significant question: From where did we receive our mesorah as to the events of Chanukah, especially considering
that chazal only dedicate the briefest of space to its background?
We shared with the reader that one of, if not the, earliest source to the story is ‘Megillas Taanis’, written during beis sheni, and from which chazal excerpt whenever they fleetingly discuss these days.
From there, we touched-upon ‘Megilas Antioches’, specifically, a 1936 edition which was published and translated by Rav Yosef Adler, then head of Mesivta Tifferes Yerushlaim.
Let us pick up from there.
While Rav Adler references a specific edition of this sefer (from Tzvi Hersh Filipowski, London -d.1872; his edition was completed in 1851), this ‘megillah’ had been known-and used-for millennia. In fact, its first known printing was in Spain in 1482 (See, ‘Antioches’, Natan Fried, 1966). Its original language, interestingly, was Aramaic, and, according to many, was first referenced in 9th century by the gaonic work Halachos Gedolos. There its authorship is attributed t nooen other than the yeshivos of Hillel and Shamei (Warsaw ed. P. 174)! A century earlier, the Behag writes of simler authorship (hilchos soferim), although it debated if he was also referring to this same work.
Entering into the 10th century, it is mentioned again by Rav Saadia Gaon (d. 942) -who also quotes from it -yet under a different title: ‘Kesav BneiChashmonai’. Amazingly, he attributes its authorship to the protagonists of the story itself -the five sons of Matisyahu. He writes, “Kmo sh’kusvu bneichashmonai, Yehudah, v’Shimon, v’Yochanan, v’Yonasan, v’Elezar the sons of Matisyahu sefer b’mah sh’evad alehem –‘Like the sons of Matisyahu, Yehudah, Shimon, Yochanan, Yonasan and Elezar wrote a sefer relating the evets that occurred to them…”(Sefer HaGaluy). While it is hard to argue that all of the five brothers wrote all of this megillah – as it concludes with beis sheni being destroyed, as well as recording the demise of two out of the five brothers -such concerns are also found, lahavdil, in sifrei Tanach (see Bava Basra 14b-15; see also ‘Inside Chanukah’, note #571 for possible resolutions to this difficulty here; see also Two Judeo-Arabic Translations of the Scroll of Antiochus from Ghardaïa (Algeria), by Ofra Tirosh-Becker)
In any event, this would certainly make this the oldest mesorah for these events!
The Tosfos Rid (d. 1250) refers to a minhag in his time where many would read it publicly on Chanukah but, he asserts, no beracha should be made on it (his commenst to sukkah 44b, s.v. ‘v’chabit’).
As to when it would be read, some older siddurim bring a minhag to read it on Shabbos at the end of minchah (after kaddish tiskabel), whearas others bring a custom reading if following the haftara Shabbos Chanukah.
For further study, the reader is encouraged to see Kuntros Beis Ahron V’Yisreol (kisleiv, 1992 p.111, Rav Nosson Fried)
It is of interest to conclude the discussion of Megillas Antioches by sharing a ‘pasuk’. It opens with the familiar refrain borrowed from Megillas Esther (using one of the lashon kodesh versions):
‘Vayehi bi’mey antioches melech yavan, melech gadol v’chazak hayah, v’sakif b’memshalto, v’chol ha’melachim yishm’u lo-And it came to pass in the days of Antioches, king of Greece, the great and mighty monarch, firm ruler over his dominion, to whom all kings hearkened”
What about the Book of Maccabees?
It is interesting to first note that the word ‘Maccabee’ itself is debated, both its spelling and meaning. Some say it comes from the Aramaic word, meaning hammer, thereby describing their strength in battle. This would also mean that we should spell it with a kuf (see mishnehbechoros 7:1). Others agree with this spelling, but not its meaning, arguing that this term is derived from Yeshayahu (62:2) where it means ‘to pronounce’, or ‘to assert’. Another source for the name, with a kuf, is ‘ha’matzvi’, or ‘the general’. Often when translating to Greek -some posit- the tzadi is exchanged with a kuf.
As for thos ewho spell it with a chuff, many say it is an acronym for Matisyahukohen ben Yochanan, or to stand for ‘mi komacha b’keilim (Y)Hashem’(from shiras hayam, where we reference that Hashem is in charge of all wars and battles).
While there are a number of Books of Maccabees, Macabees I, and perhaps Maccabees II may be reliable for us, or at least are mentioned in some of our sefarim. Some posit that this was the very ‘Sefer Chashminoim’ to which the Bahag was referring above.
More than this is not for now, and the reader is directed to his rav for guidance. We did not even get to ‘Midrash Chanukah’ and other sefarim of, perhaps, mysterious origin. Perhaps next year we will, iy’H conclude this discussion.
We have one final question to answer: Why, indeed, didn’t chazal choose to write down or record these events in a clearer manner?
In his first maamer to Chanukah (Pachad Yitzchok), Rav Hutner shares a fascinating insight.
Chazal ask, “Why is Esther compared to the morning (Tehillim 22:1)? They answer that this was to teach us that just as morning ends the night, so too Esther was the end of the period of nissim/miracles. In response to this, the gemara wonders, “But what about Chanukah?” The gemara responds cryptically, “We mean to say that Purim was the last of the nissim to be recorded in ‘writing’” (yoma 29a).
With this gemara, Rav Hutner finds an answer to our question. When the gemara shares that Chanukah was not given to be written down, it is not describing an absencefound within Chanukah, rather it is defining the very essence of these days.
The Greeks failed to defeat us because while one can seek to besmirch the value of the written Torah by watering it down with their translation (the Septuagint) and with their cultural influences (Hellenism), one can never take away our true secret of survival –Torah sh’baal peh, and mesorah. Because this is the very element that saved us -saves us still! -we represent this fundamental part of the story of Chanukah by maintaining a largely oral tradition regarding its own events -both in tanach and in mishneh! The Sefas Emes has a similar idea (year ‘684).
Rav Yitzchak Sender shares something remarkable.The term ‘Chanukah’ is given many meanings, such as chanu choff hei –they rested (from war) on the 25th (of kislev), however it also represents something deeper.
There are twenty-four books in tanach, the anshei knesses hagedolah ‘rested’ for the 25th book -the story of Chanukah! In fact, there is even a greater allusion to this. ‘Chanukah’ stands for ‘cheis’, eight (books) in ‘nun’ nevium; ‘vav’, six (books) in ‘choff’ kesuvim, and finally, ‘hei’, five megillos!
In any event, all of the above may serve to explain why much of what we know of these events is mired in mystery and reliant on mesorah more than any other yom tov.
May this very gift –mesorah and Torah sh’baal peh -be embraced even more during these days.
The halachos of copyright begin with England’s current Prime Minister, David Cameron, a matter we shall return to at the end of this section.
The lack of clarity on the subject of copyrighting in halachah became obvious to me one day in shul. “What are you listening to?” I asked a bachur in the beis midresh one day.
Showing me his device, he demonstrated to me that virtually every song by every major Jewish singer in the past 30 years was contained on an object about the size of a credit card.
I wondered, “How long did it take you to put this together, and at what cost?”
He laughed. “I copied them straight from a friend’s device,” he explained nonchalantly.
This has become a common practice. One person uploads from his own CD collection, say, all of his Mordechai Ben David albums. So far so good (according to almost all poskim). He then passes them on to a friend. The friend adds his own favorite tracks and passes them on, until this young man in the beis midrash possessed—for free!—the entire repository of Jewish music, no doubt valued in the thousands of dollars.
Is this practice halachically sanctioned?
The challenge for rabbanim in seeking to convince the masses of this problem—which has only grown with the widespread use of the Internet—boils down to this: “Burning” music does not feel like theft. No one is pulling a mask over his face and holding up Eichler’s, chalilah. All he is doing is pressing a button.
“How bad could it be?” he may think to himself.
So why all the controversy? Is this not obviously theft?
While we will show that it is theft, or that it falls into other categories of issurim, it is by no means a simple matter.
The writers of the United States Constitution (1:8), l’havdil, were very careful in choosing their words when it came to this matter: “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Beginning in 1978, copyright law became a federal statute that the states could augment if they wished.
While the United States has every right to create its own set of laws—thereby fulfilling one of the Sheva Mitzvos Bnei Noach—poskim cannot arbitrarily create laws. Short of a new takanah,they can’t decide on their own what is considered right and wrong; they must find a precedent in halachah, sources and/or comparisons, in order to say that something is forbidden.
Until the 1500s, issues such as copyrighting were not relevant for obvious reasons. Before the printing press, although one could steal an actual item—say, a book—there was no way to reproduce it except to copy it by hand. With the invention of the printing press, it suddenly became possible for someone to rip off years of hard work by selling the exact same product, with no time invested. Today, we all have a veritable printing press at our disposal.
Still, you may be wondering, wouldn’t that be a clear case of theft too?
Well, consider this: If one purchases a CD, a tangible item, fairly, how could anything he does with it be considered stealing? True, a great deal of work went into composing and recording the songs, which indeed gives it its value and is the reason the person purchased it in the first place. But once the CD is sold, doesn’t the purchaser retain the full right to do with it as he pleases?
The underlying question is this: While a person can sell an idea or a concept, does he actually own it? And if so, does he retain it even after selling a tangible item that contains that idea?
Rav Nathenson, the great gaon and rav of Lemberg, deals with this justification in his Shu”t Shoel U’meishiv. A case was brought to him by Person A, who expended great effort to compile a new edition of the ShulchanAruch, adding commentaries like the Pischei Teshuvah to the page. Then another person bought this new Shulchan Aruch—andstarted publishing it himself.
Seeking to defend his actions, Person B explained to the Shoel U’meishiv that when he purchased these volumes, he purchased a tangible item, with which he then had the right to do whatever he wished…even copying them for sale!
Person B argued further that whereas the original publisher had only printed small editions of his work, he printed large volumes. Now, most people had large editions of the ShulchanAruch in any case and were not about to buy a second set just for the added commentaries. Therefore, he argued, Person A had suffered no proven loss. (Oy, everybody turns into a groisselamdan when defending themselves!)
Rav Nathenson was less than impressed. He states that a work’s original author maintains full rights over his original ideas or work even after the sale of that item. To treat his work otherwise would be at minimum hasagas gvul (encroachment). At most, the original author maintains ownership to the extent that he need not even claim damages in order to stop another from using his concept, just as I could tell someone not to use my jacket even though I can’t prove that he may damage it in the future.
Rav Nathenson goes on to explain that even though we find some sefarim limiting their own rights for ten or 20 years, this is not due to the halachah sanctioning “theft” after a particular date. It is because the author of such a work has decided voluntarily to forgo his rights so that his work will live on after he has earned his money back. He has chosen limited ownership in order to make sure his work will continue to be published after his death. If he held on to his rights indefinitely, who would publish his sefarim again, especially if he did not have children who were interested in undertaking the project?
This logic that Rav Nathenson brings to the decisions of past rabbanim in choosing to allow their works to be copied at some future point, is bolstered by a recent article in the NewYorker (October 24; ‘Are Copyright Laws Too Strict’). There they explain that nowadays many secular books and songs have languished, never to be reissued due to the fact that no one can figure out who the heirs are to these works. Fearing a lawsuit, publishing houses dare not risk reintroducing these sometimes-celebrated works to the public. Our chachamim, as Rav Nathenson explained, had the foresight to solve this problem by limiting their copyright.
The Chofetz Chaim’s wife, Rebbetzin Freida Kagan, wrote in her Yiddishintroduction to her husband seferAhavas Chesed that even after his death, only she and the family would retain the right to publish his sefarim in any country. (It should be noted that the Chofetz Chaim did state in his tzavaah that the Mishnah Berurah could be published by others if they followed certain conditions, but this allowance seems to have been unique to that work; see Rav Weifish’s Mishnas Zechuyos Hayotzer.)
The Shoel U’Meishiv is far from the only person to discuss this issue. Many have tackled this subject as it has always been a matter of controversy.
It is likely that the practice of giving a haskamah (rabbinical approbation) to a sefer, which began in the fifteenth century, arose due to the fact that rival publishing houses often put out a first edition of a sefer only to reprint it and sell it themselves. (Others point out that the use of haskamos became a widespread practice because—due again to the printing press—it was now easy for anyone, even the unworthy, to publish works.)
Some assert that the first time the word “haskamah”was used in the context of copyright protection was around 1600, a few decades after the death of Harav Yosef Karo, in a letter written by rabbanim on his posthumously published Bedek Habayis. In the letter, they forbade others to publish his works.
However, the first known copyright warning– then titled as a “ksav das” – on a sefer that expressly placed a cherem on any individual who unfairly reproduced it came some 80 years earlier to a sefer written by Rav Eliyahu Bachur for his dikduk trilogy. Signed by three rabbanim, it declares a “cherem against one who extends his hand into the expenditures and hard work of his fellow man…”
And in case the reader thinks I have forgotten the opening line, or ‘hook’, of this section…David Cameron is the great, great, great grandson of Rav Bachur.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Part II
The halachos of copyrighting begin with Bill Gates, a matter we shall return to at the end of this section.
One of the most important works on the Gemara written in the past century was the Kehillas Yaakov, authored by the Steipler Gaon, zt”l. So clear were his methods of questioning and answering and so enjoyable his approach that some people used his work to prepare shiurim—not always making proper attribution.
A close talmid of the Steipler was visiting another city when he heard a local maggid shiur deliver a wonderful shiur on a certain Talmudic passage. Everyone marveled at this maggid shiur’sbrilliance. Well, everyone except this student, who knew that every word had been taken directly from the Steipler’s work. The student was incensed. How could someone blatantly steal and use the Torah insights of others?
The student approached the Steipler and told him what he had heard. The Steipler smiled and said, “I don’t mind if he takes what I write and says it in his name, so long as he doesn’t take what he writes and say it in my name!”
When we began the subject of copyrighting in halachah in the first section, we mentioned that Chazal do not openly discuss the issue. However, when it comes to the discussion of Torah ideas, we have a braisa at the end of Pirkei Avos1 that urges us to state Torah thoughts in the name of the originator.
While the Tosefta2 seems to allow the surreptitious discovery, e.g. hiding behind someone who speaking privately in learning, of another’s Torah thoughts and ideas for the benefit of the multitude, it never sanctioned false attribution.3 Nevertheless, many poskim argue that when it comes to the copyrighting of divrei Torah, we must take a more lenient approach.
For instance, the Chasam Sofer,4 who generally took a strong position on copyrighting, argues that since one mustn’t charge for a mitzvah, once he has recouped his original investment for the publication of his Torah thoughts, he should not be strict about enforcing his proprietary rights. As the Gemara notes, “Just as I was taught the Torah for free, so shall you teach it for free.”5
This is a great illustration of just how confusing this issue can be. For while the Chasam Sofer was generally strict about copyrighting—due either to a special takanah or to encroachment—he was quite lenient about the use of original Torah material.
At the opposite end, the Beis Yitzchak, the Netziv and others were more hesitant when it came to establishing guidelines for copyrighting in halachah; their understanding of the treatment of spiritual material such as chiddushei Torah was more stringentwhich they felt should have special protection.6
The general concept of copyrighting in halachah is no less confounding; with various works once again offering opposing views. One of the outstanding works on this topic is a sefer titled Mishnas Zechuyos Hayotzer (“The Laws of Intellectual Property Rights”) by Rav Nachum MenashaWeifish, who urges a strict policy on copyrighting. Then there is another work, playfully titled Lo Kol Hazechuyos Shemuros (“All Rights Not Reserved”), which presents a more lenient position. In fact, in a fitting tribute to the latter author’s views, I found his entire sefer online for free!
The confusion doesn’t stop there. Even the classic modern-day works on Choshen Mishpat (monetary law) have different takes on this subject—for example, Pischei Hachoshen (Vol. 5, ch. 9) and Emek Hamishpat (Vol. 4).
Rashi7 tells us that there is virtually no topic in halachah withoutmachlokes, and the issue of copyrighting is a classic example of this truth. As we explained in the last section, until the invention of the printing press, copyright issues were apparently not discussed, either in the Gemara or in the Rishonim. The creation of the printing press opened the door for the many halachicopinions, suggestions and proofs that followed.
Secular law had a similar struggle. It was not until 1710 that England issued what is known as the Statute of Anne, the first official governmental copyright law. Until that time there were only agreements made between publishers, a laissez-faire free-market solution to the problem.
While even some poskim found the free-market solution a viable one,8 in the case of England, the policy protected publishers at the expense of authors. It was for this reason that the English Parliament intervened.
All this makes copyrighting, and copyright infringement, a most interesting historical study, where we can actually follow the development of secular law along with, l’havdil, halachah. For example, right now there is a debate developing in both the secular legal world and the halachicworld regarding digital and Internet copyright.
In fact, using the term “l’havdil” may be inapt in this instance, for, as we shall see, many poskim9 argue that there is no concept of copyrighting and intellectual property in halachah and that the only avenue of enforcement available from a halachicperspective is dina d’malchusa dina, the principle that we follow the law of the land. This means, in effect, that England’s 1709 Statute of Anne and America’s Copyright Act of 1976 would both be halachicdevelopments, or at least have an impact on halachah.
This concept is not lost on frum lawyers who have a vested interest in this topic from the perspectives of both secular law and halachah. The journal Intellectual Property Quarterly (Issue 1, 2011) had a wonderful article by Daniel Unger titled “Copyright Enforcement by Praise and Curse: The Colourful Development of Jewish Intellectual Property.” And the bi-annual Theoretical Inquiries in Law published a fascinating discussion of this topic, “Is Copyright Property? The Debate in Jewish Law,” by Neil W. Netanel and David Nimmer. The authors reference a forthcoming book about the history of copyright in halachah, whose working title is From Maimonides to Microsoft.
Microsoft?! Not too long ago Microsoft petitioned a beis din in Bnei Brak, requesting a ruling on how halachah views copyrighting. The information was needed for a case before an Israeli court; Israel presently enforces copyright laws based on an amalgam of British and American laws.
Why did Bill Gates’ company care what a beis din had to say, and why is this matter at the crux of copyrighting in halachah? The answer will have to wait until the next section, when we will go back to the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries and recount two fascinating stories that helped form copyright halachah today: the printing of the Maharam Padua’s Rambam, and the Slavuta Shas vs. the Vilna Shas, respectively. We will, iy”H, return to the Microsoft case at the end of this monograph,.
NOTES
The sixth chapter of Pirkei Avos is not part of the masechta proper but is a later addition taken from chapter 6 of Kallah and chapter 17 of Tanna d’Bei Eliyahu.
Bava Kama, ch. 7.
Rabbi Bleich, Contemporary Halachic Problems vol. II, p. 122.
Shu”t choshen mishpat 79.
Bechoros 29.
See Emek Hamishpat, Vol. 4, simanim 17-23.
Shabbos 139b.
See Parshas Mordechai and Bava Basra 22; cf. Chasam Sofer,who rejects the idea that the invisible hand of the market will solve the issue of copyrighting.
The Netziv, Beis Yitzchak, Rav Mordechai Benet in various haskamos and in his ParashasMordechai.
Part III
The halachos of copyrighting begin with a Christian man named Marc Antonio Giustiniani, a matter we shall return to at the end of this section.
Many seek to prove that copyright protection exists naturally and implicitly within halachah based on preexisting halachic categories into which it fits, like gezel or hasagas gevul.1 Yet all point out that an explicit case of copyrighting per se is not discussed anywhere in Chazal.
To my mind, however, there is one incident that comes awfully close. The Gemara in Yoma 84 tells us of a disease that strikes one in the teeth and ends, sometimes fatally, in the stomach.2 Rav Yochanan was struck with this malady and went to a non-Jewish noblewoman who knew how to effect a cure. After paying for and receiving her tonic one Erev Shabbos, he asked her for the ingredients so that he could make it on Shabbos himself. She explained that she would not reveal this information because she would risk losing business if the secret became known to others. Rav Yochanan swore that he would safeguard the secret, and so she consented and revealed it to him.
Rav Yochanan then explained to her (for reasons we will not go into here) why he was not bound by his vow, and he immediately announced the formula for this secret concoction to his entire yeshivah.
Now, as it relates to copyright infringement (if it exists), it is worthwhile to consider that while the Gemarahere, and in the Yerushalmi version, questions Rav Yochanan’s course of action in terms of his apparent false oath, it never mentions the fact that he stole, meaning that he stole the income she would have earned had her secret not been revealed money—which is essentially a violation of copyright!
While in modern parlance this was a (possibly permissible?) breach of “trade secret” protection and not a breach of copyright,6 in terms of a halachicbasis they both share the same root (this may be true in secular law as well; see Duke Law Review,“Protecting Trade Secrets Through Copyright”).
The Gemara’ssilence on this issue3 may support the many poskim who contend that halachah does not recognize copyright law (to be discussed, iy”H, in the next section). In fact, the Yerushalmi4 suggests that the noblewoman was inspired by what Rav Yochanan did with her secret formula and converted!
Now, one may say that little can be proven by this episode as far as copyrighting is concerned because, in the first place, a life was at risk; and in the second place, we are seeking a source for copyright guidelines between Jews, and this case involved Rav Yochanan, who was bound by halachah, and a noblewoman who was bound by other laws. Perhaps copyrighting, should it exist in halachah, would not affect our dealings with gentiles, in which case secular law would be the binding force.
Both of these points, however, are easily refuted. As for the first, the Shulchan Aruch5 rules that while one may steal to save a life, he must have in mind that he is obligated to pay the person back at a later time. Once again, in our gemara,while Rav Yochanan’s action is challenged for other reasons, the fact that he stole proprietary information, as well as the noblewoman’s future potential business—if indeed a halachic concern—was ignored!
As for the second point, if violating a copyright is, as some say, gezel,7 then why would the fact that this woman was not Jewish make any difference? Halachah is clear that stealing from a non-Jew is forbidden.8
B. Rav Yitzchak Alfasi (Rif)
The early rishon Rav Yitzchak Alfasi (d. 1033) tells the story of a man who stole his friend’s Torah notes, assuring him that he would return them as soon as he copied all of them!9 This sh’eilah is often cited as the first teshuvah relating to copyright law. While the Rif sides with the writer of the notes, there are any number of reasons to see this teshuvah as outside the purview of copyright.
As noted in Part 1, stealing a CD is different from copying one that one already owns. In this case, Person B actually stole a notebook belonging to Person A.
In addition, Rav Moshe Feinstein10 posits that when it comes to words of Torah, one has the right to say that his words—in this case notes—were not meant for public consumption since they might contain errors, or that they were meant for a particular audience. Rav Moshe himself did not allow his teshuvos to be translated out of concern that they would become accessible to those who would misinterpret them.
C. The Maharam Padua, Alvise Bragadiniand Marc Antonio Giustiniani
Rav Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen (d. 1565), known as the Maharam Padua,was one of the geonim of his time. Seeking to take advantage of the newly invented printing press, he decided to publish a new edition of the Rambam’s Yad Hachazakah that would include, among other additions, his own notes.
Most of the major publishers at that time were Christians11 who had served the Jews well with their publishing houses. Initially, the Maharam wanted the major publishing house of Marc Antonio Giustiniani to put out his Rambam. Before a deal was finalized, the Maharamdecided that another non-Jewish publishing house, that of Alvise Bragadini, offered a better deal.
Giustiniani was none too pleased and responded by publishing his own edition of the Rambam, at a cheaper price…including the Maharam’s commentary!
Rav Moshe Isserles, the Rama,was asked to decide the case.12 In a much-celebrated teshuvah that discusses issues ranging from the relationship between the prohibition against stealing as one of the sheva mitzvos Bnei Noach’sand its prohibition in halachah,as well as halachicrulings that may result in animosity toward the Jewish nation, the Rama sides with the Maharam. He explains that even as a non-Jew, Giustiniani violated halachic fair business practices.
The suggestion that, say, hasagas gevul can be applied to non-Jews was challenged by the Rama’s contemporary the Maharshal.13
Eventually this famous protest of the Maharam led to the proliferation of haskamos and cheramim found in many sefarim that were published over the next few hundred years. Indeed, the Maharamled the charge for these haskamos, although it is unclear if this was before or after his Rambam went to print.
But all of the above pales in comparison to the painful battle over copyrighting that was to come—the nineteenth-century dispute over halachiccopyright, a mêlée that hit the frum world like a storm.
This story will be shared in the next, and final, section.
NOTES
Chasam Sofer, Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg in Techumin Vol. 6, Noda B’Yehudah, et al.
See Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, siman 328.
A common tool among poskim in deciding halachah; see, for example, Igros Moshe, Chosen Mishpat 2:66.
Shabbos, Shemoneh Sheratzim.
(Siman 359.
As pointed out to me by Professor Nimmer of UCLA.
See Igros Moshe 4:44:19, end.
See BavaKama 113.
In his Shu”t HaRif,133.
Ibid.
See my feature on the history of the chapter divisions in the Torah in Ami’s Shavuos 5774 issue.
shu”t Rama, siman 10.
Shu”t 36.
Part IV
The halachos of copyright begin with the battles of the chassidim and the misnagdim, something we shall return to momentarily.
It is now time for us to return to and conclude the subject of copyrighting in halachah.
But first, a brief recap of some of the important material we have covered thus far.
While the Torah forbids stealing and certain business practices deemed unfair, once a buyer purchases something, he retains full ownership. This means that he can, for example, lend his purchased sefer to a friend although the friend never paid any money to the author.
This all seemed simple enough, however after the invention of the printing press it suddenly became possible to copy and mass-produce a purchased sefer in a matter of days, apparently depriving the original author or publisher of untold profits.
Does one really have the right to do anything he wishes with an item once he has purchased it? Does halachah recognize copyright law?
In previous sections we gave some background on some of the famous cases surrounding this issue, as well as some of the sources marshaled to address it. We also discussed how the secular world is dealing with these same issues.
One result of this problem was the practice of giving a haskamah, or rabbinic approbation, for a sefer, which served, among other purposes, to defend the copyright of the author.
In this final section we will turn to one of the more famous copyright battles, and we will also revisit the story of Microsoft asking a beis din in Bnei Brak for a ruling on how the Torah sees copyright law.
By the turn of the nineteenth century, the Talmud had been printed several times since the early Bamburg edition, largely unchanged. Most of the changes that did occur from one edition to the next had to do with comparative texts, commentaries and censorship. For example, many were so fearful of arousing the ire of non-Jewish censors that in some editions, every occurrence of the word “goy” or “min” (“nonbeliever”) was changed to “akum”—an acronym for “ovdei kochavim u’mazalos.” This term seemed far less likely to offend the neighbors because it referred to pagan beliefs and worship of the stars, which the gentiles of the time did not practice.
Remarkably, however, even the term “akum” was not a perfect shield; some Christians believed it stood for “ovdei Yushke u’Miriam” [Mary]!
Some censorship efforts led to bizarre readings. For instance, the word “min,” in addition to meaning “nonbeliever,” can also mean “type” or “species.” It has been reported that some editions of Shas1 were so imprudent about censorship guidelines that they would change “min kitniyos” (meaning “a type of legume”) to “akum kitniyos”! And sometimes entire sections of the Gemara were removed so as not to offend.2
At that time, it was forbidden even to own a Talmud in many cities, and when Rav Yonasan Eibishitz received permission to print one, he could not use the title “Gemara” or “Talmud.” Tractate Brachos, for example, was titled HilchosBrachos. In Akiva Aaronson’s excellent People of the Book (Feldheim), he states that Rav Eibishitz received this permission in 1734, while he was in Prague. We should point out, however, that he did not arrive in Prague until some 20 years later. Indeed, 1734 was the year Rav Eibishitz, then 21 years old, assumed his first role as dayan in Brody, some 500 miles west of Prague. Most likely it was some time later when this edition was published.
Because of these difficulties in printing newer editions of Shas, there was widespread excitement when the Slavuta publishing house began printing its new editions of Gemara between 1801 and 1817. Although the Slavuta edition was not immune to some strange editorial decisions, the work that went into it was impressive.
The Slavuta publishing house was founded by the son of the holy Rav Pinchas of Koritz, who was a student of the Baal Shem Tov. His son, Reb Moshe Shapiro, along with his two children, Reb Shmuel and Reb Pinchos, built up a well-respected establishment that published many holy works to great acclaim. However, nothing they worked on was as daunting as printing the entire Shas.
Because of this, in addition to receiving blessings from some of the great Rebbes, such as the Baal HaTanya and Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berdicthuv, Slavuta also received haskamos that gave it a 25-year copyright protection. This meant that no one could print a newer edition of Shas until the Slavuta Shas had been on the market for 25 years. This was not simply a copyright on the work of Slavuta itself but covered anyone seeking to publish a full Talmud of his own.
So holy were these men that it is said they would dip their tools and the printing press in the mikvah before using them to publish pages of the Talmud!
But soon this printing, and the rival edition to follow, would reignite the battle between some chasidim and misnagdim, a battle that had largely faded. The new machlokes not only reawakened old conflicts but, as we shall see, served as perhaps the most important catalyst for teshuvos and opinions on copyrighting in halachah, drawing the attention of the greatest poskim of the generation.
In 1835, a few years before the Slavuta copyright would officially end, the Romm Publishing House (later, Romm Widow and Sons Publishing), headed by Reb Menachem Mann Romm, began printing its own edition of the Talmud in Vilna, which is known to this day as the Vilna Shas. It had even more improvements than the Slavuta Shas—for example, on the pages of the Rif—and began selling fast.
The Shapiros pointed out to the major poskim of the day that the Slavuta Shas was still protected by its 25-year copyright and that the Romm brothers had no right to publish a competing edition. Scores of teshuvos were written on this issue, which caused great rifts in the community.
The teshuvos discuss matters such as copyrighting and the right to prevent a publisher from working independently on similar material (Romm, after all, had not copied the Slavuta Shas). One of the Romm brothers’ arguments was that the Slavuta’s 25-year ban was intended only to protect its own first edition, which had already sold out; it was now 1835, and the Slavuta Shas was already in its third printing.
While the Chasam Sofer and others defended the Romms, it was only after Rav Akiva Eiger agreed that they had the right to publish their own edition of Shas that the initial machlokes was laid to rest.
Sadly, however, bitterness ensued. The Slavuta publishing house came to a tragic end, and the Vilna Shas, which became the more popular one, is still the standard edition used today.
And far from solving the complexities of copyright law, the issue only became more ambiguous. Notably, the Chasam Sofer (Shu’t 57 and79, etc.) and Rav Mordechai Benet (d. 1830, Parashas Mordechai 7, 8) were strongly divided on the issue. Rav Benet rejected the theory that certain copyright infringements are in violation of hasagas gvul. He further argued regarding how far copyright protection, if it exists at all, should extend. Rav Benet advocated for a laissez-faire system, such as Ezra Hasofer’s allowance of free trade among merchants (Bava Basra 22), which would allow publishers to work out this issue among themselves. The Chasam Sofer (depending on which of his many teshuvos one reads –compare his teshuvos regarding the Vilna Shas to those regarding the Wolf Heidenheim siddurim; see Daniel Unger in ‘Intellectual Property Quarterly’), is much stricter, arguing that without some type of official protection, no one would invest the time and effort to publish sefarim (or, for that matter, musical albums).
Several years ago Microsoft wanted to put out Pashkivillim [(posters, often glued to the walls , and found most frequently today incharedi neighborhoods in Israel) forbidding the copying of its computer programs for free, thinking that this would stop what it believed to be mass infringement of its copyright protection among chareidim. The company turned to a beis din in Bnei Brak seeking the Torah view on copyrighting.
Amazingly, the beis din stated that until Microsoft showed that it represented Jewish interests, it would not issue a ruling. Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft until this year, and a Jew, was therefore named the disputant so that the beis din would hear the case! It is my understanding that the beis din did not respond as strongly on the matter as Microsoft had hoped. (See the forthcoming work, From Maimonides to Microsoft: The Jewish Law of Copyright Since the Birth of Print, Netanel/Nimmer, Oxford Press)
This monograph has been intended only to inform but not to give a comprehensive review of copyright law in halachah, about which entire sefarim have been written. One thing is certain, however—no one should think about copying intellectual property without first speaking to a moreh horaah, and without considering how he would feel if he were the producer of the work rather than the consumer.
NOTES
See ArtScroll/Mesorah publication Avraham Yagel Yitzchak Yeranen.
